zedstar dot org » thumbtribes

geotwitta

john — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:44:23 +0000

geotwitta lets you see how far you are from other twitter users running the program. It will post to your twitter account letting you know the distance in kilometers from those users. It is based on a bunch of technologies I wanted to try out. As a result it is somewhat over-engineered for what it does. For those that are interested it uses Guile to script a binary network protocol that happens to be encoded efficiently over UDP packets.

It is a command line program. An example of usage is:

geotwitta -u foo -p bar --lat=55.55 --long=-0.25

This would authenticate against the Twitter account ‘foo’ with password ‘bar’ and ping in those coordinates. These account details are only exchanged securely with Twitter and not sent over the network protocol. The protocol also does not provide coordinates back of other users. It simply shows a relative distance. The full source of the client is available. If there is an interest I will also tidy up the server code and release it.

To get started you need two packages: The program itself and the Guile module which does the network protocol work. The following tarballs are availble for those who want to build from source.

http://zedstar.org/tarballs/packedobjects-0.1.tar.gz

http://zedstar.org/tarballs/geotwitta-0.1.tar.gz

http://zedstar.org/tarballs/geotwitta-0.2.tar.gz

Untar and do the usual ./configure… routine. The configure script will let you know which dependencies are required to compile. If you don’t feel like building from source I have also built some Debian packages. I have tested these on Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex).

http://zedstar.org/deb/packedobjects_0.1-1_i386.deb

http://zedstar.org/deb/geotwitta_0.1-1_i386.deb

http://zedstar.org/deb/geotwitta_0.2-1_i386.deb

If you manage to get the software running I will see you on Twitter!

All the usual disclaimers about the software apply.

**update**

Version 0.2 of geotwitta added: ignores UDP packet loss on pings

btlogger debian package

john — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:14:37 +0000

I packaged up the tarball into a debian package:

http://zedstar.org/deb/btlogger_0.3.2-1_i386.deb

After installing run btlogger –help

Bluetooth logging to Twitter with btlogger

john — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:17:55 +0000

I decided to hack my Bluetooth logger so that it could post any new devices it saw to my Twitter account. This should be interesting once I get it setup on my desk at work! After moving to Intrepid Ibex I realised the changes in BlueZ versions borked my software. It took me a while to figure out what needed to be fixed. Anyway, these changes and Twitter hack are available as a tarball here:

zedstar.org/tarballs/btlogger-0.3.2.tar.gz

The tarball should install an sqlite db file in /var/lib/misc but you can move it else where if you don’t want to run as root. If you supply a username and password on the command line it will try and post the scan results to Twitter like:

http://twitter.com/jptmoore

To see the command line options run btlogger –help

Bluetooth logging hardware

john — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:15:11 +0000

Here is a picture of the hardware I will use for logging Bluetooth data.

Bluedog

john — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:52:31 +0000

Bluedog is the name I am going to give to my Bluetooth traffic/stats project I aim to start soon. I have the hardware and software setup with my beagleboard. Ideally I want to setup a few of these at the University where I work and start logging some data in similar nature to http://www.bluetoothtracking.org/

I will post some pics of my hardware setup soon.

btlogger for the beagleboard

john — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:42:16 +0000

I have built btlogger for the beagleboard. The ipk is available:

http://zedstar.org/beagle/btlogger_0.2.2-r0_armv7a.ipk

It requires the sqlite db some where on the device. Download:

http://projects.openmoko.org/frs/download.php/313/btlog.db

run btlogger -v to see what it does and reference the db file with -d /location/of/file

TODO:

I am going to modify the program to log more stats.
I should also add the database to the ipk so it installs automatically

fakesat

john — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:50:41 +0000

Continuing my theme of projects that suffer from issues of critical mass I have began work on fakesat. I was looking for something to do with my beagleboard so decided that using it for this project would be fun. I have ordered a 100 meter Bluetooth dongle so will see how well that really works. I am interested in low cost community driven alternatives to GPS especially ones that work well in urban environments.

btlogger 0.2

john — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:06:40 +0000

I have updated btlogger to allow various command line options. The software should work on any Linux system with Bluetooth. There is a packaged version for Openmoko:

https://projects.openmoko.org/plugins/wiki/index.php?btlogger&id=136&type=g

and a binary for the Nokia Tablet:

http://zedstar.org/chinook/btlogger

An empty database can be dowloaded from here:

http://projects.openmoko.org/plugins/scmcvs/cvsweb.php/thumbtribes_project/misc/btlog.db?cvsroot=thumbtribes

A simple bluetooth to sqlite logger

john — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:45:26 +0000

As part of the thumbtribes project I began work on a simple bluetooth logger. It logs the MAC address, the broadcast name and the date to an sqlite database. The code is available at projects.openmoko.org

Packaging with OpenEmbedded

john — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:28:17 +0000

I have been getting to grips with OpenEmbedded and in particular bitbake. When everything works it is a great system and makes building packages for different platforms a piece of cake. I created a bitbake recipe to automatically checkout from CVS and build an ipk.

This can be installed on the Neo as follows:

opkg install https://projects.openmoko.org/frs/download.php/167/thumbtribes_0.4-r0_armv4t.ipk