The Firehouse

Linksys has always been notoriously unfriendly to non-Windows media formats in their video cameras, such as the wireless WVC54G. This camera by default streams in MPEG-4, which cannot be watched with Safari or Firefox, thus making the thing a Windows/IE-only proposition. Until now.

I’ve found a commented out code in the “Image” settings page of the camera, which allows changing the stream format to MJPEG, which can be shown by Firefox:
<br />
<tr>
<td bgcolor=”#9292da” class=”sp”>Image Type: </td>
<td>MPEG-4</p>
<select name=”videotype” size=”1″ onChange=”typeChange()”>
<option value=”mpeg4″>MPEG-4</option><br />
<option value=”mjpeg”>Motion JPEG (MJPEG)</option><br />
</select>
</td>
<p>

Now, why would Linksys disable such a simple setting, which would make its camera compatible with a much larger audience? Who knows.

In any case, the trick to changing the camera to MJPEG is to paste this URL into your browser (after you have logged into the camera’s config pages):

http://X.X.X.X/adm/file.cgi?h_videotype=mjpeg&this_file= image.htm&next_file=image.htm&todo=save& message=&video_file=image.cgi%3Fnext_file%3D main_fs.htm

but replacing the X.X.X.X with your own camera’s IP address. Once MJPEG has been enabled, you can change the resolution and other settings using the web-based options. To change back to MPEG-4, just replace mjpeg with mpeg4 in the URL. Note that I’m using the latest firmware (2.11), this may not work with older versions.

This time we got one of the drivers as he walked in the firehouse while happily talking on his cellphone.

This is what happens when the following conditions are met:

• You’re in a firehouse.
• You’re a probie…my apologies, “probationary firefighter”.
• You fall asleep.
• There are other bored firefighters around.
• They happen to have a CO2 fire extinguisher.

Kids, don’t try this at home, as a CO2 extinguisher at close range can freeze the skin!

Reading this post on iLounge about TomTom’s plans to include their real-time navigation software on the iTunes AppStore (or lack thereof) brings back memories from when I was developing advanced vehicle tracking systems a few years ago.

The root of the issue seems to be this line on the iPhone SDK’s license agreement:

“Applications may not be designed or marketed for real time route guidance; automatic or autonomous control of vehicles, aircraft, or other mechanical devices; dispatch or fleet management; or emergency or life-saving purposes.”

This stems from a chain of license rights that originates with the providers of mapping data, such as NAVTEQ or Tele Atlas. Apple has integrated Google Maps on the iPhone, which in turn uses mapping data from these providers under license. Pricing of map data varies with respect of what you intend to do with it, and for some reason, the providers value real-time tracking of anything as a top dollar use.

Apple had to accept the licensing restrictions that Google’s providers impose, and they very likely include real-time navigation and tracking of objects. In fact, Google Maps terms of use read:

“Except where you have been specifically licensed to do so by Google, you may not use Google Maps with any products, systems, or applications installed or otherwise connected to or in communication with vehicles, capable of vehicle navigation, positioning, dispatch, real time route guidance, fleet management or similar applications.”

This trait started when Microsoft released MapPoint 2004, which included for the first time a clause in its terms that forbid using the application for real-time tracking of vehicles and objects, and any such tracking should have a minimum 15-second delay between reality and display. With MapPoint 2002, one could use ActiveX objects to integrate the maps into a third-party application, like I did when I released StumbVerter, and fully control the map and data overlays. This meant that one could write a VERY cheap real-time tracking software application to go with the GPS tracking hardware the company sold. One could thus use pretty good maps of Europe and North America for a little over 400 Euros, compared to quotes I received that licensed only Spain for some 90.000 Euros! Microsoft got some heat over this, but defended its position by stating this restrictions had been imposed by the map data providers.

I don’t think TomTom will have a problem placing their software on AppStore, as they don’t infringe on the intended Location Services API clause, and maybe Apple will ease this clause by stating that the restriction is on using Google Maps rather than your own licensed map data for displaying location of tracked objects.

Is not easy! I upgraded my 17″ MacBook Pro to a 200GB 7200rpm drive, which gave me TONS of space, and it didn’t really matter what applications I installed or how much stuff got added in the form of data.

The second part is not as easy to solve and it largely depends on what you do – an accountant may be generating tons of Excel workbooks and PDF documents, while someone else *cough* could just be browsing RSS feeds and watching YouTube videos, and only touch Excel on ocasions.

In terms of apps, I was accustomed to large-size tools for my needs (coding web pages and PHP backends in Dreamweaver, PDFs would be edited in Acrobat, Photoshop would fill the graphic editing needs every now and then…). Here is a small table comparing various apps from the CS3 suite and some (admittedly not as powerful) alternatives:

• Image editing: Photoshop (490MB) versus Pixelmator (113MB).
• Web design: Dreamweaver (366MB) versus Coda (52MB).
• PDF editing: Acrobat (832MB!) versus PDFPen PDFClerk Pro (12MB). I was going to mention PDFPen but after trying it and seeing how they totally ignore mouse input (you cannot use your mouse’s scroll wheel to browse through the PDF’s pages!!!) I’ve concluded it sucks.

These three apps alone are saving me 1.5GB of disk space without even starting to generate data!

Additionally, nothing like video or audio editing tools should be even installed, let alone used on this machine, as it’s drive only spins at 4200rpm, and basically grinds your system to a halt during drive-intensive tasks (such as opening or saving huge video files).

Another tip is to move as much of your data online as you can. Either using .Mac or a different free alternative, online music streaming, Flickr for photos, and so on – it will save you a ton of space.

It seems that Entourage 2008 SP1 is broken in regards to how it checks an Exchange server’s SSL certificates. I would go one step further and argue that Entourage is broken in its thought process about how to connect to Exchange as a whole.

We have a hosted Exchange email service with mail2web, and in their setup instructions (let’s assume we use domain.com as our own domain), they ask you to configure the Exchange server address to https://ex7.mail2web.com/exchange/username@domain.com. On your DNS server you must then configure an MX record to point to mail2web’s IP addresses, and also add a CNAME for autodiscover.domain.com that points to the same IP – this last one is used by Outlook 2007’s automatic configuration feature.

As soon as I started using Entourage, the error messages showed up, but they refered to a problem with the SSL certificate of domain.com, not mail2web.com. Confused, I fired up tcpdump, and found that Entourage, during it’s connection process to Exchange, attempts to connect to all these addresses:

ex7.mail2web.com (https/443)
autodiscover.domain.com (https/443)
domain.com (https/443)
www.domain.com (http/80)

I have no clue where Entourage gets the idea that to access the Exchange server at ex7.mail2web.com it has to connect to www.domain.com – it could be a number of places, for example, if it assumes the last part of the Exchange configuration string is the actual domain it needs to connect to, or maybe there is a setting in Exchange that tells Entourage where to go (unlikely, but I’m not an Exchange expert so I cannot say for sure).

Having established that until Microsoft fixes the bug, the only way to cure the problem is to give Entourage a valid certificate for autodiscover.domain.com, www.domain.com AND domain.com. You may think that all these are covered by a single SSL certificate, but that’s not how they work. You can get a certificate for domain.com, but then autodiscover.domain.com is a different common name, and thus not valid. The opposite is also true.

Come to the rescue Subject Alternative Names

This is a not well know feature of x509v3, and not many SSL certificate providers allow it, but it’s the perfect fix for this problem. A Subject Alternative Name (SAN) is an additional record inside the certificate which includes alternative domain common names, so a wildcard certificate which includes domain.com as a SAN would be valid for all possible domains on the server. I went ahead and requested such a certificate from DigiCert, installed it on the Apache box, and Entourage stopped complaining.

The procedure to generate a CSR with a SAN is not point-and-click, but only involves a little edditing of openssl.cnf. First, create a copy of openssl.cnf (usually found in /etc/ssl), and in the copy, add the following in the respective sections:

[req]
req_extensions = v3_req
[ v3_req ]
basicConstraints = CA:FALSE
keyUsage = nonRepudiation, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment
subjectAltName = @alt_names
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = domain.com

Once you have this done, create your CSR as usual, but specify -config yourconfigcopy.cnf to force openssl to use the edited configuration file. Check your CSR and you should see this:

Attributes:
Requested Extensions:
X509v3 Basic Constraints:
CA:FALSE
X509v3 Key Usage:
Digital Signature, Non Repudiation, Key Encipherment
X509v3 Subject Alternative Name:
DNS:domain.com

Once you have the CSR, submit it to your CA as normal and install the new certificate on your server. You could alternatively create your own certificate and add it as trusted on OS X’s keychain, but that’s a different story.

Microsoft, the ball is on your side now!

Having used Thunderbird on my Mac for a couple of years now, I grew accustomed to the Growl notifications it provided (via a plugin) when new email arrived. The time came to switch to an Exchange server, as our email host was getting worse and worse.

I’ve read different reviews on Entourage 2008, but none so bad as to totally put me off at least trying it out. I have to say it’s really good on a few aspects that Thunderbird lacks, but that’s a matter for another post. What really brought me to a spate of AppleScript and some graphics work was the so ugly default popup notifications provided by Entourage, and their position at the bottom of the screen. For a heavy Growl user, totally counter-intuitive. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a script that does the following:

• Generates a Growl notification with the default style for each new email that arrives (or those you want to – more on this later).
• Shows the email subject in the notification title, and below the sender’s name (or email address if the sender has no display name), and the first 80 characters of the email – enough to give you a feel of what’s in it.
• Shows a custom icon for high and highest priority emails, which also have their notifications made sticky.

Without further ado, here are some screenshots:

The default normal-priority notification, in Growl’s Smoke style.

A high priority notification, in AboveTheNight style.

The highest priority of them all – in bright red!

Download eGrowl.zip here, and follow the install instructions found in the Readme.

Enjoy, comments and suggestions welcome!