So, a couple of weeks ago, I reflashed my Nokia n800 because something had gone terribly wrong: it seemed that the power saving features no longer worked. I would have the machine plugged in to the outlet, screen locked and the machine set to offline mode – neither of which, to Nokia’s credit, should grant significant power savings – and then, after unplugging it and leaving it in such a state would hear the dreaded low power notice play but a few hours later. Since I have made significant changes to my n800, I assumed that this was the result of some obscure switch I flipped in a conf file in an all-too-small vim session. Accepting the fact that tracking down the cause of the problem would take longer than the total system wipe – and that I had been intending to rebuild my system at some point anyway – I took the coward’s approach and reflashed. And all was good.Until a few days ago.

The power drain returned.

This time, I had a newly rebuilt system with nigh complete Hebrew support and all the applications i wanted. Reflashing, though an option, was no longer acceptable. This time the behavior was limited to an effect of the software installed over a few prior days and thus, more easily debugged. To make a long enough story somewhat shorter, the cause of my problems turned out to be the Autoscan package.

Let me be clear – these are my problems – the package is clearly marked as arm, not armel, marked as for the 770, not the n800. The developers did no wrong.

Still, the package manager installed just fine, and it provided functionality I wanted. However, it was also creating a server which constantly ran network traffic, irrespective of the status of the client software or network connection. From this, I have learned two lessons which I hope will be of use to someone else facing four hour battery lifespans on the n800:

1. The differences in 770 and n800 software can be significant. Just because a package installs and runs does not mean happiness will ensue. The power management differences are more important than I considered.
2. The value of a good, ps-like, Hildonized task list/manager cannot be underestimated. Load Applet is my choice these days. My choice prior to reflashing displayed Hildon apps only; had I known about the Autoscan daemon I could have saved myself hours of reinstalls and reconfiguring.

Took my Technician class amateur radio test yesterday at Columbia. I easily passed. Thus, I also made a mistake. The Technician exam is currently far easier (arguably too easy) than the test I planned to take a year or two ago. Frankly, I spent a day studying the regulation question pool and was ready – but for a little more time, I could have done the General exam. In the end, I suppose, it does not matter, as I will just take General+Extra in a month or two.

Now I just wait for the license to appear on ULS.
Now to figure out what radio to buy in the meantime….

I’ve been religiously googleling “N800 skype” for two weeks now. I shouldn’t have bothered – I fired up tableteer on my N800 looking for the free Earthlink setup (not available in NYC, sadly) and it suggested an update to 2007.26-8 – with Skype, Flash 9 support, and (mainstream) SDHC support. Go and get it!

Still in Florida.

I’m trying my first serious post on my N800. I did bring my notebook along with me, and frankly, while the N800 can function in its stead -it is not quite to be recommended. See, like everything else, on the internet, there are producers and consumers. To wit, there are devices to match. Despite the fact that as Linux based “Internet tablet” the N800 has definite geek appeal, the Nokia is more browser than creator. For example – and an annoying one at that – the ability to cut and paste is slow at best and finicky (or even impossible) at worst.

So, at least for blogging, simple text posts like this are fairly easy, as long as you have an external keyboard. In fact, I’m finishing this post on the thing at the airport terminal in Fort Lauderdale. As for the rest, well, the N800 has come in dammned handy many times on this trip – particularly with maemo mapper – just make sure you have downloaded the maps you’ll need in advance. I have a (solar assisted) bluetooth GPS coming next week. If that works, and I can find a useable protective case, I may have found the ultimate* urban exploration tool.

*ultimate until the next model with WiMAX and municipal WiMAX deployment, of course. A better camera would be nice too.

New Notebook From ASUS Called “Eee” PC Uses Solid-State Drive. Nice that they announced it on my birthday (yes, I’m blogging this late). This is just what I have been looking for.

In addition to the N800, of course.  God I need Wimax – or the ability to inject packets on the N800.

Back the Eee 701. The one thing thats bugs me is the 3 hour battery life. WTF? It’s a what, 7″ screen? Flash hard drive? Where he hell is all that power going? Or did they just skimp on the battery? When =>3lb. notebooks can have 8+ hour real performance – with larger screens and real, mechanical, magnetic hard drives, something is very wrong with a very short 3 hour battery life. Maybe there will be an over priced battery option with more cells?

I can hope. Still, I treat notebooks as portable desktops and only use them around outlets – cause you never know when you’ll *really* need that battery – so the battery life isn’t a deal breaker. And prices of $200 to $300 are quite the opposite.

From our field correspondent, via his Nokia N800. I got my WordPress client working; Rob’s got Gizmo and is working on binding his Wiimote. More to come as soon as I learn to type quicker on this thing.

Goodbye PalmOS… though I never particularly loved thee.

The Newton was cool and visionary – despite the hype, a rarity for Apple. The Psion took your handheld apps only approach and did it oh so much better.  The Portfolio (I had one!) and the LX series brought smiles to geeks faces. And the Zaurus (SL series) is a nice try, particularly the Japan-only models (Plus, they use dog breeds for internal names, including the Tosa, the baddest dog on the face of the Earth.  No Shiba yet).

But the PalmOS was designed to be elegantly simple and useable.  That’s not really what people want in a $300+ handheld computer – people actually do want a variety of functions.  And it’s why Windows Mobile – which isn’t horrible – won out.

A rare excellent FA from /. : The Space Review: The dozen space weapons myths.

Its value is not strictly limited to the topic at hand or the expertise of the writer, rather, it illuminates common stupidities of the conspiratorial types, particularly the more anti-American.

I came across this company, OHARARP LLC, while checking the hackaday RSS feed. They have some neat products, but I bet they could be done far cheaper at home.  Besides, if you are the kind of person who wants a Nixie clock, buying one preassembled – and for the hardercore, out of existing schematics – is probably out of the question.

A rare excellent FA from /. : The Space Review: The dozen space weapons myths.

Its value is not strictly limited to the topic at hand or the expertise of the writer, rather, it illuminates common stupidities of the conspiratorial types, particularly the more anti-American.