Running Your Android Phone/Tablet on a virtual machine January 5, 2013
Posted by GuySoft in Android, diy, Hamakor, linux, open source, Uncategorized.Tags: android, howto, open source, titanum, virtualbox
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Android VM on Virtualbox
Hey all,
My phone has died, and was sent to repair. And since I have a complete backup of it, as explained in my last post, I thought I might try and emulate it on my laptop.
So in this post I’ll explain how to do just that. And one the side effects is that I can now use whatsapp on my PC!
What you will need
- A backup of your phone that was done with Titanium Backup – Follow my previous post on how to do that. Note that for Titanium Backup to run you need to root your phone.
- A computer that is running virtual box and virtualbox-fuse – I will show how to do this in Linux, but windows and Mac can do this too.
- A copy of AndoVM – This is the reason we can do this, since android by default does not come with an Ethernet drivers and AndroVM is compiled and distributed to run on virtualbox out of the box (pun intended).
Automatic Nightly Backups for Your Android Device to Your Computer November 1, 2012
Posted by GuySoft in Android, diy, linux, open source, Uncategorized, wifi, wireless.Tags: android, backup, linux, rsync, ssh, titanum backup
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Android backup will keep you safe
Friends keep coming up to me and complaining that they had to wipe all their phone because of some attempt to do something.
However, if you give me a brand-new phone and throw mine out of a high-building window, I won’t stop you, because I have a copy of my phone at home, from that same morning, and I don’t even have to think about it.
Want to feel free again? Not scared that this small thing you carry in your pocket with all your life gets ruined? Well, here is how you do it:
Things you will need
- A computer running Linux you can ssh to with Rsync installed, or windows running cygwin with rsync and ssh installed.
- Your device needs to be rooted – I am afraid thats a requirement for Titanium backup and all programs that back up app data
- Titanium backup – You can use the free version for backing up, but for a single-click restore you will need to pay (I bought it and recommended you do even if its the only thing you ever buy on the play store)
- rsync backup for Android – This will back up all your photos and data that isn’t part of your apps, if you don’t root but this is all you want to back up, this post might help you too!
- Llama – lets you set location profiles
SvxlinkWrapper – Wrapper for SvxLink to provide additional functionally such as QSO logging and auto-connect May 17, 2012
Posted by GuySoft in Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, programming, python.Tags: echolink, ham radio, open source, python, svxlink
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Hey all,
A short post to announce a small piece of software I released today on github for the ham radio people.
I give you SvxlinkWrapper, this wrapper sits on top of Svxlink‘s stdout and stdin and processes it with python. Making it easy to add more advance features to Svxlinik. Since Svxlink is written in C++ and takes a while to compile, this wrapper really speeds up development. Furthermore, it uses straight.plugin making its simple to write more modules by extending SvxlinkwrapperModule and placing it in the modules folder.
Currently the to modules that SvxlinkWrapper has are for auto-connect to Echolink nodes on startup and another for a QSO logger for Echolink connections. There is also a module that should let you send commands over the Echolink chat, if you extend it. This lets me open and close repeater connections directly from the Echolink chat box.
Thats it for today, now that I have more free time, I hope to publish more things, 73
Cheap USB interface to connect Ham radios and other devices to the PC October 14, 2011
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, diy, Electronics, Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, wireless.Tags: diy, Electronics, hacking, ham radio, open electroncs, open source
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Ham radio PC interface
Hi all,
As promised in my last post, I have finally finished designing and building a cheap interface to connect ham radios or any other audio device that does not share audio common ground to a PC, including a PTT interface. Price should be around $17 or 60 NIS. The control is done using a USB interface, so unlike most ham radio hardware that uses serial connections, this one is plug and play in modern PCs. The neat thing is that it uses them same commands as a RigBlaster. So this interface works out of the box with common ham radio programs like Echolink and Svxlink. The interface should also work with soundmodem which can be used for X.25 packet digital communications, without any extra hardware (I am still trying to get this to work). This interface could also be used to connect to other devices that don’t share a common ground. For example like phone lines.
Parts you will need
- TTL USB Serial interface – The main part is a simple CP2102 $4 controller that can be percussed from ebay. It simulates a serial device, meaning you can still work with older pieces of software with it. Note though you need to solder a cable from the RTS pin on the board, because normally they don’t come with a pre-made pin.
- Audio line isolation transformer – This can be easily salvaged from any old dial-up modem. That’s how I get mine, it seems to be much easier to get them off old modems than finding them in electronics shops, plus they are so easily identifiable (just make sure not to break the contacts when you take them out, happened to me twice). If you can’t find any old dial-up modems you can get it from ebay. (more…)
Echolink Node Native on Linux with Svxlink, and a Cheap PTT Hardware Interface August 8, 2011
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, diy, Electronics, Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, programming, wireless.Tags: bumbleb, debian, diy, hacking, ham radio, howto, open source, radio, svxlink, ubuntu
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The Jerusalem Echolink Node (4Z7GAI-R)
I recently got my amateur HAM Radio license from the Israel ministry of communication. My call sign is 4Z7GAI.
I have been working on getting an Echolink node running on the Jerusalem repeater using Linux. Echolink is a closed proprietary software that lets you connect ham radios to one another and key them across the Internet. Luckily someone wrote a FOSS program called Svxlink, which lets you connect to the Echolink network on Linux., A remote radio control with an echolink server, svxlink-server and an Echolink graphical client, Qtel. I am going to explain in this post how to get svxlink compiled and working (compiling is the hard part). I will also giving out here an Ubuntu package for the lazy ones among you.
I will also add a small section on the physical connection to the radio, an old Icom IC-02AT from the 80s (around my age). (more…)
TEDding from the car – gPodder video Plugin for Rockbox April 7, 2011
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, diy, Electronics, ipod, ITU, linux, open source, podcast, programming, python.Tags: car, diy, ffmpeg, gpodder, mp4, mpeg, open source, python, rockbox, TED, video
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TEDing from the car
Hey all,
After a few weeks of bouncing emails with Thomas Perl I am happy to announce that we have a working plugin for his wonderful podcast application called gPodder. With this plugin installed, any mp4 video podcast that is downloaded with gPodder is automatically converted to a format playable by rockbox MPEG player plugin. Effectively meaning seamless sync of video podcasts to any rockbox enabled device. I am specifically using the Sansa fuze player, but just changing the screen resolution at the top of the plugin should make it work with any other rockbox device, and with the right screen size. The final product for me of all this technical stuff is that I can listen to TED lectures in the car. Or using the verb was coined by my friend Uzair “TEDding” from my car.
How to Install
- First you should have gPodder installed (available also as “apt-get install gpodder” or any other distribution install equivalent).
- Second you will need these packages installed too:
apt-get install python-kaa-metadata ffmpeg python-dbus
- Now all that is left is to copy this script to
mkdir -p ~/.config/gpodder/hooks/ cp rockbox_mp4_convert.py ~/.config/gpodder/hooks/
- If your are using a different player from the Sansa Fuse, modify the first lines to your screen resolution:
DEFAULT_DEVICE_WIDTH = 224.0 DEFAULT_DEVICE_HEIGHT = 176.0
make sure to include the .0 at the end.
- Thats it! Now each time video is download, for example from the TEDTalks Video Podcast it would be converted on arrival, and relinked as the file to be synced.
As usual, I would love to hear feedback from users and suggestions.
Build your own Free SMS to Twitter gateway with open source tools and cheap hardware March 27, 2011
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, diy, Electronics, Hamakor, IGF, ITU, linux, open source, programming, python.Tags: cellphones, gammu, internet, linux, open source, python, release, sms, twitter
17 comments
SMS Twitter Gateway logo
Hey all,
I am releasing here set of instructions and source that will enable anyone to set up a phone number, that if you SMS it, will post your massage on to your own twitter account. This service is called “Twiter SMS Gate”. The service handles multiple users, and should be easily modified to support other services like statusnet (and with a bit more code maybe even other social networks). The SMS hardware required is any cheap cellphone that can work with gammu-smsd (mine is a fake Nokia from India). Twiter SMS Gate also lets users easily register to it with their own cellphone.
I hope that people that like this idea would start hosting more SMS gates, as we create a wide network of those around the world. SMS Twitter Gate-IL , The Israeli Gate, has been running for a few weeks now and even got covered in the local media here.
The source is written in Python, which includes the phone hardware hooks, webserver, twitter client and database access.
Here is the cellphone used to run my server, just to show you how simple it is to do this, no super-expensive hardware required! (server is also my personal Linux-running PC:
Fake Nokia Cellphone acting as a dedicated SMS server
- Source is available here on GitHub, along with basic instructions on how to set it up.
- Working example of an SMS Twitter Gate in Israel
- List of working gates (one at the time of writing this)
If you have any kind of difficulty setting this up, please give me feedback, so we can make it as easy as possible.
Using CHDK to photograph blackboards in University Courses August 5, 2010
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, diy, Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, programming, python.Tags: chdk, diy, hacking, open source, programming, python, university
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CHDK used in university for capturing blackboards
Hi all,
During last semester I developed a set of scripts that lets me photograph pictures of the blackboards during my university courses, categorize them while I am taking them and automatically generate PDF document for each course week. Because physics equations are not the simplest things to input in to a laptop in realtime, I have developed the following method. I am writing the post because I have a feeling this tool could help people in many ways, since it did change how I study in lectures.
You can see my blackboard photographs here (and here is a simple pdf example, if you get lost in the Hebrew).
How it works in a nutshell
The work flow - photograph, store, generate pdfs
During the lesson I take the photographs of the blackboard with a script I wrote for CHDK. In the script you set the course and week of the semester and this is stored per-picture on the SD card.
(more…)
Bumble-B and an ADC with OpenGL make an oscilloscope February 22, 2010
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, diy, Electronics, Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, programming, python.Tags: bumbleb, diy, Electronics, linux, open source, OpenGL, programming, python
2 comments
Hi all,
During my small semester break I managed to connect my Bumble-b chip to an analog-digital converter (ADC).
With this I can read voltage changes and send the information to the computer to plot live.
Here is a demonstration video:
How its all connected
Pidgin and X-chat plugins to execute a command on new messages February 14, 2010
Posted by GuySoft in Crictor, Hamakor, ITU, linux, open source, programming, python.Tags: open source, pidgin, programming, python, source code, x-chat
26 comments
Hi all,
A while ago, when I coded message alert plugins for pidgin and X-chat so each time I get a new message my bumble-b LED display would flash, so I thought I might release the code here for people to use.
Both plugins will execute a command of your choice when receiving a new message.
Thanks to Simo Mattila who wrote the base code for the pidgin plugin 
- Source code for the pidgin plugin
- You will have to follow the README file and compile the plugin. Then place the created .so file in ~/.purple/plugins/ .
- In the plugin menu there would be a configuration window to set the command.
- Source code for the X-chat plugin
- You will have to set the command inside the python file. Then copy it to ~/.xchat2/
- The X-chat plugin also is able to return the name of the user that sent the message.
Here is a video of the X-chat plugin in action:
I hope to find more time to posts the things I am doing, but as usual, university takes up all my time. Stay tuned
