TP-Link WR-700N - English Instructions

I acquired 2 TP-Link WR-700N devices, one to use as a repeater to overcome a dead zone in my house, and one to use as a bridge to connect some ethernet only devices in a part of the house without cables.

The adventure starts when they arrive from China via Ebay: instructions exist only in Chinese. 

Never mind, Google Translate to the rescue. BTW, Here's the product page.

Then they are set to be Access Point (AP) mode with no WEP/WPA key (ie open) on the fixed IP address 192.168.1.253.

The easiest way to start is to add a second IP to your computer. On OSX you do this by going to the Network Settings and on the active network add a second:

At the bottom of the window click the "+" sign

Select interface "Airport" if you use WIFI. The name is immaterial. Then click "Advanced"

 and then "TCP/IP", change Configure IPv4 to "manually" and put in an address such as "192.168.1.250"

Click "OK" and then "Apply".

Next go to your browser, and open 2 tabs:

translate.google.com

192.168.1.253 : The default credentials are admin/admin.

Once you get the hang of having the Google Translate open in the tab next to the web UI to configure the WR700N, it'll be fairly straight forward.

To make your life easier, here's the device's home page, with English translations.

The best place to start is the "Wizard" and work your way through. Flick between tabs to get the translation.

After its configured, you can move to Network to change its IP, and then to System Tools > Change Password. When changing the password I found I had to also put in the admin name "admin".

Using TrueCrypt on OSX as a non-Administrator

As you know, its not a good idea to be logged in with an account that is an administrator on OSX.

This gives you a problem with TrueCrypt if you use the encrypted device method, because you can't put in your admin credentials because you don't have any.

What you need to do is to switch user accounts, and launch TrueCrypt as an admin. Start terminal and type:

su adminaccount
Password:
/Applications/TrueCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/TrueCrypt

Then TrueCrypt will behave just like you launched as the admin, remember when you select device to put in the admin account's password.

The terminal session will stay showing that you launched TrueCrypt, which is fine. It'll stay that way until you quit TrueCrypt.

Updating iPod / iPad / iPhone open file open dialog, doesn't auto-update

If, when you click 'check for update' iTunes opens a dialog where you can select a new firmware, its due to iTunes auto check for update being turned off.

developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/FA_Deploying_iTunes/Introduction/Introduction.html refers

From the command line:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes disableCheckForUpdates -bool NO

Manually updating iPod / iPad / iPhone firmware

If you have a few iOS devices to update, its best to download the update file (ie the .ipsw file), and manually apply.

www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/ lists the various updates.

I use curl to download because if your lose the connection, curl will resume. Do a right / ctrl click on the link, copy and then in terminal make a command such as

curl -o iPod_1.2_36B10147.ipsw http://appldnld.apple.com/iPod/SBML/osx/bundles/041-1920.20111004.CpeEw/iPod_1.2_36B10147.ipsw

Then in iTunes, option/alt click update and you can choose the firmware to apply.

Step by Step: GPS tagging Photos and creating PhotoWalk in Google Maps and Picasa

1. Synchronise the time between your camera and GPS. To display the exact time on my Android phone I use TM World Clock (free). I never change the timezone on my camera. Later we allow for timezone offset between camera time and UTC. The more accurate the time on your camera, the more accurate the geo-location will be.
   
   
   
2. Create a GPS log where you've been - I use MyTracks (free) on Android
   
   
3. Export the GPS log twice: to GPX and to KML. Call the file something like gpslog.kml / gpslog.gpx
   
   
   Press the triangle bottom right to bring up the MyTracks menu
   
   
   select Write to SD card, and then press "save a GPX file"
   
   
   
   Repeat to create a KML file
   
   
   
4. Copy these file to your computer. I use Bluetooth, while USB and email works fine as well. If using Bluetooth or USB then the two files are in the MyTracks directory on the SD card/
   
   
   
   
5. Apply the GPS data to your photos - I use GPSPhotoLinker (free) from www.earlyinnovations.com/gpsphotolinker. Its at this point that you apply the UTC offset. If you are away from your home timezone, or DST applies then deselect 'use system time zone'.
   
   
   Click 'Load Tracks' and load your GPX from MyTracks
   
   
   Drag and drop your photos into the right hand window. Then switch to 'batch' and press 'batch save to photos'.
   
   
6. When applying GPS data the date/time stamps on your files will change. I find this annoying so I fix the date / time stamps by using jhead (free) from www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead
   
   The command is
   
   /path/to/jhead -ft *.JPG
   
   and / or
   
   /path/to/jhead -ft *.jpg
   
   ie the command is case sensitive
   
   
7. Import / upload to Picasaweb using either Picasa desktop app or the uploader into a new album.
   
   
8. Fire up a browser, navigate to the photos in Picasaweb, and download the KML by clicking "view in Google Earth". When this file has downloaded you need to manually add a .kml at the end. Call the file something like photomap.kml
   
   
9. Goto to maps.google.com and click My Places because we need to upload the Picasaweb KML to My Places
   
   
10. Go to Google Maps eg maps.google.com , and select MyPlaces
    
    
    
    
    
11. Click "Create Map" and then click "Import". Upload your KML file from Picasaweb ie photomap.kml.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
12. You'll find some junk in the description section, which you can delete and put in your own description
13. Click "Import" again.
    
    
    
    
14. This time upload the GPS track from your logger ie gpslog.kml.
    
    
15. After a few moments processing, the track will overlay with the photos
    
    
16. Click "done" and set sharing options.
    

Combine Google Maps and Picasa / Picasaweb

Previously I've given instructions on how to combine a Picasaweb photo album with a GPS track. Well for some reason that no longer works. What you can do now is:

1. Get the GPSx file from your GPS logger and then use a converter such as GPSBabel to convert to KML. Or, in the case of MyTracks on Android which is what I use, you can just re-export to KML. Call this gpslog.kml or some such.
   
2. Tag your photos.
   
3. Upload GPS-tagged photos to Picasaweb just like always.
4. Download the file for viewing in Google Earth, except we won't view in Google Earth. You need to add the .kml to this file. Call it photomap.kml or some such.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Switch to Google Maps, and select MyPlaces
   
   
   
   
6. Click "Create Map"
   
   
   
   
7. Click "Import" and then upload your KML file from Picasaweb ie photomap.kml.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. You'll find some junk in the description section, which you can delete and put in your own description
9. Click "Import" again.
   
   
   
   
10. This time upload the GPS track from your logger ie gpslog.kml.
11. After a few moments processing, the track will overlay with the photos
12. Click "done" and set sharing options.
    

Synology Music player: file not found

I was having problems with my Synology and the mobile DS Audio player application. Quite often, maybe every 10 or 15 minutes I would get "file not found" error.

Turns out that I had a load of orphaned ._ files likely from using iTunes to do album management.

Logging in by SSH, I ran the command

cd volume1
cd music
find . -name "._*" -exec rm -i '{}' \; -print

Usually this would ask if you want to delete any files found, but since the Synology file system couldn't find the files gave errors instead. I used the errors to work through deleting the offenders.

I found that OSX finder and even command line would not delete the files. If there was a folder with some lost files I copied off anythng I wanted to save and then used Filestation to delete, and that worked OK.

Then I used Audio Station to re-index the media, and then checked my play lists.

OSX Howto copy files to / from EXT 3

I have a media player, Popcorn since you ask, and the network interface stopped working for some reason. First up I needed to copy off my files. It seemed that the various EXT file system drivers were not good / supported, so I decided to use Ubuntu inside a VM.

First I got VirtualBox from www.virtualbox.org, and Ubuntu from www.ubuntu.com.

OSX Command line image editing

If you are away from home, or just need some very light weight image processing here's two that are useful:

increasing jpeg compression because your connectivity is not so good, use 'sips'. Its built into OSX

sips --setProperty formatOptions normal 1.jpg

or, for all images in a folder

sips --setProperty formatOptions normal *

sips --setProperty formatOptions normal *

SIPS can also take a % for finer control

sips --setProperty formatOptions 30 *

If you want to use lossles rotation, the get nconvert from http://www.xnview.com/en/features_nc.html

Assuming you leave it in your downloads folder then the command to rotate 90 degrees anti-clockwise would be

~/Downloads/NConvert/nconvert -overwrite -jpegtrans rot90 1.jpg

After these, you'll find the date/time stamp of your files is wrong, so use jhead to put them back. First get it from http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/

then the command would be

~/Downloads/jhead/jhead -ft *.jpg
~/Downloads/jhead/jhead -ft *.JPG

you'll note that its case sensitive.

The iPod cannot be updated because it contains files that are in use by another application.

If you get this error its most likely due to you syncing at the same time. So let the sync complete and try again.