The first step was to download and create the offline maps. This part uses something called the “Global Map Download Tool”.  Here is the GMDL project page, including the latest download source, and detailed instructions for usage.  You will get two files when done: “com.apple.Maps.plist” and a much larger “MapTiles.sqlitedb”.  Put those two files in a folder, and give that folder a short name that will help you remember the map region.  Repeat this as necessary, creating additional folders for as many different map regions as you desire.  Using SSH, transfer the folders you have created under the “/private/var/mobile/media/maps” folder on your iPhone.

The second step is to install an app on the iPhone to switch between the offline maps.  There’s an app called “Offline Maps”, version 2.1.0-4, available in Cydia and indicated as being compatible with OS 2.x and 3.x.  This is wrong! It will crash every time you use it!  However, there is a later version that is compatible, but it is not available in Cydia.  Go to the iPhone Offline Map project page and you will see a link on the top to an Atlas Version 3.1.2-2 .deb file download.  Download that file, SSH it to your phone, and from a mobile terminal run the command “dpkg -i MyProgram.deb” to unpackage it.  It will then install on your phone, giving you an “Atlas” icon, and it will also show up in the list of installed packages in Cydia.  (You can remove the .deb file after the install is complete.)  In my case, the install didn’t complete the first time, uninstalling from Cydia and unpacking the file a second time did the trick.  If you’ve made it this far, then you’ll be able to figure out how to use Atlas to switch between the map regions!

I hope I’ve done a good job of summarizing bits and pieces of the procedure scattered around the internet, whew!

Edit: I found this even better page after I wrote my post: http://www.ambot-ah.com/2010/04/06/viewing-google-maps-while-offline-on-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch/

So how to get the ethernet cable to the player? My DSL modem is in the garage, and I have a network cable going upstairs to my wireless router.  Running a new wire from the upstairs router to the player would have meant too many holes in the walls.

So the first idea was to move the wireless router to the the garage, putting a $15 switch in place of the router, giving an easier route for an ethernet cable (as described in my previous blog post) from the router to the player.

The problem with this setup was that the wireless signal strength dropped quite considerably. The connection was very weak – I could only establish a wifi connection on my iPhone while in the garage, with the connection dropping out when walking around the rest of the house.  The three reasons for the weak connection were the downstairs location of the router (wireless routers have a better range upstairs), the placement at the edge of the house (instead of the middle), and the garage support beam that got in the way of the antenna.

The next step was to try to upgrade the antenna. The Netgear WGR614v9 router did not have a removable antenna, so I ripped it out and soldered a new one directly to the circuit board. That didn’t help, so I decided the best solution would be to leave the router downstairs and add a wireless access point upstairs.  But it turns out a second router is cheaper than a wireless access point.  I bought another WGR614 (though it’s now on v10) and put it upstairs, with the following configuration.

If you’re familiar with setting up a single router, it’s not that much harder to set up two in series. Exact instructions can be found on the web. But the basic concept is this: disable DHCP on the second router, and connect the cable from a LAN port on the first router to a LAN (not the WAN) port on the second router. This way, the second router is no longer acting as a router – it is now essentially a switch with wireless capability.

One capability on the WGR614v10 that is not on the v9 is the capability to set up a guest wireless network. So I have the main wireless network with access to the internet, printers, and the other computers, with the separate guest network  setup for internet access only.

Now onto the cabin. While I haven’t had any problems connecting wirelessly from laptops or notebooks, but I’ve been having wifi signal strength issues when connecting with the iPhone.  Much of the issue is due to the router being optimally placed to pickup the wifi signal from the webcams on the garage, not for signal coverage in the cabin.  So I bought a Netgear WPN824N – which appears to be the N-compatible successor to the WGR614 – and plan to set it up in a similar manner as the one at home. Actually, I will then have three wireless networks: a “G” network from the first router to connect to the webcams, as well as main and guest “N” networks from the second router.  We’ll see how it works out the next time I make it up there!

However, we do rent movies from time to time, especially for our young child, and we were growing frustrated with the increased fees and hassle from Blockbuster. When it came time to replace the aging TV in the den at the cabin, that set the wheels in motion. Blu-ray player prices had come down quite considerably, and almost all of the players were compatible with a wired and/or a wireless internet connection.  Since an internet connection is one thing we don’t skimp on, moving towards that means of media distribution made the most sense for us. So we bought an Insignia (Best Buy brand) player for the cabin for $130 and a LG BD550 player for home for $140 – not so much with the idea of being able to play Blu-ray discs, but to download movies from Netflix.

The Netflix setup was rather easy – from a computer I set up an unlimited account for $9/month and registered both receivers. A decent selection of movies is available by browsing from the receiver, but many more can be found from a computer and added to the “instant queue”. The downside is that they tend not to have new releases, but for childrens’ movies that’s quite alright, and many of the two year old movies are new to us.  We’ve been rather happy with Netflix so far.

The Blu-ray/network players themselves have also worked out quite well.  We bought wired models to keep the price down (and for a faster, more reliable connection), as similarly equipped wireless units cost about $100 more.  It was possible, though a bit of a challenge, to get a wired connection to the players, as shown in the photos below.

Cabin

First the TV mounting bracket, recessed electrical outlet, and an opening for the cables! The opening for the cables is just a low voltage outlet box, with a Decora rectangular shaped wall plate.

TV is now mounted on the wall. The cables have been fished down the wall and out an opening at the bottom.  The ethernet (network) cable will be run in the crawl space below, then up into the wall and out the opening with the other cables.

Lots of cables, might as well plug them all in now, so I don’t have to take down the TV later!

Finished! The Blu-ray player is under the printer/scanner on the left.

Home

The tricky part was the wired ethernet connection at home. The ethernet connection is at the rightmost outlet between the coax cables, but the wire had to pass through three studs – one next to each wallplate – to get there.

Luckily there is a closet on the back side of the wall with the receptacle, so that’s how I made it through that stud.  (Repairing the drywall is a project for the Mrs.!)

I removed the air intake grill for the heater/AC so I could crawl under the stairs and fish the wire through to the garage.

After coming out from under the stairs, the cable is in the blue channel in the background going up to the garage ceiling. I still need to staple the ethernet cable (in a loop in the foreground) to the garage ceiling, but that will be easy.

I moved the router from its original location upstairs, down to its new location in the garage by the DSL modem. Putting a $15 switch in the original location of the router made life easy by not requiring messing around with existing wiring. Once I get the ethernet cable over here, I’ll plug it straight into the router.

Well, it’s nice having the router next to the modem for organizational purposes, but now Im getting a weaker wifi signal inside the house – plenty strong enough for the computers, but not strong enough for the iPhone.  Moving the router or connecting up an external antenna will do, but that’s a project for another day!

I spent quite some time in the parking lot trying to twist and turn the bulbs to get them in, but I finally succeeded.  After I got home, I had my wife take a look at the back of the car while I played with the headlights and pressed on the brakes.  To my frustration, one of the two left side bulbs still didn’t work.  In addition, the two bulbs on the right side were dim, so I figured those were about to go soon and also needed replacing. Still, the situation was at least better than it was before, and with it being too late to do anything else about it that day, I would finish the job later.

Finally during lunch today I took the Passat to the auto parts store to complete the project.  I popped out the two dim bulbs on the right side.  These were Sylvania bulbs, and much to my surprise, they were marked 7225 instead of 7528LL!  Upon closer inspection, those two bulbs are identical, except for a slight difference in the orientation of the prongs.  Argh, no wonder I was having problems getting those other bulbs in!  So I left the auto parts store with four new 7225 bulbs, which went in smoothly, only taking just a couple of minutes to replace them all.

Just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy, I checked the Sylvania website just to make sure I didn’t make a mistake in reading the parts book at the store. Sure enough, the website showed that 7528LL bulbs were needed, not the 7225 bulbs that actually fit! So maybe I’m not going crazy after all!

The first battery was this one that cost under $10 shipped from a US seller on Ebay.  This looks very similar to a Kensington battery that retails for about $30 from a brick and mortar store.

Here are the specs on this first battery:

This essentially doubles the use time of the iPhone.  I was originally concerned that the phone would be unusable while using the battery, but I was pleasantly surprised that I could still text without too much trouble while the battery was plugged into the bottom. Another nice feature about this battery is that it is charged using the same USB cable for charging/syncing the phone. You can even have the battery plugged into the phone and the USB cable plugged into the battery at the same time, allowing both of them to charge simultaneously.  But while this is a great battery to carry around in your pocket, I didn’t think it would be suitable for keeping it plugged into the phone while running MapMyRide (or similar app which causes a heavy drain on the battery) while I was on the bike.

Another reason for wanting an external battery – and this is probably somewhat unique to me – is for multiday bicycle touring where access to electricity may not be available at the end of the day.  So battery number two has a built-in solar panel for charging.  This one was about $20 on Ebay, shipped from China.

Here are the specs on battery number two:

The quality on this one is a little shaky, but passable for the price and considering that I couldn’t find anything else like it.  In order to get all the shrink wrap plastic off the solar panel, I had to unscrew the two tiny screws to remove the metal case!  I don’t think this battery would stand up to daily use, but I think it should be good enough to hold up for my planned occasional use.  Another benefit to this battery is that there’s adapters for other phones, as well as an AC plug to charge the battery when you do have access to electricity.

Finally, the third battery of interest was the “Portable Power Station” for about $20 shipped from a Chinese seller on Ebay.

Here are its specs:

My interest in this battery was twofold. First, I had concerns that the first battery would render the phone unusable while charging, so I wanted to have this that “surrounded” the phone so that the battery wouldn’t fall off.  Also, I wanted a battery more suitable for using with MapMyRide while on the bike.

The seller had made an honest mistake and shipped me the wrong battery. In the meantime, I had figured out that (1) the first battery turned out to be much better than expected, and (2) the third battery wouldn’t be as useful as I thought because the available iPhone bike mounts only accommodate a bare phone.  (I suppose I could have used the third battery in my bike jersey pocket or on a bag on the bike, but if I were going to do that, I would be able to one of the other two batteries in the same manner.)  Furthermore, I’d have to remove the iPhone from its case every time I wanted to use the battery. Therefore, I ended up getting a refund rather than getting this battery and having a chance to try it out.

To sum up, something like the first battery (which has been also called a “Portable Power Station” by some Ebay sellers) would likely be sufficient for most users – although for some people it may be inconvenient if the goal is to charge the phone while its in your pocket.  So far, compared to the $30 version that friends have bought from retail stores, I’ve found no downside to the $10 version I ordered on Ebay.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same battery on the inside!

Installation was similar to the original install, using an electrical junction box and plexiglass for the enclosure, except this time I used a 4″x4″x4″ box instead of a 6″x6″x4″ box.  I had to take apart the webcam casing in order to get the antenna to fit in the smaller box.  Since the webcam overheated last time, this time I didn’t bother with any insulation to keep it warm.

Original photo with full length antenna.

Here’s what it looks like on the garage:

Here’s the view from the webcam. It’s blurry, but at least I can see whether or not there’s snow on the street and driveway.  (I still have to see how the view looks at night with the garage lights on.)  The walkway to the front steps of the deck is in the lower right corner of the image.  I may rotate the webcam in the enclosure or take it apart to move the lens (the camera movement functions were fried during the overheating) in order to see more of the walkway.

Note the difference between the previous image and better quality image from an undamaged webcam in the backyard.

By the way, a strange thing happened today that I can’t explain. Every half hour during daylight, the backyard webcam connects to my ISP via FTP and overwrites an existing image (which sits in its own folder/directory) with a new one.  So rather than give live access to the camera, my cabin rental site has a link to the latest image.  When I looked at the website this afternoon, the image was all black.  Yet if I connected via FTP and downloaded the image to my hard drive, it looked OK. To fix the problem, I had to delete the directory, create a new one with a different name, tell the webcam to write to the new directory, and update the webpage to look for the image in the new directory. Problem solved. My only guess is that the directory somehow got corrupted?

I just received BikeBrain as a gift last week, and I thought I’d give some first impressions.

BikeBrain is program that is run on a Palm-series handheld organizer that provides basic cyclocomputer functions and ride routing. It comes with a plastic case to mount the Palm organizer on the stem or handlebars, and a Vetta cyclocomputer-like pickup mounts to the front fork and plugs into the port on the bottom of the Palm. (The Palm organizer is not included.) Overall, the mounting system is definitely secure enough for road use, though I don’t think it could survive an endo off-road. In spite of that, I got a used Palm Pilot 5000 to use with BikeBrain instead of using my “good” Palm.

BikeBrain also comes with a desktop software program (PC or Mac compatible, but I’ll say PC from now on) which is used for editing routes and viewing ride data. Data transfer between the Palm and the PC is done via the same “HotSync” technology that is normally done for other Palm applications.

BikeBrain not only does “normal” cyclometer functions such as current/average/maximum speed and distance, it also can show various graphs from the ride data: such as speed vs. time, speed vs. distance, etc.

To record a route, you start riding, and at every change in direction, you press a button which records the turn direction and the mileage at that point. Then you download this data from the Palm to the PC, where you can then type in the street names and other information.

One disadvantage of this recording method for multi-day touring is if you’re recording a route while on tour, you can’t go back and put in the road names at the end of each day without a PC.

This tool would be great if you’re the one responsible to generate route sheets for an organized ride. It would also work good if you’re doing a century ride and you got the cue sheet the night before and typed the directions in on a laptop and then transferred them to the Palm handheld.

I haven’t gone on any really long rides with BikeBrain yet, but based on some battery life tests I’ve been doing with the Palm, I think I can get at least 2 full days of riding with rechargeable NiMH batteries (longer with alkalines). On a long tour, I would use a solar charger to keep a spare set of batteries charged up.

The software can be just a wee bit “buggy” – for example, if you create a new route on the desktop and then save it, it will automatically save it using the name of the route without prompting – if there are any “illegal” file name characters in the title (for example, “/”) it will choke.

Overall, I think there could be a few improvements to the software, but it’s still an excellent training tool.

The website is http://www.bikebrain.com/ (can’t believe the website is still up after all these years!)

When I travel, or go on multi-day bicycle tours, I like to type a log of my travels as I go.  I like to travel light, and if I’m bicycle touring, I’m usually camping, so I don’t have electricity to run a laptop.  So I use my Palm Professional (upgraded to a Palm III with the 2 MB IR card), with a GoType keyboard, and the Palm modem.  On bicycle tours I have a second Palm mounted on the bike running BikeBrain.

I’m really happy with the GoType keyboard.  Just a couple of minor gripes, though. The keys are a little closer together than on a “normal” keyboard – I found this annoying at first, but I got used to it after a while. Also, the up arrow is where the right shift key should be (I heard the new keyboard have fixed this problem). The old version of the driver (1.1) had an option to swap the key mappings, but the new version (1.5) doesn’t.  Also, the viewing angle of the Palm can’t be changed when it’s in the keyboard cradle, but that’s probably a common problem for all keyboards.

I also have the plastic key protector that goes over the keyboard, and the simulated leather pouch for the keyboard. The pouch also had two pockets on the outside – I use one of them for the Palm, and the other for the modem and cable.

I use NiMH rechargeable batteries.  When I don’t have electricity available for a recharger, I use a solar charger that can easily charge 4 AAA batteries in a day (assuming sunlight for only half a day, just to be safe).

Since I don’t have easy access to a computer to HotSync backup my data while traveling, I was a little concerned about losing all my data if the batteries were to run out.  I got FlashPro, which lets me use the ~700K of flash ROM memory that comes with the Palm.  This memory doesn’t get erased when the batteries run out – I use this space for the “critical” programs and to backup data – here’s a list of what I keep in the flash memory (link removed).

I used to have a Palm modem and MultiMail Pro 3.1 for staying in touch via e-mail.  I also had an acoustic coupler which is not shown in the picture.  It’s one of those thingies that straps on to a phone handset, and there’s a cable that plugs into the Palm modem.  This setup worked pretty well if I was staying at someone’s house or at a hotel.  But I couldn’t get a reliable connection during camping type bike tours, where I have to use a payphone or my cell phone (even with the acoustic coupler) to connect.

So now I have a PocketMail add-on device for my Palm Pilot.  It works the same as those other e-mail devices by Sharp.  You dial a 1-800 number to get your mail.  You get another mailbox (yourname@pocketmail.com) in addition to your regular one, but you can “collect” the mail from all of your other e-mail boxes into the PocketMail box.  The only downside is that I still need my internet provider at home, plus the PocketMail service.

The “events” function in Facebook was easy to use and also supported the ability to invite non-friends by using their email address. The problem was that non-Facebook users would have to join Facebook in order to see the event details.  So I scratched that option and decided to go with Socializr.

As expected, Socializr allows inviting people using a list of email addresses separated by commas, or by importing entries from a Gmail or other address book. But it also lets you connect to your Facebook account and invite Facebook friends. This is useful to me, because for some of my Facebook friends I either don’t have an email address, or I have reason to believe I may have an old email address.  There are a couple of downsides to inviting Facebook friends. The first is that you have to click on each friend one at a time, wait for the draft Facebook message to appear on the screen, press OK to send to the recipient, and then repeating for each friend you want to invite.  The second is that unlike the people invited via email, who show up on the guest list as “awaiting reply”, the Facebook friends don’t show up on your guest list until they RSVP to the event.

So both tools have worked well so far – although I would favor Facebook if inviting mostly Facebook friends, and favor Socializr if you have email addresses for most of the invitees.

(Late update:  Some colleagues who have forwarded the Socializr invite from the Lotus Notes email at work to their personal Yahoo accounts lost the links to the event in the process. <sigh>)

In retrospect, I should have unplugged the camera for the summer or at least removed the insulation. Lesson learned, but now I needed a new webcam. I picked up a D-Link DCS-920 wireless webcam online for under $70 shipped (after rebates. First the webcam had to be turned upside down to fit in the enclosure. Luckily the D-Link webcam configuration allows the image to be flipped, avoiding the need to flip the image with software post-capture.

Then the insulation went back in.

And finally the plexiglass cover went back on.

Setup of the D-Link webcam on the wireless network was much easier than the Panasonic – although that’s not saying much if you’ve ever tried to setup a Panasonic!  However, the D-Link built-in webcam software is not as flexible as the Panasonic’s. For example, the Panasonic supports mulitple FTP profiles, while the D-Link only supports one.  Still, that was good enough for me, because all I really need to do is upload a still image to my cabin rental website every half hour. 

Here is an image from the new webcam:

All in all, the D-Link DCS-920 has been a great buy and has worked out perfectly so far!  But I’ll be sure to remember to unplug it or remove the insulation this summer!