It’s not the end of the world, it’s just a bit of fun, but I was hoping to see at least one of the three TBs I bought travel to somewhere interesting. I really used to enjoy geocaching, but since its rise in popularity it’s less and less fun. More caches keep popping up in more and more uninspiring locations, more and more people try it, find a handful of caches then give up. I just wish those people wouldn’t keep taking TBs and losing them or keeping them because they can’t be bothered with it any more.

I was slightly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to download the data it collects because Garmin doesn’t provide any software for Linux clients, but in the end it was really easy. It uses an ANT+ USB device to wirelessly connect to the watch and I’m using python-ant-downloader to fetch the data. It was a quick and easy install following the instructions on the GitHub page and with a single call to ant-downloader it downloads the data from the watch and (if you’ve configured it) uploads it to Garmin Connect for analysis.

I wasn’t sure about using Garmin Connect at first, but I’ve been really impressed with the interface and level of detail, so I’ll be sticking with it for the time being. I’m also trying out SportsTracker but I’m not sure that I’ll continue with that. I am however uploading basic data to my website; at the moment I’ve only done one run with the HRM, but I’ll be wearing it when cycling and walking to collect data on those activities too.

It’s not just about the tech though! I want to monitor and improve my fitness and a heart rate monitor is a great help for that… and if it gives me more data to collect and geek out over then that’s a wonderful bonus too

Now I just need to move away from the PC and start working up a sweat!

Some background information first; I’m running Debian 6 (AMD64) and the HD PVR I bought is the “Gaming Edition”, which I believe is the same as the normal one, just with a multi-console component cable included… and different colour lights.

First, I installed the latest Video 4 Linux drivers with:

git clone git://linuxtv.org/media_build.git
cd media_build
./build
make install


The build part complained about missing lsdiff and Proc::ProcessTable, so I installed patchutils and libproc-processtable-perl and then ran it again successfully. I then rebooted and connected up the PVR, checked dmesg to find out which video device number it had been assigned and then tested with

cat /dev/video1 > test.ts

This created a video file that could be viewed in Movie Player, but it won’t work in VLC (which is my preferred player) for some reason – I’d get audio but no video. However, the quality of the video was somewhat less than stellar; the colours were washed out and there was no detail in the whites. I installed and tested it on a Windows PC with the supplied drivers and software to confirm that the device was working OK (it was), then set about trying to find out how to change the picture settings.

I installed v4l2-ctl and ran it with the –all switch to gather information about the PVR and found that it had a recent firmware version, I can’t recall the version number, but it was from 19/10/2011. I then found this page, dated 20/10/2011, which is a patch for setting the min/max/default values for the hdpvr picture controls. I applied it, rebuilt and reinstalled the hdpvr driver, rebooted and… success! Picture quality is now much closer to the test video I’d captured on Windows and adequate for my needs.

So, the steps taken were:

Install lsdiff and Proc::ProcessTable (this step not required if you already have them installed):
sudo apt-get install patchutils
sudo apt-get install libproc-processtable-perl

Download the Video 4 Linux drivers (includes the hdpvr module required for the Hauppauge):
git clone git://linuxtv.org/media_build.git

Apply the patch (I did this manually as it was only a few lines and I wanted to see exactly what settings were changing, but you could use the patch command.)

Build and install the V4L drivers:
cd media_build
./build
make install


Reboot, connect PVR, run dmesg to find the video device id assigned, then test with:
cat /dev/video1 > test.ts (change /dev/video1 to whatever device id was assigned, i.e. /dev/video0, /dev/video2, etc.)

Those are the steps I took, but it was hard work to find all the information and I don’t doubt that you’ll run in to problems that I didn’t. I probably won’t have all the answers, but feel free to ask if you need any clarification on this.

Now I just need to find some software for capturing the video that’s a little more refined than cat and then to capture some video!

I used both the official instructions as well as those found here, which include useful screenshots.

I won’t go through the process I took; I pretty much followed George Smart’s instructions, with the only exception that I *did* flash the radio, though I haven’t checked whether the Bluetooth works yet, as it’s not something I often use. The only problems I had were with the Market app; the first time I tried to download apps from the market, I would get the ‘Downloading’ progress bar, but it wouldn’t download anything. I did some research and it seems that the solution is to go through the flashing process again, which I did (it only took a minute or two to complete) but when I tried again all apps from the market would fail to download “due to an error”. Not very helpful. This time, rather than flashing it again, I deleted my Google account from the phone, re-added it and then the market and everything else worked fine.

The point of this post is that today I learned that Dennis Ritchie has passed away and, like a lot of people who knew of him and his work, I was saddened to hear the news. Not only did he create the C programming language, but he was also co-creator of the Unix operating system, without which I wouldn’t have the Linux operating system I’m using to write this blog entry, or the web server which hosts my blog and website. Ritchie’s contribution to the world of technology was huge, yet there is little to no mention of his passing outside of the technical news sites. I guess because he was a quiet and private man (from what I gather) and you need to be the head of a “cool” company like Apple to get the headlines when you die.

Anyway, thanks for everything you did for tech, Dennis and may you rest in peace.

Dennis Ritchie: the giant whose shoulders we stand on.

It was a pleasant walk, but I only managed to find 4 of the 5 caches. I release my ‘Pedro the Lion’ travel bug into one of them, so it will be interesting to see if it lasts any longer than my previous travel bugs – its progress can be checked on this page (may require geocaching.com membership to view).

Then yesterday I picked up another cache on a 9 mile walk to climb Tal y Fan, and this is what geocaching is about for me. A nice long walk in (what felt like) remote countryside to collect a cache, but I also bagged a Marilyn in the process and enjoyed some spectacular views. There were a couple of other caches just off the route, but they seemed to be in areas relatively busy with people (probably cachers picking up the easy ones) so I left them for another time.

The route for the walk can be found here and my Marilyn bagging progress can be found here.

First a little background information. If you don’t know what geocaching is, it’s a kind of treasure hunt using GPS devices… but with no treasure! Geocachers hide containers of different sizes in locations across the globe, they then record the co-ordinates on their GPS and publish them and other information on the web, most often at www.geocaching.com. Other geocachers then download the co-ordinates to their GPS device and use it to locate the cache, or more usually to get them in the general vicinity of the cache at which point the search really begins. A geocache will contain a log book and possibly some low-value items such as keyrings, small toys, etc. which can be swapped for similar items. The log book is signed and a note is added to the website to record that you’ve found the cache. A cache may also contain travel bugs, which are items that have a tag attached that has a unique ID code printed on it – the idea of a travel bug is that when you find one you move it on and place it in another cache and its route is recorded on the website. There are various types of cache; some are a straightforward container hidden at the published co-ordinates, some are multi-stage caches which require you to collect further co-ordinates from a small container at the published co-ordinates in order to find the actual cache. Other caches are like puzzles, where you have to collect information, perhaps from a sign or information board at the published co-ordinates, to calculate the actual location of the cache.

I became a member of geocaching.com in March 2007 and have been a premium member since about 2008. A premium account means you can create “pocket queries” which allow you to download details for several (or even several hundred) caches at once, plus many other little benefits that don’t come with a free account. I find geocaching is a great way for creating new walking routes, by selecting a number of caches in an area and working out how to connect them together via footpaths, etc. to search for them all.

There seems to be a lot of cachers who are only interested in the numbers, i.e. how many caches they can find and log, and that’s fine, but for me I’ll always prefer a good day’s walk to find one cache on a remote mountain summit than spending a day driving around collecting 50 “drive-by” caches. And this, I think, is how my interest in geocaching began to wain – there are hundreds and hundreds of small caches all over the place in our towns and villages, but the good ones seem fewer and farther between. There are many times I’ve had a cache on my list while out for a walk and not even bothered to begin looking for it due to its location – for example, one which was hidden in the middle of the tiny village of Maeshafn, completely overlooked by houses all round. There is one less than a mile from my house, but it’s just been hidden at the end of a minor road, at its junction with the main road – firstly, what’s the point in putting a cache there? Is there anything of interest there to draw you in? Nope. Then the fact that it’s on the main road means you are going to be seen, no matter what time of day you go there – seen and considered to be acting suspiciously. Within a radius of about 2 miles from my house there are over 2 dozen caches, only one of which I have logged as found, the others I have little interest in seeking, particularly the one I have already mentioned and one which is on an industrial estate! Most of the logs for that cache express the same thought that it’s an odd location for a cache.

So I’d pretty much given up on finding any decent caches locally, but I think there are a few if you can sort them from the chaff of the pointless micro caches. And if not, then I’ll venture further afield to find a worthy target. I’d also hoped that there might be some new worthwhile caches on Garmin’s opencaching.com but about a year after it was launched there still isn’t a single listed cache in north Wales.

I have a travel bug tag left over from my previous TB purchases, so I’ve activated that and will find a worthy cache to drop it in to start its journey and perhaps that will restore some interest for me as well. I just hope it does better than my previous two TBs – one disappeared for several months before turning up in someone’s bag; they then dropped it off somewhere but couldn’t remember where, or lost it again or something. Either way it’s been MIA for over a year now. The other one travelled slightly further; it made it to the Netherlands and visited several caches there before the cache it was in was stolen (or “muggled”) and the TB with it. That was a shame, because it was a USB memory stick which was collecting photos and local information from the caches it visited, which would have been interesting to see (I had requested that finders backup the content from time to time and help the TB back to the UK when it was filled up).

I’ve set up my pocket queries again and am planning some cache hunting for next week, so hopefully I’ll be able to reignite my interest in this fun passtime. I’ll try and blog about geocaching some more and will update on my travel bug once it’s been released into the wild. If you want to check out my geocache finds I have a map here and my profile on geocaching.com is PedroTheLion.

I’ve been wanting to get back in to programming recently, after not having done much for a few years (aside from some PHP coding on here and other sites) and I wanted to find an open source project that I could get involved with. I wanted a project that I find useful, as well as interesting, and I’ve decided upon Viking, which is a “GPS data editor and analyzer” that I’ve used for a while. At the moment I’m not involved with the project in any official capacity, I’m just studying the code and coming up with ideas for additional features, etc., and testing them out on my machine.

I’ve used Viking for editing the GPS tracks, images and stats used in my walking routes and I’ve just added a few more and linked to them from my walking diary.

I’m hoping to make a couple of trips to the lakes in 2011 and would love to head back to Scotland too, so hopefully I’ll be able to tick a few of these off.

The other thing that lets it down is that very few people are actively developing apps for WebOS, which is a shame because I actually quite like it as an OS, it’s mainly the hardware that is the problem. I’ve lost count of the number of services that offer mobile apps for iPhone and Android and nothing else, i.e. not for WebOS. There are some good apps in the catalog, but having now moved over to Android I’m blown away by the greater quality as well as quantity of apps available. I also haven’t had any problems with speed or unresponsiveness from the Desire so far. I’ll post another entry soon with more thoughts on Android and some apps I’ve found useful and/or impressive.