Gsmarena.com är en för mig nyupptäckt webbsajt om smartphones som jag gillar mer och mer. Häromdagen upptäckte jag att de har gjort ett test där de jämför ljusstyrka och kontrast på alla telefoner jag är intresserad av, och några till.

De redovisar ljusstyrka och kontrast för LG Optimus Black P970, LG Optimus 2X, Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, Samsung I9000 Galaxy S, Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II, HTC Incredible S, Apple iPhone 4, HTC Sensation och Motorola Atrix 4G. Titta efter själv.

Whenever I wrote "Plone" followed by a return, it typed "Plone.recipe.zope2install", because that was present somewehere else in the 100 + page document. It drove me nuts.

Solution is to to go to Tools->AutoCorrect Options...->Word Completion. Once there you can either turn it off completely, or select another key than the return key for the autocompletion. I selected Tab.

Hur jämför man ljusstyrka på mobiler mellan olika butiker? Jag kunde göra en ungefärlig ranking av ljusstyrka av smart phones genom att ta bilder med min gamla telefon i bilden. Sedan är det bara att kisa och se vilken som är ljusast, den gamla eller den nya?

Iphone var ljusstarkast,  mycket ljusstarkare än min gamla telefon

HTC Desire HD är också klart ljusstarkare än min gamla telefon

Med Sony Ericsson Experia Arc börjar det bli jämnare...

HTC Sensation S. Jämnt skägg tycker jag

Samsung Nexus S också jämnt skägg, ungefär,

Samsung Galaxy II S var mörkast. Världens bästa telefon just nu, anses det. Men de får nog jacka upp intensiten på OLED-dioderna. Jag dubbelkollade att ljusstyrkan var satt på max

Uppdatering 2011-06-28

Enligt vad jag kunnat se på nätet så är LG Optimus Black ljusstarkast med över 700 Nits. Apple's Iphone ligger på runt 550 Nits.

Jag bestämde mig för att beställa dammsugarpåsar över nätet idag, och på de två första svenskspråkiga webbshopparna som dök upp på min Googlesökning, findust.com och mrdustbag.se, var man tvungen att ange personnummer för att beställa!

Jag har nu lagt en beställning på dammsugarpåsar.nu, som inte krävde personnummer.

Over the last couple of months I have noticed that when Google links to pages on this blog, it tacks on an anchor, which makes the visitor's browser scroll to the part of the page that has that anchor.

Problem is that invariably, Google has tacked on an anchor that marks up a discussion reply, which contents has nothing to do with the search query the user entered. So the user does a Google search, sees a preview of the page contents in the results listing, and is then linked to the page, to a part at the bottom of the page that has none of the words the user searched for in it! I have tried to remedy this by marking up the actual content of the blog post as an anchor, but Google does not seem to care about that.

Av vad jag kan läsa nu på forumet pprune.org, så verkar det som om planet föll som en sten under ordnade former rakt ner i vattnet från över 10 000 meters höjd, och att piloterna pga av täppt sensor kan ha uppfattat nedåtfarten som en ökande framåthastighet istället. Detta kan bl a innebära att passagerna inte märkte så mycket av det hela, förrän vid själva kraschögonblicket. Användarnamnet TheShadow har fört ett resonemang om vad som kan ha hänt, som får beröm just nu på forumet:

But my theory was that they were actually at an initially higher speed than indicated. Here (most importantly) we have to consider that after their involuntary zoom climb (due trim), the static pressure changes would thereafter have had a considerable additive (and further confusing) effect upon the blocked pitot systems and the displayed airspeed/mach

Läs mer: AF447 wreckage found - Page 30 - PPRuNe Forums

En intressant reflektion från Fark, på en Airbus så är det så att normalt sett så flyger datorerna planet och piloterna övervakar. Vore det kanske bättre tvärtom, dvs att piloterna flyger normalt sett och datorerna övervakar:

There has been debate for years that the present system it totally the wrong way around. We use autopilot to fly the plane and human pilots to monitor and take over in case of emergency. This is something that humans are really not very good at. It takes time to take in all the information and it is very easy to become stressed and focus on one point while ignoring other evidence.

Läs mer: FARK.com: (6241478) Air France jet plunged at 11,000 feet per minute. Oh, don't read this if you're about to board a plane. Shoot. Meant to say that part first

Men piloternas kamp var förgäves - flygplanet föll mot Atlantens yta med en hastighet av 3 326 meter per minut och under de sista skälvande minuterna pekade nosen uppåt med över 35 grader vilket omöjliggör försöken att vända planet upprätt igen

Läs mer: Air France kraschade efter fyra minuters kamp | SvD

– Frågan är varför piloten fortsatte att försöka få upp nosen ännu högre när planet redan befann sig i ett läge där det överstegrade, säger Paul Hayes, chef för den Londonbaserade konsultfirman Ascend Worldwide Ltd. till Bloombergs.

Läs mer: Fyra minuter av vånda på Air France-planet - DN.SE

We've been doing a lot of development and consulting lately, but I want to go back to more teaching, in Plone and in other subjects. We did a Plone course in Stockholm in April this year and now we will be back with Plone Training in the UK with with a course in July in London

This work never ended up being further developed into production (and it is one of my first attempt at coding stuff in Javascript, so there may be misunderstandings of the language).

It gives a transition where the next slide comes in from the right.

A lot of the code taken from here.

var currentPane;
var w;
var a;
var b;
var newPane;
var firstRun;
$.tools.tabs.addEffect("horizontalslider", function(i, done) {

    if (typeof this.getIndex() == 'undefined') {
        firstRun = true
        }
    else {
        firstRun = false;
    }
    
    
    currentPane = (typeof this.getIndex() == 'undefined') ? this.getPanes().eq(0) : this.getCurrentPane();
     w = this.getPanes().eq(0).width();
     a = 0;
     b = w;
    currentPane.css({"z-index":"0"});
    //alert(currentPane.css('z-index'));

    // expand the other panel
    newPane = this.getPanes().eq(i);
    newPane.css({"z-index":"1"});

    newPane.css({left: b});
    newPane.show();
    if (firstRun){
        newPane.css({left: 0});
        done.call();
    }
    else {
        newPane.animate({left: 0}, 1500, function() {
        done.call();
    });
    }
});

Today I discovered Handbrake, a tool for compressing and transcoding video. It is probably mainly for doing this from DVD, but I have been using it for making smaller video files from my Casio Exilim camera. I had a rather motionless (demoing eyeglass frames) video that had the original size of 182MB. In Handbrake I set the target size to 24MB, two passes and it managed to shrink the file down to under 24MB with pretty darn no discernible degradation of quality! Recommended.

a.invisiblelink { background-color: #fff; opacity: 0; filter: alpha(opacity=1); }

Läs mer: Workaround: Can Not Click or Hover Transparent Links/Elements in Internet Explorer IE6, IE7, IE8 | Coil Media

Många råd om lösenord är fel. Det blir lätt så att man tror att man måste ha ett lösenord som är otroligt svårt att komma ihåg, för att vara säker.

Det är ju dock så att det inte är människor som sitter och gissar lösenord vid en attack, utan det är ett datorprogram. Och datorprogram har inte så lätt att gissa flera ord efter varandra, även fast det för oss människor är lätt att komma ihåg ett sådant lösenord. Till exempel är lösenordet "this is fun" säkrare än "J4fS>2". Och vilket är lättare att komma ihåg?

Does that mean that the IT-departments and security companies is right? Nope, it just means that a 6 character password isn't going to work. None can remember a password like "J4fS<2", which evidently mean that it will be written on a post-it note.

Läs mer: The Usability of Passwords (by @baekdal) #tips

I am putting in a Google Search Engine into a customer's Plone site right now. Here are some links to the most interesting documentation I have found so far:

Class Reference - Google Web Search API - Google Code

Re: How to use "cursor.estimatedResultCount" and how to display the results? - jgeerdes [AJAX APIs "Guru"] - com.googlegroups.google-ajax-search-api - MarkMail

Display search results on a separate page: Two page search

Debugging javascript with Firebug: FireBug's Console For Debugging Javascript Data (Thanks Ray Camden)

The Expressionist™ Bass– FX3022 computer speakers would benefit from trousers in transport, to protect the bass elements. The trousers could well stay on, as long as they are made of a cloth with little audio interference.

I have just come into possession of a couple of Expressionist™ Bass– FX3022 computer speakers. One task for them, besides being computer speakers, will be to be part of a mini dance PA system - just a small Sansa Clip MP3 player and the speakers, that you can bring with you to the improvised dance hall. However I noticed that the demo speakers in the store had bass elements that had been dented. There is nothing to protect them in transport, if you say throw them in a bag with other stuff.

So I have been trying to come up with a way of protecting the bass elements.

However the obvious solutions, a grille or a piece of foam does not seem to fit easily to the bottom of the speakers. So, why not wrap them in cloth?

And here is where the conical shape of the speakers starts to work with the solution: By wrapping the bottom part of the speaker enclosures in cloth, you can easily fixate it with a "waist belt" around the cone shaped body. The cone tapers upwards, so any tightening of the belt would just make the fit of the cloth along the bottom tighter. This should be enough to protect them in transport. And it would look like your speakers were wearing trousers!

So someone needs to make them.

Expressionist™ Bass– FX3022

Läs mer: Expressionist™ Bass– FX3022 - Computer Speakers at Altec Lansing

Just a note so I can find it again: BBC World Service - Special Reports - A Short History of Five Notes

For the last month or so, Rhythmbox and Banshee have refused to play the music from my Daap shares (running the Firefly Daap server, a.k.a. mt-daapd), eventhough I can see and browse the shares.

Banshee works some of the time. I have now resorted to install Songbird under Wine, and it works fine. My guess is that something in the shared components between Rhythmbox and Banshee has been upgraded in a way that causes timeouts.

After a couple of hours of testing, here is what I have found so far:

There is a slight hickup in playback of each song, about 1.5 seconds into the song. Songbird locks up occasionally, seems to be related to accessing large Daap shares. Otherwise plain sailing.

Here is how to install Songbird on Ubuntu 10.10.

Install Wine if you haven't already.

Go to getsongbird.com and download Songbird for Windows.

Start it with Windows program loader.

I chose to import nothing since this is on Wine and all my music is on Daap anyay

I chose to disable a lot of features that I do not need since there is always a risk that that particular feature will not be Wine compatible. Only the ones checked above were installed.

Songbird has a built in web browser where you can search for plugins.

Search for daap and download the more recent plugin.

Restart Songbird and it should find your shares. In my case one of the computers needed a reboot before Songbird found all of the Daap shares on all computers.

On Ubuntu 10.10 Linux, the setting I have found that can save (encode) a clip from LiVES 1.3.2 without blatant degradation of the video quality is to select mencoder as the encoder (install it via synaptic, aptitude or apt-get if it is not installed) and then select the "FFV1 (lossless)" option, subsequently displayed in the list as "ffv1".

Usage scenario

This setup is targeted to improvised setups where you need to share out a wireless or mobile connection on your laptop, to a number of computers on a wired network. Instead of using any built in ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) in your laptop's OS, with this solution you start a virtual machine ("device") that takes care of it all. In this way the ICS services are insulated from your laptop, and no changes to the routing on your laptop is needed.

I have only made initial tests with the setup, using two laptops, both running Ubuntu Linux 10.10, and pulling down the Internet over Wi-Fi and putting the local computer on a wired connection from the other latop.

How it works

A small (256 MB RAM) pre-configured Ubuntu Linux is running as a virtual machine under Virtualbox on your laptop. The virtual machine takes care of the Internet Connection Sharing, dishing out IP numbers and handling DNS for any number of computers connected via the wired network and routing their traffic on to the Internet.

In Virtualbox you can easily change the interface on your laptop used for the local connection. The Internet connection is handled automatically.

Your laptop is connected to the Internet via a mobile connection or a wireless connection.

Step by step guide:

• Install Virtualbox
• Download an iso image for the server version of Ubuntu 10.4LTS
• In Virtualbox, make a virtual machine ("machine") with two network interfaces, the first one as NAT, the second one as bridged. Make the second interface link to your local interface on your computer where the local computer should be connected (typically your wired network interface, usually eth0). The NAT connection will automatically connect to whatever Internet connection you have on the laptop.
• Start the machine
• Choose "Devices->CD/DVD devices->Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file...", and navigate to your downloaded ISO.
• Reset the virtual machine. It will now boot from the ISO
• Run through the Ubuntu installation, install as little as possible, possibly the SSH server (which I needed due to particular circumstances). The minimum size of a Ubuntu server install is in the order of 600MB (see info on this here).
• Choose "Devices->CD/DVD devices->Remove virtual drive" in the VirtualBox guest window
• Restart the machine
• Login, run "dmesg|grep eth0" and "dmesg|grep eth1" to check that the OS hasn't moved them to new names (e.g. eth2 and eth3)
• Follow the instructions here Ubuntu Internet Gateway Method (iptables), changing eth0 and eth1 if needed.
• Set up the interfaces in /etc/network/interfaces, in my case using eth2 and eth3, in your case possibly eth0 and eth1:
  

  auto eth2
  iface eth2 inet dhcp
  
  auto eth3
  iface eth3 inet static
      address 192.168.0.1
      netmask 255.255.255.0

• Restart the networking:

  sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

• Install dnsmasq, also according to that page: DHCP/DNS server
• Make sure your host computer has an Internet Connection
• Plug another computer in to your local interface so it becomes a client
• Configure the client computer for DHCP

Now it should all work, check that the client computer can connect to the Internet.

You can now install a switch instead of the client computer and then hang as many client computers as you want off that switch (as many as the configured range of dnsmasq allows, 250 according to the example on the instructions page above). 

Trying other operating systems and solutions

I first tried Internet Connection Sharing Appliance | Virtual Appliance Marketplace , but could not get it to run the way I wanted. It is also a bit old, from 2006.

I then tried puppy Linux 2.2.0 from here. I could not figure out how to install a dhcp server and I realised I did not want to learn another package system. However ICS was very straight forward since it is a part of the Puppy firewall wizard.

I then tried Debian, but installations failed due to not being able to partition the disk, due to corrupt packages, not finding the kernel and not being able to install the bootloader respectively. All or some of these may have been due to overconservative parameters for disk size.

I then tried m0n0wall, but realised it was not open source, then tried Zeroshell but that one did not have a wizard for ICS so in the end I went with the for me more familiar Ubuntu instead.

So, tomorrow it is time to give a course again, and when it was time to print out the 100 page + documentation today, it turns out that the Openoffice installed on my Ubuntu 10.10 cannot properly read the Opeoffice document I have previously edited on a slightly older Ubuntu.

Most text paragraphs simply had the format "Textformatvorlage", which besides sticking out as German in my English environment, is nowhere to be found in the styles palette or in the search and replace dialog. So now I have hundreds of paragraphs I will need to reformat by hand. Preferrably in under ten minutes.

The solution turned out to be to save the document in a pure text format (.odt was binary on my machine) and then search for "Textformatvorlage" and replace it with another style name, "Text_20_body" in my case, throughout the document. The format I saved the document in is ".fodt" .

I have recently come up with two ideas that would need the computer to check what is done on the computer and take some action. One use case is to log what I am working on and for how long, without actually logging exactly what I am doing. The other use case is to control the volume of the computer's sound output with the scroll wheel of a mouse. This should be done on Linux.

In both use cases I would need to globally monitor what goes on with the UI on the computer. I have tried out pykeylogger and I am confident that it would work as a work logger, and I wonder if it also in an even more pared down form could be used for monitoring scroll wheel events, and from that data adjust the sound volume.

It is primarily designed for personal backup purposes, rather than stealth keylogging. Thus, it does not make explicit attempts to hide its presence from the operating system or the user. That said, the only way it is visible is that the process name shows up in the task list, so it is not immediately apparent that there is a keylogger on the system.