Repairing an Oldsmobile Intrigue A/C control module

I currently drive a 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue. It’s a great car, but it came with a few flaws due to wear over the years. One problem that had been driving me crazy for over two years was my heat/AC control module. That is, the unit that allows you to toggle and adjust the heat and air conditioning. When the AC was switched on, it would randomly turn on and off. I initially thought the button was broken. A car-savvy friend pointed out that it could be the knob for the fan speed. Sure enough, if I wiggled the knob while I had the fans and AC on, the AC would erratically toggle itself on and off. I just put up with it for a couple of summers, because I like having the windows down anyway. This year, after making other modifications to my car (new radio and speakers), I mustered up the courage to remove the unit and see if I could find out what was going wrong.

It was a relief to find out the controls were so modular. The unit comes out after removing a couple of phillips-heads and unplugging two small wiring harnesses. The front and back of the module is pictured below:

If you’re looking at the back side of the module, the faulty knob components come out of the right side after removing three torx screws. It pops out after releasing several plastic clips around it, and you’re presented with the following. You can pretty much guess what this does. If you look at the right picture, the piece I’m holding are connections to the individual fan speed settings. Inside the white thing, there’s a swinging arm connected to the knob which bridges aforementioned connections to the center ring.  There’s nothing that screamed “AC toggle switch,” so I was disappointed.

I was only disappointed until I pulled the white thing out. Look what we have here!

On the left, you can see the PCB inside the control module. Notice those rings in the middle? Also, note that it’s only one connection that can be bridged/broken since it’s one contiguous pair of rings. This is the AC toggle! The piece I’m holding has two copper prongs sticking out which do the bridging between those two rings. See that part where the outer ring breaks? That’s the AC off position, for when the fans are off. The rest of the ring means the AC is on.

This almost reminds me of the classic Nintendo cartridge slot flaw, where multiple extended prongs (in the slot) got pushed back over time and they struggled to make connections with corroded cartridge contacts. To fix this, all I had to do was bend the prongs to reach further outward so they could always reach those rings. Also, I sanded the rings themselves so they were shiny again.

I put everything back together and enjoyed an uninterrupted, air conditioned drive! I also saved some money, since I no longer needed to replace the module. I hope this helps someone out there.

Some more notes for other Intriguing folks with AC trouble:

• This is only for the single heat/AC control module. I have no idea how the fancy dual-control one is put together. You guys are on your own. :(
• I also recharged my AC myself. For those brave enough to do so, r134a should do the trick (I didn’t use oil nor additives). The “low-pressure side” is located directly behind the engine. It’s a silver pipe in an upside-down U shape with a black cap in the center of the visible area. Guides on how to do this are all over the interwebs, so I’m not going to beat that particular dead horse.
• If the air is blowing warmer on the driver side, don’t panic. Apparently, this is a normal quirk, and you may only need more refrigerant to make it cooler. As long as the airflow/temperature changes when you adjust the heat knob with the AC on, your blend door actuator should be OK.
• This is a great resource for Oldsmobile owners: http://www.oldsmobileforums.com/

How Process Monitor Saved My Bacon

Have you ever used a program and wondered what it did behind the scenes? Well, wonder no more! Microsoft created a utility that allows you to see what all your processes are up to. It’s called Process Monitor, and it takes a while to get used to. Once I got the hang of it, it became a valuable tool that has helped me in the field. Here’s a quick run-down on how to use it.

Once you download Process Monitor, run it as an administrator. If you don’t, very bad things will happen! Once it launches, it will immediately begin logging practically everything that is happening at once, which is not very useful. Press Ctrl+E to toggle event logging as necessary. You will need to filter all of the events if you would like to glean anything useful from them. Click the “Filter” button (a funnel), or press Ctrl+L to use the filter. I took a screen shot of some useful criteria.

The first two conditions are mine. The rest are defaults. In the first one, I’m saying I only want to see events from explorer.exe. In the second one, I am looking for registry hits. So now I’ll only see whenever Explorer tries to access the registry. Now that I’m logging events with the filter turned on, let’s see what happens when I open the following dialog.

Let’s go back to Process Monitor, stop logging, and look for anything that seems familiar. Oh! What do we have here?

Those appear to be the exact registry keys which control the settings in the dialog above! We can now go to regedit, find the key, make whatever tweak(s) we need, export it to a .reg file, then run it on a bunch of machines at once. Time-saver, life-saver.

Here are a few real-life scenarios where Process Monitor has helped me out:

• Finding a registry key for a specific setting buried several dialogs deep inside a control panel applet. I isolated the setting and was able to almost instantly make the change to many machines at once, rather than going to each machine and then following the long dialog trail.
• Finding out whether a program was writing registration information in a file or the registry. I found the file it was modifying and copied it to a classroom full of computers, instead of manually entering pages of info into each one.
• A program was suddenly misbehaving and a reinstall didn’t fix it. I found which registry settings it used, backed them up, and cleared them out. The program came back to life!
• An old program was running into a permissions issue while being run in Windows 7 as a standard user. I found out where it was trying to go, and whether it was possible to modify the permissions.

As you can see, Process Monitor can be very useful when used wisely. Black-box programs that I thought were lost causes are now possible to troubleshoot. Thanks, Microsoft!

My OpenVPN Setup

Over the years, I’ve toyed with various methods of remotely accessing my home network. The easiest method that I’ve employed has always been SSH. Unfortunately, while it is a versatile protocol, it is significantly more difficult to access multiple machines or services once you’re logged in. You have to set up tunnels for every service you want to connect to, which can be a hassle. OpenVPN solves a lot of these problems by behaving as a virtual NIC, which connects you to a remote network in a more seamless fashion. While I’ve had limited experience with this, it is supposedly effective at escaping the scrutiny of firewalls (you can use any port, TCP or UDP). The initial setup sucks compared to OpenSSH, but it is awesome once it works. I decomm’ed my Sunblade server (my old VPN endpoint) and took out its HDD, so I’m posting my config file. Hopefully it’ll be useful to someone.

port 1194
proto udp
dev tun0

ca /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/server.crt
key /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/server.key

dh /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/dh1024.pem

server 10.8.123.0 255.255.255.0

ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt

# 1st push:
# Lets the client know that it should route
# traffic for the 192.168.2.0 network to
# my home gateway.
# 2nd push:
# I wanted to use my home internet connection
# in order to encrypt my web traffic. So I made
# all other traffic (default route), go through
# my home router.
push “route 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1″
push “route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1″

# NOTE: The following push never actually worked for me
# That’s why I had to do the 2nd push above.
# It’s just here for reference, along with the original comment.
#
# If enabled, this directive will configure
# all clients to redirect their default
# network gateway through the VPN, causing
# all IP traffic such as web browsing and
# and DNS lookups to go through the VPN
# (The OpenVPN server machine may need to NAT
# or bridge the TUN/TAP interface to the internet
# in order for this to work properly).
push “redirect-gateway def1″

# Supposedly Windows-specific
# Allows you to tell your client what DNS to use.
push “dhcp-option DNS 192.168.2.1″

keepalive 10 120
comp-lzo
persist-key
persist-tun
status openvpn-status.log
verb 3

As you could probably tell, this config file is fairly vanilla. I made good use of OpenVPN’s semi-decent documentation with a couple of notable differences. I wanted to originally go with a bridged TAP interface, but I couldn’t get it to work for one reason or another (can’t remember, it was months ago). So I opted for TUN instead, which means I couldn’t use broadcasting. Whatever. 10.8.123.0 is the subnet I made up for the VPN. I figured that wouldn’t come into conflict with anything (you can’t use the same subnet a local or remote, or routing gets messed up). 192.168.2.0 refers to my subnet at home (in this case, the “remote” network). I described the rationale behind my push statements in the comments above. I’m particularly proud of the second push statement, because I learned a little about routing I didn’t know before. There wasn’t anything in the OpenVPN docs covering it, so I had to do a little bit of research to get that working. I can also manually create routes in case the push fails, and that’s important.

Here are a couple of other important tidbits which a lot of docs gloss over. IP forwarding should be enabled on your VPN server, or else routing traffic won’t work. Also, I had to make a routing rule on my home (remote) router (192.168.2.1). The destination is 10.8.123.0, gateway is 192.168.2.3 (VPN server), subnet mask is 255.255.255.0. This was intended for anything being sent back to my VPN client (like replies from remote machines). The traffic would be sent to the VPN server, which would then be sent to the client. Otherwise any outside traffic coming back to the client would get discarded, since the remote router would have no idea where to send it.

One obvious benefit of this setup is being able to easily reach my home network without actually being on it. Speed is a benefit, since OpenVPN can use UDP to communicate quicker than TCP (SSH). Security is another: OpenVPN allows you to easily set up a PKI for authentication and encryption. A big disadvantage is the convoluted setup. Another is the fact that OpenVPN doesn’t behave the same way from platform to platform. A configuration that works in Windows may not in Linux. While Windows and Linux are pretty easy to get working as clients, I had a bit of trouble with mobile platforms. WebOS and Android (stock phone ROM), had no native support for OpenVPN. I had to use a homebrew solution on webOS. I have yet to get things going on Android, though Cyanogenmod advertises compatibility.

I also want to try L2TP/IPSec at some point, since it looks like it enjoys better compatibility. If I do it, you’ll be the first to know. If you see anything here that is wrong or could be done/explained better, PUH-LEEEEASE comment.

Halloween Special – ShuffleBot Mk. I

In recent history, humanity has made great strides in the field of robotics. Initially, robots were equipped solely for performing menial and/or unsafe tasks in industrial environments. Eventually, they became sophisticated enough to autonomously perform most repetitive tasks, only requiring a minimal amount of training. However, calamity struck when three service bots escaped and attempted to blend into society. One went on a murderous rampage, killing seven when it fired its cooking laser into a prism. It was destroyed once the SWAT team returned fire with a bathroom mirror. A second was revealed to be the notorious Mandelbrot serial killer. The third, however, was a shocking anomaly. This was a peaceful robot, which only desired to dance to carefully practiced choreography. Instantly recognizing the opportunity presented by this cavorting curiosity, scientists captured and reverse-engineered the robot. A specification was then drafted for mass-producing it. Since then, it has been seen in bars, clubs, LMFAO videos, and Halloween parties.

The specifications for the dancing robot have since been open-sourced, so anyone can get their hands on it, improve the spec, and share the changes. I worked from this specification when I fabricated my own ShuffleBot Mark I. I opted for an aluminum chassis, in order to cut down on weight, and machined holes for ventilation and the two ocular modules. The empty chassis is pictured below.

Two ocular modules were chosen for redundancy and ease of replacement should one fail. Flashing LEDs connected to a battery and on/off switch were included for decoration. The front of the modules have protective screens to seal out contaminants. One of the ocular modules is pictured in operation and also from the rear.

I also constructed a small cardio-capacitance regulator (hanging around the neck of the completed system). The regulator is responsible for augmenting love, compassion, and happiness, as well as suppressing the homicidal rage inherently present in every robot’s sentient silicon pathways. A rudimentary dancing IC was programmed for the running man, though shuffling and the Spongebob could use some work. Not pictured are the chrome Chuck Taylors, included for added flair. Pictured below is the completed ShuffleBot.

I had a lot of fun constructing ShuffleBot, and it performs surprisingly well. Though I swear sometimes it’s watching me even while deactivated…

HP TouchPad Update feat. BeatThatBro

It’s been about a month since I got my HP TouchPad. Since then, my opinion of it has changed drastically for the better. I’ve been showing it to friends and family, and almost everyone has been impressed by it. My good friend Brian even said that my original post on it was too harsh! So here’s what I’ve noticed over time:

Usability

webOS is still easy as ever to use. One of the things that impressed me the most was when I handed it to a friend who I don’t consider to be extremely tech-savvy (if you’re reading this, sorry). After a minimal amount of demonstration, he was using it in 5 minutes as naturally as I have been for a year. He was navigating the web like a champ, loading flash-enabled pages, and listening to emergency radio streams without skipping a beat. He was not just hovering in one web browsing session either. Instead, he was effortlessly juggling multiple cards at a time. I was completely wrong about needing to be a techie to tolerate this device. Well done, HP/Palm!

Hardware and Accessories

The only defect I found with my TouchPad (besides the backlight bleed mentioned before) is a small hairline crack that formed on the plastic shell between my headphone jack and the screen. Other people have reported cracks around the speakers, but I don’t have that. Again, it’s only noticeable if you’re looking for it and doesn’t affect normal use. My screen’s still in good shape. Everything else has held up pretty well over a month of moderate to heavy use.

I purchased the official case for my TouchPad. It’s a black folio-style case with a smooth, faux leather-ish outside, fuzzy inside, and rubber around the edges. I love the fact that it can fold into a stand, allowing the device to stand freely at two separate angles in landscape mode. The case fits the device like a glove, with buttons and ports aligning exactly. It also exposes the screen and bezel completely, so up-swiping is never inhibited. The case is completely compatible with the Touchstone, so you don’t need to remove it to be able to wirelessly charge. My only gripe is that the groove for the headphone jack is deepened, so it will keep wider headphone plugs from completely making it in.

The Touchstone is a modern marvel that still amazes me. Just like Pre and Pixi, the TouchPad can charge wirelessly via this charger. The TouchPad, however, is not backwards compatible with the old Touchstones (plus it would look stupid), so it has its own new model. Instead of a magnetic circular base like the older ones were, this new Touchstone is more of a slanted stand. The TouchPad doesn’t cling to it, you just set it down and let gravity do the rest. Charging works well through the case, which is surprising. As promised, the Touchstone also triggers Exhibition mode when you set the TouchPad down onto it. It automatically goes into your preferred mode, be it a fancy $500 clock (in several styles!), or a Facebook feed screensaver, it’s a neat thing to watch instead of just having it passively charge. Of course, if you want to use it while it’s charging, you can do that too.

One downside is you’ll pay out the wazoo for the accessories. This stuff wasn’t cheap, even on sale, but they make me happy, alright?

Software Update (3.0.2)

What happened to 3.0.1? I don’t know. Who cares? 3.0.2 is where it’s at! HP actually did relatively well with sticking to a release date. By relatively, I mean better than Palm ever did. Instead of “in the coming months,” we heard stuff like “in a couple of weeks,” and “the end of this month (July).” They didn’t deliver on the 31st, but they did deliver on August 1st. Even though it’s a day late, it’s still a relief for webOS fans who are used to not seeing anything until it’s already irrelevant (they’re still failing hard with the Pre 3).

What’s new in the update? A clock and a calculator. Seriously.

What’s fixed in the update? LOTS. First thing’s first, the lag that I was experiencing out of the gate is almost completely gone. There are minimal hiccups here and there, but webOS finally feels like the responsive multitasking beast it was born to be. The keyboard no longer hangs everything up. The typing and auto-correct are smooth as butter. The biggest letdown when I first started using my device was the Messenger app. It was laggy, glitchy, and borderline unusable. The update fixed all this (even though they really don’t mention it) and transformed it into a responsive app that I actually enjoy using. The animations are smooth, the web browser seems faster. Checking email is a joy, not a chore. Everything is awesome now.

Homebrew

The homebrew scene is already improving. There are already replacement kernels released that you can use to easily overclock your device up to 1.7Ghz (stock is 1.2)! Patches are available so you can modify your device’s core functionality. Be careful with patches though, I screwed mine up with a simple one and it wound up requiring a webOS Doctor visit. Restoring your device to a good state is easy though, the webOS Doctor has a reputation of repairing even the most screwed up software problems. If you wipe your device, HP remembers apps, contacts, and some settings for you, so you’re covered.

Conclusion

I’m even happier with my TouchPad now, especially since HP has shown that it is committed to supporting the device through marketing, meaningful updates, and keeping developers on board. They fixed some of the most major problems with the device, and I don’t see anyone having trouble using it now. If you’re not sold on iOS or Honeycomb, you should definitely give the TouchPad a try. Now would be a good time to act too ($100 off).

Also, if you need to see it, find someone who has one. I’m hearing the in-store demo models really suck.

Toying with Enyo – BeatThatBro 2.0

Some of you might remember my first attempt at webOS development. Since then, HP has released a new framework called Enyo, which enables better scalability between phones and tablets. They’re also deprecating Mojo. The TouchPad is a beautiful device that I would love to make something nice for, so I decided to practice using the SDK. I recorded the resulting disaster with my phone.

HP TouchPad first impressions

Back in about February or so, my Palm Pixi started misbehaving. Its headphone jack thought I was permanently in headset mode, despite any amount of cleaning and finagling. I had to finally retire it. Since HP had not yet released a current webOS handset for Sprint (still haven’t, and maybe never will), I got an HTC EVO Shift 4G. It’s a beautiful and FAST device (code-named “Speedy”), but Android still feels lacking compared to webOS in the usability department. Android has all the features, but webOS had all the polish, which I missed dearly.

Around the same time, HP announced the TouchPad. This was to be the HP webOS answer to the iPad and iPad 2. I was super stoked. After months of painful anticipation, the tablet finally launched on July 1st to some lukewarm reviews. In a nutshell, the reviews are concerned about lag and an immature app ecosystem. Coming from a Palm Pixi (with notoriously underpowered hardware), I wasn’t really intimidated by lag on a larger, much more powerful device. I already knew what kind of apps webOS has to offer, so that didn’t bother me either. Since I was still a fan, I took the plunge and got the 32GB model. I’ve been using it since Wednesday and have become pretty comfortable with it, so I think it’s safe to review it.

Hardware

Being over half a grand, I kind of expect great things from the hardware design. Everyone else complains about the weight of the device relative to the iPad 2. It weighs a pound and a half or so, but I don’t really have a basis for comparison. I don’t find it difficult to hold in terms of supporting it. However, I wish HP didn’t opt for a glossy plastic back because it tends to slip if I’m holding it one-handed. It’s a smudge-magnet too. A rubberized matte back would have looked cool, provided a good one-handed grip, and allowed for traction on a glass table for instance. I suppose a case can fix that.

The screen is pretty awesome. It’s an LED IPS display with the same resolution as both iPads. I’m pretty sure it’s glass, as it’s glossy and cool to the touch. The screen is bright, sharp, and vibrant. Full-screen photos look amazing on it (check out the USA Today app to see what I mean). However, there is a slight problem a number of TouchPad users (including myself) noticed. There is a slight backlight bleed on the left side of the display, but it is not noticeable at all unless the screen is entirely black. It’s not a big issue, a lot of LCDs inherently have this problem, but you shouldn’t make your initial boot screen black if your device does this! This made me freak out a little at first until the screen displayed something else so I could confirm I didn’t get a marred screen.

Sound is one of HP’s biggest bragging points for the device. The speakers are two small openings on the long side of the device (bottom landscape). Even though they are tiny, the sound coming from them is relatively full and clear. There’s a profound stereo effect, which is something you tend to lose on a lot of laptops and handhelds. Volume is adjusted via a rocker switch on the side opposing the speakers (top landscape). I have not listened to the device in any loud areas yet, but the volume is more than sufficient if you’re in a quiet spot. No complaints yet here.

At the top portrait side of the device, there’s a power button and standard headphone jack. There’s a micro USB port on the bottom for charging and file transfer. There’s a push button below the screen (portrait), that allows you to go into card view and open the launcher in that order (more on that later). Above the screen (portrait), there is a front-facing camera for Skyping (so far), which I have not tested yet.

Despite having a plastic back, the device feels solidly constructed and not like a cheap toy. I don’t feel ripped off in the least.

 Software

This is where the Touchpad most often gets knocked, because there is relatively little native software available. The TouchPad is mostly backwards compatible with Pre and Pixi Mojo software via an emulator mode, where you get a phone-sized window with a gesture bar. Kind of lame, but I’ll take it for apps like Pandora, which aren’t graphically important. Old PDK apps (usually graphically-intensive games) get blown up fullscreen, thank goodness, but some can’t deal with the Touchpad’s differences without updates. They also look pixelated, since you’re going from a 480×320 resolution scaled to 1024×768. It’s to be expected, since you can’t go from little-screened to big without some growing pains.

HP went above and beyond to ensure that there would be some compelling native Touchpad applications at launch. For instance, their Facebook application is fantastic. You can slide between multiple panes, containing your notifications, feed, comments/likes, and more. It’s definitely the most clever Facebook client I’ve ever tried. You can even pull up linked web pages within the app (Flash video and all) without skipping a beat. I was blown away. The Facebook app is, in my opinion, the best demonstration of the new Enyo platform. HP also offers an on-device magazine called Pivot, which informs you about certain hand-chosen apps in a way that’s far more visual and engaging than a simple list.

TouchPad users are also treated to native full-screen games at launch. This includes the mobile staple, Angry Birds HD, which is free and also AD-FREE. You can grab Rio as well for a couple of bucks.

With the notable exceptions of e-mail, which gives you a nice multi-paned view (kind of like Outlook), and the web browser, I was not impressed with the built-in apps at all. Messaging, which is what I use for AIM, is particularly bad, with tons of freezes and glitches. However, I can rest assured that the webOS community, which is incredibly active and dedicated, will fill in the gaps soon.

Performance

I have heard a lot of complaints about the TouchPad’s performance. I both agree and disagree with the claims. There is absolutely no indication that the hardware itself is slow. You can definitely tell that the dual core chip and the huge helping of memory go a long way. The multitasking is no joke. You can run many apps at once, close/open cards, and switch in between without skipping a beat. The card system is silky smooth, even when you have Flash video playing!

I have to single out the web browser as one of the best-performing apps. Even when there’s Flash video playing (I’ve tested Youtube, Southparkstudios.com, Crackle.com, and a few others), you can scroll around and do other things without any problems. Flash behaves a little funky sometimes, I’ve had an AT&T advertisement start looping over and over ON TOP of the South Park episode I was watching. I’ve also had one random reboot closing a Youtube card. Glitches aside, it kicks the crap out of any other mobile implementation I’ve seen. Even without Flash, the web browser still impresses me. It handles Google apps, for example, without breaking a sweat. I can get around not having a webOS phone by texting through Google Voice’s full site.

I have not notice pauses at all within games. Old PDK apps, Angry Birds HD, and Robotek HD always felt smooth as butter. Granted, I have not played extensively.

There are moments where there’s lag time, and it’s obviously software-related. I’ve noticed about a  second of lag when opening the keyboard in Enyo apps. Sometime Enyo apps like Facebook pause for multiple seconds. I don’t think I’ve ever had the entire device freeze on me. Whenever it felt locked up, I was able to escape into another card. The device always frees up after you wait, though. Annoying, but it’s obviously something a patch can fix.

webOS Experience

The operating system that the TouchPad runs, webOS, was what ultimately drew me to the device. It has always been beautiful and intuitive on a smaller screen, but webOS is arguably the only mobile platform that would seem natural on a larger screen. There are a couple of big differences between the older 1.4 Palm devices and this 3.0 juggernaut, however. Firstly, they scrapped the gesture bar that the Pixi introduced (it’ll still be present on the Veer and Pre 3, don’t worry). Instead, they replaced it with a push button reminiscent of the original Pre and got rid of the back/forward gesture. Now if you want to go backwards in an app, you must find an actual on-screen button instead of simply swiping left below the screen. This kind of annoyed me, but it’s a small sacrifice. They also got rid of the ability to slowly drag up the launcher bar within an app. Now you must always return to card view to access the launcher. I was worried that the mechanical push button was the only way to get to card view. I didn’t want to wear it out! Fortunately, if you swipe up from the bottom of the screen, it duplicates the button’s functionality and takes you to the card view and launcher.

The card multitasking system has received a big improvement: Stacks. You can group cards into a stack for organization purposes. It doesn’t matter if they’re a homogeneous group of cards or not, you can stack them. For instance, this means you can have a stack of email cards, or if you feel like some other app is related to your emails, such as a browser, you can put the browser in the same stack. You can also take cards off of already made stacks and keep them separate. Stacked or not, you can flick apps you don’t like off the top of the screen to end them, and it makes that satisfying “whoosh” sound just like always.

Notifications received a notable change. They appear at the top of the screen, instead of at the bottom, and they don’t take up any additional screen real estate when they appear. If you tap the notification icon(s), it’ll show you the usual series of bars you’re used to. It’s a small menu, so it’s not as disruptive as Android’s full-screen drawer. You have the ability to tap them to address them, or swipe them to the right to dismiss. You can dismiss multiple notifications in the same group as a group, or individually depending on where you swipe.

webOS phone apps were generally agnostic of how you held the device. They typically adjusted to the device’s orientation. The TouchPad cares even less about how you hold it. With the exception of full-screen (yes, only full-screen) Flash, I found that you could pretty much hold the TouchPad any way you want. It takes a lot of thought out of operating the device, and it’s kind of nice to not have to worry about.

The TouchPad is the first webOS device to sport an on-screen keyboard. I hate on-screen keyboards. Fortunately, webOS makes this less painful with auto-correct and an adjustable keyboard size. It’s as intuitive as an on-screen keyboard can get short of being…well, Swype maybe. webOS ripped off Android’s text selection method (sliders adjust the selection), which was a good choice. The original webOS method was ahead of its time (tap/drag to highlight) but still really sucked and was hit or miss. On the phones, you could hold the orange/white key (I think, it’s been a while), then drag your finger to adjust the position of the cursor. I don’t think there’s a way to do this on the TouchPad (please comment if I’m wrong). That’s a step back. Bring something like this back please!

webOS 3 has introduced panes, which neatly organize information on the large screen. Some panes are adjustable, so you can give more focus to certain panes, and less to others, depending on what you want to see at that moment. Facebook, WordPress, and the Mail apps are the most notable users of panes so far.

webOS has the reputation of being able to do whatever you want with it. Even more so than Android and their locked-down bootloaders and file systems. webOS keeps up with this reputation with the native ability to enable developer mode and install homebrew software. HP is doing something unique and is actually supporting the homebrew development community with donations, which makes me really happy.

Should you run out and get one now?!

Overall, I like my TouchPad, and over time I’ll probably like it more as fixes and apps start to roll out quicker. As to whether you should get one? Well…

Get it if:

• You are a techie/early adopter and like to live on the bleeding edge, bugs be damned
• You enjoy webOS, and haven’t been as impressed with Android or iOS
• You enjoy having control of your own hardware
• You enjoy homebrew apps, hacking, or development
• You want a tablet that has a strong web browser with Flash and Facebook

Don’t get it if:

• Most of your electronics have an “i” in front of their name. This will not convert you.
• The idea of a software bug frightens and confuses you.
• You’re obsessed with app counts.
• You want a new gaming device. It games well, but you need games to play first.

Outlook

This tablet could take a strong second position behind the iPad 2 if they get some of the worse bugs under control and get more devs on board. Right now it’s a bit fresh and immature. There’s nothing seriously wrong with the hardware itself that I can see. It also appears that HP is serious about improving webOS and making it a dominant player in the mobile realm. HP has also been attempting to clean up the PR mess that Palm left behind. They have people on unofficial community forums keeping an eye out for bug reports. They have also been committed to supporting the homebrew hacking and development community, which is something you rarely see from Android manufacturers and Apple. So although things are a bit rocky for webOS now, the TouchPad is promising enough that I see things improving in a big way in the long run.

Make old apps work in Windows 7 with the ACT

I was at work scratching my head over getting a poorly-made application to run under a standard user in Windows 7 when I happened upon this gem. As an effort to improve legacy app support, Microsoft created a tool called the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT).  Windows 7 already includes “shims,” which are special workarounds that Microsoft designed to allow numerous applications to work properly. However, Microsoft can’t cover every piece of software out there, so that is where the ACT comes in. You can download the ACT and use it to monitor what your troublesome application does wrong. From there, the ACT can even recommend workarounds to use. The ACT allows you to design installable databases of workarounds for your applications, so you can coax an app into working, then easily deploy the database to more machines. I was already impressed with Windows 7′s ability to make old apps work, but the ACT goes a hundred steps further and could prove to be a valuable tool in your IT arsenal.

Brand New Boxen!

Okay, it’s been forever since I posted. I apologize. Won’t happen again, I think. While I’ve been gone, I haven’t exactly been sitting idle. My aging hardware was going kaputski and was no longer practical to use with new software, so I decided to invest in a new computer. So what’s special about that? Well, I BUILT IT WITH MY OWN BARE HANDS! Check it out!

My Gaming/Development Machine

I used the same case/lights from my old Athlon XP machine that I built in high school, so please forgive the 1337 g4m3r d00d appearance. The old machine suffered from a power supply failure, and there was no point in bringing it back, so I tore the guts out and replaced them with:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition CPU at 3.4 jiggahurts, 4GB DDR3 memory, 1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD, ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO motherboard, 1GB Radeon HD 5670 video card, Antec 500W PSU, Windows 7 Ultimate (I got a deal, don’t judge).

I’m really impressed with the raw speed of the thing. I haven’t really pushed it too hard yet, but it handles Portal 2 and Sega Saturn emulation without breaking a sweat (SSF would peg my Thinkpad’s Core 2 Duo). The motherboard is full of features, seems to be stable, and was a pleasure to build upon. I am not impressed with the Seagate hard drive. It hasn’t given me problems yet, but it randomly ticks when idle (annoying as hell). I’m a bit paranoid because I’ve had a brand new Seagate die on me before, so I’ll be running some tests on it soon. I will probably choose Western Digital from now on though. After building the machine, the onboard GPU wasn’t cutting the mustard for modern games, so I slapped a Diamond-branded Radeon HD 5670 in there. Games scream now, but I’m getting random crashes with corrupt graphics (regardless of load). I think there’s probably a bum memory chip on the card, so I’m going  to try to exchange it. Noise was a huge problem too. My old fans and the stock CPU HSF sounded like a combination of jet engines and raging elephants. I replaced them with Enermax TB Silence fans and a Thermaltake Silent Boost RX K8 HSF respectively. While not whisper-quiet, the noise doesn’t drown out the rest of the world anymore.

Dad’s Video Editing Machine

My dad saw the colossal mess I had made and decided to join in on the fun. He had been planning on getting a new machine to replace another older Athlon XP that was gimping along in his office. We took a trip to Microcenter and came back with two bags and a box. I did some magic and came up with this:

Phenom II X6 (!!!) 1055T at 2.8 jiggahurts, 8GB DRR3 memory, 1TB WD Caviar Black w/ 64MB cache (wow), same board and PSU as mine, Windows 7 Home Premium, and a really cool Thermaltake case that I’m really jealous of.

So we went heavy on the cores and the RAM because that’s what video editing requires and didn’t skimp on the hard drive and case this time. Since my board and PSU are doing so well, we decided to stick with it. It’s quite a difference in terms of noise, and I’m loving the case. It has screwless drive installation, the connectors from the case actually match the damn board, and the mesh and included (quiet!) fan are really nice touches. I haven’t had the chance to test how speedy it is, but it installed Windows in no time flat at least.

The beginnings of a side-scroller

So here’s something that doesn’t suck. A while back, a friend and I were scheming about developing an RPG featuring some very untraditional characters. I was tasked with programming, and he was working on the story, art, and music. I delivered a simple graphics engine to show that I was serious about the project and to demonstrate what I could do. Unfortunately, he wasn’t impressed with the results and opted to move to a different type of engine. Here’s an old video of my work in action.

I recorded this on a netbook (1.6Ghz Atom, Intel 945 graphics) in Fedora because my more powerful Thinkpad T60 was in pieces at the time. It runs MUCH faster on the Thinkpad. The video shows that the engine supports multiple moving layers. The Cup A Soup guy floating on top is the sprite layer, the waves in the background are transparent background tiles against white. This was the first time I was able to effectively use double buffering (to eliminate flickering). I affectionately dubbed my graphics class “VideoDisplayProcessor,” or VDP, after the video chips in my favorite gaming consoles. Unfortunately, I did not consider text and threading, so if I want to do anything useful with this, a complete overhaul is required.

If I choose to go further with this, it will be quite a challenge, but it’s good to know that Java is powerful enough of a platform to build a game with.

Scott Pilgrim and Minecraft

I haven’t really been working on too many worthwhile projects outside of work. However, I have been playing some pretty good games in a futile attempt to unwind.

Scott Pilgrim

First off, Scott Pilgrim has made a bit of splash in the comic book/video game nerd community with its video game references and ridiculous situations. I originally saw the movie when it came out in theaters and loved it. After playing the video game, I felt bad that I hadn’t read the graphic novel yet, so I went ahead and did that. Wow. The graphic novel made the movie feel a bit rushed and empty by comparison (Michael Cera didn’t help either). One awesome part that didn’t make the movie was Scott going to a Halloween party and having his ass kicked by two robots without anyone really noticing or caring. The expressions and timing are hilarious. Another great part had Scott facing off against a superpowered vegan named Todd in a store called Honest Ed’s. The completely random assortment of bargain-priced items totally disorient the characters, resulting in the complete annihilation of the store and a draw between Scott and Todd. Anyway, enough about the graphic novel. I want to talk about the game.

The Scott Pilgrim video game is offered as DLC for the Xbox 360 and PS3 for about $10. It is really awesome and totally worth the 10 bucks, but you can tell they sacrificed quality to release it on time. The game is designed to look, sound, and play like a retro side-scrolling beat ‘em up. The sprites and backgrounds are all pixel art done by Paul Robertson (who does fantastic, but NSFW, work). All of the sprite animations are fluid and adorable, and the backgrounds are very good renditions of some areas from the graphic novel. The music is also phenomenal. The soundtrack was done by a band called Anamanaguchi, and it blends the 8-bit PSG sounds of yesteryear with rock instruments. I bought it on Amazon MP3 almost immediately after buying the game, and now it makes my commutes a bit more bearable. Obviously, on the creative side, there was a lot of attention to detail and the look and feel of the game is top notch.

However, Scott Pilgrim is a nightmare if you lack patience. There are bugs that impact the fun quite a bit. The biggest thing that bothered me was the sound. For a long time after beating the game the first time around, the sound effects were really loud with the music remaining very quiet. Interestingly enough, I could make it even out by playing the first level to completion before going anywhere else. The other stuff is just really annoying, such as the game crashing when you leave a shop or while tallying your score after beating a boss (don’t worry, it saves). Additionally, the first third of the game is very beatable without upgrades, but then your character hits a brick wall where you have to get ridiculously strong and spend tons of in-game money to get anywhere at all. The ramping up of difficulty between levels wasn’t done well. However, I do like the variety of moves and how easy they are to carry out. I’m one of those people who hate fighting games for their ridiculous move lists, but this game makes it very tolerable to learn moves.

All in all, the game’s awesome and I recommend it, despite it completely skipping over Ubisoft’s QA department. Here are gameplay videos by people who are not me.

Minecraft

I’m ridiculously addicted to Minecraft right now. I started playing around Saturday night and haven’t been able to stop. If you have loved ones, or at least liked ones, don’t allow them anywhere near Minecraft. Poor Brian will never be the same again.

The premise of Minecraft is simple: harvest and mine materials so you can build just about anything. You just have to avoid being killed or having your stuff wrecked by monsters at night. The simplicity and possibilities are what make this game so addictive. Want to build a cozy home? Fine. Want to hollow out a cave and make a totally badass waterslide entrance for it? No problem. The game is also really cheap (for now). About $14. There’s also a comprehensive wiki to educate you on how to play.

On the technical side, the game is written in Java, so gaming across platforms is easy. The server is also written in Java and it pretty much sets itself up. Getting a private multiplayer game going is trivial. Fair warning though: If you want big draw distances, you’re going to need a powerful machine. My Core 2 laptop with an old Radeon chip doesn’t cut it without making sacrifices. Don’t let the simple-looking visuals fool you.

Here’s an amusing gameplay video also made by not me:

Welp, that’s all for now. I was kicking around the idea of making a Palm app. If that comes to fruition, you’ll be the first to know.