I just did a self-assembly of JTAGulator. This simple and amazing device indeed works and shortens JTAG pinout search from days to seconds. AMAZING! I have some spare devices to sale cheap in EU, if you want one let me know! :-)

JTAGulator is an open source hardware tool, created by Joe Grand / Grand Idea Studio, that assists in identifying OCD connections from test points, vias, or component pads on a target device. All you need is a target device, bunch of tap wires / cables, USB-Mini cable, and serial terminal to operate JTAGulator.

On-chip debug (OCD) interfaces can provide chip-level control of a target device and are a primary vector used by engineers, researchers, and hackers to extract program code or data, modify memory contents, or affect device operation on-the-fly. Depending on the complexity of the target device, manually locating available OCD connections can be a difficult and time consuming task, sometimes requiring physical destruction or modification of the device.

Sometimes you need to perform a network installation (i.e. when no USB or DVD drive is allowed to boot, but you can boot PXE). In case of FreeBSD you can use DNSMASQ to serve the DHCP that will assign the initial client address and configuration along with PXE boot image served over tFTP. At this point you will have bootloader running, so you can serve filesystem over NFS to obtain working environment and/or the installer..

• Create a directory that will hold the target filesystem over network. In my case that was

  /usr/local/tftp/FreeBSD

• Put OS/Installer files inside above directory

  cd /usr/local/tftp/FreeBSD
  wget http://(..)/file.iso
  7z x file.iso

• Edit /etc/exports to export the filesystem over NFS

  /usr/local/tftp/FreeBSD -ro -alldirs -network 192.168.0.0

• Install the dnsmasq

  pkg install dnsmasq

• Setup the /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

  enable-tftp
  tftp-root=/usr/local/tftp/FreeBSD
  
  dhcp-range=192.168.0.50,192.168.0.60,255.255.255.0,1h
  dhcp-boot=boot/pxeboot
  dhcp-option=option:router,
  dhcp-option=option:root-path,/usr/local/tftp/FreeBSD
  

• Restart services

  service nfsd onerestart
  service dnsmasq onerestart

• In case you get bootloader running but troubles with NFS make sure that mountd is running. Also you can see who is using the NFS shares with

  showmount -a

PXE Boot always use initial DHCP/tFTP to fetch configuration and bootloader, so the first stage is similar and should work with other Operating Systems and Bootloaders as well, the rest is up to bootloader itself..

It is my great pleasure to inform you folks that, almost after four years, I did a new release of LibSWD-0.7 [1], a low-level embedded systems access open framework. Special thanks goes to Andrew Parlane of Carallon Ltd [2] for his much appreciated contributions! Well now I feel like I need to invent some nice small device based on ARM Cortex-M0 CPU :-)

[1] https://github.com/cederom/LibSWD
[2] http://www.carallon.com/

If you want to install additional Python [1] modules inside your Blender [2] environment, you can install PIP using this recommended script [3], then use PIP to install all modules that you want. Note Blender’s Python Virtualenv location is /path_to_blender/blender_version/python/bin/python and you need to use this particular interpreter to launch the script.

[1] https://www.python.org/
[2] https://www.blender.org/
[3] https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/

Python 3.6.0 NumPy and SciPy from MacPorts crash on import bug [1].
[1] https://trac.macports.org/ticket/53453

Google have implemented my idea to make Google Books TTS work like an audio player – it can now work in background and being controlled with bluetooth headset – so I can play, pause and rewind paragraphs of the book read by speech synthesizer just as it was music. This is soo fantastic!!

I have been proposing this solution to Amazon to implement in Kindle for Android, but for years they did not listen. I have switched to Kindle application after Amazon bricked my Kindle3 3G reader with a software update (and all other devices worldwide). Now I just wait until Google Books allow to import my Kindle library, and I will never go back to Kindle. Greedy loses twice.

I have recently started the OrangeADE project [1], that is Orange Autonomous Device Evaluation, an online platform to evaluate security level of network equipment and verify against known vulnerabilities. OrangeADE is released as Open-Source under the “new” 3-Clause BSD license. Enjoy the work in progress! :-)

[1] https://github.com/CeDeROM/OrangeADE

You just need to see this awsome Mars Curiosity [1] simuluator [2] made by NASAJPL [3] with Blender3D [4] Blend4Web [5] HTML5 [6] WebGL [7] Free and Open-Source Software :-)

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl
[2] https://eyes.nasa.gov/curiosity
[3] http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
[4] https://www.blender.org
[5] https://www.blend4web.com
[6] https://www.w3.org/TR/html5
[7] https://www.khronos.org/webgl

Blender 3D can work with DualShock4 Playstation4 wireless controller over Bluetooth [1].

[1] http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/78315

Use advanced features of your Synaptics Trackpad on a laptop running FreeBSD [1] with:

• set in /boot/loader.conf:

  hw.psm.synaptics_support="1"

• set in /etc/rc.conf:

  moused_enable="YES"

• set in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

  Section "InputDevice"
      Identifier      "Mouse0"
      Driver          "mouse"
      Option          "Protocol"      "auto"
      Option          "Device"        "/dev/sysmouse"
      Option          "ZAxisMapping"  "4 5 6 7"
  EndSection

If you want to have “MacBook” like two-finger scrolling along with other parameters you can set in /etc/sysctl.conf:

hw.psm.synaptics.min_pressure=16
hw.psm.synaptics.max_pressure=220
hw.psm.synaptics.max_width=10

hw.psm.synaptics.vscroll_hor_area=1300
hw.psm.synaptics.vscroll_ver_area=-600
hw.psm.synaptics.vscroll_min_delta=50
hw.psm.synaptics.vscroll_div_min=100
hw.psm.synaptics.vscroll_div_max=150

hw.psm.synaptics.weight_current=3
hw.psm.synaptics.weight_previous=6
hw.psm.synaptics.weight_previous_na=20
hw.psm.synaptics.weight_len_squared=2000

hw.psm.synaptics.div_min=9
hw.psm.synaptics.div_max=17
hw.psm.synaptics.div_max_na=30
hw.psm.synaptics.div_len=100

hw.psm.synaptics.margin_top=200
hw.psm.synaptics.margin_right=200
hw.psm.synaptics.margin_bottom=200
hw.psm.synaptics.margin_left=200

hw.psm.synaptics.window_min=4
hw.psm.synaptics.window_max=10
hw.psm.synaptics.multiplicator=10000

[1] https://wiki.freebsd.org/SynapticsTouchpad

If you want to use NTFS volumes on FreeBSD [1], you need to use FUSE infrastructure andNTFS-3G [2] port. Syntax of fstab is a bit differen in this case:

/dev/ntfs_partition /mnt/ntfs_mounpoint fuse rw,locale=pl_PL.UTF8,mountprog=/usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g 0 0

Also remember to put fuse_load=”YES” in /boot/loader.conf and install the sysutils/fusefs-ntfs port. Do not use hibernated volumes.

[1] https://www.freebsd.org
[2] https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/fusefs-ntfs

If you happen to get a nice laptop with a powerful graphics card, such as polish HYPERBOOK SL502VR [1], it is highly probable that you will use UEFI boot mode. In that case you need to use SCFB [2] driver instead of VESA. Use the xf86-video-scfb package to get Xorg running.

Hybrid Graphics at first used MUX device that did a LCD connect to a selected video card on boot. Nowadays both cards use common Video Framebuffer [3] to draw over a screen. The simple video card (Intel in my case) is always active, while the more powerful and power consuming video card is started on-demand (nVidia in my case). This however requires a dedicated DMA BUF implementation, which is not yet available on FreeBSD, so none of the cards can see any monitor connected, resulting in “No Screens Found Error” from Xorg.

I have already reported a bug/feature request to nVidia. Also developers of FreeBSD are working on the Hybrid Graphics implementation.

[1] http://sklep.hyperbook.pl/hyperbook-sl502-vr-p651rp6g-gtx-1060-p-25965.html
[2] https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/SCFB
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framebuffer

Google Chromecast is a device that allows you to stream audio-video content over WiFi network from Application to a HDMI enabled display. This works really nice when you want to watch Netflix or show some movies from your mobile device on large screen TV/Projector.

Recently, Google released a new line of Chromecast devices that support audio only and higher resolution displays, renaming Chromecast to Google Home. This rebrand also replaced mobile application for devices management. New application forces user to have working internet connection, use localization, and sign with google account in order to work. There is no way to roll back to old application. Not really cool.

I have found and reported one nasty bug in this new Google Home application (version 1.19.29), that prevents you from discovering and setting up old Chromecast devices after Factory Defaults Reset or WiFi password change (so it can connect to your WiFi again). I only have old device so I am not sure how this affects new devices. You will not be able to discover your Chromecast device over WiFi when Localization Services are disabled and according permission was not granted!! In order to connect to your Chromecast:

• Reinstall or clear application data/cache.
• In startup configuration wizard you must grant access to localization services. If you do not enable localization and allow it to work granting permissions, you will not find your Chromecast later on.
• Search now for a Chromecast device still in setup wizard, you will find it, only if you did previous step correctly.
• Note that when you find a device that way, you can skip sign in with google account.
• If you do not grant localization permissions you will not be able to detect your chromecast device anymore.

I hope this has nothing to do with killing old line of devices with a software update. I also hope Google will fix this issue in next releases and they really don’t force users to give up so many personal information (why do they need GPS/Bluetooth running for a simple WiFi connection otherwise)..

Created a FreeBSD Port for Google Protobuf version 3.1.0 :-)

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=214957

Starting up the Configuration Reference Manual for Ultimaker CURA 3D printing Open-Source software :-)

https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/wiki/Cura-Configuration-Reference-Manual

Why only NEXUS devices are sensible choice for Advanced Android Users and Developers? Because NEXUS device vendors provide source code and device drivers.

This makes is possible to re-compile and re-create any customization of the Android by advanced users and developers. The most popular among them is CyanogenMod based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project).

Why is such customization really necessary? Because Vendors does not keep up with the Android development, their releases are flawed, contains unwanted modifications, quite often development is abandoned just after product release.

I know that Drivers Development is time and money consuming task for Vendors. Still, providing source code for device drivers would make it possible to run alternative and/or customized OS, also prolong device life for second-hand users in poor countries. Vendor sells the device anyway and Users can make fixes and customization. Why this Win-Win scheme is so hard to achieve in reality? Is really enforcing sales with mass garbage so important?