New phone choosen!

As I reported earlier, I gave up on the SonyEricsson M600i, due to the problem of sync that phone with MacOSX. For a while I have looked around, and hesitated, but it turns out the best solution right now is something unspeakable...

My choice is: HTC TyTN. Allthough that phone uses the winblows mobile 5 operating system, it seems to be the best smartphone around that both have WiFi, qwerty keyboard, and possible to sync with Mac. To sync it, I have purchased missing sync from Mark/Space, it works quite well. It was some issues with connecting TyTN and the Mac on bluetooth, but once up it is a ok combination.

Maybe I care to give a more thorough review of the features of TyTN and how it pairs up with the Mac later on, but for now I just want to say that I can sync appointments, contacts, and I can mount the phones' storage as a drive. That I can both use skype and IM clients on the phone is of course a plus :-)

Take care,

Updated entry on my Unix commands in Norwegain page

For a long time, I have not made any updates to my page at http://home.simula.no/~aasmundo/unix, where I describe various tips and tricks for linux/unix users, in norwegian. Today, I looked up something for my own use, and created an entry on ssh tunnels. The entry goes like this:

Ssh tunnel

Av og til har man behov for å kunne koble seg til en maskin som befinner seg
bak en brannmur på en eller annen måte. For eksempel kan du tenke deg at du har
satt opp en linux maskin for noen som ikke er så kjempeflinke i linux, og de
ønsker å ha den stående hjemme, hengende på en adsl-forbindelse og gjerne
NAT'et bak en trådløs router. Hvordan kan man løse en slik utfordring? En fin
mulighet er å sette opp en ssh-tunnel fra maskin til en annen maskin som du
alltid kan nå. En slik tunnel kan settes opp med følgende kommando:

ssh -f -N -R *:20022:localhost:22 -lbrukernavn maskin.fastip.net

Opsjonene har følgende betydning:


-f: Tving ssh til å kjøre i bakgrunn.


-N: ssh skal ikke starte noen spesiell kommando på maskinen man kobler
til. Uten denne opsjonen vil et shell bli forsøkt startet.


-R: angir tunnel fra annen maskin. Alle maskiner (*) som forsøker å koble
seg til maskinen vi kobler oss til, på port 20022, vil bli sendt videre til
denne maskinen (localhost) på port 22, der ssh som regel kjører.


-l: angir brukernavn vi vil benytte for å koble oss til


Endelig oppgis maskinen med fast ip som vi vil koble oss til.
For å ta vare på sikkerheten er det nok lurt å definere en
spesiell bruker for formålet, og passord/passphrase må håndteres på en
passende måte. Det er også en del utfordringer med å holde forbindelsen oppe.
Dersom adsl-systemet får en dynamisk adresse (som er bakgrunnen for hele denne
løsningen), vil tunnellen måtte restartes dersom adsl-systemet får en ny
adresse. Man er selvfølgelig også avhengig av å ha tilgang til en maskin med
fast ip.

By the way...

If someone has some suggestions regarding my previous post on new smartphone, I welcome comments!

Time to move on

A few months ago, I bought the Sony Ericsson M600i smartphone. Initially, I had a few problems with it but most of thoses error was fixed with a firmware upgrade.

One thing remains, though: Synchronization with Mac OS X or Linux. This is really important for me. I like the keyboard of the M600i, I enjoy the screen and the multitasking capabilities. But I _need_ sync. So much that I have now returned to my older Z800i phone. That phone lack most of the capabilities, but I can sync it using iSync.

I have waited through two minor upgrade of OSX (4.6 - 4.8), but the M600i is still not supported. And from what I can see, Sony Ericsson will not fixed the problem eiterh.

So it is time to move on. Someone (windows user...) need a new smartphone?

take care,

Ubuntu under Parallels

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg! If you do that, inside a running ubuntu in full-screen, under Parallels, you can enable full resolution. So, on my 17" MacBook Pro I now have 1680x1050 resolution.

Really slick :-)

Just a quick follow up on yesterdays post

I wrote 'I'm not sure I like turbogears' in my previous post. Right now I don't remember why I wrote that. I have django up and running, and are doing some tests with it. But as I don't remember what I did not like with turbogears, I have decided to test that one as well. 

So that's what I do tonight.

Python and Ajax.

From time to time I need to implement some webstuff, where "need" may be as in work or as in "want to", related to private stuff. With all the buzz around Ajax, I guess everything I do in this respect should be "Ajaxified". In addition, I don't want to use PHP anymore, that's so stone age. Python is the rule these days. That leaves me with the question: how to use Python to make "Ajaxified" websites?

There are several python tools for creating webstuff out there, some of the main players are:
     * Django
     * Turbogears
     * Plone/zope
     * 
I guess there are many more, but which of them have Ajax tools? Django does not really, Turbogears uses MochiKit but I'm not sure I like Turbogears. I don't want to use Plone/zope. We use that in my company (Plone that is), and it is great for large corporate websites, but I don't want that for small sites created more or less for fun. And what about Ajax.

As you understand, I am searching. And this is a buzz compliant post. If I end up with something, I will probably make a post about it here.

Take care!

Still no support for M600i on MacOSX

Ok, folks - I am just polling on this. Still, there does not seems to be any support for m600i in iSync, no 3rd part vendor, nothing. I guess I have to switch to another phone. If not GCalSync (http://www.gcalsync.com) can make it. That will be a sync directly to the google calendar, but that's just fine with me as my main calendar is there anyway.

Take care, folks.

The new Apple MacPro

So, the new MacPro with dual core Intel Xeon processors is released. No doubt, its a kewl machine. 

I just want to  give a few of my own toughts after having heard the keynote deliverd by Jobs and his coworkers at WWDC'06 today. 

First, regarding performance the only comparison we saw was against Opteron was a performance per watt. I don't doubt that this is an interesting comparison for lots of people, but it also leave us with the tought that the new MacPro is not the fastest computer around.

Next, the standard graphics adapter delivered is a Nvidia 7300 card. Come on, Apple, you could have done better than that. Of course, there are other cards available as upgrades/built to order and keeping the price down on the standard configuration is really important to spread Mac to even more users. But you could have put at least a 7600 card into the box. 

Besides this, the only thing that is wrong with the new MacPro is that I have to get rid of my PowerMac dual G5.

Take care. 

M600i as a modem

First, I was not able to use my M600i as a modem from my MacBook. Then my colleague discovered some scripts made by Ross Barkman, available from http://www.taniwha.org.uk/. By using the CID1 script from that page, I can now use the M600i as a modem on 3G (UMTS) and GPRS networks. 

Great work by Ross, and my colleague Martin who discovered them!

Me from an airport near or far, through M600i. 

That was the summer!

Tomorrow I have to get back to work again. So, summer 2006 is history. Or maybe not completely, it is still nice and warm in Norway, and I plan for another week of vacation later in august - hopefully I can go swim in the fjords a bit more then. 

As I am back to work, there will be updates of the blog from time to time. And WWDC is comming up the next week, and I will be there, so expect some comments on that! 

Update on M600i

I have now used the Sony Ericsson M600i for a few days, and want to
give a status update. I think what's going on is that I adapt my
habits to the equipment, and therefore the equipment start feeling
better over time. So also with the M600i.

Initially, I had some problems with the built in Opera 8.60 browser,
it crashed on me a few times and things like that. Now, I think it
functions quite well. Probably because I visit pages that I know
works. Still, there are no pages that I need to visit regularly that
does not work, so it is probably ok for general use.

As for email reading, there seems to be something funny going on in
the network I am using. I tried a whole lot of different settings for
both imap for my regular mail accont, as well as pop from my gmail
account without any success. Then I tried pop against an account I
created with the Ventelo, the provider of the cellphone subscription,
and alas, then it works. Maybe the block pop and imap traffic? At
least something strange is going on. Anyway, as soon as I got things
right with my provider, I can send and receive email on the phone. It
is quite comfortable both to read and write messages as well.

So, in general I am quite happy with the M600i, but I still need to
figure out stuff. Maybe I write down a more complete review later on
(but don't hold your breath, it may never happen!)

Take care, and have a nice summer :-)

It took some time!

Finally, after a maybe 6 or 7 years wait, I can finally suspend/
resume my laptop!

What I am saying? Ok, this story need some background. Again, those
who are reading this blog on a regular basis, knows that I have quite
a few computers. I am talking laptop running linux this time.
According to an article at linux.com: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?
sid=06/05/24/1716222, it should be possible to suspend/resume a linux
laptop with only ACPI bios, as long as a recent kernel is used. This
is something I searched for for years, but eventually gave in and
installed software suspend (and later switched to MacOSX). But I
still have the small FSC P1510D, which only supports ACPI, no APM.

To make the story short, I grabbed the script from the article,
checked that I had the necessary commands available on my system, and
gave it a try. And guess what, it works quite nice.

The strange thing is that recent distribution, like Debian unstable
which I am running, does not come with a thing like this preinstalled
and integrated. These days, all it should take really is to shut the
screen down and put the laptop in your bag. But, hey, we're approaching!

To be fair, this could have been supported on my laptop for a few
months, I have not upgraded my kernel that recently. I discovered
this now due to the mentioned article. But it is true that I have
tested this in the past (of my 5 last laptops all but one have
supported ACPI only) without any sucess. It's essential stuff like
this which make people switch to MacOSX. But as I am not putting in
any effort to help the development of Linux in this direction, I
can't really blame anyone - that's the nice and bad thing about open
source!

Take care in the summer folks - Norway is getting really hot these days!

OS X upgrade and M600i

For a small moment, we kept our breath, as we installed the update to Mac OS X, v. 10.4.7. Eagerly, we started up iSync to check whether support for our new cool phone was added - the Sony Ericsson M600i.

But, no. Not this time. On to something else. Maybe the M600i must rest in the drawer until either Apple or Sony Ericsson releases some updated software.

Take care!

Amobil :: Telenor tester super-3G

Amobil :: Telenor tester super-3G

Yet another option for decent net connectivity not to far into the wilderness... (The rest of this goes in norwegian, as I link an article in norwegian).

Som en oppfølger til 3G løsningen basert på NMT-450 som jeg kommenterte for noen dager siden, skriver Amobil idag at Telenor har satt igang tester med HSDPA, en utvidelse av 3G (UMTS) teknologien. Jeg vet lite om dette, men går utifra at det dreier seg mer eller mindre enn software som man kjører oppå den eksisterende infrastrukturen, kanskje på samme måte som EDGE i GPRS. Det skulle i såfall tilsi at rekkevidden på HSDPA blir tilsvarende rekkevidden i 3G; ikke fantastisk, men ikke helt ille heller. Og mer interessant, så langt ut i ødemarken som jeg holder til til daglig, er det ikke usannsynlig at 3G støtten snart er ok (det er av og til 3G dekning i dag, litt avhengig av atmosfæriske forhold virker det som).

Så, hva snakker vi om? HSDPA skal kunne gi 3.6Mbps, altså langt bedre enn de 1.2Mbps'ene som ADSL leverandørene klarer å pushe på linjene ut til meg idag. Vi får vel regne med at dette også er en asynkron tjeneste, men det er sikkert mulig å få noen hundre Kbps den "andre" veien. Dermed skulle HSDPA være en bedre løsning enn det som kan tilbys av ADSL idag.

Alt dette er selvsagt helt i det blå, siden Telenor ikke har sagt noen ting om om og i såfall når noe slikt kan bli lansert for sluttbrukere. De skal selvsagt melke kua maks først, sånn de har gjort hele veien, fra før ISDN tiden. Og jeg lever sikkert godt med crappy ADSL fra Bluecom en stund til jeg - helt til flere i familien blir aktive surfere og skal dele båndbredden med meg. Det blir ihvertfall spennende å se hva som blir første teknologi som gir noe mer enn 1.2Mbps ut i villmarken.

Bondehilsen fra ødemarken Follo!

take care,

Don't buy M600i if you're a MacOSX user!

Today, I received a brand new cellphone, Sony Ericsson M600i. It's a business oriented phone, which should be strong on messaging and keepting track of appointments and the like. It also comes with an RSS reader, which is quite cool, and decent Web (Opera) and email software.

Unfortunately, there is no support for this phone in iSync on MacOSX (10.4.6). Hopefully such support appear in the near future, but for now I will advice you MacOSX users out there to avoid this phone.

Also, the software in the phone seems to be a bit buggy. While I was doing some experiments with the webbrowser it seg.faulted a couple of times. Among other places, I tried to visite calendar.google.com, which wasn't especially sucessfull. Compared to other SonyEricsson mobiles I owned in the past, this one also seems to operate quite slow; this may be to buggy and bloated new software. So, stay away from this one for a while and wait for software updates, both in the phone and on MacOSX. The idea with this phone is so great, so hopefully it wouldn't last to long before we see the necessary updates. I'll report on this later on (if what I need ever appears, before I move on to something better :-)

Take care!

digi.no - Snart får Norge sitt tredje mobilnett

digi.no - Snart får Norge sitt tredje mobilnett

Kanskje det endelig er en mulighet til å få noe mer enn 1.2Mbps ut på bondelandet! Bor man litt lengre enn et par kilometer fra nærmeste adsl sentral i dette landet, er det jo umulig å få noe særlig hastighet på ADSL. Og all utvikling (ADSL2+ osv) dreier seg om å få stadig raskere linjer, på bekostning av linjelengden. Det er fint å se at noen forsøker å få til noe annet av og til - bedre dekning i grisgrendte strøk.

Det hører med til historien at jeg bor rett øst for Oslo, i Ås kommune, så man skal ikke så veldig langt ut på landet før problemene dukker opp!

Take care,

The Macbook Pro has arrived

Hey folks, 

just a quick note to let you know that I am now playing with a brand new Macbook Pro with 17" screen. Pretty unusual stuff for me; the largest screen on any laptop I have used in the past was 14", and I thought that one was actually a bit to big. So this is huge...

Anyway, I'll let you know more about the setup and how it works later on. 

In other news, the oldest niece of mine, my older sisters oldest child, turned 18 yesterday. It's actually quite odd - it's a new generation coming up and we are soon the oldtimers. Old the best to you, Trude, and God Bless; may you have many, many, many great years.

Take care,

Confused about my recent posts?

You are with good reason. Somehow, a draft I thought was accidentally was deleted from the server actually showed up as published today. So there you are, two different versions of more or less the same post; written with a few days in between and with the content recreated from memory because the original post was lost (but wasn't anyway...)

Now, I'll read both posts my self and compare ;-)

Take care!

Me and my computers

For those faithful readers of the blog, you know that I currently use an AMD64 computer at work, running Ubuntu linux, and small FSC P1510 laptop running unstable debian and an dual G5 PowerMac at home.

It's time for updates! Allthough I used to be a strict Linux person, over the later months I start liking MacOSX quite well, and even though my home computer is a dualboot (MacOSX and Ubuntu linux), I tend to prefer running Mac on it for different reasons. In addition to that, more people in our company start running apple computers, so the sysadmin folks need to update their knowledge.

Fast forward - I have ordered a 17" Macbook pro, it should appear hopefully this week. I will probably not install linux on it at all, at least that's the plan right now... I'll report on who the machine feels for me anyway, later on.

As that's a quite big portable computer, I will need something smaller. But the difference between the P1510 and the Macbook is probably not big enough to justify keeping both. Therefore, I will probably try to get my hands on the new Sony UX (check out UX at sonystyle).

As this is not easy to get hold of in Norway, I'll probably try to pick up one when I'm in San Francisco in august.

Take care