Category: software

Secure e-mail review

A while back when I was putting together my wrightmac.net domain I started looking at a better ways to secure my email. Free is fine, but free is letting google check out your email and figure out what to try and sell you while taking a peek at your cookies. I took a couple of evenings and started looking at what was out there. Lavabit was in limbo at the time (after shutting down over the Snowden incident) and had heard about Protonmail.com. 

I signed up for the free account at Protonmail. I used the account for awhile. I liked that there is an iOS app that works quite well. They don’t have or support a desktop app yet, but they do have a nicely done web interface for desktops/laptops. After giving it a good run I decided to sign up for the paid account, just the low-end one for now. I had just delved into the world of BitCoin and since they accepted them, I tired it out. I have to say while getting the Bitcoin was kind of a pain in the butt, using them is easy peasy. And since I purchased my original $90, I spent $40, and I still have $70 something left. This virtual currency is pretty cool. I was greenbacks would do the same thing. 

I like their authentication, their encryption mindset, no logging, end-to-end encryption (even outside of other ProtonMail users), and I just learned about this one self-destructing emails. The default is 28 days. Sending a secure email to a person outside of Protonmail is easy to do. When creating the message, just click on the Encrypt button on the bottom, enter in a password, and continue composing your email. When it is sent, the receiver sees an email stating they got an encrypted email and to click the button to view it. They are taken the the Protonmail server where the message is displayed. It is not ideal, but I do like that secure emails can be sent to all. All of their gear is stored in Switzerland and have very strict privacy laws where government fingers can’t peek at them. 

I kept an eye on the Lavabit web site. Around the first of the year I put in my $$ to reserve a first-in-line spot to get a Lavabit address as well. A few days ago I received the email that they were ready to start taking customers and it was time to pick out my address. Wooo-hooo. The process was easy peasy. Save now I HAVE to use Thunderbird as my email client. Lavabit does support Android, Linux, and Windoze, the Apple world is left a bit out in the cold. That is alright, I have one way in, mail is secure, and I am sure that some Mac developer will save the day. 

Lavabit also provides end-to-end encryption. They also encrypt all layers of the mail being sent, the transport, metadata, and the message itself. They look to provide the most secure email solution. They have developed their own email server, Magna which runs their DIME encryption service (I think I have that right). They are working on a client for iOS and other platforms called Volcano. Being a proprietary client, it will integrate tightly with their server architecture. 

So why two more email accounts. My rationale is that I, I, ok I wanted them. I wanted to try out both services and wean myself off of the “free” mails services of personal information sucking giants. My Protonmail, wrightmac will be for my projects, wrightMac Studio, and the such. I will put the Lavabit account, peterhein to use as my professional address. 

I commend the developers of both software packages and ecosystems on their focus on security and making it accessible to us, but it would be great to have one secure email standard everyone could depend on. I have been around this internet and computer stuff too long to think that it will get there anytime soon. In the meantime I will keep on seeing what is here and what is next. 

Raspberry Pi Arcade Project

Next on the project list is a Raspberry Pi arcade system. Once again we are starting small with as much stuff as we could from around the Studio. I already had a Pi 3, monitor, keyboard, no controllers (ordered those), and for kicks I got another of the Pi Zero Audio DACs for sound. I will have a speaker leftover from the pool-USB-Streaming-Audio project so it works out well. 

We loaded it up with RetroPie and I have to say I am quite impressed. The software works quite well and while it is easy to setup there are quite a few options to check out later on. Right now the most imperative thing to my son was getting it up and playing on the screen today. 

IMG 9644

Someone has donated some Xbox controllers for the system. We are still going to make some kind of case for it. At this point I am not sure if it will be an all-in-one or keep the console separate from the monitor. Once again I will have to let this one stew and see what comes of it. 

I want to start to put together a real arcade style box for the controls, joysticks and buttons for 2 players while keeping the USB controllers for other games. I doubt I will go the standup route, but I never know where projects take me after a while. My big must have for this phase of the project is a Tempest spinner controller. Tempest has to be one of my all time favorite games! And it really isn’t the same trying to play it with a keyboard or mouse, and most paddle are wheezy at best. I have started digging into them. 

So let me share with you the links and information I have found on making a spinner. I am looking forward to scrounging and finding the right pile of parts for this one. 

BREAKING NEWS – I just found this site today and it seems to have one great manual for making a spinner. 

There is one place I found where you can purchase one, theirs is called the SpinTrak, they are pricey. Maybe when I make my standalone Tempest game. 

I found this setup which is pretty cool. And making a controller was my original and still my preferred idea. 

Below are some of the other links I have found dealing with DIY spinners. 

Made from an old VCR head.

Another excellent example made from the what-the-lab-will-surrender category. 

A spinner made right inside the mouse. Pretty neat concept.

OSMC part 2

During my downtime I have been reading up on the OSMC (Open Source Media Center) package for my media center project. It seems to be a nice, well put together, distro that does/is what its’ name says. I checked out some reviews online and this was the version pointed to if you wanted a clean, easy to use, well-supported solution. Checking out their web site definitely gives you the feeling they may have something going on. 

Installation was really easy, I must say the easiest of all distros (about 3) I have dealt with so far. When you head to their downloads page, you click on your OS and it downloads an installer package.

PickInstaller

Have your SD card ready for the next part. 

Note I was using a SD card that had Raspbian on it. I used SD formatter to format the card before trying to use the OSMC installer. Don’t use SD Formatter. In my case, it would not mount the card properly. I had to use Disk Utility to format the card using FAT. 

Double-click on the installer. You can see the installer icon to the left of the Welcome to OSMC screen. 

LangPlat2

Pick your language and hardware platform. Once you click on the next arrow it will guide you through a couple of other steps such as if you want to configure networking. Both wired and wireless are supported. It will then ask you if you want to use a local repo or download a copy from the net. Since I didn’t download it yet, I let the app do the work for me. 

Download

The speeds finally did increase as I was tempted to head upstairs and grab a snack if it was going to take this long. 

Once it was complete I ejected the card from my MacBook and popped it in the Pi. Once the Pi gets booted up and begins the real installation of OSMC to the card. 

IMG 9424

This doesn’t take long, about 5 minutes. 

When it reboots it comes up with the OSMC interface and it is ready for configuring. At this point it is 1:30am and time for a little rest. Tomorrow night will come with AirPlay test. This is one feature I am really looking for. Not so much for the video but most defiantly for the audio. I am also on the hunt for the available options for listening to radio. We don’t have a home stereo any more. After years, moves, and kids, parts were either worn down, lost, or broken. Part of this project is to try and create an updated home media/audio center. I miss just turning something on and having it play int he background or for active listening. 

So if you are interested, stay tuned and I will keep posting about progress, pitfalls, and ideas. 

Raspberry Pi

Yes, another platform, another project. My Raspberry Pi has been floating around for a couple, three months now. I have been playing around with it, futzing with the OS installing and uninstalling things, all while trying to find a home for it. At first I thought I would use it with Domtiz and monitor various things around the house. After jotting some ideas down on paper the idea just kind of died on the vine. 

IMG 9396

There are a couple of retro gaming distros out there. They look fun, but not sure I want to dedicate this board to another console/computer/gaming system in the house. I downloaded xxx and have it on a SD card so I can pull it out and have some fun, but was still looking for its home, its purpose. 

Recently we got cable back. We had tossed Time Warner save the internet connection and didn’t look back at not having cable. Between not watching as much and Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon there wasn’t much reason to have it back. Then Spectrum bought TW and gave us a deal we couldn’t much pass up. In the process we have a new cable box and a Tivo that won’t much work with it anymore. Oh well. Then I had a spark of an idea, why not use it for a media center! That’s the ticket. 

I went out and started to do my homework on which distro will be best suited for my needs. I figured there has to be more than one of them out there with the popularity for the Raspberry; and there is. After a couple of days of reading and checking them out, I have decided on OSMC. It seems one of the easier ones to setup and use. So I have downloaded it and have it ready on a card. 

During this process, I have given up (temporarily) on getting the Sain Smart 7” LCD on working with the Pi. It is a sharp screen, it worked for a few minutes once, then I changed a setting, nutz! I broke down and bought a cheap, $3.99 HDMI to VGA convertors. It will work as I setup the rig and test it out. Once done I will move it out to the family room with the big screen. 

IMG 9398

For now the convertor works wonderful with my $2.00 monitor find. It might be a bit old and 4:3 not 16:9, but it is clear and works nicely. I am glad to have a spare monitor for the bench. To test it out I made it a third monitor on my Mac. How many do I really need? 

IMG 9397

This is a project that is going to blow out in scope as well. I have the goal of finishing up the audio amp I have on my bench and hooking it up to 2 bookshelf speakers that have been laying around for a while. It should make a nice little media center for the basement family room. 

ESP8266 + OLED + graphics = frustration

I have decided to make a clock; a simple one to begin with. I started with an ESP-01, an OLED, and some base code. It was fairly easy but did the job quite well. It would go out and fetch the time from a NTP (Network Time Protocol) server and display it on an OLED screen 128×64. These screens are cheap on the market and serve well for displaying a few lines of text, sensor readings, and/or graphics. One has to enter in a username and password for the wireless and the display text for the time was static on the screen, something these little displays don’t like. After a few days or couple of weeks there is bound to the burn in on the screen. I thought a poor man’s screen saver is in order.

I don’t have a picture of the ESP-01 all wired up and working, my apologies. It was getting to be a pain programming it overtime I made changes. So for development purposes I moved over to an Aamica NodeMCU dev board. This makes debugging and programming changes much easier (IMHO). And when the project is done I am able to move it over to the ESP-01. The ESP8266 is such a wonderful family of chips to work with.

To deal with wireless I downloaded and added WiFiManager to the sketch. This allows me to bring a wireless device, in this case my clock, to any wireless network and set it up for it. For example, if I bring my clock into work it won’t know which or how to access the network. Not a problem, power up the device, connect to its own AP, open a browser and give it the proper credentials. It is a very nice library to use! I thought when/if I give away a clock it will be easy for the recipient to setup and use in their own space without having to dink with changing code and uploading it.

Now the screen saver. This is straight forward (FAMOUS last words) or at least I thought it would be. After a set amount of time, blank the screen, and draw a graphic, blank the screen and bring up the time. In theory I have it working. My problem is with the graphics. I do know that graphics work and display as seen with my known eyes in the demo, but I wanted something different than a WiFi logo. I thought the Hackaday logo would do nicely.

hackaday logo 128×64

The story on the web is to head over and use either LCD Assistant or BMC-LCD to convert an image into the HEX code that is required. I kid you not when I tell you that I have tried over 26 iterations of file types, sizes, bits, etc. and all of them come up bubkiss.

The best I have been able to achieve is with a crossed line, which still shows some defects.

SIGH – I will not be deterred. Tonight I am off to the forums to see if I can scare up and help from there. I will be sure and update the site if I find out what the magic incantation is or what silly mistake I made.

MarsEdit “Hello World”

 

I recently downloaded MarsEdit so that I can edit this blog off-line. I think I have things setup correctly, so here is the “Hello World” for MarsEdit. 

I think it only right if I test out if the text will make it across the ether, I should make sure it will upload some media as well. So lets toss up a picture. 

The Bench

Here is my bench. I cleaned it up a bit before snapping the picture. 

 

Well, off to hit the Publish button. 

Flying Weather bits – the ESP-01 and sensors

The last few years I have been helping support an enterprise wireless network of 2,000+ access points. It is an interesting, challenging, nightmarish world wireless/RF is. When I started my Arduino adventure it was nice to be grounded in what I was working on. The wires carried all of the data I needed. I just need to make sure the wire was connected, not like those nasty RF signals that bump into other signals that might mess with this or that.

Alas, during my 1st weather project, while I was running back and forth with my data written to a SD card, I thought how much easier this would be if only I could do this with wireless.

In my research, I found information scattered hither and yon, each yielding news clues. I will try and link to those sites (I have remembered and bookmarked) throughout. I will post, what I thought, are the more important bits and pieces.

Project Goal

My requirements are simple. Use a DHT22 to take temp and humidity readings every 5 minutes. Take that data to a central point and log it with the ability to graph and compare it. Initially using USB and a converter for power, moving to own power supply.

** NOTE: I am going to be also working with a BME/P280 to see how to setup and work with I2C on the ESP-01. There are a couple of methods I will point out later on. 

I have seen where people use cloud services to keep their data. I have taken this into serious consideration, but am leaning towards a local solution. I have seen one that look promising, Domoticz. It is open source and can be run off of multiple platforms. I have recently received my Raspberry Pi 3 so I am going to try and it get it working there, but that is another day and another post.

Down to business

I crawled down into my abyss of a workbench and dug around. I knew that there was this 8266 thing what was supposed to do wireless and that I could hook it up to my Arduino. And in one of my orders I had tossed on a couple of different ESP8266 modules. There are plenty to choose from. I chose these 2 because they seemed pretty popular and I couldn’t beat the price. I have the ESP-01 and ESP-12E. The later is in the form of the NodeMCU v1.0 board with plenty of pins to work with. The ESP-01 is a simple, 8-pin module, yet with all the power of the 12E. After about 20 minutes of digging how to get the Arduino to talk to the EPS, I found out I could just write my code to the ESP and use it as both the processor and wireless device. Jack Pot! A temp sensor is always seems to be laying around somewhere and a DHT22 will work prefect.

A Quick BOM

  • 1 x ESP-01S
  • 1 X DHT22 (or whatever temp sensor you have around – be sure and sure the correct libraries.)
  • 1 x USB – UART convertor

 

The ESP-01

The ESP-01, as I have stated is the lowest, if you will, of the ESP8266 family. There is still plenty that can be done with it. Below is a diagram I found on deviantart of the pinouts.

For programming reference, pins TX and RX are GPIO 1 and 3. I found this useful when trying to get my I2C setup working. See my link at the end.

Also, the ESP-01 is pretty picky about its’ 3.3v limitation on pins. One of my first times working with it went up in the puff of magic smoke. Good thing I always oder at least 2.

Here is one of the sources I found for pin information. It is a very useful Instructable on the ESP-01.

The Plan

Here is a schematic of it from my notes. I was at work and the pencil and paper were quicker. I haven’t had the time to whip it up in Fritz’ yet.

I took to the internet and dug up a wiring diagram for the ESP for programming it. I like to take multiple approaches to this part of the process. There is the quick and dirty, plug it in and get it going and then the old school way I will call it. I did old school first.

** an error was pointed out to me during this project. The CH_PD pin should be pulled high during operation and low for programming. Currently I have mine floating, but will fix it in the next revision. It does work, but I am not sure what impact it may have in extended operation. I will update my documentation when I get it in Fritzing. 

In this example, the ESP is wired to an Arduino Uno. The two buttons are for Reset and Flash. Don’t mind the second ESP in the background, it was for another experiment.

Here is one of the sites I found useful in my quest for an ESP programmer.

*schematic from allaboutcircuits.com Next was the quick and dirty way, which wasn’t so quick an dirty in the end. Even it took some work. The board I got doesn’t have the CH_PD pin set to ground, which is required for programming. No problem since I have two of them, I took one of them and soldered a short wire connecting CH_PD pin to the Ground pin. I have it labeled for quick ID and use it for programming and the other for quick testing.

Coding

Next was how to make this little devil do something. Through my research much of the code can work, along with some of the Arduino libraries. Work has been done so that one can write a sketch and upload it through the Arduino IDE. There are other toolchains one can use as and they work quite well.

I found a couple of quick sketches where I poked around the code, uploaded them to see what and how they worked. I find that between reading the .h file of the library and an short example is the best way to learn what one can get done. I started to work on a sketch that would take a reading every minute and post it to a web page. Pretty simple and straight forward, but that is all I need right now. I only have a temp sensor and ESP.

On one of the forums I found a link to ESP Easy and it aims to be what the name claims. Essentially it is a sketch that one uploads to a ESP module. From there connect to it via wireless to initially set it up for the local wireless and then reconnect to it to control the configuration of devices and the such. Really quite fun to play around with. I need up using this for the time being. I was able to put something together over a couple hours in the lab.

Here is the link to the github for setting up the Arduino IDE for use the the ESP8266 family. The quick and dirty to setting it up is as follows.

  1. Quit the IDE or install the Arduino IDE from the Arduino website.
  2. Launch the Terminal.app.
  3. Enter in the command sudo pip install pyserial and hit return.
  4. Enter in the command sudo pip install esptool and hit return.
  5. Start Arduino and open Preferences window.
  6. Enter http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json into Additional Board Manager URLs field. You can add multiple URLs by separating them with commas.
  7. Open Boards Manager from Tools > Board menu and install esp8266 platform (and don’t forget to select your specific ESP8266 board from Tools > Board menu after installation).

The ESP is wired on the breadboard by the following. This will be the same wiring used on the protoboard final.

ESP

  •         Gnd -> Gnd
  •         Vcc -> 3.3v (from USB converter)
  •        Pin GPIO2 -> Signal from DHT22

DHT22

  •        Gnd -> Gnd
  •        Vcc -> 3.3V
  •        Signal -> GPIO2

Well, it is working on the breadboard and pretty cool for a first time ESP project. It would look pretty silly in it current state hanging from the wall. Time to go digging around in my Sanford and Son section of the lab. I dug up one of the covers that was used in an original Apple Airport. Seems like it will fit the bill. With two brass standoffs and some hot glue I mounted everything neat and orderly.

For this first station I have it mounted outside the door of my lab in the basement. It fires right up and works like a charm.

Here I took a brief fork in my academic travels. I took a day off from the above project. I did a little writing, working with the Nodemcu (but that is another post altogether), and thinking about the next sensor module I wanted to put together. I have it breadboarded and it works, it should be easy enough to put it on a protoboard; so he says.

I start with the basic layout. I think it is nice during this stage to start to think about how one would layout the traces for a PCB. My mind is already thinking that I might get 3-5 made as I need a few more for my project. The connections are as follows:

 

I layout and dry fit all of the components. For this version I didn’t have any female headers laying around so I solder the ESP-01 module directly to the board. I layed out the wire for the programming pins so I can make any changes I might want to it.

I used 24awg solid core wire for the wired connections.

My original plan has my own power supply. It is mostly working, but I have a leak somewhere. The power supply is straight forward. I use a LD1117 to convert 5v down to 3.3v. The capacitors are added to help smooth the power line. And of all times my Fluke is down, so this is on the sidelines right now. In the mean time, I am using the USB-Serial converter for my power supply. It provides an nice, steady 3.3v.

Here is the final product. The ESP comes up and I can connect to it via the web, but the sensor is not providing data. I have check my connections and voltages and the are working, but now it is time to dive deeper into hardware troubleshooting when it is all soldered together.

Well, after a pat on my back when it all powered up and the blue light started to blink, my smile quickly left. I launched the browser and went to the IP address and got nothing from the sensor. I know that it worked on the breadboard, what it up here? It was too late, time to head to slumber and figure it out tomorrow. A second look the next day and it popped out at me pretty quick. I soldered the signal wire at the wrong end of the resistor. Instead of pulling a little power from the Vcc line, it was getting flooded. 

Once I made the change, things are up and going. In the mail today, the charger/battery boards showed up. The last thing is to solder it up and connect the battery. I will be leaving in indoors for a couple of days while I work on a case for it for outside. I am not yet lucky enough for a 3D printer, but plenty creative with what I have buried away.

I also got some feedback on my power supply. There seems to be an issue with one of the caps I am using. Tonight I will replace it and see if that fixes it. I will be sure and update this and let you know.

I2C and the ISP-01

And on an ending note (???) one of my next remote sensors will include an I2C sensor, the BME280. It adds the feature of barometric pressure as well as the temperature and humidity. It is pretty straight forward. I have used it on the Arduino Uno. It was figuring out how to implement I2C on the ESP-01 that had me scratching my head for a spell.

Then I stumbled upon the magic pins web site. This is a great site on using the available pins on the ESP-01. With some creativity there is quite a bit one can pull out of the small module.

My current attempt at getting this to work is using the TX and RX pins for the I2C. I have it drawn up and ready to try. I will be back with more when I have it working.