Life, the universe and everything - Technical Ambitions

For the last few weeks now I have come across a multitude of people saying that they have had enough of Facebook. Well my sentiment so far is that they have probably just spent half their year on it and that is why they feel that way. There is a million things to do on Facebook. That does not mean that you have to do them all.

As soons as you have raced away all the races allowable in an app like petrolheads then maybe it is going a little too far. Specially if you should happen to do this as part of your ritual every night or day. These apps will keep you busy and drive you insane.

Now for what I actually wrote this article for.

When you have an application such as Facebook in front of you, the only thing I as a programmer can think, is why the hell did I not think of it. It is certainly one of the most exciting advents of the century so far. Imagine having millions of eyes on your cyber estate every day. It must be the fastest money spinner ever.

If it is the last thing I do, it will be to write an app on Facebook. My thoughts are whether the app could attract so many people that it could make a difference to my bank balance. I guess if I come up with the right concept then just maybe it could.

I think Facebook has enourmous potential and therefore I am all for it still. I reserve my judgement but so far I love it.

I have tried unsuccesfully a number of wireless monitoring software packages. After a search on the internet for suitable packages that would work with Vista, I came across a fantastic blog by Martin Sauter (Wireless Solutions Consultant). Martin wrote and article about layer 1 tracing on wireless networks at Martin Sauter Blog.

Then I stumbled across Wireless Mon from Passmark.com and this works well on Vista. Click here to download Wireless Mon

I am currently using the trial version and i like the way it is set up. The software package is really great and well thought out. Thanks guys.

This is probably the singular most exciting book that I have ever read in my entire life. Rhonda has put into writing, the exact essence of what I practise everyday. To me it feels as though my thoughts and ideas on life have been tested and tried by literally hundreds and thousands of people by now.

Rhonda has managed to put everything into context for me. Now I know why I do what I do and why I get the results I get.

The greatest thing though that I have learned out of the book is that it is the negative things that we think about others that can harm us more seriously than we could ever imagine.

Do yourself a favour and read The Secret


Sydney Weber - Living by God Inspired Faith

One of the strongest resemblances to The Secret that I have ever read in a book, were written by my Father - S K Weber
In this book he explains exactly what Rhonda explains about manifestations and positive thought. The only difference is that he shows it as it should be seen from a christian perspective. Sydney is a man that practises what he is preaching in the book. The books name is "Living by God Inspired Faith" and I had the priviledge of publishing his book.
I had to read it literally hundreds of times to make sure all typos were out and that the syntax was good. However during all of the reading, I remembered the miracles that he was describing in the book. It all came back to me and I realised at that moment why I have such faith even in times of adversity and even when I am at my deepest and loneliest moments.

My father has given me an amazing example as to how faith can make things happen. If you ever read the book you will see that the similarities between Rhonda Byrne's - The Secret and S K Weber's - Living by God Inspired Faith are what makes her faith so strong, or I suppose one could aslo say why my father's faith can produce such miracles.

It all boils down to one simple rule in both books. Ask for it, Accept it and say thank you.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Thank you Rhonda and thank you Sydney

This is probably one of the most exciting developments I have seen for a while. Really original and totally awesome.

Download the software to your cellphone from http://www.shotcode.com/download onto your smart cellphone with a camera and then use shotcode software to take a photo of this image and then see what it downloads to your phone.

This is going somewhere, I am not sure where but I will give you more on this subject later.

A communication platform for road users
How http://www.motormail.nl works

By : John K Weber

Once again the promise of new technologies to be learnt, has prompted me to embark on a new project. This project is unlike anything I have ever undertaken as it involves Linux and the underlying operating system plays an important role in it's development.

Calling all licensed vehicles
The main aim of this project is to allow all road users to be able to communicate without having to know anything about the users that they are communicating with. There are many ways to achieve this but I have chosen for the simplest of all. EMAIL. The saying used to be that money makes the world go round. I think that that should be rephrased to email makes the world go round.

In the fraction of the time that it takes to write an email, it gets sent to its destination. It is a very powerful medium that has made its way into the 21 century in no small way. So it is with this in mind that I decided to use email as the underlying medium for communicating with all road users.

Motormail allows any person to send an email to another road user based on their vehicle registration number. As simple as that. Even if the user is not currently registered, the emails are stored and delivered to them as soon as they decide to register.

The mechanics of email are so simple to set up that it is also not as large a project as is assumed when starting out.

Cobalt RAQ 4 server
I have my own Cobalt RAQ 4 server set up in Amsterdam and linked directly to the internet backbone.

The Cobalt RAQ 4 allows the users to set up web sites using a smart web interface. It requires absolutely no experience with Linux which is the operating system or Apache which is the web server of choice. It allows the user to setup emails and web space so easily that it takes around two minutes at the most to set it all up.

Automatic email creation
The main problem is just to create the script that will allow the email accounts to be created on the fly. This is essential so that the user can use their email accounts as soon as they are opened. This script requires in depth knowledge of the Linux operating system and seen as that I have no clue as what is going on I decided to call in the experts.

I have recently purchased a product that would allow me to set up the user accounts on my Cobalt RAQ 4 server and setup the databases etc with minimal effort. It is a sort of shell that works around the user interface set up for the Cobalt server.
Due to the fact that port 81 is closed in most network environments, it is impossible to set the account up without the port 81 being opened. So this product "Auto Setup" allows me to set up the user accounts now using the http port, port 80.

Remote project completion
So I emailed the owner of this product "Richard Kurth" and requested a quotation for the script I needed to create the emails automatically.


How Motormail is set up
The technical glue that keeps it together

Having requested the quotation from Richard Kurth I got a extremely prompt reply saying that it would cost $150 to create the script. I accepted and the next day my script was set up on my server without me having to touch it at all. Excellent, I have just outsourced my first project and by email of all things. So now that I have established that email makes the world go round….

How does the email account get created
So what happens? The user sets up an account by giving a vehicle registration number and a password which allows access to the POP3 email account. He details get stored into a mySQL database and using a Cron tab (scheduling mechanism in Linux) the database is read out and all users that are currently in the database get created one by one.

Once the email account is created the ser may immediately use it to send emails or read emails that may have been posted to the account before it was created.
However there is still one problem. How do the users know when someone is registered or not. I mean it is not really possible to send an email to someone who does not exist. As soon as you send it you will get an email back saying that the user does not exist.

The catchall email account
In order to solve this problem the Cobalt RAQ 4 allows the web administrator to setup a catchall email account over and above the email accounts that are already setup. This entails setting up an account that will catch all emails sent to a domain name.

This is a really handy solution because now anybody can send an email to any registration number at motormail and it will get sent to the catch all account.

A loop to beat all loops
I then have a program called RSVP that runs in the background on a system attached to the internet using ADSL and running on Windows. This RSVP program costs around $40 dollars and is probably the easiest program to use when it comes to email processing for Windows.

The program will fetch all emails from the catchall account on the Cobalt RAQ 4 server and will resend them and then delete them. This means that if the account has now been created it will just catch the email or otherwise if it has not yet been created it will be sent back into the catchall email account, only to be resent again in a few minutes. This means that no matter whether you are registered or not at the Motormail site your emails will always be kept and delivered to you after you have registered.

The hardest part is yet to come
Now, of course, this all really means nothing when only a handful of people use this service. So it needs to be marketed.

Of all the things to do when creating any web site, the marketing is the main pain.
It is actually up to word of mouth to make this site work as a large advertising budget is out of the question as the service is mainly free. The only way it can pay for itself is to place a small text advert in each email when it is sent. So the costs have to be kept as low as possible as the users are sick and tired of having banners placed all over the place.

Take Yahoo! for example. It used to be a really great Service but it now has so many adverts that it is nauseating to even look at it. So the advertising which usually pays for all web sites is out the window. As is the small one liner text advert within each email is already bad enough but it is a necessary evil nonetheless.

So what can you do with motormail!
Have you ever been driving down the highway when your dream car which is actually an exotic import zips past you. Wow if only you could chat to that driver and ask a few questions like "where did you actually buy this car?"
An another occasion you drive past this car for sale. The only problem is that the for sale sign has no price or telephone number. It probably does have one but not something you can see before zipping past it. Well now with a bit of training(reading number plates through your rear view mirror) you can actually just note the vehicle registration number (97GXSB) and send an email to 97GXSB@motormail.nl and you will be able to establish a dialogue through emails.

Simple isn't it?
So why don't you register and make it work?
Just browse along to http://www.motormail.nl and set up your very own email account. Just supply your vehicle registration number and a password with which to login to the site to read and write emails and you are A for away.
So who thinks up these great ideas?

Well this one was thought up by Esther Zijlstra from CSC in Bunnik and the work was performed by John K Weber and partly by Richard Kurth in the USA.

I also would like to acknowledge the fact that we are using a very easy to install email client called instantwebmail. This client blended straight into our website without any changes at all to it. As is. This is seldom the case with any web projects. These guys have made a really easy to apply Web Mail client. Check it out at http://instantwebmail.sourceforge.net/

It won't make millions
I can almost guarantee that this site will not make millions, however it will breach the gap between the members of the public and the road users.
This domain name has already been purchased for most countries by a different party. It has no affiliation with our site at all.

What next?
I am currently still busy with a remote weather station, which will be able to send all status messages via SMS to a ground station which is also online at all times and available for research. There will be more of this project in the near future. Keep your eyes open for any other interesting ideas and you may always send them through to me at johnkweber@yahoo.com - JKW

ABAT UAV had it's wares on display at the Ysterplaat AAD show in October 2006. It was really amazing and there was an amazing response to the autopilot as well as the small planes which we chose as a platform to test and fly the autopilot. Here is an article as written by Peter La Franchi from http://www.flightglobal.com/

The full article as printed by Flight Global can be viewed at http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/Article.aspx?liArticleID=209216&PrinterFriendly=true

South Africa's ABAT unveils plan for mini-UAV courier business
By Peter La Franchi


The South African-based autopilot manufacturer ABAT has unveiled concepts for a local area courier delivery business based around small electrically powered UAVs.

The “Posduif” – an Africans language word for carrier pigeon - business would utilise a flying wing UAV manufactured from Styrofoam with a pusher propeller and an underslung payload canister. The Styrofoam airframe is sufficiently strong to support repeat operations, but lightweight enough to ensure low kinetic energy ground impact effects in the event of a collision or system failure says company co-founder John Weber.

The UAVs would be dispatched from a central co-ordination centre, with launch either by hand or a rail system. The delivery point would be pre-calculated using GPS with the flight planning system incorporating ground maps, air charts, and a terrain elevation model to allow a safe route to be plotted. The original software suite was developed as a toolset for use in planning aerobatic routines for manned aircraft says Weber, with its evolution into a UAV flight planning system commencing some 18 month ago.

The basic UAV has a 60km range, and uses a GPRS modem, operating over commercial cellular telephone networks, as a datalink. The maximum payload is anticipated to be 0.7kg.

The system would have particular application in supporting remote communities in the African environment Weber says, but could also have a role to play in established urban environments, particularly where speed of delivery was an issue.

Once at the delivery point, the Posduif would either perform a landing, with the lower wing surface acting as a skid, or simply drop the canister from low altitude and then return to the dispatch point.

Weber says if the UAV lands, its return would be achieved by the package recipient simply picking up the UAV and throwing it back into the air. The UAV would automatically detect that it was airborne, stabilise itself and identify its location, and then engage a pre-loaded return flight programme to return to its original departure point.

For high use recipients the business model could also involve setting up a rail launcher with integrated battery recharger to allow for air vehicle return.

Weber says the primary obstacle to the launch of the business remains approvals from South African civil airspace regulators. However he anticipates solutions in the form of a more open flight approvals regime and certification basis for civil UAVs in South Africa in the not too distant future.

As an interim step, ABAT is promoting the basic Styrofoam UAV as a farm management system, adding a low cost staring digital camera to collect imagery. The airframe material again lends itself well to this user community says Weber, as while many South Africa agronomists already using light aircraft in property management and stock control roles, there is a high potential for frequent crashing in the early stages of introducing a UAV system.

A glassfibre or all composite airframe is unlikely to be sufficiently robust to be re-useable after impacting a solid wall or tree Weber says, whereas Styrofoam will absorb the bulk of the impact. If the airframe is badly damaged however, the autopilot and engine module can simply be removed from their mounts and placed into a new wing, something farmers could do themselves.

The world of the extremely bored technician

How a tech nut thinks
By : a tech nut of note

Without a challenge, a keen inquiring mind gets bored in an instant. An ever, advancing level in the challenges faced is what keeps this certain breed of technician from becoming insane. Like a junky awaiting his next fix, the tech nut awaits his next biggest challenge. The one hardly finished before the next has to be found.

The result of this weird addiction
One of the main features in the tech nut’s repertoire of rare and mostly fascinating ideas and projects is the ability, to stun people into silence, make the audience applaud with enthusiasm or most often laugh out load and to his face.

The latter reaction is what has greeted this tech nut in his latest venture. In his quest to find the most interesting and exciting elusive challenge he wondered into the world of the insane when he decided to conquer the real outside world, spoken about in many circles, but only with vague insinuations and rarely with any conviction, with the ever popular phenomenon, known to the uninitiated only as the internet, web and ultimate source of entertainment.

In order to capture an audience that, to say the least, is as fickle as fate, must be the ultimate challenge. Well with a good dose of imagination and some really way out mental glitch, he came upon the idea of shooting via the internet. Not just any shooting mind you, a real live gun that makes a noise and is likely to hurt if aimed at you.

Gripping stuff

Once it had taken post in his mind it began taking root as the idea twisted him this way and that. Not letting go of him until he had totally given in to the idea. What was he thinking? What would his wife say every time the shots rang out in his living room, never mind the mess that would be his living room while he struggled with the very fabric of existence as he slowly painstakingly put the pieces of this very extraordinary puzzle together?
This is it, the tech nut’s delight
The number of challenges facing him began to mount. What gun? What will they shoot? Where will the funding come from? How will it all work? (obviously secretly delighted that he had managed to figure out a problem that would keep him solidly busy for more than a day) Why – oh don’t bother, “Why” does not figure in this equation.
One of the most difficult things to figure out, would be to make this so called online gun do what the demanding audience would require of it to do.

Given the fact that the very idea of guns scares off so many people that it might have been insane to even contemplate such an idea, he nonetheless decided to give his full and undivided attention to this man made problem.

This is his story
Seen from the eye of the average Joe, this may be the time to put down this article and leave it be. It can’t be worth anything as it is not marketable. Maybe not, but it sure is interesting. Ain’t it.

How Pellet Cam is set up
The real nuts and bolts stuff

This is a highly technical story due to it’s complexity and therefore is not for the faint hearted. It may however be the light that you have been looking for. I doubt it but you never know. Also please take note that the project is not entirely finished yet as it is still lacking a bit of funding for various items. It should however be finished on schedule within the next two to three weeks.

The technical idea behind it all
The idea is to have a gun that can be maneuvered via the internet. It can be made to point at a target and actually shoot a projectile in order to hit the target. There is no prize, there is no glory, it is just to give you that feeling of touching something out there without physically being there to do it.

The original idea was to use a pellet gun, but due to the fact that I keep on getting the question of “When is it going to be ready so that we can shoot the darn thing?” I decided to use an easier implementation that would not require a fully automated loading tray. The actual work that goes into manufacturing this sort of tray would not really be compensated financially at the end of the day, and due to it being wholly self financed the shorter route has been taken. Of course a a tech nut I would still like to do this and now have the time to actually really go into it while the people still have the ability to shoot.

The idea behind it all is of course that in order to sell anything or advocate any sort of ideas via the internet, one has to have an audience. Well this may just bring that audience to my web site.

The gun is a semi automatic paintball gun with a remote Co2 tank that allows it to shoot 1000 rounds without being refilled or manipulated in any way. This is a cheat obviously due to the fact that every 1000 shots I will still have to replace the cylinder but I was not prepared to go through the cost of actually automating that as well.



A laser site (that incidentally comes from a real gun and was purchased in South Africa in December) is placed on the gun so that the users can view the position of the gun. The laser points to the targets and the idea is, where the laser points is where the projectile will hit.

The targets consist out of a number of metal plates, which are also customary in a normal shooting range for close range shooting. The plates have micro switches that are activated when they are hit. This allows me to keep an electronic score over and above the visual realization that the targets have been hit.
There is a camera that provides a constant visual image to the user that is currently shooting. They can therefore see the targets as well as the laser which points to the targets.

The main electronics behind it all
In order to make all the parts move, a web server is needed that will be able to translate the users requirements into actual movement of the gun.

For this purpose I went scouting on the internet and found the perfect partner that would be capable of achieving my goals.

It is to be found at http://www.bcl-online.de

The web server shown above is a totally self sufficient unit. Other than the power supply that is connected to it, there is nothing else needed to host your sites. It does not have too much space obviously so it should be carefully designed in order to maximize the experience for the user. In order to achieve this I am currently using Flash. The Flash files are relatively small and achieve a lot besides being easy to create.

A web server alone, is nothing!
In order to move the servos that are connected to the gun’s mechanism the web server has to talk the language spoken by servos and other interesting objects.



The humble servo, used by the average hobbyist is one of the most versatile items to use when it comes to automating machines (it is relatively cheap as well), of course when it came to finally purchasing servos I soon realized that the average servo was not going to be able to hold the weight of this large paintball gun which weighs a considerable amount when loaded with 200 paintballs.



The servos I chose eventually turned out to be digital servos which meant that I need to buy a digital servo programmer as well (I see a new project to begin on straight away – a computerized digital servo setter upper). They cost a fortune but are capable of lifting 20 kilograms without breaking a sweat. Also the gear trains are supposed to be unbreakable. I sure hope this is the case as the success of this project is riding on that factor.

A language unlike anything we know
The servo needs to have a signal that is given at specified intervals in order to move. This signal needs to be between 900 and 2100 microseconds and needs to be repeated every 20 milliseconds. Now, actually this should be no problem as any computer is capable of producing these types of PWM (pulse width modulation) pulses through careful programming of a few timers.

Well in actual fact it turned out to be a nightmare. I created something in Delphi and it worked fantastically, on one servo. I needed at least 5 to work simultaneously. So what to do.

I finally ended up wading through several hundred web sites each professing to have their own servo drivers. Most of them would handle one or two but no more. Finally I got a subscription to the Elektuur which is an electronic magazine here in the Netherlands, and checked out hundreds of articles till I found the correct circuit. It had to be done electronically as it would leave the microprocessor free to do the rest of the work as well as move the servos when it was required.

I first tried making the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and after a few tries I let some company make them for me at a ridiculously low cost, even less than the cost of the items I had purchased just to make 1 PCB.

The basic idea was that the web server would talk I2C to the servo controller and tell it to move to the correct positions and the electronic controller would translate this into the correct signals required by the servos.

Anybody who knows me even reasonably well will know that I am a gadget freak. I love and live for all things hi-tech. Ever since I was a little kid I have been experimenting with electronic gadgets and any other types of gadgets that I could lay my grubby little hands on.

The love for gadgets is a really easy way to lose money fast. Every new day millions of gadgets see the light of day. We only see a fraction of those. Due to the internet admittedly we see a lot more than say 15 years ago, where the only gadgets I saw where in the electronic shops and Newworld Pharmacy in Pretoria, South Africa.

My love for gadgets has taken me down many wonderful roads and I will die a gadget freak I guess. My grandfather who lived to be 93 years old, said to me the weirdest thing when he first saw MNET, "Boy this new fangled stuff is enough to blow your mind" Bear in mind that he worked for Telkom for half his life as a technician. So as one can see new things will be blowing our minds soon. My kid will one day be showing me things which I wont understand (actually he does that already)

Anyway I have created a few interesting projects and I will share them with you. I have had many firsts in my life and I think the one that no one else has had will be the first article I write about. Unfortunately it is not online anymore as it costs a packet to run and is a lot of hard work. However maybe one day it will again be online for the viewing pleasure of all.