Google is my currency convertor, and a calculator

shakir    Information Insemination    

Just a quick one to share:

Another day in the office and I needed to calculate the tariff (tax of my imported goods) I need to pay for my wireless parts order. I opened up Google and typed this:

(30% of 2100)usd to myr

and Google instantly give me the result:

(30% of 2100) * U.S. dollar = 2 168.14479 Malaysian ringgits

Cool. Thank you Google

50km WiFi #4 : Unboxing the first order

shakir    Nerd Public Journal?    

I collected my package last Thursday at KLIA's Custom complex after receiving confirmation that everything has been cleared. I had the option to just wait for the package to be delivered by Saturday, but I felt like going as I thought I could learn few things along the way (which I really did, and is very thankful that I made that choice).

These are the items that were packed into the box;

Here's one of the 2 PoE (Power ove Ethernet) sets. The cable that came with it couldn't be fitted into our local power socket. It took me hours to actually find the right replacement cable, and it costed me RM25 each!

I placed order for 3 high powered mini-pci radio

and it's the Ubuquiti's XR5, running at 600mW average, and 1000mW peak; the highest I could find.

The order also included 2 units of Gateworks GW2358-SP185.

It's a single board computer with Intel IXP 435 processor running at 667MHz, and comes with 128MB RAM, 32MB flash memory, 2 ethernet port, 2 USB port, 4 mini-pci port, 2 RS232 ports

and it also has 1 CF card slot at the back.

2 units of minibox's outdoor enclosure were also ordered. It came with 4 pigtails, a cooling fan, a heatsink, and complete mounting kits.

I also order the development kits to yes, do some development with the board.

Which the kits consist of another GW2358-SP185, some development manuals, and related tools (hardware and software). It'll be used to install operating systems and doing proper configuration to the boards. Yes, it's Linux based.

I'm sure some would argue; Why custom build, while there are many off the shelf solutions availaible, and some are much cheaper than what I currently build? Well, I have my (good) reasons, and will probably share it during the testing

Back to school

shakir    Information Insemination    

I was in a placement test when during the oral session the interviewer asked me, "Why did you sign up for this?", and I answered, "It's just a thought". Yup, it was just another boring day in the office that I suddenly thought, hey, I wanna sign up for an English course. And so I asked around and ended up calling British Council Malaysia for the next available placement test, a proficiency test to determine which offered course and level can I enrol for.

Ok, that's obviously not me on the library card, but my particulars are printed on the other side of it.

The course I registered for was Business English Intermediete Orange, where Orange is one of the 4 available tracks in the course. In this track, I'm expected to be going through the following lessons:

Topics: Trade, Ethics, Innovation

Skills: Negotiating, Problem-solving, Presentation techniques

Language: Conditions, Narrative tenses, Passives

Writing: E-mails, Letters

Since I'm gonna be doing it part-time, it's gonna be a 10 weeks of twice a week classes, one and a half hour each for me. The class will start the first week of January 2009, and from that day in that 10 weeks period, I won't be available on Tuesday and Thursday. The class starts at 8:00 PM and British Council Malaysia is somewhere near KLCC though, and so I'm still good for early dinner invitations

50km WiFi #3 : Unintentional Upgrade = New Ideas

shakir    Nerd Public Journal?    

I received this email earlier today from the manufacturer that I ordered my SBCs (Single Board Computer) and few other parts from;

Mohd,
Your order shipped last Friday. Sorry for the delay. We had run out of stock
on the standard XXXXX so we instead shipped a special version which is the
XXXXX. This board is identical to the XXXXX but has been configured
to additionally support our XXXXX GSM/CDMA mezzanine adapters. You should
not notice any functional difference between the standard XXXXX and this
board.

Let me know how you project goes.

Best regards,

Name

I've not received my order yet as it's still awaiting custom clearance (where the are issues with permits whatsoever), and so I have no idea how the thing really is like. The shipment can be tracked here anyway; http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers=412145428316&cntry_code=us&language=english&clienttype=ivother&

I used to program an application which interfaces with a GSM/CDMA modem before, and ever since was wondering if the SBC I was using at work at that time could be used for the same purpose. That was 3-4 years ago, and by that time my resources were very limited. I was also having problems cross-compiling some stuffs for the Intel® IXP425 processor (arm based, big-endian). Since I think these things are sorted out already now, I placed an order for some SBCs and mini-pci  GSM/CDMA (can be used for SMS, and 3G access) modules. I also ordered Global Positioning System (GPS, for location tracking) module for the SBC. I just hope to get back to the old days where I was developing firmware (kinda) and doing fun stuffs with these low powered devices.

If you have project ideas (for fun and profit) of what could possibly be done with it, do let me know.

50km WiFi #2 : The shipping

shakir    Information Insemination, Nerd Public Journal?    

In one of my orders of the wireless parts, the system was not able to automaticaly determine shipping cost of some of the parts due to its size / weight, and so it need to be calculated manually. Upon checking my order, I was surprised to see the following;

The weight of the equipments are 401.75 lbs, or 182 kilograms! That's very heavy I must say. I know it's gonna cost me a bomb, and so I went to check the shipping cost at UPS's website;

That's 2401.64 USD, or double the cost of the equipments itself… Sum them up, and convert it to our local currency, that's over RM12,000!

On a lighter note, I don't think that's the actual weight, as I assume they just randomly set the weight of each items they're to manually calculate the shipping for. So, for now I'll just wait till they update the order, or be surprised when they charge my card later

My 50 kilometres WiFi Adventure – Part 1

shakir    Nerd Public Journal?    

I have placed orders for 4 sets of customized wireless equipments and 4 pairs of high gain antennas in hope to create a 50 kilometres WiFi link. I would like to test which setup combinations work, and if they all do, I would want to know which one works best. For each combination, I will test their performance when there's a clear line of sight between these 2 end points, when there's nLOS (near line-of-sight), and NLOS (no line-of-sight).

In order to get that 50 kilometres link, I plan to test it on an island-to-mainland connection. After some (virtual) surveying, I figure out the best end sites would be Coral Bay of Pulau Perhentian Kecil, and Pantai Sabak (my hometown, of course).

To give some ideas of how the link would be like, do take a look at these screenshots (click on satellite imagery for bigger picture);

To do the testing, people will need to be assigned at both ends to do necessary setups and antenna alignment. While things will be stationary at the Coral Bay's site, those at the mainland would be mobile; they'll be on a road trip from Kampung Raja, Terengganu to Pantai Sabak, Kelantan. The mainland's mobile team will stop at few checkpoints to test the connection at various distances, starting with 17km Coral Bay -> Kampung Raja link, If the link is a success, the team will move to another checkpoint, and test the link, till they find distance limit of the link, or reaching the final checkpoint, whichever comes first.

I have already assigned a friend to help me out at the island's end, and I'll personally be the one on the road trip. If you're interested to join the fun (and probably learn few things along the way, literally), do let me know. If you have suggestions or ideas, do voice it out, and I sure welcome handy hands shall I come into problems, say, if my ordered parts are for any reason stuck at Custom's clearance or SIRIM/MCMC's approval

The hardware components should arrive in few days time, and after Custom clearance and local testing, I'll book a hotel / chalet room at Coral Bay for the team to stay. Time shouldn't be an issue as we have 3 more weekends with 3 days holiday if Friday's holiday is taken into account (Awal Muharram,  Christmas, and New Year). We could pick any of these 3, depending on hotel / chalet availability and arrival of ordered parts. The orders were actually from 3 different companies in the USA, and I can't tell for sure when will I have them all ready. If they arrive in the next 1 or 2 days, I would be more than happy to do this this very weekend

So, are you in?

Google Wave Invites

shakir    Nerd Public Journal?    

I received quite a number of comments from my previous post, and they're all requesting for invites to Google Wave.

While the number might vary between others, along with my Google Wave account I have 20 invites to give away. To be honest however, after few weeks, I have not invited anyone despite of all the requests I received!

I know I shouldn't be too selective in giving out invites, but I was trying to not give invites to people I don't really know (and these are the people asking me for invites). This is because to me, Google Wave is less useful (or less fun) when there's not much of my friends in there. My so-called 'friends' are however either already have an account, or are not tech-savvy enough to appreciate an invite (which I think would be a waste if they get any anyway).

But anyway, I guess it's time to start asking selected friends personally and see if they're interested, one after another. Till then, I'll not open the invitation to those requesting for it…

Today is Ettercap author’s birthay?

shakir    Information Insemination    

Was runing Ettercap earlier today, and got the following message;

Happy birthday!

Invitation to Google Wave

shakir    Nerd Public Journal?    

Even though it's a bit late compared to some of my friends, I received this email from Google earlier today;

As the title says, it's an invitation to preview Google Wave, yeay!!! It's time to try it out, and see if it lives up to the hype.

Here's a teaser;

My new phone (kinda) – Nokia 3120c

shakir    Information Insemination    

A friend of mine was probably pitying me and my old, el-cheapo Nokia 1650 handset, and decided to (forcefully) lend me his spare handset, a Nokia 3120c. That would probably make him less bad befriending me, especially when I take out my phone in the public while he's around

So, what can this phone do? Lets see…

Wah, it has built in camera! Great. Lemme snap a photo of my office-desk (if not work-desk)… Done, but wait; I have no cable to transfer the file to my laptop. Hmm, there must be a way… Ah, it also has bluetooth. Cool, I can just pair it with my laptop and have the file transfered. Here goes, behold!

The cameras were already on the table before I decided to take the photo, though it cleary shows what I do in the office is mostly checking emails and 'communicating' through Pidgin. Oh, my dearie Nokia 1650 is in the photo as well nice