Posts Tagged ‘vista’

Wireless (WiFi) Remote Control of X10 Modules using USB Remote Access

Sunday, December 20th, 2009
  1. The Active Home Pro software is installed on/in a virtual Windows XP Professional computer, I don’t like cluttering up my main production Workstation which happens to be Vista 64-bit Ultimate.
  2. The CM15PRO Programmable Computer Interface is connected by USB to this computer. The Active Home Pro software is the software that drives the computer interface, I’ve saved the “house file” house.ahx on my NAS (network attached storage) device, so it can be easily shared on my network.
  3. This is the clever Tech bit, USB over Network by Fabula Tech, I’ve been using this software in the virtual work I do for a few years, and it allows you to share a USB device over your network, e.g. you can plug in you USB device on one computer, and connect to it on another via your network. Very handy… USB remote access!
  4. The USB over Network by Fabula Tech is installed on the computer connected to the CM15PRO Programmable Computer Interface. We will call this the server.
USB over network

USB over network

The above snapshot, shows the USB over Network server software running, and the current USB devices attached to the server, which can then be shared, just like any resource, disk, printer etc.

USB over network device shared waiting for connection

USB over network device shared waiting for connection

The device is shared, and is waiting for a client computer to connect to it.

USB device properties

USB device properties

You can give the devices meaningful friendly names, that you’ll remember. On the client computer (remote computer), install another copy of Active Home Pro, making sure the drivers are installed for the CM15Pro. Run the USB over Network client software.

USB over Network client setup

USB over Network client setup

Select USB Device, Add, browser for the computer or enter IP address. You should see, a list of devices that can be connected to.

Client connecting...

Client connecting...

Right click the device, and click connect, if this is the first time you’ve connected to the device, you’ll get the usual, bing-bong tones, and plug N play will start and register the drives.

Now you can use your ActiveHome Pro software on another wireless (WiFi) computer, just open the *.AHX home file, from a shared location.

Client Connected to device

Client Connected to device

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Windows 7 Release Candidate

Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Well here is its, Windows 7 Release Candidate, the final version of Windows 7 which may be released in August 2009.
Windows 7 x64 edition

Windows 7 x64 edition

I’ve just taken some time out to download the 3GB download, and install this 64-bit Release Candidate to have a look.

I’m still a fan of Windows 2000 Professional, although a bit old these days, and have resisted the temptation to move/upgrade to Vista, apart from on my gaming rig because I needed DirectX 10 for the games.

Windows 7 x64 Edition Scene Theme

Windows 7 x64 Edition Scene Theme

Quite a few other colourful themes as well.  For oldies like me that like the “classic theme”, the Windows Classic Theme is still present! After 10 minutes of fiddling, here’s my desktop!

Windows 7 x64 Classic Theme

Windows 7 x64 Classic Theme

  Would I upgrade, not at present.  But Nice picture of a Male Siamese Fighter though!

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Bluetooth stopped working!

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Windows Vista updated itself today with a CSR Bluetooth update, and my bluetooth stopped working between my computer and phone. I used the rollback feature to rollback the driver to the original driver shipped with the operating system dated sometime in August 2006, Bluetooth started working again! So it just goes to show, sometimes newer updates are not better!

So “IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT”

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