Dropboxer

After another long hiatus...

I wanted to write something about one of my on-going projects. Yes, finally I have been able to take out some time for hobby stuff!

Have been toying around with a lot of languages recently: Perl, Java, VB.NET etc...most of them I am just learning by twiddling around. Another cool language I am working on is basic4android, but I will talk about that later.

Dropboxer is a desktop client for dropbox. The reason I started working on this was because I was not happy with the way the default dropbox client works. I am not interested in a 'sync'able cloud solution, rather an integrated solution to which I can upload and download from very easily. I'd rather just right-click and do 'Send to Dropbox' and away it goes. I dont want to sync all my 2 GB of dropbox space all the time unnecessarily. Its fine by me, if it is in the cloud, I dont want it duplicated on my HDD.

So there...that is the hypothesis. There are a few other cool features I am going to add and hopefully a mobile client for Android too.

This is being developed in VB.NET. It uses the Dropnet library by Damian Karzon.This can be found here: http://dkdevelopment.net/what-im-doing/dropnet/

To make sure credit is given where due: It also uses the RestSharp API and OAuth library.

Nevertheless it is a very easy thing to use.

The OpenPandora

Its like I have been waiting for this since eons. It was coming since a long time, and now it is almost here with a pre-order date of 30th September.
The OpenPandora and the Neo Freerunner are two true portable computing machines I am certainly very interested in, because of their open architectures and thus endless possibilities. Both have enough connectivity options to keep you hooked for life.
I just HAVE to manage to preorder a pandora...otherwise I might have to get a Freerunner which has too many issues at the moment so I am a bit skeptical about buying it.
Okay...so here are some pictures of this beauty:

Okay...now what brute power does this baby posses...lets see:

CPU: ARM® Cortex™-A8 CPU (off the TI OMAP3530)
Arm says on their website aboutthe Cortex A8 :

"With the ability to scale in speed from 600MHz to greater than 1GHz, the Cortex-A8 processor can meet the requirements for power-optimized mobile devices needing operation in less than 300mW; and performance-optimized consumer applications requiring 2000 Dhrystone MIPS. The Cortex-A8 processor is ARM’s first superscalar processor featuring technology for enhanced code density and performance."

The Cortex A8 is said to be cheaper and better than the Intel Atom processors. It will run on around 650 MHz. Compare this to the PSP 4000RS MIPS CPU running at 333 MHz. Also for comparison the DS runs two ARM processors, an ARM946E-S main CPU (3D Rendering) and ARM7TDMI (2D Rendering) co-processor at clock speeds of 67 MHz and 33 MHz respectively.

GPU: PowerVR SGX GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0, several million polygons per second).
By Imagination Technologies (Did I mention I may have a chance to work here?? :) Yay!)
Now...

"Imagination has led the mobile and embedded graphics market, originally with its POWERVR MBX graphics which is now the de facto standard for 3D-acceleration in mobile phone, navigation, media players and STB/TV. POWERVR leads the market based on the key measures of: number of licensees, number of chips in development, range of markets targeted by OEMs deploying the technology, and total volume of devices shipped. POWERVR’s success is based on a patented tiled based architecture, which is the most optimal and advanced technology for delivering performance and low-power consumption. POWERVR SGX is sampling or shipping now in SoCs (system on chip) from Intel, NEC and Texas Instruments."

A large number of mobile phones and some Intel UMPCs use this graphics chipset as well. PowerVR SGX uses a unified shader architecture. A USSE combines vertex and pixel shading in a single processing unit maximizing performance for available silicon area through automatic load balancing. The SGX can also handle video decoding and encoding, with support for MPEG-4 and H.264. The SGX has support for multi-sampling and anti-aliasing, with the fastest of the SGX parts, running at 200MHz, capable of pumping out 3.5 million polygons per second.
After some digging I found some 3DMarkMobileES benchmarks for the PowerVR MBX.
Another Java benchmarking shows that PowerVR chips performing much better than nVidia mobile GPUs.
For comparison, the PSP uses some proprietary GPU being manufactured in Japan. The DS does not have a GPU and the Apple iPhone uses a Power MBX 3D, so it should be a viable gaming device, which is possibly being explored by Apple as we speak. The N95 and N93 also have PowerVR chips and have the best JBenchmark results. Enuff bragging!!!

RAM: 128 MB DDR SDRAM
The PSP has 32MB RAM. DS has 4MB. iPhone has 128MB DRAM. N93 has around 16MB free SDRAM from a total of 64MB after bootup.

Internal Storage: 256 MB
Not too much eh? Ofcourse it doesnt have a hard disk so I guess this is a good amount of flash storage, with the current market prices. Even the eePCs are hitting 8-16GB in SSD, which is true portable. The iPhone hits a good 16GB while the N95 comes with 8GB. The PSP and DS have non-existent storage ofcourse.

Display: 4.3" Touchsreen LCD [Resolution: 800x480 (5:3)]
Its a transmissive display which means it wont be very visible in direct sunlight :(
Brightness:300 cd/m2, Contrast ratio:450:1, Response time:tr+tf=30ms
The PSP known to have one of nicest looking screens but suffers from ghosting/motion blur. It also has a m's 4.3 in LCD screen(not touch screen!), which is capable of 480 x 272 pixels.
The DS is special. Two separate 3-inch TFT LCD screens with a resolution of 256 x 192 pixels. The lower display has a resistive touchscreen. The iPhone has a 3.5" LCD (320×480) touchscreen with scratch-resistant glass for multi-touch sensing. Since the screen is a capacitive touchscreen, bare skin is required; a stylus or a normal glove prevents the necessary electrical conductivity. Different UMPCs have different screen sizes. For comparison the eePC 700 has a 7" screen with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. However usually they have larger screens.

AV Capabilities:
TV-out included in hardware
A/V-OUT Port outputs S-Video and Composite and inputs 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone cables

Input Capabilities:
Now match this! I dont think any other device has this many input options.

• Game buttons and Directional pad will be a D-pad.
  
• Two real analog nubs, have click function.
  
• QWERTY keyboard cellphone like thumb typeable.
• Built-In Microphone
• Touchscreen
  

PSP doesnt have a touchscren or keyboard (and just one analog!). DS doesnt have analog or keyboard. The iPhone doesnt have any buttons or keyboard!. So well, where do we stand here :)

Connectivity options:
This is another place where the Pandora shines with so many great options. The USB Host, is the one I am really looking forward to since you can connect loads of stuff like printers, scanners, webcams, mass storage, GPS and WiFi dongles. Endless!

• 802.11g (Wi-fi)
  
• USB host (Fully powered: 500mA!)
  
• USB-on-the-go (one-port host and client)
  
• Integrated Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (3Mbps)
• RS-232 will be included, but a level converter will be needed for the UART.
• Twin SDHC slots.

Now what do I compare this machine to! A full bred notebook I guess.

Software:
It comes with some Debian based distro of Linux. The bootloader is embedded in firmware, so the linux distro will run from the memory card. The real power, where the gaming kicks in however in basically in emulation. This machine can emulate any console predating the Sony Playstation. Ofcourse I dont expect many commercial or free games coming up for this platform, we will mostly be playing games like Quake2 (hopefully Quake3?) after porting. I have loads of DOS games which I want to play again!
There should be the ability to run normal programs you can run on Modern Linux builds as well, provided it does not exceed 128MB of RAM (excluding any virtual memory for performance reasons) and is ported. This includes a full build of Firefox! Firefox 3.0 uses much less memory and resources, and should run fine on the Pandora.
Video and audio players shoud be no problem. Especially when we have VLC!

Power Capabilities:
The batter is Lithium-polymer with ~4000mAH.It can giveup to 10 hours battery life under reasonable load 8.5 hours under max cpu load. Can charge through AC adapter or USB. Also has Advanced power management capabilities. Will be able to suspend to RAM or suspend to disk for longer battery life and faster start up. Speaking of startup the beast takes about 2 minutes to startup to a usable point :( ... one of the only downsides I know of.

Keep checking www.openpandora.org for updates!

Recharging Alkaline Batteries

You should check out:
Afroman's guide to recharging alkaline batteries
http://www.afrotechmods.com/reallycheap/batteries/batts.htm

This is really cool and despite the warnings on the batteries! You can use your batteries over and over again and thus bankrupt the large corporate cell companies!!!

MaXiMuS gets robbed...almost

Although it has happened in the past as well, this is the first major incident that has happened to me in the UK. Pretty uneventful event though.
I was walking home from uni...somewhere on Filton Avenue before our favourite Chicken King, I saw a guy and two girls walking down the other side of the road, drinking and laughing. A guy on a bike rides up to them, talks to them, and then comes riding down towards me. Dont know if he was with them. Here's the exchange of words:
Him: Hey you got some money for me?
Me: (Questioning look) No?
Him: You got some money for me?
Me: No!
Him: Give me the money or I'll smash your face! (Gathers his fist behind him)
Me: I dont have any. (He loses hope now as I keep staring at him while walking still)
Him: Run away or I'll (dont remeber what he said then)
Me: Stay away from me!
I keep walking as he shouts at me to run. I keep staring behind at him as I walk ahead. An asian guy being robbed by a white guy? Whose heard of that!
Boy, I've been through worse. I'm not scared of one white guy on a bike with a fist as his only weapon. He didnt even threaten to kill me! I get so many of those back at home. That bastard is a loser, and next time I get the chance, I'll tell him.

The Return of Maximus

Testing...hope this re-lives...im back after blogger was banned so many months ago..

Billboards Crashing

Yesterday was a windy day. Karachi is a non-scenic city with a dense cloud of billboards all around, each pointing in a different direction held high by trunks of various thicknesses and strengths. A particular road where the traffic is pretty rough is blessed with more than its fair share of billboards. One of these was huge with a picture of a lady lying on a matress.
Obviously larger the area of a board, the more impact the wind would have on it, and since there is no way the air can go AROUND the board, it tries to go through. So the board flew straight on the road as would be expected, crumpling two cars and a motorcycle. God knows what happened to the rest of the traffic as cars screeched to a halt banging into each other like bumper cars.
Uncountable casualties by a small oversight. The road was a wreck and remained closed for hours until the authorities returned with a crane and cleaned the area up.

I would advise that if a few small holes were drilled at strategic locations in the billboard the wind may pass easily through and such accidents would not occur. On high wind days it would probably only rip the board appart (so the holes must be reinforced) but probably wont be fatal.

Answering machine message at a Mental Hospital

No offences intended for anyone.
"Hello, and welcome to the mental health hotline......"
If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stayon the line so we can trace your call.
If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferredto the mother ship.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice willtell you which number to press.
If you are a manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number youpress, no one will answer.
If you are dyslexic, press 9696969696969696.
If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the pound keyuntil a representative comes on the line.
If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address,telephone number, date of birth, social security number, and yourmother's maiden name.
If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, s-l-o-w-l-y & c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y press 0 0 0.
If you have bipolar disorder, please leave a message after thebeep or before the beep or after the beep. Please wait for thebeep.
If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss,press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.
If you have low self-esteem, please hang up. All operators aretoo busy to talk to you.
If you are menopausal, hang up, turn on the fan, lay down & cry.You won't be crazy forever.
If you are blonde don't press any buttons, you'll just mess itup.