Vidactive

In order to build RemoCast, a standalone server appliance I chose Soekris embedded computer motherboards, because they have 3 ethernet ports, convection cooling and low power consumption.

A RedHat Linux was ported to run on the board. Some custom drivers were added and the user command set was extended to support encryption dongle, pseudo-filesystem (to mimic other devices).

The software is totally written in C and PHP, and it provides customers with a GUI to manage and control:

- Processes and Linux services
- Network infrastructure (interfaces, multicast, DHCP)
- File Manager
- Mini-web space, where users can add their own site for further control
- Languages and messages, which can be customized

The servers are manageable via SMTP and talk to a website to report status ans retrieve updates (if they are under maintenance contract).

Users are worldwide "Amino Communications" customers that need set-top boxes to be upgraded and controlled in bulk.

My background and experience comes, mainly, from Real-Time environments. Over these last years I have produced different forms of software for them:

- Drivers for flight simulation (buses MIL1553, DACS, DR11W, GPIB)
- Enhanced stock exchange management solutions
- Created software for real-time video streaming, including decoders and RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) stack for Linux-based Concurrent Computer MediaHawk servers

The RemoCast standalone appliance uses en embedded computer motherboard from Soekris that I had to integrate. It now runs a customized distribution of RedHat with enhancements required to make the unit responsive.

VSAccess (Video Server Access) is an ActiveX component I wrote in C/C++ that was used to control Concurrent Computer video servers from Windows workstations (Visual Studio applications, HTML pages under Internet Explorer, etc).

Those video servers were far apart from the Windows-based control world. The challenge was to let users create simple Visual Basic programs to drive those huge servers.

Today, customers use it in Europe and Australia to implement video carousel controls, hotel entertainment engines for hotels and hospitals.

Distributed control system based on Arduino boards. A central control system is used by operators to sends messages (over Internet) to remote places where Arduino boards (with RS485 shields) reside. These remote microcontroller boards are equipped with sensors and can control one 8-relay block.

Simply formatted messages are passed back and forth and the Arduino only know about the sensor and relay configuration.

The idea I implemented is a basic block that lets customers create a control fabric whose behaviour totally depends on the software on the central location and a bunch of configuration files that are retrieved by the Arduinos.

It has been used for security and to operate watering and lighting.

More than 15 years of experience doing integration of different sorts of devices and software.

The most challenging device integrations were:

- Avionics: MIL1553 and GPIB bus cards
- Multichannel video encoder PCI cards
- Embedded board computers (Soekris, Gygabyte). Specially complex has been and continues to be the integration of the operating system
- HASP and MatrixLock encryption keys
- Sensors and shields for Arduino boards. A library of small handlers is still maintained
- Optical disk drive driver over SCSI

On the software side, I have integrated/ported:

- Graphics environments, VAPS
- Interbase database management for real-time servers
- Internet-related: PayPal, Stripe and SMS providers

In order to automate server installation tasks and to unify error and log handling, I have created a tool in C# for Windows Servers. It covers two major areas:

- Configuration, where each user gives values to variables (e.gr. application name, installation path, user, database instance, data file location). The name and nature of each variable has to be defined previously. Actions to be performed are also variables. Configuration is saved in human-readable text files

- Execution, where the tool runs series of actions in sequence. They perform server configuration (roles, features) and validation, application and software installation/update and other customer-specific tasks.

It is very important to realize that the tool is totally independent of the customer. I have produced 35+ actions but the customer can create new ones C#-wrapped PowerShell or as native C# DLL. The automation tool

- Reads the main configuration file
- Scans the action folder in order to identify which DLLs include actions and registers them
- Reads GUI configuration file, the locale message file and variable definition
- Presents the GUI to the tool user

More than 15 years coding commercial solutions in C, C++ for many areas, such as Aerospace (drivers in C for Real-time linux -MIL1553, DR11W, GPIB, etc-), Medical (Cardiotocograph monitor control and supervision, in C), Bid and Supplier management ("GESOFE" TM, distributed solution in C/C++), Video on demand servers (SNMP extension, server installation, control, recording software all in C), Microcontroller (C/C++ for Arduino and Raspberry), General purpose C++ libraries and modules

New versions of my existing software take now advantage of HTML5 (specially the last features of canvas), style sheets version 3. Javascript code stays the same as before.

Ported Java machine and customized it in order to create the OS core of a Set-Top box device.

Upper layers up to user interface were developed in Java. These are the most relevant classes:

- File and streamer management
- Display, render and frame buffer
- Extended the IP stack to implement SNMP class, RTSP protocol
- On-screen menu ans navigation
- Setup, configuration and locale
- HTML and CSS rendering (actually a mini browser)
- MPEG wrapper and image rendering (PNG, JPEG and GIF)
- IR input devices

When the box starts, it reads configuration and launches a core that renders the menu-based GUI, handles all user requests and talks to the different content provider servers.

RemoCast TM is a standalone server for multicast programming of Set-Top boxes. On a LAMP, I wrote most of the software using PHP. It generates GUI, talks to central server, controls each unit. I have also extended the PHP interpreter to include most common operations and to integrate HASP/Aladdin encryption keys.

Some Windows Server dialogues (specially those written in Delphi) don't contain text resources, so the practical way to guess the text is by means of an optical character recognition technique.
Response time was crucial compared to high quality recognition. I have chosen to create my own recognition algorithm, based on colour frequency distribution, colour concentration, previous font analysis.
That let automated error handling to be properly completed.

Some months ago I developed an HD TV channel real-time recorder. It was written entirely in C on Linux-based video on demand servers. Managing the repository and controlling the schedule was done with a special TV recorder API that adhere to the REST architecture. Messages are encoded using SOAP envelopes.

I have created SmsLand.eu as an online SMS sending platform. Completely developed in PHP that generates HTML, CSS and some JavaScript.
The goal was to integrate different SMS providers (from Europe, India, USA), so I had to build wrappers and connectors which were used depending on the location of each user and the destination of the SMS. Its engine also balances load and chooses the most cost effective way among available providers.
PayPal was integrated as payment gateway.
Users may have a trial period, contact agenda, full history and delivery reports.