Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Synchronizing a Nokia 3110c with Evolution

Having my work calendar synchronized with my phone is an indispensable tool. Probably the biggest difficulty for me when moving from Windows to Linux was the loss of Nokia PCSync.

After a bit of research, I found this rather elderly article - then realized that I already had some of the earlier steps complete.

This should work for other Nokia phones - see note A below.

Here's my route:

1. for some reason, I cannot activate the built-in Bluetooth adaptor on my Acer TravelMate, so I plugged in a Belkin Bluetooth dongle which used to be connected to my work laptop. This was picked up automatically and the logo appeared on the top right.

2. On the phone, switch Bluetooth on and set the phone's visibility to "Shown to all"

3. Left click on the Bluetooth logo, and choose "Setup new device"



4. Highlight the phone that you want to connect to and click on the "Forward" button.

5. A pass key will be displayed - at the prompt, enter the pass key on the phone

6. In a terminal, run hcitool scan - this should return a list of the Bluetooth devices that can be seen by your computer. Take a note of the address for your phone - you'll need it later.

7. Set the phone's visibility to "Hidden" - you're a little bit more secure that way.

...this is the point where I start copying from a wonderfully helpful posting at ubuntu forums...

8. Install a few packages - you can use synaptec package manager to choose these individually, but you're probably better off running the following apt-get from the command line:

sudo apt-get install libmultisync-plugin-irmc libmultisync-plugin-irmc-bluetooth libopensync0 libpisync0 libsyncml0 multisync multisync0.90 multisync-tools opensync-plugin-evolution opensync-plugin-file opensync-plugin-google-calendar opensync-plugin-irmc opensync-plugin-syncml opensyncutils python-opensync rsync

Following otto67's example, I don't have a clue what some of these packages do, but it works.

9. Open "Applications - Accessories - Multisync-gui"
As the name suggests, this is a nice GUI to set up Multisync.

10. Click on "Add"

11. Enter a group name (in a flash of originality, I used nokia) and click Apply

12. Click on the "Edit" button, then "Add Member", highlight "Evolution 2.x" and click Apply

13. Do the same to add "SyncML over OBEX Client"



14. Highlight "evo2-sync" - check that Addressbook, Calendar and Tasks are marked "Personal"


15. Highlight "syncml-obex-client" (note that the window can be resized) - delete the existing content and paste the following text:

---------------
<config>
<bluetooth_address>xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx</bluetooth_address>
<bluetooth_channel>11</bluetooth_channel>
<interface>0</interface>
<identifier>PC Suite</identifier>
<version>1</version>
<wbxml>1</wbxml>
<username></username>
<password></password>
<type>2</type>
<usestringtable>1</usestringtable>
<onlyreplace>0</onlyreplace>
<recvLimit>10000</recvLimit>
<maxObjSize>0</maxObjSize>
<contact_db>Contacts</contact_db>
<calendar_db>Calendar</calendar_db>
<note_db></note_db>
</config>

- Replace xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx with the bluetooth address of your phone using the results of the hcitool scan in step 6. If you're not using a 3110c, you may need to change the Bluetooth channel (see Note A below).

16. Double-check the settings in steps 14 & 15, then click on the close button. You're nearly there!

17. Now click "Refresh" to start synchronizing.

...this can take a while...

Notes...

A. If you have a different phone, use sdptool browse xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx and choose the Bluetooth channel that relates to SyncML - "SyncML Client", “Nokia SyncML Server” or similar.

B. otto67 had the following issue (I didn't, but he was synchronizing a Nokia E70):
First sync I had hangup but after discovered that "Notes" on the phone are causing this.
So I deleted all notes from my phone (I dont use them very much).

C. The final step was not completing (I left it for 2 hours originally) - I altered the config entry <note_db>Notes</note_db> as shown in step 15. If you want notes, restore the line in the config after the first sync.

Friday, 26 June 2009

MythTV Installation

Following my first attempt, I've decided to follow advice and install ubuntu, then add the MythTV package.

Ubuntu wasn't quite painless - during the first attempt, the screen went blank (I assume some kind of screensaver) and wouldn't respond. I wound up switching the box off, then reinstalling - this time, I moved the window displaying the progress bar every once in a while, and experienced no issues.

Myth Setup is still not displaying the buttons on tha bottom of the screen, despite my display being recognised and set to a more reasonable 1024x768 (Mythbuntu offered me 512x384 or 320x240).

It happily detected my Analog WinTV PVR-150, although if I'd read the instructions properly, I wouldn't have assumed that seeing the hardware name meant that it had set it up too. Thanks to some other idiot with the same problem, it was fixed in a jiffy.

The first real snag happens at the TV listings stage - I've got the choice of Schedules Direct (North America), EIT (the listings transmitted with a DTV signal) or No grabber. Mythbuntu offered me an alternative XML offering...

Running a scan gave me loads of channels, most of which are blank. I managed to resolve this issue by installing the mythbuntu control centre (choosing Add/Remove from the Ubuntu Applications menu), then in the control centre, add mythweb which gives a really easy way to delete unnecessary channels.

I still need those schedules though - looks like I'm going back to Mr. Parker for advice here - although he's got digital - I only want listings for 5 channels...

To be continued...

Wednesday, 24 June 2009

MythTV attempt

My home desktop PC has a TV capture card so I thought that I'd give MythTV a go - I tried a couple of years ago, but didn't have the time to really get it working, and it ought to be a piece of cake by now...

After reading a few reviews, I decided to try Mythbuntu as I've been really happy with Ubuntu Linux on my laptop (Acer Travelmate 2420), the only niggle being the lack of BlueTooth support (it ought to work, but doesn't - and hasn't been important enough to spend any time sorting).

My first stumbling block involved disk partitioning - when I installed the new hard disk, I created an enormous 100GB partition for Windows, feeling that the 400GB left would be good for a later Linux installation. Letting the installer decide what to do resized the partition to the full size of the disk. After restarting the installation, I was able to use the slider control to tell Mythbuntu to use 400GB.

The rest of the installation was painless up until the MythTV setup as I cannot find any instructions for analogue cards in the UK and I've been unable to resize the screen - Xfce desktop has chosen a resolution that's so crazy I'm missing bits of the menus as they go off the screen to the right and bottom. After a few minutes digging around, I found the option to choose between this resolution or an even bigger one !

All in all, I've decided to follow Garry Parker's advice and install Ubuntu and then add the MythTV package.

It will work.

To be continued...

Wednesday, 8 October 2008

Mystery button

I am very impressed with my Diesel Toyota Avensis.
It may be 4 years old, but I am getting over 60mpg which is a massive improvement over the A3 that I have been driving for the last 7 years.

The only thing that bugs me is... what is this button for ?


Monday, 16 June 2008

Met Office Weather on Roku Soundbridge

The MOWeather script can be downloaded here




Why isn't Tools4Roku good enough for you ?


- well it is very good, and if you have a more advanced Soundbridge, I'd recommend heading over to Juergen's website and downloading his script.

However, my M400 can't display pictures and has a very small screen. I also found the RokuUI module a little clunky and wanted to create an easier interface to send display updates - hence the RokuLCD module.

Note that the RokuLCD module requires the RokuUI module as it inherits and uses the RokuUI methods. For more information on RokuLCD, the documentation is encapsulated within the module and can be accessed via a tool such as pod2html, or viewed here.



Installation


You're going to need something that runs Perl - whether it's a PC, a MAC or some other piece of hardware.
That box will also require the Net::Telnet package and wget (available for windows at http://www.gnu.org).












The following settings are user configurable:
$rokuIPyour Soundbridge's IP address
$displaytypeyour Soundbridge's model - 400 or 500 (anything else will default to 400)
$pausethe number of minutes to wait before displaying weather
$refreshthe number of minutes to wait before refreshing data
$WebAddressthe Met Office URL for your area - see below.


To get the WebAddress (in the UK only), go to http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

Choose UK from the dropdown weather menu (under the Met Office logo)...



then "UK, region and location forecasts" under the Forecast heading...



then type in your postcode:



Copy the URL within single quotes into the script.

The MOWeather script can be downloaded here

Monday, 9 June 2008

Weather on Roku Soundbridge I


The Roku Soundbridge is a truly cool toy - even if you only use it for listening to internet radio hooked up to your stereo.

I've got tons of equipment that tells me the time, so I decided to use Juergen Gluch's Tools4Roku script to show the weather forecast when it is not in use.

Problem is, he's got a pretty fancy model that displays pictures, whereas I have the M400 with its simple 2x16 character LCD.

Once I got started butchering his Perl script, I started to see that the M400 really could benefit from a simpler interface than the one offered by the RokuUI Perl module (written by Michael Polymenakos). I stress that there's nothing wrong with RokuUI, it just felt that a few extensions could improve its use for the M400.

Firstly, I had a play with the marquee feature - the script would move on to the next item before a line had been completely displayed, so I had to figure out a good length of time to display the text dependant on the length of the text. After a bit of experimentation, I found that 5 seconds for every 25 characters seemed to work.

$duration = (int(((length($text))+24)/25))*5;

$rc = $self->msg(text => "$text",
keygrab => 1,
mode => 'marquee',
duration => $duration);

However, marquee was too restrictive as it only be uses the top line, allowing access to only 16 of the meagre 32 characters.

A new marquee is needed!


To Be Continued...

Monday, 2 June 2008

Connecting a Southern Electric BetterPlan Monitor to an Ethernet Network


I signed up for the BetterPlan product from Southern Electric and was intrigued by the RJ45 port on the underside of the monitor that they supplied.


Curiosity finally got the better of me and I connected it to my router via an ethernet cable...


The display mostly cleared, and the temperature reading appeared to drop by 10 degrees, then slowly recover.


I fiddled with some of the buttons, et voila - factory reset !

A month's worth of data lost and the monitor couldn't contact the base station. I think that the temperature refers to the radio channel, but it was easier just to reset the base station as described in the manual.



Nothing ventured...