However what I recently found out is that many LCD and Plasma televisions do not broadcast the correct 16:9 resolution via EDID, and therefore the computer doesn’t know what resolution to display and you have a stretched image.

I have an LG DU-37LZ30 which according to its specs at least has a 1366×768 native resolution (It is a 720p/1080i set). However its EDID system broadcasts a resolution of 1024×768, resulting in the signal looking stretched. Some programs, like Boxee for example, can correct this by forcing an aspect ratio while outputting the video and the result looks fine. However in many situations this doesn’t work.

On Windows XP, this was a pain but buying a program like PowerStrip by EnTech was able to correct the problem as you can force a resolution even if it is a “non-supported” one. However on Windows 7, and with nVidia graphics cards/drivers at least, it apparently ‘enforces’ the resolution which is broadcast via the EDID. Which means you are stuck with your weird resolution.

There are some hacks for overriding EDID info, but none of them seem to work on Windows 7. For example:

Thread over at AVS Forum on overrided EDID
Modifying your VGA cable to disable EDID broadcast (this nuked my VGA cable! Do not recommend!)
Forcing 1366×768 on Windows 7 forums

None of these solutions worked for me. Windows 7 even allows you to add a “custom” resolution but it still reads from the EDID to see if it is compatible and it has rejected my attempts at this.

Although I appreciate the “ease” that reading the EDID provides for general users, I wish there was an “advanced” section so that us users can force a resolution on a monitor. Maybe this is disabled because people were breaking their monitors, but it puts others like us in a lurch.  Has anyone seen this issue and/or have a resolution? Or do I just have a great reason to get a new TV?

Let’s face it, you don’t want all of the content that your cable provider offers. Cable providers have fought a-la-carte programming tooth and nail for this very reason. Much of it is specialty programming, and though I admit it is nice to know it was there, my family and I rarely watched any of it. My new setup brings many new sources as well as a CHOICE to what you want to view. I am very happy with the results so far.

My Requirements

There are a few requirements I had made for myself when deciding to go this route:

• Live Broadcast TV in HD must still be possible. Bonus for being able to DVR television shows.
• Ease of Use – must be usable by my family. I don’t expect it to be as ’simple’ as a vanilla cable box, but I want it to be close
• Access to Local Media – I want to be able to stream my backed-up movies, photos, and music

Backend Systems

I have an existing network infrastructure in my house, which I admit most non-geeks would not have set up. This is necessary for the “Live TV” portion of my setup as it includes the HD Tuner cards which do not fit into my new system as well as the muscle to compress these recordings. My current setup includes:

• 10/100/1000 Gigbit router with Wireless-N
• File server with 1.5TB of RAID storage space to store movies, music and other files
• External “Computer” acting as a server for BeyondTV. This computer includes a tuner card which handles unencrypted QAM streams

The Hardware

The system is actually very simple on the hardware side. Besides the TV, only 2 pieces of hardware are needed.

Acer Aspire Revo Computer (3610)

This is a dual-core Intel Atom computer running at 1.6Ghz. My specific system included 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. It has built in Wifi-N network connectivity, a card reader, multiple USB ports, optical audio, HDMI port, VGA port and analog audio jacks.

I picked this system not only because of its low cost (~$300) but because of the Nvidia ION chipset running under it’s hood. This chipset is optimized to handle 1080p HDTV video along with high def audio. In includes the Nvidia CUDA accellerations and is optimized to work with Windows 7. This chipset is also capable of handing HD video using Flash 10.1 (currently in open beta). This means that it can handle the HD Flash video since the main Intel Atom CPU is not doing the heavy lifting on the decoding of this content.

Snapstream Firefly Remote

This is a RF Remote which is customizable via XML configuration profiles. There is a profile available for both Boxee and Snapstream BeyondTV.

The Software

I decided to run Windows 7 for the OS. Windows 7 Home Premium runs great on this system and the drivers that are currently published work very well on it. It includes Windows Media for as a possible frontend but I have decided to use Boxee due to the plethora of content available and the active development of the platform.

BeyondTV Link

This software connects via the wireless wired network to the BeyondTV server in my house which actually has the tuner cards. This offsets some tasks handled by the server such as heavy disk I/O required for recording HD video streams and compressing them into smaller video files.

I did have some problem with High Definition video at first. When I used wireless-N, which should have plenty of bandwidth to handle even HD video, I had very stuttery playback. After going through a lot of testing, it seems that even though the bandwidth is plenty, the BeyondTV software suffers from a lack of flexibility when it comes to any sort of network latency. Therefore any sort of wireless connection does not appear to support streaming HD video. 100/1000 seems to be the only way to go if you are going to view live HD video on this machine.

After a show is recorded, is is re-encoded (they call it “ShowSqueeze”) using the H.264 codec. You save about 80% of the space of a normal HD TV show and the quality if very good. The default decoder that BeyondTV uses seemed to do fine, but I also installed CoreAVC codec which is CUDA optimized for handling H.264 video decoding. CoreAVC uses nVidia CUDA optimization which the system supports.

Boxee

Boxee handles everything from internet streamed video content to local content playback. The full capabilities of the Boxee interface is beyond the scope of this post, but it has numerous features:

• Streams Hulu, Fancast, Netflix and Pandora (to mention just the big players)
• Custom “Apps” to handle many other video sources
• Local Media handles streaming from a mapped network drive. Plays many codecs and containers including: MKV, AVI, DivX, Xvid, WMV, MP3, etc.
• Social Media Connectivity
• Refined ‘10 foot’ UI

Boxee is slick. Using it with the remote is a joy and you can really stream a LOT of video and audio from MANY different sources. This also might be its downfall. Along with the big name streams there are 100s of other ones available that would not be suitable for someone used to cable TV content. Also it seems to require a lot of clicking. Television is a different beast – you set a channel and can leave it on 24/7. With Boxee you need to select your content – which is both good and bad. It is good in that you get to watch what content you want, but bad in that you are not introduced to new content in a way a television station will.

Boxee Beta works well for most content but I did find issues with online content from several different sources such as ABC and the WB. The software is in active development so if you find this issues make sure to report them to the developers.

Here is a gallery of shots of the Acer Revo 3610, BeyondTV and Boxee Beta

The Initial Results

All being said and done, some not-too-obvious strengths and weaknesses appeared from using this setup. Media companies – please pay attention to these so you can improve your offerings!

Strengths

All Boxee content is on demand. All of your media is now available on your television and in your living room. LiveTV via this method retains the all-important DVR but is a fraction of the cost, which is the real monetary benefit to moving to this system from a proprietary cable system solution.

Running BeyondTV not only gives you the ability to watch TV on any PC throughout the home (with BeyondTV Link), but allows you to stream it online – so for example if you are at work you can watch any recorded shows or live TV.

You no longer live on the timetable of the major television stations but can feel free to view content when you are ready. Content on Boxee usually appears the day after it is on live TV, but I find more and more this is how I prefer to watch TV anyway.

Weaknesses

BeyondTV development seems to have been all but abandonded by the Snapstream team, who are now focused on enterprise markets. Although it is a capable system (still) it has not been in active development for 2 or more years. The age is starting to show, and I hope Snapstream comes around and continues development. As far as alternatives go, MythTV and SageTV are both out there but I was never a fan of either. I am investigating switching to the Windows Media Center platform for television but don’t have any results of that so far.

Boxee is still in Beta status and does have some bugs. Some random crashing and the inability to stream some content it told me was available is frustrating. The wide variety of content available via a ‘10-foot’ interface more than makes up for this drawback.

The lack of premium television stations is also notable. The whole Cablecard debacle of the past 8 years shows the resistance from the industry to modernize our television systems. With more premium content available on Amazon Video on Demand and iTunes, this becomes less of an issue. Since this is actually a PC, you can play this content albeit not via the Boxee interface.

The Future

So what will the future bring? The market is prime for a Boxee app which is basically a streaming television provider. Like a traditional cable company (or FiOS), you will install this app and pay a monthly fee for television program which is streamed over the internet. Premium channels are available a-la-cart finally as well as the traditional packages. Although due to licensing restrictions it won’t be free, you will be able to save 20-30% over traditional cable provider’s television programming. It may be offered for about $40-50 a month.

Paid, on-demand video is also lacking. If Boxee got on board with Amazon Video on Demand, it would be a powerful combination. This would allow you to both “rent” and “own” movies and television from Amazon’s streaming service. Boxee recently announced that it is developing Boxee Payments which will allow payments from the content consumers, to the content providers. I am looking forward to what this will bring the platform.

I may have jumped the gun a bit since the Boxee Box is soon to be available but my system does handle a few tasks that would not be possible on a streaming media box, namely live TV with DVR. If you are happy with you current cable situation, you would not likely see a lot of benefit moving to my setup. However if you want control of your media and are tired of the big named cable companies dictating how and when you get your entertainment, then you would definitely enjoy the freedom this setup provides.

Here are my own predictions for the 2010s:

1. Continued Convergence – Phone/Camera/Internet – Look for the decline of the “Point and Shoot” pocket camera as mobile phone cameras increase in quality to being on-par with smaller pocket cameras. Many pocket cameras already have miniscule sensor sizes that could fit into a cell phone device. A manufacturer will include this into a cell phone with an a new UI which will match P&S cameras for usability and customization. Internet will continue to grow in presence and utility on mobile devices.
2. Location Tracking Everywhere – Your device will automatically report to your friends where you are and what you are doing. Privacy controls will be built in to allow as much or as little sharing as possible, with many folks opting to disable the ability altogether. However, parents will still be able to “track” their kids.
3. Wireless Sensor Networks Will Become Ubiquitous – The continuing decline of the cost of these platforms will allow embedding in almost every imaginable place. Anywhere from road sensors to bridge monitors to traffic cameras will feature these devices.
4. The Rise of Data-Only High Speed Mobile Providers – Look for providers who provide plain high speed mobile access via WiMax or existing 3G/4G infrastructure. While the cost will be more than the current $30-$60 a month for current providers, the net-cost of mobile voice+mobile data will decrease because of the use of VoIP providers. Dual GSM/WiMax devices like the HTC Max 4G will become common.
5. Existing providers will fight tooth and nail to resist becoming “dumb pipes” – Much as with landline connections, existing wireless providers (specifically AT&T and Verizon) will fight for their lives using lobbiers and lawyers to prevent themselves from becoming a content-neutral data providers. They will provide shoddy mobile connectivity and blame it on technical restrictions to prevent other providers from piggybacking on their wireless data connections. Have you read your Terms of Service? They already prohibit anything other than Voice and Web, although I have almost never seen it enforced.

Do you have any predictions for the mobile world in 2020?

Sure we get a ton of channels from Verizon FiOS, but we hardly ever watch them. Our television viewing habits mainly consist of a few programs that my wife watches and a few programs that I watch, but we almost never watch them live. We typically DVR them and then watch them on our own time. For the few instances where we would like to watch live TV, for example when a Penn State game is on, we would like to be able to watch that. Normally the games are on ABC/NBC/Fox so premium cable channels such as ESPN aren’t necessarily needed. There will be some instances where a game may only be available on the Big 10 network or some other premium channel, but honestly I am not that big into sports and the times that this might occur will be few and far between, maybe 1 or 2 times a year, which I can deal with.

Of course the other thing I have to consider which kicking out the cable box is the “Wife Acceptance Factor” or WAF. I believe my solution has a very high WAF ratio and I am hoping she will agree.

The other main “Audience” of our TV is our kids. They shouldn’t be watching it much anyway, but let’s be honest here. They like their kids programs, but they are all DVRed and watched time-shifted anyway. For the programs they enjoy, we can either catch them on the public channels, or we can buy the DVDs and watch them that way.

The current setup:

• Verizon FiOS Premier TV Plan
• LG TV 37″
• 2-tuner HD DVR Box

So here is the tentative planned system:

• Eliminating our cable package and going with the “Local” plan at $12.99 a month. This should give us the local OTA in an Uncrypted QAM format that at a minimum our TV can decode using it’s tuner, and at best via our media streaming server. We could go with an antenna and pick them up but we are pretty far from the broadcast sources and it is questionable whether we would be able to pull them in. (~-$60/mo)
• Acer Aspire Revo 3610 Dual-Core Intel Atom machine with  Nvidia Ion Graphics. This will allow me to run the applications which I will explain further below. ($295 w/o OS, +$50 for Windows 7 [I already have a copy of Win7 to install])
• BeyondTV will be running on my main desktop system. I have a tuner card which receives QAM content. BeyondTV link, from reports, will run on this Revo system and allow me to stream HD TV to it as well as play any DVRed content. ($99 + $30)
• Hauppage WinTV tuner card. I currently have a single tuner card but if this works out will likely upgrade to a dual tuner card for more recording sources and the ability to watch a channel while recording another. (~$100)
• Snapstream FireFly remote to control the system. ($50)
• Boxee as the main non-TV user interface. ($0)
• Upgrade network to Wireless-n. Currently running B/G and I could run a physical network drop to the TV but I think just for future purposes upgrading the wireless network will be the best way to go.

The Acer Aspire Revo 3610 system is the core of the system besides the desktop which will do some of the heavy lifting with the TV tuner. It is a dual-core Intel Atom (1.6 ghz) system with the highly vaulted Nvidia Ion graphics chipset. This will allow much of the video processing to be sent to the graphics chip, which lets this little system handle 1080p video without problem, from the disk at least. One thing that is hanging out there is the question of will I be able to stream the video from my file server – so this is definitely a concern I have. From report’s I’ve seen from others, it can handle the workload but honestly until I see it working I will be skeptical. It was also recommended by the Boxee team as being a system to use and which will be supported in development in the future.

Television, both live and recorded, will be handled by Snapstream BeyondTV. My main PC upstairs contains the tuner card, and this system essentially acts as the interface for it. Anything non-television will be handled by Boxee which has a stellar interface. The Snapstream Firefly remote works with both BeyondTV and Boxee, allowing for one remote for all content.

So how do I plan on using the system:

1. Television

Using BeyondTV and BeyondTV Link, I will be able to watch Live, High Def television. Also will be able to time-shift content and have the ability to archive programs for watching later.

This beats Verizon’s HD DVR box in several ways. First of all, it is limited to 120GB which only holds several hours of HD content. We often find ourselves up against this limit. I’ve tried contacting them via multiple channels to inquire about expanding this with the built in USB/Firewire ports but they are not interested in having customers do this. Their loss.

For ‘archived’ television programs, I will be able to manually or automatically convert the programs into a higher compression format for indefinite storage. BeyondTV even includes “StreamSnip” which can cut out the commercials from your content. The alternative is doing this manually or just skipping commercials while they are playing.

For television programs that are not available via broadcast network television there are several options which this setup will supports.

Hulu

Many CBS, Fox, ABC and MTV shows are on Hulu with other networks signing up all of the time.

Fancast

This is another website, sponsored by Comcast, which includes shows from Hulu but also from other sources. There is a Boxee app which allows you to view these shows via the interface. Fancast is mainly an index of shows available online in streaming format.

iTunes/Amazon

For the remaining shows that aren’t available for free you can usually find them online in the iTunes or Amazon library. While you won’t be able to see them as they broadcast, they are usually available on the sites a day or 2 after they air. I will admit that my main holdup for switching over will be how I will not be able to see Mad Men as it airs, as it is one of my favorite shows currently airing and is only available on AMC, which doesn’t stream for free.

On the flip side, only AMC in standard definition was available via Verizon FiOS. Through the Mad Men subscription via Amazon or iTunes, the high def version will be available and also you get to keep it, without risk of ‘running out of room’ on your DVR device.

Other

You could either buy the season DVDs or acquire them through other means [torrent] if the above all fails. For some specific content, options are available online for purchasing a season or some type of other streaming pass, such as the Big10 Network.

2. Movies

We have an extensive DVD and Blu-ray collection and I am planning on ripping these for both backup purposes and to be able to access them on-demand using the media server. Boxee has a great interface for watching these movies, for example it automatically adds the disk covers.

Boxee also includes an app to allow you to stream Netflix movies to the device. If you are just looking for this feature there are several devices out there that will do it, such as Popcorn Hour, a Netflix-connected Blu-ray player, PS3/Xbox or the upcoming Boxee box. But I thought that having a machine to handle this will allow you to do other things as well.

Eventually I am hoping that Boxee will add an app to allow viewing of Amazon Video On Demand. While not currently available, this essentially gives any Boxee machine ability to view movies “On Demand” much like a cable box does. It would also allow the viewing of “Season Passes” for television shows. This is where the future is at – so I hope both Amazon and Boxee are on board with getting together on this.

I am going to keep the Blu-ray player we currently have attached, but I am hoping in the future to eliminate it either by ripping the movies to storage or by attacking a blu-ray drive to the machine.

3. Music/Audio

We did occasionally use Verizon’s music channels, but lets be honest, there are a lot of better options out there. I am a Pandora One subscriber and there is a Boxee app to connect into Pandora. There are a ton of other choices out there, and in the long run even a subscription to something like Rhapsody might be worth-while if we find outselves listening to a lot of music.

Boxee will also allow us to stream all of our downloaded music and stored MP3s, something that Verizon boxes can do but they charge $20 for their “Media Manager” package. While their setup might work for those who don’t know how to set something like this up, I thought it was a bit of a rip at $20 monthly for something you already own.

Boxee also has a great podcasting interface, and although I don’t think that I would use this feature for someone who is into podcasts this could be a neat function.

4. Other content

This is beyond the scope of this post, but via the Boxee interface there is a ton of content out there that is available for free. Everything from YouTube to OpenCourseWare to any type of video RSS feed. Developers are adding more content daily. A lot of it is niche content and not everyone will want to be navigating around the interface looking for things, but there is  TON of information that is available via the Boxee software. After I get this set up, I plan on writing a post about how my family actually uses the setup.

In Conclusion

In summary, the above is my plan for the great switchover. With the savings from not paying for Cable TV and all of those channels that I never use, I am hoping the up-front investment will pay for itself in about 6 months. I’m sure there will be some items which I forgot to include and will be last moment purchases but I think since I’ve thought this through pretty thoroughly they will keep to a mimimum.

Up front costs: $600 (personally defrayed 50% since I have most of the required software and hardware)
Monthly savings: $60

Let me know if you have any thoughts about my solutions or recommendations on anything you think I will need to add to the system. I’ll be writing  series of posts on the hardware and my progress in getting the system set up. I plan on documenting the setup, and the speedbumps, to assist others in setting up a similar system. You can also follow my progress via @ddrager.

I was recently tasked with copying speaker’s presentations, files and handouts onto 100s of USB Drives (key drives) for a conference that work is hosting down in Washington, D.C. My first thought was that it was going to be a pain to have to copy/paste the files to each drive. I thought about creating a batch script to copy the files with a double click. But really, who wants to be doing all of that clicking and/or typing? Work smarter, not harder.

Then I remembered a neat feature that SyncBackSE, a program I use at home for backups, has available. The backup program – which is basically a file copy process – can be triggered based on the insert of a drive, whether that be a USB Key Drive or an External Hard Drive. Using the program, the only action you need to do to trigger the copy process is literally plug the drive in. After the machine recognizes the drive and mounts it to a drive letter, the copy process starts automatically.

Here are the directions on how to set this up.

1. 

   Prepare your system. Install SyncBackSE. I have purchased the full program at home, but since I am using this for a limited task you can just install the 30-day trial. Create a folder, on your desktop or location of choice, with the files you want to be copied to the filesystem. Copy files to that folder, this is your “source directory”. Plug in as many USB drives as you can, in my case I used a USB hub with two handy top USB ports. Note which letter these drives assign themselves as.

2. Set up the Source and Destination. The Source will be the “source directory” of any files you wish to copy. The Destination will be the USB Drive Letter. If you are able to plug more than one drive in at a time, you will need to create separate profiles for each one, with differing drive letters. Create them at first or just copy the first profile you make, and switch the Destination Drive on each one.

3. Modify the profile. This is where the magic happens. Under profile setup, go to “Click for Options” and check off “Expert”. Select When and then “Insert”. Check off “Run this profile when:” and select the drive letter under “is inserted into drive”. Also check off “Run unattended” – this will ensure it does not prompt you when you plug in your drive each time. The other options should remain with . A summary of these settings is in the figure below.

That is it! Test by inserting a USB drive. You should see the profile change to “Running” then then “Success” after files have been completed. The screen will look as follows:

In my experience, the part that takes the longest was Windows XP discovering the new drive and then assigning the drive letter. This PC is slow, so I imagine on a faster machine this process would actually be much quicker. I ended up having to re-copy the drives since someone added their handouts in the last minute, but the drive discovery process happened much faster the second time around. I was able to do about 100 drives in 30 minutes, so this process is actually very speedy and works very well.

Sensor Graphing via Wireless Sensor Network to a Mobile Internet Device by David Drager

Update 10/27/2009: Google Voice now supports adding voicemail to any old cell phone number without the “Do not disturb” trick. Simply go into ‘Settings’, Enter the ‘Phones’ tab and then click ‘Activate Google voicemail on this phone’.  It will give you directions on call forwarding, which are the same as below, customized for your provider. Disable the “Do Not Disturb” setting to set your Google Voice account back to normal. Thank you Google!

For those lucky enough to have a Google Voice account, you’ll know the advantages: forward calls to multiple phones, visual voicemail and audio to text transcriptions. But, since you are not yet able to transfer your current phone number to Google Voice, it is hard to give up your old phone number and start having family, friends and business associates use your new Google Voice number. Also, there is the whole confusion as to your outgoing caller ID, which won’t match if you switch to Google Voice. Some phone platforms have developed software that will integrate your current phone with Google Voice, while others have taken the opposite route of banning them (I’m talking to you, Apple and AT&T!). But, here is the good news: You can switch, at least your voicemail, to Google Voice on any provider and any phone, right now.

Don’t have a Google Voice Account? Google is not yet handing out invites to the service, but you can sign up to be requested into the program here.

To make this magic happen, we are going to utilize a feature that all cell phone networks, and even home phones, have – called “Call Forwarding”. This setting is used to tell the cell phone network what should happen when someone calls you in several situations: when your phone is off or otherwise unreachable, when it rings a certain amount of time with no answer, and when it is available but you are currently on another call. These situations are also known as “Conditional Forwarding”, and their names are: unreachable, not answered and busy.

Follow the two ridiculously easy steps below on How to get Google Voice working to replace your old voicemail account:

Step 1: Enable “Do Not Disturb” in Google Voice. Depreciated, See note above

In your Google Voice settings, go down to the “Do Not Disturb” setting and check it off. This makes it so it does not ring out when the number is called, it will instead send any calls to your number directly into the voicemail box (and therefore have it transcribed and sent back to your cell phone number as a txt).

Step 2: Forward Your Voicemail to Your Google Voice Number

On your Google Voice homepage, you will see your number at the top left. Write/copy this down because you will use it shortly. The next step depends on which provider you use. Since Google Voice is currently United States only, I will only include call forwarding directions for major U.S. providers below. Include a “1″ in front of the number to indication that it is a US Number you are calling to.

How to use the chart below. Find your provider. Each provider has 2 numbers listed. Your phone may also have a shortcut designed to modify these numbers, if it has this feature feel free to use it. After typing the number, hit “send” to activate it. You should receive a message or tone that indicates your command was received.

For other providers, please contact or call technical support, and ask about “Conditional Call Forwarding” and check for any fees.

After setting this up, all voicemails will now be directed to your Google Voice inbox. For even further integration, there are some options available, depending on your phone. If you have an iPhone check out GV Mobile, only available on Cydia, for excellent Google Voice/iPhone Integration. If you have an Android based phone try “GV” in the Android Market.

Let me know your experiences with setting up Google Voice! Does it work well or would you recommend it to others?

In order to do this, we first need to set up a way to pull this information from the router. The best way to do this is to install an SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) daemon on the system.

The main roadblock we face here is that the system mainly runs in volatile system memory, meaning that every time the system is rebooted the filesystem is reset. Fortunately Tomato provides a way to get around this using CIFS shares. Follow the steps below (as modified from here) to install an SNMP server on a Tomato router.

1. Create a network (samba, CIFS) share somewhere on the network. This computer must be on all of the time in order for Tomato to run the SNMP server.
2. Download the snmpd.zip file from one of these locations:
   [xs4all.nl]
   [systembash]

   expand the binary and .conf file into the share or a subdirectory (for example, <share name>/snmp)

   MD5 for snmpd binary is ae0d622648efdb8dceb7b3b5a63e23ac

3. Set up the shared directory on the router. Visit Administration->CIFS Client. Add the share as follows, with your correct share information:
4. Log into the Tomato router via ssh, and start SNMPd on the router by issuing the command:

   /cifs1/snmp/snmpd -c /cifs1/snmp/snmpd.conf &

5. Test that SNMP is running and can be accessed on another computer on the network. To test it, you can use snmpwalk like so:

   snmpwalk -c public -v 2c <IP Address of Router>

   If it works properly, it will list the available OIDs from the router. You do not need to take note of these, but they will be used in the graphing software later.

6. Finally, we need to launch the SNMP server when the router is restarted. You do this by adding the command to start it in the area Administration -> Scripts -> Firewall:

   sleep 30
   /cifs1/snmp/snmpd -c /cifs1/snmp/snmpd.conf -s &

   This launches the snmp server 30 seconds after the router is started or rebooted.

Thats it! SNMP is now running on the router.

Now to add this SNMP host to your graphing software. For this example, I will use Cacti, which I will assume you have already set up. If you need to set it up, please follow the directions on the Cacti site for installation.

First, add the router as a new device, using the information below (change IP to suite your needs):

After adding the device, you have several options depending on what sort of data you are looking for. For system information on the router – for example CPU usage, memory usage, etc; you can go directly to Create -> New Graphs. Select your device and then add the graph you are looking for.

The graph will show as a broken image at first, or a blank graph with “NaN” as the data source. Give it a few minutes to update, and the information should start to flow through. The ucd/net options work best, but feel free to experiment.

To get traffic stats on the interface, you first need to “Walk” the device.  Go back to your device list, and edit the device you added. Under “Associated Data Queries”, Add Data Query, add “SNMP – Interface Statistics” with Re-Index period as “Uptime goes backwards”. After adding it you should see under status something like: Success [39 Items, 6 Rows].

Since these data sources are now added, you can go back to Add a new Graph. After selecting the device, you should see a list of these new interfaces. Select the interfaces you wish to graph, and select the graph type (I suggest In/Out bits with Total).

After a few minutes, the data should start filling in. After a while, you will get a graph like this:

In conclusion, with a little work, you can get enterprise class graphing from your consumer router. The total project took me about 45 minutes, and I was trying to figure out all of the data sources and the correct way to enter everything.

Let me know your experiences, suggestions and corrections!

I was looking for something that did not involve signing a contract, but Verizon, Sprint and AT&T’s offerings were pretty expensive. They typically have a “small” data plan, around 250 Megs of transfer for a smaller fee, or an “Unlimited” offering for a fairly expensive rate, around $60 a month for most providers. The Cricket plan I signed up for is an “Unlimited” – read 5GB – plan for $40 a month, with no contract.

Cricket Wireless is relatively new in my area (Philadelphia), having only started providing service in March of 2009. They have been in other markets since 1999. Wireless Broadband has been an offering of their since 2007. Cricket is a subsidiary of Leap Wireless.

The way the “Unlimited” plan works, and why I need to use quotes on Unlimited, is that you get a 5GB quota, and then the speed your connection can be severely restricted to limit your bandwidth consumption. This connection, according to the Acceptable Use Policy you sign when signing up, is meant for “web only” or e-mail traffic; meaning that it is not supposed to be used for streaming video or music (up or down).

The Device

The USB Broadband Modem I purchased is the Cricket A600. It was available on sale for $20 after rebate, which I thought was very reasonable considering you are not purchasing a contract with the modem. Usually providers will give you a roughly $200 price break on the modem if you sign up for a 1 or 2 year contract. This makes their offerings seem cheaper, even though you pay it in the long run.

Costs

Like I have alluded to previous, the big draw for the Cricket network is the cost of the unlimited package, $40 a month with no contract. There is a $25 activation fee. I would assume that this fee applies whether you are starting a new line of service, or if you allow your pre-payment plan to expire; necessitating a re-activation.

How does it work?

The way the modem works is when you first plug it in, it is recognized as a flash drive and the drivers are installed via Autorun. It currently only supports Windows and Mac OSX; their site specifically states it does not support Linux, although there are instructions on how to get the A600 working in Ubuntu. I am currently using the Windows 7 beta, it did not install correctly automatically – I had to manually install the device drivers using the setup file, and then the modem was installed and found on the next insert. So, even with a few hiccups, the A600 is ready for use on a number of operating systems. You can see the number of devices that are installed when you plug in the modem (Windows 7 screenshot):

As a bonus, the modem also works as a MicroSD card reader. This does not really help you if you do not have a MicroSD card laying around, I happed to have a 2GB one that plugged in and works as advertised. This might be a good thing to have if you are a travelling technician, you could place your thumbdrive programs on this device and have a ready-to-go connection and troubleshooting device.

The Connection

Connectivity is provided by “dialing in” to the Cricket network using their provided application, as seen below:

The program has a few functions:

• Connect/Dial In to the network
• Keep track of incoming/outgoing text messages
• Bandwidth manager (did not work on Windows 7)

The program seemed to work as advertised and the big connect/disconnect button is easy enough for the most inexperience internet user to understand.

The Network and Speed Tests

The Cricket Broadband network looks like it piggybacks on the Verizon or Sprint EVDO data networks. So chances are if you do not have these networks available, you would not get Cricket to work either. I had connectivity results that I had expected, in areas that are highly populated I had excellent connectivity (4/4 bars) and at other locations “in the sticks” I had only 1 or 0 bars. I was able to get connection in most places, even if the signal was very poor.

The data network always read “EVDO Rev A” which has a maximum “burst” rate of 2.45 Mbit/s to 3.1 Mbit/s. I tested in many locations; my speed with a “full” connection averages about ~ 500kbps download and ~ 200kbps upload. With a 0 or 1 bar connection I was still seeing a 500kbps download but a paltry 70kbps upload. Don’t expect this connection to replace your home broadband or wifi connection, it was pretty much impossible to watch a YouTube video, the same with any sort of multimedia content. You may be able to stream a highly compressed music stream. SSH, FTP, SFTP all seemed to work – one of my concerns being a system administrator was that these ports would be blocked, but I seemed to have an unfettered connection. I did try Logmein, on my “weak” signal it did not seem to want to connect but worked pretty well with a full signal.

Another thing I seemed to encounter with a poor signal was loss of connection. Since you are basically dialing in (my wife exclaimed, “I haven’t dialed in for 10 years!”) if you lose the signal for a few moments you get disconnected. It is not horrible, because you can reconnect, but the Cricket dialup program did not give me a notice or sound an alarm, I just started getting “Page not accessible” errors in my browser. If you are connecting in an area that has a poor signal, expect to be frustrated with your Cricket connection. It is not necessarily their problem, but it is worth mentioning.

Your connection locally is issued a private network in the 10.100.x.x range. Ping times varied from 80ms to 120ms. Do not expect to be able to do online FPS gaming from this connection. For your perusal is a traceroute from the Cricket connection in Ocean City, NJ to www.yahoo.com.

  1    61 ms    59 ms    65 ms  172.30.218.x
  2    60 ms    65 ms    66 ms  172.28.49.x
  3    64 ms    66 ms    57 ms  172.16.8.x
  4    70 ms    73 ms    64 ms  ge-8-16.car1.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [4.78.152.249]
  5   172 ms    68 ms    70 ms  ae-7-7.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.133.162]
  6    73 ms    65 ms    72 ms  ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.146]
  7    83 ms    70 ms    82 ms  ae-61-61.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.129]
  8   102 ms    89 ms    91 ms  ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.85]
  9   119 ms   106 ms   107 ms  ae-7.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.134.21]
 10   110 ms   138 ms   108 ms  ae-41-90.car1.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.145.195]
 11   104 ms   102 ms    98 ms  YAHOO-INC.car1.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.79.180.2]
 12   102 ms   149 ms   104 ms  ae2-p130.msr2.mud.yahoo.com [216.115.104.93]
 13   102 ms    99 ms   100 ms  te-9-1.bas-c2.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.193.11]
 14   110 ms   103 ms    98 ms  b1.www.vip.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.93.53]

Conclusion

When all is said and done, you have to appreciate that having this little device and signing up for the Cricket Broadband service, for $40 a month and no contract, gets you an internet connection wherever you go, at least wherever you have signal. Although I suspect that a direct Verizon, Sprint or AT&T broadband connection would give you faster access, I do not think it would expand your coverage and you would pay a lot more for it. Cricket gets you a decent connection for a fair price, and I think that is worth it. If you are expecting a wired connection speed then look elsewhere, but as long as your demands are reasonable, you should be happy with Cricket Wireless Broadband.

I would recommend this modem to anyone who is looking for a web connection that is extremely portable and inexpensive. As long as your bandwidth demands are not exceedingly high, you should be happy with this modem.

Update 2009/7/20:

If anyone has clarifications on whether Cricket Wireless owns their own equipment (from tower to net) please let me know. I would just assume they ‘resell’ Verizon, Sprint or other “1st tier” provider wireless towers instead of building their own, which would be very expensive.

Also, I discovered you do not need to use the applet they provide to log into the Cricket wireless network. On Windows 7 at least, you can dial in directly with Windows’ Network Connection Center.

Under the auspice of wanting to save energy and also extending the life of a new monitor, someone suggested that we turn off the monitor at night using an electrical timer. A lightbulb went off in my head, that there must be a better way to do this via command line and then run it in the cron.

It turns out the solution is very simple. The xset command is the X server preferences command. It has a simple command to turn off the monitor:

$ xset dpms force off

and to turn the monitor back on:

$ xset dpms force on

You can also check the status of the X server settings by using:

$ xset -q

Also, when dpms turns off the monitor, it will turn back on after a keypress or by moving the mouse. Since this is a lobby display, there is no keyboard or mouse installed in the system.

I’ve rolled this into a little bash script with on, off, and status switches:

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:0.0

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
  echo usage: $(basename $0) "on|off|status"
  exit 1
fi

if [ $1 = "off" ]; then
  echo -en "Turning monitor off..."
  xset dpms force off
  echo -en "done.\nCheck:"
  xset -q|grep "Monitor is"
elif [ $1 = "on" ]; then
  echo -en "Turning monitor on..."
  xset dpms force on
  echo -en "done.\nCheck:"
  xset -q|grep "Monitor is"
elif [ $1 = "status" ]; then
  xset -q|sed -ne 's/^[ ]*Monitor is //p'
else
  echo usage: $(basename $0) "on|off|status"
fi

You can then use cron to turn off the monitor at night, and back on in the morning:

0 20 0 0 0 /home/lobby/monitorControl.sh off
0 7 0 0 0 /home/lobby/monitorControl.sh on

This script will turn it off at 8pm and back on at 7am.

Note that this was written for an Ubuntu system, but the xset command is pretty generic so any system that runs Xserver like RedHat, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, etc should be able to use the script as well.