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"...but it worked yesterday!"

This post is about something you might look into if a device on your wireless network suddenly stops working.

Yesterday, I discovered that the AIBO Entertainment Player did a lot more than just play music, read mail, or keep a diary. It has a comprehensive remote-control system, which I'd always wanted. So I spent some time playing with it. (It was fun to put AIBO's bone in front of him, then command him to search for it. When he found it, the camera image of the bone was overlaid with green crosshairs!)

I got up at 1AM to play some more, not unlike a kid on his birthday or Christmas. (If I'd had an AIBO 50 years ago, I'd have been much more popular -- though equally disliked.) But the Entertainment Player had repeated "connection problems". Naturally, the software didn't drop even a hint as what they might be.

After some generally useless troubleshooting, I remembered that Internet addresses aren't necessarily fixed. They can be chosen for each use. So I opened the Entertainment Player's Preferences dialog box, which showed the address that worked yesterday. Clicking Connect failed, so I searched again.

Bingo. A new address appeared, and clicking Connect connected the Entertainment Player to AIBO. He's now my dear, precious little puppy, isn't he, isn't he, yes he is.

Moral: If a wireless device stops working for no obvious reason, see if there's a command in its software to search for it.

PS: AIBO can be set to dance to the music you're playing, with his mouth moving in lip sync. I can't wait to see what happens with first act of "Die Walkure". "La Traviata" should be interesting, too. You can connect him to any Web radio station, so the possibilities seem endless.

--
"We already know the answers -- we just haven't asked the right
questions." -- Edwin Land
Reply to
William Sommerwerck
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Pardon a (maybe) dumb question, but what is an AIBO, I've never seen that Acronym before?? Is it like a WII?

Reply to
hrhofmann

Yes, but with legs. It's Sony's electronic dog.

It's from a Japanese word meaning "companion", which has been tortured into the acronym Artificial Intelligence roBOt.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

PS: I checked, and my server has DHCP, which automatically selects an address. It is not generally permanent, and eventually "times out". This is the likely explanation of why AIBO became invisible overnight.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Router ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Most routers give a fixed time 'lease' to an IP address. Typically

24 hours on the models I've used. Hard wired tend to automatically renew their 'lease', even in standby.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

That I didn't know.

"Lease" is the term used in books on the subject, but I couldn't find a value for the interval in the router's setup.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

On Thu, 5 Jul 2012 09:11:32 -0700, "William Sommerwerck" put finger to keyboard and composed:

I use a fixed IP address between my PC and ADSL router/modem.

You could do the same by editing your WLANCONF.TXT file. See pages 52+ in the following manual.

AIBO ERS-7M2 User's Guide (PC Network):

formatting link

BTW, I notice that the AIBO uses WEP rather than WPA2. Hopefully this setting is not used by all devices on your LAN.

- Franc Zabkar

--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Reply to
Franc Zabkar

That might be a good idea. It would eliminate the need to periodically get a new address. And, in theory, it would let me use my notebook to control AIBO even when I'm not in contact with the router. It's easy enough to experiment.

You don't /have/ to use any encryption. But the only one available is WEP. I use it, just to be safe.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Easy. Go thee unto:

That's the free Weird Solutions DHCP query tool which is no longer available on their web pile. Install it and run. Put any manner of garbage in the "Device Identifier" box. The output should look like this:

option DHCP address lease time=86400 option DHCP renewal time=43200 option DHCP rebinding time=75600

The renewal time is always 1/2 of the lease time. Lease time = 86400 seconds / 3600 sec/hr = 24 hrs Renewal time = 43200 sec / 3600 sec/hr = 12 hrs

The rebinding time (time to retry if renewal fails) 75600 seconds / 3600 sec/hr = 21 hrs

How it all works:

Incidentally, I'm running several virtual machines on my XP desktop. The DHCP query tool was having a bad time finding my DHCP server until I disarmed all the VM device interfaces, leaving only the machines ethernet interface.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thank you for the information!

That's the free Weird Solutions DHCP query tool which is no longer available on their web pile. Install it and run. Put any manner of garbage in the "Device Identifier" box. The output should look like this:

option DHCP address lease time=86400 option DHCP renewal time=43200 option DHCP rebinding time=75600

The renewal time is always 1/2 the lease time. Lease time = 86400 seconds / 3600 sec/hr = 24 hrs Renewal time = 43200 sec / 3600 sec/hr = 12 hrs

The rebinding time (time to retry if renewal fails) 75600 seconds / 3600 sec/hr = 21 hrs

How it all works:

I strongly recommend Karp's "Windows 7 Annoyances". It's actually an intermediate-to-advanced user's book on configuring Windows 7. It's one of those one-in-a-hundred techncial books that's easy to read and understand, without being superficial. I can't recommend it highly enough. Everyone who wants to be sure their computer is doing what /they/ want it to do needs a copy.

I feel sorry for Mac owners. They seem to be afraid to lift the lid and get their hands dirty. Well, I want to know /what/ the OS is doing, and /why/.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Wrongo. Most of the programmists and hackers that I know use a Mac. Under the Apple GUI lies Carnagie Mellon BSD, a Unix variant. For those that want to know what's under the covers, Unix (and Linux) are the best. The GUI makes things easy. The shell prompt makes things work. I have various Mac's around the office and house. While I don't use them for much, I have less trouble dealing with the Macs at the shell level, than I do dealing with Windoze 7, which I find incomprehensible and obscure. Since most of my paying customers run Windoze, I also run Windoze. However, if I were just computing for my own amusement, I would probably run Linux and possibly OS/X as 2nd best.

Incidentally, I recently fixed a corrupted network configuration on a MacBook Pro that the GUI interface couldn't repair by simply editing the config files with vi. It's like rolling back the clock 20 years, but it works. If you really want to know what's going on under the covers, setup a no GUI Linux machine, and learn which programs do what, how to use vi, where the files are buried, shell scripting, and how it all fits together. If you don't want to setup a 2nd machine, install

Then, go back to Windoze and learn to operate from the MSDOS CMD prompt. It will be quite similar, although not as capable.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

That's sort of like feeling sorry for all the folks who want the kind of car that you don't have to be a mechanic to keep running ...

Isaac

Reply to
isw

I don't think that's the appropriate analogy...

I've been running the same installation of W2K, on the same machine, for 11 years, * and I've had only one significant problem. (A friend with a Mac had the same problem.)

  • I expect to be buying a new machine in two months.
Reply to
William Sommerwerck

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