Everybody Staze...

Nobody leavz...

FTDI, and why I’ll never trust them again

By

ft232rlI recently purchased an inexpensive 3D printer from a colleague who had upgraded to a larger model. The printer is a Tinyboy, or Mini Fabrikator 3D. It’s a great little printer, with one unknown flaw… it uses a fake FTDI USB-to-UART chip. FTDI pretty much makes THE USB-to-UART controller, and they know it. The problem (everyone’s problem) is that some Chinese companies have decided to make counterfeit chips, or chips that show up as an FTDI, so they can use the FTDI driver, but aren’t actually FTDI chips.

Now, back in 2014, FTDI released a driver that detected that detected these chips, and reset some identifiers on the chip to basically “brick” the chip. Sure, those that knew how, could go in and fix the chip, then downgrade the driver to one that didn’t do this, but you had to know what you were doing, and it was a huge pain. After enough outrage, FTDI admitted they were a bit overzealous, and pulled the driver. And that was that. Or rather, it was. Then, just late last week, they pushed out another driver, which got into Windows Update (for at least Windows 7), that didn’t brick the chip, but instead injected “bad” data (“NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!”) into the USB serial stream. This prevented anything expecting valid data (everything) from working. And it did this relatively silently. The driver installed, loaded, and then just sat there throwing bad data. I quite literally spent four hours screwing with everything I could think of trying to get this working, only to figure out the following.

[Read more…]

PlayStation Gold Wireless Stereo Headset

By

golden-edition_imgAfter I got a Playstation 4, I quickly realized that the time I was able to play was often after my toddler son had gone to bed, and that also my LCD TV had terrible stereo separation. So I started looking into headphone options. While some get amazing reviews, they often cost $250, which I wasn’t willing to spend. However, Sony produced a set of headphones called the PlayStation Gold Wireless Stereo Headset that got good reviews, sounded good, were comfortable, and only cost $99. For $99 on Prime, with the Amazon credits I had, I was more than willing to give them a go. So, I ordered a pair, and waited.

They showed up pretty quickly (Prime and all), and first thing off the bat is that they’re big. They’re not Sennheiser HD280 big, but they’re close. That said, they’re comfortable. They may actually be MORE comfortable than my HD280’s with my glasses on. You do have to fiddle with the headband a bit though, as if it’s too “loose” the ear cups tend to dig into your “TMJ” joint, and cause some discomfort (at least they did on me… but that was fixed my tightening the headband so the cups sat more “off” my jaw). The other thing of note is the headphones require the USB dongle (i.e. they’re not bluetooth). Meaning on the PS4, one of your two precious USB ports is now dedicated to your headphones (but, the advantage is, they should work on any device with USB (that supports sound))! The disadvantage is you can’t really charge your headphones and controller at the same time without unplugging the dongle. On the plus side, they configured immediately, and sounded awesome.

I usually find myself disabling the mic (button on the headphones) when not playing with others as the sound it picks up is replayed into the headphones and causes some odd audio effects (though it is nice if you’re expecting to get called to dinner). There are other sound profiles for the headphones that you can load via the PS4 app, but I haven’t found myself needing them. The difference playing Farcry 4 with and without them, is awesome. Before, eagles or honey badgers would sneak up on me, and I’d be trying to frantically kill them after they had already hit me. With them, I can hear them a mile away and am facing them as they “charge”. Fallout 4 has been much more enjoyable than 3 or New Vegas were because of the headphones (I may actually replay them both with the headphones now that I have them).

I liked the headphones so much, I bought a second pair on eBay and brought them to work to use on my computer there. I’d give them a perfect rating if they were bluetooth, but sadly, they’re not.

[xrr rating=4.5/5]

Ubiquiti UniFi UAP AC LR

By

uap-ac-lr-medSince purchasing the Edgerouter X SFP a couple weeks ago, I realized that I wanted to upgrade my wireless network as well. I’ve been using my older Airport Extreme (5th Generation) in Bridge Mode to do my home networking, but I’ve been having odd issues with it when the cabinet its in is closed (I think it’s overheating). The Airport is rated up to 20W of power, which seems a bit extreme, but the device is a full on router, so there is some extra hardware in there. I had previously purchased a ceiling mount for the unit, and have it mounted in the middle of my house. This gives it very good range, with only a couple very small dead spots. But, the power usage, and the oddities with the overheating, made me decide it was time to jump to something better.

The Edgerouter X SFP supports Ubiquiti’s 24V Passive POE on all ports, so I figured I’d try one of their UniFi access points. They recently released their AC access points, but availability was very limited. I called/emailed a dozen or so places only to be told they were backordered for at least 2 months! Then, I found a place right here in Oregon, Invictus Wireless (which I would be traveling within a mile to for Christmas), and called them. They had one in stock! I purchased it, and had a family member pick it up since they were closing early for Christmas eve. =D

[Read more…]