A while ago I was fed up with Android Wear smartwatches and bought a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus. After using it for a while I started to explore the possibilities beyond the manufacturer specifications. This lead to a firmware patcher based upon work from Alex Whiter (who sadly passed in 2019). That patcher modified the firmware update file and disabled the license check for Garmin Maps. After installing a patched firmware, you were able to use any downloaded Garmin map on the watch without having to buy a license. Alex himself also offered a patcher to enable the use of custom made JNX "BirdsEye" files. (These JNX files can be easily created with SAS.Planet / SAS.Планета, a Windows tool to download map tiles and export them to different formats.)
These patchers sparked my interest in the firmware format as I've noticed they not only patched the few Bytes in the code but also modified other areas in the file.
Continue reading "Pimp my Garmin: Turning your Fenix 5 Plus into a D2 Delta pilot watch"
When I got my Spectre x360 back in 2016, I booted it into the Windows 10 it came with, played a bit around and then decided to put Linux on it. So I took a backup of all partitions, repartitioned the whole SSD and went on with Linux. Of course, I found a way to install BIOS updates which I regularly did.
Now came the time to sell the machine so I restored my backup to have to original state from back then. To give the buyer a better experience, I wanted to restore it to its factory state using the now restored recovery partition. The recovery process started up just fine and prepared the main partition and started doing things ... until it failed with a strange error message. Trying it over and over again, it always failed at the same step after completely installing the Windows operating system, not very far into installing the OEM software.
Continue reading "Fix stock recovery of HP Spectre x360 laptop"
A while ago I've acquired an old Tektronix TDS784D oscilloscope. Originally, it came with these enabled options:
05 - Video Trigger13 - Centronics and RS232 interface1F - Floppy disk drive1M - Memory upgrade x12F - Maths/FFT, differentiation features
While this already is a lot, there's still option 2C (Comm signal analyser) which is a pure-software option. (In later production runs, the device might also already contain the necessary hardware for the bigger memory option 2M. Check whether your serial number starts with B4xxx. Mine didn't.)
Continue reading "Pimp my scope: Unlocking Software Features in a Tektronix TDS784D"
For an older oscilloscope I wanted to replace the 3.5" floppy drive with USB. After checking for the required connector and available USB emulators, the one that I needed was the GOTEK SFR1M44-DU26 - an 1.44 MB floppy emulator with a 26pin FFC/FPC connector. (There's also the SFR1M44-TU26 - which has the connector mounted the other way around but should also work.)
The emulator fit almost perfectly, but since it was meant to be used with some embroidery machine it was a bit short on one side. But that's nothing to worry about - it still functions as it should.
Continue reading "GOTEK Slim Floppy Emulator SFR1M44-DU26"
I've started collecting knowledge for myself (and for everyone to see) in a DokuWiki back in 2008. In 2014 I found DokuWiki to start feeling dated and explored alternatives. I liked the idea of having all entries as single files and in a standard markup format (compared to DokuWiki's own markup language), so I started to move all entries to GitHub Pages and in early 2015 my Jekyll-based GitHub-hosted Wiki went online. While this was a great exercise and works really well, it wasn't ideal. The site being created by a static-site generator means you can only use JavaScript for dynamic things. I had to use Disqus for comments and Google Site Search to allow searching the site. Also, it being based on static text files meant I had to manually track e.g. timestamps of when an article was created or updated by adding (and updating) the times in the Markdown-file's Front Matter. And creating a new entry meant to checkout everything from GitHub, add a textfile in the correct directory, make sure the Front Matter contains all necessary data, commit the changes into the Git repository and push everything back to GitHub. Then find out there's a typo, change file, create commit, push again. And it all depended on GitHub willing to host the page. So I wanted to switch to a different system, but wasn't sure yet which.
Continue reading "The Wiki that became a Blog"
My dad has an old Panasonic MiniDV camcorder and wanted to import old tapes into his cutting tool
on Windows 10. After hooking up the camcorder via Firewire, the import dialog showed the time code
of the running tape, but instead of the video, the preview was black and there was no audio.
Continue reading "Import video from MiniDV camcorder in Windows 10"
Recently, I switched from a German QWERTZ to a UK Extended QWERTY keyboard layout - for easier
access to characters for programming.
Continue reading "UK Extended keyboard with even more extensions"
After some years, my IKEA Markus chair developed some clicking/knocking noise whenever I swivel in
it. This was very annoying for everbody in the same room.
Continue reading "Fix IKEA Markus office chair"
The LED in the mute key doesn't work out of the box. To enable it, add a file /etc/modprobe.d/hp-spectre.conf
with the following contents:
Continue reading "hp Spectre x360 Mute LED"
Cardo Updater puts the main binary cardo-updater into /usr/local/ and
registers this as a LaunchDaemon with the file /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.cardosystems.cardo-updater.plist.
Continue reading "Uninstall Cardo Updater for Mac"
Disclaimer: ID mapping without a Kerberos server only works halfway with NFSv4, it seems. I
managed to get the correct usernames to show up on my client when listing files, but creating new
files always creates them as user nobody because the Synology doesn't map anything in that case.
[This bug report][1] and the [linked thread][2] suggest this is normal behaviour of idmapd when
not using Kerberos for some reason. (EDIT: [More detailed explanation.][3])
Continue reading "Synology NFSv4 with id mapping"
I wanted to increase the available storage on my Synology DS415+ by replacing 2x 2TB disks with
4TB ones, extending my 4-4-2-2 volume to 4-4-4-4 and the overall storage space from 8TB to 12TB.
Continue reading "Speed up Synology volume reshaping"
If you have a MacBook Pro A1286 (15.4", Late-2008 until Mid-2012) and want to replace the battery,
you must be aware of the specific battery in your device. In 2011, for some reason, Apple decided
to switch from the battery model A1321 (73 Wh) to model A1382 (77.5 Wh). While the form-factor
stayed the same, Apple changed the connector and pinout.
Continue reading "Apple MacBook Pro A1286 Battery Replacement"
There are two locations where you can define the button's location: dconf and gconf.
Continue reading "Move window's minimise/maximise/close buttons"
Some hotkeys to hold when powering on the Mac:
Continue reading "Apple Startup Hotkeys"
To get an idea about the current status of your batteries, there are a few apps available:
Continue reading "HP 50g battery status"
The original firmware in the HP 50g emulates a Saturn CPU
like the HP 48 and HP 49 had. However, the built-in ARM920T
processor has more power than the Saturn.
Continue reading "HP 50g alternative firmware"
The default key debouncing wait time in the HP 50g is very long so that it misses lots of
keypresses when typing fast. E.g. when typing 500 the calculator only registers 50. This
behaviour is controlled by the KEYTIME setting.
Continue reading "HP 50g and missed keypresses"
Here are some Android apps and games I've found interesting or which were recommended somewhere
for various purposes. And which I didn't had the time/need to try them yet.
Continue reading "Android apps to try"
