Colin Charles Agenda

Today I upgraded my kernel, so am running 2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 and am pleased to announce that on the Dell Inspiron 640m, brightness control works. Well, sort of. I can reduce brightness and increase brightness, but increasing brightness (Fn+ UpArrow) while in X, still causes X to crash. All that’s recorded is:

Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x8b on isa0060/serio0).
Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e00b <keycode>' to make it known.

As long as video.ko is loaded, I can hit Fn+F8 quite successfully, and get video out working now. Its in mirror mode as opposed to a stretched desktop, but I’m somewhat thankful as GNOMEs panel is still retarded when it comes to shrinking down (watch it go apeshit on you). However, repeated attempts (say, 8th time pressing the Fn+F8 key combo and it cycles between displaying on the onboard LCD, mirroring, just the external LCD, and so on) will cause the entire display driver to crash. Nothing will then be viewable, so a reboot is in lieu.

The sound control via hardware buttons still do not work (they used to back in the 2.6.18 days, afaik). Both the hardware and the Fn-key combos don’t work.

So I decided I need to be a good open source citizen, and report some bugs. #236866, #236867. I also updated the Fedora on the Dell Inspiron 640m wiki page.

For what it is worth, Desktop Effects has decided to stop working (to amuse myself I tried to enable it today). Its now nice to note that I can give presentations using my Linux box again, and things will be working (quite unlike my last experience) . I’m also excited to note that Ubuntu Feisty Fawn is coming out tomorrow, and at the same time annoyed that I’ll be travelling and don’t want to futz with my main work machine. Rob Weir will be glad to note that its only taken 2 years for me to start seeing the light.

Technorati Tags: linux, fedora, dell, dell 640m, inspiron 640m, xorg, crash, brightness control, video out, sound, hardware buttons,

It is great to see that Palm is now embracing Linux. I however think that embracing Linux to be relevant again seems like a rather daft idea.

Palm made great products. As someone that had a PDA when it was cool to own one (early 1998, Palm III), I have to say that counting the taps you needed to make to get to an application was what was significant then. Usability was a key focus. Grafitti was something that required learning, but once the hang of it was gotten, it was easy. The idea that you could beam contacts, memos, calendar entries and even software, was simply fabulous. In the early days, I’ll admit to even using the occasional “payware” for free, thanks to this wonderful beaming technology.

I matured after a while, and realized that carrying a cell phone, wallet, keys, coins, and a PDA just didn’t make so much sense. This must have been the stage when I moved from cargo pants, to Dockers Mobile Pants, to just regular pants, when you don’t have all the fancy pockets. I had several Palm PDAs, even a Handera 330, then most recently the Tungsten C.

What worked? Its simplicity. What didn’t work? The ridiculous cost of shareware. A cost you never recouped when upgrading, or even stopped using the piece of software. Horrendous syncing technology, even on the Microsoft Windows platform (double contacts, deleted memos, and the like would happen from time to time).

Over the years, the expandability was good. The Handera meant I had CF and a SD slot, the Tungsten C gave me WiFi, and in the future, it looks like Palm will be releasing an OS that has Linux underneath it.

Will they go all the way into making it into a product that users actually want to use? Or are they hoping that developers fill in the gaps, ala what Nokia is doing with the Maemo platform and the N770/N800. Will people start expecting that because the base is Linux, all software on the Palm will have to be free? Remember though, the operating system under it never mattered – it was always the usability and ease of use.

Technorati Tags: palm, linux, nokia, maemo, pants, usability, handhelds

In addition to the MySQL Conference & Expo 2007, which I just registered for (yes, its not too late, register now!), I also registered for the Second Annual Silicon Valley Ruby Conference. Its at The Tech Museum in San Jose (I honestly have no idea where that is from the Hyatt Santa Clara, but I’m sure a nice taxi driver will), and of things that will clearly interest me are:

Day 1
9:15am – 10:15am Full-Stack Web App Testing with Selenium and Rails – Alex Chaffee
12:30pm – 1:30pm Business Scripting Languages – Asuman Suenbuel and Murray Spork
2:40pm – 3:40pm ActiveRecord – Evan (Rabble) Henshaw-Plath

Day 2
9:15am – 10:15am Making and Breaking Web Services with Ruby – Chris Wanstrath
10:20am – 11:20am Twitter – Blaine Cook
1:35pm – 2:35pm Mongrel Handlers – Ezra Zygmuntowicz

Everything else, I’ll be learning about. Can’t wait to spend the weekend all pumped with the Ruby community. Guess I’ve got some reading to do this week, on the long plane ride there. Incidentally, I just picked my tickets up, so will be in the Bay Area from the 20th right till the 28th of April so if you want to meet, drop me email (colin[at]mysql[dot]com) or SMS/call(expensive) +61412593292.