Frank’s corner

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This is just a minor update from my previous CarPC v.2.0 setup, but I decided to document it in order to add further details and photos missing from my original post. The only hardware changes in this new setup are: the removal of the laptop DVD drive, since I never used it all these years. the replacement of the ancient 2.5″ 60Gb IDE HD, with a 2.5″ 250Gb SATA one.

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Before I start, I would like to emphasize that i am not a “hacker”, neither a security expert. I am just another judgmental, pretty-disappointed Cyta subscriber, who enjoys messing around

It hasn’t been long since CYTA received a serious security blow, when all of their subscribers’ DSL Access and Cytanet credentials, including email passwords leaked to the public. Oh wait…actually that has been a while ago, back in 2001! Damn time flies by! :/

Back then the chaos began with the Code Red worm, affecting IIS of Windows NT/2K servers, which allowed attackers to easily gain access to a server and browse around its files. So their server affected by the worm, was the DSL Access authentication portal and all subscribers’ credentials, were stored in its log files! Oh the joy!

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While looking for methods for making an inventory of the Windows/Office  licenses in a 100+ PCs network, I came across Spiceworks. A free inventory and monitoring tool, rapidly developed over the past years.

After using it for the first 10 minutes, I had to stop because I was salivating on my keyboard, out of IT-happiness

Spiceworks is the ultimate tool for any system administrator! It offers a huge range of useful features to help you monitor and manage your systems in any size of network, enabling you to run a proper IT helpdesk.

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A long time ago (Windows 95 long time ago), I attempted experimenting with Linux (Red Hat), with no particular success.

After going through an odyssey to install, I finally managed to boot Red Hat… but my experience ended there more or less. My crappy modem (MWave 28.8K, ISA… good times!  ) wouldn’t work under Linux, so I gave up.

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My dear old friend Yianna turned… 24 ( ) lately. Knowing that she enjoys uniqueness…I decided to make something special for her.

Since she has a thing for the symbol  ॐ  (wikipedia’s explanation wasn’t very insightful on this matter I can say), I focused my design around it.

Basic parts/tools of the whole design were:

• small plastic project box
• semi-transparent perspex
• the obvious electronic parts blue LEDs/switch/battery holder
• patience
• black glossy paint
• black paper
• etc

Hope she likes it

HAPPY BDAY YIAN!

I finally got some days off work, so I decided to go through my messy room (aka chaos, lab, storage place, etc) and put some order.

So far it’s been very tiring and very time consuming, but very entertaining… thus I decided to write a quick post to show my findings.

It feels so great when it’s time to upgrade your PC, and you put away that old piece of hardware in order to install your new toy. But it’s even greater, when 3…5…10+ years later, you come across that old hardware. It brings back memories, as well as questions like “WTF???”.

Since I haven’t posted much in my blog lately, I felt like sharing this little experience

My first interesting finding, was a 3  button Genius mouse. As you can see from the pictures, it advertises an astonishing 200dpi resolution, has a DB-25 RS232 interface, and requires no pad! WOW!

It looks like new, and I found it boxed, maybe I can throw it on ebay?

Most probably it was a late upgrade to my 8086 PC, and my new 286 PC didn’t have a DB-25 type of RS232, so it remained boxed and stored

Space wasting:    [********************]
Money wasting:  [********************]

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It’s been a year already since I purchased my beloved Canon EOS 1000D which despite being an entry level model, it never stopped to amaze me.

As I expected when purchasing back then, it’s hard indeed to carry around with you all the time, thus I kept my good old Fuji F30 compact camera. But it’s so awesome how easily you can take great shots with the 1000D (and any other SLR camera I guess), that I’m trying to have it with me whenever possible. At one point I even found my self carrying it around at the beach,  or even on a roof top while raining, risking getting it wet, but the result was totally worth it!

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A couple of years ago, driver’s side rear view mirror, started giving me trouble. When I was trying to close/open the mirrors, it was very loud and wasn’t moving smoothly.

Several days later, the mechanism totally failed, causing the mirror to indefinitely trying to open/close with loud noise. Back then I thought it was just my luck, so took the mirror apart and quickly fixed it.

Unfortunately today, I had exactly the same issue with the passenger’s side mirror, proving that this is a typical problem with Starlet’s electrically folding mirrors’ mechanism.

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Hi, I’m Frank and I’ve been gaming free for 10 years.

It’s been a long time since I was into gaming. Back then I had a Sega Saturn (and still have it) and at some point later I purchased a Sega Dreamcast, just because I found it for $50, and it could play “free” downloaded games.

The latest addition to my consoles “collection”, was the original Xbox, which after it was chipped, it’s been serving me as a network enabled multimedia center.

I can’t be really bothered playing games anymore, but ever since I saw the Nintendo Wii, I fell in love! It has many nice little games which do not require tons of gameplay hours to learn, are truly interactive and original! This is a gadget made for me. So lately I made myself a present

Most people already know what the Nintendo Wii is all about, there is no need to go into further details. If you are not familiar with the Wii, have a look at this random youtube video review I picked. There are lots more if you search youtube.

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Due to the new CarPC installation (CarPC V.2), some changes had to be made regarding the audio system. I didn’t want to totally replace my humble Kenwood MP3 player with the CarPC itself, just in case I face any problems with the CarPC, to have a backup plan.

But I had no extra DIN slots available for this. So instead of removing it, I simply relocated it to… the floor, behind the dashboard, between the passenger’s and driver’s feet

This made all controls unusable though. So I ordered Kenwood’s “wired” remote control. I’m saying “wired”, because this controller is just an infrared LED attached on a wire, terminating on a small remote control.

When it arrived though, I was very disappointed to discover that the wire was approximately 20cm long only! How can that be of any use???

But anyway, the wired remote contained no high tech electronics, so I simply used a CAT5 network cable to extend it by around 1m. I installed the remote control on the dashboard infront of me, under the turbo timer, and the infrared LED right on top of the Kenwood radio. Everything worked like a charm!

Even before purchasing my Glanza, I had already started looking for a turbo timer. This is a MUST item for every turbo-charged vehicle (if you want your turbo to live longer).

Most of the turbo times I came across, had a similar look. Several buttons, a display and a big-ish box. After some research, I found a nice, small (pen style) turbo timer, with great control interface (joystick), made by A’pexi.

It can be easily preset, disabled, or set to detect the driving style/duration and automatically set the cool down period of the car before it switches it off.

[UPDATE 20/09/08]: after several years of flawless operation, lately my turbo timer started acting weirdly. It wouldn’t always turn on, and when it did, sometimes it was just for seconds. Today I checked all the wiring, but that wasn’t the case. Then I started re-flowing the whole board… but still nothing

After a long troubleshooting day, I discovered that the problem was with the turbo timer’s relay %#$%#$%@ :@

The relay is a Fujitsu 512ND12-W, rated to a minimum 200.000 (YEAH RIGHT!!!). Unfortunately the specific relay is nowhere to be found on eBay. I was able to locate many electronic component sites selling these relays, but they all had a $200+ minimum order restriction.

While googling for a replacement relay, I came across a very interesting article regarding counterfeit Apexi turbo timers. Fortunately mine is the original…but yet faulty! :/

[UPDATE 21/09/08]: who said that violence is not a solution to anything? After some brute force against the relay, the problem seems to be fixed so far.

Lesson of the day… if you have a faulty relay, simply beat the crap out of it

I’ve been using my CarPC without any particular problems for a couple of years now, but eventually I decided to go for an upgrade.

The main reason which led me into this decision, are the occasional slow downs, when simultaneously using GPS navigation and playing multimedia files, due to the slow 1GHz VIA C3 processor.

I will take advantage of this upgrade, to make plenty more changes to the whole setup. What will change in the new version of my carPC project are:

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I’ve always considered my foglights to be one of the least useful parts of my car… as whenever I was in a situation where I needed that extra light, the 35W H3C halogen bulbs failed me. The underpowered halogen bulbs were unable light my way.

Also, in foggy situations, my Xenon headlights are not of much use, due to their high color temperature (6000K). The higher the color temperature is, light becomes whiter (or more blue etc), but less penetrative.

So I made my self a humble birthday present (as I’m saving for the Lexus ). I ordered a 55W H3 3000K (Golden) Xenon kit.

The H3 bulb is almost direct replacement of the H3C ones. If you try a bit, you can fit them in place, or even better, you can make some more permanent changes on it and make it fit perfectly. This involves a small risk though as the output light pattern might be a bit difference though, due to the H3 bulb being longer… but who cares

It took me a while to properly communicate with the Chinese seller. I almost learnt Chinese on the way, but the correct item eventually arrived!

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Some mods I might consider/attempt in the near future are:

• a Limited Slip Differential (LSD)
• a 6-speed gearbox (from a Corolla G6)…if I ever find one!
• a 55W HID foglights kit (Installed – 29/08/2008)
• a front spoiler lip (already purchased) (Abandoned – Lip won’t fit correctly )
• Aluminium door sills (already purchased) (Installed - 10/05/2008)
• a custom made clear LEDs brake light for the roof spoiler (already in the building process)
• Revise/Improve the CarPC project (CarPC v.2.0 Completed – 08/09/08)

Wish list:

• a Lexus IS250 (or IS350 if I’m dreaming…or IS-F if the dream is too good)
• a super-charger for it, to begin with…

All kind of donations are accepted, including paypal, cash, etc

I’ve been driving around Protaras yesterday and since my CarPC is being in the process of upgrade, I found my phone’s GPS navigation pretty handy a couple of times. It successfully guided through shortcuts, on my way home, beating Protaras’ awful afternoon traffic.

Unfortunately my Glanza, unlike my dad’s 2006 Toyota Yaris RS, has very limited spaces to store/place your phone. So today I decided to install a mobile phone holder in my car. The holder I already had available, was designed to clip on the air vents (ouch), or stick with 3M tape on the dash. Neither of the originally offered choices was wise, and using a glass-suction type phone holder was out of the question. They look really ugly.

By breaking off a small part of the air vents’ clip and loosing up a bit the screws of the dash, I was able to install the holder underneath the mirrors’ controls. After tightening the screws, the holder stayed in place, and it’s definitely not going anywhere.

This is more like a recommendation to anyone having a Starlet/Glanza, rather than a real mod

Parking sensors can sometimes be a useful thing to have (thank god I haven’t verified this theory yet), but I’m not a big fan of the idea of drilling my rear bumper, to fit 2-4 sensors which most of the time their color does not even match the bumper’s color, in order to have something beeping in my ears when reversing

But this wasn’t the case the kit I purchased some time ago. Instead of the traditional ultrasonic sensors, this kit uses an antenna to pick electromagnetic reflections behind the car, and sense any obstacles. The antenna is a simple metallic strip stack at the inside of the bumper, so no drilling takes place, and can be removed at any time easily.

The kit included a film antenna, a small black box (the control unit) and a tweeter-sized speaker for the annoying beeping.

I finally had the chance to install the kit after having it sitting in my room for some time now… and you know what? It works!!! I never expected it to work so accurately!!! I did expect it to perform normally with highly electromagnetic absorbing obstacles (car, human body, metallic objects, etc), but I never thought it would be able to detect a brick wall, a bag of clothes, etc.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the installed antenna, but there isn’t anything interesting or complicated there. It’s just a strip placed at the bumper’s inside, from one end to the other.

The control unit of the parking sensors, is powered by the the reverse light indicators. Therefore, the kit is activated only when I’m reversing… as it should anyway.

Ebay keeps reminding me that I NEED to buy stuff. Thus I bought these rare aluminium Toyota door sills as soon as it was listed

My sweet new purchase, arrived to my doorstep from Japan in only 2 days!!! As soon as I received them, I started looking a set of high quality Glanza stickers, to replace the original “Starlet” logo, but unfortunately I didn’t have any luck finding such a thing on eBay. Also I couldn’t find online any good quality “Glanza” logo graphic, to have it locally printed and cut

So today, I got fed up having the door sills sitting in my room, so I decided to install them. The installation procedure was straight forward. The door sills are placed under the lower original protective plastic of the doors. I used some extra powerful double face, rated to hold 50Kg in the air. I hope I will never have to remove them

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One thing I always missing from my car, was opening the glove box compartment in a dark night, and be able find what you are actually looking for (rather to the traditional blind trial & error method)

All it took to fulfill my dream (duh), was four 10mm LEDs (supposed to output 12-15 lumens), a microswitch, some wires and a resistor.

After putting those together into a series circuit, and connecting it through the switch to switched 12V (when ignition ON), everything was ready. The switch was placed at the glove box’s sides, where it perfectly fitted in a plastic’s slot. When the glove box is closed, the LEDs switch off… as it should.

Also in the picture above, shows the Holux GPS receiver used for satellite navigation in combination with the CarPC. The receiver has connected on it an external antenna for improved reception and a USB cable for charging. It’s placed in the glove box’s wall with velcro, making it easily removable in case I need to use it on my cell phone or something.

[UPDATE: 10/07/08]

I decided to improve this mod, so I replaced the 4 10mm white LEDs, with an aluminium board with 24 surface mounted white LEDs. It gives a more solid light result, rather than 4 bright spots

At some point I decided to replace the traditional roof light bulb with several LEDs. No apparent reason, I was just feeling creative

I used 5x 5mm white LEDs on a plastic ring with an appropriate resistor. The resulting light intensity was a bit improved but nothing special.

I believe that in the near future I will be revising this mod. Plenty more LEDs can fit in the provided space. Also the new types of LEDs are much brighter

[UPDATE: 10/07/08]

This mod was one of the first mods to ever do on my Glanza, so I decided that it was time for an upgrade

I purchased some time ago a couple of small aluminium boards with 8 surface mounted LEDs each, and eventually yesterday, I found some free time to replace this ancient mod.

When I originally made this mod, I short circuited the 12V with the ground (screw). When the short circuits occurred, the rooflight’s switch was set to turn on when doors are opened. As a result, no fuse was burnt, but my roof light wouldn’t turn on when doors were opened.

I asked several electricians’ opinion, but nobody seemed to know what could be the problem. I kept getting irrelevant answers. After a looooong research, I discovered that this caused 2 copper lines of the circuitry at the back of my dials to melt!!! I corrected this problem by soldering some wires and closing the melted copper gap, and finally! I had light when I opened my doors!

This time, I was more “original”. I short circuited the 12V with the ground (screw again), but this time the rooflight’s switch was set to be always turned on. Therefore this time I burnt something else!

I did the usual checks, but all the fuses (at the drivers’ leg space), were fine and the back of the dials had no melted copper lines. After a long troubleshooting procedure I and my friend Paris went through, the problem was located at a burnt fuse, in the relays’ box at the engine bay!

I had no idea Starlets have fuses in there. I thought it was just relays! I still can’t believe that I have wasted so much precious time on this thing!!!

Anyway, at least it worked, and now I know all the possible scenarios if something similar goes wrong next time