Preston Burns Moore

I'm sure a lot of people have heard of the FON internet access system. If you haven 't heard of FON, click here to hear from the CEO of the company. After you review the video, you will see what the general plan is and will have been introduced to the "La Fonera social router." As many already know, the La Fonera routers were available a couple of years ago for $5 and were even given away for free in San Francisco. I ended up buying one of the $5 La Fonera routers after reading an article at the "Nerd Vittles" website. I installed the router at the house and patiently waited for my clients to start making me rich. Well, two years later I was still waiting for my first customer.

I never had a single user for the entire two years I had my La Fonera connected. Granted I live in a residential area, but I would have assumed with all the new construction around me I would have had at least one client. Ok, not big deal. I still have the Linksys-built, La Fonera router that only set me back five bucks. The problem was the original FON firmware is very limiting. A Google search found that the La Fonera could be reflashed with the wildly popular DD-WRT firmware.

I also found that a serial port could be added to the La Fonera in basically the same manner described for the Linksys WRT-54G. I didn't expect to gain much by adding a serial port to the La Fonera, but mainly just wanted to experiment. I planned to use a Compsys serial port kit left over from a project that never got off the ground.

Adding the serial port is pretty easy. I just followed the Rod Whitby guide and made a few changes to the connections. I also made my connections to the rear of the header pins. The use of a Dremel tool made quick work of mounting the 9-pin connector in the case. The Comsys serial board will fit inside the case as the pictures show. The easiest way to insulate the board is just to wrap it in electrical tape. You can then button up the case, fire up your favorite terminal program, and see if it works. Don't forget your port settings will be "9600-8-N-1" with the stock FON firmware.

Flashing the DD-WRT firmware is simple with the added serial port. I followed the guide found here at the DD-WRT WIKI. The baud rate setting will need to be changed to 115200 after flashing to DD-WRT. The screenshot on the right is of the Windows HyperTerminal program and shows the command-line login screen after the DD-WRT flash. Also note the screenshot shows the "cpuinfo" of the La Fonera.

The modifications to the La Fonera router turn what would be a very limited piece of hardware into something that is usable. The device is limited by its single ethernet port, but I intend to mainly use mine for creating a wireless bridge.

• High quality steel construction
  
• 15-amp linear power supply unit (115VAC)
  
• Automatic battery-backup module (auto-revert and battery charger)
  
• Duplexer mounting location
  
• Large cooling fan
  
• Controller mounting location 1.5"(H)x7.5"(W)x6.25"(D)
  
• Carry Handle
  
• Compact size 9.75"(H)x7.5"(W)x10.5"(D)
  
• Mounting hardware/radio power & fan harness included
  
• Ready to go Plug 'n' Play out of the box
  

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

I was digging through a box of junk and found an old Logitech Quickcam Express. I started to throw it away, but wanted to see just what could be done with the archaic device. A little google-searching turned up a link to "webcam_server" which is a small Linux based program that allows you to view the Quickcam from a web browser. The installation is straight forward using the proper Linux Quickcam drivers. I wrote the install script for Centos, but you could modify it for other Linux flavors.

1) Download the Centos4 "Single Server CD" (it's 580 megs).

2) Install the "Minimal" software packages.

3) yum -y update && reboot

After the reboot, plug in the Quickcam to the USB port and check to see if the system recognizes it by entering lsusb at the linux prompt.
You should see the Logitech camera listed. If it does not show up, fix the problem before continuing.

4) wget http://www.prestonmoore.com/images/ezwebcam.sh

5) sh ezwebcam.sh

The Quickcam driver installation asks a bunch of questions. I just hit "Enter" for all of the prompts.

6) nano +10 /var/www/html/webcam.html
Change "http://localhost:8888" to the IP of your server "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8888"

Now open a web browser on a network computer and enter this line => http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/webcam.html
(the IP of the machine with the cam server for the "xxx")
Remember the browser must be Java enabled for the applet to run. You should have a live webcam running like this.

The default frame rate is set to one frame per second. You can change this by entering:

nano +11 /var/www/html/webcam.html
Change the FPS value="1" to FPS value="40" (this will set the Quickcam to use maximum frame rate)

Almost forgot to mention webcam_server is started by issuing webcam_sever -s at the prompt.
Check webcam_server -h for a list of settings.

Need a cam? The Quickcams are all over ebay for $5- $10.


11-9-07
I noticed on a new Centos 5 install the script failed for some reason. If you are having problems successfully executing the script just use the "cut and paste" method. Here is the contents of the "ezwebcam.sh":


yum -y install gcc httpd kernel-devel libjpeg-devel
cd /usr/src/
wget http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/qce-ga/qc-usb-0.6.5.tar.gz
tar xvfz qc-usb-0.6.5.tar.gz
cd qc-usb-0.6.5
./quickcam.sh
echo "modprobe quickcam" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local
modprobe quickcam
cd /usr/src/
wget http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webcamserver/webcam_server-0.50.tar.gz
tar xvfz webcam_server-0.50.tar.gz
cd webcam_server-0.50
./configure
make
make install
mv /usr/src/webcam_server-0.50/src/client/webcam.html /var/www/html/
mv /usr/src/webcam_server-0.50/src/client/applet.jar /var/www/html/
echo "webcam_server -s" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local
service httpd start
chkconfig httpd on
webcam_server -s

CAT repeater controller to Icom mobile interface cables




CLICK THE IMAGE FOR DETAILS

UPDATE 6-2-07

This product is now available with an optional "linking" pigtail assembly. Adding a third OPC-617 equipped Icom link radio is "plug and play." Contact me for information.

Click here for complete instructions

Yeah...your iPod is cool, but does it have 160 gigs? This MP3 player is not exactly homemade, but just about. The mainboard is a kit from Natiem Electronics I picked up in my travels. The firmware is based on an old program by Nasif Akand called ZipAmp. I can no longer find any information or working links to the ZipAmp project. If you want to see what the ZipAmp code is all about click here to download the zip file. The manual can be downloaded by clicking here.

I was at Microcenter the other day an noticed they were selling Gigafast USB Wireless adapters for $5.00 after rebate. I bought one after checking to make sure it was linux compatible. I got home and found the chipset was acutally "zd1215", not the 1211 like the driver info showed. I also found that the driver would not compile on my Centos 4.4 system. I was able hammer out the problems with some help from theloveoflinux. I have only tested this on the Gigafast dongle, but it should work for any 1211b chipset.


cd /root/

wget http://www.prestonmoore.com/images/usbwifi

sh usbwifi


That should do it for the driver installation. The configuration will take some experimentation, but it is not that difficult. I followed the guide written by Ward Mundy here. This is all I had to do to get my system running.

netconfig --gateway=192.168.1.1 --ip=192.168.1.77 --nameserver=192.168.1.1 --netmask=255.255.255.0 --device=wlan0

service network restart

then I add the following line to /etc/rc.local file:

iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed essid "COHNET" key 8367b179c997675f4696969696

That's it. Your system will now connect on boot.



The rebate on the Gigafast USB wifi adapter ends 12/31/2006