Archive for July 2007

Vice-advertising moving to various Internet mediums

Brilliant. Alcohol-related advertising is hindered upon quite regularly. Then there’s the problem of selling cigarettes. Vices are just finding it harder to advertise, and reach their prospective markets.

Hence, I have got to commend Smirnoff. They pick up a bunch of “A-list” bloggers, invite them to a party (a launch party for new Vodka flavours), and by the virtue/nature of bloggers, there are blog entries before the party, and what’s really important are the blog entries after the party. The lifestyle, is being sold. Drink Smirnoff, and you’re going to be having as much fun at similar parties (and maybe, you’ll be an “A-list” blogger).

Kids these days find the Internet more important than television (probably largely because they can get their television via the Internet, but that’s another story). Why try to fight with regulators (Philip Morris are starting a tobacco concept store on Chapel St., amidst much slamming), when blogs and the Internet are out there, for you to get community, grassroots, free advertising?

Smirnoff makes use of YouTube too – check out the Smirnoff Experience. They’re inspiring their best customers to advertise for them, not controlling them in any way.

As Seth Godin says: “The network was always there, but the Internet makes it powerful. It amplifies the happy user and spreads the word.” “Hand the megaphone to your best customers, who can help turn their friends and colleagues into your new best customers,” he adds in Forbes 90th anniversary issue on the power of networks.

(Yes, Nokia seems to be giving away free phones to bloggers in Singapore, and LG has aligned with Jeff Ooi of Malaysia, they too are harnessing the customers that have a voice, to turn their readers into potential customers. No corporate blog rubbish in general – just pure users, with megaphones.)

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HOWTO: The Nokia E61i as a modem via Bluetooth in Ubuntu on 3

It seems that for $29/month, I’m not getting my meagre 200MB quota on the 3 network, but can now get 1GB! Wanting to not fuss with a laptop card or USB modem (because they only support Windows and OS X), I decided that its time to setup a connection via my mobile phone, i.e. use my phone as a modem, via Bluetooth.

Ubuntu has got some amazing documentation on getting Bluetooth based dial-up networking working. I followed everything there, till the Configuring PPP session. Right upon there, I hit a bit of a snag, but my trusty LUG list pointed me to Using T-Mobile Nokia E65 as a Bluetooth modem guide. Using the gprs, gprs-connect-chat, and gprs-disconnect-chat from that website, I was able to use my phone as a modem. One important thing to note is that the gprs-connect-chat and gprs-disconnect-chat must be executable (fix this by doing a chmod +x).

The APN (access point) for the 3 network is “3netaccess”. So the one line I changed in the gprs-connect-chat reads as: OK              'AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","3netaccess","",0,0' \.

Now, a simple pppd call gprs in a terminal works. Of course, it would make a whole lot more sense if there was a GUI for this (I’m surprised that Ubuntu hasn’t figured this out yet).

Active Connections on the e61i
E61i has registered the WiFi connection and the phone as a modem

A quick word of warning: the phone doesn’t register how much packet data you use when its acting as a modem (so you can’t find it in the logs later, under packet data, from what I can tell). Also, keep in mind, that 3 counts both uploads and downloads as part of the quota you get per billing cycle. I’ve not started wanting to do usage accounting, but I’m sure its what I’ll conquer next.

If you’re wanting to do this via Optus, consider Menno Smits guide for Optus 3G.

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Fring 3.20 is out – volume control fixed

For those not following the Fring blog, and you’re annoyed by their volume control difficulties, you’ll be pleased to know that they’ve released fring 3.20 for your Symbian 9 devices.

The E61i is running it, and volume control (really, the only complaint) works well. Only caveat is that you don’t increase the volume like you’d do on a normal call – you need to use the scroll button to move the volume up or down. Silly, but it’ll make do.

Previous users of fring will still have to go thru the SMS process – register online, send the SMS to your phone, download the software and replace it.

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Recently in telephony…

Skype

  • Skype is on the Nokia N800. This makes it interesting to own – video still doesn’t work, and it took them about six months since release to get Skype going. I felt beta-tester-y enough with the n770, so maybe I’ll just wait till the N900 launches next year?
  • In Skype related news, I’ve been running the 1.4 beta for over a month now, and it works remarkably well. Its better, seems a little like the version on OS X, and manages my USB headset a lot better (i.e. I don’t need to manually change to use it everytime). Of course, Linux itself seems to be retarded – every time I plug the headset, the microphone is muted – silly.

Gizmo Project

  • If you’re upgrading Gizmo, and are using the Debian packages, and you’re running Ubuntu Feisty, get the version linked against libstdc++5 and not libstdc++6 – the latter gives sexy errors like gizmo: error while loading shared libraries: libXss.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. It used to be one DEB or RPM, but clearly they’ve changed things.
  • I installed Gizmo for S60 from the Nokia Beta Labs on my E61i. Now when I visit my Contacts, and scroll to the right, I see a Gizmo menu. Let it go online (via 3G or WiFi, I take the latter), and you can chat with Gizmo Project users, or even make calls. Best thing is, if you’ve enabled Gizmo VoIP in the Internet telephone settings, you can also make VoIP out calls to people’s numbers that they’ve listed in the Gizmo profile – these are usually free if you’re going after a landline. Make sure your all call’s free status is active, and you’re bound to save money.

VoIP

  • I’ve played around with Jajah. The rates seem higher than I’d expect, but maybe this is the future of VoIP? With ISP’s starting to get sneaky with regards to their quotas, having a website that calls you, then calls your party, plus displays advertising features in the web browser window, just seems smart. Plus, if you’re calling another Jajah user, you get free calls – 150 minutes a week, not exceeding 500 minutes a month. If you ask me, that’s a lot of talk time, and I’m all for it. My Jajah username is byte if you’re so inclined to find me in the address book. So far, call quality has been amazing, all connections have just worked with one try (so the service is reliable), and they’re beta testing conference call features (which I intend to try soon).
  • PennyTel is an Aussie VoIP provider, that’s got a twist – you can get dial in direct (DID) numbers from any state in Australia, and also, if required, a number based in Kuala Lumpur, all for AUD$5/month! They’re also fully SIP based, so Ekiga and my Nokia e61i are pretty happy.
    • Quality of the service however, is another question – its a tad bit unreliable, apparently people get busy tones when they try to dial my number, and if I make a call via the e61i, I get a lot of “connection time-out” errors. Annoyingly, the other side picks up, and hears nothing, thus hanging up. With Ekiga, its quite the opposite – it rings within a few seconds, I get connected, but the other party seemingly can’t hear me! Calls within Australia seem to be somewhat tolerable, from what I can tell though.
    • This could also be because the DID I chose was a Malaysian based number.
    • Support is pretty good – they even have a Live Assistant online, who can chat with you via IM, to give you support. They’re also quite responsive with regards to writing support requests, though I have a lot of “Work In Progress” messages sitting in the queue (so initial response is good, but actually getting things going, isn’t quite so).

Et al.

  • There’s also an OpenMoko beta phone available for a ridiculous sum, that still does not have WiFi, and they claim that running VoIP over GPRS will not be so good – really? I run it on my e61i just fine, so I smell a rat, maybe with the processor or software. Again, time to wait for this in a few more months, I guess.

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MySQL-related resources that you will enjoy reading

The great Internet is littered with some really useful MySQL-related articles, that I think you’ll enjoy reading just as much as I did.

  • I’ve not given Google Gears too much of a look yet, but its definitely interesting and the tutorials at O’Reilly’s ONLamp site help one play with it: The Power of Google Gears (Part 1) and The Power of Google Gears (Part 2). Looks like the series is complete, and Part 2 concentrates on using Gears for offline data entry, then syncing it with a MySQL server once the application is online. Looks like the future of desktop software might end up being like this…
  • While browsing a magazine store, I picked up the SysAdmin magazine that was months old, but contained an interesting article on MySQL 5 Cluster with Solaris 10 Zones/ZFS/Resource Control. Its a very much step-by-step kind of article, and I’m excited to learn more about Zones and ZFS.
  • If you’re after a basic introduction to MySQL Cluster, go no further than reading MySQL 5.0 Cluster: Architecture, Implementation and Management. Couldn’t resist browsing the rest of the samag.com website, and I’d encourage you to do the same if time permits – they’ve got quite a number of useful articles there. Incidentally, the article is a bit old (linked to MySQL 5.0.16 – cluster has had marked changes in the current 5.0.45).
  • From Derek Crudgington (who wrote about Cluster and Zones), is a blog posting about the SAMP stack – A Guide to SAMP (Solaris Apache MySQL PHP). Of course for those lazy, just get the CoolStack from Sun, which allows the simple use of pkgadd.

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Bloggers face draconian anti-terrorism laws in Malaysia

Disgusting. What will they think of next? (for context, read See you in hell Muhamad son of Muhamad) Using draconian anti-terrorism laws against those insulting Islam (a religion, supposedly official for Malaysia) or the country’s very much figure-head of a King.

How is this not strangling freedom on the Internet? How can he (Raja Petra) have crossed the line in making racist remarks, when we have ministers wielding daggers or parliament house used as a slaughter-house for sixteen cows & goats?

The ISA was something formed to use against the communists, something I believe Malaysia has not had in a long time. It was misused by the former recalcitrant Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir, during his lengthy tenure. And it looks like its making a comeback, against bloggers. It seems that “This is to put a stop to the freedom to lie in the blogosphere” – anyone reading should also note that Malaysia lacks press freedom, and all print media is a tool for the government of the day, controlled by the Ministry of Propaganda.

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign
Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!

Weblogs, and sites on the Internet are the only avenues for freedom of expression and speech that remain in Malaysia. Much this to do with the MSC promise. Which might disappear in due time, as the mounting montage of fuck-up’s against the government of the day and all the cronies linked, are strewn on the Internet, a ready archive that can be used during election time.

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