2

Importing contacts from Nokia E71 to HTC Desire

Posted by ionut
at August 8, 2010

In my previous post I was asking which phone I should buy: Desire, Nexus or iPhone. Finally I decided to go with HTC Desire and for my wife I bought Desire’s little brother HTC Wildfire :) .

Desire_Blog

After playing about 4-5 days with Desire, I can say that it is an amazing phone, I love it.

First thing which I did was to install some applications on it, which I use frequently: ConnectBot (ssh client), AndFTP (ftp client), Dropbox, Evernote, AK Notepad, ColorNote, Compas, Color Flashlight, iReader, KeePassDroid and Yahoo Messenger. You can find all of them using Android Market.

The second thing was to import the contacts from Nokia E71 onto Desire, Here is how I did it:

  1. turn Bluetooth on both devices and pair them
  2. Nokia: Contacts -> Options -> Mark/Unmark -> Mark All
  3. Nokia: Options -> Send -> Send Business Card
  4. Desire: Accept the incoming file: the icon will appear at the top of the screen
  5. Desire: wait a little bit, and after that choose “Import All Contacts”
  6. Done

I think that method should work with different phones.

SmartPhone
10

New photos and smartphone recommendation

Posted by ionut
at July 27, 2010

Long time without posting on my blog, so, I think is time to update it a little bit :) . Yes, I am still here, but very, very busy with my work, attending to conferences and visiting different places. I just uploaded on Flickr some recent photos from my last trips (Lake Garda, Verona, Salzburg, Tirol, Traverse City, Michigan, Urbana-Champaign, El Escorial, Madrid):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vioan/sets/

I am thinking to change/replace two devices: Nokia E71 and the iPod Touch, with just one, a new smartphone and I have in mind: iPhone 4, HTC Desire and Nexus One, but I am still not decided which one to buy. So, I need your help, which one would you choose?

Desire: radio fm and sense ui but not android 2.2 and I am not sure if it will get 2.2 even if HTC said that it will get
Nexus: android 2.2 but not the others mentioned above
iPhone: 180-200 Euro more than the other two, and of course not all what I can have on the other two

BTW, openSUSE 11.3 is great, but you already know that :)

Apple/OS X, General, SmartPhone
5

iPad – a nice device, but, not for me

Posted by ionut
at January 28, 2010

I was expected to run MacOS and not iPhoneOS.

so, it is a HUGE iPhone without phone part.

I prefer to carry with me my macbook pro (13″), or a cheap netbook, which I can use it for everything and I can do what I want on it.

Uncategorized
8

Opera 10.10 vs Firefox 3.6

Posted by ionut
at January 27, 2010

The screenshot says everything … (the same number of tabs)

firefox_opera

click on image for a large version

Uncategorized
2

Fixing Lighttpd in Debian “squeeze” on SheevaPlug

Posted by ionut
at January 23, 2010

I was using SheevaPlug as my Home NAS, with and external usb hdd, until recently when I built my new NAS, based on ION ATOM, FreeBSD and ZFS.

I am thinking to add an usb webcam and to use it as a monitoring system.

I updated Debian “squeeze”, which is running on an 8G SDHC card, but I got the error:

After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up lighttpd (1.4.25-2) …
Starting web server: lighttpd2010-01-22 23:13:31: (network.c.345) can’t bind to port: :: 80 Address already in use
failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript lighttpd, action “start” failed.
dpkg: error processing lighttpd (–configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
lighttpd
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
sheeva:/home/ionut#

I didn’t have anything running and listening on port 80, so, it seems that it is a known bug, http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=564556 and the solution is here:

Add in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

server.use-ipv6 = “enable”

And add in /etc/sysctl.d/bindv6only.conf:

“net.ipv6.bindv6only = 0“

Linux
6

My ZFS Home NAS/HTPC Box Build

Posted by ionut
at January 19, 2010

I was looking to build a NAS (Network Attached Storage) to store all my music, photos, files, e-books and important work related files. I also wanted to have a central place for my backups and to be used sometimes as HTPC. So, a “two in one” solution (NAS and HTPC).

Even if there are many ready-to-go NAS solutions I decided to build myself one and having the HTPC on the same machine. Here is mainly what I wanted:

My NAS/HTPC specs are here:

home_server1es34069

I choosed FreeBSD as operating system, because I am more familiar with it than with Solaris. I recompiled mplayer with vdpau support (for HD video).

Here are the steps:

Some additional steps/configs:

vm.kmem_size_max=”1024M”

vm.kmem_size=”1024M”

vfs.zfs.arc_max=”100M”

Right now, everything is working very well, I am very happy with the setup, but I still didn’t manage to have sound over HDMI, so, a temporary solution will be to connect an additional speaker system to it.

I don’t need any fancy remote control, I have a logitech wifi keyboard/mouse, because I like to be able to read the news in the morning (during cofee time) using google reader

The total power consumption is about 35W idle / 45W load which is pretty good, I think.

*BSD, Apple/OS X, HPC, Linux, OpenSolaris
8

Upgrading from 11.1 to 11.2. Yes, it is about openSUSE :)

Posted by ionut
at November 18, 2009

A few days ago I upgraded openSUSE 11.1 to 11.2 on my sony vaio notebook. I used for that the dvd and I kept my luks encrypted home partition, and as well the encrypted swap partition. It seems that everything is working well, it is a great release with a lot of improvements and nice work.

I still can not use special Fn keys and also I receive a warning message when my encrypted home partition is mounted (after I introduce the passphrase), but not for swap partition. It says something about not finding the module padlock-sha.

I didn’t have too much time to look around to see why, but it seems that as well other people are experiencing the same issue:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=43705
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.bugs.dist/browse_thread/thread/7e2cda1e525f6cf3/c5ee7253a6f92620?lnk=raot&pli=1

Anyway, thanks again for that great release, I am really happy what I see in 11.2.

Linux
0

Yahoo Mail and free IMAP

Posted by ionut
at August 26, 2009

If you are using yahoo mail, like me, then you missed for a long time IMAP access for your inbox. They provide just POP3 access and  I don’t want that. I would like to have/access the messages also via web interface and also to have them on my computer for offline access. So, the solution is Zimbra Desktop and you can use it on Windows, Linux or Mac.

“Zimbra software is open source, meaning we make both the software code and the application itself available to anyone at no charge. Also, Zimbra Desktop is a full version; there are no missing features or catches”

For a complete list of features see this link: http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop_features.html

If you have any issue with it you can find the answer on their wiki.

Here is just a screenshot:

zimbra_desktop

*BSD, Apple/OS X, Linux, MacOS, Vista
2

Hmm, finally, I did it …

Posted by ionut
at August 6, 2009

After playing around with a Mac Pro for more than two years (I have it as my workstation at work, but I preferred to use as main working machine my Sony Vaio SZ, running OpenSUSE), finally, I changed my mind and I’ve now made a decision on my new laptop. I also considered that would be great to take advantage of the ‘Back To School’ offer and to have as well an iPod Touch, to complement my Nokia E71 smart phone. So, 6-7 days ago I ordered online a MacBook Pro 13.3″ with the following specs:

and of course

The laptop is coming with Leopard but I can order Snow Leopard on their website just for about 8 Pounds (http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/uptodate/).

Apple’s tracking information says:

In Transit to Customer – Shipment on Schedule

so, I hope that I will have it tomorrow, right now I’m like a 5 year old boy waiting for his gift.

NEXT POST: my impresions and preparing my new MacBook for Scientific Computing, so, stay tuned …

Apple/OS X
2

OpenSUSE 11.1 and Plesk 9.2.1 update

Posted by ionut
at July 10, 2009

After more than three years of using Suse 9.3 with Plesk 8.1 on one of my VPS, I decided that it is time to update to OpenSUSE 11.1 with Plesk 9.2.1 control panel. The update process went very well, here are the steps involved:

1. create a full backup of your vps (databases, websites, accounts, emails, …). I have used “tar” command for that.
2. in plesk 8.1 control panel, do a complete backup (you need plesk backup module to be installed), or if you prefer the command line you can use the following command:

1

# /usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup all <backup-file>

Since version 9.x, the structure of Parallels Plesk Panel backup has been changed. Plesk backup created with Plesk Backup Manager is not just one file but a number of files and directories under backups directory /var/lib/psa/dumps. So, you will need to convert your backup file created in plesk 8.1 to be compatible with plesk 9.x. It’s a very simple process, see step 3.

3. convert the created backup file to be compatible with plesk 9.x

1

# /usr/local/psa/bin/pre9-backup-convert -v convert -d /var/lib/psa/dumps/ <backup-file>

where /var/lib/psa/dumps/ is backups directory on the server with Parallels Plesk Panel 9

4. restore the backup files to use them with plesk 9.x. It can be done using the web interface, Home -> Backup Manager -> Server Repository, click the backup name to enter the backup details page and select the required restoration options and click Restore to start the restoration process.

If you would like to use command line to restore your domains, clients, server configuration, … then you can use the following command:

1

# /usr/local/psa/bin/pleskrestore --restore /var/lib/psa/dumps/<your backup xml file> -level server -verbose -debug

You can restore only clients or domains, for more options see:

1

# /usr/local/psa/bin/pleskrestore --help

Note: I had a small problem and I found that it is not possible to have a client with the same name as your name in Plesk Admin Profile. Maybe it is stupid, but I had some errors and only after I changed the name in Admin Profile (in Plesk control panel) to be different, I could restore without any problem everything.

I think that’s all what I did, from what I remember. If something is missing I am sure you can find a lot of useful stuff using our friend google.

Other useful stuff:

1. Plesk 9.x support as well postfix, so if you want to change from qmail to postfix, try that:

1

# /usr/local/psa/bin/autoinstaller --select-release-current --install-component postfix

if you are not happy, you can switch back to qmail:

1

# /usr/local/psa/bin/autoinstaller --select-release-current --install-component qmail.

If you are not sure if you are using qmail or postfix there are many ways to find that, one is to look in Plesk Control Panel on the Services management page {Home -> Services Management} if you have SMTP Server (Postfix) or SMTP Server (QMail)

If you decide you want to switch back, simply, do it, the emails are not lost, don’t worry.

2. Replace Horde webmail with AtMail

One of the many new features of Plesk 9, is the option to choose a different webmail client. The default webmail client Horde can be replaced if you are looking for something a bit lighter, AtMail. You need to install from Plesk Control Panel, both webmail clients, and to switch between them:

If you decide you want to switch back, simply reverse the procedure, the emails are not lost, don’t worry.

That’s all.

References:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/5819
http://kb.parallels.com/en/5801
http://kb.parallels.com/en/952
http://kb.parallels.com/en/5969
http://kb.parallels.com/en/5864

*BSD, Linux, Plesk, Security
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