Colin Charles Agenda

Reading Dave Hall’s experience with 3, I can attest to their horrendous service. I never looked at Virgin offering cheap rates, but from their website, it seems that on a post-paid account, I can get 300MB of data for $10/month. I’m currently paying 3 $29 for 200MB of data (and yes, they’re cheaper than what Optus can offer).

Which certainly has me interested in becoming a Virgin post-paid customer. From their website, it seems that if I just want a SIM, I’ll be a pay as you go customer. Which works out well for me, as all I really want is data + any excess (at 1.5c/KB).

However, what Express Card can I buy outright or via eBay, that will work with Linux (and preferably, OS X)? The Novatel Merlin U530 that Dave has is a PCMCIA card, not something that most newer laptops have. What are my ExpressCard options? And does Virgin charge for roaming rates? 3 charges you extra if you’re not within their 3 Broadband Zone and are Roaming [via Telstra]. 3’s advertised MobileBroadband card now apparently offers an Express Card option.

Technorati Tags: data, 3g, virgin, 3, expresscard

When it came to an OpenOffice.org related presentation, my slide deck always contained a mention about security. However, as it gains in popularity, and a more bloated (read: MS Office-compatible) feature set, security alone is not going to be a selling point. In fact, when it comes to OSS advocacy, the word “free” (or the idea of zero/minimal cost) is also not a large selling point, neither is the “you can view the source code” (erm, yeah, so what do I do with it?). But I’ll save that rant for another day.

It seems there’s an OpenOffice.org worm in the wild, that affects Windows, Linux and Mac OS X systems. BadBunny as it has affectionately become known, comes to you as an OpenOffice.org Draw file, which displays a man in a bunny rabbit suit engaging in sexual intercourse. While you see this, its launching mIRC or XChat (on OS X and Linux) and forwarding it to other IRC users. Assuming you don’t have IRC installed, this shouldn’t do anything, right?

Apparently, not only does BadBunny come with some StarBasic, it also has got some other evil components that use JavaScript on Windows, Ruby on OS X and Perl for Linux. I wonder, why they just didn’t use JavaScript across the board? Why Ruby on OS X (Perl would’ve sufficed). Seems very odd, the choice of multiple languages.

This is largely a proof of concept, but it just goes to show that no matter what you’re running, its a good idea to practice safe computing practices. What peeved me though was a quote from Sophos in heise Security:

If the BadBunny developers had any financial intentions, they would have selected a more popular software structure and not included bizarre images, Sophos adds.

Is OpenOffice.org a non-popular software structure? I highly doubt it. Writing virii is like a coming of age present for some, and while OpenOffice.org was ignored as a suitable platform, its being recognised now. Mohandas Gandhi said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” I think OpenOffice.org is at stage 3 (not just because of the virus writers, but also because of the plight towards ODF).

Technorati Tags: openoffice, openoffice.org, badbunny, worm, macro, starbasic, cross-platform, windows, linux, macosx

As Ubuntu becomes more mainstream, and there are more desktop users showing up thanks to its ease of use, and hardware partnerships like Dell (I hope their sales go well), Ubuntu is going to have to rock hard when it comes to software support as well as hardware support (for workstations and laptops).

Today, I was looking for video podcasting software on Linux. PenguinTV came out tops, and I’ve never really got Democracy TV to work the way I wanted. Stable version 3.0 is out, and there are quite a number of fixes since 2.80 (5 releases to 3.0). Feisty DEBs on the website are available, but they’re i386 only, and I opted to go via the apt-get, Ubuntu way (okay, Debian way). I got version 2.80 and I thought I’d bug report it: #119262. All in hopes of a newer version. Within the hour, my request got rejected:

Thanks you for your bug report. We can find this out via merges.ubuntu.com with a lot of extra information – there’s no point reporting an update bug unless you actually plan to do the merge, attach the debdiff, and subscribe ubuntu-universe-sponsors. However, if you would like to help fix this bug, please come help us.

Now, I’m your average, and typical Ubuntu user. I just expect things to work. I’d like software thats new, and at the latest release. I am your typical Dell purchaser. I have no interest in merging, attaching a debdiff, and getting on yet another mailing list.

I don’t blame the person closing the bug report, because thats what I would have possibly done when I was futzing with Fedora packages and actively doing volunteer distribution development. However, this doesn’t bode well to Bug #1 being fixed anytime soon – PCs for sale do include free software like Ubuntu, the marketing that it has amazing features and benefits are known to quite a lot of folk, but its not nearly as user friendly, yet. Let time pass?

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, penguintv, bug, new release, mainstream usage

I’ve never been a big fan of localization, especially in the Malaysian context. After all, Malay (ms_MY) is a bit of a sham. The proponents choose to believe that Bahasa Melayu is spoken in Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia, and is rather an important language. Till the proponents realize that Indonesia has a rather thriving population speaking Bahasa Indonesia (granted, for technical terms, ms_MY and Bahasa Indonesia are quite similar). Singapore speaks English, while acknowledging BM, Tamil and Mandarin as national/official languages.

For a language that is spoken by at most 30 million people, most of whom can converse (i.e. read, write, speak) in English well, I find the translation effort a waste of time. Granted, there are a handful of stubborn people that refuse to go global, and learn to converse in English in Malaysia, because they believe the national agenda to be all important – these are the exact folk that will be left in the doldrums in the much touted K-Economy. Its okay, I’m sure the government will find some way to bail them out while oil money is still hot.

My purpose of this blog isn’t to bash the Malay language or translation efforts. Its to announce that I finally see a glimmer of hope as to why the translation might make a tiny speck of sense. Its not Bahasa Melayu or Malay. Its Bahasa Malaysia. For something that’s been around since last April, I wonder why it hasn’t taken on further?

“The Malay language belongs to Malaysians of all races and not just the Malays. The term Bahasa Malaysia would instill a sense of belonging,” Zainuddin told The Star yesterday.

Of course, Malaysia should look upon Singapore when it comes to recognizing national languages… The article also blames Anwar Ibrahim, the ex-DPM who had an affinity for backsides, for the change when he was education minister, back in 1986. How timely. If this is for national unity, I’m all for it. I then see the value in ms_MY. Translate away to Bahasa Malaysia!

Technorati Tags: ms_MY, localization, bahasa malaysia, bahasa melayu, malay, language, national language, malaysia

I have deeply started liking to use my Jabra BT20V Buletooth headset, as its just dandy for hands free communication, and it was ridiculously cheap.

However, I have also found out that the device does not pair with multiple devices. So, if you have two Bluetooth capable phones (like I do now, but not when I first wrote that “review”), only one phone can actually be paired to the headset at any given time. This is, rather inconvenient.

A review of the Jabra BT8010 basically states that it can pair with 2 devices, but was buggy (firmware fix helps). But it also costs USD$149!

If anyone has any idea about Bluetooth headsets, please do assist in recommending one. I’m after largely one that will pair with at least 2 devices. If it does more, say 2 mobile phones and 2 computers (I’d ideally like to pair my headset with four devices eventually) and works seamlessly, i.e. it can answer calls from any device (I don’t expect it to make calls), I’m definitely in the market for such a device.

(for reference: bt250v review at dealtime, google says that older headsets had this feature and newer ones don’t – why’d anyone remove such a useful feature? hbh-30 works, but newer headsets suck)

Technorati Tags: bluetooth, jabra, jabra bt250v, nokia, multiple devices, pairing

An Ubuntu-on-my-main-desktop virgin. Or more accurately, Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 on a Dell Inspiron 640m laptop (2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, 2GB RAM, 120GB disk). hermione is no longer a Fedora Core machine, its all Ubuntu now.

Getting The Software
A few weeks ago, I’m pretty sure they offered PowerPC downloads that failed if you tried it for Feisty, but succeeded for Dapper. This week, they’ve cleaned up the download site, and I obviously chose 64-bit AMD and Intel computers (hello, thats what a Core 2 Duo is, right?).

The Ubuntu Download Page

First Impressions
Everything just works. Right out of the box, from the time the Live CD was inserted, to the install process, and the after-install process. It warned me of using Restricted Drivers for my wireless card (ipw3945), and that’s the only real violation I’ve got. Volume control buttons just work, as do brightness control.

After installation however, I got a 1024×768 screen, which displayed on 1440×900 looks kind of ugly. Solved easily via: sudo apt-get install 915resolution. Thats it, I didn’t have to do any more magic, beyond that.

Suspend/resume work just fine. The external display works (so far, I’ve only just used mirrored mode but there’s no reason to think stretching the desktop will not work – how GNOME copes is another matter).

Applications
I like that Firefox 2 is shipped by default. My configuration moved from Firefox 1.5 with no apparent problems. Ubuntu however has decided to disable the backspace key for going back in the history, which seemed to be quite annoying. This is apparently an upstream bug, however for tracking purposes its #60995. This is easily fix-able by opening a browser window, entering about:config and in the search bar looking for browser.backspace_action. Change the value from 1, to 0, and all will be well. Read more about browser.backspace_action if you’d like.

I think the mirror selection based on your country for apt is actually the most sensible solution, as opposed to yum’s mirrorlist. Why? Because contacting various mirrors is silly, some stop working, some don’t feed you correctly, and so forth. Worse, you might get assigned to a bogged down mirror. Ironically, au.archive.ubuntu.com is really mirror.optus.net (i.e. really fast for me) – yum has never once picked this for me automatically.

Playing DVDs? Need MP3 support so the Rhythmbox playlists load up? Their Restricted Formats page on the wiki is amazing. I never expect support out of the box (I wonder why some people rant that Ubuntu is evil as it ships these things by default) but I do expect support to be relatively easy to get. Go Medibuntu (this is the Livna of Ubuntu).

Thoughts For Improvement
Definitely, the migration assistant shouldn’t only attempt to migrate you from Windows. Its much easier doing a migration from /home/username on an existing Linux or Unix install. Sure, its probably not the mass market doing migrations from one distribution to another, but I see it as quite possible that more and more folk move to Ubuntu for ease of use, and the “just works” mentality.

A personal preference is that I don’t like the Human theme. The color scheme seems to be all wrong. Clearlooks is much nicer on the eyes, and I’ve found a Flickr photo that I took to be more interesting on my background (first time I’ve used the image, might I add). Fedora’s backgrounds are really, so much nicer. Canonical is hiring a UI Developer.

Note: This was supposed to be posted a couple of weeks back… It for some reason sat in my ScribeFire (formerly Performancing) notes pile.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, linux, feisty fawn, migration, ui, medibuntu