One nice thing about the LG CU500 Phone is that BitPim (an application that works on Linux as well as windows) will allow you to edit it's file-system easily. This makes it relatively easy to modify some of the bad things that Cingular has done to the phone.
By default, Cingular locks the phone down so that unsigned Java Apps are forced to ask for Internet access on every single URL they load. Needless to say, this is very annoying when using a network based application such as Google maps.
How to place a Motorola HS 850 bluetooth headset into paring mode:
The headset is now in pairing mode, and you can search for it using your phone. When it asks for a PIN, use 0000.
While transcribing, I wanted to use a Sony FS-85 foot control unit to pause and rewind the audio while I typed.
When plugged into linux it appears as a keyboard and gives various key-press codes when you hit the left or right petal. (The right side gives F10 when you press down, F11 when you release, etc). I was able to make this control Mplayer by adding a ~/.mplayer/input.conf file with the following lines in it:
The Li-Ion battery in my IBM Thinkpad X31 laptop has been getting a bit long in the tooth. Rated at a 4.4 AH capacity new, /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info told me that it was only holding 1.8 AH now that it was a few years old. (This is normal for Li-Ion batteries, which degrade over time, even without multiple charge-discharge cycles.)
A brand new IBM (or Lenovo now) battery costs over a hundred dollars, but by shopping around I was able to find a "compatible" battery for as low as $50. It was only rated at 4.4AH, but that is relatively close to the 2nd generation 4.8AH batteries that IBM/Lenovo sell for twice as much. I started to wonder if it might be cheaper to buy OEM li-ion cells and simply replace the cells (keeping the case, and charge/discharge electronics). The first step would be to determine what type of Li-Ion cells I'd need to buy, so I decided to open up my old battery.
If you have an encrypted partition in Mandriva 2007, by default on boot-up the system gives you only 5 seconds to say you want to mount it on boot-up, which can be very easy to miss. If you edit the /etc/sysconfig/autofsck file to change the AUTOFSCK_CRYPTO_TIMEOUT= variable to something longer (such as 45) it will give you plenty of time.
find /net/hc287/summetj/research/dist1 -name "Root"
-exec perl -pi.bak -e's/summetj\@flux.cc.gatech.edu:/summetj\@wilks1.cc.gatech.edu:/g' {} \;
The above command line will find all files named "Root" recursively under the /net/hc287/summetj/research/dist1 direcotry and execute perl to replace the string "summetj\@flux.cc.gatech.edu:" with the string "summetj\@wilks1.cc.gatech.edu:" It also keeps a backup of all the changed files as Root.bak, just in case….
The {} is replaced by the find command with the name of the file, while the \; tells find's -exec command where the program arguments end. The @ signs are escaped by \'s. This is useful if you need to search and replace a string in many files in a directory tree to update some settings, for example, if the CVSROOT machine has been changed from flux to wilks1 and you don't want to do a full new checkout of 45MB over a slow link.
While exploring alternate energy sources, I decided to try generating electricity by using the latent heat (or lack thereof) in Dry Ice, or solid CO2. The most direct (and solid state) way to generate electricity from a temperature differential is a peltier junction, which a 12V car cooler/heater unit happens to have. The pre-built cooler is also nice as it has a large aluminum bucket in the bottom to act as a heat sync for the dry ice, and a large heat-sink on the air side as well. (The mounting system for the peltier & heat-sink is very critical, so it was nice to find one pre-built.)
The Samsung Blackjack is a nice piece of hardware. The screen is beautiful, it is well proportioned and fits well in my hand, the scroll-wheel makes it easy to select from menus, and it's thin enough to be carried in a hip pocket despite the factthat it's wider than most phones. The camera is adequate for a cell phone, and the speaker is plenty loud. The phone actually has two speakers,one in the ear-piece, and one on the back that is used to play audio from everything that isn't a phone call (movies, mp3, speaker-phone). The only downside to this is that people behind your phone get better (and louder) sounds than you do, which may be good for sharing music, but isn't as appreciated when you're watching a movie in public. As with every other 3G device I've played with (namely the LG CU500) a standard Bluetooth headset works for call audio only, and will NOT play mono-only sound from the movie/mp3 player. See my rant on 3G phones and why I hate this.
I have tried out two 3G phones that work on the Cingular Network, the LG CU500 (a flip phone) and the Samsung SGH-i607 (a.k.a. Blackjack) Windows Mobile smart-phone. Both devices support the A2DP Bluetooth profile, for connecting stereo Bluetooth headphones to listen to stereo audio in movies and music, but… Continue reading
The key to teathering your linux laptop to your Cingular Blackjack phone is enabling the Bluetooth DUN profile on the blackjack. Although it shows up by default, it won't work unless you are running the Internet Sharing application. (Which, Cingular has hidden from you, yay carriers!) Continue reading