Ages back I wrote an ugly shell script to configure the offline mode of an m-audio Midisport 8×8 MIDI patchbay. Here it is, including a minor bug fix:
The code is still ugly, but it does the job, at least on my machine :) .
Archive for the ‘Products’ Category
Midisport 8×8 Configuration Script resurrected
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
Routino Frontend published
Sunday, June 27th, 2010
RoutinoFrontend
I’ve just released Routino Frontend to the world wild web. The current code needs manual installation. A proper installer will be created only in case I see there’s some interest in this application.
Routino Frontend will start the GPS subsystem and allow you to get the current GPS location as departure or destination. Additionally, up to three via points are accepted.
To get the coordinates for via or destination points, go to Mappero, point the map to the desired location, press the left uppermost on-screen button, choose »Show Position« and copy it to the device’s clipboard.
After a route is calculated, the resulting file will be placed in the documents folder of the device, ready to be loaded into Mappero or Maep.
The code is in its early stages and needs refactoring. Please note that the current frontend will invoke routino in blocking mode. As soon as you process a route, Routino Frontend will not return before it finished. In case you calculate a long route, this means that Routino will eat all your CPU, memory, swap memory and battery power until it has done its job (which means that you probably need to remove the battery to quit it).
If you are more familiar with Python (and especially its subprocess module) as I am and you can help to add a nice cancel button which reliably kills Routino please drop me a line.
First Offline Bike Routing on the N900 using Routino
Monday, June 14th, 2010
Biker pictogram (openclipart.org, public domain)
As a long time contributor of the openstreetmap project, I always dreamt about using our collaboratively collected data not only for creating maps, but also for (offline) routing. Actually, several routers exist, but none of them seemed to be really capable of doing offline bike routing.
Appearently I missed one bit. This weekend, I tried Andrew M. Bishop’s Routino. It’s a set of command line tools to convert osm XML files into a binary format and to use this data for routing. Additionally some helper applications are provided.
Surprisingly, the code cross-compiled for Maemo 5 without any further interaction (as advertised), just by typing make. Hmpf. Hmpf. Frankly, I was very exited.
The application is highly configurable via some XML files. Thus it supports routing using configurable profiles as well as shortest and quickest routes while supporting via points. It can output the route in various formats. I’ve converted a small set of osm data and tested the results for bike routes and was quite impressed.
I wrote some experimental code using PyGtk to make using it a bit more convenient on the N900:
Routino Frontend
It can get the start position from the location system of the N900. Unfortunately I struggled with DBus and was not successful yet getting the viewport coordinates from Mappero for convenient graphical destination selection, but I hope to get this working during the next days. Currently, the destination can be copied over using the clipboard.
Here’s a route calculated by Routino and loaded into Mappero:
Routino Route loaded into Mappero
It’s far from being convenient to use or user friendly. But for me a dream comes true: Offline bike routing on my mobile computer. Thanks Andrew, you made my weekend!
Waypointcatcher resurrected for Maemo 5
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Waypointcatcher on Maemo 5 (aka Fremantle)
As the location API has changed in Fremantle from libgpsbt to liblocation, the previously released version of waypointcatcher won’t do the job on the N900.
I’ve thus updated the python code, which despite its C&P nature just »works for me«. I’ll share the application on request, until I find the time to do the necessary cleanup and to offer a proper point and click installation link.
Its main purpose is to collect waypoints for openstreetmap, as Mapper does not record marks reliably ATM.
Simple Sysexxer: »Eat your own dogfood!«
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Simple Sysexxer receiving data
During the last days and weeks, I missed some minor features in Simple Sysexxer, so guess what I was doing…
SRTM tiles available online
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
A couple of days back, I converted the SRTM dataset into tiles containing OSM contour lines. Meanwhile the tiles are available online. This service is provided by the Stuttgart University of applied Sciences, thanks to the support of Dr. Franz-Josef Behr.
I hope the data is useful for some community work, e.g. tile rendering for slippy maps or rendering contour lines into viewports of mobile devices. If you create publicy available stuff from the data, please drop me a line.
Christoph’s Notepad ported
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009Searching the web, I got a brief reminder that I wrote my first blog entries back in 2005. As the data collector I am, I ported them to this blog. Just in case you are wondering why some new posts with a rather dated time stamp popped up :) .
Article about Openstreetmap on mobile devices online
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Pencil (by openclipart.org - public domain)
The german Linux Magazin put the article about Linux on mobile devices online.
I’ve ranted about writing the article back in November and October. If you didn’t read the printed issue, the online article is another occasion.
Another interesting article is Wirbelstürmer which reports about the usage of OSM and openrouteservice.org to cope with the remains of the hurricane »Ike«. Thanks for putting those articles online, guys!
ALSA Sequencer Interface for Simple Sysexxer
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
Simple Sysexxer Icon
The last release of Simple Sysexxer used RtMidi for MIDI input. However, some weird things happend when I tried to receive data from my beloved Korg Z1 synth. Today I have rewritten the MIDI input thread using the ALSA sequencer API.
GPS-Articles in the current issue of german Linux Magazin
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Gebabbel Logo
The current issue 12/2009 of the german »Linux Magazin« features several GPS related articles. On page 40 there’s one about Openstreetmap on mobile devices, especially the N810.
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Writing an article for a magazine
Friday, October 16th, 2009Pencil (by openclipart.org - public domain)
After writing several papers for various conferences, I had the occasion to write an article for a magazine (I’ll post more details as soon the issue is out). I mainly did it to collect some experience with that kind of work. Fortunately the topic was about things I’m savvy about, so I just needed to collect the details and write it down. I needed several evenings anyway, as it required to check out current versions of some software and to cope with some glitches in it.
I’m not 100% content, but it’s now a good compromise of what was desired by the client and what I would have written if I was solely responsible for the content. What I’ve heard so far, the client is content as well. Great.
All in all an excellent occasion, and I learned a lot. If you are in the situation to write an article, don’t deny it just because you are too busy or lazy right now. Writing does not only improve your writing skills, but also is a nice training to nail down things effectively. Being an information worker at some software company, it is essential to let others precisely know what I’m intending. Otherwise I either was not able to achieve my goals, or at least it would cost me (and my colleagues) much more time.
Expense-Recorder released
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Expense Recorder
Admittedly, it’s just a modification of the Waypoint Catcher. For me it’s useful anyway :) .
A little night music
Friday, October 2nd, 2009One of my all time hobbies (besides computers, software and openstreetmap) is programming and playing synths (»Yes I can«). Today I took some time to hack the Korg Z1. It’s a physical modeling synth which provides models of various instruments, like analogue synthesizers, electric pianos and organs, bowed and plucked strings, or woodwind instruments. I used the latter model to create a sound that sounds like an unknown acoustic instrument, but in fact it’s a newly invented instrument.
One of my favorite musicians is Joe Zawinul, who was one of the rare masters who knew how to program and to play synths. He used similar sounds from a Korg Prophecy, the monophonic predecessor of the Z1. I learned a lot about music by listening to many of his compositions. Additionally they are an excellent source of inspiration and, last but not least, joy. Here’s the sound I programmed in SysEx format:
It’s not finished yet. I still need to program a better vibrato or tremolo for the modulation wheel and some overdrive for the x-y-pad controller. The portamento controller, however, is ready to use as well as the two assignable buttons and, most importantly, the pitch bender (“Jammerhaken”). The pitch bender modulates the reed pressure, resulting in a bend range of about a minor third downwards and two semitones upwards. Due to the pressure reduction, the latter one also result in more noise in the sound and less harmonical tones.
The two buttons will add some hard distortion to the sound, reliably distroying the acoustic feeling of the sound >;-> .
Here’s a simple recording I did in a couple of minutes without any preparation or even mastering, so I apologise for the boring and unstructured playing. But anyway, “a sound says more than thousand words”. The string pad comes from an Acces Virus synth, and all sounds have been played live, without using any MIDI sequencer or multitrack recorder. I hope you like it:
»I like beautiful sounds« (Nasca Octavian Paul)
Gebabbel available for openSuse
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Andreas Schneider, who also seems to be an GPS enthusiast, just told me that Gebabbel is available for openSuse. The application’s page still does not exist but shoud materialize within a couple of days.
Waypoint-Catcher publicly available
Friday, September 25th, 2009
Waypoint-Catcher
I’ve just released Waypoint-Catcher into the world wild web. It’s a very basic application for the NOkia N810. It just allows to set a waypoint and to tag it with a name and comment. It helped me a lot with occasional mapping, so I hope it is useful for others, too.
Maintaining JOSM Presets
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
JOSM presets - Museum
JOSM, an openstreetmap editor written in the Java programming language, provides some “presets” which allow the user to tag objects easily just by selecting it from a menu. This menu and the corresponding dialogs are all defined in a huge XML file, presets.xml. It allows to define menu entries, subgroups and finally dialogs with standard GUI controls such as checkboxes, comboboxes, line edits, labels, icons etc.
The aforementioned presets.xml is included in josm.jar, but JOSM even can load such presets over a networking connection (http). This makes it easy for users to create and use their very own presets, maybe for specialized use cases like event mapping, mapping ski pistes or nautical stuff.
On request, I have just added the tag “opening_hours” to various presets like shops, restaurants, museums and the like:
JOSM presets - Museum Dialog
If you have further requests, do not hesitate to open a trac ticket. It’s even possible to do this as anonymous user, so there’s no excuse :) .
Qtractor and instrument definition files
Monday, August 24th, 2009
Qtractor Main Window
After Simple Sysexxer is finally available for testing, I found some time to play with my instruments and Qtractor, an audio and MIDI sequencer.
Simple Sysexxer 0.2 beta released
Friday, August 21st, 2009
Simple Sysexxer 0.2
I have just released Simple Sysexxer 0.2 beta. See its dedicated page on this blog for details about download and usage.
I need feedback how it works with various flavours of MIDI instruments. If you can share success stories, bug reports or even feature requests, please let me know.
Simple Sysexxer Source added to Sourceforge SVN
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009I have just imported the current source code of Simple Sysexxer into Sourceforge’s SVN server. To grab your copy, just use the following command:
svn co https://sysexxer.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/sysexxer/
Additionally, sysexxer.sf.net now redirects to the Simple Sysexxer page on this blog.
Simple Sysexxer 0.2 Beta available
Monday, August 10th, 2009
Simple Sysexxer 0.2 Beta
I just sent out an electronic message to various people who hopefully won’t be able to detect any bugs :) . If you like to help with testing, please do not hesitate to drop me a line. If no major issues occur, I’m inclined to release it before the end of this week.
Details about it can be found at it’s dedicated page of this blog.