Old CanoScan WIA Drivers

These are no longer available from Canon and are tricky to find. This package includes drivers for the following Canon CanoScan models:

• N670U
• N676U
• N1240U
• N650U
• N656U
• N1220U
• D646U
• D660U
• D1230U
• D1230UF
• D2400U
• D2400UF

Grab it here: http://www.box.com/s/pvfa4x58ekh274pfo5lh

LG HL-DT-ST GSA-U10N Region Free Firmware

Not a great piece of gear by any means, but it's one of the few slimline ATA DVD multiburners that will fit the Ultrabay on a Thinkpad T61p.

There's no RPC1 firmware available, but I used Media Code Speed Edit's RPC2 auto reset patcher to get around that.

Download the firmware here: http://www.box.net/shared/in5u0yt3gz

All the usual disclaimers apply.

Fresco Logic FL1000 USB 3.0 Host Drivers

Final update, because you can now find drivers here: http://www.station-drivers.com/page/fresco_logic.htm

I've also mirrored the latest package (3.5.4.0) here: http://www.box.com/s/alnz9xpco757po0op0gs

Update: New driver version.
Update: Newer drivers added.
Update: Links freshened.

Not easy to find! These are WHQL certified for Windows 32-bit & 64-bit and much improved over earlier versions. I don't have a changelog for the 3.3 drivers so I'm not sure what's changed, but they're working fine here on Win 7 x64.

Latest: Version 3.3.14.0: http://www.box.net/shared/gplz7qfqrdgpbp3s4y0g
Version 3.0.116.3: http://www.box.net/shared/p8a077qoav
Version 3.0.110.12: http://www.box.net/shared/n752no0524

iTunes 8012 Error Solved

iTunes kept throwing up an 8012 error (some items could not be downloaded) on some items in my queue. After a wild goose chase around the web, and messing around with the list.plist file in C:\Users\USERNAME\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Downloads\ I discovered it was actually related to Privoxy. Temporarily disabling it will solve the problem. Adding '.apple.com' to Privoxy's fragile sites list (under site-specific rules in the default.action file) will fix it permanently.

If you're not running Privoxy, it may be related to other proxies, firewalls or such that you may be running.

Decoding Alesis xR-16 Sample ROMs

I finally managed to get around to extracting those ROMs. The hacky code I wrote is here, and you can download the decoded samples here.

What next? I might get round to writing an encoder.

iPhone Notes Typeface Revisited

2.2 on the left, 3.0 on the right. I don't know how it's possible, but they just made that Marker Felt font even uglier.

TileMaker

I wrote a little Processing sketch which makes simple tiling patterns from a source picture. It's like Repper but not as good. See it here at OpenProcessing if you've got Java installed.

Diffusion-Limited Aggregation

I've been playing around with Diffusion-Limited Aggregation in Processing. I've uploaded the sketches to OpenProcessing.org. You can see a very simple example here, and a more complex one here.

Circuit Bending the Alesis SR-16

The Alesis SR-16 drum machine is a rewarding and easy target for circuit bending. Short different legs on the two chips ringed in blue (sample data ROMs) for some interesting sounds. Stay away from the corner pins - they're voltage supply and such. The science: you're performing a bit-munging across a specific range of the total sample resolution. However, the sample data isn't stored linearly, so it's actually affecting a different effective range according to how far you are through the sample playback.

Stay away from the chip circled in orange: it's a DAC which runs at higher voltages than the rest of the board, so you risk irretrievably damaging your machine if you fool around blindly connecting it up to things. Use a datasheet if you just have to play with it.

There's an excellent page here about bending the SR-16's older brother, the HR-16.

Things I plan to do:

• Write a decoder for the sample ROMs
• Maybe make a sample pack or two and a YouTube vid

3 Ways To Generate A Sierpinski Carpet

Unless you're a maths or programming geek, you probably won't find this terribly interesting. While searching around on my hard disk for something completely unrelated, I came across some code which demonstrates three ways to generate a Sierpinski Carpet. I've uploaded them to OpenProcessing: Pascal's Triangle, Hadamard Matrix & IFS.

I didn't write these algorithms (I'm not clever enough for that) but I did do the adaptation from the original BASIC to Processing.

How To Kill a CCD

An old webcam timelapse video I found amongst the archives. The sun unfortunately wandered into the frame and irreparably damaged the webcam in question. Quite a dramatic effect though!

Automated Motion Timelapse

And here's the second timelapse shot with the N95. It's actually just a test for an automated turntable hacked out of a timer socket. It was supposed to be longer but the phone crashed about halfway through :)

iPhone Tip: Enabling Emoji

Emoji are cute little icons you can use to punctuate your communications. It's only useful to enable them if you communicate with people who also have iPhones, because most other devices will only show the dreaded Unicode squares (or similar).

For whatever reason, Apple have locked them down unless you're a subscriber to Japanese network Softbank. If you've got a JB'd iPhone, it's trivial to unlock them with a simple .plist edit, but if not, there's still a workaround.

1. Go to the App Store and download Spell Number (for free!).
2. Sync, and open the app. Type in 91929394.59.
3. Go Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards > Japanese and enable 'Emoji'.
4. You can remove the app now, if you like.
And that's it. Now you can switch to the Emoji keyboard when texting, emailing, twittering, taking notes etc. and drop in as many little emoticons as you like.

There's various reports on the internet that Apple have forced app developers to remove this easter-egg functionality from their software, and that the workaround has been disabled in 2.2.1, but it worked just fine for me. Also, don't pay for any 'Emoji Enabling' app - they do the same thing behind the scenes as Spell Number. Maybe you could buy one of Spell Number's developer Water Lou's other applications to say thanks?

iPhone Tip: Notes App Typeface

The 'Marker Felt' font used in the iPhone's notes app seems to be almost universally reviled. I don't mind it, but it can be difficult, e.g. trying to read back a long alphanumeric string while typing into a web form or SSH session.

I discovered this by accident while enabling Emoji (post on that coming soon), but you can easily make it display in plain old Helvetica:
1. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards > Japanese and switch on 'QWERTY' or 'Kana'.
2. When in the notes app, switch keyboards (use the little globe symbol) to Japanese insert a character (space will do it).

Your note will magically switch to something much more readable, and stay that way.

Obviously, if your iPhone is JB'd you can probably do this via a one time .plist edit.

iPhone Tip: Push & Battery Life

If you're using Google Sync to push changes to your Calendar and Contacts back and forth from your iPhone to the cloud, you may have noticed your battery life is drastically reduced. I estimate I get about half the usual standby time when I'm roaming around with push switched on. It's not so bad when I'm at home and have a WiFi connection.

This may seem obvious, but if you switch off 'Push' in Settings > Fetch New Data or change Settings > Fetch New Data > Advanced > Your Profile Name to 'Manual', it will still sync, but only when you open Contacts or Calendar.

It's almost like having a fresh new battery!

BONUS: A nice side effect is that GSM buzz is reduced because the phone isn't in constant communication with the big G's servers.

Dell Dimension 9200 / XPS 410 Notes

I've had my Dimension 9200 (aka. XPS 410) for quite some time now; it was an excellent deal from the Dell Outlet store. So far, it's been great, but I've encountered a number of quirks with non-obvious solutions, not all of which are the fault of the machine:

Booting Windows XP install fails with a bluescreen
This is because it doesn't have drivers for the ICH8R controller. There's a handful of solutions:
a) switch off AHCI in the BIOS; this limits your ability to use the FakeRAID, and may negatively affect performance.
b) connect up a floppy drive and make an F6 floppy; despite the computer's almost-legacy-free design, there's a floppy connector on the motherboard.
c) slipstream the drivers into your Windows install CD; a little complicated but worth the hassle.

Attempting Vista install fails with a cryptic error message
When selecting your install target, do you get an unhelpful error along the lines of: 'Windows cannot find a volume which meets its criteria for installation'? What's happened is that Vista has got confused by the presence of removable drives. If you disable the 'USB for Flexbay' option in the BIOS for the duration of the install and unplug any other card readers, everything should go smoothly.

Windows Update won't offer Vista SP1
If you're waiting patiently for Windows Update to present you with the option to install Vista Service Pack 1, and it just won't appear... well, you're in for a long wait. For whatever reason, the Microsoft drivers for the Sigmatel audio device are blacklisted. If you update to the latest Sigmatel drivers from the Dell site, SP1 will magically spring forth.

Video overlay unsmoothed under Vista Non-Aero
When not using Aero, my video playback in apps like VideoLAN and SlingPlayer is horribly blocky when the windows are scaled up, as if it's using nearest-neighbour interpolation. I think this is probably related to the nVidia drivers, but they're still exhibiting the same issue with the latest revision. The only workaround seems to be to use Aero, which is a shame, as I prefer the classic GUI.

Virtual Machines won't work
Are your VMs misbehaving? Something that may help: you need to switch on 'Hardware Virtualization Support' in the BIOS. It's off by default, possibly for security. Be aware that any VMs you have set up may need to be reconfigured once you change this option, depending on your software.

Card Reader won't do SDHC
My machine came with a TEAC CA-200 in the so-called FlexBay. Hidden away on the Dell support site (in the CD/DVD category), there's a firmware update which adds compatibility for a number of flash formats including SDHC. There's also a driver package which adds descriptive names and icons for each slot.

Can't Overclock
Although the BIOS is utterly bereft of any overclocking options, there is another way: Starless has a brilliant guide here. My Q6600 does 2.8GHz, a nice boost from 2.4GHz. I'm sure it would go to 3.0GHz with a voltage boost (which I think can be done with a pinmod) but I'm not ready to abandon my warranty.

I haven't found any tools that work like ClockGen under Linux yet - if you know of any please give me a shout.

Linux / OSX
Nothing to report other than the usual levels of aggravation while trying to get the FakeRAID working. Linux wasn't a massive struggle, but I ended up putting OSX on an external USB disk. As far as drivers go, it's plain sailing, although there's no OSX support for the onboard ethernet. Just drop in a supported PCI ethernet card (I'm using an old 3Com 3C905) and Bob's your uncle.

Happy 808 Day!

In honour of 808 Day, I'll be eating mushrooms as well as dropping phat beatz. This image is 'shopped; 8-shaped mushrooms are hard to find, y'know.

BONUS: Rock out with an 808 right in your web browser with the Hobnox Audiotool. Needs Flash and Java and a quick machine.

Delia Derbyshire Invented IDM

Delia Derbyshire (of Doctor Who theme fame) made this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7512490.stm

It wouldn't sound out of place on any recent so-called IDM album, but; it was a throwaway experiment recorded in the late 1960s. All art truly has been done before.

Here goes...

The first non-test post. I'm back to using Blogger because I don't have the time or inclination to maintain a proper website at the moment. I struggled a bit with the new XML based templating, but it's roughly whipped into shape for now. There'll be more changes once I get into the nitty gritty of it all.