New mobile in da house - Nokia N97 (small review)

Ok, finally I got this new mobile. Waited some months after my mobile provider told me that they will not sell this specific HTC mobile which I would have converted to a Debian mobile phone device. Darn. But back to the topic.

OUTSIDE:
Looks nice - although I wonder how I shall carry that device in my pocket without accidently sliding it open or scratch the surface with keys or coins. Fingerprints? It has a lock key/slider on the side (learned from Sony Ericsson?). The vibra-feedback is sometimes very slow. Also the menu behaves like syrup. The internet browser it not state of the art. Not thoroughly tested, though.

INSIDE:
Sliding it open reveals the keyboard. Why did they put the space key on the right? Why did they put the "point" key "under" the "M"? Pressing the blue arrow before pressing the point key is... pointless. Why did they put the shift key on the left? In general the keyboard is too small to be fully useable. It is only useful for a quick write. Useability? Anyone thought about it?

JOYSTICK:
The joystick works but it is too small for my big thumb. I always end up pressing the middle key instead of up and down.

DISPLAY:
The display looks nice. Some nice gadgets preinstalled like weather forecast and Facebook. Very sad that the facebook app is not working. Whenever I enter my credentials it tells my that some error occured in an undefined funtion. Very bad.

OVI STORE:
I deleted that facebook app from the phone and tried to reinstall it from the OVI store (for free - registration necessary). Could not find it there while I was surfing with the phone. Then I tried it from my computer - thinking I could download it from the web and reinstall it with the cable or bluetooth. Found it. No download to PC possible - you can only send a link to your phone via SMS. Convinient? Sort of - I thought. Then I got the link on the phone and tried to open it. Link is broken. Darn. How do I get my Facebook app back?!?

BRANDING:
I have the bad feeling that my phone is branded over and over with my mobile provider settings. Updated firmware once every 6 months until they scrap the support after a year. Need to find a way to unbrand it. In the right corner of the display (softkey) it says "my vodafone". Not tried to get rid of it, though.

PC SYNC:
I sync with Lotus Notes 8.02 - It was a pain in the ass to fully sync with my calendar and contacts. Lotus Notes always crashed. When I used bluetooth it also left open the bluetooth connection so that I had to cancel the bluetooth connection manually and restart the sync. In the end I used the USB cable. After starting the sync I always got a "file not found" error (obviously coming from the names.nsf file. I ignored that and after a couple of syncs it finally found the file. Very strange. Why does it always work with Outlook?

CAMERA / GADGETS:
Faster than the N95. Better than the one whose "name is not allowed to be spoken out"
Has a built-in FM transmitter. Attach it to your FM radio to hear your MP3s. The N97 is capable of using VoIP. No client found yet. Reminds me of the desaster with the Sony Ericsson 990i where you had no chance to get a VoIP client. Need to check that out.

FINAL:
So - this is the official successor of the Communicator series? Sorry Nokia - you did a bad job. This is not a business phone. This is a consumer product - made for the masses. I am special. I am a geek. What about a preinstalled SSH client? A VNC client? A VPN client? Not in your OVI store. Bad.

I would not recommend this phone. Maybe I will give it back to the vendor.

T2 Cross-Compiling

Ok,

mal wieder etwas gelernt. T2 kann man nicht vernünftig in einem OpenVZ Host installieren resp. darin eine Cross Kompilierung durchführen.

Resistance is futile

So, I just assimilated another hardware device. I managed to get a wireless Hauppauge media mvp up and running. It is quite nice - it provides live television, replayTV, Weather, MP3, MPEG2, etc. etc. Of course it runs Linux and it boots from a Linux machine. It needs a DHCP server and a TFTP server (not necessarily on the same machine, a hardware DHCP router is fine). Nasty thing is that the TFTP server needs to listen on port 16869 AND 69. Then it requests the file "dongle.bin.ver" - "dongle.bin" and finally (over port 69) the file "dongle.bin.config". THEN it boots just fine and provides a nice GUI for entertainment.

ICH HASSE HP

HP war einmal toll. LaserJet II, 4, 6p, DesignJet 650C haben jahrelang bei uns in der Firma gute Dienste geleistet. Leider sind die Consumer Produkte der letzte SCHROTT.

Untereinander inkompatible Netzteile
Für jeden Drucker eine neue Farbpatronenart
Kaputte Druckertreiber die einem JEDEN SCHEISS installieren (Super-Boni-Software, Last-Minute-Angebot, etc. etc) -- ICH WILL NUR DRUCKEN UND NICHT DIESEN MÜLL!!!
Jetzt gerade wieder bei einem Deskjet 5940 - Ich will NUR den Druckertreiber. 50MB GROSS? Wie bitte? Da ist wieder Produktivitätssoftware drin.. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHGGGG!!!!

Der nächste Drucker wird etwas GANZ ANDERES!

A small reference for open-mesh

show_network - list available networks in reach
update - fetch settings from open-mesh server
upgrade - fetch the latest beta kernel from open-mesh

0p3nm35h - Open-mesh default password

My open-mesh network

Oh yeah! - You return from a 14 day trip to spain, check your mails and all of a sudden you realize that all of your open-mesh nodes are down. What a mess!

After visiting the open-mesh site I found nothing. On the main italian developer forum I finally found this link: http://www.open-mesh.com/activekb/questions/19/Recovering+from+the+August+31+Crash

Mike - Shit happens. But you should put a more prominent link on your homepage linking to your excuse. People do not trust you if you hide your mistakes / errors.

Just my opinion.

Pilgern

Mist - so ein Frank Dierkes kann einem das ganze Pilgern versauen. Da möchte man mit einer Kiepe auf Pilgerschaft gehen und dann kommt er an und sagt einem das das völliger Quatsch ist. VERDAMMT. Ja, er hat natürlich recht. Das Ding scheuert. Es staut die Wärme am Rücken. Man schwitzt wie Sau. Alternative ? Pilgerrolle! Habe mich irgendwie zu sehr darauf versteift mit einer Kiepe zu gehen. Dachte, ich brauche unbedingt einen altmodischen Rucksack. Danke - Frank. Ich bin noch lernfähig. Also werde ich die Kiepe vergessen und noch ein Stück authentischer pilgern.