Experimenting with flickr

It's so silent here, I need to experiement!

Ubuntu on Fujitsu Siemens ST5112

Dear folks,

I haven't been a busy blogger lately. The reason is mostly that I do not have much time left for blogging, but a reason may also be that there isn't that much to write about either.

I know that some of the readers of this page might expect some qtpfsgui news, as I more or less promised to look into some bugs. Unfortunately, there haven't been any time left for that this summer. I am a family man, you know. So, no qtpfsgui hacking this summer (and not much of photography either unfortunately). And the fall looks quite busy, so I won't make any promises.

What I can say a few words about, though, is the new computer I got this week. It's a tablet I'm testing out as a notetaking device for meetings and stuff like that - a Fujistu Siemens ST5112. Actually, this is the second device of this kind I have put my hands on this summer. The other is the Sahara i440D from Tabletkiosk - a capable device in itself, but not much to write about here as I left windows running on it, because another more windows friendly colleague was supposed to test it too. From a design point of view, however, the Sahara is a likeable computer!

I have spent a few hours today with the ST5112 installing Ubuntu. Or actually, I did a basic Ubuntu installation yesterday, and used the night to do the necessary apt-get upgrade; the amount of security and otherwise updates on 8.04 is rather long. Today, I have tweaked settings to adapt to the tablet environment. As the ST5112 does not have a keyboard at all I must be able to do most things without one. I have installed the xvkbd package which gives an onscreen keyboard that can be used when absolutely necessary, but I really like to avoid it for most things. But I am getting lost in details here. The important information is:

• X work almost out of the box. Had to add the RandRRotation (True) in order to make rotation with xrandr work.
• Screen rotation works (now), and I tweaked a script I found online that make the mouse recalibrate to the rotated screen
• Wacom pen input works out of the box, as soon as setserial and wacom stuff was installed. Had to add the wacom lines manually in xorg.conf, though.
• Wifi works out of the box
• Suspend/resume work out of the box. I set the option that stores and resumes the VGA but I don't know whether it was absolutely necessary.
• Bluetooth keyboard and mouse works just fine, but must be configured manually by running hciscan/hidd and edit the hcid.conf file.
• Even most of the hotkeys on one side of the ST5112 works out of the box, like page up/down, scroll buttongs, and hotkey for starting the email program.
• The only thing that don't work so far is sound. I have read enough on the net to avoid start thinkering with it; it will probably need some attention...

Bottom line is that I think I can use Ubuntu on this one. I still have to do some scripting in order to move my meeting notes taken with Xournal (probably) over to Evernote, but that is just fun! As Evernote don't have a linux version yet, I must move the notes over using email.

The end is: If you are looking for a tablet pc that works with Linux, the ST5112 from Fujitsu Siemens can easily be your answer.

The major drawback? Only 1024x768 resolution on the screen. But I have to work with it a few days before I make a finale conclusion on that. Maybe it is ok for the intended use!

Take care folks.

And if you like, follow me on twitter.com/mandus; that's where most of my netprecense is now.

Ubuntu 8.04 on Oqo O2

Hmm,

I was pretty sure I wrote something on Ubuntu 8.04 on the Oqo, but I can't find it right now.

Short story: Use the alternate cd to install - everything is smooth. Or you can of course upgrade from and older version of Ubuntu.

Sad things: Wireless network doesn't work (but bluetooth do). And the wacom pen-input is still a joke, with unbearable amount of vectoring. And I can't get sound to work either. And you will still need a special modeline for Xorg (the same as in older versions of Ubuntu, the modeline is available here on the blog somewhere).

Bottom-line - the Oqo O2 with Ubuntu 8.04 is just a brick. Sorry to say so, but look elsewhere for a great, small, linux device. Of course I should have been positive, raving about all the things that do work. But for me wifi is crucial on such a small device, and so is sound. And the pen is the main reason I bought it in the first place.

Take care!

Qtpfsgui 1.9.2 for Mac

Hi folks,

I have uploaded a qtpfsgui v.1.9.2 binary on sourceforge now. I did this rather quick this morning, so I hope I got the steps right.

Just comment if there are any issues!

Take care!

Testing a new device

Sure, I know I am late on this one as the device has been on the market for months. I am testing the Nokia E90, mostly as a better replacement for HTC TyTN II which I have tried in the past and my boss use now.

So far, I am really happy with the performance of the E90. The web browser included is so goos that I even write this post on the phone. The E61i was good, but this one is even better!

A more complete report will follow.

Take care!

Modified Qtpfsgui 1.9.1 is up

I think I have corrected the issues with the first OSX version of qtpfsgui 1.9.1. There is a new disk image at sourceforge now, please go grab it and create some nice images :)

Take care

Apology: align_image_stack and qtpfsgui

Hi folks,

I am so sorry, but I managed to put the wrong align_image_stack binary into the disk image for qtpfsgui v. 1.9.1. I have a working binary on my computer (but obviously I had more than one...). The version in there now will crach and burn.

I will create a new disk image as soon as I can, hopefully today. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Take care

Qtpfsgui 1.9.1 is out!

Hi folks,

I managed to build the 1.9.1 a bit quicker than the 1.9.0 :) Hopefully, the problems with align_image_stack is resolved with this version, I haven't had the time yet to test it myself. User-experiences are welcome!

Take care.

Qtpfsgui 1.9.0 update

Just a short notice - there was a minor problem with the first 1.9.0 dmg I uploaded to sourceforge. A library that is not included on either Tiger or Leopard (as far as i know) by Apple, was dynamically linked into the app. I have now uploaded a new dmg where the libintl library (which was the problem) is statically linked into the qtpfsgui app.

Hope this fix some problems! Userreports are welcome, as always.

Take care.

Qtpfsgui 1.9.0 for Mac

I have managed to sort out most of the issues with Qtpfsgui 1.9.0 on Mac, and have uploaded a diskimage to sourceforge.

Please note:

• This version of qtpfsgui is not universal, you have to use an intel-based Mac.
  
• You should get the latest Qt from trolltech, at least if you run into problems
• I had some issues when testing autoalign features in the binary. I'm thankful for user-reports!

So, go ahead over to sourceforge, and grab the new qtpfsgui, and tell me what it can do for you!

Take care.

MacVim binary for Leopard

Some time ago, I build a binary of MacVim for Leopard, as I couldn't find one online. I suggested that I could make it available online if someone is in the need, but didn't got any requests until now.

As I now got a request, my build of MacVim is available! The version of vim in this build is 7.1.156. So far, that's good enough for me. If I upgrade later on, I'll provide a new diskimage! The binary was build on a MacBook Pro running Leopard. I have not made any attempt making a universal binary, so dependent on how the default build of MacVim is set up, it may or may not work on a powerpc.

If you find it useful, feel free to drop me a comment!

Take care,

Qtpfsgui news!

Hi folks! I have some good news for those of you who awaits the 1.9.0 release of Qtpfsgui for Mac OSX. For a long time I have had problems compiling the dependencies as I have moved to Leopard. Today, I finally got everything running, and will put a diskimage of the app on sourceforge quite soon. I just have to clean up a few things (dcraw and auto align stuff).

There is one caveat, though. I had to let my aim of doing a universal build go. For some reason, I am not able to compile the exiv2 library as a universal binary, which make it impossible for me to create a universal qtpfsgui. So if there still are PPC folks out there, you have to look elsewhere for a qtpfsgui. As I have very little time for this project right now, it might take a while before I look into the universal exiv2 again.

Take care!

Update on Nokia N82

This will be a short post! I said I was impressed with the performance of the N82 after just a few days use. I am still impressed. It's the best phone I ever had, hands down. It's that "just works" feeling. It almost never go in deep freeze (I can't remember now if it actually have happend at all?). Even the GPS works fine. I have used it for navigation a few times, and it helped me to get where I needed to be.

Is it perfect? No, there is no such thing! The only thing I don't like is the keyboard. It is not comfortable to type on. The result is that I rarely write more than a few words at a time. A long email is out of question, at least it has to be extremely urgent. Most of the time I have the Oqo at hand to deal with such situations.

I have seen complaints about battery life on this device, but I don't think it's a big deal. The device is very powerful, so it consumes energy in big chunks. Still, I get it to last a couple of days, even more if I have to. I think this is what we have to expect.

For me, the N82 and the E61i combined will be the perfect device right now. Or an iPhone with similar specs. Let's dream on.

If someone wonder what happend to the TyTN II, I can tell you it died just a few days after I handed it our to my boss. Suddenly, the keys - all of them - stopped working.
It's in for repair, but it doesn't look good for HTC.

Take care, folks!