Holden's Blog

I'm pleased to be able to post the DeviceScape ipkg's of DeviceScape for download. The binaries consist of two packages devicescape ( also mirrored on the csc ) and a different wpa version (or on the also mirrored on the csc ). It has been tested on the ASU software image of the OpenMoko. While I will respond to bug reports ( holden@pigscanfly.ca ), this is likely the end of the line for this software package. It seems like the OpenMoko software stack doesn't have a lot of life left in it, and I've got an application (involving site monitoring) I'd like to write for the Android. As such I'm going to be putting Android on my FreeRunner and hopefully crank out that application that this Saturday/Sunday.

I finally got a replacement battery for my FreeRunner allowing me to perform a rather important test, namely Starbucks support. Unfortunately the Canadian Starbucks use a different Wi-Fi provider than the American Starbucks, so the free wifi login support with Devicescape doesn't currently work . However, Boingo has a free 30 day trial for boingo mobile , which is a roaming partner with Bell (one of the Canadian Starbucks wireless providers) and Devicescape does support boingo hotspots . Much to my pleasant surprise, the existing code worked with only a few minor modifications. I came across and fixed a minor bug involving not being able to stop the connection process, so you can take back over manual control if you so desire. Once again, if you are interested in testing this release give me a shout ( holden@pigscanfly.ca ), make sure to include openmoko in the subject somewhere so it gets through. Now that my FreeRunner is working again I'm hoping to get a UI prototype up...

In what came as a bit of a surprise my latest device scape build seems to be working pretty well. It successfully selected the correct network, and did the automatic login at a Starbucks in NYC. I've got another round of code cleanups to do, and there is only a CLI interface at present, but I'm hoping to have some ipkgs ready for testing soon. If you're interested in taking them for a spin, send me an e-mail ( holden@pigscanfly.ca ) and I can send you the freshest bits :)

Now that I have my OpenMoko its time to get started developing for it. I have a number of personal itches that I want to scratch, but like with learning any new language or platform I find it best to start with the smallest useful project possible. With that in mind I decided I'd create a small opkg (openmoko's package format) to sync the time from the gsm tower. After doing some digging in the gsm daemon it turns out that there are two separate parsing functions, one of which is never called (which is good because it does nothing), and the other which rejects the value reported by both AT&T and T-Mobile [it assumes a range of -48 to 48] and the networks report 138 for GMT-8. Reading GSM 02.42 didn't help much, except specifying that the time resolution must be at least 15 minutes. There seems to be very little, documentation about gsm network time. If you've got an FreeRunner or Neo and some free time and could add: gsmd_log(GSMD_ERROR,"starting ctzv_parse par...

Phones are a guilty pleasure of mine, I own quite a few. The OpenMoko / Neo FreeRunner look quite interesting, if not particularly state of the art. I ordered my phone from the online store almost as soon as it went online and have been waiting for the shipment notification (apparently they were overwhelmed with the volume of orders).I just got the e-mail confirming that my phone has shipped :) I'm looking forward to hacking on some low level code again :)