Edimax 3G-6210n Linux

I opened the case of the device and noted a number of unused pads that pointed to being a serial port connector. I used a USB to serial Sparkfun FTDI Basic 3v3 board and connected its rx tx and gnd pins to the pins on the 3G-6210n board. Note pin 1 on the 3G-6210n board is signified by a white silk screen square on the empty 4 pin connector rectangle, see my photos.

FTDI board goes to 3G-6210n Pins
GND goes to pin 3
TX goes to pin 2
RX goes to pin 4
I used my Ubuntu 12.04 machine and connected the Sparkfun FTDI board to one of the USB ports. I checked using the command dmesg and found the device was defined as /dev/ttyUSB0. I started minicom a terminal program using the command minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0.
I set the Com port to 38400 baud 8N1 = 8 bits, no parity and 1 stop bit. No hardware or software flow control is selected on minicom.
I then powered on the 3G-6210n and boot messages appeared on the terminal window of minicom. It definitely is running Linux see messages below while it booted. Initial things I noticed 32MB RAM, 4MB Flash, 200MHz Processor

U-Boot 1.1.4 (Oct  9 2009 - 17:38:59)

U-Boot code: 00000000 -> 00019528  BSS: -> 0001E478
CPU Clock: 200 MHz
1.8V Vdd Output: 1.793
2.5V Vdd Output: 2.531
RAM Configuration:
Bank #0: 00000000 32 MB
Flash Manufacturer: MXIC
Flash Device: MXLV320CB(4MB)
Flash:  4 MB
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
## Starting application at 0x10040000 ...
Uncompressing Linux................................................................................... done, booting the kern.
Linux version 2.6.16-star (root@vance.localdomain) (gcc version 3.4.6) #1412 Fri Jun 11 17:05:56 CST 2010
CPU: FA526id(wb) [66015261] revision 1 (ARMv4)
Machine: STAR STR9100
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
CPU0: D VIVT write-back cache
CPU0: I cache: 16384 bytes, associativity 2, 16 byte lines, 512 sets
CPU0: D cache: 16384 bytes, associativity 2, 16 byte lines, 512 sets
CPU clock at 200MHz
AHB clock at 100MHz
APB clock at 50MHz
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/mtdblock3
PID hash table entries: 256 (order: 8, 4096 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Memory: 32MB = 32MB total
Memory: 29788KB available (2252K code, 251K data, 100K init)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI clock at 33M
PCI: bus0: Fast back to back transfers disabled
PCI Bridge found
PCI map irq: 00:00.00 slot 0, pin 1, irq: 0
SCSI subsystem initialized
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
Bluetooth: Core ver 2.8
NET: Registered protocol family 31
Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
squashfs: version 3.4 (2008/08/26) Phillip Lougher
Initializing Cryptographic API
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler deadline registered (default)
***********Init LED Driver*****************
Init GPIO Interrupt
***********Init LED Driver Finishing*****************
LED & GPIO & LAN Status Driver LED_VERSION
GPIO interrupt handler install ok.
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 1 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x78000000 (irq = 10) is a 16550A
VLAN0_VLAN_TAG: 0
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
PPP BSD Compression module registered
PPP MPPE Compression module registered
NET: Registered protocol family 24
rdm_major = 254
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
STR9100 NOR Flash: Found 1 x16 devices at 0x0 in 16-bit bank
 Amd/Fujitsu Extended Query Table at 0x0040
number of CFI chips: 1
cfi_cmdset_0002: Disabling erase-suspend-program due to code brokenness.
Creating 5 MTD partitions on "STR9100 NOR Flash":
0x00000000-0x00040000 : "ARMBOOT"
0x00040000-0x001a0000 : "Linux Kernel1"
0x001a0000-0x003e0000 : "ROOT FS1"
0x003e0000-0x00400000 : "Configs"
0x00040000-0x003e0000 : "Upgrade"
block2mtd: version $Revision: 1.30 $
usbmon: debugfs is not available
str9100-ehci str9100-ehci: str9100-ehci
str9100-ehci str9100-ehci: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
str9100-ehci str9100-ehci: irq 24, io mem 0xcc000000
str9100-ehci str9100-ehci: USB 0.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
usb usb1: Product: str9100-ehci
usb usb1: Manufacturer: Linux 2.6.16-star ehci_hcd
usb usb1: SerialNumber: str9100-ehci
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ohci_hcd: 2005 April 22 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (STR9100)
str9100-ohci str9100-ohci: str9100-ohci
str9100-ohci str9100-ohci: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
str9100-ohci str9100-ohci: irq 23, io mem 0xc4000000
usb usb2: Product: str9100-ohci
usb usb2: Manufacturer: Linux 2.6.16-star ohci_hcd
usb usb2: SerialNumber: str9100-ohci
usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using str9100-ehci and address 2
Bluetooth: HCI USB driver ver 2.9
usb 1-1: Product: 802.11 n WLAN
usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Ralink
usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 1.0
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usbcore: registered new driver hci_usb
u32 classifier
    Perfomance counters on
Netfilter messages via NETLINK v0.30.
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 2048)
TCP reno registered
ip_conntrack version 2.4 (256 buckets, 2048 max) - 240 bytes per conntrack
ctnetlink v0.90: registering with nfnetlink.
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
ipt_recent v0.3.1: Stephen Frost .  http://snowman.net/projects/ipt_recent/
ClusterIP Version 0.8 loaded successfully
arp_tables: (C) 2002 David S. Miller
TCP bic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.8
Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.2
Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly.

MR3220 OpenWRT Extroot installation

The TP-Link has OpenWRT installed using either tftp or via the serial port using Kermit. Install the packages for using USB as storage on OpenWRT.

opkg update
opkg install kmod-usb-core kmod-usb-uhci kmod-usb-storage kmod-usb2 kmod-fs-ext4
reboot -f
mkdir /usb
mount /dev/sda1 /usb
mkdir /tmp/root
mount -o bind / /tmp/root
cp /tmp/root/* /usb -a
umount /tmp/root
umount /usb

Now edit the /etc/config/fstab file and add the following.
config mount
option target /usb
option device /dev/sda1
option fstype ext2
option options rw,sync
option enabled 1
option enabled_fsck 1
option is_rootfs 1

Rocks cluster Compute nodes ask for password

I mucked about for ages trying to fix this and came upon this ... Rocks Cluster on Google Groups
The very last bit of advice

Check or restart autofs in frontend

worked.
The actual command used is rocks run host 'service autofs restart'

Unbrick Samsung I9000 using Micro USB JIG

I unbricked my Samsung i9000 Galaxy S using a Micro USB Plug and 2 x 100K resistors. It was showing the classic bricked phone to computer with exclamation mark triangle in the middle :(.

From what I've read everyone uses a 301K resistor between the ground and the next closest pin to the ground, but it worked for me with 200K total resistance.
I used the connector from one of those cheap kits that allow you to charge most mobiles and stripped down the Micro USB's shroud (see photo).
I plugged it in making sure the phone was switched off. I then performed the get into download mode (Volume down button Home Button and Power button pressed together) this should then show the yellow download mode. This will allow one to recover the phone.

OpenWRT and the TP Link WR841N

The WR841N has no USB port on the case but USB is available on the PCB if you can solder and don't mind a bit of work to get it going. I had a problem getting the USB connection I made to the WR841N PCB working. I tried various flavours of patched firmware with no success, however on the OpenWRT Forum someone mentioned just use the TP Link MR3420 firmware. This I did and it worked straight away, smiles all round. I then got extroot to a 2GB memory stick working, this allowed me to add more packages. I added a USB hub to allow the connection of a USB webcam.

Getting the Arnova 9 G2 into Recovery Mode

To enter Arnova 9 G2 recovery mode, press the esc button then using a paperclip press the recessed reset button (its located on the top edge of the Arnova). It will now enter the recovery mode. A rooted verion of the Arnova9G2 firmware is available here. Plug in the micro USB to your computer I have Windows 7 installed. After a time it should show in the Windows 7 Device Manager with a RK29? Device, ignore the ? Now right click on the RK29? entry and select update driver. Then choose the browse option and navigate to the folder where you unzipped the file you downloaded previously, usually the Downloads folder, "arnova G2_full_root_rom_V1.0_arctools\drivers\32bit\win7" that contains the driver for your flavour of Windows 7, mine was the 32 bit driver. Once Windows has indicated that the driver install was successful you can now run the firmware update tool RK29update.exe located in the root of the arnova G2_full_root_rom_V1.0_arctools folder.

Update
I found that after the update I couldn't enter recovery mode it appears to be as described on Recovery Mode

OpenWRT MR3220 Command Snippets

Reset the OpenWRT on Router back to the default use the command mtd -r erase rootfs_data

Turn Wifi off uci set wireless.@wifi-device[0].disabled=1; wifi