VESA mount-it, stand it up, or lay it flat

 The vision  

Recently, I ditched Sky+, a subscription-based satellite TV service that comes with a personal video recorder and subscription TV service in one package. The PVR element is actually pretty darn good: very quick, responsive and the guide functions are adequate. The interface is a bit bland, but it is responsive and clear - and that’s what really counts. However, we realised that we just weren’t watching enough of the actual subscription channels (Sky 1, for instance) to warrant the monthly cost (no point paying for what you don’t use, right?). The trouble with ditching the service is, the PVR functionality is also disabled – which means no more ability to pause Live TV, or schedule programs to record. Darn.  

What I wanted, then, is to be able to use Media Center (a better product than the bog standard Sky+ box will ever be), with Digital Terrestrial TV (free-to-air). Media Center also allows you to watch and consume digital content stored on the rest of your network. Combine this with the HP Media Smart Windows Home Server’s ability to stream media, and you have a winning combo. To satisfy this need, I wanted a PC directly connected to the main TV in our living room, as my experience with using the Xbox 360 as an extender to my Win7 Media Centre box just didn’t cut it performance-wise.  

In addition to the PVR element, I also wanted a device that would enable me to consume the other digital content stored on our network: and the Sky+ box just can’t do that. Likewise, I can’t access recordings stored on the Sky+ box on my home network (nor could I back them up). So, the more I looked at it: the more Sky+ had to go.  

In moving toward a more connected, content-oriented home, there had to be a better way. And, at long last, I believe I have found it.  

My new setup: the hardware  

• Acer Revo R3610
• Windows Home Server (obviously!)
• PlusLink Dual DVB-T USB tuners
• Windows 7 Home Premium (for Media Center)

The Acer Revo was the key that unlocked everything and made it all possible – but out of the box, it isn’t configured in a way that was an exact match to my requirements. The model I purchased came pre-installed with 2GB RAM.  

Upgrading the Revo  

To get the performance I desired, upgrades were essential. I purchased the following extras:  

• 2GB RAM upgrade from Crucial UK
• OCZ 120GB Solid State Hard Disk

The result is a system that is simply stunning. It’s ready to boot from cold in just 30 seconds, and takes around the 15 second mark to resume from hibernate. It plays HD (1080p) content from TV channels, or from media streamed from the Windows Home Server. Plus, using the “Live TV” function in Media Center acts exactly as it should: it is swift and responsive.  

This is basically Sky+ on speed, using Media Center’s beautiful and clutter-free user interface with direct connection to the rest of the network which enables us to enjoy all the digital content we create.  

Now, even with Freesat and Digital Terrestrial TV (which gives us over 100 free channels, many of which are very good, particularly the BBC ones), we can now watch and record HD content speedily and consume that same content elsewhere on our home network.  

You can ditch the Sky+ subscription and still access Sky TV content  

Windows Media Center is just a modern wonder of the world. A recent update to WMC means that you can now access Sky TV content over the internet, with programmes directly listed inside the Programme Guide. You then have the option of renting the programme with prices starting from 99p. Pretty cool – so I really can ‘have my cake and eat it’.  

What did it all cost?  

Not including the Samsung Series 7 46” LCD TV it is connected to, the Acer Revo R3610 from Amazon.co.uk was £239.99. A 2GB RAM upgrade from Crucial UK cost £34.59 and the 128GB Kingston Technology SATA SSD was £168. The TV Tuner was an impulse buy from Maplin Electronics some time back and cost £24.99.  

At the end of the day, my ’dream media setup’ cost £469.  

The added advantage as well is that we get a lightning quick Windows 7 PC connected to the TV via HDMI – so other digital content, Youtube, and the like, even iGoogle, is just a click away.

In this article, I cover:

• Introducing Windows Media Centre
• How To: Set up Windows Media Centre
• How To: Connect your Xbox 360 to Windows Media Centre
• Windows Home Server and your digital media

Feel free to skip to the section that interests you most.

An impulse purchase that changed the way we consume media in our household

At the weekend, something happened that rocked my world. It didn’t happen accidentally, either. I was out shopping and I just happened to walk past Maplin (RadioShack, to you US folks) who had a special offer in their window: a KWorld PlusTV DVB-T Dual Freeview HD Tuner for the princely sum of just £24.99. That’s a small USB stick with an antenna connection on it that contains not one, but TWO HD Freeview TV tuners, giving the ability to watch one programme while recording another: for £24.99.

In the UK, Freeview gives access to about 100 digital channels, and, although they don’t broadcast in HD yet, in early 2010 the HD rollout begins.

Right now, the only way to get free HD TV over the air is to get Freesat HD or Sky+ HD, both of which require a satellite dish to be installed and cost a fair amount in set up and subscription fees.

At the time, like many geeks, I didn’t know why I wanted this particular gadget, but I the little voice inside of me compelled me to buy it. I figured, “hey, even if I don’t know what to do with it, perhaps Windows 7 will”. And that is where the fun began.

Introducing Windows Media Centre

With the recent release of Windows 7, millions of people globally have been busy remarking how much simpler the ‘simple’ things become when you install Windows 7.

Unlike Apple (for whom I shall now depart momentarily to direct a slight dig) who only have to worry about a limited number of devices on a limited platform of hardware, Microsoft have to build software that is actually compatible with hundreds of thousands of different devices and at least twice as many combinations. That is by no means an easy thing to accomplish, but Windows 7 seems to do it with dare I say it a certain degree of sentience: plug and play has actually come to life. Everything… every single USB gadget I own was detected first time, without me first needing to supply a driver CD. If Windows didn’t have the drivers, it ‘magicked’ them off the internet for me. Marvellous.

This includes the £24.99 TV Tuner from some anonymous company I’ve never heard of before. I plugged it in, and up popped the “Driver Installation” window and it downloaded the relevant drivers for me (I’m so glad it did as well – I don’t like installing drivers and software from anonymous small name companies).

A few minutes later, everything was successfully installed with zero effort on my part. In fact, the most strenuous part of this entire exercise was trying to open the box the device came in – which was apparently designed to survive a small tactical strike.

And this is where Windows Media Centre comes onto the scene – an incredible suite of technologies that’s designed with simplicity in mind. Shipped with Windows 7 Home Premium and Ultimate editions, Media Centre has – at its core – the ability to act as a centralised hub for all your digital media: music, videos, recorded and live TV. For anyone who’s seen TiVO or Sky+, Windows Media Centre does exactly what those two services do, but better, faster and subscription free.

Setting-up Media Centre

Launching “Windows Media Centre” from your Start Menu brings up a little animated Window:

Having detected that I had now installed a USB TV Tuner, Windows Media Centre asked me if I wanted to configure it. Allow it to complete the setup process, which – including the time it takes Media Centre to scan the TV frequencies in your country for available channels – took me about 10 minutes.

When the process is completed, Windows Media Centre is able to give you a TV guide showing weeks’ worth of programming schedules. The guide alone is worth ditching Sky+ for:

• Beats Sky’s “Series Link” function by adding numerous extra functions giving greater control over what is recorded and when
• Search for TV programmes by keyword in the title, or by cast members
• Create wish lists: specify your favourite actors and actresses, and the guide records any programmes it finds with those stars as cast members
• Manage potential recording conflicts before they arise and set priorities for your favourite shows

The list does actually go on. Have a look at some of the guide screenshots below:

The trouble is right now – this is TV on my PC. My PC is in my office – not my front room. We need to break out of here and I’ll be damned if I’m going to run a VGA cable from here to my 42” LCD TV in the front room. Nay – I want an easier way!

Xbox 360

Those of us with an Xbox 360 (or three) laying about the house know that we’re supposed to be living in some futuristic media-utopia where our TV’s can access all our music, videos and photos. Even TV (alright, that’s slightly pointless but you get the picture). But, even with Vista, this wasn’t particularly easy to set up. So I never bothered with it. It just didn’t quite work as expected.

Turn on your Xbox 360 while your Windows 7 PC is on, and you’ll receive a polite little notification that “Windows has discovered a Media Centre Extender”. Discovery – what an appropriate word. It popped up, and I thought to myself …. “Please, continue”. And so Windows did. After being informed a few seconds later that everything was installed correctly, I wanted my Xbox 360 to be able to access the juicy goodness of Windows Media Centre.

Follow these steps:

• Go to “System”
• Go to “Computers”
• Go to “Windows Media Centre”
• If you’ve already set up (or tried to set up) a Windows Media Centre connection before, you’ll first want to choose “Disconnect”. If you’ve not tried that before, that option won’t be available to you.
• Now, choose “Connect”.
• Your Xbox 360 will search your network for available Windows Media Centre computers. After a few moments, your Windows 7 Media Centre should be discovered, and your Xbox 360 will display a two-part eight digit code on your screen.
• Note that code down, and fire up the Windows Media Centre application on your PC.
• Go to “Tasks”, then “Add Extender” to bring up this screen:

  

• Type in the eight digit code you were given by your Xbox 360, and press “Next”.
• You’ll then see a screen similar to this:

  

• This process might take a little while to complete while your Media Libraries are constructed.
• Once complete, you’ll see a screen like this:

  

• By this time, your Xbox 360’s display will have changed and will be displaying a very similar (if not completely identical) display to the Windows Media Centre application on your PC.

And that’s it, you’re done – your Xbox 360 is now connected to your Windows 7 Media Centre.

What about Windows Home Server?

Ah, the “server in the home”. Got one? I have. If you haven’t, you should.

It takes care of backing up all your PCs, laptops and personal devices and my HP MediaSmart Home Server even automatically backs up my iTunes Libraries and streams them over the network. In fact, they’re so good I’d recommend them even for small businesses. Just plug them in, install the software on your PCs and laptops and you’re safe from day one (you can even do a bare-metal rebuild if you are running Windows 7 – that rocks).

Even cooler is that with the PowerPack 3 Beta recently released by Microsoft you can now install a connector for Windows Media Centre that allows it to take full advantage of the awesome storage capacity of your Windows Home Server.

The Windows Home Server Media Centre Connector (desperately in need of a shorter name, though it is hard to imagine one more descriptive) adds a little tab to your Windows Media Centre menu that, in a nutshell, allows Media Centre to archive your recorded television programs off to your Home Server automatically. It also adds some other nifty functionality to allow you to view most of the information contained on your Home Server Console on your TV, too.

In summary

It starts with the purchase of a TV tuner ‘dongle’. With Windows 7, in literally just a few minutes you can pretty much overhaul the way you access your digital content in the home. Chuck an Xbox 360 into the mix, and you’ve got the capability to stream HD content to your TV, listen to your music and browse all your photos right from the comfort of your armchair. I’d also recommend getting your hands on a great media remote (this one from Logitech is awesome) because you’ll quickly get bored using the Xbox 360 controller. The Logitech remote can also control many other devices so you can ditch the collection of remotes you’ve probably already got.

With Windows Home Server chugging away too, you’ll never lose any of your digital recordings again and since storage is so cheap these days, you’ll have a very easy mechanism for expanding your storage on demand.

BizSpark has already helped hundreds (thousands, now, perhaps?) of startups to succeed, and Websitespark looks set to do the same for smaller teams of web professionals. With no up-front costs and no long-term commitments (just a $100 exit fee at the end of the programme period) , what more could you ask for?

Full information is online and available at http://www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark/

If, like me, you’ve been eagerly awaiting the official release of Windows 7, you’ve no doubt wanted to install it on just about everything you have. We have a couple of Acer Aspire netbooks: fantastic, highly portable machines but, not fantastically powerful. Windows 7 boasts better performance on lower-spec hardware than it’s predecessor, so putting Windows 7 on the netbooks seems a logical choice.

It took about 12 minutes to install Windows 7 Ultimate from my USB pen drive to my Acer Aspire netbook

A while ago I blogged about how to install Windows Vista on your Aspire A150, so I thought now it would be a good time to update those instructions for Windows 7 users. Thankfully, the process is much more straightforward for Windows 7.

In case you’re wondering why you’d want to install from a USB pen drive, and not the DVD, consider these points:

1. Your laptop/netbook might not have an optical drive
2. Keeping the media on USB key is far handier than carrying the DVD around
3. Installations are typically much faster

Before you begin, you’re going to need:

• A spare USB key/pen drive
  • I used a ByteStor 8GB pen drive from Amazon. Just about any type of pen drive will work – but you will need one with a minimum of about 4GB.
• Your Windows 7 installation DVD (or the downloaded ISO from MSDN).
  • If you downloaded as an ISO, you’re going to need software to ‘mount’ the ISO first. See Virtual CloneDrive (free).

Step-by-step instructions

Ok, to get started – you need to make your pen drive ‘bootable’. That is, your computer needs to be able to recognise it as something it can boot from, and that’s not something yours will do without a little bit of prep work.

To get started, open a command prompt window ‘as administrator’, i.e. right click the command prompt icon and choose “Run as administrator”. Then perform the following steps:

• Plug in your USB pen drive. Make sure the contents are backed up to your hard disk somewhere, first. This process will erase the data on the flash drive.
• Type the following. After each line, press the RETURN or ENTER key to execute the command you have just entered:

  DISKPART
  LIST DISK
  

• Read the list on the screen. Figure out which ‘Disk ###’ is your pen drive. Look at the size of each drive listed – you should be able to figure it out by that. Note the disk number.
• Now, type the following. After each line, press the RETURN or ENTER key to execute the command you have just entered. Please note: it is extremely vital that you note the correct disk number from the previous step and enter it correctly below. If you have chosen the wrong drive, the drive you mistakenly chose will be rendered unusable.

  SELECT DISK (type your pen drive number here, without brackets)
  CLEAN
  CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
  SELECT PARTITION 1
  ACTIVE
  FORMAT FS=NTFS 
  

• Now, your pen drive begins to format. This took about 10 minutes on my 8gb drive.
• When formatting has completed, type:

  ASSIGN
  EXIT
  

Ok, that’s the hard work out of the way. At this point, you need your Win7 installation media. If it is on an ISO, mount it and make a note of the drive letter of your virtual drive. If it is a physical DVD, insert it into your computer and again, note the drive letter. Now, go back to the command prompt window and do the following:

• Type:

  CD [your drive letter]:\          --- For example: CD D:\
  CD BOOT
  BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 U:             --- (replace 'U' with your USB pen drive letter)
  

That’s it – you’re done in the command prompt. All you have to do now is copy the entire contents of your Windows 7 installation media across to the USB drive. Quickest way to do this is to open My Computer, open your DVD/Virtual DVD, press CTRL+A and then CTRL+C. Now go back to My Computer, open your USB pen drive, and press CTRL+V. When the copying has finished, you’re left with a bootable USB pen drive that contains Windows 7.

Better responsiveness equals a better product
- A. Customer

If your application is simple and responsive, people will use it. If it is clunky and slow to load, people are forced to wait. Think of your application (it doesn’t matter if it’s a web or a desktop application) as a racing car. As the manufacturer of that car, you’ll want customers to come and test drive it. You’ll hope that they’ll fall in love with it after driving it, and want to buy it. If that test drive is a good experience, they’ll hopefully part with some of their hard earned cash to pay for it – and bingo, you’ve done what you needed to do: make the sale. 

The same principle applies to software: if you deliver a fast, responsive application with a quick user interface, your users are more likely to think you’ve built a better product – (whether that’s right or technically wrong), because to Mr and Mrs User, a slow application is a bad one.

You can optimise your web site in just a few steps

As an ASP.NET developer, here’s a look (or a reminder) at some of the things you can look at doing before deciding it’s time to dig under the hood and start to make more fundamental changes in your application:

Disable debugging in your web.config

When you release an application in debug mode, ASP.NET forces certain files to be sent to the client with each request, instead of allowing the browser to cache them. Most people forget to switch debug mode off when they release. This creates an overhead for your server, and a longer wait for the client. Debug mode also causes other changes in your web application: think of it as a bloaty way to release because it has to include data and various hooks to allow you to debug the application that aren’t necessary in order to run it:

<compilation debug="false"/>

You’ll find the above line in your web.config file.

Enable IIS Request Compression

Request compression is a feature of Internet Information Services 6 and above that causes content to be compressed before transmission to the client, and then decompressed by the browser. Most modern browsers support this, and enabling it requires no modification to your web site at all. Do bear in mind that request compression will force your web server to work harder because it has to first compress data before sending it. This creates a small spike in CPU usage, for low to medium traffic web sites that really need a performance boost the extra CPU usage will more than likely be absorbed just fine.

In Internet Information Services 6:

1. Launch IIS Manager
2. Right-click the “Web Sites” node
3. Click “Properties”
4. Select the “Service” tab
5. Tick “Compress application files” and “Compress static files”. Be sure to specify a temporary directory with sufficient free resources and consider adding a maximum limit to the temporary directory size.
6. Click “Apply”
7. Click “OK”

Request compression isn’t for everybody – be sure to weigh the pro’s and con’s for your particular environment.

Use page output caching

By default, IIS thinks that your ASP.NET page is dynamic. In many applications, however, not all the pages actually are. Even if they do rely on a database for content, oftentimes it’s not necessary to hit the database on each request to the page. Output caching can be enabled on a particular page by adding one line of code to the top of your ASPX file. It is a directive that informs .NET to keep a copy of the rendered page, and serve the copy (rather than the original) from disk each time it is called. This would include, for example, any database generated content from controls on the page itself, or any embedded user controls.

<%@ OutputCache Duration="10" VaryByParam="none"%>

Page output caching can be an extremely effective way to improve your web site’s performance and responsiveness. It’s a lot more flexible than I’ve explained here, and you should be aware that there are all manner of ways in which you can control the cached version of the page (for instance, you can modify the directive to have different cached versions of the page based on a URL parameter). For more information, see the MSDN documentation.

Next steps

When you’ve done these things, if your application could still use a boost, it’s time to start profiling. You’ve tried the ‘quick fixes’ – the 10 minute jobs that are more-than-likely going to make things better, but there’s always a chance the problem isn’t with your application per sé. The next step is to figure out what’s causing the problem. First identify the scope: is it limited to one user, or a bunch of users in a particular geographic region, or is it everybody? If it’s only a small bunch of people, it might be that your ISP is having routing issues and you need do nothing at all. On the other hand, you might find that everyone is affected by the issue.

In that case what you need to do is to investigate where your bottleneck is occurring. Is it your database? Is it your disks? Or is it, yes, hold on a second – more than likely it’s the things you’ve probably overlooked: your images and other media files.

Optimising your images

Many people, particularly in smaller teams, overlook image optimisation. Most image editing programs will optimise for you – and this can often reduce a file’s size anywhere between 5% and 20%, and sometimes more. With today’s media rich sites, look at what you can do to ease the burden.

Using a content delivery network

As your web site grows ever more popular, sometimes the best way to get a performance boost is to let somebody else handle delivery of your ‘resource files’ – these are your static images, scripts, movies, SWF files, etc. One option is to purchase more bandwidth from your supplier. Another is to enlist the support of a Content Delivery Network – kind of like a private, global internet with public endpoints close to your customers.

The benefit of a CDN is that you are effectively outsourcing the delivery of your static files onto another – usually much faster – network. Often this will result in an ability for your server to handle more connections than before, since it no longer has to worry about serving up the big files over and over again.

Going direct to one of the big networks can cost anywhere from about $1,000 per month upwards, but there are companies who provide full CDN integration for a fraction of the price.

 Good luck with your web site optimisation and please feel free to leave comments and tips for others.

This, it would seem, is another victory for the European Commission and it’s competition rules. Microsoft has previously fallen foul of these in early 2008 when it was fined £765m by the European Commission for ‘anti-competitive behavior’: including Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer with Windows. Understandably then, it has decided to avoid that kind of financial pain again by bowing to the pressure.

Why?

Why does it matter what Microsoft choose to ship with Windows? It’s not like I have to pay for Internet Explorer, or any other browser by any other vendor, for that matter. So I, the consumer, am not losing out by it’s inclusion in the operating system.

Internet Explorer, like Windows Media Player, are features designed to make the operating system better, easier to use and increase the overall value of the product. Browsers should be features of every operating system.

Every major consumer-targeted operating system has it’s own browser included. Let’s take Apple’s Mac OS, for example: that ships with the Safari browser. Safari and IE browsers do essentially the same thing, and they are distributed to the consumer in exactly the same fashion: automatic inclusion by the vendor on to the newly purchased computer. Yet, Apple aren’t the target (so far as I know) of the EC competition rulings because they aren’t the market leader.

To impose this type of ruling on Microsoft because they are the market leader seems very similar to saying that Microsoft are the market leader because of Internet Explorer, which isn’t true at all. So surely, if you’re going to impose this type of rule on any vendor then surely you must apply it to all of them: that’s really the only way to give consumers a free, fair choice, right?

What’s the difference?

I assume that the EC are interested so much in Microsoft’s activities because it holds the majority market share. So too, then, I would assume it to be equally interested in Nokia, who according to this article, held 40.43% of the Mobile Device market share in Q12009, making them the market leader. Are Nokia the subject of an EC competition rules enquiry for bundling their own software with their device?

I can’t see much practical difference either, between companies like Dell and HP, who pre-bundle their own proprietary software programs and utilities onto the PC’s they ship, and this, either. Perhaps the EC will go after these companies under their ‘anti-competition’ rules, too.

Ultimately, it comes down to education

Eight or 9 times in 10, most users don’t care what browser they’re using: at least in my experience. Most consumers just want something that works. They don’t care what it is, why should they? I certainly don’t get all shirty when my new car comes with Michelin tyres, or Goodyear, or – who cares… they do the job.

But my point is, if I do want something different, I’m free to change those tyres. Perhaps I’ll read that Pirelli tyres are better than my Goodyears, and I’ll change them. Just as I can change my browser, any time I want to. And I don’t need the EC to make that happen for me because Microsoft haven’t prevented me from using Firefox, or any other browser, for that matter. And that’s the point: this is about education. Those who know enough to understand why they might want another browser, and can make a comparative choice, are completely free to do so, and (if I do say so myself) it is ridiculously easy to swap to an alternative.

I can’t say the same about the tyres on my car though (the ones I’ll have to pay a hefty cost to change). Thankfully, swapping my browser is free and easy. And that’s another reason why these confusing rules make me, well, confused.

It’s all down hill from here…

Now, when Windows 7 ships in Europe, what on earth will the majority of consumers do? What will Microsoft do, in order to help users make the choice that’s right for them? Will consumers see a choice of browsers pop up on their screen? How will they choose? Why should they have to choose? Does Mr And Mrs Average really care? Please comment!

#CompetitionCommissionFail?

“Splendid,” I thought. I’ve wanted to try Writer out, and I needed to write a new blog post as I haven’t been as faithful to my blog the past month as I’d have liked to have been. Also, as much as I like the web-based revolution, I don’t particularly find WordPress.com’s online article editor very good for much else other than writing plain-text. Inserting and uploading media is a bit of a chore, but as I found out, Writer makes that rather easy.

Without further ado, I’ll run you through the setup process here, and comment on my experiences as I go. For added authenticity, I’ll actually be writing this blog post using Live Writer. So, fingers crossed – the proof (should be) in the pudding.

Installation

Installation is straightforward, simple and easy. The Windows Live downloader includes the option to include other products within the Live suite too, including Windows Live Messenger and Movie Maker Beta.

Setup

When you run the program for the firs time, you’re asked which blogging service you use:

You then need to fill out a few other details:

And, that really is about all you need to do. Once you’ve done this, Live Writer connects to your blog, configures itself (correctly) and even downloads your blog’s CSS styles and gives you a live preview as you type.  So far, so good.

The Editor

As soon as you startup after configuring your blog account, you’ll see the new editor window. It’s blank, waiting for you to write your next masterpiece:

Of particular interest here are the “Insert” links on the right-hand side of the screen:

I’ve always found the WordPress.com web editor a bit, well, clumsy. It’s clear (for sure), it’s just fiddly if you want to do anything that write text. Uploading pictures is a bit of a pain. Using Writer, I’ve simply been taking screenshots and pasting directly in to the editor window.

Rich Media Integration

Writer boasts the ability to publish your videos directly to the MSN Soapbox service, or to YouTube and then embed those videos directly into your blog. This is a really nice feature, and to test if it works, I’m going to insert a sample video here:

EDIT: As you can see, WordPress.com doesn’t seem to like the player code generated via Windows Live Writer. I’ll write to them, and ask why – and if I get a response, I’ll post it here. Shame!

Clicking on the “Video” link under “Insert” menu:

I chose “Soapbox” (as this is a service I have never used). Thankfully, there’s no registration forms to fill out. I just enter my Windows Live ID and create a ‘nickname’ for my Soapbox account:

… And that’s it. You’re then returned to the Live Writer editor and you can see your video uploading right in-place on your blog. Quite handy actually, because it meant I could carry on writing my article while the upload took place in the background.

After about 15 minutes, my video had uploaded and Soapbox had finished processing my video. The “uploading video” screen above is now replaced with:

Absolutely fantastic, so far then. So, let’s recap:

• I’ve uploaded a video to a service I’ve never used
• I didn’t have to prepare my video, I just found one and selected it
• I could carry on writing my article while uploading in the background, with the video placeholder in-line
• The video was uploaded and transcoded in around 15 minutes.

Very impressive. All I need now is some hyperlinks.

Hyperlinking

Ok, I’ve been building web pages since I was about 12. Hyperlinks are easy, right? Of course they are. But tell that to the WordPress.com editor. Linking to my previous posts has always been a pain because it doesn’t let me browse through them and pick them when creating a new link. I have to get my previous article URL and then cut and paste (somebody, please correct me if I’m wrong here – I really hope I’ve just missed this feature). Live Writer, though, does a great job:

Choosing “Previous post” then pops up the following:

Another awesome little helper-feature. Job done. Hyperlinks inserted. And I’m still in my nice WYSIWYG editor.

Summary

So, to finish up then, how would I summarise my experience using Windows Live Writer?

In a word, “brilliant”. In four words: “you should use it”.

It’s free, it’s very well built (as you’d expect), and it has a very polished interface. Microsoft have done a fantastic job here.

I’ve been thinking that I should really extend this little venture into a project that adds support for:

• Tracking electricity, gas and water meter values (all from the same Arduino), using cheap sensors
• Add support for pulse meters, as well as what I’ve dubbed ‘reflective’ meters (not sure of the proper name, but these are the meters with the little reflective discs of metal on one of the dials).

I’ve created a project on Google Code for anyone who’s interested in following (there’s not a lot there just yet, though). I’ve got a busy few weeks ahead, but will do what I can in the interim. It’s look like June will be the first real chance I have to sit down and extend the code. If anyone’s interested in getting involved, or helping out in any way, please get in touch. I’m still fairly new to the world of Arduino and physical computing, so I’m still learning too – all feedback is appreciated!

My goal for this project was to hook the gas meter up to Pachube, using EEML as the format:

<eeml xmlns='http://www.eeml.org/xsd/005' xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsi:schemaLocation='http://www.eeml.org/xsd/005 http://www.eeml.org/xsd/005/005.xsd'>
<environment>
<location exposure='indoor' domain='physical' disposition='fixed'>
<name>London, United Kingdom</name>
</location>
<data id='0'>
<tag>gas</tag><tag>cubic metres</tag>
<value>2</value>
</data>
<data id='1'>
<tag>temperature</tag><tag>degrees</tag><tag>celsius</tag>
<value>28</value></data>
</environment>
</eeml>

What follows is how I set about using my Arduino, an Ethernet Shield and various other parts in order to build the gas meter!

Introduction

Those of you who have been following my previous blog posts will know that I’ve been working on this for a while, finding a few minutes spare to tinker as and when I can. This post is the promised amalgamation of all those recent posts.

The completed Arduino Ethernet Gas Meter unit

So, this is the completed unit (picture, left). Whilst this isn’t intended as a complete step-by-step tutorial, my aim is to provide enough information to enable somebody else to build one of these.

To keep things nice and neat, I mounted the Arduino, Ethernet- and Proto- shields into a plastic project box from Maplin. I drilled a ventillation hole and added a mini CPU fan connected to a temperature sensor to help keep the unit cool. I also wanted to add one because it’s nice to tinker around with new sensors and I hadn’t yet played with a temp sensor ;)

How does it work?

The main sensor on this unit is a photo-reflector, which is a fancy name for an infrared LED and an infrared sensor in one assembly. When the infrared sensor detects a reflection from the infrared LED, the strength of that reflection is fed back into the Arduino. I used a pull-up resistor circuit to connect this sensor to a digital input pin, which is switched to LOW when a reflection is detected. Because my gas meter has a little reflective metal disc on one of the dials, this gives me a nice reflection to count when the dial passes.

The Arduino then keeps a tally of all the reflections it has counted, which is accessible in XML (conformant to the EEML standard) over the web via the Ethernet Shield. To keep my meter in synch with the actual gas meter, one can pass a parameter via the HTTP querystring to the gas meter module to set it’s current value (useful, for instance, after a power cut or if you need to disconnect it). Because the unit is accessible over the public internet (without authentication), I only allow the querystring parameter to reset the meter value if a certain digital pin is ‘HIGH’ – a crude (yet effective) kind of physical security.

For fun, I then added a mini-CPU fan connected to a temperature sensor which causes the fan to start up when the temperature inside the unit gets a bit too toasty. It then kicks in until it has successfully dropped the temperature to within the threshold amount. The CPU fan runs off 12v, which the Arduino will happily produce – but it gave me an opportunity to use a transistor to switch the 12V supply on/off based on the state of a digital output pin @ 5 volts.

Contents

1. Before you begin: finding out if this will this work for you!
2. Shopping list – what you need to buy and where to get it
3. Constructing the sensor circuit
4. The sketch
5. Connect it all up, fine tune and test
6. Acknowledgements

Before you begin: check your gas meter

Please note: this project involves mounting sensing equipment in a non-permanent, non-invasive way to your household gas meter, based on my experience and research. I strongly encourage you to check for yourself whether these instructions are suitable for you, and, if so, only to proceed if you feel competent enough to connect this unit safely. This information is provided ‘as is’, and you use it entirely at your own risk.

This kit will only work on certain types of gas meter. Firstly, you must have the odometer-style gas meter (these are the ones with rotary dials with numbers on). Secondly, one of the dials, usually the dial representing a 100th of a Cubic Metre should have a little reflective disk between two of the digits (on mine, that is digit 5 and 6). I’ve no doubt that you could probably modify my design here to work with another type of meter, but you may need to change the photo reflector to either a pulse counter or something else appropriate. The underlying code to count the pulses and make the Arduino web-connectable should be the same.

Shopping list

1 x Arduino Duemillanove (or similar) ….. £23.81
1 x Sparkfun Ethernet Shield … £33.35
1 x 9v DC Power Supply with a 2.1mm centre-positive connector (Maplin: GS74R) … £7.99
1 x 220 ohm resistor
1 x 10K ohm resistor
1 x Transistor (if you plan to add the fan circuit and you use a 12V fan)
1 x Fairchild QRB1134 IR Photoreflector …. £2.62
1 x Project Box (eg. Maplin XYZXYZ) …. £2.99
1 x Mini CPU Fan (eg. Maplin) …. £4.99
1 x Breadboard – OR -
1 x Nuelectronics Protoshield …. £4.99

Total cost to build from scracth: £80.74
Total cost if you already have the Arduino, an ethernet shield and a few other bits and bobs: < £20.

You will also need/want the following tools to hand:

• Soldering iron and lead-free solder (well, use whatever you like, but lead-free is better for you and the environment!)
• Wire cutters
• Some suitable wire/jump leads etc
• A pair of “helping hands” if you have them

Goals

Before starting out, I had a quick think about the project’s desired behaviors. That way, coding it up would be a little easier because I’d know what I was supposed to be coding

Here they are:

• Connect the photo reflector to a digital input
  • When the input goes LOW, increment a counter
• Check the current temperature inside the unit
  • When the temperature is above the threshold, turn on the CPU fan.
  • When the temperature falls below the threshold, turn off the CPU fan.
• Check if a web client is connecting.
  • Read the query string.
  • If the query string value contains “?x=”, change the internal count to the value of x but only when a digital pin is set to HIGH (so web users can’t set it for us!).
  • If the query string does not contain the above element, generate EEML containing the data that we need.

With these points in mind, I started to construct the sensor circuit.

Constructing the sensor circuit and preparing the project box

Ok, so first things first – let’s start by preparing the project box. Drill two holes into the box – one on top, and another on the side (as pictured):

Prepared Project Box

It doesn’t really matter what size you make the hole on the side providing that there is sufficient room to fit a power cable, ethernet cable and the 4 wires from the photoreflector through. The hole on top should be just a shade smaller than the size of the fan that you have so that you can mount it to the inside of the case properly.

Next up, we’re going to construct the sensor circuit board. You can use either a breadboard, or – as I have used – an unassembled protoshield board from nuelectronics. I have used Fritzing to create a diagram of the entire circuit (shown below). I’ve also produced a schematic to accompany the diagram. I’m not quite sure how correct it is though, so be warned! (Corrections on a post-card, please!).

A tidier view of the wiring

Schematic

Start by soldering two wires – one each to the 5V rail and the GND rail respectively. Next, solder the resistors, transistor and temperature sensor onto the board, according to the schematic shown. Take care when soldering the transistor and temperature sensor to the board: the heat from your soldering iron may damage them.

Next, pass the bare sensor wires through the outside hole that you drilled and then solder them onto the board in the posistions shown. Make sure you use enough wire – you’ll want about 11-13cm for each connection you make (you can trim the non-soldered ends later).  Finally, solder the positive and ground wires for the CPU fan onto your board.

If you’re new to soldering (as I am), then do take extra care that your connections are good and don’t bridge multiple points on the board. If you do, you’ll likely create a short circuit and that will drive you nuts, trust me! When you’re done, you should end up with something that looks a bit like this:

The finished sensor circuit

The sketch

Now that you’ve done the hard part, here comes the copy and paste! Take the sketch below and place it into your Arduino suite. You’ll need to modify the following:

• Line 13: Set your own unique MAC address
• Line 14: Set your own unique IP address (accessible from computers on your network)
• Line 15: Set your router’s gateway address

#include "Ethernet2.h"
#include "WString.h"
#include "stdio.h"

// --- [ Pin setup ] ---
int sensorPin = 5;
int ledPin = 9;
int fanPin = 7;
int tempPin = 3;
int unlockPin = 8;

// --- [ Ethernet setup ] ---
static uint8_t mac[6] = { 0x02, 0xAA, 0xAA, 0xCC, 0x00, 0x22 };
static uint8_t ip[4] = { 192, 168, 1, 99 };
static uint8_t gateway[4] = { 192, 168, 1, 2 };
int serverPort = 80;

String url = String(25);
int maxLength=25;

// --- [ Variables to control when the unit fan kicks in/cuts out... ] ---
float maxTemp = 26.0;
float minTemp = 24.0;

// --- [ Variables to store our sensor values ] ---
volatile int totalTicks = 0;
float tempc = 0.0;
int maxi = -100, mini = 100;

// --- [ Misc. vars ] ---
float inputVolts = 5.01;
int previousState = -2;
int delayMs = 1500;
int i;
boolean lock;

Server server(serverPort);

void setup() {
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(fanPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(unlockPin, INPUT);
  previousState = digitalRead(sensorPin);
  Serial.begin(115200);                                   // Use serial for debugging locally...
  Serial.println("Ardugas server saying: Howdy!");
  Ethernet.begin(mac, ip, gateway);
  server.begin();
}

void loop() {
  checkUnitTemp();                                      // Take action based on unit temp
  checkSensor();                                        // Check the gas meter sensor
  getCurrentTemperature();                              // Get the unit temperature
  listenWeb();                                          // Handle any web connections
  digitalWrite(ledPin, !digitalRead(sensorPin));        // Light LED if sensor is LOW
}

// Serve pachube EEML and accept a querystring param to set the current value
void listenWeb() {   

 boolean read_url = true;
 boolean unlock = false;

 Client client = server.available();
  if (client) {

    Serial.println("Ethernet client connected...");

    // an http request ends with a blank line
    boolean current_line_is_blank = true;
    int valuesChanged = 0;
    while (client.connected()) {

      if (client.available()) {

        char c = client.read();
          if (url.length() < maxLength) {
            url.append(c);
          }
        if (c == '\n' && current_line_is_blank) {

           // send a standard http response header, but change the response type to text/xml
          client.println("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
          client.println("Content-Type: text/xml");
          client.println();

          // This is our unlock pin. When set to high, we allow the querystring parameter 'x' to force-set our meter value.
          if (digitalRead(unlockPin) == HIGH) {
            unlock = true;
          }

          if (url.contains("x") && unlock) {
            Serial.println(url);
            String v = String(10);
            int startIndex = url.indexOf('=')+1;
            int stopIndex = url.indexOf('H');
            v = url.substring(startIndex, stopIndex);
            Serial.println(v);
            totalTicks = atoi(v);
          } 

          int t = tempc;

          // EEML
          client.println("");
          client.println("");

          client.println("");
          client.println("Ardugas Server");
          client.println("");

          // Gas Meter Reading
          client.println("");
          client.println("gascubic metres");
          client.print("");
          client.print(totalTicks);
          client.println("");
          client.println("");

          client.println("");
          client.println("temperaturedegreescelsius");
          client.print("");
          client.print(t);
          client.print("");
          client.println("");         

          client.println("");
          client.println("");

          client.println(); 

          break;

        }

        if (c == '\n') {
          // we're starting a new line
          current_line_is_blank = true;
        } else if (c != '\r') {
          // we've gotten a character on the current line
          current_line_is_blank = false;
        }

      }
    }
    // give the web browser time to receive the data
    url = "";
    delay(5);
    client.stop();
  } 

}

// Switch the cooling fan on if it's too hot!
void checkUnitTemp() {
 if (tempc >= maxTemp) {
   digitalWrite(fanPin, HIGH);
 }
 if (tempc  maxi) {maxi = tempc;} // record max temperature
  if(tempc < mini) {mini = tempc;} // record min temperature
}

// Count sensor values
void checkSensor() {
  int currentState = digitalRead(sensorPin);
  if (currentState == LOW && previousState == HIGH) {
    if (!lock) {
      lock = true;
      delay(delayMs);
      totalTicks++;
    }
  }
  if (currentState == HIGH && previousState == LOW) {
    lock = false;
  }
  previousState = currentState;
}

Attach the Ethernet Shield to your Arduino, attach your sensor circuit, upload the sketch and then test it out according to the behaviours mapped out above. For testing, I used a a square of foil and passed it under the sensor. This should cause the sensor pin to swith to LOW, and increment the counter by one. To test if your cooling fan circuit is working, change the threshold values in the sketch above.

Connect it all up, fine tune and test

Now for the exciting bit… it’s time to connect it up to your gas meter. Now, my gas meter was really quite awkward because there is a curved plastic bezel cover over the meter dials, which made it had to find the best point to get a reflection. That is, in the end, why I opted for a very sturdy and reliable ‘blu-tac’ mount! I think I’ll definitely replace that with a bracket at some point in the futre though.

 [Photo to follow shortly]

Now, connect up your circuit. Make sure you’ve got your test LED inserted into the ledPin you defined in the sketch. This will light up when your sensor detects a reflection. At this point it would be good if you have someone to help you by turning your hot water on/off, or, turn your gas hob or heating on for the duration of the setup. The object here is to have the dial start to turn so that you can find the best position for your sensor. Begin by holding the photoreflector just over the dial with the reflective disc. Wait for it to turn one revolution. The LED should light when the sensor detects a reflection – so make sure that it only lights up when the dial is directly underneath it. As the disc approaches the sensor, there is a period of ‘noisy reflection’ that my sketch accounts for by forcing a delay after the first detection. This prevents artifical inflation of the meter count.

Once you’ve found the ideal position, firmly fix it in place – I used blu tac quite successfully but you can use whatever you need to, providing it doesn’t pierce or physically interfere with the meter in any way. Now that it’s attached, you need to program your arduino with your current gas meter value.  To enable this, you must first connect a jumper lead from 5V to resetPin. Then, browse to the IP address you set, but add the querystring value ‘x=[your meter reading]‘. For example, to set a meter reading of 894.121, and your IP address is 192.168.1.99, your URL would look like: http://192.168.1.99/?x=894121.

So, that’s it! I’ve been sitting on this article for about a week now, but due to work and other commitments I’ve not really had as much time as I’d have liked to work on it – so I thought I’d just get it out there and take as much feedback as possible from my readers to help improve it.

I hope you enjoyed reading and that you can derive some use from this.

Thanks!

I previously purchased the Nuelectronics Protoshield kit – which is basically a variation on the Sparkfun model. Although there wasn’t anything wrong with the Nuelectronics version, in my experience working with Nuelectronics gear, you have to be a bit more proficient in the field of electronics etc., i.e. a higher level of competance is assumed. Whereas the Sparkfun gear, although used by both novices and professionals, is just that bit more refined and – in my humble opinion – higher quality. I actually broke the Nuelectronics protoshield on my first attempt, and it was at that point I decided to go with the flow and buy the Sparkfun model.

Although the board is made by Sparkfun, I didn’t actually buy mine from them directly as the shipping costs to the UK are quite high (at least the cost of the board!). Instead, I sourced the official board from SK Pang Electronics (a UK-based firm I hadn’t used before), for a very reasonable £14.84 plus shipping. I will certainly order from SK Pang again, by the way, since the item arrived next day via Recorded Delivery – perfect for the tinkerer with a weekend on the way!

Assembly

Being a novice in the field of electronics, I wasn’t too confident that I’d be able to assemble it – soldering components onto a PCB is a tad intimidating if you’ve never really soldered before (I’d had only limited experience soldering and that wasn’t particularly successful!)! That said though, after reading a few basic tips on how to solder, I gave it a shot and about 30 minutes later the entire PCB was assembled. What a fantastic kit.

Although the kit ships disassembled, SparkFun do not give you assembly instructions. Instead, I referred to Bob Gallop’s excellent tutorial. Bob’s instructions are based on the V1 protoshield, which differs only very slightly from the newer V2 that I’d purchased. His tutorial also offers some great tips on how to keep components in place while you’re trying to solder them – so it was well worth the read, and the photography makes it all the more easier to follow along.

One thing I would add though is that I am incredibly pleased with the pair of Helping Hands I’d purchased from Maplin a few weeks back – a necessity for PCB soldering.

The finished board

Here’s a photo of the Protoshield without the breadboard attached. You could of course leave the breadboard out entirely if you wanted to, and solder directly onto the shield. As I want to retain the flexibility of the shield though, I’ll add the breadboard on in a moment. In this picture, I’ve yet to solder on the single male pins JC1, JC2 and JC3 and also the BlueSMIiRF  female headers:

And when mounted on top of the Arduino, with a mini-breadboard, the remaining pins and BlueSMiRF headers added:

All in all, thoroughly pleased with myself

Not only did I have fun while assembling the board, I learned a few new skills and have boosted my confidence in the world of tinkering. Still, a long way to go yet! But at least now I have a better way of continuing my Gas Meter project.

What is a Protoshield?

If you’re new to the world of Arduino – as I am – then you might be wondering what a ‘protoshield’ is and what they do. ‘Shields’ are essentially printed circuit boards that are designed to slot on top of your Arduino board, and provide some extra capabilities. There are all kinds of shields that you can buy: some offer radio transmission/reception capabilities and others, like my Protoshield, simply offer you the flexibility to affix a tiny breadboard to the top of your Arduino to make protoyping that much easier.