The EeePC proves itself in combat

Guadalajara street, after a rain shower. Our hotel there provided free Wifi access.

If there were any doubts about the usefulness of my EeePC 701, they certainly vanished during my recent trip to Spain (see Asturias Open F3F).

With its small size, built-in Wifi, and preloaded software, the EeePC made a great holiday PC. I used it to access local weather forecasts, check my email, call home, look at photos - and even play the odd game on the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao.

Of course, for email and web access you need an internet connection. Fortunately, and to my surprise, Spain is well endowed with WiFi hotspots. In fact, all of the three hotels we stayed at had WiFi, as well as many motorway service areas. And best of all, it was all free of charge.

There are a few considerations if you're taking the EeePC on holiday. For example, you may not wish to use the supplied Thunderbird email package, as - like Outlook and other similar packages - it stores your emails locally on the computer. This makes it an open book for snoopers if the EeePC is lost or stolen. Instead, I used Googlemail in the Firefox web browser. Googlemail is a web service, and emails can be viewed without actually being stored on the computer.

Fortunately Googlemail is not restricted to Gmail addresses - it can access all your other POP accounts. This meant that I could send/receive using my regular email addresses, with everything visible in the Googlemail web page. You can also tell Google not to delete your viewed emails, so they can be viewed in Outlook when you return home.

The EeePC also came in handy as an image viewer. There was a small problem though - the EeePC has only patchy support for Pentax RAW files and only 4GB of disk space - and after allowing for the operating system files, there's less memory available than my camera card! To get round this, I wrote a short script (in Bash) which downsamples the RAW images from the SD card to just fit the 800 x 480 screen, sharpens them, and saves as small JPEG's on the SSD drive. The resulting images look great on the EeePC's viewer, and hundreds of images can be stored in this way without running out of space. An added bonus is that the resulting JPEG's are the perfect size for emailing.

The EeePC also comes with Skype preinstalled, so I was able to use it to ring home, much to the surprise of our hotel receptionist who wasn't used to people talking into their computers (the EeePC's built in mic and speaker are fine for this if you don't mind people listening in).

In short, the usefulness of the EeePC on this trip far exceeded expectations for a £220 device, and it's now a fixture in the backpack/overnight bag. I'm still looking for a nice nickname though - somehow 'Eeyore' doesn't have quite the right ring to it.

Rc-soar becomes a fashionista!

Complete change of subject... a photograph of mine has appeared rather unexpectedly in the Fashion and Style section of the International Herald Tribune!

The photo (see screenshot at left) was from a series of publicity shots I did as a favour for a dress designer friend. She submitted the photo along with a press release to the IHT, and somehow it ended up heading the report on London Fashion Week.

The equipment I used was the same as I take with me to the slope i.e. ordinary entry-level 6MP dSLR camera. I had no idea that the photo had been submitted to the newspaper, so it all came as a bit of a surprise!

Futaba 6EX - US distributor publishes rogue serial numbers

The Futaba 6EX GUID issue rumbles on... the US distributors appear to have discovered the affected serial number ranges - see service advisory.

Futaba 6EX - more on the GUID issue

There are reports - currently unconfirmed - that cycling the power to the Tx too quickly may reset the GUID, leading to loss of binding and the possibility of interference with other similarly afflicted Tx's. Paul Gray has described the issue in RC Groups. My guess is that the precautionary note in the Futaba bulletin advising users not to cycle the power too quickly is related to this.

FASST goes slow

Futaba have at last acknowledged what many already knew - that a number of FASST systems have been released in the wild with identical GUID's, which has resulted in at least one crash in the UK. This issue affects the 6EX and 7C transmitters, as well as the TM-7 module.

For background on this issue, see my earlier report. For advisory bulletins, see

• Futaba USA
• Ripmax (UK)

The bulletins are identical except Ripmax make no mention of the Futaba 7C (perhaps it's not on sale in the UK).

Curiously, both bulletins mention another issue which appears to be unrelated to the duplicate GUID problem. I quote: "if the transmitter and receiver have lost their binding which required them to be re-linked, we recommend returning them to the Ripmax Futaba Service Centre for analysis. This is not expected behaviour and should be investigated accordingly." [29 Jan 2008 - it seems that loss of binding can occur due to rapid cycling of power. See my later post]

A break from RC - my new Asus EEE PC

As a complete change, here is my new toy - an Asus EEE PC. This seems to have been a huge hit in the US over the Christmas period, and having had mine for just two days, it's not hard to see why.

There are two great things about it - firstly its ridiculously small size - it fits easily in a small corner of a small backpack, with lots of room for camera, groceries, transmitter etc. And secondly there are no moving parts (except for a processor fan which is not always on anyway).

The EEE PC has built-in Wifi, three USB ports, an SD card slot (great for reviewing photos), a small but perfectly formed keyboard, and a 6.9 inch screen. And a solid state disk, so no whirly bits to go wrong. It even comes with a stetchy neoprene case.

Yesterday I took it to my local Costa Coffee for a test run. Surprised myself at how easy it is to use a public Wifi network, and in a couple of minutes it was all up and running. I finished off the Futaba 12FG review, checked my email, surfed the Futaba site, and remoted into my work machine - with not a glitch or pause. I could swear a neighbouring iBook owner was casting envious glances in my direction...

The EEE PC runs under Xandros Linux, and has a fast and easy to use front end and takes only about 25 seconds to boot up. It comes with OpenOffice 2 preinstalled (this is largely compatible with MS Office). And all for a bargain £220. Here's the link.

2.4 GHz is totally secure. Or is it?

There are be thousands of modellers who entrust their models to 2.4 GHz radios, in the belief that 2.4 GHz spread spectrum transmission is inherently more secure than narrowband FM. And ignoring issues of external interference, hotspots, trees, water etc. 2.4 GHz is indeed much more secure than 35 MHz, because two spread spectrum transmitters simply cannot interfere with each.

...or can they?

A guy in my club claims that at another club he's a member of, two 2.4 GHz transmitters interfered with each other, leading to a crash. On further examination, the two transmitters were able to control the same receiver. Both transmitters were the same brand and type.

Now the only way this could happen, is they if the affected transmitters all left the factory with the same GUID. Since generating and loading GUID's is ultimately a human-managed task, we have to consider that this scenario is not as unlikely as it may at first appear.

If correct, this would be a pretty serious matter. Unless the offending transmitters could be identified by their serial numbers, the only totally option left to the distributor would be a total recall of all such sets sold. Otherwise, the manufacturers claims of interference immunity could not be guaranteed, and the purchaser would almost certainly have recourse under the law for a replacement set anyway.

Watch this space.