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Upgrade Cisco IOS on the 877W

December 30, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Cisco LogoYesterday it struck me I was using a less secure wireless setup while the more secure was just a simple configuration change away. While adjusting the configuration I noticed the software version was pretty dated because my last IOS update (12.4.24T1) was from May 2009. To stay current I decided to upgrade my home router.

12.4.24T8 is the latest IOS in the 12.4T series. This version was released on 19 September 2012. I don’t have enough flash capacity to store the new 15.1.4 release, so I will stick with the 12.4.24 release. So I downloaded c870-advipservicesk9-mz.124-24.T8.bin from Cisco.

I have described the steps below so it will be a walk in the park next time.

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Improve wireless security on the 877W

December 29, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

cisco-877w-frontI just discovered my three year old Cisco wireless router was configured to do WPA encryption instead of the more secure WPA2 version, which is the standard nowadays. WPA uses TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) while WPA2 is capable of using TKIP or the more advanced AES algorithm. Doing a search on Google it appears it’s just a IOS configuration option.

Change:

interface Dot11Radio0
no ip address
!
encryption vlan 2 mode ciphers tkip
!

To:

interface Dot11Radio0
no ip address
!
encryption vlan 2 mode ciphers aes-ccm
!

If the option is not there, your IOS version does not support it. I’m currently using: C870 Software, Version 12.4(24)T1 (c870-advipservicesk9-mz.124-24.T1.bin).

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Updated i’m Watch to 0.6.0

November 14, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I have updated my watch to version 0.6.0. It took 10 minutes to complete. After using the updated watch for a day I can say the promised Bluetooth stability fix turns out well. Before this update the watch had some Bluetooth connectivity issues when reconnecting after the Bluetooth connection was dropped, those issues are solved.

This is what the change log looks like for version 0.6.0 (released on november, 6th 2012):

  • Improved first-boot user experience
  • Added calls log for incoming and outgoing calls
  • Improved Bluetooth connection stability
  • Better Bluetooth status notifications and user interface
  • Lots of minor bug fixes and user experience refinements

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i’m Watch and webOS

October 5, 2012 by · 2 Comments

Yesterday I received my long awaited new watch. This is a i’m Watch color watch. The i’m SPA company claims that this watch is the first real smartwatch in the world. This watch uses a slimmed down and highly customized version of Google’s Android, called i’m Droid.

First thing I did was upgrading the watch to the most recent firmware version which is 0.5.0. As soon as the new firmware was active I tried to connect the watch to my phone, which is a webOS HP Pre3. The watch communicates using Bluetooth, and it turns out it’s not a problem to pair and sync. I have to admit that I’m using the default installed Mobile Hotspot app which comes with webOS 2.2.4 for the Pre3 but with a minor, but important addition. I had to add a small script to the /etc/event.d directory to allow IP forwarding and added three iptables rules allowing NAT traffic to pass through. You can find this script at the end of this post.

Once there is a Bluetooth connection that supports tethering you have the ability to hit the button ‘Sync Cloud’. As you would assume this will download information for the apps you have configured in the i’m Cloud. There is a limited number of Cloud apps available. Have a look at the list below:

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Toyota Touch & Go explained

August 8, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

There have been some questions about the physical Toyota Touch & Go unit in the comments of earlier blog posts. Those questions are already answered, but it’s nice to see how the system physically looks like. There is also a summery of what is system is capable of. This information comes from a troubleshooting guide.

The Toyota Touch & Go system enables a suite of services on select DA (Display Audio) head units on available Toyota models. The system will connect with the user’s cell phone for the provision of Location Based Services as well as the various applets such as Google search, fuel pricing, parking information, weather information, Parking and Glass of Water, etc.
The system utilizes a USB connection for system software updates, navigation map updates as well as access to a variety of USB media storage devices that use MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV audio formats. The USB uses the 2.0 USB standards for connectivity. The USB port will also charge a connected device.

The features provided by the Touch & Go System are:

  1. GPS Navigation with map display and turn-by-turn audible guidance
  2. USB2.0 interface – for software updated, USB media devices and USB charging
  3. Voice Recognition (TT&Go+only) capability for audio media control, GPS Navigation and Phone
  4. Handsfree phone
  5. On-line local search, POI send-to-car via cellphone link
  6. Connected Applets (Fuel, Parking, Park&Go & Weather) via cell phone link
  7. Non-connected Applets (Glass of Water)

The Toyota T&G service is enabled by the separate Extension Box (EXT) that mounts under the Display Audio (DA) head unit as shown below:

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XBMC Trakt addon issue

July 8, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

As a long time XBMC user I never had any issues, so I was a little bit disappointed because it won’t startup anymore. After an hour of digging it appears that I had disabled and uninstalled the trakt addon the last time I used XBMC, which was a few days ago. Starting up XBMC loads the home page and it starts to scan for new files and then it crashes suddenly over and over again. The xbmc log didn’t give any clues, so I had to enable debug mode to have more information. This is done by creating a file in the userdir directory named advancedsettings.xml:

<advancedsettings>
<loglevel>1</loglevel>
</advancedsettings>

Now starting XBMC results in the expected crash, but with a debug log which pointed out there was a problem with Trakt.

At that time I remembered removing Trakt from the installed addons. Doing a search in the userdir directory resulted in a positive hit on Trakt. By removing the Trakt addon it didn’t remove the following line from the file userdir/autoexec.py.

import time;time.sleep(5);xbmc.executebuiltin("XBMC.RunScript(special://home/addons/script.trakt/default.py,-startup)")

It looks like XBMC still tries to start Trakt. After removing this line XBMC started again.

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Intermittent WiFi signal

June 7, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

I experienced a intermittent WiFi signal lately on multiple devices. Since I haven’t touched my router configuration for a while it had to be something different. Some time passed before I realized it could be a neighbor who was using the same frequency I was using. Looking into my router configuration it turned out I was using a fixed frequency (2462).  Below are the frequencies that can be configured.

Channel 1 : 2412 Mhz 11g
Channel 2 : 2417 Mhz 11g
Channel 3 : 2422 Mhz 11g
Channel 4 : 2427 Mhz 11g
Channel 5 : 2432 Mhz 11g
Channel 6 : 2437* Mhz 11g
Channel 7 : 2442 Mhz 11g
Channel 8 : 2447 Mhz 11g
Channel 9 : 2452 Mhz 11g
Channel 10 : 2457 Mhz 11g
Channel 11 : 2462 Mhz 11g
Channel 12 : 2467 Mhz 11g
Channel 13 : 2472 Mhz 11g

While thinking about which new frequency to choose I figured out there is an option to choose the least congested. That’s what I need in an area where there are at least 30+ different access-points.

router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
router(config)#interface Dot11Radio0
router(config-if)#channel 2457
router(config-if)# channel ?
<1-2472>         One of: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 2412 2417 2422 2427
2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472
least-congested  Scan for best frequency

router(config-if)# channel least-congested
router(config-if)#end

Now every WiFi enabled device in the house is happy again.

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Touch & Go map outdated

May 2, 2012 by · 18 Comments

I’m using the Toyota Touch & Go system for the past 2 months. Being a happy user I have one remark on the product, which is the navigation map.

Toyota says the following on their website “Did you know that 20% of the roads change every year? With up-to-date maps you get to your destination in time, avoid unpleasant surprises and detours, and drive more safely.” The map I have is the most up to date, which dates 21 march 2011. That is over a year and a month old. The dealer told me they are working towards a 6 months update cycle. I have send customer relations a mail on when we can expect a new map updates. When i receive a response I will post it here.

Harman has developed the Touch & Go system for Toyota. It uses QNX for the operating system and maps and updates are coming from Naviextras.com which is a map update portal operated by NNG formerly knows as Nav N Go. The news section on the Naviextras.com website report that there are map updates available for Europe 2011 Q4.

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