Internet Appliances with MisterHouse FAQ

This will try to cover info and tips on using various internet appliances like the Epods and Audrey with MisterHouse.


What is an internet appliance

A broad term used to cover any thing cheaper than a computer that hooks up to an ethernet port. A couple of examples:

 - Web browsers used as touch screens
 - Ethernet connected MP3 players
 - Internet radios


What is an epod

An epod is a hacked WinCE webpad. 640x480 color touchpad display, 16MB memory, cf and pcmcia slot. I connect mine wirelessly using a D-Link card/access point. Epods are selling for about $300 on EBay. Check out:

  http://www.geocities.com/epodsfiles/
  http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=EpodsOne


What is an Audrey

In Fall of 2001, the discontinued 3Com Audrey were being liquidated by tigerdirect.com for $90 (originally $500). With a 640x480 LCD touchscreen, it makes for a nice web appliance / touch control pannel.

Here are some helpful links:

 Order: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=M975-9000%20P
 Hack:  http://www.audreyhacking.com/
 Ether: http://www.ppetru.net/audrey/#ether
 Faq:   http://www.3rdmoon.com/crusso/audrey/
 List:  http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=3Com_Audrey&Idle
 OS:    http://www.openqnx.com/

Pete Flaherty posted a mh compatable Audrey image at http://vsa.cape.com/~pjf/MrAudrey.html

Some common hacks

Here are some common/useful hacks (edit these file to these values):

  echo 1 > /config/BROWSER_AllowNewWindow
  echo 0 > /config/SYSTEM_ScreenSaveSecs  (disable auto-shutdown)

To improve color resolution (do this on boot, before browser starts) echo 0 > /config/BROWSER_Use256Colors

If you press the Browser button while the browser is already visible, the menu will slide away.

You may want to increase the size on these:

 /config/BROWSER_ImageCacheSizeKB 2048 (Had problems increasing this to 20000)
 /config/BROWSER_CacheSize        5000 (I changed to 50000

Here are some instructions to allow turning the screen on/off remotely:

 http://homepage.mac.com/deandavis/audrey/AudreyOnOff.html

Note, the above simply turns the screen off. Not quite the same as the power button which also disable browser refreshes.

Remote Audrey browsing and control

Create a HOSTS entry to point to your audrey address (available from the About Audrey -> Provile icon on the Audrey Options menu). For example, edit c:/WINNT/system32/drivers/etc/hosts and add 192.168.0.101 Audrey).

Assuming you have already done the above AudreyOnOff hack, try these urls:

 http://audrey/Channels/.Channel00/.template/index.shtml
 http://audrey/SystemProfile.shtml
 http://audrey/cgi-bin/GetSystemValue?kcrontab
 http://audrey/cgi-bin/GetSystemValue?Timeserver0
 http://audrey/cgi-bin/SetLEDState?1  (2 blink, 0 off)
 http://audrey/gpio.shtml?0 (screen off, 3 for on)

How to boot Audrey to a mh page

From Ron Wright from some other site on 10/2001

I has hacking away and realized that the /data/XML/Channels/.countertop/TEMPLATE directory has the default index.shtml that loads up when Audrey boots. So I tried adding a refresh meta tag to this file and rebooted. It worked just as I had hoped it would.

Now it loads the intro screen for a few seconds (5 in my case) and then ``refreshes'' to open my control panel for the house. Works great and appears to be safe enough for my wife to use now.

Just add this tag to the index.shtml file mentioned above. I added mine just below the first meta tag:

 <meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="5;URL=http://192.168.0.1:8080/audrey/audrey.html">

How to stop the Audrey from auto-upating

From Ron Wright from some other site on 10/2001

I have also edited the kcrontab file to keep Audrey from trying to update her channels. I found before doing this, everytime she tried an update it was changing the page back to default audrey welcome. Also the initial reason for the above change. This just makes it one better.

Losing kcrontab entries

If you have the root shell hack on the audrey options panel, you can.

1) Get into the shell cd /config cat kcrontab >kcrontab.sav exit

2) Deselect broadband and all the download times

3) go back to the shell cd /config edit kcrontab.sav to save what you want cp kcrontab.sav kcrontab

All better

BTW My kcrontab looks like this

 -MemDefrag;15;19;*;*;*
 setitime;23;19;*;*;*
 maild;/5;*;*;*;*

How to share files

Assuming a hacked shell like DaveC-Img10-23-01, you can share access Windows shared folders with this command

 /nto/bin/fs-cifs -a //windows_box:ip_address:/share_name /directory user password

For example:

 mkdir /mp3
 /nto/bin/fs-cifs -a //mp3_server:192.168.0.2:/mp3s /mp3 guest guest

If using DaveC image, you can do this on startup by editing /kojak/remotemount.sh, called from /kojak/go

How to play mp3 files

From Tony Perrie on 10/2001:

Assuming a hacked shell like DaveC-Img10-23-01.

I setup a little shell script to start the photon player:

 export MPEGAUDIOBUFFERSIZE=300000
 export MPEGAUDIOBUFFERSTARTPERCENT=90
 export MPEGAUDIOREFILLONUNDERFLOW=YES
 phplay &

The default priority on fs-cifs and phplay is 19 which is the lowest. You'll probably want to up the priority on fs-cifs and to keep the photon player from skipping with:

 slay -P 5 fs-cifs
 slay -P 5 phplay

How to push speech to remote Audreys

There are 2 ways to do remotely play wav files on an Audrey. One plays a wav file in the foreground by creating a popup window, the other uses playsound_noph to play wav files in the background. Both ways requre you first enable remote control (see 'Remote Audrey browsing and control' above).

To enable the foreground wav playing, add this mh.ini parm (this is the default):


 voice_text_address_code = run 'get_url -quiet "http://$address/cgi-bin/SendMessage?M=GOTO_URL&S=$url" /dev/null'

Now simply use the address argument when calling speak or play. For example (substitute in you Audrey ip address(s)):

 speak "address=192.168.0.101,kitchen Hello to the study";
 play   address => 'study', file => '../sounds/hello_from_bruce.wav';
 play   address => 'study,kitchen', file => '../sounds/hello_from_bruce.wav';

To install playsound_noph, first download and unzip it from Keith Webb's site: http://www.planetwebb.com/audrey . Note, you do not need to be running qnx. A normal hacked Audrey works fine.

Next, create this a file called playsound.shtml with these records:

 <html><head><title>Shell</title></head></body>
 <!--#exec cmd="playsound_noph $QUERY_STRING &" -->
 </body></html>

Now copy 3 files over to your Audrey(s). Here are the commands I used from my Audrey to copy the files from my windows house c:/temp directory:


 mkdir /house
 fs-cifs -a //house:192.168.0.2:/c /house guest guest
 cd /house/temp
 cp playsound_noph    /nto/photon/bin
 cp soundfile_noph.so /nto/photon/dll
 cp playsound.shtml   /data/XML

Finally, add this mh.ini parm: voice_text_address_code = run 'get_url -quiet ``http://$address/playsound.shtml?$url'' /dev/null'

And use the speak and play examples from above. More examples are in mh/code/bruce/audrey.pl