Författare: Anders

HP Mini med Provdator USB bör användas i max en timme.

Versioner av Provdator USB:
Samtliga  versioner fram till och med 2012-11-24.

Berörda system:
HP Mini 5105. (System baserade på Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 , inbyggd i Intels Atom-processorer)

Testade, ej berörda system:
Lenovo Edge och Lenovo X100e är testade och fungerar utan problem.

Symptom:
Varningsmeddelandet ”This computer has only 14.8 MB of disk space remaining.” syns på skärmen efter drygt en timme. Liknande varningar följer om att diskutrymmet är på väg att ta slut.

Efter ytterligare 20-30 minuter, en timme och  20 minuter sammanlagt, är diskutrymmet helt slut och Open Office fungerar ej korrekt.

När händer detta:
När en HP mini varit igång i drygt en timme, den behöver ej användas men vara startad.

Gör följande vid varningarna:
1. Vid varning om lite diskutrymmer, klicka på ”Ignore” ( ej på Empty Trash eller på Examine ) Be eleverna att spara ner allt osparat arbete i mappen ”Provfiler”.
2. Stäng ner datorn på vanligt sätt samt lämna in USB-stickan.

Om OpenOffice visar en ruta om backup och en knapp med texten ”Retry” är diskutrymmet helt slut, 1 timme och 20 minuter har passerat, klicka på ”Retry” tills rutan försvinner (eventuellt många gånger!) och spara enligt ovan.

Workaround i väntan på en riktig lösning:
Om eleven behöver använda en HP Mini i mer än en timme behöver nya USB-stickor finnas till hands och vid första varningsmeddelandet bör arbetet sparas ner och överföras till ett nytt USB-minne inom 15 minuter.

1. Ge eleven en ny USB sticka som eleven startar från som vanligt. Vänta tills datorn startat och visar ikonerna på skärmen.
2. Sätt i den tidigare använda USB stickan med elevens sparade filer i en annan USB kontakt. Två ytterligare USB ikoner syns på skrivbordet – ”Provfiler”, ”Provfiler” och ”1.9 Gb Filesystem”. Två fönster öppnas. Stäng det fönstret som har ett namn i stil med ”4F3A-7F0E” då det inte behövs. Behåll fönstret med namnet ”Provfiler_”. Där syns elevens sparade filer.

3. Kopiera sparade filer till nytt USB minne – Elevens sparade filer kan dras över till det nya USB minnets USB symbol ”Provfiler” med musen (Drag’n drop). När detta är gjort, kontrollera att filerna verkligen kopierats genom att öppna den mappen.  Ta ut den senast isatta USB-stickan ur datorn. Fortsätt provet.

Bakgrund:
Grafikdrivrutinen i915 för Intels grafikchip i Atomprocessorer ger ett felmeddelande när skärmen uppdateras, 60 gånger per sekund, på en HP Mini. Detta felmeddelande skrivs till en loggfil. Utrymmet för loggfilerna tar slut efter drygt en timme och 20 minuter.

Utrymmet för loggfiler delas med programmen som körs varför program som sparar temporära backupfiler (Open Office) slutar fungera när utrymmet är fullt.

På USB minnet finns två lagringsutrymmen. Utrymmet för loggfiler och program delas inte med elevernas sparade arbeten varför sparade elevfiler i foldern ”Provfiler” inte berörs och inte påverkas av detta fel.

Åtgärder för att detta inte ska upprepas:
Loggfilerna har inte kontrollerats för så massiva felloggar på samtliga datormodeller, utan bara på Lenovodatorer. En kontroll av samtliga datormodellers loggfiler införs nu vid varje release.

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Computers in schools means computers on exams

As students are equipped with free computers it seemed like a waste of money to purchase advanced calculators as well. Videocent has together with Katedralskolan in Lund, Sweden, developed an one-stop-shop solution for schools that are interested in this saving.

During exams the students are given an USB memory to insert into their computers before powering up them. This USB memory prevents the students from using the wifi-wireless network and access the computers normal hard drive. Once started the student see three icons on the screen – the first one is a simple pocket calculator, the second a more advanced graph calculator and the last one is a wordprocessor.

Laptop for use during exams.

No computer skills are required by the teacher. Tests can be handed out on paper as usual, and students answers can be collected on paper. For use of the wordprocessor, the teacher can place a document on the USB memory, and the student can write his or hers answers to the USB memory if desired.

Together with the school branded USB memories, Videocent delivers easy to use failsafe USB duplicators that can be handled by the teachers or janitors, instead of the IT department. It’s as simple as inserting a master USB memory, the receiving USB memories and then pressing a key. The picture below shows a duplicator which copies 15 USB sticks in less than five minutes from a master.

USB duplicator with branded USB memories.

Normally a school has computers of different brands and models. With our solution this doesn’t matter – the same USB stick can be used independent on which computer the student has. The functionality are tested on the schools specific computers before delivery of the system.

Test setup with Lenovo, HP and Fujitsi laptops.

Further information can be found in the article Exam concept delivered to the four largest secondary schools in Lund and provdator.se (in Swedish).

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Winter field trials – remote measurement and decision support system

Update: The Swedish newspaper ATL wrote about the measurement project (in Swedish).

The winter field trials are ending and we consider it a success. We have together with our partners placed a total of 74 wired and wireless sensors at five locations in the southern part of Sweden. The largest problem was the winter storm ”Emil” that cut the electricity to the GSM networks cell towers for about 5 hours one night disrupting the service in Norje, Blekinge. Once the GSM network was operating the system in that area was also back online.
You can order the product from matspjut.nu (in Swedish).

http://youtu.be/KWlaxmzKT3g

Below is a typical temperature graph that can be viewed on the web, on a phone or on an iPad. The screenshot is from the web interface showing the measurements from one of the sensors placed in the above video, located at Svenstorps gods, Skåne.

Plotted measurements

Lundaschema

Developed originally by Patrik G. for the students in the city of Lund it gives each individual student his or her personal class calendar right in their mobile.

Due to popular requests the app is now available for several schools in Sweden. Click on the images below to download the specific schools application.

The application works with timetabling software from www.novasoftware.se and can be easily branded for any specific school.

Wireless decision system for farmers

The event Elmia Agriculture, Livestock & Technology took place 19-22 of October 2011. Liros Electronic in monter D01:39 showed wireless temperature sensors that could be observed on the web and in mobile apps on Android and iPhones.
Videocent helped bring Liros traditional wired and handheld temperature equipment up into the internet cloud and and then down into the hands of farmers and their mobile phones. Our work has so far included not only the making of web and apps, but we have also helped select ZigBee and GSM vendors, writing scripts for three internet cloud services and are on our way in discussions with a GSM operator.

Visitors holding the temperature rod sensors and looking at the resulting graphs.
Visitors holding the temperature rod sensors and looking at the resulting graphs.
 Below are two of the graphs. A dotted line means that the sensors are off-line, a filled line show actual measured values. These sensors are live when we experiment with the system and can therefore show very strange results from time to time.
Sensor Sensor
Sheep shearing contest in the same hall as Liros booth.
Sheep shearing contest in the same hall as Liros booth.

Spillapp

För en mycket bra beskrivning på svenska rekommenderar vi artikeln i tidningen ATL som finns här. Länk.

Developed for Nordic Sugar A/S to improve sugar beet harvesting yields in northern Europe, the multilingal application is freely downloadable from the Android Market . We recommend you use it in the fields with a waterproof and rugged Android phone like the Motorola Defy.

- Have your heard about the new app? Yes, I have!

Once the beet harvester is full, unload the beets and put the phone next to a beets bottom end. Drag your finger along the screen to measure how much of the beet is broken off and still left in the field. Repeat this for 20 beets to get a good statistical measurement. Once the required number of beets has been measured you will be able to see how much beet material is still out in the field.

Now change the harvester settings and fill it again with beets. Repeat the measurements. Hopefully you will see an increase in beet harvesting yield shown as smaller and smaller red bubbles between the measurements. The smaller the red dots, the better.

By tapping the listed measurements, you will be able to get the GPS position of the beets, which can be used for later pickup by another company. This is also linked to google maps and google navigation, not to mention the 3d streetmapview which is very nice to share before pickup.

Stockholm Lucia

Start your phone browser and enter this url: http://madinnovator.com/vote

Check out the Lucia candidates images and personal information. Then select one of them to caste your vote. Enter your specific one time code and see the current voting status.

The app runs best on the Apple iPhone with the possibility of an icon on the home screen and a splash screen while loading. It works on Android as well, but no icon or splash screen is possible, only ordinary browser bookmarks. It also works in Firefox and Safari on computers. It does not work with Internet Explorer.

For iPhone users

1. Load this URL into Safari http://madinnovator.com/vote

2. Press the middle button in safari, the square with an arrow. Select ”Add to Home Screen”. Press the ”Add”-button.

3. Now you have a new icon on your home screen. Press it!

The startup screen will show while the app is loading from the web!

Thanks to

Richard Stjernqvist at Likabra.se for the server side php scripts.

Viktoria Blomberg Book at Appbyrån.se and Maria Hedberg at Videocent for coding, design and database setup.

Testing (to be removed)

Use these codes for testing the web app voting – ’hjhjhku’, ’jcxjkchjc’, ’jhjuyuyi’, ’rytut’, ’ytnhg’, ’bnhuytyu’, ’ngutru’, ’ykgutu’, ’vbyutr’, ’iuynchk’, ’utjbvhg’, ’jhtuyvbv’, ’ijnbve’, ’qdiuhvct’, ’tygvr6’, ’8ubfgr’, ’6ygvjit’, ’5tfhii’, ’nbhti’, ’7nvgtui’, ’vvdwo9b’, ’bbgrub’, ’nbhgyr’, ’iuhcsdr4’, ’8yhbcftr’, ’nnbvye6b’, ’bhgdtu’, ’nbvhfy’, ’nbhgy’ and ’jhutfbjy’.

The result and codes databases can be reset by clicking here.

DoorLock

This project is work in progress. It’s a proof of concept of  Internet of Things. It is demonstrated live quite often so we decided to put it up here. Your always welcome to suggest improvements and possible customers of the applications.

Above are screenshots of the splaschscreen, the login screen that unlocks the application, the mainscreen showing the status of the locks as well as the operator buttons to lock/unlock them and the settings screen.

Walktrough of the iPhone application.  ( Login with personal code to app. Open/Lock operations. Communication settings for a lock. Verification of lock settings. )

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiZDkd9xumw]

Test of iPhone app with Assa 3000 remote controlled lock. ( The Assa 3000 lock is operated by hand, and not really motorized. It can only disconnect the outside handle from operation = locked. )

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1qcpamalPI]

Watch Måns Adler demonstrate that he can open his home door for his girlfriend. Live in front of 250 people at The Conference. 

http://mediaevolution.23video.com/v.ihtml?token=1258e9ed8d428486fec6f06d36794c07&photo%5fid=3017694
Testing:

We have some fake locks up and running on this server so you can test the app. (The scripts are 10 lines of php code, so don’t expect anything fancy.)

Interesting links:

Remote operated locks: Assa and Zaplox demonstration in Swedish TV4, Assa Abloy Mobile Key site, Zaplox, Kwikset , Lockitron demonstration

Apple patents electronic iPhone key

iDoor MIT door opener – A must see. It’s so cool! (and insane! Just check out his door!)

[Edit – this page is continously updated with new stuff]

Appcelerator Kitchen Sink 1.6.1

[Edit – Android market now has version updated to 1.6.1.]

This is the Appcelerator Kitchen Sink demo application for Titanium Mobile. It is used for testing out the functionality of Titanium on the Android platform.

This app has been put on the Android market for your conveniance. The source can be downloaded from Github and built with the free tools (Android SDK + Titanium Developer).