Davids Jewish Traveler and Hacker
Israeli Hardware Stores
Compared to the United States, Israeli hardware stores and electronics shops are terrible. I have a few places staked out to get what I need but I am starting to feel like I need my own blacksmith shop, chip fab, and whatever else. I always seem to have to order something or other form the US, it should get easier now that I have a mastercard to make orders with, but now I get the added pain of weird fees and hidden costs with a proper credit card.
I was very happy to find a hand operated drill but now that I am acquiring tools I keep feeling the urge to build a proper machine shop, if only I had the space. Israel needs to develop more of a DIY culture.
I have built a MMR-40 pocket size QRP 40 meter ham radio, it transmits between 5-7 watts but can reach around the world. It is one of the few tiny sets that does both sideband voice and morse code. I have stuck the FreqMite and NorCal keyer add on boards to add memory keyer and audio frequency reporting outputs. I have also added a earphone jack and will add a serial port for computer data. The whole field kit including the NorCal BLT tuner, wire dipole, and feedline fits inside a Case Logic CD player bag.
I decided to switch to a paddles setup for camping, which to me is easier than a straight Morse code key away from a desk. THe cheapest I could find a paddles set was $25, so why not try to make my own.
I visited a Jerusalem hardware store and decided basic nuts and bolts would be the easiest. Two cut off stainless steel rulers two cm wide were the basis of the paddles, they are mounted to a pressed board base with small 90 degree steel brackets. A second set of brackets holds the swing adjust screws which are just two machine screws held in with regular hex nuts. Between the paddles is a larger stainless machine screw which is the common ground, electrical contact is against the round screw head. Two small stainless machine screws are the electrical contact points on the paddles, these screws also hold about 4cm of scavenged kitchen counter edge panneling rounded off to make for a more comfortable finger contact area. I used a chopped off earphone cord for the connector, soldered the wire into some solid copper wire which connected to the paddles where they attached at the far end between the bolt and a washer, the center pole was also just a wire wrap and compressed between two washers. To protect everything I sandwiched the wires between a second piece of press board and added rubber feet for use on solid surfaces.
Labels: DIY, ham radio, morse code, QRP
Opie 1.0.0 and 1.0.2
What is my Zaurus for?
Music, e-books, SSH, and web browsing, via wifi or GPRS, but not rally for PIM stuff. I have always wanted to be able to sync with multisync to something like evolution but alas no such luck. In an attempt to get that laptop sync and PIM sharing that I sometimes use I upgraded to the latest Opie that is still available direct. The upgrade is a pain, my network settings app is partly broke and I gained a new pim search and a better audio recorder program, over all the Z seems slower.
Would I bother upgrading again, probably not. Five year old software feeds can't live forever and the Zaurus 5500 is an old platform. After an initial popularity in the USA it faded into obscurity for all but the uber geek. I have heard that even the clamshell line is going out of production in Japan. Even pioneer OpenZaurus folded itself into the Angstrom project after they hacked together an open source SD card driver.
I have archives of the OpenZaurus 3.2 and 3.3.5 release and Opie 10.0. 1.0.2 and 1.0.3 releases as long as my Z works I guess I can mix and match old debian and what is provided in those archives to still shake up my palmtop environment.
I want a new Linux handheld device with a keyboard and lots of hardware and distro options
Routers Sub-Domains and Travel Kit
Sleeping over
For a single or even a family staying over cheap lawn furniture like a chaise lounge for a bed and maybe lawn chair and table can outfit a spare room. With a bucket, water supply, electricity, and a toilet is all one really needs for a short to medium stay if they are carrying the right kit. If I am overnight somewhere I carry this gear, it is small enough that it all fits in my pack. I have been surprised by an overseas or europe ticket deal with only an hour or so to get to the airport too short on time to go home and grab gear.
What is that packing list again?
Laptop and/or PDA
-modem, WiFi, Ethernet, and cables
-Sony over the ear phones
Mobile Phone GSM, SIM unlocked
Washing Kit
-universal flat drain plug
-bungie clothes line
-dish soap in small bottle
Fold up ultra-light daypack
Hot drink kit
-soft folding cup
-110-240 immersion water heating coil
-tea (English of course)
-sugar and faux-creme sachets
Triangia mini cook set
-alcohol stove/pot base
-flask of 95% alcohol
-Lid/frypan holder
First aid kit
Benadryl (sleep and allergy)
-Bandaids
-suture
-roboxacete w/codene (pain especial muscle and joint)
-imodium
-caffeene
-4x4 bandages
-tape
-moleskin
Dahon folding bike
(best repacked in cardboard box with wheels off and taped tight the travel bag to fit USA smaller bag rules)
-pump
-spare tube
-patches and tyre levers
-carry bag
-U-lock
-helmet
-ankle strap
-Light
Jewish stuff
-Tefillin
-Tallit (prayer shawl)
-Prayer book
-Mini Paperback Gemara, Mishnayot, or Mishna Berura (for learning)
Sewing kit
Leatherman Tool
WiFinder keychain WiFI detector
cotton hostle sheet
sleeping bag
Tripod chair
crank up LED light PDA/cellphone charger
GoreTex Bivvy Sack
USB Key 2Gig (USB-SD card with Damn Small Linux)
USB Hard Drive 30Gig (with Movies, Music, and Ubuntu Linux installed)
Clothes
-Poly Suit Coat
-White poly-cotton shirts
-Poly pants (poly is easy to sink wash-line dry)
-Mail carrier black shoes
-Jocky stretch socks
-extra black and knit kippah
--(in cold season)
-GoreTex Vertigo parka shell
-Fleece vest or jacket layer
-REI bicycle gloves
-Columbia rain pants
-overseas plug tips (everything I carry I try to have 110-240v)
Hygene kit
-Deoderant
-soap, bar in box or concentrated soft soap
-Toothpaste and brush
-comb
-kippah clips
-thong sandals
sleep
-tshirt
-surgical scrub trousers
-sleep mask
-earplugs
-neck pillow
(proposed) Brookstone portable hairdryer, to help heat room or dry clothes
(proposed) bike generator phone/PDA charger, LED light
Routers
I got a Netgear WRT-54G to use instaed of the Linksys WGT634U, the USB on the Linksys was cool but Bittorrent would crash it after several hours, The WRT54G running custom DDWRT firmware runs great, I think the Linksys will go in reserve on as a travel rig for feeding multimedia files from a USB drive.
Free Sub-Domain setup
A DynDNS update program is in the router I now run a custom subdomain for my house making SSH, FTP, whatever from home easy. My wifes Windows XP work machine can be booted into ubuntu live CD before I leave (setting a password is required) and I can use that machine to do my bidding.
My overseas server is stock computer with lots of hard disks plugged into a friends fiber optic line in the USA, he is using port 80 for his server so I set up a free ChangeIP.com port forward sub-domain, it makes for an easy address for the family to use to access my web photo server ie. ourwebsite.dnyp.com instead of mywebsite.dyndns.org:4578 and having to specify a network port; a bit much to ask from inlaws who bought their first computer a year ago.
Open Zaurus 3.2 and big memory
Openzaurus for the SL-5500 seems to be stuck in kernel 2.4 zone forever since it requires a binary driver for the SD/MMC card reader whick has been hacked to allow up to 1 Gigabyte cards. I have a new 2G USB-SD card that when used with a CF to SD converter card works in the top slot. I find that the mediaplayer doesn't reliably read from the 2G card but most other programs have no problem. If I want to change my music inventory I can just move the files form the big SD card to the MMC card in the side slot.
What I now carry in my PDA pouch Zaurus SL-5500 with 1G SD card installed, CF to SD card adaptor with 2G SD/USB card (Damn Small linux installed on card along with windows portable apps like Putty-SSH, Firefox Web, Filezilla FTP, and a collection of E-books) And a Symbol CF WiFi card (rebadged socket wifi card)
Dahon Boardwalk vs Dahon Speed 8
I love my Dahon
but I have found that the Boardwalk bikes are unable to use standard derailers without sandwiching a hanger into the rear axle, not so cool. Now I have to decide wether to stick with my current bike or drop $500 on a nice new Speed with standard SRAM parts, metal pedals(if I can get an '06) and a better frame.
Portable DVD player
I was gifted this little gadget in the hopes I could fix the dodgy video playback, fixed no prob. It is a funny little gadget in that it fills a niche we dont really have. Even after I unlocked the regioning our DVD collection which have also come as gifts is just as easily played on our laptop. I suppose It is useful for playing kids videos without wasting a terminal but I hate exposing our kids to so much "good" TV even though we dont even own a television. What I dislike is I am unable to play downloaded content everything this can play must be burned or bought on a DVD, too bad it doesnt read USB disks or SD cards.
Flash videos converted for Zaurus aka YouTube video rips
Youtube google vid and gobs of other sites
On your desktop machine
1-first get the Firefox plugin VideoDownloader
http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
2-Visit YouTube and find a video to rip
3-the plugin will dump out a file which you need change the name to add a .flv extension
4-then get ffmpeg which is in the extended ubuntu sources
5-run it like this in console:
ffmpeg -i video.flv -ab 56 -ar 22050 -b 500 -s 320x240 test.mpg
man ffmpeg will let you know about all the options
6-now just FTP the new mpg file over to your Z and media player can play it
Quacknews is up on my Zaurus site, I need to add it to the feed, it lets you grab a batch of rss feeds. I grab a news update at the bus station befoer I ride. Quacknews needs Jeode or other JVM installed.
I found a CF to Sd card adapter on Ebay so I can read from the main SD card to the second in my CF slot, sadly the day before it arrived I lost my SD/USB card.... Once I find it it should be great for multimedia and save the main SD slot for apps.
Bike upgrades, I replaced my bike tires with Schwable folding Marathon racers, the replacement of my chain and a new twist shifter makes shifting gears easy again. A double action mini pump rounded out the shipment.
Over the last break I finished Half life, Opposing Forces, and Blue Shift. These games which I purchased around 2000 were the largest game purchase ever for me, I never played them out until now. For closure I also downloaded the initial Half-Life demo HL Uplink which I had to play out without cheat codes, which are disabled, and was actualy quite fun, I find saving everywhere just another cheat and breaks up the story line.
Firefly/Serenity
I got the series Firefly and movie Serenity which finishes the story started by the short lives series. Good sci-fi cut short by the idiots at Fox, it should have been on the Sci-Fi channel like BSG likely it would have survived and thrived. I suppose these short runs prevent a series from jumping the shark. http://jumptheshark.com/
I really enjoyed this short run but the sex content ratcheted up as it was clear the series was in trouble at the network. It is easy to see that a TV series is in trouble when riskquay side plots and revealing clothing take over the show. It is sad that these elements tend to ruin an otherwise enjoyable show. I suppose it supports my idea that modern media is trash and even the "good stuff" has many drawbacks. I suppose when BSG and Smallville drop off I will feel no need for replacement much like my decision to junk the doomed Simsons franchise which should have been put to sleep years ago rather than left to suffer. I have no tv and I already dont bother with movies, what good will a high capacity hard disk be for once I give up on TV series?
Like I have written before a train is much more civivlzed than a bus, car, or taxi. Three tiny kids and two parents is much easier when you can wheel a stroller right onto the train.
Traveling with babies
It is amazing how mch more complicated it is to travel once yiou have to worry about twins and a toddler. These small ones require much more normal infrastructure than our old couch hopping life. we will give it a go since we have an engagement party in Jerusalem but international budget/hosteling sem quite unlkely.
OK I am back running linux on my belt with the arrival of my replacement zaurus!!
The Sandisk 1Gig SD card breakopen USB key gadget is super fast and works great, my problems in booting Damn Small Linux with it were fixed by re-formatting to FAT16. DSL with its new MyDSL additions make it so I can have Mplayer and a few video's ready to load from my key in my wallet, I also have full access to my files on my zaurus when it is loaded as an SD card.
I installed an inline voltage regulator and can now safely crank charge my Zaurus and any other sensitive USB powered gadgets. This is Radio Shack 7805 +5vdc voltage regulator and was a stocked item.
I am getting tired of blowouts. Jerusalem is a massive blowout waiting to get your tire, glass and metal bits everywhere. I was able to buy very cheaply axles and skewers to switch my Dahon Boardwalk7 to quick release wheels, this will make repairs in the field easier. I still would like to get tough kevlar lined tires to prevent the pokes.
My dahon folding bike has cheap plastic pedals one of which has partly failed leaving me wit a very wobbly folding pedal. The bike shop in Portland Oregon where it was purchased is sending me a warranty replacement part but I anticipate several weeks of wait, I hope that the reoplacements are of better quality.
I am getting a strong desire to build a ultra light computer, something like is sold in the Damn Small Linux store. For about $200 I could get a loaded MOBO and 12 inch LCD plus a USB key for the hard disk this could all be booted to DSL. I am not sure why I need it but it would make a cool poor kids laptop prototype. If only money grew on trees.
