Back in March I bought one of the Icon225 modems that Orange are selling, but had some issues getting it to work.
Not anymore! Paul at PHARscape has put a lot of work into the stack he’s produced and has topped it off with a cracking little Python front end to make the use of this little modem dead easy.
The ubiquitous Tony Whitmore has been at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Prague over the last week. Armed with a video camera he’s been interviewing people there about their involvement with Ubuntu, and what plans they have for the next release - Intrepid Ibex.
You can see all the videos on the YouTube Ubuntu Developer Channel
Glastonbury is a fantastic little town, with lots of communities thriving around the spiritual hub that the place has become. If you miss being there, the gardens, the shops, the people, the tor you can keep in touch by listening to Glastonbury Radio.
This has nothing to do with the summer concerts that we see all over the media. It’s about the community and what’s going on, no matter what your spiritual path or interest, it’s covered by this net only radio.
Centrologic have a great site about the Ubuntu Story, http://www.ubuntustory.com/ lots of good flashy graphics with clear simple explanations of the main topics that people searching for Ubuntu might want to know about.
I love my ASUS eeePC, it goes everywhere with me, but I think I’m going to have to fight hard not to buy one of HP’s 2133 mini-note PCs.
Orange are selling these rather nifty usb modems at the moment. The Option iCon225 supports HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM with HSPDA giving 7.2Mbps. Of course, the package is aimed at the MS Windows user, and comes with all the required software on the device using Zero-CD Plug ‘n’ Play technology. This creates problem number one for the Linux user.
When the device is inserted into the USB socket the Zero-CD mounts it as a mass storage device rather than a modem. It’s possible to get round this using the information at Pharscape using their hso module and ZeroCD REZERO utility The second problem is that I can’t get this thing to connect to anything (although it works under MS Windows so I know it works). Yet. I’m sure that it won’t belong before someone figures it out.
Interestingly Vodafone have been working on something that looks like it may work, and they seem to be open to developing for other devices too. Using this beasty with Ubuntu on the eeePC will rock.
Back in December I was chuffed with the bandwidth that I was getting from my Virgin Media XL Broadband package, giving me a mighty 16Mb/s download speed.
How things can change in 3 months.
It’s been like that for about a month now, and even after a visit by an engineer this morning, nothing’s changed. Apparently there’s some work being done on the local setup next week. So they have until Friday, at which point I’ll be looking elsewhere.
Working on lug.org.uk I found that the Armed Forces LUG wasn’t just quiet it was effectively dead. By that I mean that the website was a holding page, but mailman was running although no-one was looking after it.
So after a debate with the rest of the team at lug.org.uk I’ve revived AFLUG. Most people will agree that location-less LUGs don’t work, but my main reason for taking this on is that, at the very least the mail list will work. I don’t think a central location for this LUG will be important to it’s members. Only time will tell.
I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being quiet, but last weekend, during the recording of the Ubuntu-UK podcast I was sat too far away from the mic, and consequently I’m quieter than the other guys. But, actually there’s more to it than that.
In new situations I’m the one who listens rather than spouting off, trying to gauge the conversation knowledge levels before joining in. I’ve never been recorded before, never been in a podcast, so that’s possibly part of the reason, although I know the guys, so who knows….. But I’m so hyped by the reaction I’m desperate to get the next episode recorded, it’s great fun 
Oh.. and don’t forget the banner
For some time I’ve wanted to learn about the realities of having an off site system to administer, and so when BitFolk added a new server I managed to blag the plan I was after.
During the sign up I was asked for a fully qualified domain name. I had no idea what this meant and Google wasn’t my friend. Sure I have a domain name or two but I’ve only ever know about mywebsite.com but now I needed to provide something.website.com. But why and what was the difference?
Wikipedia gave a technical description, but didn’t really explain in terms that I understood. So I just gave something suitable (let’s say word.site.com.)and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long (great turn around BitFolk) and I ssh’d into my new VPS and what do you know, the name of my server was word (from word.site.com) Pretty simple really me@word:/home$