Hyper-V RDP Issues on Windows 2008? - Disable yer Large Send Offload.

Nasty one this - Hyper-V on Windows 2008 R2 just wouldnt give a stable network connection for remote desktop to Guests, and the host sometimes.



I spent hours searching for a solution on the net, fiddling with Netsh, MTU sizes, switches and NIC drivers, until I spotted this blog entry. Turn off the Large Send Offload setting on the NIC. POW Fixed. Thanks to Daniel Petri. No reboot required.

BBSB Meets Arduino (Part 2)

Ok, So a better BBSB Repeater project would be able to do everything the previous post refers to, AND be able to recieve BBSB codes and send them to the BBSB Controller - unfortunatley this requires some interrupt driven Arduino magic, which I havent been able to get working - so , as the king of unfinished masterpieces - here is an RF->Network only repeater version.

Arduino Sketch is here.

You need to connect your compatible RF Receiver to pin 4.

On my unit , component side -

pin 1 = 5v

pin 2 = GND

pin 3 = Antenna (or nothing!)

pin 4 = GND

pin 5 = GND

pin 6 = not connected

pin 7 = rx data out (arduino pin 4)

pin 8 = 5v

Updated documentation is er.. not written yet. 8-) - as always refer to the receiver datasheet before wiring things up 8-), and also note that I was unable to complete testing this because my BBSB controller is not connecting to the BBSB mothership tonight 8-(

Comments etc here please: http://www.byebyestandby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=371

Mart.

BBSB meets Arduino (Part 1) - updated.

In the first of several posts, here's a nifty little project that may help if you have radio signal range issues with your ByeByeStandby (BBSB) Online Controller. We have lots of thick brick walls at home, and the controller cant send messages to all our sockets:

I have to admit, this work has been 90% google and 10% coding - there are already libraries for Arduino on the net that can transmit BBSB/Domia's radio protocol.

This project will re-transmit the 433.92mhz Domia/BBSB signals emitted by the BBSB Online controller v2 on your local network.

Build instructions are here, along with source code Arduino sketch here. See pdf for further details.

If you have comments or questions please post to the BBSB Forum here.

Further enhancements are in the works, stay tuned for the next part - a two-way repeater.

15/06/09: Updated to fix a bug already! - Device code support 1-16 (in theory , but untested)

iPeng for IPhone and SqueezeCenter

Do you like the idea of multiroom audio, Sonos or Squeezebox Duet?

(Image: http://penguinlovesmusic.de/ )
Well, if you have one (or more) squeezebox players, and an iPod Touch/iPhone, how about iPeng?

This little £5.99 iPhone app by Coolio is actually more pretty than the Squeezebox Duet remote, and if you have a iPod touch or iPhone works really nicely over your WiFi connection - it even 'finds' your slimserver automatically and doesnt need setting up.

Nicely done Coolio.

Update: Squeezecenter on Synology CS407

Our music library is quite large, and is slowing down our Media Center PC as it lives on our home NAS. I just moved SlimCenter to our Synology CS407 NAS where our music lives for better performance.

If you want to get IRBlaster (see below) to work on the Linux/Synology version of SqueezeCenter, then there are a couple of spookily similar little tweaks required:


IRBlaster will give the 'unable to write file' message in the IR learning app (just as it does in Windows), to fix do this:

1. Download and install the latest Synology firmware (we're running DSM 2.1-0844)
2. Download and install the SqueezeCenter for Synology.
3. Telnet/SSH to your Synology (after enabling Telnet/SSH in the web gui.)
4. cd to /var/packages/SqueezeCenter/target/Plugins
5. create a new folder there (mkdir IRBlaster) - note case
6. grant world-write permissions to the folder (chmod 777 IRBlaster)
7. Try the IRBlaster learning app again, and you should find it worked!

The CS407 isnt the fastest embedded Linux box, but SqueezeCenter runs just fine - when installing plug-ins and re-scanning the music library it does groan a little under the strain, and SqueezeCenter stopped a couple of times, but once scanned, it's working just cool.

Taming the Logitech Squeezebox - Controlling your amplifier!

Some time ago Logitech launched the excellent Squeezebox Duet multiroom capable audio system. Naturally, I bought one seeing as I was already very impressed with the Squeezebox 3.

Now, if you have dribbled over the Multiroom Sonos audio system, one of the things you can do with this system (and more expensive built-in systems), is start/stop and control music in any room where there is a player - for the guys at Logitech, they got so close to doing this, but with one exception - There is no amplifier onboard the Squeezebox 3 (The Boom device has a built-in amp of course) - In the GadgetMan's house there was nothing but silence from the Squeezebox in the dining room, because the Amplifier wasnt switched on - authough with the Squeezebox Duet controller, you have complete control over the player in another room, you still had to run in there and turn on the Amp.. GRRR.

Now it turns out that Logitech did think of this - the headphone jack on the back of the Squeezebox2 and Squeezebox3 doubles as an IR Sender port, but they didnt actually provide the entire solution, that honour goes to Felix Mueller for the IRBlaster plug-in for Squeezecenter.

We got this up and running in 2 minutes on our Squeezebox3, sadly the Duet headless-player, doesnt support being an IRBlaster, so a more innovative solution for that is required (Felix actually has a 'Power Switch' circuit for devices like this as well if you care to try.

Here's how we did it - with a couple of tricks to make it work because we probably didnt read the instructions, or used Windows instead of Linux 8-/

1. Find a compatible IR Transmitter with a 3.5mm plug on it - we used that free one that you get with the Microsoft Media Center Remote Reciever, that you probably threw somewhere because you werent using a set-top-box - it plugs right in and works.
2. Download the IRBlaster plug-in (its listed in Squeezecenter on the add-ins page)
3. Download IRBlaster again from the site above (I had to unzip it to C:\Program Files\SqueezeCenter\server\Plugins
4. Add your slimcenter 'user' as 'full control' on the C:\Program Files\SqueezeCenter\server\Plugins\IRBlaster folder (otherwise you wont be able to create IR Profiles
5. Restart SlimCenter
6. Go to the plug-in in the settings page, and start the IRLearning Wizard - from there you can teach your squeezebox the IR commands for your Amp - we used Power On/Off and Vol+/Vol-, which worked first time on our Denon amp.

Sonos, move over! (a bit, cos clearly you're better, obviously).

New version of SleepTool with BBSB V2 Support

If you have one of those nifty ByeByeStandby online controllers, you may have upgraded it to the new V2 firmware, or just bought it with that on.


Here's a new version of my SleepTool system-tray utility, this version has BBSB V2 support, so you can now send your PC to sleep with a BBSB V2 controller.

As ever, please dont use this as a shining example of how to code in VB6, the code quality in here is shameful but functional 8-) - it also seems to work fine in Windows 7 - though you may need to download the setup kit for VB6 apps to get the required .ocx files etc.

Download SleepTool v1.0.27 Here - source code included.

Enjoy

Mart.

Is this the Treos last stand?

Shiny newish htc s620 has arrived. Treos meet your ebay maker.

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Taming the Linksys DMA2100

We aquired a DMA2100 a couple of months ago to replace our CAT-5 S-Video boxes, for some increased picture quality- it's an impressive little unit, but there are some issues..

There have been a number of posts on the GreenButton here that indicate that MS/Linksys didnt really think through the real-world behaviour of people's extenders and their MCE machines.

If your MCE machine goes to sleep between recordings (this is a good idea, as most PC's are 200w of your electicity bill all the time they're on), or because of a timed sleep due to inactivity, the extender has trouble 'waking' it again when you want to watch TV. We leave our DMA2100 on all the time (because it takes about a minute to start up when the power comes on)

This hit me with a couple of issues

1) The extender can't wake the PC (WOL doesnt work, but a directed 'ping' wake-up is supposed to) - but didnt work for our MCE machine. I solved this by using a Perl script on my Linksys NSLU2 linux box which is in an earlier post below.

2) Once the MCE machine was being woken when the TV was being switched on, we still had the issue that the extender didnt 'notice' that the PC was now on- and sat at the useless 'Extender Disconnected' screen - not very transparent.

The above issue is solved by simply pressing the 'Start' button on the MCE remote, this is handy because if the extender is at the disconnected screen ,or at the main menu, it 'just connects' if the PC is on, and also if it's already connected it takes the extender back to the main MCE menu each time.

We use a Harmony 525 Intelligent remote, and this can even be taught to 'send' a 'Start' key when the TV is powered on - the result is that the MCE home screen greets us every time the TV is powered on to watch TV... Perfect 8-)

So Linksys? how about a firmware update with proper Wake-On-Lan support? - and hey, while we're at it , how 'bout 'polling' that MCE machine on the network to see if it's there, and restarting the extender session?

Oh yes, then there's that irritating BRIGHT BLUE LED on the front - but black masking tape soon solves that one 8-)

WakeUpTool (!) - Waking up your PC's with Domia Lite or BBSB Network Controller

If you've been reading closely, you'll have discovered an application on my blog for 'Sleeping' PC's on reciept of a configured Domia Lite / BBSB device code or event. Well, for some time, I've been pondering a solution to the other problem - that of 'waking up' PC's according to a Domia Lite command.


Now, you could take the brutal approach, and put a Domia Appliance Module on the power feed for your PC, but this would effectivley 'dump' the machine when the signal was recieved, though it would quite nicely wake (or boot) the machine when turned on, if you have a BIOS that supports power-on boot-up. (good luck with your data integrity on that one)

Here's a more elegant solution:

You can use Wake-on-Lan (WOL) to do this, but in order to do that, you need something that can send the WOL magic packet on reciept of a DLC code. Now, one day, Domia might add this to their controller (after all it's on all the time, and on the network) (hint hint hint domia), but until then, here's a perl script that you can run in the background on a Linux machine or device that will do the same job.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use IO::Socket;
use Sys::Syslog qw( :DEFAULT setlogsock);

my($sock, $oldmsg, $newmsg, $hisaddr, $hishost, $MAXLEN, $PORTNO);
$MAXLEN = 1024;
$PORTNO = 53003;
my $programname = 'dlc.pl';
$ENV{PATH} = "";

$sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(LocalPort => $PORTNO, Proto => 'udp')
or die "socket: $@";

logit('info',"Listening on Port $PORTNO for Domia Lite Messages..");
print "Awaiting UDP messages on port $PORTNO\n";

while ($sock->recv($newmsg, $MAXLEN)) {
my($port, $ipaddr) = sockaddr_in($sock->peername);
#$hishost = gethostbyaddr($ipaddr, AF_INET);
print "Recieved DLC Command `$newmsg'\n";
logit('info',"Recieved DLC Command: $newmsg");

if ($newmsg eq "devicecommand:1a01:")
{
logit('info',"Waking PC..");
print "waking up PC.\n";
system("/sbin/wakelan -m 0123ABCDEF11");
}

}
die "recv: $!";

sub logit {
my ($priority, $msg) = @_;
return 0 unless ($priority =~ /infoerrdebug/);
setlogsock('unix');
# $programname is assumed to be a global. Also log the PID
# and to CONSole if there's a problem. Use facility 'user'.
openlog($programname, 'pid,cons', 'user');
syslog($priority, $msg);
closelog();
return 1;
}

Once you're up and tested (replace 0123ABCDEF11 with your PC's MAC Address, and correct the DLC code - example above uses A1 ON), you can add this to your boot-up so it runs in the background by appending the line

/wherever/dlc.pl & 2 >/dev/null

(dont forget the ampersand &, as your box will not complete it's boot up scripts.. like I did)

Now, clearly if you run a 150w PC all the time with this, then it kind-of defeats the point of all this, but some small embedded linux device, like a Router, or Unslung Linksys NSLU2 can do the job just nicely.

Stay tuned for some more postings in Perl, as we build a Home Automation controller out of that handly NSLU2 that takes a whole 2watts of power 8-)

Another new build.. SleepTool 1.0.23

Oops, dumbo bug in the last build, meaning that if you wanted to send DLC commands from the application, you needed to specify your device codes with a trailing Zero.

Oops. Fixed in this build - thanks to StephenN for pointing out that it didnt work in the previous 1.0.22 build.

Download build 1.0.23

New version of SleepTool for BBSB/Domia Lite

Crikey, it's been a little while since I posted - sorry about that - I'm still here honest.


This new version of SleepTool is a masterpiece of unfinished work, it does however now have code in it to support sending of BBSB/Domia codes to the BBSB Online Controller.

Reposting this due to broken links etc, code is included if you can still remember VB6 - enjoy.

Download ZIP of binary and VB 6 code.

I'd be interested in hearing from you if you've enhanced this or written any other Domia Lite code for other HA purposes.

Mart.