I need to create a series of graph for highly scientific data sets. The data is calculated in MatLAB, but the export of figures in MatLAB is a pain for me.

On the other hand OpenOffice.org seems to be the right tool for the job. The latest MatLAB has the function, called ‘xlswrite’. Happy with the fact, hoping it should write the XLS file I fire it up and…

Ouch. One must have Excell installed, as the data export goes through the ActiveX. If no Excell is found, the data is exported into CSV file, overwriting the file every time. Not the Right Thing.

The job was done via ordinary ‘csvwrite’, but adding data, importing the file to OpenOffice.org Calc and producing a series of graph.

And the milestone is creating ‘odswrite’, implementing the same functionality as ‘xlswrite’ presents. As MatLAB supports .NET and OpenOffice.org can be controlled via .NET-UNO bridge, .NET implementation of the function seems to be the easiest task.

The first problem found is it’s impossible to load ‘cli_cpputype’ NET assembly on x64 systems. I’m not sure if it is because ‘cli_cpputype’ is compiled for .NET 2.0, but the problem is too seriuos.

A small .NET program, based onCreating an OpenOffice Writer Document with C# and Creating an OpenOffice Calc Document with C# was created. In the case of success, it writes 2 files to user’s desktop:  “OpenOfficeTestFile.odt” for Writer and “OpenOfficeTestFile.ods” for Calc.

Here’s the source for C#. Sorry fot the mess, it’s my first .NET and C# programm ever compiled

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

// OOorg assemblies
using unoidl.com.sun.star.lang; 
using unoidl.com.sun.star.uno; 
using unoidl.com.sun.star.bridge; 
using unoidl.com.sun.star.frame;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.text;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.beans;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.sheet;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.container;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.table;

namespace OONETTest
{
 class OpenOfficeTestApp 
 {
 //Define a file name. Change this to an existing path! 
private static string FileName      = @"OpenOfficeTestFile";  

 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 string fDesktop = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
 string fFileName = fDesktop + "\\" + FileName;

//Call the bootstrap method to get a new ComponentContext 
 //object. If OpenOffice isn't already started this will 
 //start it and then return the ComponentContext.  

 unoidl.com.sun.star.uno.XComponentContext localContext =  uno.util.Bootstrap.bootstrap(); 

 //Get a new service manager of the MultiServiceFactory type 
 //we need this to get a desktop object and create new CLI 
 //objects.  

 unoidl.com.sun.star.lang.XMultiServiceFactory multiServiceFactory =  (unoidl.com.sun.star.lang.XMultiServiceFactory) localContext.getServiceManager(); 

 //Create a new Desktop instance using our service manager 
 //Notice: We cast our desktop object to XComponent loader 
 //so that we could load or create new documents.  

 XComponentLoader componentLoader = (XComponentLoader) multiServiceFactory.createInstance("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop" ); 

 //Create a new blank writer document using our component 
 //loader object. 
 XComponent oDoc = componentLoader.loadComponentFromURL( "private:factory/swriter",  //a blank writer document 
 "_blank", 0,       //into a blank frame use no searchflag 
 //use no additional arguments. 
 new unoidl.com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue[0] 
 ); 

 //Cast our component to a the XText interface 
//and write some simple text into document.  

 ((unoidl.com.sun.star.text.XTextDocument)oDoc).getText().setString("Testing OpenOffice.org .NET interface"); 

 //After we insert our text, we cast our component to XStorable 
 //to save it onto the harddisk  

 ((XStorable)oDoc).storeToURL( //Convert the file path into a OpenOffice path 
 PathConverter(fFileName + ".odt"),
 new unoidl.com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue[0]);            //no additional arguments  

 // close the Writer
 oDoc.dispose();

 // according to
 //http://www.suite101.com/content/creating-an-openoffice-calc-document-with-c-a124112

 //Create a new blank writer document using our component 
 //loader object. 
 XComponent oCalc = componentLoader.loadComponentFromURL("private:factory/scalc",  //a blank Calc document 
 "_blank", 0,       //into a blank frame use no searchflag 
 //use no additional arguments. 
 new unoidl.com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue[0]
 );

 // get sheets
 XSpreadsheets oSheets = ((XSpreadsheetDocument)oCalc).getSheets();
 XIndexAccess oSheetsIA = (XIndexAccess) oSheets;
 // access sheet by index
 XSpreadsheet oSheet = (XSpreadsheet) oSheetsIA.getByIndex(0).Value;

//write some data:
//Each cell in a Calc sheet is indexed by its column and row, so that text (for example) is written to cell A1 by using:

 XCell oCell = oSheet.getCellByPosition( 0, 0 ); //A1
 ((XText)oCell).setString("Testing OpenOffice.org .NET interface");

oCell = oSheet.getCellByPosition( 0, 1 ); //A2
 ((XText)oCell).setString("Cost");

 //And a number can be written to B1 by using:
 oCell = oSheet.getCellByPosition( 1, 1 ); //B2
 oCell.setValue(200);

 //And the "setFormula" methods is, of course, used to enter formulae (in this example into B3):

 oCell = oSheet.getCellByPosition( 1, 2 ); //B3
 oCell.setFormula("=B2 * 1.175");

 //After we insert our text, we cast our component to XStorable 
 //to save it onto the harddisk  

 ((XStorable)oCalc).storeToURL( //Convert the file path into a OpenOffice path 
 PathConverter(fFileName + ".ods"),
 new unoidl.com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue[0]);            //no additional arguments  

 // close Calc
 oCalc.dispose();

 MessageBox.Show("OpenOffice document '" + fFileName + ".odt' saved, \n" + "OpenOffice document '" + fFileName + ".ods' saved", "OpenOffice .NET Test App");

 } 

 /// 
 /// Convert file path  into OO file format 
 /// 
 ///

 private static string PathConverter( string file) 
 {
 try 
 {
 file = file.Replace(@"\", "/");
 return "file:///"+file; 
 }
 catch (System.Exception ex) 
 {
 throw ex; 
 }
 }
 }
}

On the other hand, if you need to peep into the other system’s files, you need to re-boot. Or use sometimes not so stable filesystem utilities.
Running fully virtualized OS, using eg Xen as supervisor, creates additional load an hardware, maybe not too big when running multiple OS’es on the pretty new server, but significant, if it is a laptop. And yes, you NEED to keep data in-sync between virtual and real OS.
VMware users, please don’t read any more. Yes, you can do it from pre-historic times.

You’ve been warned!

As for VirtualBox, it is possible to add physical drive or disk partition to your VM setup, although no GUI tools exists to accomplish this.
Every step is documented in VirtualBox User’s Guide, but really, who read these guides?
So , excerpts from The Guide, chapter 9:

Step 1: you need to know the partition layout of the drive.

VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk [physical_drive]

Substitute [physical_drive] for /dev/sd[a-z] if you live in Linux, \\.\PhysicalDrive[0..n] living in windows or /dev/drive[1..n] living in OS X.
Note the numbers. Linux usually has partition type 0×83, windows – 0×07. Not sure about Mac. You need to remember the physical partition you want to use in guest OS.

Step 2: export it to a file. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. And no, not the whole partition, but only some information about the layout of partitions will be saved:

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions [partition_number] -register

/path/to/file.vmdk must be absolute path. Substitute [partition_number] with the the partition from step 1. Using “-register” automagically registers the image in list of registered images of the VirtualBox.

Step 3: attach the newly created file to a guest and run it.

Some notes: it’s possible to use entire physical disk for VirtualBox:
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk -rawdisk [physical_drive]
Although it is possible, you should ever never launch the currently running system in VirtualBox. You’ve been warned.

WPKG has good printer addition/ installation guide in http://wpkg.org/Printer_configuration , but it does not cover changing IP port numbers.
As a CEO on all computer infrastructure, I need to find any solution to make the movement smoothly.

I was unable to find a ready-made solution, and in-house tool appeared after several hours in the Net.
I need to apologize for bugs and errors, as it is the first (and hopefully the last) VB script. It uses WMI. Testing box was W7, x64.
Maybe someone will find it useful.

Call the file chprinterport.vbs

Set args = WScript.Arguments
if args.Count < 2 then
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " Change IP ports for TCP/IP printers on Windows boxes"
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " Usage: cscript chprinterport.vbs old_TCP/IP_port new_TC/IP_port"
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " eg: cscript chprinterport.vbs 192.168.1.2 192.168.2.3 will change"
Wscript.Echo " port IP from 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.2.3"
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " Partial match is possible, so:"
Wscript.Echo " cscript chprinterport.vbs 192.168 210.23 will change"
Wscript.Echo " port IP from 192.168.x.y to 210.23.x.y"
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " Inspired by:"
Wscript.Echo " http://wpkg.org/Printer_configuration"
Wscript.Echo " http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/5777dc6a-9783-43d7-ac8e-fd3bd739690c"
Wscript.Echo " http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?s=8a077fc479806d3fc03bf734d57b357f&p=5622799&postcount=6"
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " License - BSD"
Wscript.Echo " "
Wscript.Echo " (c) 2010 ejs@seniejitrakai.net, ejs@ar.vgtu.lt"
Wscript.Echo " http://ejs.seniejitrakai.net"
else
oldIPAddress = args.Item(0)
newIPAdress = args.Item(1)
Dim strComputer
Dim Result
strComputer = "."
Result = ""
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & _
"{impersonationLevel=impersonate,(LoadDriver)}!\\" & strComputer & _
"\root\cimv2")
Set colPorts = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_TCPIPPrinterPort")
For Each objPort in colPorts
wscript.echo "Found TCP/IP printer port: " & objPort.HostAddress & ", named " & objPort.Name
if UCase(Mid(objPort.HostAddress, 1, Len(oldIPAddress))) = oldIPAddress Then
objPort.HostAddress = newIPAdress & Mid(objPort.HostAddress, Len(oldIPAddress)+1)
Wscript.Echo "New Printer port: " & objPort.HostAddress
Result = objPort.Put_
If Len(Result) > 0 Then
WScript.Echo "Updated TCP/IP printer port: " & objPort.HostAddress & ", named " & objPort.Name
Else
WScript.Echo "Error " & Result & " updating TCP/IP printer port: " & objPort.HostAddress
WScript.Quit
End If
end if
Next
end if


Dude, i’m feeling to old for rock-n-roll

“Дорогой длинною”, Сергей Зыков (Youtube post by tombene77):

“Those were the days”, Mary Hopkin (Youtube post by Ibicus):

“Quelli Erano Giorni”, Gigliola Cinquetti (Youtube post by tengokuemaki):

“Le temps des fleurs”, Dalida (Youtube post by VenitienDeLevallois):

“An jenem Tag”, Dunja Rajter (Youtube post by fritz51223):

“Kelelis tolimas”, Virgis Stakėnas (Youtube post by starkaes):

I feel a bit better today, so decided to build USBasp – an USB port ISP programmer for Atmel product family. I used STK 200/300 dongle before, but it works from parallel port only.

Lets start: the schematics is from http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/ . You can find some schematics and pre-routed PCB’s there.

What I need is USB B type or MiniUSB connector, SMD parts, small footprint, single – sided PCB. The one I liked is by Thomas Pfeifer, http://thomaspfeifer.net/atmel_usb_programmer.htm. The problem is I found no files for Eagle there and had to re-create the PCB.

Additional features are:

• RC filters on MOSI, MISO and SCK lines to suppress ringing, as suggested in AVR Freaks forum;
• Signal from oscillator (XTAL1) is routed to the pin 3 on IDC connector via jumper – a handy feature to debrick the MCU if you accidentally fused external oscillator;
• Inductor on the power line.

The PDF files with the layout are here, an A6 – size mirrored image for direct printing on OHP is here.

Added on 2008-10-01:


First, it works. Both connected directly or via USB hub.
Second: don’t create anything while you are ill. Actually, pin number 5 on miniUSB connector MUST be grounded, while pin number 4 can be grounded or left floating. I’ve used i jumper wire to solve the issue.

Sometimes i’m asked to “cure” one or another product, protected by registration or network license manager, like FlexLM. And you know, a lot of keygens for these product found in the Internet, do not work. The usual error is “Internal Error #{1..6} – Please be sure the app is running and on the license screen!”. What’s wrong, why the keygens from the glorious crack groups do not work any more?

Search on the Internet revealed almost nothing: from “the kyegen does not work” to “it works perfectly”, some says one must use genuine windows the keygen to work (wow…).

Let’s start a little investigation.

Some keygens are packed with some kind of packer, like UPX. I’m too lazy to extract them.
So i’ve found an unpacked version of keygen for AutoCAD 2008, created an evaluation installation of AutoCAD 2008 from Autodesk Revit Architecture 2008 (i have a license for it to run on the network, by the way) and started my explorations.

A usual PE executable consists of some sections: header, data, imported functions, static variables and text resourses. Text resourses are usually located near the end of the file, and it is the very first place to look for an information.
The very first string’s i have noticed, at the very beginning of text resourses were “acad.exe” and “~de81d5.tmp“. But wait, when running AutoCAD, i have 4 files with constant names in “%TEMP%/AdskCleanup.0001.dir.0000″. Their names are “PfdRun.pfd“, “~de0acb.tmp“, “~df294b.tmp” and “~efe2.tmp“. Only two of them has names with 7 symbols (like in keygen’s “~de81d5.tmp”). The *.tmp files seems like PE executables.
A quick edit in the keygen to match the actual names and …

The mysterious error is gone, you can paste a request code in the keygen.

And …. “REQUEST CODE ERROR!”

Let’s summarize:

• every product line Autodesk ships uses unique set of registration keys. This also means that AutoCAD 2008 sold as separate product will have different encryption keys that the AutoCAD2008, sold as “Revit Architecture suite 2008″;
• the keygen searches for predefined file in “%TEMP%/AdskCleanup.0001.dir.0000″, extracts encryptions keys (?) and generates authentification code, depending on your request;
• if the keygen does not find a predefined file in the predefined place, a famous “Internal Error #…” will be generated;
• as keygen works with predefined location of encryption keys, it is not capable of generating authentification code for different products

So, what’s to do if You got the famous “Internal Error #..”?
Buy the product. Or search for another keygen.

As, I’ve mentioned earlier, we had a pleasant trip through Italy the last summer. I have recorded the whole trip to my GPS unit using i-GO navigation program. Seems like 10 second recording intervals are fine and the track is quite precise and smooth.
Unfortunately, during upgrade from WM5 to WM6 I had to reinstall i-Go and all tracks just dissapeared from track list in i-GO. Stupid me, i HAD to save ‘igo.db’ file somewhere.
I found no way to put them back, so let the fun begin.
A short glimpse into one of the files and..

...
$GPGSA,A,3,04,20,13,23,31,11,,,,,,,2.0,1.2,1.6*33
$GPRMC,061120.287,A,5414.2734,N,02337.5314,E,54.08,261.55,290707,,,A*50
$GPGGA,061121.000,5414.2726,N,02337.5281,E,1,06,1.2,152.2,M,31.0,M,,0000*54
...

Hey, do You think the same way? Yes, it’s NMEA data in plain text.

Ok, the Tool – GPSbabel is ready. It can read and write a lot of GPS data formats. Let’s try:

$ sudo apt-get install gpsbabel

, a handy script ‘nmea2gpx’ from here
and let the fun begin:

$ for i in `ls *.bin`; do ./nmea2gpx $i; done

The conversion is smooth. You can discard files files up to about 400B – they usually contains only empty GPX structure.

But the resulting data set is HUGE: initial data set is 182MB, the resulting GPX files uses MB.
It’s fine if you need very detailed track info, but two problems arise:

• due to the nature of GPS it’s inaccurate, if you use the receiver in dense urban areas
• you do not need this amount of information to create daily track or a track for the whole journey

And again, let’s turn back to GPSbabel. It has a lot of filters to improve overall usability of saved data:

$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=0.002k -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-e2m.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=0.005k -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-e5m.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=0.01k -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-e10m.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=0.05k -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-e50m.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=0.1k -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-e100m.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x discard,hdop=10 -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-hdop10.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -x discard,hdop=6 -o gpx -F 2007-08-07-hdop6.gpx

 $ ls -al *08-07*.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs 5321544 2008-02-24 20:41 2007-08-07.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs  343808 2008-02-24 21:00 2007-08-07-e10m.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs  909181 2008-02-24 20:56 2007-08-07-e2m.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs  541929 2008-02-24 20:59 2007-08-07-e5m.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs  117973 2008-02-24 21:31 2007-08-07-e50m.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs   69973 2008-02-24 21:38 2007-08-07-e100m.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs 5072358 2008-02-24 20:52 2007-08-07-hdop10.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs 4983846 2008-02-24 20:52 2007-08-07-hdop6.gpx

Summarize the above:

• reducing maximum allowable Horizontal Dilution of Precision (HDOP) makes almost no change to data size
• using ‘crosstrack’ filter and removing points maximum 50 meters away from track, reduced dataset size 10 times. Using 100 meters error reduces dataset almost 75 times, but you can see in the image and here, the data it is still usable.

The perfect and free tool to overlay the GPX track onto the globe is GPS visualizer . Use it.

The proposed workflow is:

1. download tracks the tracks you need to the computer
2. convert them to GPX
3. merge day track to single file
4. apply ‘crosstalk’ filter with maximum error of 100 – 200 meters to the daily track file. Your goal is to get 150-500kB file, depending on the road network and conditions.
5. merge daily track files to single trip file
6. apply ‘crosstalk’ filter with maximum error of 1 – 2 kilometers to the trip file, depending on the road network and conditions.
7. register at Google Maps to get your API key, as it’s stated in GPS visualizer FAQ
8. proceed your files with GPS visualizer
9. donate
10. enter your Google Maps API key into every saved HTML file from GPSvisualizer.com. You HAVE saved the files, have You?
11. arrange the presentation of your wanderings
12. enjoy

$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f 2007-07-31.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-01.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-02.gpx \
 -i gpx -f 2007-08-03.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-04.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-05.gpx \
 -i gpx -f 2007-08-06.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-07.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-08.gpx \
 -i gpx -f 2007-08-09.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-10.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-11.gpx \
 -i gpx -f 2007-08-13.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-14.gpx -i gpx -f 2007-08-15.gpx -o gpx -F full.gpx

$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f full.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=0.5k -o gpx -F full-e500m.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f full.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=1k -o gpx -F full-e1km.gpx
$ gpsbabel -i gpx -f full.gpx -x simplify,crosstract,error=2k -o gpx -F full-e2km.gpx
$ls -al

lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-07-31.gpx -> ../daily/2007-07-31/2007-07-31.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-01.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-01/2007-08-01.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-02.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-02/2007-08-02.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-03.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-03/2007-08-03.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-04.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-04/2007-08-04.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-05.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-05/2007-08-05.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-06.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-06/2007-08-06.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:38 2007-08-07.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-07/2007-08-07.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-08.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-08/2007-08-08.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-09.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-09/2007-08-09.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-10.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-10/2007-08-10.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-11.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-11/2007-08-11.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-13.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-13/2007-08-13.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-14.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-14/2007-08-14.gpx
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ejs ejs        34 2008-02-26 02:39 2007-08-15.gpx -> ../daily/2007-08-15/2007-08-15.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs    186733 2008-02-26 02:59 full-e1km.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs    111056 2008-02-26 03:01 full-e2km.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs    329869 2008-02-26 02:53 full-e500m.gpx
-rw-r--r-- 1 ejs ejs 107624591 2008-02-26 02:45 full.gpx

by, the way, while processing the last two gpsbabel commands and running Xorg , KDE and Iceape as usual:

top - 02:58:54 up  6:52,  6 users,  load average: 2.66, 1.93, 1.19
Tasks: 121 total,   4 running, 117 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 99.3%us,  0.7%sy,  0.0%ni,  0.0%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:    516620k total,   508624k used,     7996k free,     2004k buffers
Swap:  1052216k total,   157092k used,   895124k free,    93384k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 6173 ejs       25   0 86368  82m  840 R 48.9 16.3   2:59.09 gpsbabel
 6175 ejs       25   0 86372  82m  840 R 48.9 16.3   1:28.35 gpsbabel

The resulting GPS data with 1km error is presented here.

The unit served as almost perfect GPS navigator for our summer trip though the Italy. One regular February evening i took my Asus PDA and…
Yep, a small problem. And a serious one.

But… there’s a country named China.
I like chinese. Really, dude. The price for 639′s LCD screen here in Lithuania is around 120€. You can grab one at E-bay.com for around $130 – it’s about 90€ in today’s exchange rates. If you look into ebay.co.uk, the same LCD goes for £40 – it’s 60€. Shipping – add 25€ more.

So, prepare 85€, wait several days and you can start the EXCHANGE.

what’s inside the package?	invoice, screen, tools, cleaning cloth, protective film	ah yes, i had to take the screen out
take out protective plugs and unscrew 5 screws with the tool provided. Separate the bottom shell.	CAUTION: do not push the LCD now!	remove the keypad plate
put the top part of the screen, widen the plastic shell and the screen will just pop in	and yes, the front side of MoBo. Note the empty U7 place near the SD card. What it is for?	and now, the connectors: keypad on the top, speaker in the middle and the LCD on the bottom
there’s almost no space left around and the LCD connector is hard to put in place.	attach GPS antenna connector. Be carefull, it’s hardly repairable.	Wake up, darling

And the protective film. Well, i should have it fitted before i’ve started to assemble the PDA…