Fiabilité et chipset WiFi freebox

Ces derniers temps, je dois avouer que j'ai été plutot malchanceux au niveau de la fiabilité de mes gadgets. J'en ai marre du matériel/logiciel baclé qui arrive buggé chez le client final. Dernier en date, le chipset WiFi de la Freebox Revolution. J'ai reçu ma Freebox Revolution mi-janvier 2011. Le serveur a fonctionné correctement jusqu'à mi-juin. Le serveur s'est mis à perdre la synchro après 20 minutes. Il donnait clairement des signes de surchauffe sur un point localisé dans le quart avant droit. L'assistance Free a programmé la visite d'un technicien le 8 juillet.

Dans l'intérim, il était *inacceptable+* pour moi de rester sans connexion internet. J'ai donc commandé un modem routeur wifi chez Amazon. UPS a livré le Linksys WAG120N le lendemain. Une catastrophe technologique, la synchro ADSL2+ OK, le routeur OK mais le WiFi WTF. Le WiFi de ce routeur devient sourd au bout de quelques minutes. Au delà du temps imparti, plus d'accès ni au LAN ni au WAN alors que la connexion WiFi est plein pot en G ou en N. Le problème apparait sur mes 5 périphériques WiFi (iPod 2G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 2 et Archos IT 70). La seule solution était de mettre transitoirement le périphérique en mode avion (ou de rebooter le routeur). A peine recu, j'ai lancé un RMA chez Amazon (j'ai été remboursé depuis).

En parallèle, j'ai commandé un autre modem routeur wifi chez Amazon. Le lendemain arrive un Netgear Wireless-N 300 qui a parfaitement fonctionné jusqu'à l'arrivée du serveur Freebox de remplacement. J'ai installé le nouveau serveur lundi dernier. Faute d'utilisation en WiFi, je n'ai noté des problèmes ponctuels de connexion WiFi que le jeudi. Après une analyse vendredi soir, je conclue que c'est exactement le même problème qu'avec le Linksys WAG120N.

Solution: j'ai désactivé le module WiFi de la Freebox et j'ai ressorti mon vieux routeur wifi Linksys WRT320N avec firmware DD-WRT. Une fois paramétré en switch 5 ports, ce routeur fonctionne parfaitement. Et tous mes périphériques restent connectés à l'internet des heures.

My light leaking iPad 2 goes back to Apple

Short version: the iPad 2 3G 64 that I received mid april has the light leaking issue (see picture). After a 45 minutes phone call with the Apple level 2 support, I went with the non Apple care option. So UPS will pick up the faulty iPad and return a new one within 5 to 10 days.

Apple verboten dev tools BS

Apple released a new SDK license. It states that apps must be written in C, C++ or Objective C. Which means that using other language/framework/development tools is verboten. From the top of my mind it kills apps developped in C#, using Unity3D, the upcoming Flash CS5 and a bunch of other dev tools.

I can understand when Apple pulls an app that uses non official APIs. But the apps made with verboten dev tools are compiled for the iPhone OS platform using official APIs. These apps will behave correctly on the iPhone OS platform including multitasking.

One can argue that using a multiplatform higher language will result in less efficient program. In this case let the market decide... the applications will be bloated, inefficient, buggy or slow. For years, Java apps are able to run on multiple platforms. The developper does the work once and its users are able to enjoy the result almost everywhere. For a while my BitTorrent favorite client was Azureus (multiplatform Java) but as soon as uTorrent (native Windows) feature and stability matured... the market spoked and I used uTorrent ever since.

When I find a better alternative to what I have, I jump ship also on the iPhone OS platform. For over a year, I used Byline to synch my Google Reader. A couple of weeks ago, Reeder 2.0 was released it's better, it's faster, it features Instapaper, ReadItLater, Twitter and mobilizers from both Google and Instapaper. Now Reeder is on my devices first page, while Byline is now on the "to delete" page.

On my main Windows box, the only application that is buggy, inconsistent is Apple iTunes. This piece of inefficient crap uses non-native APIs. Why is it still on my computer? Because I have no choice for synchronizing my iPhone OS device (thanks to the lack of basic OTA features).

Apple ban on Adobe Flash for the iPhone OS platform is to artificially protect the games on the AppStore. Apple ban on dev tools main purpose is to lock the developers in their "sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers".

Archos 70 8GB review

Yesterday I walked in a local Darty and bought an Archos 70 8GB Internet Tablet. While I've played with my friends G1/Desire/Galaxy S, it's really the first time I can use an Android device for an extended period of time. For the background, I have an iPod Touch 2G 32, an iPhone 3GS 32 and an iPhone 4 32. I've tried the iPad in stores but I find it too heavy (680g)

Just by reading the specifications, you can assess this obvious details about the Archos 70 tablet:

• there is no GPS. Just like the WiFi iPad v1, this tablet is not able to give your position on its own.
• there is no 3G connectivity. You'll need to use WiFi to access the internet. On the go the best option would be to use a Novatel MiFi 2352 (€185).
• there is only 8GB of storage + a Micro SD slot. Since you can buy 16GB SHDC class 4 for €30, I don't think having only 8GB is an issue.
• it cost only €237. The competitors are priced at €500 for the 10" iPad WiFi 16GB and €600 for the 7" Galaxy Pad 3G 16GB. There is no such thing as free food, for half the price of an iPad I don't expect the same quality.
• it weights only 300g. The iPad weights 680g and the Galaxy Tab weights 380g.

After a few minutes you notice the following annoyances:

• the screen viewing angle is narrow, the light falls off pretty quickly both on the top and the bottom... it smells like a bad TN panel.
• the screen seems to be made of plastic. This helps with the weight but is probably the cause of the next issue.
• the screen and digitizer complexing is poor. It shows Newton rings that are annoying in low light.
• the screen is reflective. Get ready to see yourself a LOTand eventually change your name to Narcissus.
• the screen is not oleo-phobic, as in this thing is a smudge magnet.
• the screen backlight is not homogeneous.
• the VGA webcam is a joke. My first webcam had both a better image and a better frame rate.
• the basic Google apps are missing. You'll need to copy over USB the gApps4Archos package and then launch the install of Maps, Gmail, Google Talk, Market and Youtube.

After a full day of use you notice more issues:

• the 4 basic buttons are software buttons. Therefore they waste screen real estate, they are not as responsive as their hardware counterparts and they get in the way of some apps lower controls or text (Opera Mobile, Kindle, Spotify, Aldiko...).
• the image resizing comes with lots of blur and artefacts. This appear in both when images are zoomed out and zoomed in (web browser, Evernote, photo frame, ...). I haven't seen that amount of resizing artefacts (dithering) in more than a decade. To make things worse, the image is blured (filter) as soon as you remove the fingers from the screen. It seems to be an Android apps feature (dither and filter properties).
• both the Music and the Video apps can have trouble finding DLNA servers. It looks like I have too many DLNA servers on may LAN (in this case 5 devices). I had to shutdown my Sonos players to be able to see my DLNA NAS.
• the Music app doesn't display the album art included in the MP3 from my DLNA NAS. The same file on the SD card works as advertised.
• the Photo app takes almost 30s to fetch a 225kb image from Picasa over a 12MBps DSL. It is so slow that if you launch the diaporama, all you see are the enlarged thumbnails.
• the sensitivity of the screen is far from perfect. I found myself having to type multiple time to get one character. After more than 2 years of practice, I master the 2 thumbs entry on soft keyboard. I can't say if it's the plasticky screen or the stock Android keyboard. I tried the keyboard calibration with no luck.
• you often see apps crashing on exit. Android then asks your confirmation to kill the app.
• every once in a while you'll need to reboot the device because one app is draining the ressources.
• the screen density is not high enough to be able to display PDFs properly in portrait orientation.

After this long list of minuses, here are the pluses:

• it uses Android. Of course it's still Android 2.1 (Eclair)... I'm looking forward testing Android 2.2 (Froyo) SOON.
• it does over the air updates... the idea of non using iTunes makes me warm and fuzzy.
• it has a back button. This is one of the basic features missing on the iPhone.
• the Android notification system put Apple, Steve Jobs and the iOS devices to shame.
• the 7" size and 300g seems to be the sweet spot for me. I have large hands so I can easily hold it in one hand. I can use both my thumbs to type in portrait mode.
• my 5 years old daughter enjoys watching cartoons on the portable screen. The Movie player support the containters, codecs and subtitles that matter to me (avi, mkv, h264,...).
• being able to access music, photos and movies using DLNA (when it works properly) is a huge step from iOS.

It's still unclear if I'll keep this Archos 70 8GB. I'll contact Archos support tomorrow. They were supposed to offer the Froyo update in november 2010 (2 days left). If they can't give a release date, I'll return the Archos 70 and ask for a refund.

EDIT: as time goes by... this tablet grows on you. :)

Wake up call from Google cars recording wifi data

On 15.05.2010, Google admitted that their Google Street View cars recorded a lot of Wi-Fi data (access point MAC address, SSID and more). The purpose is to be able to correlate the GPS location with the visible Wi-Fi access points. The end game is to provide a quick approximate geolocation to Wi-Fi enabled devices. A company like Skyhook Wireless records similar informations and provides its services to Apple mobile products (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad,...).

The SSID can be easily changed by the user so you shouldn't rely on it alone. The average Joe will probably never change their SSID. The MAC address modification is possible but far out the reach of the average Joe. It require a custom firmware which not all router support.

When the SSID is not "hidden", the Wi-Fi beacon packet advertise the SSID every 100ms. If it's "hidden" there are 4 other ways to get the SSID. For routing purposes, every Wi-Fi packet feature in the clear the MAC address of the communicating devices. Only the payload is encrypted when using WEP or WPA.

I believe that Google cars record the GPS location and whatever packet they ear on the 14 Wi-Fi channels. The Google cars change the listening channel every 200ms so in less than 3 seconds they can scan the 14 available channels. Instead of extracting the useful parts of the packet (SSID + MAC) on the fly, they keep the intercepted packets for an offline analysis.The open source Wi-Fi auditor inSSIDer builds a database of MAC address/SSID/GPS coordinates.

Google clearly stated that they didn't record encrypted packets. But the real issue for me is the following. Once you record a WPA encrypted packet you are able to do a brute force offline attack. It's time and computer consuming. The duration of the attack depends on the length of the WPA key. A tool like Elcomsoft Wireless Security Auditor is able to try 100000+ keys a second.

You should use WPA with a 63 characters random key from the GRC password generator. WEP encryption is so badly broken that it should not be used at all. Insecure wifi access points should be used only when there is no other option. If you have to use an open access point know that whatever is not encrypted is broadcasted in the clear.