All of us managed to wrap up the day’s work by 5pm and strolled in to Ethos. A cricket semi-final was not a game to be missed, under no circumstances. I gave no second thought to my plans of skipping the Spanish class despite knowing that the game could well end in my side being eliminated. Obviously, these games are given a higher priority. I watched all other games too thanks to some free online streaming, which on one incident led to the banning of my account for 48 hours. So, Ethos was the place, packed with a group of cricket lovers, mostly from Pakistani origin.

All rose in respect when the national anthem was played on the huge TV screen in the cafe area of the gym. The place was half full, at this time. The game started with a flurry of runs and the noise at Ethos echoed the position of Pakistan in the match. There was excitement, emotion and anger.

As the match progressed to its nailbiting end, the place was packed with people, all eyes glued to the screen and mouths discussing tactics and prospects - some uttering obscenities in disgust which usually resulted in a burst of laughter.

The end was delightful and a surprise winning performance from Pakistan made the day for all.

I was rightly furious when I found that a courier that I was anxiously waiting for was not delivered to me because apparently I wasn’t home when a man rang my doorbell to deliver the package. I was furious because I was in fact at home and it was impossible to miss the doorbell. The courier company should have left a note in my mailbox, which was not to be found anywhere. I called them up asking for the delivery which they promised to deliver ‘again’ on the next working day. Since I made this call on Friday, I was not in a mood to wait for two days and asked for self-collection option. Thankfully, I was able to get my package early Saturday morning. The package is shown in the picture below.

Slowly, I unpacked the box removing most of rubbish filled in to the stuff the box and finally took out the box I was looking for.

This is, as you can see, something to do with some Microcontrollers. This in fact is the development kit on which I will be working during the course of my project. It contains the debugger/programmer for the 100-pin MSP430F5xx series microcontroller which are ultra-low power, very small, and highly efficient microcontrollers from Texas Instruments.

The package came with two microcontrollers and the two pictures below can give you a good idea of the size.

Now, I kept on admiring the little chip for few minutes, but the fun part is to start playing with it. Programming is fun, and getting a desired output from a program gives a very satisfying feeling. I remember writing my Hello World program. Almost all software programming tutorials begin with a Hello World program. In the world of hardware flashing a LED is similar to Hello World in software. I also remember flashing the LED when I used a microcontroller for the first time. The remarkable thing here is that the feeling and excitement never dies down. I felt almost the same thing when I wrote Symbian Hello World few months ago, compared to what I felt when I wrote my first ever Hello World in C.

So, the first task here in this MSP430 MCU was to flash an LED. I felt excited having been able to do that successfully, after a number of failed attempts (they never work the first time!!). Out of excitement, I recorded this moment of excitement. Here is the video of the inaugration of my MSP430 MCU, and my project as well.

My last post about connecting Nokia devices to the Imperial College wireless network received some postive feedback. This post is a continuation of the HOWTO series where I will guide you through a series of steps for setting up your Imperial College (exchange mail) to be directly pushed on your Nokia devices. Ofcourse, it is better if you have unlimited data package otherwise you may be required to pay for data when not connected to a wireless hotspot. Needless to say, I’m not responsible for the costs that may be incurred

Anyway, after the pseudo-legal statements, lets begin with the game. If you have an N-series, E-series or 5800 (and many others) device, then you can easily get your Imperial College mails directly pushed on to your handset. The first step is to ensure if your device is capable or not.

• Go to Nokia Mail for Exchange website (link) and download and install the application on your phone.
• Once this is installed a folder called MfE appears in your main menu. This is shown in the snapshot below.
  
• Inside the MfE folder, there are two icons. Go to Mail for Exch…
  
• The next screen should show something similar to what is shown below.
  
• Go to Options and the select Edit Profile to show the next page of settings.
  
• Now go to Connection and enter the required settings, as shown below.
  
• Next, go to Credentials and enter the username, password and domain (IC).
  
• This completes the settings on your phone, now go to the ICT website and register your account to use ActiveSync. Click here to go to the required page.

Once registration is complete, you should begin receiving your e-mails. As usual, drop in with a comment if you run in to any problem, or if you feel like appreciating the stuff.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: APPARENTLY THE SECURITY CERTIFICATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO Verisign G2 Class 3, SO YOU NEED TO SELECT THIS INSTEAD OF THE ONE ADVISED IN THE TUTORIAL. SEE COMMENTS FOR MORE INFO.

HOPE THAT HELPS, ADMIN.

Something that has always troubled me since my arrival at Imperial is the my inability to get my WLAN loaded Nokia device to connect to the wireless network at the college. The authentication always failed and the search on the ICT website produced no fruitful results. The ICT does provide very detailed instructions for setting it up on the likes of iPhone but nothing for a Symbian device. The thought continued to bother me, more so while studying in the library for the exams and that was perhaps the best possible time to do everything else than study.

One fine day, after getting my new Nokia 5800 XM I spent about 2 hours and finally succeeded in connecting to the network. Here I’m giving all the detailed instructions of doing so, which saves a lot of time and gives more to do sitting in a boring class

Note that this is a lengthy process, so follow the steps carefully. This works equally well on other WLAN featuring devices such as N95. Obviously, you need to be in the range of the network to get this to wrok

1. In the main menu of the Nokia device, go to Settings >> Connectivity >> Destinations.
   
2. Select Access Point (add new acc. pt.)
   
3. Select Wireless LAN
   
4. From the list of networks, select Imperial-WPA
   
5. Go back, and select Internet from the Destinations menu (the one you get after Step 1). A list of your access points is shown.
   
   
6. Select Imperial-WPA, click Options and select Edit.
   
7. The next page contains a range of settings most of which will stay as they appear. Check that it has the following options selected.
   
   
8. Double tap on WLAN security settings and check that the page shows the following.
   
9. Now again double tap EAP plug-in settings, and enable EAP-PEAP while disabling all other EAP options. It should appear like this:
   
10. Select Options for EAP-PEAP, and then Edit.
11. The next screen is where you enter your college username (enter your OWN username), and also ensure the settings are the same as shown below. The two screenshots here show the complete settings. Make sure you select the right Authority Certificate (VeriSign Class 3 Public).
    
    
12. If you just look at the top right corner of your screen, there is a small arrow pointing to the tab of next settings page. Click or tap that arrow (right button on non-touch devices). The next page shows another set of EAPs as shown below. Select (and enable) only EAP-MSCHAPv2 and disable others.
    
13. Go to Options for EAP-MSCHAPv2 and click Edit (or simply double click on EAP-MSCHAPv2). The new page shows the option to enter username (again!) and the password.
    
14. That’s it. All done! Select back as many times to get to the main connectivity screen. Go to Wireless LAN (on Settings >> Connectivity), select Imperial-WPA and hit connect.
    

Doesn’t take very long really once you know what to do. If you run into any trouble, drop in a comment and I’ll try to help out. I think the ICT guys may like this so I will try to ask them to put it up too.

The next HOWTO in this series of staying well connected will about getting your @imperial.ac.uk mails pushed on the Nokia devices. Obviously, if you’re connected you need to have the e-mails too!

Have fu, and enjoy the mobility!

P.S. I don’t know how to get this through to ICT so if anyone has a direct address of ICT guys, just forward ‘em the link.