lesault

LP-E6 Charging Problem and solution

 Creative Stuff, Photography, Techie Stuff  No Responses »
May 192012
 

This morning, I put my LP-E6 battery for my Canon EOS 7D camera on to charge in the standard LC-E6E charger, but it did not charge at all.

The charger has a single LED which shows the charging state of the battery. While charging, the LED is orange – it flashes once and pauses when the battery is less than 50% charged, twice and a pause when the battery is less than 75% charged and three flashes and a pause when the charge is less than 100%. Once the battery is fully charged, the LED turns green and lights continuously.

*   *   *   *   *  < 50%
**  **  **  ** ** < 75%
*** *** *** *** *** <100%
******************** = Problem!

When I connected the battery, it flashed orange rapidly with no pause.

To fix the problem, I unplugged the charger, I cleaned all four contacts using a dry duster. There are two copper ‘blades’ and two silver ‘bent wire’ contacts. The charger seems to gather lots of dust. I also cleaned the contacts on the battery taking great care not to touch them with anything conductive. The exposed contacts can be rubbed gently with a cloth, but the two slots which connect to the ‘blades’ on the charger are harder to clean. I folded a clean piece of paper in half and gently pushed it into the slots – there was a small amount of fluff which came out of the slots.

When I put the battery on to charge again, it was showing 50% charged and after a few minutes showed 75%.

I hope this will save you spending £75 on a new battery, or £50 or a new charger!

13 steps to an antique phone case

 Creative Stuff  No Responses »
May 062012
 

My girlfriend wanted a unique and interesting case for her mobile phone to replace the one she was using. She had seen handbags made of old books and I had recently bought a Dodocase for my playbook and that gave us the idea of  hacking an old book into a phone case. Here’s how I did it and how it looks…

IMG 2521 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

A cheap, but attractive book

Step 1, find an attractive book about the right size for your phone. We looked in book shops and charity shops before finding a nice ivory coloured book titled “An Anthology of Love” – try not to pick a rare or valuable book!

IMG 2519 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

A cheap eBay case

Step 2, get a cheap case for your phone which you can steal the mount from – the one we used was from eBay and cost £1.99

IMG 2522 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Pages removed

Step 3, carefully trim the pages out of the cover, and trim the paper which makes up the inside of the cover to reveal the edges of the fabric which makes up the outside of the cover. Dampening the paper with soapy water helps unstick it. I decided not to remove all of the paper as it could damage the cardboard and make the cover weak.

IMG 2524 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Fix the paper, unstick the outer cover

Step 4, Glue down any parts of the paper which are hanging off – I used PVA ‘white’ glue. Also unstick the edges of the outer cover and flatten them out.

IMG 2525 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Mark where to cut

Step 5, Put your phone, in the mount, in place on the cover and mark where the cardboard needs to be trimmed.

IMG 2526 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Mark the cuts and unfold the other sides

Step 6, Unfold the other edges and draw straight lines where you are going to cut the cardboard.

IMG 2527 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Cut the cardboard

Step 7, Carefully peel the outer cover away from the cardboard until you are just past the line, then cut the cardboard with a craft knife and steel rule.

IMG 2528 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Trim the outer cover

Step 8, Trim the outer cover to size – use the existing cover as a template.

IMG 2529 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Glue the edges and cut holes

Step 9, Glue the outer cover down nice and tight, and cut any holes you ned for the phone camera etc.

Step 10, Glue a ribbon across the middle of the cover to allow you to tie it closed later. Glue it firmly – I used a hot-melt glue gun.

Step 11, Cover the inside of the cover with a rectangle of paper. Glue it down firmly and take the opportunity to print a fancy inside cover if you like.

Step 12, Glue the plastic mount into place – again I used hot-melt glue, and plenty of it!

IMG 2530 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Outside cover

Step 13, Put your phone in the mount and show it off to your friends icon smile 13 steps to an antique phone case

IMG 2533 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

Inside the case

 

IMG 2532 300x200 13 steps to an antique phone case

The back cover

Creating an SSL certificate – step by step

 Security, Techie Stuff  No Responses »
Feb 262012
 

What is an SSL certificate?
At its most basic level, an SSL certificate is used to encrypt electronic communication, to authenticate users or devices, and to sign electronic communication. There are various types of SSL certificate – Web Server certificates, Email certificates, code signing certificates etc.
Here, I will describe the process of creating a new SSL certificate for use on a website as this is the most common use for certificates. At some point, I may write further guides describing different types too.

What are the components of an SSL certificate?
SSL certificates contain a number of pieces of information:
Subject – the name of the entity being identified by the certificate.
Private key – never seen by the client.
Public key – associated with the private key.
Issuer – the name of the Certification Authority who has signed the certificate.
Serial number – a unique identifier for the certificate
Validity period – the start and end dates between which the certificate can be considered valid.
Usage – a description of what the associated public/private  key pair can be used for.
Digital Signature – the signature of the issuer.

The certificate uses Public Key cryptography to encrypt, sign and authenticate.
The private key is known only to the owner of the certificate. A piece of information encrypted with this key can only be decrypted by the associated public key.

How do we communicate securely?
Let’s assume a situation where I want to communicate securely with you. I make a connection to your web server and request your certificate. Your server supplies the certificate which contains your public key. I generate a master key which we will both use to encrypt our communication. I encrypt the master key with your public key and send it to you. You are the only person who can decrypt the master key as you are the only person who knows your private key.

We have now securely exchanged a master key without anyone else being able to know it and can communicate securely.

What is signing?
In the same way you can sign a letter to ‘prove’ that it was written by you (assuming no one is capable of forging your signature), you can digitally sign an electronic communication to prove it was created by you – this also confirms that the content has not been changed since you signed it (and means you can’t deny the document was created by you)
When you digitally sign a document, you hash the content and encrypt the hash value with your private key. This is then sent with your certificate and the document. When I receive the signed document, I can decrypt the hash using your public key from the certificate. I then hash the document myself and confirm the two hashes match.

But, how do I know you are you?
Communicating securely is fine, but how do I know you are who you claim to be and not someone pretending to be you?
Public Key Cryptography to the rescue again!
When you create a certificate, you can have it signed by a Certification Authority (CA) – they will do some checks to confirm your identity; generally by doing a WHOIS search against your domain name and verifying your name and address.
Once they have established that you own the domain for which you are creating the certificate, they will digitally sign the certificate for you. This means they are vouching for your identity.
Every web browser comes with a list of CAs which it trusts – there are hundreds of them. When I receive your certificate, I check who it was issued by. If it was issued by a CA which I trust, I am able to confirm that it is signed by them and I know that I can trust the certificate.

Great, how do I create a web certificate then?
The high level steps to create a certificate signed by a CA are:
Create a public/private key pair.
Send the public key and certificate info to a trusted CA
The CA creates and signs a certificate which contains your domain name and private key.
You install the certificate on your web sever where it is associated with the private key.

Creating the key pair.
I will use the Microsoft IIS web sever as an example because I am most familiar with it. Other web severs use similar steps.
IIS has a wizard to step you through creating a certificate…
In IIS, right-click on your website and choose ‘properties’.
On the Directory Security tab, click the Server Certificate button this will open the wizard.
Choose ‘Create a new certificate’ then ‘Prepare the request now, but send it later’.
Enter the details as you are prompted for them and, at the end, save the certificate request somewhere you can find it.

You have now created the keypair and prepared a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) ready to submit to your favorite Certification Authority.
The CSR is a block of text which is uploaded to the CA as part of the enrolment process. Once enrolment is complete, the CA will provide you with your new certificate – either as some text displayed on screen or as a file in an email. Either way, it should be saved as a file on your web server.

Installing to certificate
Back in the certificate wizard in IIS, choose ‘Process the pending request’
Choose the file supplied by your CA and follow the wizard to install your certificate.

The certificate should now be served when you visit the website in your browser on port 443. (https://)
You should probably make a secure backup of the certificate now by exporting it from the certificates snap-in.

For Apache servers, the CSR is created using the OpenSSL software – there are plenty of guides online.

Burg Wächter Point Safe P2E Safe Review

 Security, Techie Stuff  No Responses »
Dec 152011
 
Burg p2e 300x264 Burg Wächter Point Safe P2E Safe Review

Burg Wächter P2E safe

I have recently purchased a free-standing home safe from Burg Wächter (sometimes spelt Burg Waechter). The Pointsafe range comes in four sizes P1, P2, P3 and P4 and is available with an electronic pad lock or a key. I bought the electronic P2E version. The electronic version comes with two ‘override’ keys in case you forget the combination. Remember to store these keys securely, but not in your safe!

The safe is rated for £1000 cash or £10000 jewellery, so is not a high security safe but sounds about right for the things I would store in a home safe (passport and other documents, a small amount of emergency cash and a backup of my photographs on disk). The P2E version has single skinned walls (3.5mm steel) and a double skinned door. There is an internal metal shelf, and the floor is felt-lined. The back and floor each have two holes for fixing the safe to a wall or floor with the supplied bolts, plastic blanking cover the holes at the back.  The door seems solid, with two locking bolts which extend 16mm when locked. The door hinge is visible at the bottom of the door – this may be a weakness. The external dimensions of the safe are 255(h)x350(w)x300(d), internally they are 248(h)x343(w)x241(d). The volume is 20.5l and the safe weighs 16.5Kg. The safe is large enough for A4 paper with a little room to spare, but you will have to bend it to fit it through the door.

The keypad is responsive and makes a quiet beep when you press the buttons. The single line LCD display is not backlit so can be difficult to read, but you really don’t need to read it when opening or closing the safe. When not in use, the display shows the current time.

The bolts are driven by an internal motor rather than by turning a handle on the front – this should make the safe less susceptible to opening by ‘bumping’. After entering the correct code, the spring-loaded door swings open automatically.

The batteries (4xAA) are accessible from the outside of the safe, and the emergency keyhole is located behind them. The keys are four-sided cruciform keys which make the lock harder to pick and the keys harder to duplicate than a standard or tubular key.

The safe comes with the batteries, keys and two fixing bolts hidden in the packaging – be careful you don’t throw them out!

The electronic lock has two codes – the user code (1-6 digits) which you would use day to day for opening the safe and a master code (8 digits) which should be stored safely to allow the safe to be opened if the user code is forgotten (again, don’t store this in the safe!) The safe can also be set into ‘hotel mode’ which means a new user code needs to be entered in order to lock the safe if it is left open for more than 5 minutes.

The default user code is 168 and default master code is 12345678 – these should both be changed as soon as possible.

Overall, this seems to be a reasonable home safe which does not have many of the common security problems often seen in cheaper safes.

The user manual(pdf) is available on the Burg-Wächter website.

Union Canal Wallpaper

 Creative Stuff, Edinburgh, Wallpapers  No Responses »
Nov 172011
 

Canal hdr 1920x1200 300x187 Union Canal Wallpaper

Union Canal HDR Wallpaper

Last night, I visited the Union Canal at Lochrin Basin in Edinburgh. I took a series of photographs and combined them to make this HDR image.
I have posted it in various sizes which you can use as a desktop wallpaper if you want to.

Widescreen: 1920×1200 | 1920×1800 |1680×1050 | 1440×900 | 1280×800

Fullscreen (4:3): 1600×1200 | 1400×1050 | 1280×960 | 1024×768

Edinburgh Skyline Wallpaper

 Creative Stuff, Edinburgh, Wallpapers  No Responses »
Oct 292011
 
Skyline 1920x1200

Today, I visited the National Museum of Scotland and visited the roof terrace for the first time. The view of the city from there is incredible. Here is a photo in various sizes which you can use as a desktop wallpaper if you want to.

Widescreen (16:10): 1920×1200 | 1920×1080 |1680×1050 | 1440×900 | 1280×800

Fullscreen (4:3): 1600×1200 | 1400×1050 | 1280×960 | 1024×768

 

 

 

This gallery contains 1 photos

My new Workstation spec

 Techie Stuff  No Responses »
Oct 012011
 

IMG 3836 Edit 300x200 My new Workstation specMy current workstation is a Dell Dimension 9200 and it has served me well for the past 6 years or so, but it is starting to show its age, so I decided to build myself a new one. The most intensive work I do on my workstation is editing large photos from my DSLR, and editing HD video from the same camera. A nice fast processor and lots of RAM will make a huge difference.

I found that amazon.co.uk had very competitive prices and this has the added advantage of only dealing with one supplier – you may be able to find some of the parts cheaper else where, the prices seem to change daily!

The prices below are correct as of 30/09/2011.

CPU: Intel Sandybridge i7-2600 Core i7 Quad-Core Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache, Socket 1155) £230.04
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

Note: When I received this processor, it came with a small heatsink and fan. The heatsink has thermal compound pre-applied. You can probably save yourself some money by not buying the CPU coolerI have specified below.

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3 (GA-Z68X-UD5-B3) £261.91
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

This motherboard allows overclocking the CPU, and I have read at least one report of the i7 2600 being overclocked to 4GHz, so I may give this a go. If I was more serious about overclocking, I would have gone for the unlocked 2600k My new Workstation spec which is only a few quid more expensive.

RAM: M4A1600CCorsair CMZ16GX39B 16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Blu Memory Four Module Kit £90.18
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

Graphics Card: Gigabyte GV-R687OC-1GD; 1024 MB; GDDR5-SDRAM; 256 bit; 4200 MHz; ATI Radeon; Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD) £219.10
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

Power Supply: CiT 750W Power Supply Unit with PSU and Dual 12V Rails – Black Edition £27.99
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

This is a pretty cheap power supply – I’ll see how it holds up and maybe upgrade to something better if necessary.

As expected, this power supply wasn’t up to the job. The motherboard needs a 20+4-pin ATX power connecter and an extra 4+4-pin CPU power connector. Additionally, the Graphics card needs 2×6-pin PCI-E power connectors which were not all available on the cheap power supply. I bought an OCZ TECHNOLOGY OCZ-ZS750W-UK OCZ ZS Series 750W Power Supply from the ever helpful Silicon Edinburgh

Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

Hard Drive: Seagate ST31000524AS 3.5 inch Barracuda 1TB GB 7200rpm SATA Drive with 32MB Buffer £44.29
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

DVD/CD: Sony AD-7261S-0B 24x Internal DVDRWRAM SATA Black Lightscribe £18.02
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900-NT CPU Cooler (PC World £29.97)
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec (£36.99)

I’ve heard really good things about this CPU cooler, and it should keep the chip a reasonable temperature if I do decide to overclock – besides, it’s got a green LED fan, so it must be good icon wink My new Workstation spec

Note: This cooler comes with a tube of thermal grease, so you don’t need to buy any extra unless you have a preferred brand.

Case: Antec Three Hundred Midi Case £49.98
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

A nice plain-looking case with plenty of space for expansion, it comes with a 140mm top fan, a 120mm rear fan and has the option of adding two more 120mm fans on the front if I find it is running hot or noisy.

The courier who was delivering this screwed up and did not deliver at the scheduled time, so I have cancelled the order. I bought an Antec VSK-1000 Tower Case from Silicon Edinburgh – the case has plenty of room for the graphics card, is well made and looks great.
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec

Monitor: Samsung 2443BW 24 Inch Monitor – Black (already owned)
Buy one for yourself at Amazon My new Workstation spec(£223.69)

This means I have spent a total of £971.48, and I suppose I’ll have about another £20 worth of parts to buy where I can’t cannibalize my old PC. So I come in right on my budget of £1000.

The build went really smoothly, nothing complicated when it comes to putting the hardware together – just ensure that you connect the 24-pin and 8-pin power connectors to the motherboard and the two 6-pin power connectors to the graphics card. The cables can all be routed neatly through the cable management system.

I’m happy with the performance too. My Dimension 9200 scored 4889 on a Geekbench test, the new workstation scores 11534 (these are the 32-bit tests done with the free version of Geekbench – I may purchase it and do some more accurate testing.

If you want to build the same system, here are all the parts you need:

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Intermittent Virgin Media sync problems and solution

 Techie Stuff  No Responses »
Jun 052011
 

For the past few days, I have had intermittent sync problems with my Virgin Media router.

The router is a Netgear VMDG280 as supplied by Virgin Media. From time to time, the router falls out of sync: the sync light flashes quickly and the ready light flashes slowly. Web pages are obviously unavailable while the router is in this state.

Rebooting the router does not resolve the problem.

I also have a connection problem with the ‘on demand’ TV service where all interactive services shown as unavailable and there is a flashing heart light on the front of the set top box which apparently indicates there is no network connection available. When attempting to access any on-demand services (movies, catch-up TV etc.) I get a service currently unavailable message.

The router and TV problems do not always happen at the same time.

Since the router and set-top box are both having problems, it would suggest that the problem is not with either of those boxes as both pieces of hardware are unlikely to fail at the same time. Since they do not always exhibit the problem at the same time, the cable from my external wall to the splitter must be ok, the two cables from the splitter are unlikely to have both failed in the same intermittent manner at the same time.

The Virgin Media status screen shows everything is ok in my area.

The non-demand cable TV has been fine for the duration so that would also suggest the cabling is fine.

I was supposed to arrange for an engineer to come out next week, but as the connection is working at the moment I don’t know if he will find any problem, and getting time off work will be a hassle.

Update: I fixed the problem without resorting to an engineer.

Solution: The signal does not seem to be strong enough to cope with the splitters which were installed – either the signal has got weaker since it was installed, or the splitters are dodgy.

The installation was:

Telewest box on the wall in my bedroom with a single cable running about 10m to the living room where it was connected to an (old!) 2-way splitter. A single wire from the splitter ran about 5m round the walls to a second (newer) 2-way splitter. Two cables came from this splitter, one to the modem/router and the other to the set top box.

I don’t know Virgin Media’s rules on repairing the cabling yourself, so you carry out any of the following at your own risk – if in doubt call your cable company for advice.

I tested the incoming signal by moving the router to the telewest box and connecting it with a short coax cable. The router sync’d fine – so everything looked fine to there. I then connected the router to the spare socket on the first splitter and that worked fine too. I then connected the router to the cable going to the input of the second splitter and that also worked fine. My suspicion at this point was the second splitter was dodgy, but I thought it could also be that the long cable and two splitters was too much. Each splitter causes a drop in signal so there is no point in having one in the line if only one output is used.

I bought a new 2-way F Splitter (£5.99) and an F Plug Coupler (£1.89) from Maplin. Replacing the second splitter did not resolve the problem, so I removed the first splitter and connected the two cables with the F Plug Coupler and the heart light stopped flashing. I suspect all I needed was the coupler.

I hope this saves you a day off work waiting for an engineer!

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