My firmware revision is epc2425-E10-5-v202r12812-100519cs_upc . Boards.ie provided some useful information about places to look for the setting as it was not immediately available. For future reference, user: admin, pass: W2402 gives access to the advanced settings page.

As it turns out, you can also access the router though the 192.168.100.1 IP, despite the fact that my network was 192.168.1.0/24. The settings accessible via 192.168.100.1 and 192.168.1.1 are different.

“Gateway Mode” was not listed in the menu under .1.1, but was on the .100.1 config page. The link is accessible using either IP, on http://192.168.100.1/GatewayMode.asp or http://192.168.1.1/GatewayMode.asp, and can be set using either.

Make sure you’re handling your 404’s correctly. In this example 404.{asp,php} doesn’t actually exist, so it will naturally 404. Maybe not the prettiest, but this is a bit of a hack.

This is the code in PHP:

<?php
$MyFile = $_GET['page'];

if ($MyFile == "")
	$MyFile = "homepage";

$MyFile = str_replace('.', '', $MyFile);
$MyFile = str_replace('/', '', $MyFile);
$MyFile = str_replace('\\', '', $MyFile);

$MyFile = 'pages/' . $MyFile . '.php';

if (file_exists($MyFile)) {
	include($MyFile);
} else {
	header( 'Location: http://doma.in/404.php');
};
?>

And this is the equivilant ASP:

<%
Dim MyFile
MyFile = Request.QueryString("page")

If MyFile="" Then
	MyFile = "homepage"
End If

MyFile = replace(MyFile,".","")
MyFile = replace(MyFile,"/","")
MyFile = replace(MyFile,"\","")

MyFile = "pages/" & MyFile & ".asp"

Dim FileSystemObject
Set FileSystemObject=Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If FileSystemObject.FileExists(Server.MapPath(MyFile))=true Then
	Server.Execute(MyFile)
Else
	Response.Redirect("404.asp")
End If

Set FileSystemObject=nothing
%>

I ran in the ULSU elections this week, for the post of Communications officer and lost (1080 votes to 1196 votes). There was some great election coverage on blogs (The UL Grapevine, The UL Story, UL Vote For Me and UnFocal) and in Forums (boards.ie and the ULSU Forums)

I got my FYP in, the write-up is available and the source Matlab files I wrote to visualise WARP3D problems (extendable to general Patran results files) are also online, nicknamed WarpViz.

About 19 months ago, at Skycon ‘07, I got a brief look at Matthew Garretts Nokia N800 internet tablet. I’d read about them online and was drawn in. They looked set to fill the gap in the market left after the demise of the PDA, somewhere between smartphone and laptop.

Later in 2007, at FrOSCon I got to play with a 770 and N800 properly. I was one of the FrOSCon Crew/Helfers, manning a camcorder for a track. Tarent were showing off some Java collaboration app on the Nokia Internet Tablets and the iRex iLiad. I borrowed an N800 for a day while on the camcorder and played with it.

One of the first things which threw me with the N800 was the keyboard. I remember having to find an actual QWERTY keyboard in order to realise what symbols my SSH password was composed of, thanks to the offputting touchscreen layout. My main thought comming away from the N800 was “this’d be great with a proper keyboard”.

So I kept an eye on forums (internettablettalk++) and was delighted to hear that the N810 was coming with a keyboard. Surely this would trounce a small laptop, due to longer battery life and more portability. You can’t comfortably put any laptop in your pocket. The Asus eeePC line of sub-notebook/mini-laptops started taking the world by storm last Christmas. At CeBIT I got my hands on an eee900. Its major drawback seemed to be the relatively short battery life, compared to the tablets.

Then the eee901 was announced which boasted a vastly superior battery life thanks to the Atom processor. My stedfast desires for a tablet were waning.

I saw an N810 at The Last Hope, and a 901 at DEFCON, but didn’t get a chance to play with either of them. I got my hands on an eee1000 at Software Freedom Day in Dublin and found that while the specs were great it was starting to stray from the carry-everywhere-device I was looking for, due to the increased size.

So, having not fully experimented with either the N810 or eee901 I took a leap and went with the eee901 a few weeks back. And within a week the 8Gb SSD failed (yes, I got a Windows XP version, Sharptext don’t do Linux boxes). And then the VGA out failed.

I rang the wholesaler who I purchased the eee901 from and was told that I’d have to return it to ASUS. Rang ASUS and was told that I’d have to ship it to .de and that I’d be without it for 6 weeks. Nuts to that. I’ll return it in January when I won’t need it (as much).

I’ve read stories in the past of manufacturers not repairing laptops when the OS has been replaced. That and the fact that the wireless drivers still aren’t 100% means that I’ve been using the eee901 with Windows XP and 4Gb of storage space.

One of the first people to criticise me when I got the eee901 was Joe, telling me that the tablet was a better choice. After all the hardware trouble I went through I started to think that maybe he was right.

Last week Internet Tablet Talk announced that they were becoming talk.maemo.org. Community driven (sites) forums or wikis are usually the best place to find out about a given device, product, service, band, $thing. The Mistic River forums are a fantastic resource for all things iRiver (unfortunately the H320 hasn’t seen much action since it recorded the HOPE/DEFCON interviews). Muse Wiki is another great example of a community driven site.

One of the best things about community sites is that the good and the bad come out, freedom of speech is (usually) a high priority. If a certain feature needs fixing then a post will go up and irate users will pin their avatar to a petition. I’m reasonably sure (but have no proof) that the likes of Nokia, Muse and iRiver will keep an eye on these user sites from time to time. It’s effectively free feedback. If they want to continue pleasing their most loyal fans then fixing current problems seems like the logical step.

So news of the largest Nokia Internet Tablet community site merging with the official site for the device OS, and Nokia funding the site, makes for interesting news. I brought it up in the pub on Friday and boots mentioned that he had an N810 lying at the back of a drawer, unused. Very kindly he let me borrow it. And I’ve been using the N810.

The first thing I’ve noticed about the N810 over the N800 is that it seems to be much more sluggish. After a fresh flash (4.2008.36-5) and a reboot, with no extra applications installed there is ~10Mb free from 128Mb of RAM. In five days I’ve had to restart the device maybe 8 times, due to the browser locking up, or web audio streams no longer playing.

When the N810 works it’s great, I’ve been listening to more radio and reading more news because of it. The status light is nice. The IM application is great too, but could do with MSN/Yahoo IM support by default. The ability to easily install 3rd Party Apps is a godsend because some of the default options are woesome (I’m looking at you terminal, with your lack of font or colour options).

There seems to be a ton of processes running on the device. I taped out this post so far on the N810 (in the OS Notes app, wordpress in the Web application was too slow) and have a few other programs running, three web browser windows and roxterm with an SSH session to a Skynet screen session. I have ten extra apps installed (advanced-backlight, bash2, grsync, load-applet, mauku, mnotify, openssh-client, roxterm, rsync and sudser). There are 90+ processes running and the loads are is ~2. I’ve seen a 5 minute average load of 5+ on this, when the device was idle for 5 minutes.

The UI is very shiney, but I get the feeling that the maemo project are putting form before function. I’d be more than happy with no gradiends or rounded corners if it meant the device was snappier. XP has a “classic mode” option, why not maemo OS2008 too?

My other big gripe is with the keyboard. The main keyboard has 40 keys and lets you input 71 characters (plus backspace, enter and control). The iGo Bluetooth keyboard I have has 50 keys but allows you to input 97 symbols, plus the standard control, alt, meta, backspace, tab, escape, enter, delete. iGo pull it off by having two function keys, which would make life with the N810 easier.

irssi is painful without tab, alt, escape, or square brackets (to obtain an escape). I’ve found that Ctrl+i is tab and Ctrl+Fn+e is an escape character. I still cant find a Page up (unless I remap the keyboard) so reading scrollback is out for now.

The BBC site lets me watch the news with no problem. RTÉ claims I don’t have RealPlayer installed, even though there is a Real media player on the N810.

All these little things add up, while the internet tablets are a major step up in terms of functionality and useability from any smartphone I’ve used, it’s still not up a replacement for a laptop. While I’d really like to own one of these devices, I would have to own a laptop first. I’ll be sorry when I have to give the N810 back to boots.

Last Wednesday I was chatting with artemis and she mentioned that she was in Warsaw. So, I decided to book flights & pay a visit (for the weekend just gone). This was my first trip to Poland and it really took me by surprise.

I was expecting grey and drab, dull and monotenous, the classic bloc stereotype. However, I found another modern European capital. I feel that you can tell allot about a city based on what advertisements it displays. Warsaw seemed to match advertisements one would see in New York, London, Paris or Brussels (fashion, consumer electronics, &c.).

When someone loses in a certain situation another typically wins. It would appear that Poland are striding ahead while the West worries about recessions and cutbacks. I’m told that Warsaw is the most expensive city in Poland, but it still feels cheap by Western prices. You can’t beat €1 for a glass of beer or shot of Vodka in a local bistro.

In other news, I got an ASUS EeePC 901 on Friday. The thing is a trooper. It lasted a good 7+ hours on Saturday, 2 on the bus reading Heroes comics, 3 in the airport on the internet and then another 2 in the air reading comics again.

Myself and Hugh have started a WLAN project, with the aim of connecting 5 houses in college court. We’re currently waiting on parts from Deal Extreme.

I’ve started driving lessons again. Have one tomorrow.

I’m chair of Clubs and Societies Council this year. It’s a line for the CV, but it means I don’t get to argue and make points in council meetings, which I really enjoyed (and I’m pretty sure everyone else hated).

I suddenly see that I have little to no free time in 4th year, and it’s only going to get worse as my project load increases. I can see myself living in here (AM-061) for the next few weeks.

I’ve started thinking about next year too, and what I’m going to do with myself once I graduate. No hard plans yet.

I’m just after toying with Microsoft’s Photosynth. I only managed to copy 13 photos off my camera before it died, so I’ll have to give it a larger set of photos. At the moment it doesn’t look terribly impressive, it’s just a iPhone-UI-esque 1999 panoramic image viewer. I do like the way you can license the photos under a Creative Commons license, considering recent licensing hiccups.

I’ve been toying with the idea of going to 25C3.

• Became President of the University of Limerick Computer Society (Skynet).
• Received a 1Gb iPod shuffle as a Christmas present. It works well with Winamp 5.5 out of the box. I use it for listening to podcasts (Lugradio, Off the Hook and Off the Wall) and music while cycling in and out of college.
• Finished my Co-Op with Vekoma. Overall a very worthwhile experience.
• Set up a Twitter account (ddol) to add to my collection (Linkedin, Bebo, Facebook and del.icio.us).
• Went to Kitzbühe for a Snowboarding trip. Crashed into a Scottish kid (Rory) in my group accidentally and sent him to hospital. Was summoned to the local Police station. In Austria ski crashes are as serious as car crashes. Rory was OK, just bruised. Sorry Rory.
• Organized (with the Skynet committee):
  • Weekly social meetings (Lunch and Pints). These have been a great success and have brought the social side of Skynet back to life.
  • Trip for Skynet members to CeBIT ‘08. Joe wrote about it and Dave has a collection of photos up (tar here).
  • Intersocs weekend. Met new faces from NUIG. Went paintballing. Had a party to wish Dianne farewell in her voyages to New York (photos).
• Setup and, with Eoghan O’Brien, ran RagRadio. Many thanks to all the presenters and listeners for making it a great experience. Special thanks to Eoghan who was a fantastic station manager.
• Off the back of RagRadio myself and Eoghan have formed a company, Internet Audio Networks Ltd. or IAN. More details to come over the summer.
• Watched Primer. Was blown away.
• Ran The Skynet Game 2008. Received bonus clues from m1, Mark and Erik (from ProductWiki), many thanks to you guys. Congrats to the winners; Joe, Eoin and Shane. Will be open sourcing to the webapp Soon ^TM. My previous blog post was a clue in this years game (answer was charlie).
• Decided to do a J1 this summer in New York. Currently finding a job and accommodation.
• Signed up to be an Orientation Guide for September 2008.
• Gave a talk to first years on the joys of doing Co-Op abroad. Was given a free dinner by the Co-Op office in the Millstream private dining restaurant for it. By far the best food on campus.
• Received my Final Year Project (FYP) Title: Evaluation of an open-source finite element package, WARP3D. FEA is one of my favorite modules so far and this is FEA under the GPL. Ultimate Win!

I was only able to make the wedding afters but it was great to see a bunch of familiar faces (diamond, noirin, cheez, zoney, bruce, luisa, atlas, drusilla, ducky, dredg, liv, froodie, braz, artemis, rosie, tony) and some new faces (john, daniel and many others). It was my first time in the Radisson SAS St. Helen’s and it is a stunning setting for such an event.

Went home on Friday and was pleasantly surprised to find that Ciaran would be in Waterford for the weekend.

So many things happened over the weekend; I bought myself a jacket, I sat on the Plaza drinking cans and Kopparbergs for a good 3 hours while talking to Ciaran, I drank most of a bottle of Absinth, I fell asleep on my living room floor, I laughed, I got a sorely needed injection of sociability.

I also met up with bigbro and rach in DUB and chatted about political matters, plus I retrieved my PXC 250’s. Many thanks again to Gar and Rach for dropping off the headphones.

On the flight back to EIN the battery in my H320 swelled a bit and put pressure on the hard drive, forcing the head to a stand still (in to the platter I think, I’m quite sure this can’t be good for the player). Without access to MP3’s or Video  (and not wanting to just stare at a headrest for 50 mins) I did the only other thing possible, I switched on the FM receiver in my player, just to see what would happen.

I know there are funny laws about broadcasting in the electromagnetic spectrum while on a plane (for fear of interfering with cockpit instrumentation) but I suspect there is nothing saying I cant use my DAP to pick up FM signals (but I may well be wrong).

Anyway, a few things happened:

1. I could pick up several BBC channels perfectly while we were over the UK (at 14,000 ft). I assumed (incorrectly) that a plane was a Farady cage and would block external electromagnetic waves. This leads to the question “If the UK/US has nationwide WiMax (or its successor) coverage in the future will we be able to use it on planes?”.
2. Reception was pristine for extended periods (10-15mins) and would then rapidly  decline (within 2-3 seconds it would go from almost no noise to complete static).  I assume this was due to geographical features (or lack thereof) on the ground and the speed we were travelling at).
3. I found a band of complete silence from 101.5-101.7Mhz. There was a little static at 101.75Mhz (the iRiver only steps up in 0.5Mhz increments) and 101.8Mhz was back to normal static. This remained for the entire flight duration, it was coming from the plane somewhere. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to record it (swollen battery) but I suspect it was either an iTrip (which had been left on in hand baggage while the iPod had been turned off and so was transmitting nothing) or some component of the plane itself (Boeing 737-800).

That’s about it, it was a superb break and now I’m back in The Netherlands.

I grabbed a pair of Sennheiser MX 350’s for ~€11 and they are great (for the price). They are comfortable (I’ve worn them for about 4 hours straight with no problems), have quite good sound quality (again, for the design / price) and stay in my ears.

I still prefer my Sennheiser PXC 250’s (but I left them in Ireland ).