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Update: Made a minor update for a small bug that can make wi-fi keep reconnecting in quick succession.

Pushed out a new update to my Android App Wi-Fi Keep Alive today. This update brings in another work around for the issue where the wi-fi is alive on the phone and it is also connected to the network but is somehow unable to send/receive any packets to the network. The new work around will automatically re-associate your phone with the wi-fi router if it detects such a situation. This seems to make it work properly again for sometime. When it fails again, the workaround kicks in automatically again. This is not an ideal “fix” as such because streaming apps like Pandora radio etc might have a hiccup because of this but it is unavoidable as of now and atleast the notifications for mails and other things etc will work fine because this state stops even the mobile data network from taking over since the phone perceives that wi-fi is connected but is not working actually.

The other things include support for small screen devices like Xperia X10 mini, some optimizations for size and speed, some icon sizes and UI tweaks for compatibility with different screen sizes and android versions. Please try it out from the market as usual and let me know how it goes. You can find the details and QR code for downloading etc here: Wi-Fi Keep Alive

© Shantanu Goel | Android App Wi-Fi Keep Alive updated to 1.4.1

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Just finished uploading the new version 1.2.0 of my android app Wi-Fi Keep Alive to the Android market. This version has a lot of optimizations and also a few workarounds to overcome the issues few guys were facing with Android’s in-built handling of wi-fi sleep policies. Please check out the Wi-Fi Keep Alive Home Page for more details and download links etc.

Changes done in this version:

* Added workarounds to take care of sleep policies not working on some phones

* Optimized the code a bit for faster operations

* Added Configuration screens to widgets (pops up whenever widget is added)

© Shantanu Goel | Android App: Wi-Fi Keep Alive Updated to 1.2.0

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I just wrote my second Android App. This again was to scratch an itch of mine but it seems to have become a bit popular already (My first app “Quick Sync Settings” did around 400 downloads in 20 days but this one has already surpassed that in less than one day). This app basically allows you to change the wi-fi sleep policy on android so that you can keep your wi-fi connected even if the phone goes to sleep (i.e. screen turns off). What’s more is that I’ve added a widget to it so you don’t even have to go into the app. Just tap on the widget to cycle through the settings. Please try it out here: Android Wi-Fi Keep Alive and let me know if you like it

© Shantanu Goel | Android App: Wi-Fi Keep Alive

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I wrote this script a few days ago to plot real-time / streaming data with gnuplot. The motivation was that I needed to test a piece of code for a touchscreen driver that I had written at work. The issue was that the UI wasn’t quite ready yet, so I wanted to test just the driver to be working fine. Now, the very first thought for the software to use that came to me was “gnuplot” but I found that it can’t really do this in an easy way. A colleague suggested me to use “replot” command with gnuplot. I whipped out my perl hat and a few hours later, voila!! my very own real time data plotter was ready. Now, I can stream data from any program to this script or provide the data on STDIN and can see the data being plotted continuously. BTW, it was awesome to see all the shapes that I drew on my target board’s  LCD touchscreen to come alive on my PC monitor almost instantaneously.

I call it “rtgnuplotter”. A weird name I know , but I just wanted to refer to it as a real time data plotter based on gnuplot. Please check it out at Home Page of RTGNUPlotter.

I’d love to hear from you if you found it useful. Please send in your bug reports and feature requests and I’d be glad if you could spread a word about it amongst your data-loving friends

© Shantanu Goel | Real Time Data Plotting with GNUPlot

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FireFly is a nice DAAP based media server that allows you to listen to your music collection anywhere using any DAAP based client like iTunes, with other players (like Winamp, Rhythmbox, VLC, etc) using plugins, or it even has its own dedicated php/flash/java based clients that can be fired up on any platform any computer giving you instant nirvana.

Many people, like me, use it on their Routers or NAS boxes to access their music anywhere without having to keep their home PC running or lugging around external drives. However, development on this gem stopped some time ago. The last stable build released (2.4.2) was good but it doesn’t have a lot of features provided by the nightly builds in svn (subversion). And the last nightly build released (svn-1696) had a lot of broken things. It was rebuilding the database everytime, crashed around quite a bit, had a lot of security holes. So, I decided to get the latest version (trunk) of the FireFly code, as it had a lot of fixes for above issues, put in whatever was missing, and try to build it for my use.

After a day’s worth of efforts, here it is. This latest build is the most rich in features as compared to the stable one, and is just as stable as the 2.4.2 release if not better, and also fixes all the issues shown by the svn-1696 build. The downloadable source and complete install package are attached with this post. But I’m also listing down the steps that I took to achieve this so that if anyone wants to recompile it with their own options (e.g. I haven’t included ogg/flac support in my build), they are able to do so. You can find the steps below. Please let me know if you have any queries. Also, if you want to submit any patches, I’ll be happy to incorporate them and recompile. I’m also trying to get this source and package into the unslung/optware repositories for wider distribution.

Note: Although I’ve compiled this for Asus WL-500W, it should work for most devices with a mipsel architecture (which includes all the Asus routers in this family). Also, the compilation process should work for most other architectures barring one or two steps. I’d be happy to help if you want to do so and face any issues.

Changes and Build Steps:

• ipkg install optware-devel
• ipkg install buildroot
• Edit /opt/share/aclocal/audiofile.m4 and change AC_DEFUN(AM_PATH_AUDIOFILE, to AC_DEFUN([AM_PATH_AUDIOFILE],
• ipkg install gettext (for some missing m4 macros, libr_rpath etc)
• Comment out AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS in configure.in (using dnl)
• aclocal -I <path of mt-daapd’s local m4 dir>
• run “autoheader” to generate config.h.in
• touch config.rpath (somehow this file is not provided with gettext for us)
• change configure.in line 95, remove the ; at the end
• remove -g flag and add -O2 in configure.in for optimization purpose
• run “automake –add-missing”
• run “autoconf” – to generate configure
• ipkg install grep (for egrep)
• change /bin/sh to /opt/bin/bash in configure and install-sh
• run “./configure –enable-sqlite3 –prefix=/opt CPFLAGS=”-D_LIBC” ” (You can also use –enable-oggvorbis and/or –enableflac)
• After this step, I had to make numerous changes to the source code to put in the missing functionality for database handling, removing some compilation errors, etc. You can diff the svn 1715 code with mine to see the changes.
• run “make”
• run “make install”

And you are done. The modified source and compiled bianries can be downloaded from below.

Let me know if you have any queries or face any issues.

© Shantanu Goel | Compiling Latest FireFly (mt-daapd) for ASUS WL-500W

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Figlet is a brilliant tool to convert text to amazing ASCII Art that I have used for many years. This weekend I thought of creating an online version of it, so that anyone can use it even if they can’t install it on their systems. It is pretty easy to use. The drill is just to choose the font you want (and there is a very extensive collection of more than 250 to choose from), input the text that you want to be ASCII’fied, press a button and you are done.

Here is the homepage of my FIGLET Online tool. Please use it and let me know your feedback, what you feel about it, if you think I can add something to it, or if you find any issues. Meanwhile, here is a “brief” sample of the various kind of outputs you can get from it. I’ve used my name “Shantanu” as the input for these examples.

             #            #              #             #            #              #             #               #
             #            #              #             #            #              #             #               #
  .--.--.    #  ,---,     #              #             #    ___     #              #             #               #
 /  /    '.  #,--.' |     #              #             #  ,--.'|_   #              #             #               #
|  :  /`. /  #|  |  :     #              #      ,---,  #  |  | :,'  #              #      ,---,  #         ,--,  #
;  |  |--`   #:  :  :     #              #  ,-+-. /  | #  :  : ' :  #              #  ,-+-. /  | #       ,'_ /|  #
|  :  ;_     #:  |  |,--. #   ,--.--.    # ,--.'|'   | #.;__,'  /   #   ,--.--.    # ,--.'|'   | #  .--. |  | :  #
 \  \    `.  #|  :  '   | #  /       \   #|   |  ,"' | #|  |   |    #  /       \   #|   |  ,"' | #,'_ /| :  . |  #
  `----.   \ #|  |   /' : # .--.  .-. |  #|   | /  | | #:__,'| :    # .--.  .-. |  #|   | /  | | #|  ' | |  . .  #
  __ \  \  | #'  :  | | | #  \__\/: . .  #|   | |  | | #  '  : |__  #  \__\/: . .  #|   | |  | | #|  | ' |  | |  #
 /  /`--'  / #|  |  ' | : #  ," .--.; |  #|   | |  |/  #  |  | '.'| #  ," .--.; |  #|   | |  |/  #:  | : ;  ; |  #
'--'.     /  #|  :  :_:,' # /  /  ,.  |  #|   | |--'   #  ;  :    ; # /  /  ,.  |  #|   | |--'   #'  :  `--'   \ #
  `--'---'   #|  | ,'     #;  :   .'   \ #|   |/       #  |  ,   /  #;  :   .'   \ #|   |/       #:  ,      .-./ #
             #`--''       #|  ,     .-./ #'---'        #   ---`-'   #|  ,     .-./ #'---'        # `--`----'     #
             #            # `--`---'     #             #            # `--`---'     #             #               #
             ##            ##              ##             ##            ##              ##             ##               ##

  ******** **                           **
 **////// /**                          /**
/**       /**       ******   *******  ******  ******   *******  **   **
/*********/******  //////** //**///**///**/  //////** //**///**/**  /**
////////**/**///**  *******  /**  /**  /**    *******  /**  /**/**  /**
       /**/**  /** **////**  /**  /**  /**   **////**  /**  /**/**  /**
 ******** /**  /**//******** ***  /**  //** //******** ***  /**//******
////////  //   //  //////// ///   //    //   //////// ///   //  ////// 

    o__ __o      o                                   o
   /v     v\    <|>                                 <|>
  />       <\   / >                                 < >
 _\o____        \o__ __o       o__ __o/  \o__ __o    |         o__ __o/  \o__ __o    o       o
      \_\__o__   |     v\     /v     |    |     |>   o__/_    /v     |    |     |>  <|>     <|>
            \   / \     <\   />     / \  / \   / \   |       />     / \  / \   / \  < >     < >
  \         /   \o/     o/   \      \o/  \o/   \o/   |       \      \o/  \o/   \o/   |       |
   o       o     |     <|     o      |    |     |    o        o      |    |     |    o       o
   <\__ __/>    / \    / \    <\__  / \  / \   / \   <\__     <\__  / \  / \   / \   <\__ __/>  

          _____                    _____                    _____                    _____                _____                    _____                    _____                    _____
         /\    \                  /\    \                  /\    \                  /\    \              /\    \                  /\    \                  /\    \                  /\    \
        /::\    \                /::\____\                /::\    \                /::\____\            /::\    \                /::\    \                /::\____\                /::\____\
       /::::\    \              /:::/    /               /::::\    \              /::::|   |            \:::\    \              /::::\    \              /::::|   |               /:::/    /
      /::::::\    \            /:::/    /               /::::::\    \            /:::::|   |             \:::\    \            /::::::\    \            /:::::|   |              /:::/    /
     /:::/\:::\    \          /:::/    /               /:::/\:::\    \          /::::::|   |              \:::\    \          /:::/\:::\    \          /::::::|   |             /:::/    /
    /:::/__\:::\    \        /:::/____/               /:::/__\:::\    \        /:::/|::|   |               \:::\    \        /:::/__\:::\    \        /:::/|::|   |            /:::/    /
    \:::\   \:::\    \      /::::\    \              /::::\   \:::\    \      /:::/ |::|   |               /::::\    \      /::::\   \:::\    \      /:::/ |::|   |           /:::/    /
  ___\:::\   \:::\    \    /::::::\    \   _____    /::::::\   \:::\    \    /:::/  |::|   | _____        /::::::\    \    /::::::\   \:::\    \    /:::/  |::|   | _____    /:::/    /      _____
 /\   \:::\   \:::\    \  /:::/\:::\    \ /\    \  /:::/\:::\   \:::\    \  /:::/   |::|   |/\    \      /:::/\:::\    \  /:::/\:::\   \:::\    \  /:::/   |::|   |/\    \  /:::/____/      /\    \
/::\   \:::\   \:::\____\/:::/  \:::\    /::\____\/:::/  \:::\   \:::\____\/:: /    |::|   /::\____\    /:::/  \:::\____\/:::/  \:::\   \:::\____\/:: /    |::|   /::\____\|:::|    /      /::\____\
\:::\   \:::\   \::/    /\::/    \:::\  /:::/    /\::/    \:::\  /:::/    /\::/    /|::|  /:::/    /   /:::/    \::/    /\::/    \:::\  /:::/    /\::/    /|::|  /:::/    /|:::|____\     /:::/    /
 \:::\   \:::\   \/____/  \/____/ \:::\/:::/    /  \/____/ \:::\/:::/    /  \/____/ |::| /:::/    /   /:::/    / \/____/  \/____/ \:::\/:::/    /  \/____/ |::| /:::/    /  \:::\    \   /:::/    /
  \:::\   \:::\    \               \::::::/    /            \::::::/    /           |::|/:::/    /   /:::/    /                    \::::::/    /           |::|/:::/    /    \:::\    \ /:::/    /
   \:::\   \:::\____\               \::::/    /              \::::/    /            |::::::/    /   /:::/    /                      \::::/    /            |::::::/    /      \:::\    /:::/    /
    \:::\  /:::/    /               /:::/    /               /:::/    /             |:::::/    /    \::/    /                       /:::/    /             |:::::/    /        \:::\__/:::/    /
     \:::\/:::/    /               /:::/    /               /:::/    /              |::::/    /      \/____/                       /:::/    /              |::::/    /          \::::::::/    /
      \::::::/    /               /:::/    /               /:::/    /               /:::/    /                                    /:::/    /               /:::/    /            \::::::/    /
       \::::/    /               /:::/    /               /:::/    /               /:::/    /                                    /:::/    /               /:::/    /              \::::/    /
        \::/    /                \::/    /                \::/    /                \::/    /                                     \::/    /                \::/    /                \::/____/
         \/____/                  \/____/                  \/____/                  \/____/                                       \/____/                  \/____/                  ~~              

 __..         ,
(__ |_  _.._ -+- _.._ . .
.__)[ )(_][ ) | (_][ )(_|

© Shantanu Goel | Project: Figlet Online – Text To ASCII Converter Tool

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Here comes another update, and this time it is a majorly recommended one. For those who are still living under a rock (just kidding ), this is a plugin that allows you to add any kind of text/html/css/php/javascript code to any of your posts or pages with lots of controls over what to display, where to display, etc etc. So, you could use it as an ad-manager or a copyright notice adder (to thwart those feed scrapers) or just add some friendly messages or related posts, etc for your readers.

This particular version fixes a bug that popped up in the last version that the settings were no longer being saved. Also fixed some minor cosmetic issues. So, hop on to the Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix Home Page for downloads and details. And yes, don’t forget to leave feedback.

© Shantanu Goel | Project: My WordPress Plugin Shantz WP Prefix Suffix Updated to 1.1.4

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My WordPress Plugin “Shantz Wordpress Prefix Suffix” has just been updated to version 1.1.2. For those who don’t know, this is a super-light and easy to use plugin that allows you to add any text or html/javascript/php code to your posts, be it the top of the posts, bottom of the posts or even in the middle. And you get a lot of options to control all this. I use it even on my site, to create links for my other blogs, adding copyright notices and even for advertisements (google adsense, chitika premium, etc).

This update brings in WordPress 2.7.1 compatibility and also another option to control the plugin order. If there are some other plugins that add content to your posts (e.g. sociable, simple tags, related posts, etc), you might notice that the text/code you append with this plugin may not occur in exactly the place you want (e.g. you might want to occur after all other plugins have posted their content). So, you can easily control this now by changing the priority value in the plugin settings. Make it higher to push the content down and lower it to add your content before anything else.

For more details and downloads, head on to the Shantz WP Prefix Suffix Home Page and do not hesitate to post any questions you have, or feature requests as well.

© Shantanu Goel | Project: Shantz WordPress Prefix Suffix Updated to 1.1.2

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Here is another update for the fans of XWinWrap, the tiny program that allows you to run animated wallpapers on your system. You could use screensavers, movies and what not as your desktop background. This update fixes a segfault that many users were facing, a new debug option to print some debug mesages to get some info if it is not working for you and a new hack option for giving a “desktop window” name to the program. On many systems, the desktop is drawn by another program. e.g. in Ubuntu with Gnome environment, the desktop is managed by Nautilus, which creates a special window called “Desktop” and places it over your real desktop. This window name can be different in different systems. To find out what is yours, just run “xwininfo” in a terminal. Your cursor will become a “+” sign. Click anywhere on an empty area on your desktop, which will give you the window name of the transparent window, if any, that is covering your desktop. Pass this info to xwinwrap using the option “-d windowname” and it would help it to run better.

For more details, usage and downloads, head on to Shantz XWinWrap Home Page. As usual, 32 bit as well as 64 bit binary files are available as downloads. For users of Debian and derived operating systems (like Ubuntu, Mepis, etc), deb packages are also included for both architectures for easy installation. Source code is also available, of course.[tags]Projects, C, Xlib, X11, Shantz XWinWrap, XWinWrap, Desktop Background, Animated Wallpapers, Ubuntu, Linux, Debian, Mepis[/etc]

© Shantanu Goel | Project: Shantz XWinWrap Update to 0.3

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Well, its not just prefix suffix any more, because I added an option to add things in the middle of the posts as well. I got this idea because people told me that this was one of the most sought after option as advertisements (e.g. google adsense, adbrite, etc) give maximum click through rate when placed smack dab in the middle of the content. What’s more is that it is configurable and you can choose how many paragraphs and/or words should be skipped from the start of the post before you add whatever you want, be it text, css, html, php or javascript.

For more details and downloads, head on over to: Shantz WP Prefix Suffix Home Page

And don’t forget to let me know what you think about it or if you want any new features included.

© Shantanu Goel | Project: Shantz-WP-Prefix-Suffix Updated to 1.1.0

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