hardware No comments yet

Why did Compaq (HP) do this?

By on September 26th, 2009

This is from my Lenovo T60:

and this is from my Compaq Presario CQ61-140EI:

Notice the difference?  Yes, the FN and CNTRL keys are swopped around.  Imagine the confusing it is causing.  I am pressing CNTRL-C and CNTRL-V but nothing gets copied.  That is because of pressing the CNTRL key, I am pressing the FN key and visa versa when I want to adjust the sound or something and nothing happens since I am pressing the CNTRL key in this case in stead of the FN key.

Is there not a standard for these kind of things?  If there is not, then there should be. This is driving me crasy and I use both machines on a daily basis.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

ibm, Linux, Ubuntu No comments yet

IBM and Canonical takes on Africa

By on September 23rd, 2009

From Bob Sutor’s blog

… partnership between IBM and Canonical to provide a software package for users of netbooks and other thin clients in Africa. The package, which can be configured in several ways to provide both netbook-based and cloud-based software, is expected to drive new business for local partners by taking advantage of open standards, file sharing, email, and social network capabilities.

This is very relevant to me and where I am.  The CEO of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, is a South African and I work for IBM in Africa, and South Africa in particular.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Ubuntu 2 comments

New Compaq Notebook running Ubuntu Karmic

By on September 20th, 2009

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I got a new Compaq Presario CQ61-140EI Notebook.  I did not had much choice in the hardware so had to take what I got.  The specs of the machine is as follows:

  • Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400 (2.16GHz)
  • 15.6 LED HD Brightview Widescreen
  • 250GB Hard Drive
  • 3GB DDR2 SDRAM
  • 802.11 b/g WLAN
  • Lightscribe Super Multi DVD±RW Double Layer Support
  • nVidia GeForce G 102M Graphics with 512MB DDR2 memory
  • 5-in-1 Digital Media Reader
  • Webcam

Oh and it had Vista also installed on the machine.

Yes, you are reading correctly, it does come with a HDMI out connector (Now I just need a HDMI cable).  Also it has an eSATA connector that can double as an USB connector.  Further has it another 2 USB connectors, Audio In and Out and the normal VGA connector.

I initially decide to keep the Vista on the machine and make it a dual boot machine together with Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 6.  I resized the existing partition and created some other partitions to install Ubuntu on.  After installing Ubuntu and when I rebooted, it failed horribly with no proper Grub setup.  Not wanting to try solving it I just went ahead and wiped Vista and installed just Ubuntu Karmic. I would not have used Vista much so why waste the hard disk space.

I was particurly interested to see what worked and what not and expecting some things not to work. 

Here you can see the machine running Ubuntu Karmic happily.  Except for the sound problem mentioned yesterday, which is now fixed, everything else works.  Wireless worked out of the box.  Starting Skype, I went to see if it picked up my Webcam and there it was, working out of the box.  Have now installed Cheese and using my Webcam happily.

The white little thing on the left of the machine is a USB 3G modem plugged into the eSATA/USB combo port and it worked without any problems.  Network Manager picked it up automatically, ask me what cellular network I am using and then just prompted me for my PIN. 

I love the HD screen on this machine and can see it becoming my movie watching machine.

Overall I am fairly impressed with what worked and what not.  Karmic looks like more polished than Jaunty and although there is still some messages that fill the screen on bootup, I am sure that by release time in October, those will disappear.

That bring’s the count of Ubuntu/Kubuntu machines in my household to 4.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Ubuntu 5 comments

Compaq Presario CQ61-140EI: Sound problem and solution

By on September 19th, 2009

I just got a new Compaq Presario CQ61-140EI and installed Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 6 on it. More about that in a future post.  One of the main issues which a lot of people had is that sound works through the headphones but not through the internal speakers which btw is Altec Lansing speakers.  The first solution I found is to add the following:
options snd slots=snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel model=hp-m4
alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
options snd-hda-intel enable_msi=1
to
/etc/modprode.d/alsa-base.conf
I rebooted my machine and sound still did not work.

After more Googling I found something that suggested replacing the 2nd line above with the following:
options snd-hda-intel model=hp-hdx
Again I rebooted my machine and voola .. sound out of my internal speakers.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

ibm 2 comments

IBM opens African Innovation Centre under me – Cape Town.

By on September 19th, 2009

And that ‘under me’ mean literally, I work in the same building and the IBM Innovation Centre is right below me, so yes, I technically sits right on top of it :).

As reported in the press, IBM has opened their second African Innovation Centre in Cape Town, the first being in Johannesburg.  Although I could not attend the opening, I saw how this baby grew up from nothing to now being this big piece of IBM iron standing in its glass box, otherwise known as a fishbowl.

We already knew that Cape Town is becoming the IT hub of SA .. that place called Silicon Cape. IBM has joined the party and really invested in some big computer hardware in Cape Town. 

If any of my Cape Town readers are interested in having a look, feel free to contact me and I am sure we can arrange something.  That also go for out of town visitors that is visiting Cape Town.

I will get some pictures and share that with you all next week.

Technorati Tags: , ,

cellphone No comments yet

What is the Nokia N900 all about?

By on September 14th, 2009

From Ari Jaaksi, he heads Maemo @ Nokia

It is all about
1) Internet (browsing, chatting, sharing, talking ….) first
2) Open source & collaborative development for consumers
3) True computer experience in a small package

and I have added a 4th — Be able to make calls with it anywhere, anytime.

This is exactly what I want in a small device and the Nokia N900 gives me all this.  Oh and being a tinker, I can develop my own little apps on my Ubuntu machine and run it on the Nokia N900.  What more does one want?

I cannot wait to get my little paws on this one … when will it land in SA?

Technorati Tags: , ,

ibm, Linux, Lotus Notes No comments yet

IBM move away from Microsoft.

By on September 13th, 2009

Via Linux Magazine

360.000 IBM workers have been told to stop using Microsoft Office and switch to the Open Office-based software Symphony.

As an IBMer, I am not so sure about the “told to stop”, well not in South Africa at least.  At the moment we are encouraged not to use Microsoft products as far as possible.  And it does not only apply to Office.  The coming week we have what is called “Open Client Awareness Week” where we will run demo’s, presentations and installfests to show people what Linux can do within IBM.

My primary workstation, Lenovo Thinkpad T60 are running Ubuntu 9.04 with all the IBM software like Notes, Sametime, Symphony ect that I need to do my daily job.  I also run Sun’s Virtualbox with a Windows XP setup for when I need to something in Windows which is rarely.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

cellphone No comments yet

What is your cellphone radiation level?

By on September 12th, 2009

How much radiation does your cell phone emit? It’s easy to find out the answer thanks to the Environmental Working Group’s new online guide to cell phone emissions. The non-profit research and advocacy group ranked over 1,000 different cell phones according to radiation levels. It looked at the publicly available, but difficult to find, specific absorption rate (SAR) for each phone. SAR is a measure of how much radiation is absorbed by the body when the phone is sending a signal to the network.

Technorati Tags: ,

ibm, Linux, Open Source No comments yet

How free is my laptop according to RMS

By on September 10th, 2009

There is this meme going around to indicate how much Free and Non-free software one has installed on one’s workstation.  To determine it, just run vrms. If you do not have it installed then just do sudo apt-get install vrms

mariusb@mariusb-t60laptop:~$ vrms
         Non-free packages installed on mariusb-t60laptop

3270-common               Common files for IBM 3270 emulators and pr3287
fglrx-modaliases          Identifiers supported by the ATI graphics driver
ibm-j2re1.5               Java(TM) JRE, Standard Edition, IBM Corporation
  Reason: Proprietary licence, no source available
libmotif3                 Open Motif - shared libraries
linux-generic             Complete Generic Linux kernel
linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.28 modules helper script
linux-restricted-modules- Restricted Linux modules for generic kernels
nvidia-173-modaliases     Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
nvidia-180-modaliases     Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
nvidia-71-modaliases      Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
nvidia-96-modaliases      Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
opera                     The Opera Web Browser
skype                     Skype - Take a deep breath
sun-java6-bin             Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture
sun-java6-jre             Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture
t1-xfree86-nonfree        non-free Postscript Type 1 fonts from XFree86
tangerine-icon-theme      Tangerine Icon theme
ttf-xfree86-nonfree       non-free TrueType fonts from XFree86
unrar                     Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free version)
  Reason: Modifications problematic
x3270                     X11 program for telnet sessions to IBM mainframes
xfonts-x3270-misc         Font files for the x3270(1) IBM 3270 emulator
xmind                     XMind - Brainstorming and Mind Mapping

          Contrib packages installed on mariusb-t60laptop

flashplugin-installer     Adobe Flash Player plugin installer
flashplugin-nonfree       Adobe Flash Player plugin installer (transitional pack
gstreamer0.10-pitfdll     GStreamer plugin for using MS Windows binary codecs
msttcorefonts             transitional dummy package
nvidia-common             Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers
ttf-mscorefonts-installer Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts

  22 non-free packages, 1.3% of 1645 installed packages.
  6 contrib packages, 0.4% of 1645 installed packages.

I am not sure this is 100% correct since I run a lot of proprietary IBM software due to me working for IBM.

Technorati Tags: , ,

ibm, Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu No comments yet

IBM Technology behind US Open

By on September 6th, 2009

With more than 250 men and women vying for the U.S. Open championship, it’s a wonder that each and every ace (and fault) is seamlessly shown on the scoreboard, your iPhone, and online.

How do they do this?  This is all thanks to IBM technology and people that has provided the systems for the US Open for the past 18 years.

CNN has, a behind the scenes, article on how this is all accompliced.  And it is interesting that most of the data comes from one person only.  The match umpire that press a couple of buttons on a hand-held device.  Yes, he does get a bit of help from some statisticians that sits at court side that count the things that the umpire is not interested in.

As one of the fortunate ones that work for IBM, we get to see and play with the technology that is at the guts of a system like this.  On CNET was another article today about how IBM uses it’s internal people as its own software lab to test new and exciting things.  I am part of the Early Adopter group (TAP) within IBM and get access to some of these tools and software.  Sometimes it can be a real bumpy road with using buggy and unstable software but hey, somebody needs to do it.  The area that I mainly work in is around Linux and Ubuntu in particular and the adoption of it in the wider corporation.   

Technorati Tags: , , , ,