Replacing my Greenphone November 14, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : computers, work , add a commentSo I’ve had a Greenphone for what seems like ages now and while it’s nice, it’s got problems that are starting to really piss me off.
1) Battery life is crap. I can’t trust it to last 2 days anymore. I think this is mostly because of the TAT table debacle (where following the published instructions to upgrade to the GPL-compliant bootloader blows away the ADC calibration data, causing the battery to be overcharged). We figured out a way to calibrate the ADC and write this to the TAT table (along with the Bluetooth MAC address) but despite this, my phone still can’t last 2 days if I take any calls.
2) It doesn’t always wake up for alarms. It’s not Qtopia that’s a fault here but atd or something in the hardware. If I wake up the device manually the alarm goes off but I’ve had a number of near misses because of this and that’s just not acceptable. TT no loner cares about the Greenphone (well, we all still use them to test Qtopia on but we have no more hardware for sale) and hardware issues haven’t been something we’ve been particularly good at fixing, mostly because we’re missing big chunks of kernel source (stupid binary-only kernel modules) and we have no specs for most of the hardware.
3) No PIM sync. I hacked something together to get Qtopia Desktop 2.2 (holding the data left after my A300 died) talking to Qtopia 4.1 but due to a variety of reasons I never got this to complete a 2-way sync. I’ve now got changes to the data in Qtopia Desktop 2.2 and Qtopia 4.1 with no way to sync them together. Not even Qtopia 4.3 (which finally features Qtopia Desktop, now called Qtopia Sync Agent) helps here because I don’t use Windows or Outlook (and that’s the only thing our customers care about so it’s the only thing that was given priority).
Bree asked for a “blueberry” the other day. She meant “blackberry” but more specifically meant PDA-like functionality with PIM sync. To my chagrin her cheap Nokia (series 40) has a good-enough calendar and is now setup for one-click sync to iCal via Bluetooth. It gives her what she wanted and highlights for me just how much I’ve been missing since my A300 died.
So what are my options?
A Neo? Ha! The Neo is the most ugly and unusable phone I’ve ever seen. No buttons, a screen you can’t use your finger on and no slot for a stylus. What were they thinking? For the money it costs to get a Neo I could just get an iPhone.
I briefly used a Motorola ROKR E2 before I got my Greenphone. It runs a Qt/E 2.x based system so getting Qtopia running on it should be relatively easy. It might even have decent PIM apps but I’m not really interested in wrestling my data into whatever format it requires because it’s not my phone (it just happens to sit on my desk because nobody else wants it). I think the ROKR can sync to iCal so it might be a useful way to get my data home. I never bothered doing that in the past because Qtopia 1/2 has a serious bug with it’s “unique” ID generation, no checking for duplicate “unique IDs” and disastrous results if multiple “unique IDs” end up in your dataset (ie. don’t sync with more than one desktop/pda combo).
A while ago now, someone got Linux running on the Treo 650. There are screenshots floating around showing Opie (a fork of Qtopia based on the GPL releases) running on it. I’d really rather the Centro (because I’m not a fan of “big” devices) but it’s CDMA only and since Palm hasn’t actually managed to release a Linux-based device yet, support for newer hardware requires people willing to hack on them and it looks like support for anything other than the 650 is spotty at best. If I’m going to pick up a Treo for Linux development, the 650 is what it needs to be. Oh yeah, and while I’m busy fixing up any problems with Linux and getting Qtopia running there’s my old friend PalmOS to use. Unless you are really keen and install a new bootloader, Linux on a Treo is started from a PalmOS app (like loadlin which loaded Linux from DOS) and runs from an SD card. That means I can quickly and easily switch between environments, kind of like Boot Camp on my Mac.
Since my hard disk is dead, I’ve had to postpone my Treo purchase. I’ve already lost half a dozen or so auctions on eBay but I’ve seen how cheap they can go so I’m prepared to wait for demand to reduce. Strangely, it seems that used Treos go for around $180 while new ones (that aren’t “buy it now” only) go for around $200. I expected the difference to be bigger.
Buying a Treo means I won’t be getting an iPhone but then I only wanted one so I’d have hackability and PIM sync. The iPhone would require an expensive data plan while the Treo can use the cheap plan I’m currently on.
Fixing the missing task manager icon February 19, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : computers, work , add a commentSo I’ve been using XP Home SP2 at work with the Classic theme (since it’s much more suited to a work environment. I’ve had this problem on and off where the task manager fails to put it’s icon in the system tray. I found a Google Groups thread that highlights the problem as well as Microsoft’s inability to recognize the problem. Note to companies: Make sure your frontline support people don’t insult the intelligence of your customers!
Today I installed some crap that Microsoft forced on me (don’t you just love automatic updates?). Of course, this required a reboot and that’s when the problems started. What had previously been an intermittent problem was now a permanent issue. It seems nothing I could do would get the icon to come back. I tried some freeware app but it’s icon was a bit too different to me and it couldn’t catch Ctrl+Alt+Del so it wasn’t quite as nice as I’d hoped for.
Then I found the real solution, which is to replace task manager with Sysinternals Process Explorer. It can catch Ctrl+Alt+Del (how the heck does it do that?!?). It’s tray icon always works and has CPU load history too.
IE 7 blows January 29, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : site, work , add a commentI’ve finally started using my Windows machine at work against so I’ve upgraded to IE 7. I must say that it blows. You can enable a menu bar but it goes _underneath_ the location bar. Oh hang on… you can disable it with a registry tweak. Better but the UI is still ugly (it positively jars when used with the “Classic” style) and I had to go through all the options to make sure it wasn’t doing evil things behind my back (like tracking my surfing via the “anti-phishing filter”).
I’d prefer to turn off the search bar but at least I can make it use Google. Firefox lets me turn it off. Safari doesn’t. A hack lets me at least fix Safari to use google.com.au instead of google.com (stupid Apple!).
Now I’m stuck with two useful buttons (home and RSS) waaaay over to the right while everything else is over to the left.
At least it doesn’t bork on the layout and Javascript stuff I’ve got on my blog.
Update 30 January 2007
It seems that someone over at Microsoft thinks explorer windows looking at a mounted share should have the same privileges as a web page. This means that (amongst other things) double clicking a .zip file gives me a warning. If I increase the security of the Internet zone, I can’t even open the same file. How crap!!!
This site has information about how to enable the Intranet zone and how to use that to make everything sane again. The only thing I can add is that when you map a network path to a drive letter, the “UNC” checkbox isn’t enough and you also need to enable the first one.
I’m just glad I was actually able to fix this without causing IE7 to whine at me (Your connection isn’t safe!). I don’t think I can say enough how full of shit the decision to link Internet Explorer and explorer was. Why the hell should an upgrade (and a _mandatory_ one at that) to a web browser change the experience I get when exploring my “local” filesystems?
Recent events December 15, 2006
Posted by a1291762 in : emily, isaac, work , add a commentUgh. It’s so hard to keep this blog up to date when there’s things happening all the time.
Recently we went to Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. We’re not really into that sort of thing but it was ok for free :) Emily and Isaac fed the dolphins with us but not really. It rained so they were both cold and tired. Isaac probably faired better with the actual feeding because he couldn’t tell there was a big, scary animal just there. Emily was excited until we hit the water, when she held on to me like crazy. Once we were out of the water she was excited again.
Emily and I went and saw the Wiggles on Monday. We had crap seats so next time we’ll be ready (they’re coming back twice next year apparently). Despite being far away, it was still ok and the atmosphere was better than you get from a TV. I was a bit disappointed because the show was called “Racing to the Rainbow” yet it had only 2 songs from the DVD in it. We went and bought the DVD so Emily would know all the songs! Sam, the new yellow wiggle was fine. I was worried that he’d sound heaps different from Greg but it’s not very noticeable. It was interesting to see the strange things that happened as a result of being live. Whoever was in the henry suit was being silly, making up words that Anthony had trouble repeating. Emily asked for a balloon and I told her she could have one afterwards. They were $10! I can’t imagine what the rest of the merchandise cost.
Trolltech is moving two buildings down the road tomorrow. Today was mostly spent packing things into boxes. The plan is to be back up and running by 10am on Monday so some of us are meeting for breakfast at the cafe around the corner.
My SL-A300 has died. The battery got flat and just stopped holding a charge. I’ve spent the last few days trying to get my other Zaurus (SL-5000D) running. I always thought it used RAM for storage but it’s got 10MB user flash. I think the problem is the same that I discovered one day on the A300, where a flat battery causes the device to think you’ve done a hard reset. I came up with a solution for that on the A300 that should transfer to the 5000D just fine. I’m not quite there yet but it shouldn’t be too much longer before I can have my calendar back. I thought about trying to get my data on to a Greenphone but I don’t have a reliable backup for that yet and my phone is being used by someone else (their phone had an old modem firmware that can’t handle Qtopia 4.2).
Update 15 December 2006
I found not one but two spiders at my dad’s house last night. Luckily people were there to kill them for me :)