Colin Charles Agenda

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).

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.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, modem, bluetooth modem, e61i, nokia e61i, s60, series 60, 3, three, dial-up networking

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.

Technorati Tags: fring, voip, series 60, symbian 9, s60, nokia, e61i

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.

Technorati Tags: telephony, skype, n800, internet tablets, gizmo, gizmo project, gizmo s60, s60, series 60, jajah, pennytel, sip, malaysian did, openmoko

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!

Technorati Tags: bloggers, blog, malaysia, silly, free speech, online censorship, stop internet censorship, free speech for all, .my, anti-terrorism, ISA, islam, king

Today I appreciate YUM’s mirror-select tool, in comparison to what APT offers me. OptusNet’s mirror is down, so its a case of editing /etc/apt/sources.list and doing a %s/au.archive/archive/g. With YUM, it’d have just found another mirror – now that seems like (good) redundancy to me.

Technorati Tags: yum, fedora, ubuntu, apt

Does anyone know where I can get this? You know, to decorate my laptop with? Preferably large stickers to stick at the back of my laptop screen and small enough badges for sticking on desktops, or even to replace the “Designed for Windows” badge.

Closest I’ve found is this little bit from Fedora Weekly News Issue #95 on stickers. Stop worrying about the trademark violations for crying out loud, and have official stickers already.

This was the problem, and probably still is the problem with The Fedora Project. Discuss, discuss, discuss, but when it comes to doing, there’s a lot of waiting. Well, its not only the Fedora Project that suffers from this disease known as over-discussing. Probably a rant for another day…

P/S: Someone from the Ubuntu LoCo team was handing out Ubuntu stickers as well as PC badges (those small ones that look like the Intel Inside or Powered by Windows logos) at linux.conf.au 2007. It’d be cool if there were Fedora ones to hand out as well…

Technorati Tags: fedora, stickers, badges