Life without Walls Wallpapers for your PC

In light of tonight's new ad "Life without Walls" seen in newspapers today along with the new "Real PC" TV ads (see Chris's post); I've decided to make wallpapers for folks so they can add "Life without Walls" as wallpaper on their PC.

1920×1200	1650×1050
1600×1200	1280×1024
1280×800

Just click on the above thumbnails for which ever screen resolution you need and in Flickr - choose "All sizes" and then "Original". Right-click and download away!

These wallpapers were uploaded to Flickr using Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta - available at download.live.com.

Free Embedded Linux Training for Students in India

Title : Open “Embedded Linux” Software Development with Beagleboard.org
Date : 20th September 2008 (Saturday)
Venue : IISc, CEDT Seminar Hall, Bangalore

Registration : Free for First 100 members

Time	Topic
09:30	What, why, who, and how of open source
10:30	Quick overview of the Beagle Board
11:00	How does Beagleboard.org help students & startups in India
11:30	Break
12:00	Q &A and Discuss lab setup to boot Linux on beagleboard
01:00	Lab #1 (Build and Boot Linux)
01:45	Lunch
02:30	Validation Procedure for Peripherals on Beagle Board
03:00	Participating and Contributing to Open Community
04:00	Open discussion

Agenda:

• Enable Students in India to develop s/w on embedded devices with Open Community.
• Training students in using the embedded platform for s/w development
• Give a big picture of what’s going on in the industry with Open Platforms.
• Benefits of working with Open Community and beagleboard.org in particular.

Audience & expertise:

• Students (2nd / 3rd year preferable) with very minimal knowledge of Linux,
• Students who are passionate about Open Source Linux kernel and s/w development for embedded platforms.

Registration:

• Through mail (khasim@beagleboard.org) with subject as “[OSDB] Attendee OSD Beagleboard at IISc 20-Sept-08”.
• Please mention College and Course undergoing.

Please NOTE this event is organized for “Students ONLY”

Source : http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/Trainings

How to add a 3rd Party driver.

There are two methods of adding a 3rd party driver in a workspace to be used on a specific platform.

a. Using a .cab file.
b. Manually modifying workspace files to include the driver into a platform build.

For our examples, we will assume that a fundamental knowledge of building a standard image is already known and that we are working with an existing workspace.

*Using a .cab file:

· Often times the 3rd party vender will provide the driver files and registry entries in the form of a .cab file. This allows the user to double click the .cab file to install all necessary drivers, resource files, and registry entries into their appropriate location.

a. Key Notes about .cab files:

i. Usually disappear upon implementation (make a copy!)

ii. Created using Visual Studio

iii.To use in your platform, CAB File Installer/Uninstaller must be added to the workspace in Platform builder.

*Manually adding in a 3rd party driver:

1) 3rd party vendor will provide the necessary driver .dll file, .reg file, and .bib file to be added to your workspace.

2) Once you have the necessary files from the vendor, open the workspace that will have the 3rd party driver added to it.

3) You will need to add the driver file in question into the workspace release folder (In this example we will use a touch screen driver):

Ex:\WINCE600\OSdesign\ABC\RelDir\ABC_ARMV4I_Release

(Our touch screen driver in this case will called “touch_ce.dll”)

4) Open the platform.bib file and add the following entry provided by the vendor:

touch_ce.dll $(_FLATRELEASEDIR)\touch_ce.dll NK SH

Save and exit text editor

5) Open the platform.reg file and add the following entry provided by the vendor:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\TOUCH] "DriverName"="Touch_CE.dll"
"CalibrationData"="2161,2497 701,1418 693,3573 3542,3545 3516,1399"
"MaxCalError"=dword:10

Save and exit text editor

6) Go back to workspace that will have the 3rd party driver added and select “Make Run-Time Image" from the Build OS drop down menu.

How to Auto Run an application after bootup

1) In our example we will get Platform Settings (MyConfigurator.exe) to Auto Run as soon as our system boots
2) There are two ways to get the application to run depending on at what point you want the application to run.
a. Before anything else runs (ie. explorer)
b. After system has settled at the desktop.

*Before Anything else runs:
· Open platform.reg and add the following line:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
"Launch50"="MyConfigurator.exe"
"Depend50"=hex:14,00,1E,

Save the changes and exit. The LaunchXX key (where XX is a numeric value) simply points at the executable to launch and gives it it’s order (50 is usually explorer.exe). In the above case, the registry launches three processes, Shell, Device, and GWES. Device.exe (Launch20) has a dependency on Hex:0a (10 decimal). This equates to Launch10, or shell.exe, so the Shell process needs to signal the operating system that it's up and running so that any dependencies (in this case device.exe) can then be started. The same is also true of gwes.exe (launch30), device.exe depends on hex:14 (20 decimal), so GWES can't run until device.exe calls SignalStarted.
You can have multiple dependencies; for our case the dependencies will be on hex:14,00,1e,00 (Launch20 and Launch30), so both Device and GWES need to be up and running before the shell starts.
Go back to workspace that will have the Auto Run application added and select “Make Run-Time Image from the Build OS drop down menu.
* After system has settled at the desktop
· You simply need to change the code previously added in the platform.reg file to the following:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init]
"Launch79"="MyConfigurator.exe"
"Depend79"=hex:14,00,1E,00

· The above entry will no longer override the launch number that is originally used by explorer.exe and launch the application with the same dependencies as our example seen in “Before anything else runs”.

Porting Drivers to Windows CE 6.0

This session has been presented by Juggs Ravalia and Travis Hobrla at various Windows CE events such as MEDC.  It walks you through getting drivers from CE 5.0 (or previous versions) to work in CE 6.0.  Using the WaveAPI driver as a example, we look at the code necessary to move a driver with complex memory management forward into CE 6.0.  This presentation covers everything you need to know to port your driver to CE6.0 including access checking, marshalling, thread permissions, and security.

Download Video

Microsoft unveils Windows CE Driver Databases

Microsoft has announced two new online databases that list Windows CE drivers and BSPs (board support packages). The "regularly updated" databases are easily searchable by product category, manufacturer, processor family, and other relevant parameters, according to the company.

Microsoft describes the online driver database as "an extensive list of device drivers supported on Windows Embedded CE from Microsoft, Windows Embedded Partners, and third-party manufacturers." According to the company, the drivers listed are divided into three types:

• PQD -- These "product quality developed" drivers were developed and distributed by Microsoft, and are incorporated into Microsoft's IDE (integrated development environment)
  
  
• Microsoft-validated -- These are third-party drivers that were submitted to Microsoft via its Windows Embedded CE validation program, and passed standard quality performance tests
  
  
• Non-validated-- These are third-party drivers that were not submitted to Microsoft for validation, but which are posted on the list "to generate product awareness"

Pull-down menus, as shown on the screenshot below, allow searching the driver database by validation status, Windows CE version, product category, and manufacturer. A "description" field describes each driver, and links to supplemental manufacturer information, if available.



Meanwhile, Microsoft's BSP (board support package) database provides "an extensive list of BSPs supported on Windows Embedded CE," according to the company. Pull-down menus allow searching the BSP database by Windows CE version, CPU name, processor family (such as MIPS, Xscale, or x86), and certification status, says Microsoft.

In addition, check boxes allow users of the database to narrow down their search by one or more target device categories. Device categories in the database are listed in the following order:

• GPS
  
• Medical systems
  
• VoIP
  
• Thin client
  
• Kiosk
  
• Printer
  
• Gaming
  
• Handheld terminal
  
• Datacom
  
• Digital media player
  
• Digital TV
  
• Projector
  
• DVD player
  
• Test and measurement
  
• STB (set-top box)
  
• POS terminal
  
• Digital camera
  
• Digital video player/recorder
  
• Industrial and building automation
  
• Other

The browser-based list of results, used by both the drivers and BSP databases, can be sorted any way a user wishes, simply by clicking on any column heading. Another useful feature is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed that provides notification of new drivers or BSPs, according to Microsoft.

Driver database link