Andrey Mikhalchuk’s Blog

Pleo is a wonderful dinosaur, way more charming then roboraptor and other sapiences. It is the most advanced toy robot currently available on the market in the <$700 price range (Pleo price is around $330 shipped). It has a huge potential which is limited by the fact it is completely standalone. I tried to fix this by adding bluetooth interface to it. This mod allows issuing commands to Pleo from virtually any bluetooth-enabled device, including many cell phones, communicators and generic computers. It also allows retrieving information from Pleo on-the-fly, like sounds it hears, pictures it sees etc.

Before you continue reading this post please acknowledge that this mod is not approved by Ugobe and most probably will void the warranty. Also there is always a chance that something will go wrong and you might damage your robopet. If you're going to implement this mod you are the only one responsible for damaging this very expensive toy. I'm providing the information below only as a personal experience for educational purposes.

And here is how to make it:

At the moment Canon Vixia HF100 is the best consumer HD flash camera. It’s not perfect, I found plenty of glitches and inconveniences like

1. Sometimes it takes up to 15 seconds to switch the mode (Play/Record)
2. The navigation is not very intuitive
3. The official video backup process via Pixela Mixer (i.e. you need to install a piece of commercial software before you will be able to get your video from camera to computer)

Despite all those and many other issues it is still the best. The video quality is just outstanding, it’s like having whole Hollywood in your pocket. While I can do nothing (so far) with #1 and #2 annoyances #3 is easily solvable. You don’t need to install this special piece of software called PixelaMixer. In fact I didn’t even try it after reading couple reviews saying it’s no good at all. You can just connect the camera to the PC or insert the SD card into the card reader and copy .mts files from <drive>\private\avchd\bdmv\stream to your backup device. Then you can process the files with whatever software you prefer.
If you also want to backup the images then get them at <drive>\DCIM, as usually.

I actually think this method will work for Visual Basic and other similar languages too. Here is the code for a sample frame called TfrKnob:

“Setup cannot continue because some system files are out of date on your system. Click OK if you would like setup to update these files for you now. You will need to restart Windows before you can run setup again. Click cancel to exit setup without updating system files.”

First time I was struggling with the problem when I tried to install Dino-MITE - an excellent program for monitoring ancd controlling home dinosaurs manufactured by Ugobe. Later it appeared that the problem is more common and frequently occures with during the installation of various products written in Visual Basic.

I don’t know exactly what causes the problem, but I’m unable to download anything from HP (Hewlett-Packard) website. I tried downloading using multiple FTP clients from different platforms and it appeared that Safari under MacOS can download the files, while Firefox under both Windows and MacOS can’t. Right now I tried to get the same file from two XP computers using FireFox and one was able to download the file, while the other one wasn’t. It’s not about firewall settings and not about passive/active mode. If someone knows the reason and how to fix the problem I’d appreciate a comment on this post.

If anyone else is experiencing the same problems use the following solution: copy the URL of the link you’re trying to download the file from (in FireFox right-click on the link and choose “Copy Link location”), paste the link into the browser’s address line, replace “ftp://” with “http://” and hit enter. This will download the file using HTTP protocol.

I recently tried to install voyage linux on an ALIX computer and found that versions 5.0 don’t run on it hanging with “NET: Registered protocol family 16″ message during the boot. After quick research I found that “MFGPT workaround” option should be disabled in the bios settings in order to fix the problem.

Unfortunately BIOS versions prior to 0.98d do not have that option, so I had to upgrade the BIOS. The instructions for the upgrade are available at http://pcengines.ch/freedos.htm. For some reason only “LBA Copy” method worked for me, though others report that “File Copy” is the most reliable method. By default LBA is turned off on ALIX, so make sure that you change the bios settings from CHS to LBA. To do so when you see the memory check during the boot press “S” then “L”, “Q”, “Y”. If you don’t do that you’ll be getting something like “.Error!.” or the system will just freeze after “FreeDOS” message, depending on the method you’re using for the FreeDOS installation.

Now format the flash card (For some reason the method didn’t work for me until I reformat the card), write the image, copy the new BIOS files, properly eject the card from the card reader (use the “Safely Remove Hardware” tray icon for that), insert the card into ALIX and boot from it.

I copied the new bios files into directory BIOS, so after boot I need to issue the following commands:

C:\>cd BIOS
C:\BIOS>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label
 Volume Serial Number is 4752-912D

 Directory of C:\BIOS

.                    <DIR>  09-10-08  2:11p
..                   <DIR>  09-10-08  2:11p
ALIX1    BIN       524,288  12-10-07  2:00p
ALIX2    BIN       524,288  12-10-07  2:00p
ALIXBIOS TXT         5,052  12-10-07  2:01p
SB       COM         1,648  08-30-07  2:36a
         4 file(s)      1,055,276 bytes
         2 dir(s)      14,086,144 bytes free
C:\BIOS>sb.com
ALIX flash update (C)2007 PC Engines GmbH
Flash ID = 1 FFFF GPI = FF
Flash ID = 0 9D37 GPI = 01
Reading 512KB flash image alix1.bin................
Compare Erase Program Verify - update OK.
C:\BIOS>

Now power ALIX off and replace the FreeDOS card with Voyage card and enjoy the problem gone.

I’m moving to another place. Right the next day I submitted the notice to the leasing office my kids, being under great impression of “Blue’s Clues” TV program, started playing clues. Soon they invented that the best clues can be made with marker on walls. I spent about 1 hour trying different substances on the walls, but the wall-marker combination was much stronger then Soap, Magic Eraser, OxiClean, rubbing alcohol and other pretty powerful substances. Only in a few weeks I recalled what I was studying on chemistry at school and solved the problem in seconds.

I’ve got new Archos DVR Station recently. The nice thing about it is a cool remote with tons of different buttons that provide full keyboard+mouse functionality for Archos 605 PMP. Unfortunately the remote appeared to be dead. I was almost ready to pack it and send back to the store when recalled a situation happened a few years ago. Some device I was 100% sure is ok didn’t work with brand new batteries. The problem was too short “+” tip on the battery. Some devices (like this Archos DVR Station) have weird profile of battery holder that prevents the “+” tip from touching the contact spring. The solution is quite simple - use some sharp tool to pop the contact spring out the plastic “niche”. Alternatively you can just buy a different type of battery with longer tip.
BTW, the batteries that have this problem were “batteries.com” brand, but I saw couple other brands with the same problem.

I was recently installing squid at home as a single caching proxy for all computers in my home network. The simple way is just running squid on your linux router as is and configuring every single browser on all computers in your network so they access internet using squid. That’s doable, but boring. The more interesting way is setting up transparent proxy so all your http traffic goes through squid automatically. I’m not going to explain how to setup the transparent proxy as there are tons of articles in the internet about that, for instance:

• http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-setup-transparent-proxy-squid-howto.html
• http://tldp.org/HOWTO/TransparentProxy.html
• http://www.deckle.co.za/squid-users-guide/Transparent_Caching/Proxy

The documentation is very straightforward, and has just one problem: it is outdated and doesn’t work with the most recent versions of squid. I’ve read several instructions and was always ending up with these error messages:

Here’s how to fix the problem …

I just noticed that my video about domestic router turned into robot got its 1000th viewer. This is my very first youtube video and I’m very proud of that.

If you’re thinking about what to do this weekend, building a robot for your kids could be a good idea. This is not very difficult and the result is really amazzzzing. You will get a robot that can be teleoperated via WiFi (i.e. you can control it from almost anywhere in the world) or programmed using shell script for the price way less then an average robot you can get in a hobby store.

More details about the projects are here: http://andrey.mikhalchuk.com/category/robots

A year+ ago I’ve got my Motorola RAZR V3T (free with 2-year subscription from T-Mobile). Almost immediately I ordered 1Gb card that would fit more information and music. Of course I chose the cheapest one. At the moment the best offer was 1Gb Kingston card. Unfortunately when I inserted the card into the cellphone it did not get recognized by the phone. It appeared that only “compatible” MiniSD cards could be used with the cellphone, but that “compatibility” cost twice more. So here is how to make your “incompatible” card work with that cellphone.

So you did something and your windows explorer is now displaying thumbnails without labels?

Here is how to cure it: switch to any other view mode and then switch back to thumbnail view while holding shift key. Nice! How many tiny features like this one windows hides inside?

Unfortunately most servos you can get for a reasonable price are not the same. Each servo has its own parameters and the cheapest ones for not allow adjustments. Fortunately in the “routerbot OS” your can easily fix that problem. Here is how you can do that in the “routerbot” project.

The routerbot we almost have built as descibed in the routerbot project is self-sufficient, but you can get more fun with it if you put an inexpensive wireless camera on top of it. This post describes how you can do that.

Ufff… the most critical part of your robot project is done. Now it is time to do basic tests and assemble whatever you have done. Here’s is hwo you do that…

Linksys WRT54GL original operating system was not designed to control external devices, so we need to rewrite it with something more suitable. This post explaines how to do this and provides the new firmware. You may also want to refer to the overall project outline.

WRT54GL router is not capable of controlling mechanical parts as is. So we need to add a communication port to it. This post describes how to do that. The complete outline of the routerbot project can be found in this post.

Linksys WRT54G router and similar are very famous because of great modifications potential hidden in the device. For some purposes you may want to add a serial port to the router. You may need that for development purposes or to turn the router into a robot for instance. This post describes the procedure of taking the router apart so you can get access to the serial port connector hidden inside.

For our robot we will need the following parts and tools:

Somehow my kids became huge fans of different kinds of robots, starting from teleoperated planet explorers and ending with transformers. So I promised them to build a robot, and in a few days I ended up with this result which I’m pretty proud to share. It appeared that for $150 or less you can build pretty cool robot that is way easier to program then most robots out there on the market + its range is way larger then most toys have. Here’s how you can build your own inexpensive yet powerful robot…