I have updated the DVB Stuff application - it now does the following: -

• Handles packet sizes other than 188bytes
• Can filter by multiple streams
• Quick option - limits output to 20mb, useful for testing
• Shows PIDs in hex

I hope you find it useful, you can download it here: -

dvbstuff v1.0(9kb)

During my commute I thought it might be a good idea to brush up on my Windows Communication Foundation skills, so I wrote Ball. Picture your average office environment, many PCs all connected to the same network. Enter Ball, run it on a number of adjacent PCs, enter the hostname and hit 'Join'. Now you have two instances of Ball talking to each other over the network, when the Ball hits the edge of one screen it's going to disappear and reappear on the other PC's desktop.

You can keep connecting up new instances of Ball too, at time of going to press it had been successfully tested with three PCs. When you connect a third instance of Ball it will automatically discover any other instances connected to the connectee! :-)

Download the app and run the EXE, you will need .Net runtime installed. Do the same on another PC then on one of the instances enter the hostname of the other PC and click 'Join'. You can reorder the hosts in the listbox using the 'Up' and 'Down' buttons, get it how you want it and click 'Send'.

If you want ball to use a TCP/IP port other than 8000 then just pass the port number on the command line, but make sure your firewall allows traffic through on your selected port.

My advice is download the exe and have a play with it. If you want to see how it works, then take a look at the source code.

Ball (12kb)

Ball Source Code (28kb)

Labels: DOTNET, DOWNLOADS

Whilst browsing some sites talking about the Commodore 64, I started thinking about how things were much simpler in the old days of computing. Simpler to the extent that it probably wouldn't be too hard to put together a simple 6510 assembler. So here is ASM64, very much a proof of concept, a beta version and any other disclaimers you can think of.

ASM64 will let you write Commodore 64 assembly language programs, it supports all 6510 instructions and addressing modes and also lets you define labels in your code so you can loop and branch. To test it I wrote a few assembly language programs, assembled them with ASM64 and transferred the output onto a D64 image using c1541.exe (supplied with Vice C64 Emulator). Everything I've tried so far has worked.

That said, I'm not sure how much success you'll have with any existing C64 assembly language programs out there (if any), I'm sure it will choke if it encounters any attempts at comments or assembler directives. Included in the source and executable download are a couple of assembly scripts that worked when I tried.

Here are the command-line parameters: -

Labels: DOTNET, DOWNLOADS

I just picked up a Fortec Star FS-4400 satellite receiver for watching free-to-air channels and am enjoying being able to record programs down onto a USB memory stick.

The fun and games started when I tried to watch the recorded material on my PC. The file seems to be MPEG-TS format, but the 188 byte packets don't start until about 64k into the file which confuses the tools I've used so far to analyse and view the file (BBDMUX, Mpegtsutils, VLC and ProjectX to name a few)

So I started looking at the MPEG-TS format and wrote a command-line tool called 'dvbstuff' for joining and fixing files recorded by the FS-4400. This might be useful elsewhere, maybe with other receivers, so I thought I'd put it out there.

Here is the latest version: -

dvbstuff v0.2 (8kb)

Download the zip and extract dvbstuff.exe to somewhere useful. Type dvbstuff on command line and you'll see a summary of command line parameters. The only reliable ones at the moment are -pid, which shows a list of PIDs in the transport stream, and -fix which strips out garbage from the file and makes it MPEG-TS compliant.

This utility is an experiment and am publishing it because it might be useful to someone, so should be treated as a beta.

Labels: DOWNLOADS, DVB, HOME

It's been a long time coming, and here it is.. Nicetrack 2.0 - the version that uses RIL instead of the dodgy GSM hack. This should work on WM5 phones, it works on my MDA Vario 2 (HTC TTyn) but as usual am happy to hear from people about their experiences. I'm hoping that this version is going to be a little more stable and predictable.

Big thanks to Tom (http://mouselike.org) and Addy for your ideas, links and help. Some other people emailed me with ideas and links, I'm really sorry but I lost your emails so ping me a message and I'll update the credits!

Here are the latest downloads: -

Nicetrack v2.0 (100kb)

Nicetrack v2.0 C# Source code

If you have any questions then please feel free to email me on james@nicecuppa.net

UPDATE: You will need to install .Net Compact Framework 2.0 redistributable for this to work. Click here

Labels: DOWNLOADS, HOME, NICETRACK

Quick update for you all, I have managed to get a proof-of-concept version of Nicetrack working using RIL. Am hoping to have something up here soon

Thanks for all your emails and interest

Labels: HOME, NICETRACK

Have been doing a bit of digging around recently, and it's not good news. One kind reader pointed me in the direction of this site http://www.devx.com/wireless/Article/39709/0/page/1 which has a good tutorial on how to use the RIL API.

Unfortunately, this isn't supported by my HTC TyTN; something to do with trusted applicaiton certificates, and so I haven't been able to progress with this.

Labels: HOME, NICETRACK

I've been receiving a lot of emails recently about why Nicetrack doesn't work on newer Windows Mobile devices. The last release of Nicetrack was a few years ago now, and it's been neglected because of my ever-growing family and a lack of time and energy that I can dedicate to it.

The problem is that Nicetrack uses a bit of a hack to gain access to the GSM modem in order to determine the Area/Cell ID. As with many hacks, this works on the majority of phones but some people have experienced problems. As more and more phones are running WM6 now, I'm hearing from more people who say it doesn't work. I am also aware of problems with 'the hack' and GPRS connectivity.

The solution is to develop a reliable way of getting the Area/Cell ID, maybe using RIL or some other API. I'd be glad to hear from anyone who has any ideas and who knows maybe I could be cajoled into firing up Visual Studio again!! Obviously someone who figures it out would not go uncredited!

Nicetrack is 100% freeware and the source code is published below, so feel free to have a look at the code and try and figure it out.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone for there continuing interest in Nicetrack. It started off life as a 'proof of concept', and I'm really pleased that those who've managed to get it working have got some enjoyment out of it.

Labels: DOWNLOADS, HOME, NICETRACK