Luca's meaningless thoughts  

Bienvenido Sergio Denis a Berlín!

Sergio Denis

This is in the subway, there are huge banners in the bigger train stations too.

Esto está en el subte, también hay carteles enormes en las estaciones más grandes de tren.

Big ideals for small screens / Grandes ideales para pequeñas pantallas

[ N900 1/20s f/2.8 iso214 5.2 mm Auto ]

We work for you, not for shareholders / Trabajamos para usted, no para accionistas

[ N900 1/29s f/2.8 iso200 5.2 mm Auto ]

Finally 1.0 is here, and in Extras-devel! The only important change since last release is a bug fix that prevented display blanking inhibition from properly work in devices configured with a display blanking timeout of less than 30 seconds (thanks cobalt1 for the bug report).

For more information and screenshots, you can visit the website.

You can download this release (binary package and sources) from here:

• https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/1.0/
• http://maemo.org/packages/view/status-area-displayblanking-applet/

But now you just might want to simply install it using the application manager.

You can also get the source from the git repository:

https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions here or in the Maemo Talk Thread..

Final beta release for the Status Area Display Blanking Applet. Changes since last release:

• Show a status icon when display blanking is inhibited.
• Improve package description and add icon for the Application Manager.
• Add a extended description for display blanking modes.
• Update translation files.
• Code cleanup.

Also now the applet have a small home page and upload to Extras is on the way!

This is how this new version looks like:

You can download this 0.9 beta release (binary package and sources) from here: https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/0.9/

You can also get the source from the git repository: https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions here or in the Maemo Talk Thread..

New pre-release for the Status Area Display Blanking Applet. New timed inhibition button that inhibit display blanking for an user-defined amount of time. Also there's been some code cleanup since last release.

You can download this 0.5 pre-release (binary package and sources) from here: https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/0.5/

You can also get the source from the git repository: https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions here or in the Maemo Talk Thread..

New pre-release of my first Maemo application: The Status Area Display Blanking Applet. Now you inhibit display blanking without changing the display blanking mode. The GUI is a little rough compared with the previous version but it works. :)

You can download this 0.4 pre-release (binary package and sources) from here: https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/0.4/

You can also get the source from the git repository: https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions here or in the Maemo Talk Thread..

New pre-release of my first Maemo application: The Status Area Display Blanking Applet. Now you can pick whatever blanking mode you want instead of blindly cycling through all available modes, as it was in the previous version.

You can download this 0.3 pre-release (binary package and sources) from here: https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/0.3/

You can also get the source from the git repository: https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions here or in the Maemo Talk Thread..

Second pre-release of my first Maemo application: The Status Area Display Blanking Applet. No big changes since the last release just code cleanup and a bugfix or new features (depends on how you see it). Now the applet monitors changes on the current configuration, so if you change the display blanking mode from settings (or by any other means), it will be updated in the applet too.

You can download this 0.2 pre-release (binary package and sources) from here: https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/0.2/

You can also get the source from the git repository: https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions here or in the Maemo Talk Thread..

Hi, I just wanted to announce the pre-release of my first Maemo "application". The Status Area Display Blanking Applet let you easily change the display blanking mode right from the status menu, without having to go through the settings.

This is specially useful if you have a short blanking time when you use applications that you want to look at for a long time without interacting with the phone and don't inhibit display blanking by themselves (for example a web browser, image viewer or some GPS applications).

You can download this 0.1 pre-release (binary package and sources) from here: https://llucax.com.nyud.net/proj/sadba/files/0.1/

You can also get the source from the git repository: https://git.llucax.com/w/software/sadba.git

Here are some screenshots (the application is highlighted so you can spot it more easily :) ):

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions.

I'll upload the package to extras-devel when I have some time to learn the procedure.

Since there is not a lot of information on how to hack Maemo's address book to find some contacts with a mobile phone number, I'll share my findings.

Since setting up an environment to cross-compile for ARM is a big hassle, I decided to write this small test program in Python, (ab)using the wonderful ctypes module to avoid compiling at all.

Here is a very small script to use the (sadly proprietary) OSSO Addressbook library:

# This function get all the names in the address book with mobile phone numbers
# and print them. The code is Python but is as similar as C as possible.
def get_all_mobiles():

    osso_ctx = osso_initialize("test_abook", "0.1", FALSE)
    osso_abook_init(argc, argv, hash(osso_ctx))

    roster = osso_abook_aggregator_get_default(NULL)
    osso_abook_waitable_run(roster, g_main_context_default(), NULL)
    contacts = osso_abook_aggregator_list_master_contacts(roster)

    for contact in glist(contacts):
        name = osso_abook_contact_get_display_name(contact)
        # Somehow hackish way to get the EVC_TEL attributes
        field = e_contact_field_id("mobile-phone")
        attrs = e_contact_get_attributes(contact, field)
        mobiles = []
        for attr in glist(attrs):
            types = e_vcard_attribute_get_param(attr, "TYPE")
            for t in glist(types):
                type = ctypes.c_char_p(t).value
                # Remove this condition to get all phone numbers
                # (not just mobile phones)
                if type == "CELL":
                    mobiles.append(e_vcard_attribute_get_value(attr))
        if mobiles:
            print name, mobiles


# Python

import sys
import ctypes
# be sure to import gtk before calling osso_abook_init()
import gtk
import osso

osso_initialize = osso.Context

# Dynamic libraries bindings
glib = ctypes.CDLL('libglib-2.0.so.0')
g_main_context_default = glib.g_main_context_default
def glist(addr):
    class _GList(ctypes.Structure):
        _fields_ = [('data', ctypes.c_void_p),
                    ('next', ctypes.c_void_p)]
    l = addr
    while l:
        l = _GList.from_address(l)
        yield l.data
        l = l.next

osso_abook = ctypes.CDLL('libosso-abook-1.0.so.0')
osso_abook_init = osso_abook.osso_abook_init
osso_abook_aggregator_get_default = osso_abook.osso_abook_aggregator_get_default
osso_abook_waitable_run = osso_abook.osso_abook_waitable_run
osso_abook_aggregator_list_master_contacts = osso_abook.osso_abook_aggregator_list_master_contacts
osso_abook_contact_get_display_name = osso_abook.osso_abook_contact_get_display_name
osso_abook_contact_get_display_name.restype = ctypes.c_char_p

ebook = ctypes.CDLL('libebook-1.2.so.5')
e_contact_field_id = ebook.e_contact_field_id
e_contact_get_attributes = ebook.e_contact_get_attributes
e_vcard_attribute_get_value = ebook.e_vcard_attribute_get_value
e_vcard_attribute_get_value.restype = ctypes.c_char_p
e_vcard_attribute_get_param = ebook.e_vcard_attribute_get_param

# argc/argv adaption
argv_type = ctypes.c_char_p * len(sys.argv)
argv = ctypes.byref(argv_type(*sys.argv))
argc = ctypes.byref(ctypes.c_int(len(sys.argv)))

# C-ish aliases
NULL = None
FALSE = False

# Run the test
get_all_mobiles()

Here are some useful links I used as reference:

• http://wiki.maemo.org/PyMaemo/Accessing_APIs_without_Python_bindings
• http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/Maemo_5_Developer_Guide/Using_Generic_Platform_Components/Using_Address_Book_API
• http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/5.0-final/libebook/
• http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/5.0-final/libosso-abook/
• https://garage.maemo.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/releases/evolution-data-server/1.4.2.1-20091104/addressbook/libebook-dbus/?root=eds
• http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Discussion/showthread.php?200914-How-to-print-all-contact-names-in-N900-addressbook-Please-Help

Joyita encontrada en el mercado de pulgas del Mauerpark.

Los Reyes Paraguayos

[ N900 1/1000s f/2.8 iso100 5.2 mm Auto ]

Tardísimo el post, pero lo encontré desempolvando cosas viejas :P

Hasta Papá Noel se mueve en subte acá

2011-12-09

[ N900 1/19s f/2.8 iso400 5.2 mm Auto ]

Ya no recuerdo como conocí a los Bondage Fairies, juraría que via Esteirfri, pero ahora no logro encontrar ningún post relacionado.

Bondage Fairies @ White Trash Fast Food Berlin (2012-02-04) (1)

[ N900 1/15s f/2.8 iso800 5.2 mm Auto ]

La cosa es que se presentaron en Berlín, los fui a ver y me fui más que satisfecho con su performance! Se presentan siempre con máscaras (incluso en todas las fotos que vi sobre la banda) y están muy limados. El guitarrista en especial cada tanto se acercaba al público y se ponía a mirar fijamente a algún seguidor de forma bastante perturbante.

Bondage Fairies @ White Trash Fast Food Berlin (2012-02-04) (2)

[ N900 1/15s f/2.8 iso800 5.2 mm Auto ]

La máscara del baterista también es muy buena, y el tipo la acompaña muy bien con su actitud y sus bailes espásticos.

Los tipos distribuyeron un tema via Dead Drops (USB sticks inclustados y cementados en cantidades de ciudades, también conocido como red P2P anónima offline). Si quieren escuchar más, pueden hacerlo en Musicuo (la alternativa a Grooveshark que, todavía, anda en Alemania).

Bondage Fairies @ White Trash Fast Food Berlin (2012-02-04) (3)

[ N900 1/15s f/2.8 iso800 5.2 mm Auto ]

Perdón por la baja calidad de las fotos y video, pero me olvidé la cámara así que fueron tomadas con el celular.

OK, after I recovered my phone without needing to reflash once, I was even much closer to do it again because of a new problem.

After missing an appointment and arriving at work about 3 hours late, I realized my phone stopped reproducing sound and vibrating when an alarm was fired. At first I thought I put the alarm incorrectly but then I verified that the alarm was not working. I still got a popup with the alarm message, but no sound or vibration.

So... Time to debug the problem. After searching a lot, I couldn't find anybody with my same problem, I found similar, but not the same, so I decided to report a bug. I got a very fast but useless response. Great!

Making long story short, I finally found some IRC channels and mailing lists where I could find a more opensourceish support that the one provided in the forums and bugzilla. So I'm happy I finally found a place where you can talk to actual developers.

I commented my problem and just after a very trivial but extremely useful suggestion (installing syslogd), I could trace the origin or the problem and fix it (I just love you strace!).

I also had another problem, suddenly the skype calls stopped working. Again the syslog helped a lot. Unfortunately I didn't save the exact syslog error message, but it was something like:

GStreamer - Could not convert static caps "!`phmcadion/x-rtp,
media=(string)video, payload=(int)[ 96, 127 ], clock-rate=(int)[ 1,
2147483647 ], encoding-name=(string)MP4V-ES"

As the MIME TYPE looked like garbage, I just grep(1)ed the filesystem searching for that string, and I found some binary file at /home/user/.gstreamer-0.10/registry.arm.bin. I backed up the file, remove it, and everything started working again (the file was recreated but with a very different content).

I have no idea how the symlink or the gstreamer file got broken, except maybe because of the unexpected reboot because of the broken batterypatch, but still, is really strange.

Anyway... Lessons learned:

• Maemo (Nokia) bugzilla is useless for getting help
• Install syslogd to debug Nokia N900 problems
• The maemo developers mailing list is your friend

Conclusion: Reflash my ass!

I bought a Nokia N900 recently, a great toy if you like to have a phone with a Linux distribution that uses dpkg as package manager :)

Of course you can use it as an end user, and never find out, but as the geek I am, I had to hack it, and use the devel package repositories. Of course, with that comes the problems (and the fun! :D).

The last update of the batterypatch package came with a weird feature. The device rebooted itself each time it starts, leaving it in a restart loop that rendered the device unusable.

Searching for valuable information was not easy (thanks forums! You SUCK at organizing information... I miss mailing lists).

Anyway, I hope I can save some work to someone if you get in a similar situation, so you don't have to waste ours searching the Maemo Forums.

First you will need a tool to flash the phone (it can do other things besides flashing it, I used the maemo_flasher-3.5_2.5.2.2_i386.deb file). You can also check some instructions on how to load a (very) basic rescue image (from Meego). The good thing is this image is an initrd that's loaded in MEMORY, so you don't loose anything if you tried, the device goes to it's previous state (broken in my case :P) after a reboot.

What this image can do is put the device in USB mass storage mode (the embedded MMC -eMMC- and the external MMC). I've done this to backup my eMMC data, which holds the MyDocs vfat partition and the 2 GiB ext3 partition used to install optional software. You can also put the device in USB networking mode, you can get a shell console (and reboot/power off the device), but I found that pretty useless (because you don't have any useful tools, the backlit is not turned on, so is really hard to see anything, and because the kayboard doesn't have the function key mapped, so you can't even write a "/").

The bad thing about this image, is you can't access to the root filesystem (wich is stored in another NAND 256MiB memory). I wanted to access it for 2 reasons. First, I wanted to edit some files that the batterypatch program created to see if that fixed the rebooting problem. And if now, I wanted to make a backup of the rootfs so I didn't loose most of my customizations and installed software.

I first found that a way to access the rootfs was to install Meego in a uSD memory, but for that I needed a 4GiB uSD. Also it looked like too much work, it has to be something battery and easier to just mount the rootfs and play around.

And I finally found it. It was the hardest thing to found, that's why I not only passing you the original link, I'm also hosting my own copy because I have the feeling it can disappear any time! :P

This image let's you do all the same the other image can, but it turns on the backlit, it has better support for the keyboard (you can type a "/") and it can mount the UBI root filesystem. Even more, it comes with a telnet daemon, so you can even do the rescue work remotely using USB networking ;)

You can see the instructions for some of the tasks, but here is how I did to be able to log in using telnet, which is not documented elsewhere that I know off. Once you have your image loaded:

1. You have to activate the USB networking in the device: /rescueOS/usbnetworking-enable.sh

2. Configure your host PC to assign an IP to usb0: sudo ip a add 192.168.2.14/24 dev usb0 && sudo ip link set usb0 up

3. Start the telnet daemon in the device: telnetd

4. I couldn't find out the root password, and since the initrd root filesystem is read-only, so I did this to change the root password:

   cp -a /etc /run/
   mount --bind /run/etc /etc
   passwd
   

   Now type the new root password.

5. That's it, log in via telnet from the host PC: telnet 192.168.2.15 and have fun!

With this I just could edit the broken files and saved the device without even needing to reflash it, but if you're not so lucky, you can just backup the root filesystem and reflash using this instructions (I didn't tested them, but seems pretty official).

Now I should probably have to try the recovery-boot package, if it works well it might be even easier to rescue the phone using that ;)

In Symmetry is a nice trip-hopish band from Berlin I saw in Werk9.

They will be playing again on December the 11th at Glogauer Str. 2.

In Symmetry @ Werk9 (2011-11-05) (1)

2011-11-05 21:10:10 CEST

[ 1/15s f/2.8 iso800 5.2 mm Auto ]