The keyboard and mouse is actually attached to the Ubuntu machine, in other words that’s the “server”.  The XP and Windows 7 machines are “clients”.  One thing to consider with Synergy is that it’s not secure.  It does send everything you type in plain text over the network.  This can be avoided by tunnelling the connection over something like SSH.  Perhaps I’ll cover that later.  Synergy2 isn’t new, it’s been around a very long time.

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel or try to take any limelight from those that have already posted great articles on how to set it up, the best information can be found from the Synergy2 website itself.

What I’m posting about is really how to fix a problem that I’m sure others might have encountered.  Right.. so the problem is this.  As I’ve said, the server is on Ubuntu.  Naturally the “Windows key” on Ubuntu has no natural meaning to the OS, it’s just another key and not mapped to anything out of the box.  The problem I’ve had is that while using Synergy the “Windows Key” didn’t work on the Ubuntu machine even though I’d remapped it to do things, such as Win + T to open a new xterm, Win + R to open the Run Command Dialog (basically making it operate a bit like Windows).   the fix for this was a change in the $HOME/.synergy.ini file on the Ubuntu machine.  The weird thing was that when move the mouse to the XP machine the Windows key did what it should, however on the Windows 7 it wouldn’t work.

Right, so what was the fix?  Here is my .synergy.ini file

section: screens
burma:
scotland:
  meta = super
rambler:
  meta = super
end

section: links
burma:
left = scotland
right = rambler
scotland:
right = burma
left = rambler
rambler:
left = burma
right = scotland
end

section: options
screenSaverSync = true
end

The important lines above are the “meta = super”.  Under Ubuntu the Windows Key is called “meta”.  This tells Synergy when the focus is on the windows machines to map the “meta” key to the “super” key, or in other words the Windows key.  Once that was changed and synergys was restarted all was good again.

I’m posting this for anyone else that might have a problem with the windows key not working under synergy with Linux/Ubuntu/Unix machines and windows machines, but also as a reminder to myself should I forget how I fixed it   I’d been through this exercise about 4 years ago but having rebuilt that machine I couldn’t for the life of me recall how I fixed it .. well, now that I’ve blogged about it I’ll at least have one good place to go and find the answer again  

In July I attended WordCampUK 2009 held in Caerdydd, Cymru (Cardiff, Wales). I was going to blog about this, but having read the huge number of postings by others that attended the event (A decent search), I figured there was nothing more that I could write to equal or better what others had already said. I will say that it was an awesome weekend though! Met loads of great people and even participated in the #Wordhack – Mobile Kubrick Theme project.

In July I also got a new phone, the Nokia N97. While it’s a very slick phone, it’s far from being without faults and bugs. To be completely honest, I’ve not been surprised by this, Nokia has made it a business mission it seems to release stunning devices that were only half thought out and loosely hacked up and released, clearly done late on a Friday afternoon after everyone had been out for a pub lunch lunch earlier in the day. For it’s flag ship phone it’s a pretty piss poor showing. Think I’m being too hard on it? See here “N97 Sucks”, “N97 Bugs”, “N97 is crap”. To contrast this however, “N97 is great”. Over all I really really love the device and it’s huge potential, but that is overshadowed by Nokia’s classic lackadaisical approach to building phones of late.

What else is new… I blogged recently about Lisa losing her first tooth… well it looks like another one is fixing to fall out soon. This is also the bottom one next to the one that fell out last month. Hehe poor kid will have a big hole in her smile for a while I think. There’s no sign yet of the new tooth showing up either.

Holiday’s… not really planned much this summer due the appalling weather we’ve been having this year. Typically British is the common phrase you’ll hear people mention. Loads of rain and grey/black skies. I have however booked a week off in August and we’re hoping to get out and do at least a couple days of camping. I’ve found a place in Suffolk that looks nice. Loads of woods to go walking through and they allow camp fire, which is very rare here. That would be nice for the kids to sit by the fire and we’ll take some marshmallows for them to roast over the fire too. We’ve done that before but it was over the BBQ, lets face it, there’s no competition between marshmallows over a BBQ or a camp fire!.

Not really much else to blog about right now. I’ll close off this posting for the time being. I hope to do more frequent blog postings, but then I’ve said that several times in the past and #failed at it

Ok, it’s not a full location detection as such.. I use my laptop (Ubuntu 9.04) both at home and work, as well as other places.  The problem that I had was related to how SAMBA was configured.  At home I have one workgroup name and at work I want the machine to appear in the company domain.  But also, while out and about in the big bad world I don’t want SAMBA on at all, no need to share anything with anyone.

So, to over come this and correct it at boot time I’ve come up with the simple script below.  The only other thing you need to do is prepare a couple of smb.conf files to suit the locations you’ll be in.   I have 2 smb.conf files, one for HOME and one for WORK.   I run the script from /etc/rc.local so it runs when I should have networking fully up and running. 

Here is the script:

#!/bin/bash

HOME=YOUR_HOME_GW_IP

WORK=YOUR_WORK_GW_IP

GW=`route -n | grep ^0.0.0.0| awk '{print $2}'`

if [ $GW = $WORK ]; then

    #echo "You're at work"

    cp /etc/samba/smb.conf.WORK /etc/samba/smb.conf

    /etc/init.d/samba restart

elif [ $GW = $HOME ]; then

    #echo "You're at home"

    cp /etc/samba/smb.conf.HOME /etc/samba/smb.conf

    /etc/init.d/samba restart

else

    #echo "You're somewhere else"

    /etc/init.d/samba stop

fi

Pretty simple really.  Hope others will find it useful.

Thankfully, Yuki’s dad is here staying with us and he was looking after the kids.. Yuki and I managed to sleep in until nearly 9am, which was nice.  In fact, we managed to sleep in until nearly 10am Friday and Saturday.   I can’t even begin to recall sleeping in that late when vast amounts of alcohol was the direct cause of it.  So can’t really complain much.

Anyhow, the day started with breakfast as usual.. then we sent the kids up stairs with their lao ye (grandfather in Chinese, it’s more specific then that, but trust me, you don’t want me to open that can of worms here and now ).  Yuki and I took to hiding all the stuff for the kids.. candy, chocolate eggs, bunny’s, all sorts of rubbish haha.  Then it was time to unleash the kids..

First, here is a quick tour of the hiding places of all the candy

Here’s a video of the “hunt” under way .. I love Emma’s comment at one point “I’ve got so many…”

Here are a few pics…

You can see all the pics and videos taken today by CLICKING HERE.

Enjoy the pics and videos.  I hope to do more blogging in the future.. I’ve been pretty slack at getting out updates, but life has been full of upheavals that… well… frankly made blogging a chore. 

Besides, I’m booked to attend WordCamp UK in July.  It’s the second year for the event and the first year I’m going … it’s a weekend full of meeting other bloggers, some who do it for a living but most because they enjoy it (I assume anyhow).   With enjoy luck this event will encourage me to blog more, or even just give me loads of ideas to make my blogging better (which frankly wouldn’t take much, I know I suck at blogging).

I’ve been using WordPress now for what.. nearly 3 years I think.. maybe only 2, can’t remember. But I’m dead impressed with it… I’ve been watching all of the WordCamp events around the world and waiting for one to come up here.. I know they had a 2008 one in the UK, however I missed that completely for some reason..

Check out the WordCamp UK website:

http://wiki.wordcampuk.tonyscott.org.uk/Main_Page

And follow them on Twitter too: http://twitter.com/wordcampuk

I hope to meet loads of people there.. sounds like it should be great fun!

#wordcampuk

So, after looking at the script and figuring out how it worked (I’m not PHP coder but I can get by in a pinch), I managed to hack the script to do what I wanted.  The script as provided above only allows for the email address and login name, the 2 required bits of info to create a new account on a WP system.  However, I needed to be able to specify:

• first name
• last name
• password

Another nice thing to have on the import is being able to set the WordPress user role (access level), so I shoved that in as well.  On the plugin page I posted a comment about my updates and a link to the new modified script:

I’d like to submit another modified version of this great script. The changes I’ve made to the script allows for adding first and last names, setting a password and setting the role for the imports. I’m also using the more powerful method of account creation, “wp_insert_user” this allows a lot more in the way of adding nice things to the script and new account.

The import file or manually entered format is:

username|firstname|lastname|password|email|role

All fields except username and email are optional, but all fields must be delimited, ie:

fred|Fred|Rivers|mypassw0rd|fred@rivers.com|Editor
sam|Sam||sam@mypress.com|

Fred has everything assigned while Sam will be emailed his generated password and his role will be set to whatever was selected from the drop down box on the form.

I’d be interested in any comments on my changes. There have been quite a few changes, I suggest a diff of mine and the latest modified one.

My modified version can be found at:

http://www.gammaray-tech.com/scripts/dd-import-users-mod_wp27.txt

I hope people find this useful, I think it’s a function that’s needed by far more people then you might expect.  In my mind, it’s something that should be part of the core code for WordPress.  I can see more modifications coming to this script as my projects progress.  While looking into changes for the script I’ve found other things that would be nice to have at the time of import too…

Watch this space…
Updated script

2009.06.17 @ 2013GMT

Version 1.1.13 – Added user URL to be imported into user details (not the default assigned blog for WPMU)

dd-import-users-mod_wp27_v1.1.13.txt

Note the new format when using this version:

The import file or manually entered format is:

username|firstname|lastname|password|email|role|URL

All fields except username and email are optional, but all fields must be delimited, ie:

fred|Fred|Rivers|mypassw0rd|fred@rivers.com|Editor|http://blah.com
sam|Sam||sam@mypress.com||

Not having any luck at all on the net finding the information I needed to build a cable, I’ve finally broken down and paid £26.00 (including shipping) to buy one.  I’ve wanted a DC cable mostly so that I could a) go camping without the need to have a tent pitch that was powered (extra cost), and b) be able to power my CPAP should we have a prolonged power outage at home (fairly low risk of this, but a risk none the less).

Click on the image below to see the full sized one.  This is a page from the manual that came with my cable.

Basically, should someone have posted something like:

To make your own Respironics Shielded DC Cord, Part number 1001956, you will need the following:

• 1 x 2.1mm (5.5mm outside) X 15mm Coaxial DC plug
  Such as: Maplin’s Part number HH61R (www.maplin.co.uk)
• 2-3m of suitable wire for a max of 7amp DC (depending on your CPAP model)
• 2-4 Clip on Ferrite suppressors, such as Maplin’s part N89AB
• 1 x 12VDC cigarette plug, suitable for upto 7amp DC

The construction of a DIY Respironics CPAP DC Cable, model number 1001956 is quite simple.  Wire up the cigarette plug to the DC plug that will go to the CPAP, be sure to wire the tip of the cigarette plug (Positive 12V, I suggest a multi-meter to confirm this in your car or battery pack you intend to use) to the centre connector of the 2.1mm DC plug.  Wire the negative to the other remaining connections. 

At both ends of the cable, as close as possible to each of the plugs, leave not much more then 3-4cm of cable “exposed” put a couple of the clip on ferrite RF suppressors.  These are quite important as they will ensure the dc is free of RF (Radio Frequency) or Electromagnetic noise.  These, should they get into the machine, could cause damage.  You can likely get away without them, but frankly for the extra £5 it will cost for these it’s worth saving your £500+ CPAP.

That’s all there is to it.  I really hope people find this useful, for some reason there has been a black hole of info about these cables, and I’m not sure why.

**DISCLAIMER** This information has been provided purely for theoretical and personal information.  I will not, nor can not, be held responsible if you are not competent enough to build this simple cable and end up damaging or destroying your CPAP.  I’m pretty sure in the wonderful lawsuit happy world we  live in it’s also most likely a violation of your warranty to attach a home made DC cable to your CPAP machine.  You have been warned, don’t come crying to me if you blow something up, also, don’t ask me to make one for you.  These are beyond simple to make.

Not much else to report..  Now to upgrade the other 5 WP installs I manage ..

I wish they’d do more work WP MultiUser so I could just have 1 single install on the server and then create domain/user level instances as needed (would use a lot less disk for the installs and provide a single central point to update/administer .. it’s a good looking product, but needs updating.

I didn’t really like much of what I found, or found it wasn’t really what I wanted to do with it .. so I decided to use some of that info and came up with something of my own.

The short story is this. When someone calls my Canadian number, my US Toll-Free number any number that ultimately rings the group of phones in the house, I will now get a direct message in Twitter from a special account I setup for this purpose, which also sends a SMS to my phone (device notifications in twitter).

Read more by clicking below… Be warned! Thar be scripts and technical stuff in them thar parts

Ok, so lets see what’s under the bonnet of this beast now.

First, you’ll need an AGI script. Look, here’s one I prepared earlier – twitter.agi

#!/bin/bash
# Background the curl process incase twitter doesn't respond. It will hang the dialplan.
curl -u username:PASSWORD -d text="$1" \
-d user="recipient" \
http://twitter.com/direct_messages/new.xml &

Put the script in /var/lib/asterisk/agi-bin. Don’t forget to chmod +x the script as well.

Pretty simple eh? The only things you’ll have to change in the script are

• username = your twitter login name
• PASSWORD = your twitter password
• recipient = Who will get your direct message

Ok, and to make it work in Asterisk I put this in the extensions.conf file for the exten that I wanted to monitor:

[home_phone]
exten => s,1,NoOp("This is my home phone context")
exten => s,n,Set(_DIDNUM="PUT YOUR DID NUM HERE")
exten => s,n,LookupCIDName
exten => s,n,AGI(twitter.agi|PBX: ${CALLERID(all)} just called on ${EXTEN})

I’ve only shown the first bits of this context, after this is your normal context such as DIAL or whatever else you might now. I actually build in a few seconds of delay to allow the text message a chance to get to my phone before the phone rings. A sort of early warning system

The only thing here you need to change really is the value of _DIDNUM (notice the underscore in front of the var name, this isn’t strictly needed, but if you wish to use that variable else where in the context or exten it’s a good idea. Obviously you can change the message after the “pipe” in the AGI line to customize the message you are sent.

The one thing I have left to work out is what asterisk variable to use to actually get the DID number used to call into the PBX with. If I can get that that would make this so much easier and more flexible. If you know what that is please drop me a comment.

Well, that’s really about it. It’s not rocket science by any means, heck, it’s nothing at all but it works.

Share this post :

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

Haha ok, well, the posting worked.  I noticed that because the server is on UTC and my phone is on BST the posting actually was “scheduled” for posting 1 hour after I actually hit the submit button.  There might be an option in moBlog for that, I’ll have to have a look.   Otherwise this is slick, I can post blog entries from my phone, including being able to attach images to postings.

This is the HTC Kaiser. I won’t rehash everything that’s already been posted by the folks at http://wiki.xda-developers.com. Check that site out, it’s an incredible resources for SmartPhones/PDA’s and the like.

Basically in a nutshell this is the phone:

Specs and Tech Info

• Qualcomm MSM 7200, 400MHz
• Windows Mobile 6 Professional
• ROM: 256MB (accessible 145.24MB), RAM: 128MB
• Dimension: 112mm (L) X 59mm (W) X 19mm (T)
• Weight: 190g with battery
• Display: 2.8″, 240 X 320 QVGA TFT-LCD display with adjustable angle and backlight
• Network: Tri-band HSDPA/UMTS (850, 1900, 2100 MHz), Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Device Control: Finger scrolling and panning, 5-way navigation control, 3-way Jog Wheel
• Keyboard: Slide-out lit QWERTY keyboard
• Keyboard Layout Pictures
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi 802.11b/g, HTC ExtUSB
• GPS: Built-in GPS and connector for external antennas, A-GPS supported
• Camera: 3MP CMOS colour camera with auto focus on the back, front VGA CMOS colour camera (for video calls. No front Camera on AT&T Tilt.)
• Audio: Built-in mono microphone and speaker
• Audio Output: Proprietary jack
• Battery: 1350mAh rechargeable Li-polymer battery, shape: KAIS160 (35H00088-00M)
• Expansion Slot: MicroSD(SD2.0 compatible, MicroSDHC compatible up to 8gb tested)
• AC Adapter: 100-250V AC, 5V and 1A DC

MyMobileR is one of the most essential apps for WM6 devices. This app installs both on the phone and the PC. Once the phone is connected to the PC I can get a window up that allows me to completely control the phone from my PC. I can use the PC keyboard and mouse to navigate and enter messages and what not. I’d have to say it has it’s place in the top 10 to top 20 apps for people with this sort of phone/PDA. Oh, and it’s completely FREE!! Incredible.

My opinion of the device is high, but as with all of these all-in-one devices the battery is what really lets it down. This is not a reflection of the choice of battery installed in the device, it’s very high spec and power, but the unit just consumes so much power it’s unreal. I have a battery monitor installed that will report the current draw on the battery. With the camera on, gps on, wifi on (and connected) and bluetooth on (and connected) I’ve seen it drawing 2100mA, this was briefly reported but still, that’s an insane amount of power for a “phone” to pull. Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) is very nice indeed. Things have really changed since my last WM based PDA which was running 2003SE or something.

The OS generally runs pretty fast, depending on what I have open and running in the background, but I can’t complain. I did have the Blackberry Connect software installed to try it out with my work Blackberry server.. this worked well but it really put a beating on the CPU and battery of the device. I ended up removing that and now getting emails via the Microsoft Push-Email service through the webaccess portal of Exchange. This, while not getting emails to be instantly is a lot better on the memory and battery life of the phone.

The availability of software for this device is off the charts. There’s so much of it out there, much of which is free or at least cheap and justifiable for the cost. This was one of the big reasons I had t get rid of the Blackberry I had. It was good, but getting software wasn’t as easy and what was available was a lot more expensive.  I expect because of the licensing and certification that I think software on the BB has to go through.

All in all, a very good phone and would recommend it anyone that likes to tinker. I can’t say I’d suggest a technophobe get it, there’s just way too much t break and get setup. Now, just have to look at replacing WM6 with Linux on it

]]> http://www.uk-experience.com/2008/05/20/my-new-phone/feed/ 2 http://www.uk-experience.com/2008/05/15/clifford-stoll/ http://www.uk-experience.com/2008/05/15/clifford-stoll/#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 12:16:16 +0000 rob http://www.uk-experience.com/2008/05/15/clifford-stoll/ Pure genius ..

About this Talk

Clifford Stoll captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides — and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he’s a scientist: “Once I do something, I want to do something else.”

About Clifford Stoll

Astronomer Clifford Stoll helped to capture a notorious KGB hacker back in the infancy of the Internet. His agile mind continues to lead him down new paths — from education and techno-skepticism… Read full bio »

Check this site out..

A lot of the people I follow and those following me are ham radio folks.  It’s a slick and instant way to send updates to your followers and friends.   For example, if you were sitting on the radio and calling CQ you might send a tweet¹ to say what frequency you’re on.  Another use might be if you are out working specific squares or counties or whatever you could let folks know which one you are in and what freq you are on.

A lot of audio and video podcasters use twitter as well, they send out tweets to let listeners know if they are on live and a URL where to find them, or just to let their fans know when new podcasts are up on their sites.

It’s also just another form of CB really, you can message with friends around the world while out and about or just at home.

Access to twitter is pretty wide open.. you can use SMS text messages, the main website – http://twitter.com, the mobile website http://m.twitter.com or a host of applications for mobile phones, PC, PDA’s, etc, etc.  It’s just crazy how popular this service is.

Check it out and add me to your friends

¹ – a tweet is what a twitter posting is called

This is a link to an Amazon S3 hosted image..

04062007016.jpg

This is the image embedded

Some may know (or may not) that I’ve been using VoIP since about Nov 2004. This started off just as a simple end user of some service, but, if you know me at all you’ll know this just isn’t good enough I moved on to using Asterisk (an OpenSource PABX). This has lead to a lot of playing and even training to get my dCAP Certification from Digium, the folks that really maintain Asterisk.

To read more please continue on…

Anyhow, back to the phones. I have just received a Siemens Gigaset C475 IP cordless Voice over IP phone (with answering machine, that will never be used).

This is one very sweet phone system!!! Up until now I’ve been using the aforementioned BT DECT phone (4 hand sets) plugged into a Sipura SPA-3000 ATA. Whoa, hold the phone (pardon the pun) .. “What the hell are you talking about?” .. I know that’s what you’re asking yourself. OK, an ATA is an Analog Telephone Adapter, simply put it turns your bog standard, run of the mill house phone into an all powerful VoIP phone. The SPA-3000 plugs into your telephone jack and your home network, and you plug your normal phone into the box as well. This allows you to make and receive telephone calls both over the Internet and your normal phone company. Anyhow, this box has been and is still working well, it’s the phones that we had that are the problem. Well, there is a problem with this setup.. firstly, we have 4 hand sets dotted around the house, but only one can be used at a time, not a common issue but at times it is.

The new phone, the Siemens Gigaset C475 IP. This is one snazzy phone. It’s a DECT based cordless phone with a built in ATA and answering machine. I won’t be using the answering machine at all because the Asterisk system provides that for us already. With this new phone you can have 3 calls going at one time (in or out), 2 VoIP calls and 1 normal phone call. On top of that, the system allows for up to 6 VoIP providers to be configured in the system allowing for say 6 incoming VoIP phone numbers + the PSTN number, so 7 numbers in all. Ok, for a home user it’s a bit over the top. However, for me with the Asterisk PABX, the coolest thing to do is create new extension numbers for each handset. What does this give me? I can still setup multiple numbers for each handset, but more to the point I can do nifty things like say, between the hours of 11pm and 7am ring all the phones except the bedroom phone, unless your caller ID says you are someone I really should be taking calls from at that hour of the day.

From the Siemens website they list these as some of the features:

Highlights

• Integrated answering machine with up to 30 minutes of recording time
• Dual mode: easy switch from internet calls to fixed-line calls by single keypress
• Information services as screensaver* e.g. weather forecast
• Expandable phone system with multiline calling for up to 6 handsets and 6 SIP accounts from different providers

Features

• ECO DECT – for 60% less energy use¹ and variable reduction of transmitting power
• Easy configuration of internet telephony (VoIP) without a PC
• Gigaset.net**: Worldwide free of charge calls between Gigaset.net supporting VoIP phones
• Up to 3 calls in parallel: 2 VoIP calls and 1 fixed-line call with multiple handsets
• E-mail notification with time, date and subject
• Instant Messaging (buddy list, chatting, presence status)
• Increased virus protection thanks to protected operating system
• Convenient handsfree talking in brilliant sound quality
• CLIP** / CNIP**
• Illuminated display with 4096 colors and 128 x 128 pixels
• Intuitive icon-based menu
• SMS** with up to 612 characters
• Phonebook for up to 150 names and numbers

Some of the very nice features that I liked are simple things.. you can upload your phone directory from either a TSV file or in standard VCARD format.. once you’ve uploaded all your phone numbers to one phone you can then share that out with all the phones. Most other DECT phones don’t have this, certainly not the upload from a PC, and not many support the ability to send out all the numbers to the other phones.

Some of the annoyances I’ve found with this system so far:

• Very short and unrealistic timeout for the browser based management interface

• The timeout for the browser interface seems to be around 1-2 mins which means that while making changes and testing those changes and tweaking things on the PABX side you are logged out and have to get back in and navigate back to the page you were working on.

• You can add routing overrides to the dial plan to direct certain numbers or ranges out over various VoIP providers or the PSTN line, but you can’t use proper standard dial plan patterns.
• The phone has “local” emergency numbers hard coded to use the PSTN only, local being based on the country of sale, so in the UK it would be 999, in North America it would be 911. While making sure those numbers route over PSTN is good you should also be allowed to change that since VoIP providers are having to accommodate emergency numbers.

You can upload a telephone directory to the handsets, but only one at a time. There is no way to blast the same telephone directory to all handsets at one time. There is also no way to just send the list to a web address or have the base station fetch the file/URL on some interval. Maybe a bit advanced for your average home user, but I’m not average

Some very positive things about the phone system as well, it’s OpenSource. You can download the source code for the system including tools to build it. I assume the phone base and handsets are running embedded Linux.

I’ll wrap this up now and post more updates as I use the phone more and more. We’ve had loads of compliments on how much better the phone sounds now, so that’s a big plus. The connections are so much more clear and cleaner with not as much jitter and echo.

More later on this.