SOLVED: Apple's wifi + Nabaztag

HA! I solved it. After reading this I figured out what the problem is. You need to enter the IP Address of server not domain. So after I updated the server to be 88.191.124.133/vl it works! I'm so good it amazes me sometimes! :D

The negative side of this is that you need to update that ip address every time they change it. But I think maybe we can live that if they just announces it.

So all you having Apple Airport Extreme, Airport Express or Time Capsule, use this method.

Alive or hacking?

Back from dead... or not
So I see... Nabaztag should work again. YAY! Except.. I can't get mine to work. It seems that it doesn't work with Apple Airport Extreme. I tried to change channel to 11 but it didn't help. I assigned own IP address for the bunny but no. I can see from routers logs that I tries to connect every 30 seconds.

Jan 23 19:38:58    Severity:5    Associated with station X
Jan 23 19:38:58    Severity:5    Installed unicast TKIP key for supplicant X

If I remember correctly the last time I got it working was when I changed encryption to plain WPA. But there isn't that option anymore. There is just WPA/WPA2 personal. I read from Apple's forum that

"For the Apple routers, the TKIP encryption protocol is used when these routers are configured for "WPA/WPA2 Personal." In addition, wireless clients capable of using the stronger AES/CCMP protocol can connect with that protocol as well.

When the AirPorts are configured for "WPA2 Personal" only clients capable of supporting AES/CCMP can connect."

So TKIP should work. It's not that, or is it?

One really irritating thing is that http://www.nabaztag.com/ site is completely in French. If you advertise that now your Nabaztags work and all, could you translate those sites to English? You should be able to English. I don't need proper translation. Google one would be nice. But http://translate.google.com doesn't work on that site. WTF?


Also I was thinking of the possibility to bring my bunny to university. But our university wifi needs web login information. And it is not possible to connect Nabaztag to that kind of network.


Arduino + RFID
But this is something I'm looking for: Hacked: Nabaztag + Arduino + RFID = send any custom data to your bunny, Hacking the Nabaztag – Arduino injects via I2C data into RFID Reader, NabaztagInjector – An Arduino RFID Hack

I'm thinking of joining to local Hacklab. Maybe I just bring my bunny to them and give permission to do what they want.

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I'm really hoping that if you have some comments either how to get my bunny to online or hacking it, I would love to hear from you!

I have received some messages during the years this blog has been online. I'm sorry if I have not responded to your mails because I been busy doing other things. But all of them have been delighted my day and please write to me if you want. I try to answer! Also if you have interesting links, just leave them to comment section so others can found them too.

Community

It's sad that I'm quite alone with my rabbit. Some of my not so close friends have Nabaztag, but that's it. One of them keep her rabbit offline all the time because it doesn't work.

When I first joined to Nabaztag owner I think there would be great community where I get new bunny owner friends. But then I realised that the official Nabaztag site is so limited that there is really hard to make friends. I posted some time in unofficial Nabaztag forums but then one of them got shutdown. And all there was was just problems with bunnies. I feel that I miss official forum or site like facebook where you can easily chat and discuss with other people and people would easily make apps for bunnies.

My bunny is still online. And actually it works better Airport Extreme than previous wifi. But there isn't much to my bunny do. It tells the time and then I have subscribed few podcast but nothing more. Sometime some one sends messages and it is very nice. But I miss the RFID and other things... Email notifications don't work. I didn't feel to debug that if did something wrong or it is just Violet.

There was other bunny blogs but people / bunnies don't any more post. I feel that whole community is dying.. if there was any community ever. And I feel that I have not be part of it.

It would nice if you post your feelings about the rabbit community.

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I don't know if you reveiced this email. I didn't. I got it from friend when I had connection problems. But there it is so if you didn't get you can read it:

Hello,

Violet has moved its platform in order to improve performance and
upgrade the architecture.

Your Rabbit has to be reconfigured in order to keep up with these
changes. Please follow these instructions :
- Unplugg your Rabbit
- Press the button on his head and plug him back
- Keep the button pressed until all lights turn to blue and then
release the button
- From your WiFi-enabled computer, connect to the network NabaztagXX
(where XX are the two last letters of the serial number of your
Rabbit). You might have to refresh the list of available networks in
order to see the Nabaztag wireless network
- Once connected to the Nabaztag network, open your browser at the
following address : http://192.168.0.1 (if you see a page different
than « You are now connected to your Nabaztag » this means that your
are not connected to the Nabaztag wireless network. Restart the
connexion process from scratch)
- When you're on the configuration page of your rabbit, click on the
link 'Click here to start' and then on the link 'Advanced Settings'
- On the bottom of the page, replace the adress of the Violet
platform by r.nabaztag.com/vl (the last letter is a L)
- Click on the button 'Update and Start'
- Your Rabbit will now restart and connect to the Internet and to the
Violet platform with the new settings

If your rabbit turns only 2 or 3 lights to green, reconnect to the
configuration page, change the address of the Violet Platform to 62.
210.186.165/vl (the last letter is a L), and click on the button
'Update and Start'.

Ensure that there is no spaces before and after the « Violet Platform
» address.

If you encounter any trouble during this upgrade process, feel free
to answer this e-mail, we will be happy to help.

Kind Regards,

The Violet Support Team

Other bunny blogs

I have missed earlier that there is some other bunny blogs than beckynot. But today I found that there is cute Brie and me blog and also Suleiman the Nabaztag Rabbit. Unfortunatetly they haven't updated their blogs long time but it is so understandable since our rabbits aren't doing much and it's easier keep it plugged off than on.

If you have blog that some times tells something about Nabaztag or you just own one it would be nice to hear! Please drop a comment.

This rabbit was meant to be connect people but so far I have been quite alone with it. I know just one person who has Nabaztag and that's about it. Of course I know plenty of people that have it but never communicate with them.

Some good and some bad news

Which ones you want to hear first? I think I begin with good one.

I got email from Matt Poland, who told about new tool for Nabaztag API, Nabaztag Rabbit API (.Net). He is coordinating an open source project which aims to easy interact with Nabaztag API. It's based on .Net. This is how he described this project, I can't do it better:

"It is meant to be a community developed effort where the fruits of our labor is shared for free. As of current, I have released a 1.0 version of a client application that allows you to send messages, control the ears, engage in supported actions, and design a choreography."

That sounds pretty intresting and useful.

The bad news is that Nabaztalk Forum is closed. I understand reasons but it's sad. I hope that Violet will solve their problems.

I also agree with this post: Nabaztag now officially sucks. I love my bunny.. but I want my 150 euro toy to work and work well. And I agree, don't buy Nabaztag. Not now. It's lovely but you should not spend you many to something you know won't work. So save your money to future. Maybe some day we will have bunny with wifi that works like a dream.

And hey.. If you are looking for more Nabaztag related stuff, check my blog post labeled links. I will be happy if you contact me and sends links to relevant sites. :)

And here is Pyridiini, playing Crazy Answer Machine podcast:



ediiiit: And one more thing. I just discoverd that Jaiku has Nabaztag-channel.

New bunny

I forget to write here that I got my 4th bunny. And it's still shining and working like angel. There isn't a single problem with it. It has yellow tail. :)

Violet has changed manual. Now it's more specific.

Sick holiday

So... I send my bunny back to the shop I buy it (verkkokauppa.com) and now they are messing up my bunny. They said that their post system is in rush. *sigh* But.. I'm getting new bunny, they promised.

I'm plucking up the courage to mail to Violet and ask some compensation since this will be my 4rd bunny. Not funny at all.. How can they go broken just sitting in table alone? HOW?!

But I'm feeling that I'm very alone without my bunny.. I want it back soon!

New tools

* Drupal module for Nabaztag: NabComment - Comments on The Nabaztag, the Drupal Module
* Nabaztag API plugin for WordPress
* Mike's Nabaztag Projects with python

Really broken ear

I'm so tired of this... The whole motor of the ear is broken. It doens't respond when I move the ear. Before, when I had similar problems it was just that the ear was badly placest and the motor couldn't move it. But now.. *sigh*

I don't know what should I do. Propably I would get new bunny from the shop I bought this. Or the second opinion is to mail to Violet and whine.. They said in spring that I can send my bunny there when it discovered broken leds.. Now it has broken leds and broken ear. I'm pessimistic about it how long the new bunny would last. But maybe the quality is better now than in spring.

*BIG SIGH*

Nabzone's new gadgets

Nabzone create new gadgets for iGoogle and netvibes: http://gadget.nabzone.com/ He also named them to "Nabget".