The following text describes project ideas. I may be already working on one or more of them, do not hesitate to contact me if you're interested. Others may be simply wish lists.
2007-11-20: fwxget: extract device firmware from host drivers
The title says it all. The tool should be able to dissect EXE, DLLs and SYS
files and look for firmware meant for download to some device. For example,
devices that make use of the Cypress EZ-USB controllers often have the
8051 code embedded. Often, new versions of host applications contain firmware
updates for the devices controlled by these applications. With some heuristics,
the tool could detect code which is meant for another processor (8051, ARM, ...)
and extract it.
L.Brosens suggested to also try to extract firmware from booted, running
devices (not all devices allow this, but some do), and use the data from
the device to locate the actual firmware image in the driver.
2007-11-11: webarium: watching web site visitors
This idea actually came up years before when I ran a BBS with modem dialin. One could watch the dialin users typing the commands for listing files, changing directories, and to start downloads. It was fun to watch just like it can be be fun to stare at fish in an aquarium. I though it should be possible to render the activity somewhat like fish in an aquarium. Or some other animals. And it should be possible with web site users as well. At least on larger web sites.
2007-09-19: servdeps: network/service dependency database and monitoring
- Database contains entries for each service provided by an infrastructure, such as storage, DNS, mail.
- The entries are linked with information about the infrastructure (e.g. which server provides DNS), and how to test the availability of the service.
- The entries furthermore contain dependency information (e.g. to access mail, the IMAP service must be active, and DNS, etc..)
- In case of a service failure (real or theoretical), a graph can be created that shows what other failures would result and what could have caused the failure.
I practically realized this somehow some years ago, but would do it completely different today ;) (and it had no monitoring anyway)
2007-03-22: VCMS: cms / documentation / wiki system based on Subversion
- Uses Subversion for storage and versioning of documents, images and other files. Should not be restricted to a single repository on a single server.
- Frontend can display documents from three sources - either retrieved directly from a repository, then rendered in a way like Wiki engines do (with similar formatting). Or from a working copy (checked out from repository and updated on request via Web interface), for better performance. Or, third, from a Cache, that is a checked out copy with ready-rendered HTML pages, for optimal performance.
- Editing can be done online like in a Wiki or in working copies
- A special mode allows to create PDFs (or other common document formats) from one or more Wiki pages with optional front page and table of contents. The specification about which pages to combine and what parts of them to include can be a Wiki page itself
- Output formatting and frames can be extensively customized for each installation, using CSS, templates etc.
- Separate sets of documents/pages can be created for different projects
- Access control and secured connections allow to have completely separated content for different domains, customers, projects etc.
2007-03-18: UrJTAG: Universal JTAG software API
I started to actually work on this and promoted it from an "idea" to a "project" with its own page!
2007-02-20: Generic C51 CDC device firmware
- GPL'ed firmware for SiLabs F3xx USB controller and Cypress FX2 and possibly others
- Basis for a device as generic as possible, supporting bulk and control transfers, and designed so that common operating systems recognize and support it without any need for additional drivers, not even INF files should have to be customized...
2006-11-17: FTDemu: FTDI USB FIFO emulation
- Firmware for C51 devices (SiLabs F322, Cypress FX2) or logic for FPGA (based on OpenCores.org USB 1.1 function controller) that emulates a FTDI FT245, FT2232 or FT232 at least to a degree so that it could be driven with original FTDI drivers.
- Although my usb_jtag project shows that this is feasible, I won't spend much time on this idea because I think the legal situation of using FTDI drivers for anything but FTDI chips is at least unclear. If you have pointers to appropriate licensing info, please let me know.