Quozl's Open Source

Desk Charger Timer

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +1100

If you pay for the power at your desk, and your power is expensive, you learn the value of turning stuff off. Chargers for gadgets seem to multiply, and each adds a bit more to the bill.

Yet they don't actually need to be on all the time.

A quick hack is done to have a Python script turn on a bank of gadget chargers, and turn them off under automated control.

more details

IP over AX.25

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +1100

There's lots of stuff on the 'net for amateur radio operators who want to get into the transmission of internet packets (IP) over radio ... but it is widespread, occasionally conflicting, and often out of date.

Here's a quick attempt to bring things into the current century ... the task is to get a ping(8) between two computers using two handheld amateur radio transceivers.

more details

Netrek - Vanilla 2.16.0 released

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1000

New version of the Netrek Vanilla Server, with many changes.

more information, sources, packages

Signal Strength Meter

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1000

Quozl was testing a set of One Laptop Per Child units for wireless performance and needed a quick tool that would show the signal strength rapidly rather than the usual method of averaging over several seconds.

more details

Work Wanted

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1000

Quozl has ample free time at the moment, and is interested in offers of paid work. Write to him at quozl at laptop dot org.

/dev/port to /dev/parport0

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000

So you've got an old program using a parallel port on Linux, but it uses /dev/port or direct port access instead of /dev/parport0. Why worry? Because the old method doesn't let you use PCI or USB parallel ports.

Quozl had to fix it. Publishing it in case somebody needs it. Check out the change from k74.c to k74-ppdev.c in my repository.

more details

Kernel Patching to Fix Audio Socket Electrical Damage

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000

Laptop speakers stopped working. Only the right channel of the headphones remains. But using a very old driver made the speakers work. Turns out electrical damage from an attached sound system broke the headphone detection. The operating system was faithfully turning off the amplifier. Software fix to the rescue ... Update: a remastered patch for alsa-driver-1.0.20.

more information,

Telstra ZTE F165 HSDPA Mobile Phone on Linux

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 +1000

Quozl upgraded from a CDMA mobile phone to an HSDPA one, and plays with it on Linux. It has a USB interface, and bluetooth. Update: and now Ubuntu 9.04 recognises it.

more information,

Usage Monitoring of a UHF CB Repeater

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +1100

Question was, if the ham radio club had to put solar panels in to run the repeater on the mountain, how much power would be needed? Without climbing the mountain to measure it. Here Quozl hacks up a repeater usage monitor, consisting of a spare handheld radio connected to a laptop audio input.

more information,

Starting APRS on Linux

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +1100

Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is an amateur radio system for real-time tactical digital information. How do you get started with APRS on Linux in Australia? Install xastir, configure it to grab data, watch the event stream build on a map.

more information,