Yoda van

Sierra wireless Aircard860 at&t 3g

Iphone Speed Results

Heck, while I am at it, here's the info for the Iphone 3g:

3G:

Download: 680 kbps
Upload: 355 kbps
Ping: 455 ms

Edge:

Download: 54 kbps
Upload: 51 kbps
Ping: 3123 ms

Home Wifi:

Download: 6306 kbps
Upload: 7405 kbps
Ping: 100 ms

Fios Installed

I think the numbers speak for themselves.

Yourls FIXED

.htaccess file did not scp to server; once that was scp'd any new url's work - so delete any url's made before the .htaccess file was there.  Or better yet, make sure .htaccess file is there before you start.

Iphone, new Van PC, URL shortener, and FIOS ordered.

Well, after all the escapades with my Treo 650, it has finally bitten the dust. Please bow your head in a moment of silence. Of course, I had just purchased a new sim card and 3 new aluminum

cases for it! But alas, too many random reboots, so time to get a new phone. 

My carrier, At&t doesn't currently carry anything that I really wanted. First choice, an android option; no go. Second choice, Palm Pre; again no go. I had to go with the Iphone. Refurbished, $49.00, not bad at all. I have purchased the apps I need, mocha VNC, and iSSH program, really not that bad. Sync via Exchange to ONE of my Google Apps Domains; mail, calendar, and contacts. Everything else I need I can access via the web connection. So far, pretty nice device.

And I jammed the Iphone into the Treo aluminum case; fits real well, just have to pop the phone a little out of the case to use camera.

My mobile setup has been a little shakey, the Toshiba A75 Laptop that I use seems to draw a lot of current. It has been hacked with a devil tail, an external ac adapter plug, because of the bad connection on the motherboard, but it kicks my 400 watt inverter off. This has become troublesome because I need the laptop to work always in the van - so I have switched the mobile laptop to my Dell 6000. During the switch, I noticed that the cigarette lighter adapter plug to the inverter had melted a little.  No problem; I have a spare 200 watt inverter - that works fine with the Dell. More on this whole situation as things develop - need to get new power wire for the 400 watt and find out why the Toshiba is drawing so much current.

During my daily review of Lifehacker, I saw this cool article:

 Make Your Own URL Shortening Service

Got it all setup on my Dreamhost account - gave it a whirl - seems to work.  Only problem; the shortened url doesn't resolve. DOH! More work to do.

I have been very happy with my internet provider, Cavalier.  A static ip, not too expensive, and not Comcast. My speeds are not the greatest, and with all the internet access in the house, it's starting to show.  Verizon FIOS ordered, will be installed Thursday.

That's all for now - more to come.

Treo Sync Revisited

Ok, I am one of the last people who gripe about Linux. Seriously, I get infuriated when people come to Linux and give no effort to learn a NEW OS. Yes people, this is a different OS. It is NOT free Windows. If the masses, or at least 7 to 9% of them, would give Linux the same amount of learning time as they give to Apple, I am sure we would have an awesome market share. End of that rant.

Now to my gripe. My gripe is not really Linux, although I initially blamed Linux. Heck, that is the easiest thing to do; right? I have been syncing my Treo 650 with Linux successfully, on and off, for about a year now. I use a usb cable, and sync to both Jpilot and Evolution (via gpilotd).

Friday night, as I prepared to sync my phone, I went through my routine; open a terminal window and issue: tail -f /var/log/messages, so I can see my device get recognized and watch it get assigned. Open Jpilot and get ready to hit the Hotsync button after I initiate the Hotsync on the phone. When you initiate the Hotsync on the phone is when the device gets assigned. Hit Hotsync on the phone....nada. Nothing happens. Do this repeatedly, rinse, repeat. Nothing. WTF. Why can't things just work. Especially the stuff I have already had to hack together, that we then fixed, and no longer have to duct tape together.

When I started playing this sync game I had to write custom udev rules to make Treo get recognized, then the developers fixed that. Yay!

Then you had to have the right device, by watching the /var/log/messages so the apps, (Jpilot and pilotd) knew where to gather the info from. It could be /dev/ttyUSB1 or 3 or 5, depending on how incessantly fast I hit the hotsync button on phone. Device assigned in pairs, the latter is the one that communicates with apps; so assigned 0 and 1, 2 and 3, and so on.

Then the developers fixed that, so by setting the device in the apps as usb: it would communicate with the last assigned of the last pair. NICE. I guess many of us were clicking like lunatics, a practice I also deplore in others.

See, I have a little history with this nonsense. But, right about now, I just want it to work. Friday night it wouldn't work.

I look at my usb connector for the phone; many little pins, maybe a bad connection. Alcohol and cotton ball and clean the contacts on the bottom of the phone. No go. Clean more. Nope. Jiggle the connector. Hold connector to phone applying pressure up, down, left, right. More alcohol (same cotton ball, only had one). It connected. GREAT.

It dropped the connection.

That's it. I am done. No more physical (usb cable) hotsyncs. Time to get bluetooth working. Really working. Completely. Hotsync and all.

Previously, because someone else had questions about bluetooth, (which is usually how and why I get hacking stuff) I got bluetooth file sharing to work. Files from computer, and files to computer. Never tried to get hotsync working. Now it was imperative.

Coming next; Sync with bluetooth and bluetooth file sharing. Stay tuned.

Thinkpad A21m - Jaunty - Window Managers/DE's

This Saturday Project was the IBM Thinkpad A21m:

model name : Pentium III (Coppermine)
cpu MHz : 700.000

Mem: 121520

I think that this machine should be able to handle Ubuntu Jaunty, so I give that a whirl.

Unfortunately, Gnome Desktop environment put too much of a strain on it, so once again, it's time to find the best Window Manager/Desktop Environment for this particular machine.

The Players:
1) Gnome Desktop
2) Xubuntu Desktop (whole meta package)
3) xlde
4) Fluxbox
5) Openbox
6) E16 (Enlightenment)

The install was a full-blown Ubuntu Jaunty install. After the Gnome failure, I added Xubuntu-desktop, xlde, fluxbox, openbox, and e16. I then removed the ubuntu-desktop.

*Note* I chose to start with the full install to create a machine that was as end-user friendly as possible. I have in the past used the 'CLI only' install via the F6 install disk boot option. This CLI only option is fine for me, but again, for the typical end-user it may not be complete enough.

The Jaunty boot time is a very respectable ONE minute and 5 seconds.

Now to the Window Managers. A quick chart to show from login manager to complete window manager readiness:

Gnome (Ubuntu) 2 minutes 50 seconds
Xfce (Xubuntu) 2 minutes 20 seconds
Xlde 25 seconds
Fluxbox 24 seconds
Openbox 5 seconds
E16 5 seconds

The responsiveness of the above window managers seems to be directly proportional to their load times.

I do realize that xlde is an Openbox derivative, but that 20 extra seconds adds configuration that I feel may be relevant to the typical end-user; desktop icons, panel with launchers, etc.

I again, would probably use e16, although, openbox has me interested as well. But for the purpose of this machine's build,the typical end-user; the choice is xlde.

Application preferences so far:

File Manager: Thunar over Pcmanfm
Web Browser: Epiphany over Firefox