iPaq 6515 GPS

Does OziExplorerCE? work on a HW6510? Trials using version 1.12.3 DEMO.

First the Quick GPS settings need to be updated to allow for a faster satellite fix.

I had preprepared a map and uploaded a map to my 6515, and configured OziCE to read the map this was all the same as the previous iPaq model.

To convert maps to the ozfx3 format, a conversion utility called Img2Ozf is available. The ozfx3 is a special format developed for use in OziExplorerCE (details are in the Img2Ozf help document). The format allows paging of the image from disk and therefore requires little memory for image display.
See the Using Maps in CE page for more information. [1]

… now to connect to the built in GPS

Use comm port COM7, baud rate 57600, and Sentence = “GPRMC” one of the NMEA “sentences” output by the 6515 internal GPS. [2]

Note for HP iPaq 6515 :
Com7 for built in GPS
Com5 for bluetooth GPS
Com1 for serial GPS

How about a free GPS tool with no mapping? == VisualGPSce [3]
VisualGPSce is a simple NMEA logger for the Pocket PC 2002 platform. Its features include NMEA logging/playback, satellite signal quality, azimuth/elevation, analog gauges and simple position averaging.

Version 1.00.3 PocketPC 2002 & 2003

[1.] OziExplorerCE [OziExplorer]
[2.] GPS apps that work with 6500 [Mobility Today]
[3.] VisualGPSce [VisualGPS]

 

 

Roll over time

A quick look at machine rollovers and disposal schedules. For any given year the purchasing starts in about November the previous year, so years are indicated as eg. 05/2006 for the 2006-SOE.

From TRASH to TREASURE::WINDOWS

YEAR	WORKSTATION	LAPTOP
99/2000 *JUNK*	Compaq EN 500 Compaq EN667(midyear)	—
00/2001 *JUNK*	Compaq EN 800	Armada M700
01/2002 SELL	Evo D500	Evo N600c
02/2003 W+1	Evo D510	Evo N800c, 1000c TC1100
03/2004 OK	Evo D530	Evo N800c, 1000c TC1100
04/2005 OK	DELL GX280	Evo NC8000
05/2006 OK	HP dc7600	DELL D810

Source: the foetid pile of invoices located below the compost heap

 

From TRASH to TREASURE::APPLE

YEAR	WORKSTATION	LAPTOP
98/1999 *JUNK*	iMac G3 266,333 [Tray]	—
99/2000 *JUNK*	iMac G3 350 [Slot]	—
00/2001 *JUNK*	iMac G3 400, DV400 [Slot]	—
01/2002 SELL	iMac G3 500,600 [Slot]	—
02/2003 W+1	iMac G3 700 iMac G4 700 [lampshade] eMac 700	Power Book G4 867 iBook G3 800
03/2004 OK	iMac G4 700,800,1.25 [lampshade] eMac 1.0	Power Book G4 1.0,1.25 iBook G3 1.0,1.25
04/2005 OK	iMac 17″ G5 eMac 1.25	Power Book G4 1.67 iBook G3 1.33
05/2006 OK	iMac 17″ Intel	—

Source: the foetid pile of invoices located below the compost heap

The Apple model is not as easy to define as the Windows machine, so there is an error factor in the table above that will improve as the table is refined.

 

[1.] Mac Systems: Apple [EveryMac.com]

Barcode Generator

This one popped up on the radar today;

Can anyone help me with a barcoding program?

We have linked up to the following site but it has not worked for a while now - I have emailed them but the site does state that there is no technical help available. We use it to produce an A4 page of incrementing barcodes. The person who set this up for me has left the Uni and I am not a coder!

http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php

…

worth a look

Code 128-B

In the end it looks like the original problem is a proxy/firewall issue.

 

[1.] http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php [Bar Codes Inc]

Websites as Graphs

Websites as Graphs [1]
Websites as graphs – an HTML DOM Visualizer Applet, an interesting way to visualise your website. (DOM = Document Object Model)

2006-05-29_webgraph

http://staff.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/~dcr/ gets the treatment

The colors used for the nodes are:

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Flickrmania: make a screenshot of your sitegraph, put it on flickr and tag it websitesasgraphs.

[1.] Websites as Graphs
[2.] Photos tagged with websitesasgraphs [Flickr]
[3.] Blog entry – Websites as Graphs

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Wikipedia: websitesasgraphs

2006-05-29 This weeks links

Australian BASE-jumper killed in Norway
An Australian man has died while BASE-jumping in Norway on the weekend. … [ABC News Online]

Tony Coombes, 30, was leaping from popular BASE jumping site Trollveggen – otherwise known as the Troll Wall – on the Norwegian west coast when he slammed into the cliff face on Saturday afternoon [Norwegian time]. [SMH]

Aussie climber lost on Manaslu
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) confirmed today that an Australian woman has died on Manaslu. Australian media points to Australian Sue Fear, 43, as the victim. Sue Fear shared permit with the Japanese expedition, which included Junko Tabei, 67, the first woman to summit Mount Everest on May 16th, 1975. … [Xexplorersweb]

There are reports that a 43-year-old New South Wales woman has died after falling into a crevasse on a mountain peak in Nepal. [ABC News Online]

Can anyone own “Web 2.0?”
O’Reilly Media have taken a ton of criticism for attempting to enforce a service mark against a nonprofit group in Ireland that wanted to have “Web 2.0″ conference … [BoingBoing]

Amnesty rallies against Internet repression
Amnesty International has marked its 45th anniversary on Sunday by launching a global campaign to stamp out Internet censorship.
The human rights group is calling on Internet users to sign a pledge urging governments to stop censoring sites and technology companies not to collude with them.
Amnesty says online censorship is a new threat to freedom. … [ABC News Online]

 

A Deadly Season: Everest 2006

The 2006 has seen a record number of summits (c.500) but with at least 10 fatal accidents confirmed, only south side numbers are confirmed by officials, this years toll will be high. When compared to the record spring season of 1996, with 12 victims which spawned ‘into thin air’.

For years this culture in the hazardous world of high-level mountaineering had gone largely unnoticed by the wider public. It could be seen as an inevitable consequence of the dangers inherent in entering a place where any exposed skin will freeze solid within minutes, and even breathing in the wispy thin air is a struggle. Climbers who get into trouble at altitudes of more than 26,000ft are largely considered beyond rescue – they are in an area known as the “death zone”.

“At that height, the only thing climbers have on their mind is their own personal survival,” says Alfie Ingram, chairman of the Mountain Rescue Council of Scotland. “When you get above 20,000 feet people start to lose the desire to help others, as their own survival is at stake. They have also invested a lot of time and effort into tackling these big summits, so giving up their own attempt becomes far harder.” [4]

Depending on which sources are referred to, this season may go as high as 17 fatalities. mounteverest.net have a fair overview, but as they state there are a large proportion of incidents that are undisclosed/unconfirmed. The Independent Online details 11 deaths.

Keeping things clear is an issue, for example with the extra attention generated Harry Kikstra’s posts to the SightOnEverest Blog are unavailable;

http://sightoneverest.com/ blog will not be going back online for the near future. The site was/is hosted on a shared server and the terms for hosting just did not take into account the amount of volume that hit it. The hosts were worried that we would crash the server, so it was not just a question of paying more to get the bandwidth. Getting it back online will require setting up a dedicated server which could take a week to migrate to.

All SightOnEverest blog requests are being forwarded to the Summits Forum, where the following is posted (go and read the entire post);

About Thomas
I waited in camp for an hour, got my stuff I had left there and decided that I should go down asap and started the dreamlike descent towards North Col, in a snowy white-out. Every rock looked like a corpse and I heard voices mumbling strange sounds that I could not understand. I was glad when I reached North Col, where my friend Doctor Andrey Selivanov had felt me coming as he came out of our warm mess tent and welcomed me. He told me that Lincoln had died. I was shocked. 2 people I got to know well perished within hours. I could not grasp it and Andrey gave me some herbal pills to make me sleep. But I could not. I hated this mountain, for causing harm to friends and family of the people I had to leave here. For luring me into making me feel so incredibly alive while climbing, while secretly stealing the lives of others as it were a trade-off.
- Harry Kikstra, 7summits.com [1]

Some excellent news is that Australian climber Licoln Hall who was left for dead on Thursday, was found alive on Friday and brought down to Advanced Base Camp (ABC) has walked into Base Camp!

Is this the difference of being an accomplished climber, with Himalayan Apline experience? When things go pear-shaped you have the skill set available to deal with things?

Hall is a respected member of the Australian climbing community making this Excellent news!!

 

Lincoln Hall in ABC, 6400 meter.
Photo credit: Jamie McGuinness – Project-Himalaya.com

[1.] Topic: Everest 22-27th May, what happened to Thomas, Lincoln & Harry and their Sherpas [7summits.com]
[2.] Project-Himalaya.com [Project-Himalaya]
[3.] http://www.mounteverest.net/ [Xexplorersweb]
[4.] Opinion: Life and death at 30,000 feet [Scotland on Sunday]

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AG3 released!

May 3, 2006: AG 3.0 Release Available [1]

AG 3.0 Release Highlights [2]

• Jabber client integration
• Integrated meeting schedule viewer
• Improved venue navigation
  • View all Venues on server, exits from current Venue, or MyVenues
  • Tree-based perusal of Venue space (without entering)
• Added VenueClient user preferences
• Certificate no longer required by VenueClient
• Improved control of media tools through VenueClient
• Multicast indicator on VenueClient
• Integrated per-Venue Multicast Beacon client
• Integrated beacon matrix
• New bridging facility (available in any venue)
• Encrypted network communications throughout
• Simplified node configuration through discovery of node services and service managers on the local subnet (via Bonjour)
• RAT: silence suppression off by default
• VIC: stale streams time out and are removed
• VIC: try to match source port to destination port before using ephemeral port as source (simplifies firewall handling for vic)
• Windows users: WDM capture device support, enabling use of capture cards with newer drivers (e.g. Winnov, iTuner)

Access Grid Toolkit 3.0 – Windows [3]
To install the toolkit, install each of the software packages in order, Python 2.3, Python win32 extensions, wxPython 2.6, Bonjour and the Access Grid Toolkit 3.0.

AGTk 3.0 co-exists with 2.x versions of the software. You do not have to remove previously installed 2.x versions.

Software – Windows [3]
Python 2.3 Python win32 Extensions wxPython 2.6* Bonjour Access Grid Toolkit 3.0

* Download wxPython 2.5 if you need to have both AG2 and AG3 installed on the same machine, and need to use the SharedBrowser; otherwise, wxPython 2.6 is recommended.

[1.] Access Grid Toolkit [ANL]
[2.] Access Grid Toolkit 3.0 [ANL]
[3.] Access Grid Toolkit 3.0 – Windows [ANL]

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Microsoft reveals Vista checklist

Ah,, and I thought that VISTA was vapourware

VISTA HARDWARE CHECKLIST [1]

Minimum

Recommended

Source: Microsoft

 

Getting ready for Windows Vista, available in early 2007, means choosing the edition that’s right for you and ensuring that you have the right PC to enjoy the experiences you want. [2]

Windows Vista Editions [2]

Windows Vista Business
Regardless of the size of your organization, Windows Vista Business will help you lower your PC management costs, improve your security, enhance your productivity, and help you stay better connected.

Windows Vista Enterprise
Windows Vista Enterprise is designed to meet the needs of large global organizations with highly complex IT infrastructures. Windows Vista Enterprise can help you lower your IT costs while providing additional layers of protection for your sensitive data.

Windows Vista Home Premium
Whether you choose to use your PC to write e-mail and surf the Internet, for home entertainment, or to track your household expenses, Windows Vista Home Premium delivers a more complete and satisfying computing experience.

Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Basic is designed to deliver improved reliability, security, and usability to home PC users who just want to do the basics with their PCs.

Windows Vista Ultimate
If you want all of the best business features, all of the best mobility features, and all of the best home entertainment features that Windows Vista has to offer, Windows Vista Ultimate is the solution for you. With Windows Vista Ultimate you don’t have to compromise.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (Beta) is a small application to check if your current Windows XP-based machine will handle an upgrade to Windows Vista — Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta

Windows Vista CTP – February 2006 – Build 5308 (32-bit) (April-2006) is available on our TechNet subscription … it is probably worth a look

[1.] Microsoft reveals Vista checklist [BBC]
[2.] Windows Vista: Get Ready [MS]
[3.] Windows Vista: Homepage [MS]

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CISCO VPN Client – time to update!

Time to update our fleet’s VPN client;

Cisco Security Advisory: Windows VPN Client Local Privilege
 Escalation Vulnerability [1]
Document ID: 70332
Advisory ID: cisco-sa-20060524-vpnclient

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20060524-vpnclient.shtml

Revision 1.0
For Public Release 2006 May 24 1600 UTC (GMT) 

--  Paraphrased text --

Summary
-------
The Cisco VPN Client for Windows is affected by a local privilege 
escalation vulnerability that allows non-privileged users to gain 
administrative privileges.

A user needs to authenticate and start an interactive Windows session 
to be able to exploit this vulnerability.

Cisco has made free software available to address this vulnerability 
for affected customers. 

Impact
------
Successful exploitation of the vulnerability may result in a normal 
user or attacker gaining full control of the system, evading any controls
put in place by the Windows system administrator.

Solution
--------
There are no workarounds for this vulnerability.

Update to an unaffected version.

Affected Software Versions
--------------------------
The following versions of the Cisco VPN Client for Windows 
(excluding Windows 9x users) are affected:

    * 2.x
    * 3.x
    * 4.0.x
    * 4.6.x
    * 4.7.x with the exception of version 4.7.00.0533 
	(see below in Products Confirmed Not Vulnerable.)
    * 4.8.00.x 

Cisco VPN Client for Windows version 4.8.01.x and later are not affected 
by this vulnerability.

Do to the nature of this issue, in our environment the risk is

THREAT LEVEL
============
Mild (laptop users)

The Cisco VPN client software at the Uni site has been upgraded to the current version, 4.8.01.0300.

Instructions on how to upgrade the Cisco VPN client.

If you have clients who use VPN services, please ensure that their clients are upgraded as soon as possible as this is a serious vulnerability.

[1.] Cisco Security Advisory: Windows VPN Client Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability [CISCO]

There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is!

You sass that hoopy Douglas Adams? Now there’s a frood who knew where his towel was. You are invited to join your fellow hitchhikers in mourning the loss of the late great one. Join in on towel day to show your appreciation for the humor and insight that Douglas Adams brought to all our lives. [1]

Towel Day
What do I do? Carry your towel with you throughout the day to show your participation and mourning.
When do I do it? May 25th.
Where do I do it? Everywhere.

 

  “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value—you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you—daft as a brush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag [non-hitch hiker] discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have ‘lost’. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
(The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter Three)

[1.] http://www.towelday.kojv.net/