Vehicle Tracking System using GPS

As it has always been a logistic nightmare to track out the vehicles on the way. In order to solve this problem of tracing out the vehicles on the way a vehicle tracking system based on Global Positioning System (GPS) has been devised. The system uses Global Positioning System as its base technology. For the communication purpose the system is set to be configured with the available terrestrial network.

Working of GPS:

The feasibility studies were started in 1960’s. The Pentagon appropriates funding for this system in 1973 and the first satellite related to this topic was launched in 1978, and the system declared fully operational in 1995.

The official name of the system was NAVSTAR GPS (Navigation Satellite Timing And Ranging Global Positioning System) and is developed by US Department of Defence. The Global Positioning System is a worldwide positioning system based on the functioning of the 29 satellites. These satellites keep transmitting the signals at a particular frequency to the earth. The GPS listeners, on earth tune to that particular frequency and listen to the signals sent by the satellite. For positioning any device which is equipped with the GPS listener, signals from three or more satellites is required. The signals from three satellites determine the latitude and longitude of the device on the earth. But the signal from four satellites determines the latitude, longitude and altitude of that device on the earth. More the signals from the satellite more will be the accuracy of the position of the device.

Use of GPS for vehicle tracking system:

For locating or tracking the vehicles, the system uses the GPS as its base technology to locate the vehicle on the earth. For this the vehicle is equipped with the GPS listener. Once the vehicle is located on the earth then the next step is to send this information to the control centre for the mapping of the vehicles. That’s here the terrestrial network comes into scene. The system uses the terrestrial network such as the available CDMA or GSM mobile network for communicating with the control center.

Once the vehicles is located then it is it sends its information such as the latitude, longitude, altitude, speed(derived), etc. to the terrestrial network. The terrestrial network then sends this information to the control center where the vehicle is mapped on the electronic map on the computer. If there is some information that is to be send to the person in the vehicle then it is sent to the terrestrial network. The terrestrial network sends this information to the device in the vehicle. For this the system use the Short Messaging Service (SMS), thus the information that is sent by the control centre to the person in the vehicle appears as SMS to him. Thus, it is fully two way communications between the control center and the device.

The location is represented by the Position Fix. A position fix is based on real – time satellite tracking and is defined by set of co-ordinates. It changes as the GPS receiver moves. Position shows the approximation of the receiver’s true location.

The path which the receiver must follow is denoted by the waypoint. A waypoint is the set of co-ordinates entered into the receiver. The position fix is matched with the waypoint within some allowed error limits. If it is within the error limits, the vehicle is following the correct path unless it is on wrong path and the control centre is sent information about this.

Your own Website, your own dedicated server, at your HOME…

You just typed in the URL in the address bar of the web browser and the site opened in front of you. Have you ever thought that from where the page came from or where it is lying? So, how do you feel if something like this happens for your website? Sounds great! But for this you have to buy the web space to place your web site over there, then buy the domain name, by which the people can access your stuff worldwide.

But you yourself have a computer which has lot of space available. Also you are having an internet connection. Can you use your own computer to act as server for hosting your website? Yes, sure you can do this; after all you have spent a lot of money for your computer, so it’s the time for you to exploit it!

There are many issues that must be handled for hosting the website from your home PC, which I shall take on in this article. The most important issue is that people access your stuff using your broadband internet connection. In 90% of the cases your ISP provide you with the dynamic IP, i.e. every time you get a different IP address when you connect to the internet. So it will be difficult for the DNS to map your computer appropriately. This is the main issue, which is handled later in this article.

For getting started its assumed that you have made you own website and its now ready to be published on the internet. In Windows XP Pro/2000/NT there is windows service available called Internet Information Service (IIS) for hosting website but in Windows 98/XP Home this is not available so, I’m using the third party server for publishing the server.
Here I am using Apache Tomcat web server for the deployment of the web site.

Getting started…
First download and install Apache Tomcat on your computer. Just follow the typical settings for installation. To test whether the server is working properly fire a web browser window and type in the following: http://localhost:8080

You will see the Tomcat home page. Now it is sure that you your server is installed and working properly. Now place the folder containing your web files in the webapps folder inside Tomcat. The very first page i.e. the home page of your website must be index.html or index.jsp. If this is not the case then rename the home page file to index.html or index.jsp and also update the links in your web site for your home page.

Making your website accessible
You have to configure your system for making your website accessible for people on the internet. First of all you have to configure your firewall to allow the requests for your website. For this, if you are using any other program other than the Windows inbuilt firewall then configure it to allow connections for port 80 that is for HTTP (Web Service). If you are using Windows firewall as in Win XP then in its advances settings tick the Web Service (HTTP). Thus now your system is configured to handle HTTP request from outside.

Securing your system
As you allow people on the internet to access the content available on your system, it’s not safe regarding the security issues as there are many security loopholes present in Windows XP Pro. So, it will be better to get your windows updated with the security updates released by Microsoft. If you are having genuine copy of windows then use the automatic updates feature; else manually download the updates and install them.

Getting domain name
Domain names are nothing but the names by which the computers are referenced on the internet instead of IP address. IP addresses are used to uniquely identify the computers on the network; they are just like phone numbers. But having dynamic IP address its problem for DNS! This problem is handled with the concept of dynamic DNS. A lot of information is available on the internet regarding dynamic DNS and also there are many service providers for dynamic DNS. The concept behind dynamic DNS is that you open an account with the service provider and then create a host over there. Then you must download the dynamic DNS client and run on the system that you use for hosting websites and is having dynamic IP. Whenever the IP address of the system changes then the running client of the service provider updates your IP address in the provider’s DNS database so that your computer is correctly mapped to the proper IP address by the domain name. One such service provider is no-ip, that provides the dynamic DNS service. First you have to open the free account over there; once you are having account on no-ip, add host, select the domain name from the offered free domain names, then select port-80 redirect in the host type and enter port 8080 as Apache runs on port 8080. Now you are done.

Final step
Now go to apache webapps folder and rename the ROOT folder to some other name and rename your web application or website folder to ROOT. That’s all, now you are done. If everything that is explained above is right then startup the apache server and connect to internet; and your website is accessible from all over the world. To check fire a web browser window and type in the domain name of your web site that you have chosen and you will be presented with the home page of your very own website.

In this way without spending a single penny you can have your own website, your own dedicated server, at your very own HOME.

The VIRUS Phobia

A general computer science student working at his room suddenly notices something strange in his system. Some of the icons are distorted, a folder inside the folder with the same name, and some applications are not working properly. He immediately thinks that what happened to the system, then it strikes to his mind that his computer may be infected by a virus. He instead of removing the virus makes up his mind to format the system, reinstalling the windows and then the various drivers and finally all the applications.

This is the general view of many of the peoples who knows how to install the windows. The rest who don’t know how to install windows, thinks that many of the things in the system are not working properly, and due to the fear that it will spoil their costly system, they immediately call the vendor to do the things right; which in turn charges them a huge amount in lieu of doing the things right, which in fact is not a difficult task. Thus, many of us don’t exactly know how to handle the situation when a computer is attacked by a virus.

Whenever you notice that the system is doing something strange, some of the applications are not working properly, windows is distorted then it may be the case that your system may be infected by virus. But there is nothing to panic. Remain calm and try to find out the virus and also find the way to fix that.

Amit Saxena, a student of Electrical and Electronics branch, is having system just only to carry out general word processing, listening songs, and watching movies. He used to collect the media from various sources and don’t worry about whether the data is safe or not. Result is, very often his system is infected with virus. And when the situation of the system becomes critical that it can’t work further then he simply formats the system, mostly spoiling his 4 to 5 hours. Thus in a month he use to format his system about 5 to 6 times. This is not right, as it creates a bad effect on the hard disk.

Handling a virus attack in fact is not a hard nut to crack. Just you need some knowledge and most important is the “patience”. As prevention is better than cure, so it is beneficial to protect your computer using a good anti-virus program, keep the virus definitions update and also copy data from secure source. Whenever you bring any data from sources that you think may be vulnerable to viruses, always scan that.

Whenever you find that your computer is infected by virus then there is no need to panic. Simply think of the source from where the virus made its way to the system, block that way so that it can’t make its way back to the system when you are on your way to fix that virus. To fix most viruses just follow the following steps:

• Update the virus definitions of your anti-virus program.
• Turn-off the system restore utility in windows XP. If it’s not possible to turn off the system restore, then restart the system in the safe mode and then turn off the system restore.
• Perform full system scan, select fix for all the found viruses. If some of the viruses that cannot be fixed by the anti-virus program; quarantine all those infected files.

In most of the cases above provided steps will fix the problem, and if problem still persists then go online and get a fix for that particular virus.

Always make back up of your important data, so that in case of virus attack you not lose your data that may be the result of years of work. So, next time if you get infected by virus then don’t try to reinstall windows or call vendor for help, simply do it yourself.