Instagram v4.1.2 with Video running on BlackBerry 10.2

Instagram runs fairly well as an Android port, and thanks to many resourceful people in the hacking community, it is possibly to fairly easily bring this app to your device. However, I do not wish to promote piracy. Instagram has reasons for not releasing the app for BlackBerry, and nobody seems to know why. However, for testing purposes only you can do the same thing as you see in the video above. The usual disclaimer applies - not responsible for bricking your device. Having said that, many people have done this without problems.

Get the Unlocked Android Runtime from this thread here:

Berryleaks Presents Unlocked Android Runtime

Get Instagram here:

Instagram Android BAR

Get the Sideloading tool here:

Sideloading Tool

Learn how to do it by reading the guide here:

Sideloading Guide

Amazon Gift Cards... Argh!

I recently received a $25 gift card for Amazon. I managed to spend it already, but I think it is important to share my experience for those of you who may be thinking of buying gift cards this holiday season, especially for friends and relatives in other countries.

I don't want to complain too much, considering I got the $25 gift card rather easily (for filling out a survey online). And also, thank you to the company who conducted the survey for the nice gift (they were seeking information from app developers on their experience with certain platforms and SDK's).

So what's the scoop?

Well I found out rather surprisingly that Amazon gift cards can only be used on the originating site to which they were purchased. This completely screws anyone who lives in a different country. I live in Canada (which has Amazon.ca), but my gift card was bought from Amazon.com (USA).

For example, in my case the gift card was purchased by the company on Amazon.com (USA). When I tried to type in the code on Amazon.ca (Canada), it would not accept it. Ok, so I logged into Amazon.com using my Canadian (Amazon.ca) account username and password and was able to add the funds to my account. Great. However, it was NOT added to my Amazon.ca account. It was added to Amazon.com. Yet I was able to log in to both accounts using the same username and password. Huh?

Independent Entities? B.S.!

I contacted Amazon support to try and understand. Apparently, each Amazon is a different entity. I was under the assumption that $25 US would just be CONVERTED to whatever currency you are paying with, and could use ANY Amazon site around the world.... US, Canada, UK, and others... what is the difference? Why can the gift card not just be redeemed at the current exchange rate on any of the Amazon sites around the world?

The reason this becomes an issue is mostly with people who have relatives and friends around the world and want to gift them some Amazon goodness. You may be giving them a gift card which is prohibitively expensive to actually redeem. I will give you an example from my case.

I searched for items on Amazon.ca and found books for approximately the same price as the Amazon.com counterpart. Great. So what is the big deal? Well remember, Amazon also has independent sellers from which you can buy new or used items. They set approximate shipping costs based on location. It turns out that standard shipping costs are calculated very differently once they go across the border. Canadian shipping from a Canadian seller is much less expensive than buying the item from a US seller.

When you are on Amazon.com, anything that is intended to cross the border over to Canada is going to fall under "international shipping" rates, rather than "domestic".... and Amazon.com will show US sellers for the most part. To get Canadian sellers who consider shipping to Canada as "domestic" shipping and save yourself a bundle, you will need to search on Amazon.ca. But you then can't use your gift card because it is only showing up on the Amazon.com site! Argh!

Here is an example:

Amazon.COM

Search for "Raspberry Pi User Guide" on Amazon.com to find sellers who are giving new copies of the book for about $11. It will then cost about $3.99 to ship domestically within the US (4-14 days). If you are in Canada, you will be forced to pay "International Standard" rates with the shipping fee that more than quadruples to $16.95 and can take 3-6 weeks ("International Expedited" 3-7 days is $44.95)!

Amazon.CA

Search for "Raspberry Pi User Guide" on Amazon.ca to find it for about $10 new from some sellers. The shipping of $6.49 domestically within Canada (4-14 days) is much less than the Amazon.com international shipping rates.

So the choices are...if I buy the book from Amazon.COM but have it sent to me in Canada, it costs me around $11+17 = $28 (and wait 3-6 weeks) versus Amazon.CA where it costs me $10+6.50 = $16.50 (1-2 weeks). Alternatively, buying from Amazon.COM and sending to USA would be $11+4=$15. The choices are $28 (US to Canada and use Gift Card), $16.50 (Canada to Canada but can't use the Gift Card) or $15 (US to US and use Gift Card).

 

So what did I do?

At the end of the day, the last choice made the most sense. Pay $15, get to use my gift card, and have it shipped to family in the USA who will be coming soon to visit me anyways and bring me the book. If that was not an option, I would have just paid $16.50 and saved the gift card for another occasion. But there is no way I would pay almost double....$28... simply to cash out my gift card. 

I told this to Amazon but I doubt they care or would listen. However, be warned... DO NOT PURCHASE Gift Cards, especially if you are gifting to people in other countries! Amazon Gift Cards do not currently transfer or convert to other countries/currencies.

Hydrim L110W CF14 Flow Switch Error

I have a Hydrim instrument washer (Hydrim L110W from SciCan) which has been experiencing a CF14 flow switch error. For those of you unfamiliar with this equipment, it is a professional washer that uses a special liquid soap and heated water to cleanse operatory equipment. It is essentially a "super dishwasher".

The washer pumps special liquid detergent at certain times of the wash cycle into the machine. There are some sensors that check whether or not this process is successful, just in case you run out of soap or if there is a fault in the pump (which is a peristaltic type). The main sensor involved with the "CF14 flow switch error" is a flow switch made by Gentech, model FCS-X008A. Some examples can be found on this Gentech Sensors page.

The most disappointing part of all this is the machine is relatively new, only 4 years old. For the cost of this machine, I would have expected at least a 5 year warranty, but it only comes with a 1 year. This is a disgrace for the industry, in my opinion. In any case, SciCan itself will not directly sell end-users parts and everything in Canada must be done through a few oligopolistic dental supply companies. Fortunately, suppliers in the USA or other countries will be happy to provide servicing information and parts. A great deal of information can be found in this Service Manual as well as on this SciCan Parts Document (pages 98-112).

To complicate matters, a flow switch error may also indicate the actual flow is weak due to the pump or tubing. Use of a peristaltic pump means wear and tear on the tubing inside the pump, which may need to be replaced periodically. The above Parts Document PDF shows a preventative maintenance kit which comes with most of the parts that need periodic replacement. However, sometimes the flow switch is simply "stuck" and when the microprocessor is listening to the sensor during the dose pumping period, it may get a faulty reading. The way the sensor works is when there is no flow, it reads infinite resistance (open switch). When fluid flows, it slides a small plastic segment containing a magnet to another position, resulting in the switch closing (resistance becomes close to zero).

So why does a 4 year old flow switch stick already? Turns out there is a small rubber stopper covering over the end of the magnet inside the plastic segment. The flow switch is mounted vertically, with fluid flowing up against gravity. When there is no flow, the inner plastic segment with magnet and rubber stopper is resting in the down position (gravity pulls it down over an opening). The rubber gets "sticky" as it deteriorates, perhaps accelerated due to the detergent. It causes the switch to stick in the down position. Normally when the pump starts, the flow should raise the plastic segment with the magnet up against gravity, "closing" the switch (resistance becomes zero) which notifies the microprocessor that flow is indeed occurring. If this does not happen, a CF14 error occurs.

I think this is a design flaw, especially for this application. The use of a rubber stopper over the magnet to "seal" against back-flow in the flow switch is not needed. The peristaltic pump itself should provide enough resistance to resist back-flow. At least a better, more-resistant material should have been used to cover the magnet that would not deteriorate and crumble over time. I also believe this flow switch is not designed to be used with detergent, only clean water. I will find out shortly as I have contacted Gentech to see if this is the appropriate sensor for this application. In my experience with other equipment, both electronic and mechanical, it is often these "little things" which are over-looked that cause most failures.

For example, take a look at this Brother Printer Unable 32 error, which happened to my Brother 4040CDN printer. The linked document shows how a bit of foam material over a shutter used to cover a sensor can cause it to stick after a few years, messing up a sensor that is used to read toner density and distribution. That piece of foam sticking, which costs a fraction of a cent, will completely shut down your printer. Unless you "dive in" to try to fix it yourself (assuming you find the problem and solution), you would probably spend tons of money trying to fix it. Searching Brother's website for this error provides nothing useful. In fact, the above document is the ONLY one I ever found that actually gets to the heart of the problem and which fixes it, and it was NOT created by Brother (who would prefer to have you throw out your printer and buy a new one). Unfortunately it requires dismantling most of the back end of your printer, just to put a bit of tape over the foam so it is not as sticky. But this is a perfect example of how a silly "less than a penny" material can completely bring an expensive piece of equipment to it's knees (like the tiny rubber stopper on the Hydrim flow switch).

Hitachi V-1565 Goodness

After watching EEVBlog's Dave Jones "Drive Time Rant" regarding buying a real analog oscilloscope, and then his follow-up video on how easy it is to find a good one on eBay for about $50, I took up his words of advice and landed myself a Hitachi V-1565 100Mhz scope and a JDR 2000 20Mhz scope. Both were a bargain, but the Hitachi really made my heart sing. I've started playing with it and have posted a few videos below showing some basic functions that I'm figuring out as I learn how to use it. Enjoy!

Hitachi V-1565 Cursor Usage with Gabotronics AWG

 

 

Using A/B Timebase options on Hitachi V-1565



Oscilloscope Fun

I managed to pick up some electrical analog "goodness" recently in my quest to learn electronics as a hobby. Inspired by David L. Jones (of EEVBlog) and his video on how to acquire a scope on eBay, I followed his advice and bought not 1 but 2 (dare I say it) analog oscilloscopes or "CRO" as you would call it (Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes) for a measly $135! Now that is a lot of fun on the cheap for an electronics nerd.

The Hitachi V-1565 pictured first is a 2-channel 100 MHz beastie with on-screen cursor display for voltage and timebase readings, two-mode horizontal display per channel and a frequency counter. Total price with shipping (it was a "Buy It Now" item with free shipping) was a whopping $85! This scope normally goes for way more, however it was priced low because it looked beat up and was missing a handle. However, functionally it works perfectly fine. I will post my videos shortly.

 

The second oscilloscope was an "accidental" buy. It is a no-name JDR Model 2000 (Hung Chang rebrand) 2-channel 20Mhz CRO with a built-in component tester. It turns out I bid $20 for it (jokingly) figuring I would be outbid. The shipping cost on it was $30. Well the auction ended and I was the highest bidder! Total cost with shipping, $50! This scope was also listed as fully working, came with original box, practically mint condition. I have the manual and even the purchase invoice from 1987 when it was originally bought!

 

So this second scope is a Korean OEM make which was sold to many electronics and hobby store suppliers which just rebranded it with their name. No less than a dozen variations are known, and there are likely more:

 

Tenma 72-720
Elenco MO-1251
Hung Chang OS-620
Neotronics OS-620
JDR Model 2000
A-1 Electronics
AW Sperry 620C
Tenma 72-320
Dick Smith Q-1240
Aron BS-601
Degem System 112
Ramsey Model 2200

KB Electronics Model 33330

 

Memory Calculator (Native Cascades)

I have finally released my first app coded entirely in Native Cascades SDK for Blackberry 10. It is called Memory Calculator and it is available for free on BB10 devices everywhere!

Having come from having experience with Webworks and Marmalade SDK, I found the Cascades SDK experience to also be a bit of a learning curve.... but once you understand it and get the hang for things, it is a nice environment to develop in! You can make smooth and highly-sophisticated apps in a record amount of time.

Memory calculator allows you to convert easily between megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes in both the decimal and binary definitions to determine exactly how much storage capacity you really have.

Misleading Hard Drive Advertising

Somewhere along the way, definitions of hard drive sizes have changed. I'm not sure when and how, but I was brought up to believe that storage capacities were measured in bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB and that these sizes were factors of 2 apart (more specifically, usually 1024x the previous which is 2 ^ 10 or 2 raised to the 10th power).

In short, a byte was 8 bits. A kilobyte (KB) was 1024 bytes, a megabyte (MB) was 1024 KB, a gigabyte (GB) was 1024 MB, and a terabyte (TB) was 1024 GB. Well, apparently this is no longer correct. This is why when I purchase a 750 GB hard drive, it shows up in Windows as having 699 GB! Where did all my storage go!

The answer lies here: Bit and byte prefixes

At some point when I must have been sleeping, the computer industry invented a number of different prefixes which totally confuse what is meant by KB, MB, GB and TB. Apparently, GB refers to GIGAbyte whereas the old definition that I was taught (powers of 2) is now referred to as a GIBIbyte. How odd? Is this because the hard drive manufacturers want to trick people into thinking they are buying a larger drive than they really are? Is every hard drive manufacturer referring to GB as GIGAbyte, or do some use GB to be short for GIBIbyte? Which is it?

So for now:

1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte, and 1024 bytes = 1 kibibyte.
1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte, and 1024 kibibytes =  1 mebibyte
1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte, and 1024 mebibytes =  1 gibibyte
1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte, and 1024 gibibytes =  1 tebibyte

So by the time you get up to 750 GB, depending on what you are defining as "GB" (gigabyte or gibibyte) you end up with the following numbers of bytes:

750 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 750000000000 bytes (750 gigabytes)
750 x 1204 x 1024 x 1024 = 805306368000 bytes (750 gibibytes)

Windows obviously handles things the traditional way, which is why it is reporting my 750 GB as only 699 GB. If you take 750,000,000,000 divided by 1024x1024x1024 you end up with 698.5 GB, which is what Windows is reporting, essentially. So what happened?

Windows is obviously using the traditional definition with factors of 2 to some power (1024 x) whereas hard drive manufacturers must be trying to mislead the public by over-inflating their hard drive sizes by using a power of 10 (1000 x). How do you know which company is using which definition, when the box only states GB or TB and doesn't state whether that is the new or old definition?