[Update: 2008-03-29]
Unfortunately, I just got word that TechShop Austin, and six other planned locations, have been delayed until 2009. It’s a bummer for Austin makers, but the schedule was a little too aggressive for the TechShop crew; instead, they’ll be focused on a new headquarters in Sunnyvale, and bringing up the Portland and Durham locations.

[Original post]
Just saw this last night, TechShop Austin is scheduled to open this summer (2008)! I haven’t had access to a decent shop in a few years. I can’t wait to play with all the toys a TechShop should have!

Step 1: Get the memory card out of the phone as quickly as possible

Either shut the phone down and pull the card, or use the super-secret combo hidden within the profile-switching shortcut to have the phone un-mount the card.

Step 2: Obtain a USB memory card reader

I’ve needed a reason to buy one of these for a long time. Good thing I had a gift card left from the holidays. I went with a Dynex gazillion-to-one card reader, not for it’s technical superiority, but because it was the only thing the shop nearby had.

Step 3: Stick the memory card into the reader, and plug the reader into your Linux box

Mine happens to run Ubuntu at the moment, but the results will likely be similar on other distros.

Step 4: sudo apt-get install testdisk

Testdisk “was primarily designed to help recover lost data storage partitions…” and includes a utility called “PhotoRec“, which is what you want.

Step 5: Run photorec

PhotoRec is a data recovery tool designed specifically for recovering files from digital camera media. It supports a number of file-system formats, including the FAT format that Symbian OS uses on it’s memory cards. PhotoRec is a text-based, terminal application, but it does the job perfectly.

Select the mounted memory card from the list of drives (which should be easy to spot given how small memory cards are relative to modern hard drives), and send it scanning. PhotoRec can be told to look for specific file types (you want JPG’s, in this case), but by default it will look for just about any media file format that you’re likely to have on your phone. Files will be recovered and written to a local directory.

Step 6: Sigh in relief when you see your beloved cat pictures returned to you

PhotoRec isn’t going to restore the images to the memory card’s file system such that the phone can see them again, but you’ll have the pictures on your Linux box now, and can copy them back over if you choose to. The naming scheme will be different, but that’s an acceptable compromise.

…a programmable, touch-screen that acts like a keyboard. Pretty amazing potential for experiementing with user interaction interfaces. Could be even better if merged with some of the haptic/tactile feedback work that Apple and Nokia have been doing. Ex:

• “Nokia shows off some seriously cool haptic-feedback touchscreen tech – Haptikos takes haptic feedback to a whole new level“
• “Apple patent filed for tactile touchscreen – raised, indented keys“

Sparkfun just released a new, stand-alone GPS logging device, which looks to be a slick alternative to all the “mobile-device + Python + bluetooth GPS” hacking I’ve resorted to for similar tasks. It’s a pretty tempting package if you need dirt-simple GPS logging. However, I’m a bit confused by the switches. Take a look at the picture of the device below:

There are two toggle switches: one for on/off, and one for standby/run. Take a minute to look at the switch diagrams and labels, and think about how to use this device. How do you turn it on? How do you make it start logging?

Now that you’ve thought about it, was it clear? What does the ’1′ on each switch mean to you? What does the graphic under each switches label mean? Ignore the ’1′ and ’0′ and look just at the diagram. Based on the graphic alone, which switch position should “on” be?

I used to get the ’1′ vs. ’0′ on switches backwards when my mental model was of the ’0′ indicating a completed circuit. Now I use a binary metaphor, where a ’1′ bit is on, and a ’0′ bit is off. That seems to be what the switch means. But if I take that approach on the GeoChron, then the standby/run switch is installed backwards. Personally, I think I’d drop the graphic under the switch labels (I think it’s more confusing then helpful), and flip the standby/run swtich so that ’1′ means ‘run’, and so that the switches are both pressed in the same direction when the device is on and logging. With a device this simple, you really shouldn’t have to think about how to turn it on. (I still want one though ;-)

I finally got my first Arduino board last week (a Diecimila, to be specific.) It’s been on my list of “things I want to hack on” for awhile, so I eagerly awaited it’s arrival. It’s been a good ten years since I’ve built anything in the Art Installation / Physical Computing genre — which is ten years way too long.

In preparation for my first weekend with the Arduino, I hit up SparkFun and a local electronics store for a handful of little gizmos to wire up. I’m still a newbie when it comes to designing electronics (though to be honest, that’s part of the fun), so I started off by following the “Spooky Projects – Introduction to Microcontrollers with Aurdino” lessons. With the Spooky Projects built (minus the glowing skull, unfortunately), I wrapped up the weekend experimenting with potentiometers as the controls for animation timing in a few late-night, generative-art pieces I’ve built using Processing.

So far it’s all good fun — and something I’d definitely encourage folks to try.

“Ubuntu 7.10 will be the first Ubuntu release to offer a complete mobile and embedded edition built with the Hildon user interface components” (developed by Nokia for the Maemo platform.)

Now that’s interesting. Could it be that we’ll see Ubuntu Mobile booting on Nokia N800′s? It’s certainly a possibility — and one that could bring a larger breadth of software to Nokia’s mobile Linux tablets.

However, as interesting as it may be if Nokia adopts Ubuntu, the possibilities for wider Hildon support didn’t hit me until my drive home today. It was one of those obvious moments. I had been using my Nokia N800 while walking to my car, so the touch- and small-screen friendly UI was fresh in my mind. Then I started thinking about my Car PC. It uses a 7″ touch screen and runs Ubuntu (a full distribution, with a UI designed for full-size monitors.) Running Gnome on my cheap, in-car 7″ monitor makes for a pretty lousy experience. Text is hard to read, and everything is too small to click on. However, if this news is right, Ubuntu 7.10 will change all of that. I’ll be able to run Hildon on my Car PC! That’s killer. Imagine having Canola running in-car, sitting on 100GB of multimedia…

The container itself is “water tight”, but it was recommended that the Blackbox be covered if placed outside. (Contrary to the photoshopped pictures of the Blackbox sitting on open building rooftops.)

I snapped a few pictures with my phone during the tour. These first two show the Project Blackbox sitting on a trailer:

Inside the container doors. This first door leads to an air circulation chamber:

Within the air circulation chamber, another door leads to the racks:

A rack being slid out from within the Project Blackbox:

At the back of Project Blackbox, this photo shows the dehumidifier, and the rack for networking gear:

Power, water, and network ports on the Sun Project Blackbox:

The power ports on the Sun Project Blackbox:

The representatives claimed that an empty Blackbox (ie., no servers) would likely cost between $300,000 – $400,000.

Not quite as sexy as an iPod.

All together, this box serves quite well as an A/V machine, so I’m not looking to get rid of it (especially since the new X86 PowerMacs are still vaporware.) However, the RAID backplane didn’t actually fit in the Apple case (as you’ll see below), and the lone 120mm case fan was starting to ask for help. Since Apple doesn’t offer larger cases, a swap to a full size ATX case was in order.

The Gigabit Ethernet Macs pre-date the elaborate case internals and “cooling zones” that the new G5′s have. Inside, the hardware is organized just like any other PC, so while I didn’t anticipate a perfectly smooth transfer, I had no doubt that the pieces could be made to fit into a modern ATX case. To give me some extra room, I went with the rather large, ThermalTake Armor case.

The new case towers over the Apple box, but it’s extremely easy to work with, and provides plenty of options for mounting hardware and fans. The entire front is a stack of 5 1/2″ bays, which leave plenty of choices for mounting the RAID backplane, the internal drive cage, and case fans.

The stripped Armor case next to the G4. (And yes, that’s really where the RAID backplane was “mounted” — I simply ran the SATA and power cables through an empty PCI slot to the chassis up above. Don’t do this at home kids!)

The Apple case popped open. You get a better view of the SATA cables here, and the limited space for hardware expansion. (NOTE: The boot drive is actually under the DVD burner now, in the space where the ZIP drive was mounted originally. I used to have a stack of drive sitting in the bottom of the case, but with the RAID, they were no longer needed.)

Before getting too far into the swap, I pulled the Apple motherboard and video card for a test-fit (show below.) The Apple motherboard lined up with one existing mounting hole, but otherwise, clearance and fit were tolerable.

The Apple power supply was probably the only OEM part that just dropped in:

Next up was a test fit that the cables would still reach, and thankfully they did:

To mount the motherboard, I needed new holes for the board stand-offs. This was a simple chore for a Sharpie marker and a Bosch hammer-drill; However, before swiss-cheesing the case, I did have to decide how the stand-offs would actually attach to said holes. Normally the holes are threaded, and the stand-offs just screw-in; So my first inclination was to tap the holes after drilling. After considering how much time I’d waste doing this, I came up with an alternate plan. Instead of tapping the holes, I would simply make the holes just big enough for the threaded stand-offs to fit through, then attach a small nut from the other side to hold the piece in place. This saved a lot of time, and the result is just as sturdy. (Unfortunately, the macro focus mode on my N90 isn’t quite as good as I’d like, so the close-up pictures of this mount didn’t come out well enough to show.)

With the motherboard secure, the next piece of the puzzle was how to mount the processor board to motherboard. On the dual G4, the processors are actually on a small board with a ZIF-like connector on the back. With the connector snug, the processor board is then bolted to steel case-mounts that poke through the actual motherboard, and the aluminum cooling fins are hung off this little board. Without a hard mount, there would be no way to hang the cooling fins, so I needed a solution for this mount.

In the picture below, you’ll see the processor board mounts sticking up in the middle of the steel side I’m holding. This piece is attached to the plastic exterior with a series of hex bolts.

After examining the original case, I noticed that the processor mounting holes were steel bits that were pressed into the side of the case. It occurred to me that if I could pull those out, I could reuse them. The extraction was quite simple: support the steel backing with some wood, and nicely ask the mounts to come out with a 5-pound mallet. They pop right out, and I was able to reuse them in the new case.

With the motherboard and processors secure, the rest was simple wiring. I put the drive cage and boot drive behind a 120mm fan up front; The DVD burner was mounted low in the case so that my cables would reach; And the RAID backplane slide right in up top.

After double-checking every mount and connection, I brought the machine back into the office for a test run. On boot-up, I was greeted with a never-before-seen startup screen:

…the machine just hung there.

I’ve been mucking around with Apple hardware since I was about 9 years old, so seeing a new boot-up error screen is both exciting and a bit concerning. Since I had a feeling the hardware was just feeling like a lost kitten in a new home, I went with the easy potential fix and zapped the PRAM. It did the trick. (Though I still don’t know what that error means.)

The finished product not only adds a little bling to an otherwise dated machine, but also pumps a pleasantly cool breeze from the back of the case. There’s still a little finishing work left to do, but overall I’m extremely happy with the outcome — and the confusion it causes for the casual observer.

Phase I complete: The ATX case swap was a success:

The remaining empty shell:

It took awhile, but I finally got a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet! (Though I guess it would be called an “ultramobile” now ;-) The device arrived a couple weeks ago (those who bumped into me at SXSWi might have seen it), and I’ve been slowly trying to incorporate it into my workflow. Fortunately that’s an exciting thing to do given how fun the device is to use.

First thing first though, my 770 was “previously used”, so I did need to update the firmware. Thankfully, this was super easy: “Flash Latest Nokia Image with Mac OS X“.

With the new firmware running, the next step was to install xterm, followed by Python for Maemo. Both of these worked perfectly, and I still get a kick out of seeing a Python prompt on this thing! Of course, working on the command-line isn’t much fun using the on-screen keyboard, and since I wanted to use the 770 to take notes at meetings, I decided to buy a Nokia SU-8W Bluetooth Keyboard. The 770 needs a driver to use the keyboard, but this is also easy enough to install: maemo-bt-plugin. With a physical keyboard, I can now use vim, but the SU-8W will take a little getting used to. The key-layout is tight, and the use of the function key (‘fn’) messes with my touch-typing. Additionally, being hinged in the middle, the keyboard also doesn’t lay in your lap well. Without a table top, you end up having to balance the keyboard on one thigh while seated.

Where the 770 really shines though is in web browsing. Browsing the web on the 770 is good — really, really good. The wifi reception is fantastic, and even modern sites like Google Mail work flawlessly. Furthermore, since I leave the device in stand-by (just closing the cover), it’s one of the quickest browsers to get to when away from the desktop. I can be online with the 770 in about the time it takes for my PowerBook to wake up.

When you’re ready for more things to do with the 770, the Maemo application catalog features dozens of applications which are super easy to install over-the-air. (Maemo-Sudoku helped me through a particularly long lay-over last week.)

One thing I didn’t know about the 770 before getting one is how well it integrates with Nokia phones. When first booting the new firmware, the device asked to pair with my phone (a Nokia N90.) The N90 is now visible when browsing files and can be used to get online over GPRS. I used this feature when posting my pictures from BarCampAustin to flickr. I took the pictures with the N90, copied them over Bluetooth to the 770 using the 770′s File Manager, and posted to flickr using the 770′s browser and wifi connection! In a crunch, I’ve also exploited this feature to move files to my 770 (which doesn’t support OBEX push out-of-the-box.)

Next on the toy-list, I badly want a Bluetooth GPS unit to tie the 770 to… especially after seeing this: “Bluetooth GPS and GPSDrive on the Nokia 770!” I’m leaning toward a Nokia LD-3W (because it uses a Nokia battery, and I have plenty of those); However, that unit doesn’t seem to be shipping yet. (The older LD-1W is available, but it’s a little pricey IMO.)