Roger's Blog

CoolTerm 1.4.1

2011-11-21T16:40:00.001-08:00

CoolTerm 1.4.1 is now available for download. This is a bug fix release that fixes some bugs that have popped up since the release of version 1.4.0.

Here are release notes:

- Improved handling of exceptions if preferences or connection settings can not be read or written.
- Checking serial port for nil in the transmit thread to avoid NilObjectException exceptions. Not clear if this fixes the issue a few users have seen.
- Improved exception handling when serial port adapters are added or removed from the system while CoolTerm is running.
- Fixed a bug in the circular receive buffer that could cause an OutOfBoundsException when reading data.
- Improved handing of OutOfMemoryExceptions when attempting to set the receive buffer size to a value larger than the amount of memory available on the user's system.

Update: CoolTerm 1.4.0

2011-09-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce the release of CoolTerm 1.4.0. This is a major release which includes many new features and improvements.
NEW FEATURES:

New Connection options window with multiple pages.
The connection options now display port information for the selected port.
It is now possible to change baudrate, byte format settings, and flow control settings while the port is open.
Added the option to specify additional baud rates via a "baudrates.ini" file. E.g. any baud rates that are known to be supported by the hardware that are not listed in the popup menu in the connection settings dialog can be added to a "baudrate.ini" file that resides in the same directory as CoolTerm.
Added the option to specify additional serial ports via a "ports.ini" file. E.g. any devices such as /dev/tty.xxx devices on OSX and Linux that CoolTerm can not enumerate can be added to a "ports.ini" file that resides in the same directory as CoolTerm.
Added the option to add timestamps to data captured to text files.
Added a keyboard shortcut to connect/disconnect.
Added option to replace TAB key presses with a configurable number of spaces (default = 4).
Added option to enable/disable capturing of local echo of transmitted data in capture files.
Added an option to keep the capture file open while capturing is in progress (default) or close it after writing and re-opening when new data arrives. This allows other applications to read the capture file while capturing is in progress.
Added status LEDs for TX and RX to indicate activity related to sending and receiving data.
Added preferences option to disable all menu shortcuts (on Windows and Linux only) in order to allow sending CTRL characters via the terminal. On Mac, the keyboard shortcuts use the Command key and thus don't interfere with CTRL characters.
[MAC] AppleScript BETA: Added basic AppleScript handling for the most important terminal operations such as loading a settings file, opening/closing ports, and reading/writing data. The AppleScript functionality, while included in CoolTerm 1.4.0, is currently in public BETA , to allow a broader audience to beta test this feature and provide feedback. Refer to the attached "AppleScript ReadMe.txt" file for more details.
[LINUX] Making LINUX version (unsupported) available.

IMPROVEMENTS:

Made significant improvements to the code that processes received data, including changing architecture of the receive buffer to a circular buffer to improve efficiency and stability.
Made significant improvements to the code that transmits data, including changing the architecture of the data transmission to be more asynchronous in nature to improve the responsiveness of CoolTerm during transmission of large text files, particularly with XON/XOFF flow control enabled
CoolTerm now opens a progress window whenever the length of the text to be transmitted exceeds a certain threshold, and not only when text files are sent.
Flow control settings are now displayed in the terminal window as part of the port configuration string. For XON/XOFF the state is displayed, i.e. XON or XOFF.
Added error messages to alert the user of errors that occur while attempting to open the serial port.
Added check to warn the user if multiple files are dropped onto the CoolTerm window.
"Send String" windows can now be resized.
It is now possible to send CTRL characters when the terminal is set to Line Mode.
Improved code for Line Mode to ensure that a pressed key is captured even if the command line didn't have the focus.
Changed behavior of the status LEDs to better reflect the state of the signals. A green LED turned on now means that a signal is "active", the LED turned off means that it is "inactive".
Changed the default state of DTR when a port is opened to "active" to conform with common practice, with the exception of Windows platforms when DTR flow control is enabled, in which case the default is "inactive" in order to avoid serial port errors.
Improved handling of file IO errors when sending textile or capturing received data to textiles.
Improved handling of file IO errors when reading and writing settings files.
Improved error reporting. Crash reports will now include information about all open terminals.
Slight change to the behavior during setting the break signal in that no characters are being read from the receive buffer. Received characters will be read after the break signal has been cleared.

BUG FIXES:

Fixed a bug that would show an error message when the user chooses cancel in the capture file save dialog.
Fixed a bug that threw an exception when opening the connection settings on a system without serial ports installed.
Fixed a bug the displayed an error message when the user cancelled out of the "Send Textfile" dialog.
[WIN] Fixed a bug where the removal of a serial port adapter could cause an exception when starting a connection.
[MAC] Implemented a workaround for a known RB bug where the baudrates 3600, 7200, 14400, and 28800 baud would not be set correctly and default to 57600 baud instead.

Update: CoolTerm v1.3.1

2011-01-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

Improvements:

Added a preferences option to automatically check for updates at startup.

Fixes:

Fixed a bug that caused a StackOverFlowException when serial port devices were unexpectedly removed from the system, e.g. when a USB serial adapter was unplugged while the terminal was connected to that device. The error handling for this situation has been improved.
Fixed a bug that caused an OutOfBoundsException when a serial port device failure occurred during enumeration.
Fixed a bug that resulted in incorrect formatting of long crash reports.

Update: BatchTouch v1.2.0

2010-12-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

What's New:

New Features:

It is now possible to have default settings loaded at startup. If a default.bts settings file exists in the application folder of BatchTouch, it will be applied at startup.
It is now possible to specify date offset in days, months, and years.
It is now possible to enter values for date and time manually.
Added special function "Set Modification Dates to Creation Dates".
Added special function "Set Creation Dates to Modification Dates".
Added a menu item to save current settings as default settings.
Added an option to automatically check for updates at startup.

Improvements:

Improved calendar display.
Improved GUI help tag texts.
Improved exception handling and error reporting
Improved handling of command line arguments.

Fixes:

Fixed a bug that retrieved incorrect settings from the GUI.
Fixed a bug which would cause user defined time values to be overwritten after selecting a new date via the calendar display.

Update: CoolTerm v1.3.0

2010-10-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that CoolTerm v1.3.0 has finally been released today. Many thanks to all the beta testers for the helpful feedback! Here is what's new:

New features:

Added a transmit line delay option which adds a specified delay after certain characters such as new line characters (configurable).
Added a transmit character delay option (configurable).
Added a "Connection/Send Break" menu item for sending serial breaks.
Added the option to play a notification sound after a text file has been sent.
Added auto-connect feature.
Added the .hex file extension to the "Text Files" file type set (for the "Send Text File" dialog).
It is now possible to have default settings loaded at startup and when a new terminal window is opened. If a default.stc settings file exsists in the application folder of CoolTerm, it will be applied to new terminal windows.
Added a menu item to save current settings as default settings.

Improvements:

Pressing ENTER or RETURN in the connection settings dialog now envokes the "Ok" button, even if a textfield is currently selected.
Pressing ESC in the connection settings dialog now envokes the "Cancel" button, even if a textfield is currently selected.
Pressing Shift+ENTER or Shift+RETURN now invokes the "Send" button in "Send String" windows.
Improved handling of command line arguments.
The values for "Receive Buffer Size" and the character and line delays are now limited to a range from 0 to a maximum value (2,147,483,647 and 10,000, respectively).
When a "Send String" window is opened, the text field now receives focus automatically.
Improved exception handling and error reporting.
Improved behavior of the command history buffer and menu.
GUI improvements.

Fixes:

Fixed a bug that allowed opening multiple "Save As..." for the same Terminal window dialogs on Windows.
Fixed a bug that could cause a StackOverflow on serial port errors due to calling port.flush
Fixed bug that could cause a crash when sending empty strings via a "Send String" window.
(Win) Fixed issue that would allow the terminal window to be activated via the taskbar when the connection options window is open.
Several minor bug fixes.

Get it at http://freeware.the-meiers.org

Update: BatchTouch v1.1.0

2010-04-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

What's new:

Made the file list wider and added columns for modification and creation date.
The new columns show the modification and creation dates of each item after they are added to the list and after they were changed by BatchTouch.
Added preferences Window.
Added option to preferences window to show/hide the date columns in the file list.
Added option to preferences window to disable warnings before changing dates.
Settings can now be saved and retrieved.
It is now possible to drop a file or folder onto the "New date:" group box to set the new date and time automatically to the modification date and time of the dropped item.
It is also possible to drag and drop an item from the file list to the "New date:" group box to set the new date and time automatically to the modification date and time of the dropped item.
Added a "Special" menu to provide access to special functions.
Added a "Set Folder Date to most recent content" special function. This option sets the modification date of all the folders to the modification date of the most recent item inside them. This is done recursively, from the bottom to the top of the file hierarchy.
Added special function for pre-dating all items to the oldest item in the list.
Added special function for post-dating all items to the newest item in the list.
Improved the calendar display in the "Set date and time" dialog. There now separate up/down arrows for month and year.

CoolTerm featured in The Mac Observer

2010-02-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

The Mac Observer's "Monday's Mac Gadget" column, which "highlights a compelling piece of Mac software or hardware the editors think their readers would enjoy", features CoolTerm this week.

Freeware Update: Coolterm v1.2.0

2010-02-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

What's new:

- Added "Line Mode" to the communication settings. In "Line Mode" a line of typed text will not be sent to the serial port until the Enter key is pressed.

- Added "History" which is available in "Line Mode" the up and down arrow keys can be used to select previously typed lines.

- Added a receive buffer size limit option.

- Added handling of the bell character (ASCII code 7), which can be enabled through the communication settings.

- It is now possible to open the communication settings and edit certain options while the serial port is open.

- The viewer mode (plain or hex) is now saved as parameter in connection settings files.

- The size and position of terminal windows is now saved with connection settings.

- Fixed bug that converted occurrences CR+CR+LF strings to single spaces on Windows.

Governor Schwarzenegger at the Mann Biomedical Park in Sylmar, CA

2010-02-01T14:02:00.001-08:00

Governor Schwarzenegger at the Mann Biomedical Park in Sylmar, CA
Originally uploaded by rogermeier

I saw Arnold today at work. Too bad my cell phone camera sucks.

The video is here:
http://gov.ca.gov/multimedia
Go to the event from 2/1/2010

There are some photos too:
http://gov.ca.gov/photos/14328

New Freeware App: BatchTouch

2010-01-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

BatchTouch provides an easy-to-use way to change the creation and/or modification date of multiple files and folders all at once. It offers enough flexibility to the user to choose which type of items to change, whether or not to process the contents of folders, and whether to change the creation date, the modification date, or both. Furthermore, it is possible to change just the time, just the date, or both. It is possible to apply both absolute values as well as offsets to both date and time. I.e. it is possible to add/subtract a specified number of days, hours, minutes or seconds to/from the creation and modification date of any item.

Not "free" as in "beer", but "free" as in "frustrating"

2010-01-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

SparkFun is a great resource for geeks and hobbyists who want to get their geek on and build something cool. Just before Thanksgiving 2009, they announced "Free Day" to be held on January 7th, 2010, where everybody can get $100 worth of stuff for free, not to exceed $100,000 altogether. Very cool idea (in theory), and very generous. Not many companies give away 100k just for fun.

Like countless others, I loaded up my shopping cart way ahead of time, and got ready to pull the trigger to check out at exactly 10am MST and get my free stuff and be happy. However, this did not turn out as the good guys at SparkFun had planned. Even on "Free Eve", I noticed the website loading times increasing quite a bit, and the site started to become sluggish. I didn't think much of it at first, but a lot of people must have been loading up their shopping carts the night before.

Of course, when the big moment came, the website didn't load at all. In the 1 hour 45 minutes that "Free Day" lasted, I was able to load a page 3 times. I never even got to log on to my account. The server was hopelessly overloaded, and the whole event, although meant well, turned out to be an epic fail.

In the fine tradition of looking a gift horse in the mouth, numerous people started ranting on Twitter and other sites about the people at SparkFun and announcing that they will never buy from SparkFun again. I'm guessing that these are the same people that would not have bought anything anyway, and that they just showed up for free stuff, just to never return in the future. Get a grip!

What was very frustrating to me is that I never got a chance to see the gift horse because I couldn't even get in the barn (or even close to it). Towards the end it even felt like someone burned the whole barn to the ground. I don't have a problem with getting beaten fair and square, but I feel I never even got a fair shot. I knew there would only be 1,000 lucky winners at the end, but the whole game was skewed towards the people with faster bandwidth and shorter latency. While I really applaud SparkFun for their gesture, there are probably better ways to give away $100,000 worth of stuff.

I'm not upset with SparkFun at all, but in my opinion the whole debacle really sucked. However, I don't hold a grudge, and I will continue to buy from them, starting in the very near future, because I still really need the stuff I had on my shopping list.

High-Speed Robot Hand

2009-09-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

This is really amazing!

Freeware Update: Album Enabler for Cooliris(R) v1.1.1

2009-08-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

What's new:

Changed application name to "Album Enabler for Cooliris(R)" and changed icon to comply with trademark usage and restrictions.

Freeware Update: MathSheetGenerator v1.2.0

2009-08-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

What's new:

Added support for writing math sheets as PDF files.

One-Armed Clock

2009-07-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

The Dutch design house Sander Mulder is currently making waves on the internet with their Continue Time creation, a very cool implementation of an analog clock.

Watch the YouTube video to see it in action.

Freeware Update: iConStruct v1.2.0

2009-07-18T11:11:00.001-07:00

What's new:

Fixed a bug that caused filenames to be truncated to 31 characters on Macs.
Added capability to drag icons and masks out of iConStruct to other applications that support picture or file drops.
Added a Preferences dialog for certain settings such as the type of items dragged from iConStruct (picture object or picture file)
iConStruct now remembers the color settings in the preview pane between application launches.
Improved nearest-neighbor scaling for original images with transparency.

Freeware Update: CoolTerm v1.1.2

2009-07-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

What's new:

Separated option to handle backspace characters in ASCII view from option to convert non-printable characters.
Changed character used to display non-printable characters to a period (ASCII code 46) for better compatibility and consistency across platforms.
Changed short cuts for "View/Autoscroll" and View Mode menu items to avoid conflict with other menu items such as "Edit/Select All".
Windows build now associates .stc files with CoolTerm.
Minor bug fixes.

Now that's what I call web design

2009-07-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam . Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands .

Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. Don't click on any of the items in the picture, just wait and see...

This company has a sense of humour and a great web designer.

My Cyborg Name

2009-07-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

Get Your Cyborg Name

2003-10-29T16:12:00.000-08:00

German CURTA website: www.curta.de
German Addiator website: www.addiator.de

2003-10-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

NASA has some impressive satellite images of the California Fires. Here