Colin Charles Agenda

I updated my Nokia N770 with the ‘hacker’ edition of the Internet OS2007 last night. Rather than letting it be a brick, with all the attention on the N800 these days…
 
The update process was easy enough (as a backgrounder, also consider noting the SDK compatibility). Just download the correct flasher, which is currently at version 3, download the image file, and its a one-liner install. Connect the N770 to the computer via USB, press the power button, and automatically the flashing process begins.
 
Once that’s complete, and the N770 boots up, you’ll see the welcome screen. Here, you configure the device a little more – set the time and so forth. The software actually says you now have a N800. Setting up the wireless connection was a breeze, as was pairing with my Bluetooth phone. Yes, it got the Internet settings correct for mobile Internet – just select the country and the provider. Impressed I was, after having to futz around in Linux.
 
After the initial setup, the GUI is all pretty snappy. Turn it off and back on again, and you’ll see the GUI hang for about 20 seconds. This is a known problem, of course, one where I wonder why?
 
Installing applications requires adding a few more repositories. Getting xterm, and gainroot were crucial; no more do you need to enable R&D mode to gain root access!
 
Tempted as I was to install Skype, I failed miserably. Surfing the Internet, I found out that the processor was the likely cause, and it looks like there will be no sight of Skype in the future.
 
The Gizmo Project provided solace. I installed the version meant for the N800, and gave it a twirl. No problems whatsoever, so much so that I even had to make a test call to ensure that it was all good. Which begs the question – both Gizmo and Skype are proprietary, both deal with audio and VoIP, yet one works and the other doesn’t?
 
Video playback, was a little choppy. I never got to play the provided video about the N93, however, after waiting a while for it to load, I got to play the demo videos for the Ice Age 2 trailer and the Discovery Channel video (they were safely backed up on the RS-MMC card, from previous old images). Full screen worked too. However, sometimes, it would just crash the tablet, and it would restart – highly unpleasant.
 
The AccuRadio hit cast somehow didn’t work either, so I’ve lost my Internet radio. MP3 playback was not a problem however – on the flash as well as the RS-MMC card.
 
Web browsing is the same. It seems the rendering engine is proprietary and unlicensed for usage on the N770, so there can be no improvements. Consequently, you don’t get to try the new Mozilla based rendering engine in the browser – so no sweet AJAX love.
 
Did I already mention the numerous crashes, where the tablet keeps on restarting itself? I counted about 3 in under an hour of use, prompting me to give up and go to sleep. Simply web browsing can lead to a restart!

Note that this was a few weeks back (typed this up on my E61i, and just transferred it over). The N770 has gone back to its old position of sitting next to my bedside, because the hacker edition itself, doesn’t allow all the cool applications to be run. I’ll just end up using it as a mobile web test-bed, but sadly, I can’t even try the new Mozilla based rendering engine.

Technorati Tags: os2007 n770 n800 hacker

Sometimes, when I have my laptop, well, on my lap, I accidentally hit the F1 key when I really am aiming to hit the Escape key. I dislike Help popping up, regularly. In vain, I looked for a way to do this in System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts. I gave up, and thought maybe removing yelp might help. It doesn’t.

Is there any way I can disable F1 == help in GNOME?

Technorati Tags: ubuntu help gnome f1

Last night was Camille’s 25th Birthday Party and I only went out with my new Sigma 30mm/f1.4 lens. A pretty bold move, not carrying any backup lenses (I usually am with the 50/1.4 and 17-40/4L). Results, were fantastic. I can heartily recommend the Sigma lens. And on a 1.6x crop camera, you’re getting sweet results for not just facial portraits, but more life-sized/body-sized portraits.

Surprisingly, most of the time, cranking up to ISO800 or ISO1600 wasn’t required. Above was shot at ISO400, not as sharp as I’d have expected, but the light was poor, and as with non-still-life objects, there’s always movement. Check out the rest of the set.

Next task, visit the Eureka Tower. Shot it in the dark last night (the view from Transport’s 2nd floor chilled-out-couches-area balcony was amazing), with not enough gear ;-)

Technorati Tags: photography, sigma, 30mmf14, 30/1.4

Not having played a game since Prince of Persia (and we’re talking the original game, with block-like graphics, on some ancient hardware, back in 1990), I decided to try out Second Life today. Surprisingly, the getdeb folk have this for Ubuntu, even in its 64-bit variety. Installation was simple:

• sudo dpkg -i secondlife-install_1.18.1.2-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb
• Realise that I’m missing a dependency, so install lib32asound2
• Attempt to start secondlife

And fail, of course. I got a Window Creation Error. Not content with this, I started it up from a terminal, and looked at the error messages pass by. Finally found the rather telling line: WARNING: createContext: window creation failure. SDL: Couldn’t find matching GLX visual. It seems that its all got to do with the bit-depth of colour, so a quick replace of the DefaultDepth in xorg.conf was in lieu (it originally was DefaultDepth 16 but its now DefaultDepth 24).

Restart X, and I launched Second Life with success! Now signing up was a bit of a chore as I had to find a new name and so on. A lot of ideal names are taken up, so I settled with Colin Pichot. One of the things I quickly changed was how much bandwidth SL was allowed to use – quick reduction to 50kbps from its usual default (of like 700kbps+). I joined the Linux Australia group, I’ve not developed anything in SL, and I haven’t given them my credit card details (yet). It seems to create a group, you need to fork out $100 Linden Dollars.

I’ll play with this after midnight I guess, when we’ve got more “off-peak” quota to utilise, but initial impressions are its a pretty impressive environment in 800×600. I’ve not met anyone, I’ve added a friend (I think), can’t for the life of me figure out how to put a photo in my profile, and here’s hoping that eventually, I understand what all the fuss about SL is.

Technorati Tags: second life, secondlife, sl, ubuntu, window creation error, glx visual, colin pichot, alter ego

Twitter as a micro-news outlet
The other day, I was on a train, and witnessed something interesting – 3 drunk blokes were chatting up girls, got a little violent (throwing rubbish at people, asking a bloke to vacate his seat, etc.), and the cops were called in. Then, we stopped at Parliament and stayed there for about 40 minutes. On the last train of the night. Turns out, being an underground train station, a lot of other trains were backlogged, so Ben Barren told another train driver what the situation was, all thanks to the power of Twitter. What it looked like on Twitter – thanks Cris, aka Mr. Skitch :)

Google Code for Educators
Here comes free courseware, created especially for CS educators. There are currently tutorials on AJAX Programming, and Distributed Systems with sample course content as well. Video lectures exist just as well. So if you’re a busy professor, or sitting in a CS faculty and wondering what’s new and what might be hip to teach this semester, consider the Google Code for Educators site.

The Podcast Network
Cameron Reilly is the host of an amazing show, G’Day World, and he’s also the convenor for the Melbourne Online Digital Media. The other thing he’s done is create the world’s first podcast network (The Podcast Network – TPN). An interesting interview with him in an issue of the Australian Anthill, titled 24-hour podcast people. Cam’s a really interesting bloke to chat with – from podcasting to Facebook to Second Life.

Squeezed Books
One of the things I do after reading a management book, or biographies, is write summaries of my thoughts and take notes about it in my blog in my books category. This is what Squeezed Books is all about – summaries of books. If you’re too busy, or just want a summary before reading the book, this might be the exact site for you. Take for example the summary of The Tipping Point – now, when I write my quick summary/review, I’ll have to write less text :)

Technorati Tags: twitter, micro-news, news, google code, educators, podcast network, cameron reilly, squeezed books, book summaries

I’ve recently started doing more development locally on my Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) laptop (as opposed to being logged in via ssh to various machines, generally running Fedora), and have noticed some quick snags.

Ruby Gems
They’re currently installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8 which is not in your PATH. So if for example, you use cheat, you’re not going to find it. Fix it via adding /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin to your PATH (my .bashrc has it looking such as: PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/var/lib/gems/1.8/bin)

Mono, and System.Windows.Forms
I have no problems with Mono and .NET related applications, normally. I run Tomboy (which I like, a lot), I can fire up f-spot, and when I need to Beagle runs fine too. But of late, I’ve had to run an application that required System.Windows.Forms, aka WinForms. Little did I know I’d need to install the winforms stuff, so a sudo apt-get install libmono-winforms* fixed this for me.

This still hasn’t made my required application run properly, but I’m now a step closer to finding out compatibility with Windows-based .NET applications and Mono. All thanks to the useful Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA). Hat tip to Ditesh for pointing me to MoMA.

Technorati Tags: gems, ruby, path, mono, winforms, system.windows.forms, moma