Here's how it lays out in the case. I had to cut the clear plastic LED reflector to make room, so it doesn't show the power LED any more.

I soldered right to the back of the existing mini-USB jack. I removed the back of the housing to get access. BTW, this picture is missing the usb d- connection. It goes right between the other two wires.

Fully operational ultrahub.

I have my interim slides for reference. Someone please tell me where to find a better looking master page for openoffice! :)

#!/bin/sh
DISPLAY=192.168.0.202:0 xhost || ssh root@192.168.0.202 DISPLAY=:0 xhost +
DISPLAY=192.168.0.202:0 x11vnc -noshm -scale 0.75 -q -bg
xvncviewer localhost:5900

If you can see this, you have successfully installed the Debian package of Pyblosxom!

Your journal entries should be kept as .txt files in /var/www/pyblosxom. This entry is called welcome.txt; you may safely delete it.

To configure Pyblosxom, edit /etc/pyblosxom/config.py.

I really like Inaky's writeup on the trip. He is working on wireless USB and also met with the bluez team before the conference to work out userspace stuff with WUSB.

I really hope to be there again next year. I will have to get busy with a project that they would like to hear about. :)

First, I did start to write up the plan.

But of course it's fun to just talk about the trip...

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I appreciated the truth in advertising offered by this book cover.

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Daylight doesn't seem that much shorter than I'm used to but you can sense the difference in the intensity... this shot was caught in the late afternoon.

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The Nokia Research Center is pretty close to downtown Helsinki and it's where we met and where the Maemo developers work.

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Marcel is leading a discussion of where things should be headed.

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Here I am demonstrating how great the hotel furniture is at making you feel at home... especially if you just walked out of a Jetson's cartoon.

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A shot from the top floor of the Kiasma modern art museum. I was surprised to see how much construction work is being done in Helsinki.

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The view from the hotel; there's a spot off to the left where I kept seeing cruise ships docked. As one of the Nokia guys pointed out, it's strange with all the places a cruise ship could be going that they would choose Helsinki with Winter creeping in.

I'll be updating the project page and wiki with the results of the meeting. I think we have some solid ideas and direction. Many thanks to Nokia.

I have it all yet I'm still curious about that pepper pad.

I should shoot this again with the bluetooth keyboard I got for my Nokia.

• Dialup networking works as expected (you must add $15 tether plan on top of pda data plan)
• This palm will run the UTA schedules application
• There's a chance it will run Softick's A2DP Gateway ("SAG")
• The phone does not crash often (the i730, my last PDA phone, crashed regularly)
• Bluetooth data rates are *much* better than under PocketPC
• Dialup networking is *much* more reliable than under PocketPC
  (connection does not randomly drop)
• The general feeling when using it is that it is a smartphone, not a pda with phone functions tacked on (again, a ppc problem)

Of course there are downsides and I should mention them to be fair:

• The data rates seem to be slower than when using my old e815 (typically 350kbps, not the 500kbps the e815 delivered)
• The battery life on the 700p is not great
• PalmOS is weaker as an app platform; its GPS offerings look anemic compared to the PPC apps for example

WM5 does fix the whole problem of battery-dying-erases-memory (and don't forget pda-crashes-kills-battery-erases-memory) but that's just about the only notable improvement among a whole lot of drawbacks.

I'm specifically talking about going from a Dell Axim x50 to an x51. The story is slightly different from vendor to vendor.

Things I've lost in this upgrade:

• A2DP stereo bluetooth audio (I'll admit it was a hack on the x50)
• Embedded visual basic (my public transit app won't run on the x51)
• Bluetooth network profile (can't use bluetooth access point now)
• Bluetooth mono headset profile (no more wireless voip)
• Activesync over TCP/IP

The x50 is already long gone or I'd attempt a downgrade...

Ok... one more gripe and I'll move on. Exchange sync would be perfect on the Axim if only there was a checkbox for "private" appointments. Doing planning through my ppc is pretty lame when I have to remember to log on with outlook to make things private on my shared calendar.

PDF version of my slides

The gps is able to keep a fix but the accuracy is not nearly as good when walking around other buildings like target. They must put more materials into their construction.

I was surprised to see how good the receivers have gotten. It's definitely a good sign.

Same slides -> [in PDF]

PDF version of my slides

The board itself is very cool. It has 64MB ram, 4MB flash, bluetooth and an MMC slot (that can accept some sd cards). When powered up, it searches for and connects to my bluetooth access point. Then I can ssh to it and work on things there.

Gumstix is different from most other outfits embedding arm processors for a couple of reasons:

• Their hardware is made to run linux and they make good use of Erik Andersen's buildroot
• There is no development kit to buy--other vendors charge $1k to $3k for the priviledge to develop for their boards

It's all great fun and is an excellent platform to work out embedded issues :)

I am very proud of a hack I came up with to add wifi to an older IBM laptop. TECH CORPS received several T20 laptops so it seems like a worthwhile effort since it will make these machines more useful to educators. Check it out.

Oh, and if you can spare a 2.5" hard drive, consider donating one since this is the other missing link :)

Denial

Maybe they really don't need this feature ● Maybe myuen will be rewritten before they need this feature

Anger

I can't believe it uses a hashtable for storing everything ● This is just a perl CGI jammed into Java

Bargaining

I will rewrite all of myuen for you if you don't make me do this ● You wouldn't like it if I quit my job now, would you?

Depression

That guy who washes the windows has it better than I do ● Isn't it time to go home yet?

Acceptance

I do like the look of this application ● I think a hashtable would be a good place to store my data

You'd think it would be all smiles around my place in playing with the new toy but there was a lot of frustration and dismay. I'll lay out my grievances here, thank you.

• The huge scrollbars and bland ui make it feel like a trip back to the days of Windows 3.11, just in miniature form.
• I struggled for quite a while trying to make a couple of bluetooth network connections and eventually discovered there are two or three places you have to set things (and you have to revisit to make sure old attempts aren't hanging around) in order to get things going smoothly. I really should elaborate but I've lost the patience.
• The experience just doesn't seem polished. To switch between applications, you are supposed to go find a little utility that stays on the top bar and lets you switch around. What a headslapper. If you need this thing, it should just be part of the experience, not behaving like an addon from some nondescript third-party developer.

On the Apple side, I found out that Apple doesn't *fully* support all bluetooth adapters. It will only connect to a bluetooth headset using the internal adapter or the Dlink usb adapter, and only after the firmware is updated using their utility. Otherwise, you'll get the message "failed to set up the headset. Headsets are not supported on your Bluetooth hardware."

That's good to know and I can use voice-quality stuff now but no high-quality stereo. Someone needs to take what we've started on with bluetooth-alsa and make it available as an audio device in OSX. :)

• There is a perceptible delay in audio. Don't plan to watch video if lipsync problems annoy you. I hope the delay is mostly in the encoder and wouldn't be present with a computer sending directly... if it could...
• I can't find an OS that can send stereo audio directly to the headset. This is a big part of the reason I wanted bluetooth.
• The Class 1 adapter that I tried on my computer didn't result in any improvement in range. Does the headset also need to be Class 1?

• PocketPC HX4700, even though it is the latest and greatest iPaq and sports bluetooth 1.2, does not support A2DP. It will only make a voice-quality connection. Same with Windows XP sp2.
• MacOS: I made the headset discoverable, it appears in the OSX browse list. I select it and click 'browse' and after entering the pin 0000, it produces an error something like "The device does not provide the required services." Using 10.3.5 on a Powerbook with builtin bluetooth. I've heard that the OS and bluetooth firmware may need a tweak.
• Linux: using bluetooth-alsa, I can send and receive mono audio. There are no drivers yet that can use A2DP for stereo/hifi audio.

I was able to use the bluetooth headset today for the first time through linux. I was able to talk on a VoIP call through kphone. Woohoo. What fixed it was one or more of...

• Fixing modules.conf with cards_limit=2
• Using the 2.6.7 kernel patch instead of the alsa-standalone patch
• Fixing alsasound script startup (it was never starting)

• I would like to run multiple headsets at once. I don't think the driver can handle multiple instances though.
• If I receive a call, if it's not already running, I have to quickly start up btsco to fire up the connection to my headset
• Some flakiness -- audio has been dropped a couple of times using this Jabra. One time the bluetooth mouse connection started acting up and no mouse clicks would register until I restarted X.
• I can disconnect a call using the button on my headset but I can't open the connection to the audio driver or to kphone by using the button.
• I can disconnect from the audio driver using the headset button but kphone does not know the call should probably be ended. (Writes to the audio device may block but that is its only indication something is happening)
• After I open the connection by pushing the button, I want voice-activated dialing. (well I can dream can't I?) This kind of stuff might be available through something like asterisk.
• Kphone insists that esd is shut down before it will work (I wish I could tell esd not to touch the second alsa adapter or get a voip client to work with esd)

Taken at the MiniZoo at the Mirage in LV.

What I don't really mention is that I can use data applications on the NGage too, like instant messenger and occasional web browsing.

I can't wait to see a faster option. But I won't go back to a PCMCIA card or give up Linux compatibility, so it's got to still use bluetooth. Sprint and Verizon are afraid of bluetooth so it may not be available very soon.

I have been occasionally using an old Zoom webcam (cpia-based) that produces about 3 frames/sec and video that is quite awful to look at. I was intrigued by the possibility of computer control of pan and tilt and bought the Logitech Quickcam Orbit today to use with the pwc driver.

I noticed the brightness was not autoadjusting. Sounds like running "camstream" might kick it into shape.

Probably the most disappointing thing is it looks like an application like gnomemeeting has to release the video device before I can use setpwc to control the pan/tilt. I suppose the real solution is to have gnomemeeting issue the appropriate ioctl's but that's a big job. Aren't you supposed to be able to watch the video as you adjust what the camera is looking at? (sigh)

(Update) I wrote a simple perl app to pan the camera... I also patched setpwc and camstream so it could be used on a camera that camstream had open. The camera sometimes forgets where it is and loses some of its range of motion. I added the flag -W to setpwc so it will pause after sending the move command before returning. It seems to help with the camera losing its place. The whole thing is a bit of a hack, but here it is:

• Perl/Tk panner application
• camstream patch to use my panner
• setpwc patches

I wish I had known about OrbitView which has pan/tilt control and live video in one app. I haven't tried it yet.

Another interesting option is the trackercam/trackerpod which is just a motorized harness that another camera is placed in. It has linux drivers too.

Dlink sells a couple of network cameras from about $330 - $450 that have pan/tilt and even wireless lan (model dcs5300w) at the high end.

My new machine is an M200. I like it a lot. It's very nice to use on the bus especially.

I wrote up [putting Linux on an M200] since it was such an ordeal. I won't be going to Windows any time soon but I will have to deal with rebooting more often than with Linux on my old Inspiron 7500. Hopefully the ACPI stuff will be improved soon.