Over the last few weeks this has come up at my work a few times and I’ve just been watching The Gadget Show on Five when they came up a segment on this exact topic. I figure it’s all too coincidental to not blog about it.
This won’t work every time, but from my own experiences it has worked each time. I’ve never personally filled a laptop with liquid or sunk a mobile phone (either I’m just more careful or really lucky), but I know a number of people that have done this. So here is the advice I’ve given in all the cases an d it’s managed to work. You must follow the advice closely and NOT try and rush the process!!! I can’t say that enough, DO NOT RUSH THE PROCESS!!!
Mega Scotland 2010 was very good to say the least. We’d got ourselves checked in about 11am or so I suppose.We had a bit of a lazy morning on Saturday, but who can blame us after the 10hr marathon drive from Heathrow to Kinross.
Click on the photos to see the full size original photos
What they shipped me was in the box to the right, I’ve used a pen for size reference. I was quite impressed with the size of the box to say the least.
Inside the box were two bags, one with the charger/torch in it and the other has all the various bits to fit a multitude of mobile phones.
There is an extension cable that allows you to plug the adapters for the phones into the charger, which is nice, it suggests that perhaps in the future they could simply offer new tips to fit other devices (and not only mobile phones?) The back page of the manual identifies the tips and the phones they fit.
You can see how truly small the charger device is in this photo. I don’t have the biggest hands around it’s fair to say, but I can nearly conceal it in my hand.
Ok, perhaps not just in your pocket, but backpack/laptop bag, etc. The number of devices we carry really seem to be going up and up these days, despite the fact that devices are converging and doing so much more. My personal “battle load” consists of the following:
Devices that require power
Dell E6500 Latitude (with 9 and 6 cell batteries)
Nokia N97 (read my other blog postings for my opinion on this device)
Zoom 4506-N 3G Travel Router
Microsoft wireless travel mouse
Jabber BT3030 headset
Power adapter for laptop (travel adapter for use with mains, car and air plane (I’ve never been fortunate enough to travel in the right class where I can use it on a plane )
Devices that use power but leech off other sources
Vodafone K3820 3G/HSDPA modem
500GB portable USB drive
Numerous Flash drives of various capacities, some have bootable OSes on them some just for data
Misc items that I carry that don’t need any power themselves
A number of 8cm CD’s and DVD’s with bootable OSes on them (all Re-Writable for reuse, and for those machines that can’t boot of USB, WTF?)
A couple of sets of head phones (in case of loss or damage)
Various cables to connect devices for data transfer or charging, most use the same USB cables so it keeps these to a minimum
All in all it’s a fair bit of gear slung on my shoulder. The double batteries for the laptop are really just to make sure I can go for hours and hours.. One question I’m sure many are asking themselves – Is all that gear really necessary? Of course the answer is NO, BUT it’s just become the norm for so many years now, not just with me but so many people. I can do just nicely with only my phone in most cases. I managed quite nicely last year to post very long blog postings while out camping. However, it wasn’t as convenient as it would have been had I had my laptop with me. I should put my normal “battle load” into my backpack and weight it. I’m sure it’s the best part of 8KG, might be a bit more.
The only reason I decided to write this blog posting now was because while I sit in the Starbucks here in Newmarket Road in Cambridge I pulled out my travel mouse to find the battery was flat in it. That got me thinking about what else I have in my bag that might need a change of batteries. Thankfully that’s really the only device that can’t be recharged (however that’s a bad thing too really). By that I mean I can’t plug the mouse in to charge the battery, it’s just a single AA battery. That in itself is a good thing really, I can get replacements anywhere for it, that however can’t be said for any of the other power hungry devices I carry. They all have bespoke batteries, so they require having some sort of charger/power adapter (be it wall wart, USB cable or some such).
So, What do you carry with you on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could carry with you but choose to leave at home for some reason?
Ok, let me explain first what it is.. Synerygy2 is a way to share multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse. No, it’s not a KVM replacement.. Synergy2 replaces only the keyboard and mouse, you’ll need to have a monitor attached to each machine on your desk. This is actually a plus. In the photo below you’ll see my working area at the office… I’ve labelled which each runs for an OS and below that the names of the computers (click to see the full size image)
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
I should finish that statement by saying it’s my last Nokia phone, EVER!
I bought my NokiaN97 back in June. I’m not ashamed to admit that I, like everyone else that ever ordered one of these devices, was excited like I’d never been about a phone. The prospect of what was promised by Vodafone and Nokia was overwhelming the senses. However, I very quickly found myself, like pretty much everyone else that has ever ordered this device, sad and disappointed to entirely new levels.
Where do I start .. well the device came shipped with the then current firmware level of 10.x .. right out of the box it was acting odd.. dropped calls, low phone signals levels where there should full signals, etc, etc. The worst at the time was making and taking calls… you might be lucky and get a call in and you might be lucky to not have the device crash and reboot during or immediately after a call. This was frustrating to say the least.
While the start of my relationship with my new N97 was rocky it was manageable . Plus the promise of the much talked about V11 firmware and how it would fix a lot of problems, that and that alone kept me hopeful that we could make things work (me and the N97). Firmware V11 came and went, sure, some problems were resolved, but entirely new problems were introduced. Once again, we were on the rocks with our relationship. I managed, somehow, to tolerate the device. It wasn’t crashing randomly any more, which I suppose is a positive thing. However, one of the new problems that came with V11 was a memory leak that slowly filled up my C:. The first time it happened I received an “out of memory” error and the phone crashed and rebooted. Upon reboot I was confused at first since the C: had about 18meg free. I then noticed it would slowly fill as days went on and crash again.
Until now, I’ve not even touched on the other long laundry list of known issues with this device, including the much loathed Nokia N97 Self Harming issue where it scratches and destroys it’s own camera lense. Mine has been no exception to this issue, the lense is nicely scratched and gashed, thankfully not directly over the camera’s optics so the camera is still very usable. Others, however, have not been so lucky.
So, back to the story.. we last off with the tails of whoa over V11 firmware. Well, it was many months before Nokia finally released the even more anticipated V12 firmware. It was even longer for UK contract phone owners since the UK carriers either refused to push it out to us or they blamed Nokia for the delay. I don’t know where the problem really was or who was really to blame, suffice to say it sucked big time. Finally, V12 was released and the world cheered, until they installed it and noticed yet more problems were introduced, for some it was more problems then fixes. Some of my issues were fixed but my memory leak got worse. I could now only run my phone for 2 days before the C: would fill and the phone would crash or I had to reboot it.
Well, here I am now in Nov. After waiting for V20 to come out and then deciding not to wait until sometime next year I changed the product code on my phone by following the instructions on THIS PAGE. That worked a treat I was then able to upgrade to V20. That did not go well at all I have to say. The process of loading the firmware was fine, however after the initial reboot there were loads of performance issues and lots of crashes. After much Googling I’d come to conclusion that I needed to do a hard reset and rebuild my phone from scratch That was the first time I had to a full rebuild. Somewhat painful .. loads of apps to find and install, activation codes to find etc. More annoyingly was I had to rebuild all my menus again for all the apps. Very time consuming. Fine, I accepted that, the phone is crap, the OS is crap and Nokia is crap, just one of the little joys of having bleeding edge hardware and Beta software.
Well, last night the phone acted up and needed a reboot. This wasn’t the memory leak, that seemed to be mostly cured going to V20, I forgot to mention that above. I pushed the power button, turned off the phone. It did as it was suppose to. Power it back on.. it sits at the white Nokia screen for about 2-3 mins. This is NOT normal. 60-90 seconds boot time is normal for my phone. I pull the battery, try again. Leave it for 10 mins or so this time. Still, no boot. Bugger me. I pull the battery, sim card and microSD card out. Wait a few mins, replace the sim and battery and power on. Nothing, just the White Screen of Death. I tried all the “fixes” that others posted about, nothing at all. I was again forced to hard reset and rebuild my phone.
This was the last time I ever hard reset my phone for no valid reason. The next time the phone does this, I will hard reset it clear and format the internal mass storage and sell it on EBay for whatever I’m lucky enough to get for it. That will be it. I will also not be organizing my icons again or doing much else in the way of customizing my phone because of the hassles and time it takes, all to have it destroyed because Nokia can’t get it’s act together.
I would love to return the phone to Nokia for a full refund not to mention refunds for the software I’ve purchased for the device that will, on the next total lock up will become of no use to me since I won’t be using the device.
I am one very unhappy customer of Nokia at this point, the only good thing is knowing I’m no the only one. There are 1000′s and 1000′s of people that have bought this phone and posted about their deep disappointment with the device and Nokia in general. I hope, like me, they will all vote with their feet and refuse to by any more Nokia and Symbian based phones! I think my next phone will be an Android of some sort. It can’t be any worse. No, don’t even think of trying to talk into an Apple i-CAN’T DO WHAT I LIKE ON MY PHONE-Phone.
If you are thinking of buying a Nokia N97 I would strongly encourage you to spend 2 hours at least Googling about the device and issues people are having. Don’t take my rantings on here for it, see what everyone else is saying about the device. If you have any sense you’ll see it’s not a good investment, and a very costly one at that.
Right, well Easter is actually over, but I’m doing a blog posting now really just to put the pics of the kids online more then anything. The day was good, it started way to early though. Man the kids were up at the crack of dawn, if only it were the crack of dawn in the UK and not for say India .. shesh.
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).
This won’t work every time, but from my own experiences it has worked each time. I’ve never personally filled a laptop with liquid or sunk a mobile phone (either I’m just more careful or really lucky), but I know a number of people that have done this. So here is the advice I’ve given in all the cases an d it’s managed to work. You must follow the advice closely and NOT try and rush the process!!! I can’t say that enough, DO NOT RUSH THE PROCESS!!!
)
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 
Cambridge, UNITED KINGDOM
Entries (RSS)