Nokia N97 Launch

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Nokia N97 Launch Party last Friday night. They held it at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and on the foyer, mingling amongst the crowd were people in ChunLi, HellBoy, JackSparrow, Uhura and Evil Anakin cosplay. The good thing about it was that they were really into character happily posing for canwhores, but the strange thing is, I didn't really see the connection between the cosplay and a device launch.

Met up with @bytebot, @bleongcw, @limyh and met up for the first time @geekonomics (CNET Asia blogger from Singapore) and @dk.

crappy camera phone pic by @limyh

I tried to register, but I was bounced from the "Media" counter to the "Guests" counter mainly because I presented my business card. They couldn't figure out if I was invited as a blogger or as a corporate guest. I didn't know which category I was either. But I mentioned the secret password: @davidlian, and it was all magically settled.

The doors opened, and Colin and I made a beeline to the furthest booth with two available units for hands on use. We tried them out. First impressions were good, with a nice build quality to the device. The keyboard looks a little puny, but the buttons have a nice feel to it. I didn't really like the location of the spacebar, being really small and way too far to the right.

the symbol key has moved to the right too.

I tried to probe into as much features as I could without being too rude in appearing to hog the device. I must have handled it for about 15 minutes. So while I had a very limited amount of time with it, this "review" is will also compare the N97 with its peers. Some background information, before my Bold and iPhone, I used an E61 (Oct 2006). This is the original version without the camera. This was over 2 years ago, and that was my first experience with the S60 Symbian Operating System. I found it appropriate at that time, providing a relatively stable OS, good enough pull email, an interesting way of handling connections to WiFi, EDGE and Bluetooth. I found it functional enough for its time.

The iPhone was snazzy, but pretty much a toy and I didn't use it more than 4 months before moving onto the BlackBerry platform. The Bold I use now is a great balance of stability, functionality and most importantly integration to work (Email, Calendars and Contacts). The Bold is nice, but looking at other platforms, is probably getting abit old. I have tried the Storm, but it feels like the touch screen features were a kludge; it doesnt feel smooth, and the display seems to lag behind the interactions.


I also had to maintain a series of Nokia Communicators over the past few years. Having to handle the whole family of what I call, "The Beasts", the 9000 to the 9210 to E90. This is absolutely indispensible to some senior managers and directors who NEED the large screens and full sized keyboards for due to failing eyesight. Mobile device manufacturers seem to want to design stuff for the young and trendy seeming to forget that the people who pay the bills are old and are severely long sighted. So Nokia and Blackberry, please don't forget about this market segment!

I always found the Communicator series wanting in their performance. Navigation was a pain, especially when there were literally thousands of emails in the inbox. We had to wait over 30 seconds just to task switch. Options were scattered everywhere and the UI looked very clunky.

Considering the amount of time Nokia had to develop the N97 since the E90, I had high expectations and assumed the N97 to solve all these problems. A form factor which would be useful for upper management, a modern OS, great integration with productivity apps, snappish performance, and as a bonus, a new input and interaction method with the touch screen.

Unfortunately I was wrong.

First off, when I was navigating the menus of the N97, it basically felt like my old E61. Yes, the familiarity is good, in that I knew where to access the obscure options like how to define Connections, etc, but I had the feeling like I was using a 2 year old phone. It was like a timewarp. I would have thought that with a new processor, more RAM, this machine would fly. Unfortunately not. It just felt so laggy. Fonts and widget designs too were retro.

The N97 touch screen interactions, like the Storm, is not cohesive and feels out of place. It doesn't register the exact position, and it feels very sluggish in terms of recognising a contact, and especially when a stroke (to pan) is made. For example if you need to scroll down a page in the Apps desktop. As you scroll, it feels jerky and there is a 500-800ms delay. This is not good.

The scrolling itself is jerky. Meaning that the refresh rates are very slow. You can actually see the screen repaint as the desktop pans. Surely the display should have some basic 2D graphics acceleration assisting it?

I often felt frustrated with the accuracy of the pointing. OK, I was using my fingers, and not a stylus. But being spoilt by the iPhone, I expected that tech nowadays would be good enough for any pointer be it a grubby finger or a stylus.

The Apps

One of the first apps I loaded was Nokia Maps. This looked interesting as it was an official Nokia product, so integration and features must be almost bleeding edge. It loaded up and displayed the entire globe ala Google Earth. This was all good until I tried to zoom in. Again I expected the iPhone-like feature of navigating the Earth with multitouch by zooming with two fingers. Unfortunately it wasnt to be, as @geekonomic's tweet explains, the Nokia N97 uses the standard resistive tech vs the iPhones capacitive technology. So to zoom in, you'd have to use the buttons located by the screen on the right, which is not as intuitive as it should be. The refresh rates again was jerky with probably at 2 fps.

One of the options on Nokia Maps was "Traffic Info". Wow! This would be an excellent feature to have as a device. It then cautioned me that this required a license / subscription. Since it wasn't my device, I agreed as a proxy, to the terms and conditions for the demo device. However after a few minutes of downloading, it came back to me and said that my region did not have any traffic information sources. This is a real pity. I expected with the amount of effort spent in this launch, a more extensive localisation effort would be put in in extending the features of the Maps product. Glen Cha (Product Marketing Mgr) later explained that getting information from Malaysian Govt Departments is not exactly easy. So much for ITIS.

This to me is a killer feature for a mobile phone / GPS convergence product. The ability to get up to the minute updates of traffic information and to guide you through the optimal path is something only a mobile phone can do which a regular GPS product cannot.

The interface for the Maps App itself is still very primitive just like the BlackBerry Maps App, which I dont use, where the interface looks like it was done by a 9 year old: drawings for roads are just plain lines. Looks like Google Maps Mobile still offers the best UI and functionality. Latitude, Satelite Hybrid, pretty roads (1way/2way/highway) and a great search facility gives Google a huge advantage.

The Camera

The camera slide cover is a good idea. Camera holes tend to be an attractor of lint, so this will certainly help get rid of the trademark cameraphone blur. I took a picture of Colin and Bernard, and was very happy with it.

there were lots of people cameraphoning a cameraphone that night. geeks.

The flash was "good enough" for the distance, the Carl Zeiss lens was bright and able capture the subjects in focus. However I was slightly worried about the time it took to take the picture. The camera took a good 3 seconds to focus, and then it snapped only after a second. So while this was marginally worse than @mellissa's Ixus, I hope that the performance will be better in normal conditions as this was done in really low light.

Sending Pictures

After taking the picture, I wanted to send it to my email account. This use case was abit more obscure, because I think an email account was not setup on the demo device. It didn't allow me to directly email the picture to any other arbitrary address. However via the Internet looking icon, it did provide an Ovi option, which was to upload the picture to the Ovi website which would then forward a link to your intended recipients. This worked good enough.

Physical Build

Generally it looks adequately built. Of course we wont know how well it survives the real world unless someone actually uses it day in and out for at least 3 months, dropping it and knocking it on hard surfaces a few times. What I'm really afraid off is the spring loaded mechanism where the screen snaps out of the keyboard.

Now it reminds me of the modified Nokia "banana-phone" in the first Matrix movie where Neo snaps out the mouth piece and says "Most Awesome, Dude!". Its all really cool, and feels great. However someone must have tuned this snap-action a little too hard. I'm really afraid that it would jump out of someone's hands if not held properly.

I checked the construction of the supporting mechanism at the back, and the two plastic hinges seem sturdy enough. But I would hate to think what will actually happen when they utlimately fail, as Ive seen way too many Nokia devices fail due to their plastickyness. e.g. Screen hinges for all the Communicators which eventually cut into the screen connection ribbons.

The Web Browser

I also had the opportunity to test out the browser, and it was good. Not as nice as the iPhone's Safari, but way better than my Bold's minimal browser. Scrolling with the touch screen was unfortunately jerky. The promo video ofcourse showed super-smooth compiz like effects on-screen which I thought was quite deceiving.

That was all the time I had with the device. The speeches started, so I put the device down and paid some attention to it while I twittered my first impressions, with full reference to the #n97kl hashtag.
They had booths which ran Gravity on the S60, showing the latest tweets on screen. This was a great touch and should be a permanent feature in all future events.

After the marketing spiel, which tried to project this device as the answer to everyone's need to access the internet "Nokia N97: Making the internet YOUR Internet", we were approached by one of the wonderful Text100 staff, Erna @mahyuni invited us to go down to the Press Conference to ask a few questions if we wanted to. So Colin and I went down, hoping to get some detailed answers.

Bambos Kaisharis (Head of Mktg), Vlasta Berka (GM), Glenn Cha (Prod Mktg Mgr)

The room was already full with some traditional media folk. They asked some basic questions and we waited our turn. An interesting factoid was that people in East Malaysia are bypassing wired internet and using mobile devices as their gateway to the interwebs nowadays. Through twitter, @ditesh asked:

does it come with inbuilt SIP client? Does the SIP client support Speex? (Speex = open standard)

So Colin asked that to one of the three dudes there. They did say that SIP support will come as software upgrades, and assumed that if there are new features, it can be sent via Over the Air. Something like Windows Upgrade.

I then asked my first question:

"Your Nokia device seems to support a multitude of video and audio formats. This is great. So does it support Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis, the Open Standard for video and audio as recommended by HTML 5.0?"

Bambo Kaishari's (Head of Marketing) answer was almost immediate; "We'll get back to you on that one."

Oh, I thought, thats interesting. Im not too sure if it was too geeky a question, but there were three guys in front. Someone should know at least? They fielded other questions, and when it was quiet, I asked another:

"Nokia announced a while back (june 2008) that the Symbian Operating System will be Open Sourced. When exactly will this occur?"

Again, a brief silence, and Bambos said "We'll get back to you on that one too." They were very nice about it though, and after the conference, Vlasta Berka (GM for Sales) came up to me and said that he will definitely come back to me. I then remembered another important question:

"Our company uses BlackBerry devices, and previously we used to integrate our Communicator devices with BlackBerry using the Nokia-BlackBerry connect. Will the N97 have BlackBerry integration?"

He looked stunned and looked like he was about to say "We'll get back to you", but he elaborated that he was not sure what has transpired between Research in Motion (those evil device pushing Canadians) and Nokia, but the last he heard was that the development for BlackBerry Connect for Nokia devices have stopped. There were some issues with the pace of development. So while he couldn't give a definite answer, he seemed confident that there would not be BB integration in the future.

Pity. It would be great if BlackBerry users had more choice in what devices they could use to access the BlackBerry infrastructure. Considering that there are quite alot of older users using BlackBerries they should either develop a large Communicator form factor like device, or open up their infra so that device makers like Nokia can more easily address those needs.

Food and Entertainment

After the Press Conference, we went back upstairs and by that time, all the kiasu people had cleared off from the buffet line. The food served was constantly refreshed, so there was ample left for us latecomers. Nokia then had some competitions for most extravagantly dressed couple, and a Guitar Hero competition.

I stayed on, anticipating to see @kimberlycun + @shaolintiger and @kyspeaks + @mellissa dominate this competition, but it was truly an epic fail. They didnt last 11% citing reasons like the Wii timing wasn't synched. Yeah right.

Overall, it was a great event, excellent food (roast beef and apple crumble+ice cream ftw), excellent ambiance, well organised, but huge let down by the star of the show itself, the N97.

So Ill still have to wait for another launch cycle to recommend a suitable device to those old folks who have their Bolds set with font size 20.

yk

Google Maps Malaysia Launch

I had the opportunity to attend the Google Maps Launched of its localised service in Malaysia last week. The venue was in this nondescript place called No Black Tie, famous as a destination for Jazz fans. It has been a while since Ive been there, and when I was, it was in their previous venue around the corner. Thats how long ago. So when Google Malaysia (Thanks Hanson) invited, I was happy to go.

I dont normally attend functions like this, considering that I have better things to do. However Im a real big fan of Google Maps, as it has saved me many a times before on my Blackberry with GPS while looking for difficult to find addressess, avoiding traffic jams and lately keeping tabs of where other people are with Latitude. I certainly would like to see this service to improve.

The bunch of invitees were basically the same Barcamp.my and MyOSS dudes. Met up with @ditesh, @aizatto, @angch, @bytebot, @seanx2, @yclian and @cerventus, @limyh, @arzumy and other folk. Considering there were so many twits, Im surprised that there was relatively little hash tagging using #mymap / #mymaps during the event.

Thanks to @surianee for taking this picture. More pics and blog entry here.

The event started off with the Google folk giving the intro ("Reaching out to you guys" spiel) with a buildup to more exciting stuff. Unfortunately Mr Murphy just had to show up, and killed ALL internet connections. Perhaps it was because of the 41 laptops trying to connect at once, or because #streamyxreallysux, but it was very unfortunate, because being an internet launch the event really depended on a fast and stable connection.

Fortunately there was much Google love abound, and most of us have seen what Google Maps can do. So when Andrew McGlinchey and Vinny encouraged us to "imagine", it wasnt very hard to extrapolate what they really meant. Maybe it WAS planned after all. Oh, @pamelafox's Mario Cart (demo'ed in foss.my08) was way better than their car driving demo.

Here were some of my questions which I planned to ask, of which some were answered.

1. Why does maps.google.com assume you are in the US? The Googlers at the event showed that if you use maps.google.com.my, it will default to Malaysia showing both East and West Malaysia, but surely they could do better? Why is this an issue? Geo IP has been around for ages. Deduce from the IP address, and take the map to the closest City with the appropriate zoom levels. Wikimapia does it already.
2. The Googlers were expecting to get questions from the intertoobs, and posted this URL: http://tinyurl.com/noblacktie for people to post questions, and vote on which one to ask first. Unfortunately the moderator.appspot page isn't mobile device friendly. @alphaque had trouble with it (maybe that was a good thing) and my BB wouldnt render the page as well. 
3. There is a small version discrepency between BB and S60 devices for the Google Maps mobile client. No big deal, all the features seem to be there.
4. It seems the FOSS Image slicer which was mentioned is this Command Line program by Ian Stevens described in this blog post "Unix command-line tile cutter for Google Maps" - or download the shell script here. May use this in my future mind map presentations.
   
5. I asked Andrew directly when the Browser Based "My Maps" feature will be integrated with the Google Maps Mobile Client. He must have misunderstood my question, because he went on about how creating maps in My Maps is a desktop experience, and not suited for the mobile. Plus you could email the created map. I corrected him that the emailed map is actually an image file, and its really not very useful. All we want, as a killer feature, is to have our "research" on how to get to somewhere done on the desktop with the appropriate markings to be synched with our mobile device. That is infinitely more useful. He finally/hopefully understood and gave the stock answer that the Google team would be looking into it.

Overall, it was a good event. It definitely could be alot better with regards to the internet connection. No Black Tie is a nice setting. Certainly a better change to the standard Hotel fare, where the location itself is forgettable. The staff upstairs at NBT was attentive and curteous and even offered refills. Food was minimal, no thanks to plate overloaders (you know who you are), but solved with a trip to the Mamak down the road.

Its good that Google is finally making itself heard in Malaysia. Their products certainly have a good fit to any Malaysian company as any, and hopefully they will expand out here too. That is of course if Malaysia makes sure broadband just works ...


yk

More info from Colin.
Official Pictures here. Spot the "Kawaii" Camwhorer.

Random Pictures #2

Here are more strange pictures from around KL between the months of March and April 2009.

Somewhere in Melawati, by this dumpsite (which obviously has a sign which says dumpsters will be prosecuted), was this strange juxtaposition of beauty and rubbish:
Which prick keeps peacocks nowadays anyway? Some MJ wannabe?

Driving through the Middle Ring Road, approaching Damansara - yes, everywhere is "Damansara" nowadays, even though its more like Puchong/Kepong/Jinjang. A new sign appeared below the Smart TAG, and it asks for volunteers to test out some MILFs. Or did I read wrong?
The dude in the DMAX seems dissapointed.

In a Factory Outlet Store, there was this reject of a shirt. I wonder what the vendor was thinking when they ordered 50 cartons of these lame yellow "SCO" shirts.
The seagulls look so OpenOffice.org 2.0. And what does "So Cal" mean? iCal? Fail.

This restaurant seems to be trending with the theme of the season. I wonder if they serve pork? from Mexico?
Next door is "Pneumonia Drive Thru".

An addendum to my "Secure Eateries", although its not about security, nor is it about eateries, this new shop in Sri Rampai seems promising to us geeks:
How does it work? Do they trade in IPs of open terminals to log in? Well, Ive got bad news for their business: Ctrl-Alt-[F1-F6] gives users free terminals! What is the furniture for? Whatever the case, they certainly dont install Windows there!


yk

MyNPL ISSC 2009 - Feva Division as 1st Runner up

Having picked up paintball only about 3 months ago, I'd never have thought I'd be involved in a major tournament anytime soon. It all started when my cousin introduced me to a bunch of new but really keen paintballers who practise in a field very close to where I live. They only started late last year, but have since invested significantly in purchasing all the gear AND electronic (meaning: fast) markers ("guns"). They were keen enough for weekly sparring practises which was good for me. Learning the ropes, and how to handle the field.

Our first action as a team was in a mini, unofficial tournament in KKlub Kombat Zone, which is where we normally play in. We played as team "Feva Rookies" and came 3rd: a podium finish, but it has to be told, there were only 4 teams participating. So it really wasnt that amazing a feat. We won a Kombat Zone ceramic mug, and a whole box of 2000 pellets to share. Team Marksman Alpha won the tournament then.





Then I asked if we were going to try out the MyNPL International Super Seven Championship to be held on the 1-3 May. There was general interest, but until the last week of the deadline, the consensus was that we were not ready in using the regularly sized fields. Kombat Zone is approximately half the size.

Surprisingly, I got a call from Gilbert, our team Manager one night to submit our details. He pulled everything together and registered us for the tourney. Not only that, eventually he managed to get "Bro" Ariffin (+6019-312088) from Kombat Zone to sponsor our team! Thus the team "Feva Division" was borne.

So after pouring over the Field layouts which was available online, and a 2 hour team meeting, we thought we were ready for the grueling 3 days of the ISSC.

On the 1st of May, we arrived early in the morning, registering and checking out the area. Because we were mere Division 4 (or "Young Guns" division), we had to share a canopy with two other teams. It was rather cramped. The Division 1 teams were already at each other in Field 1, while the Division 3 teams were at Field 2. We had to wait till 12pm for our first match.

We didn't do too well. But we didn't do too bad either. There were only 10 teams registered in D4, and one didn't turn up. So we only had to beat one team to stay in the competition for the knockout stages starting with the Quarter Finals. We lost 3, won 2, drew 2 and won by default 1. This gave us the preliminary position at #7.

At least we made it to the next day!

Personally, I had a great time at the later part of the day. I was trying things I learnt observing the more experienced teams exploited throughout the tournament. How they waited in the snake, moved back and forth the knuckles avoiding the pellets. I played about 3 games in the snake and was quite comfortable.

However I didnt move too much, just around the first and second knuckles only. This position however had access to a large part of the field. The centre back, carwash, spike and hammer was always available for picking off. I also managed to hit someone on the left mid can in one game.

Unfortunately for the Quarter Finals (final 8), we were up against the 2nd best team called "Infidelz". Only started a year ago, they are already "D4 veterans" having competed in two other MyNPL tournaments, reaching podium placements then. They did extremely well in the prelims, and perhaps due to the fatigue at the end of the long day, we managed to draw with them (I took out someone on the break, and traded out with the snake player.)

So for Saturday, the Quarter finals is setup as the best of three. No points, either total elimination or capturing the flag within the time period.

This is when Verat "Conquest", our team captain, architected an ultra high risk and aggressive plan of running down the field and taking the enemies out by surprise. The Ultimate Feva move. So we tried it out on the first game of the Quarter Finals against the technically strong team Infidelz. I ran down the left Dorito side with markers blazing.

Unfortunately halfway down, my bolt jammed. As I looked down to pull it back, I got hit squarely in the mask. Henry too was out, with similar problems with the mechanical house marker. I was walking back dejectedly to the dead zone, thinking it was the end of the plan. Then I noticed our right flank making great progress with Gilbert "Aquaman" cleaning up the last remnants of Team Infidelz.

We pulled it off! It was really fast, no more than 45 seconds. Super aggressive, Feva style.

The second game was slightly less quick, but aggressive nevertheless. We won that too. With two wins, we managed to knock out the mighty Infidelz!

Unlike the grueling 1st day where we had to play 8 matches, Saturday had only the Quarter Finals scheduled. So, for the Semifinals, we had to wait one more day.

I spent the rest of Saturday sleeping.

On Sunday, we arrived at 7am to get ready for our first match against team "X-O Dust." They did extremely well in the preliminary rounds, and rose as the favourite, amassing 597 points with 6 wins. They did well in the last MyNPL event in Johor reaching the Quarter Finals.

We didn't expect to progress further, but were determined to put up a fight.

I sat out the first game, with Mervyn "Blaze", our import from Team Marksman / Dangerouz Dragonz / Werdna Kids fame, covering the Doritos side.

We decided to storm the enemy again, and managed to do it in style: We wiped them out without dropping a player.

The second game I managed to be part of the action. The plan was to push aggressively as well. I made it up to the 50, but got shot out. Fortunately SanRise took my lane and sneaked into the wedge to pick off the players who thought that it was already clear. Then we started dropping players, and it was a brilliant move by the lone Conquest who moved up the snake tape to methodically take out 2 bunkered guys, and finally trading out with their last player. This meant the game ended as a draw!

I was out of the third game as well, and watched on helpless as our team got thrashed. It was XO Dust payback for the first match by wiping us clean with all 5 of their players remaining alive. So with a Win, Draw, Lose scoreline, it only meant the nerve wrecking One-on-one decider!

We chose SanRise to represent the team. He calmly stayed in the center back can while the XO Dust player moved swiftly up the field. He finally settled on the Hammer, and snapshot behind the Dorito. It was a thrilling minute which felt like 30 while team Feva huddled looking on. Then the Marshall's keen eye spotted a small splatter on the XO Dust players lower left leg and shouted "Ouuuttt!" and we cheered!

We were actually through to the Finals!

The time was about 10:30am and the Finals for all divisions would only start at 1pm. This meant a long time to wait out. We had an early A&W lunch and relaxed by the players paddocks. The weather was not as hot as Friday, and we had more room since the other teams who did not make it vacated their spots.

We also had to think about the new field. Field 1 was played by the Div 1 and Div 2 teams. Over three days, this meant that it was literally covered with paintballs. The amount of paintball pellets used is really quite extraordinary. This also makes it very slippery to run on.

We had a look at the field, as the marshalls allowed us to walk it. The snake side was extremely exposed with very few bunkers covering it. This put a damper on any fieldwide aggressive moves.

Our opponents were team "Destructo". They too did not expect to advance this far, and only qualified the prelims one place above us at #6. They were only formed 1 weekend before the tourney. So it was a match up of the underdogs. They however had an excellent snake player who was deft, sneaky and deadly.

So our first game, we played defensive. We bunkered in, forming a rough W. Ultimately with less planning and understanding of the field, we didn't choose the right bunkers and were easily picked off from the sides.

With not much to lose, we decided: its Feva Time. Aggressive play for the second game. Having to cover the snake side, this meant I had to run down a very exposed area of the field. It meant certain death, but it would be a small sacrifice for my other team mates to pick off the distracted and disoriented enemy. It worked, with our last player Aquaman again deftly clearing up the debris. Fortunately for me it didn't hurt too bad.

With the scores even, we could either play aggressive or defensive. We decided to go all out. Unfortunately this time, pulling the same trick twice against a smart team did not work, and we were shot out as fast as the last player ran down the 50 yards. As I turned out of the field crossing the tape, their Left Back player accidentally shot through my mask splattering paint into my right ear. Im still picking out orange paint from my ear.

So it was unfortunate that our aggressive play did not work the last time, but it did provide results for the other times we used against unsuspecting teams. In the long run, nothing beats traditional tactics and building skills in bunkering, snapshooting and team placement. These are skills which we will build up over the weeks and months ahead, but at least we know the fear we can instill in the hearts of our opponents with the Feva aggression.

As a first time tournament, the result of 1st Runner Up (or 2nd place) is really out of this world. It was beyond our grandest targets, and we were truly happy with the result. Not only do we get to get some silver medals, we got some Redz harnesses from Werdna Hol and a team prize of RM1300 cash which really is quite good.

So to my teammates at Feva Division; Mervyn, Gilbert, Verat, Kevin and Henry its been an honour, thanks for the experience and well done!
And thanks to Kombat Zone for the sponsorship. More pics available at Verat's Gallery.

Paintball is fun.

yk

[Updated: 18 May with ResidentEvilChef Foo's excellent pictures]

Official Results
More Pictures: cybertrooper2001

And the Official Photographer for ISSC, ResidentEvilChef, Desmond Foo:

• ISSC Day 1
• ISSC Day 2
• ISSC Day 3

Realtek 8187b Wifi on the Toshiba Satellite L300

I was struggling to get the Wifi working on Ubuntu 8.10 on the Toshiba Satellite L300 over the weekend. I resorted to using the Windows driver with ndiswrapper (ndisgtk is a great UI for it). But the performance was quite bad, and after a reboot, the wlan0 will dissapear.

Looking at the online forums there seems to be alot of confusion, because the device ID displayed is not 8187 but 8198. One method is to add this new ID in the RTL driver and recompile it.

However there is an easier way, and to get it working, you will need the backports of legacy drivers installed. In Ubuntu this will install it:

# apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

When this is installed, you just need to invoke the Realtek driver:

# modprobe rtl8187

NetworkManager should then detect the wifi adaptor and proceed to connect to the network. Make sure that you add rtl8187 in /etc/modules for the driver to load up on the next reboot.


yk

My new album

CREATE THE BEST ALBUM COVER EVER

Here are the rules:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it to FB with this text in the "caption" or "comment" and TAG the friends you want to join in.

Picture is http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahphotographer/3302804836/

Quote (title) is: There are two kinds of light--the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. - James Thurber

Band name is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-face_culling

And you get:

Hey IASA, check out what your Malaysian Chapter is doing!

Obi and I were wondering what our esteemed IASA chapter is doing in Malaysia (IASA-M), so we decided to visit their website. However their address is not obvious, so google it was.

IASAM - an acronym that stands for "I almost scullfarked a moose"

Suffice to say, I was surprised at what IASA-M meant. Kids these days ... So for the benefit of the sensitive readers, here is the direct link to IASA-M.

http://www.iasahome.org/web/malaysia

Hopefully this would increase their PageRank to avoid further embarrassment.

yk

Xen: DomU having exclusive use of an ethernet port

I'm setting up an internet facing server which would have a limited number of services exposed. I'm also testing out the capabilities of Xen. Because the hardware I'm testing on is a 3 year old Dell 1U server with no hardware RAID0, I can't use VMWare ESXi (the free one) which would be a simple click and run.

So Xen it is. Installed CentOS 5.2, with software RAID0 (thank you mdadm!), and ofcourse with the Xen kernel enabled. Installing a new CentOS image was relatively straightforward;

1. Use virt-install
   
2. If you are having problems in setting the ISO image as the source, you can
   
3. mount -o loop Centos.DVD.iso /var/www/html/centos/
4. use http://[localLANIP]/centos as the repository

So back to the issue at hand. The Physical server has two network cards. One is allocated as a trusted LAN card (eth0), and the other card is the untrusted WAN card (eth1). Normally when you install your server, you have access to both ports.

However if you want the Dom0, the Xen physical server which hosts the child Virtual Machines (DomU) to be insulated from the internet, you need eth1 to be invisible to Dom0.

To do this, you will need to mess around abit. Parts of this guide comes from here and here. And you will need a kernel module called pciback. To test that you have pciback in your system, do this:

# modprobe pciback
# lsmod | grep pci
pciback 29389 0

Wonderful, it comes by default with the stock CentOS 5.2 distro. Next you will have to find out which PCI address to look out for.

# lspci |grep Ethernet
00:03.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C
00:10.0 Host bridge: Broadcom I/O Bridge with Gigabit Ethernet
00:10.2 Host bridge: Broadcom I/O Bridge with Gigabit Ethernet
01:03.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Pro 100

The one I was interested in is the 3Com card. So remember 00:03.0 . I tried the kernel comand arguments as described in the URL above, but that didn't work. Fortunately in Linuxland, there is always more than one way of doing things.

First, modify /etc/modprobe.conf manually

# cat modprobe.conf
alias eth0 e100
# 090217 yky Hiding eth1 from Dom0 to be revealed to DomU
#alias eth1 3c59x
options pciback hide=(0000:00:03.0)

Basically pciback "seizes" any PCI devices before the kernel can get to it. Which is why it has to be preloaded early on. Unfortunately pciback is a dynamic module residing in the filesystem, which may not be in the ramdisk when the kernel is loading. So you will need to add it to the ramdisk by running this command.

# mkinitrd -f --preload=pciback /boot/initrd-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)
# ls -la /boot/initrd*
-rw------- 1 root root 2280203 Feb 17 17:42 initrd-2.6.18-92.el5xen.img

Now you are ready to lose eth1 from Dom0. Reboot. To confirm this to yourself, do this:

# dmesg | grep eth
e100: eth0: e100_probe: addr 0xfcf00000, irq 18, MAC addr 00:90:27:D3:A8:BC
e100: eth0: e100_watchdog: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
e100: peth0: e100_watchdog: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex
device peth0 entered promiscuous mode
xenbr0: port 2(peth0) entering learning state
xenbr0: port 2(peth0) entering forwarding state

# dmesg | grep pciback
pciback 0000:00:03.0: seizing device
pciback: vpci: 0000:00:03.0: assign to virtual slot 0

# ls -l /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pciback/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Feb 17 17:52 0000:00:03.0 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0
...

Previously eth1 would appear where eth0 did. Now not so. eth1 has been seized.

So the next step is to make 00:03.0 available to the DomU guest VM. To do so, your Xen config file should look something like this:

# cat /etc/xen/DomU1
name = "DomU1"
memory = 178
bootloader = "/usr/bin/pygrub"
disk = [ "tap:aio:/xen/DomU1/DomU1.img,xvda,w" ]
vif = [ "mac=00:00:ee:24:9a:73,bridge=xenbr0" ]
pci = [ "00:03.0" ]

The vif ... bridge=xenbr0 will provide a virtual NIC to the DomU which can be connected to the trusted LAN.
The pci = [ "00:03.0" ] defines the PCI address which is accessible to the DomU to probe. On a successful bootup, it should detect it as a pure 3Com card as Dom0 used to do.

You can now configure eth1 as per normal. Dont forget to bring up them firewalls!

yk.

The World of Goo ... and it tastes Goooood in Linuxland!

The common problem about running Linux at home is that you get so left out when it comes to games. Ive only just found out about OpenArena and Nexiuz, which satisfies my FPS needs. Im not much of a puzzle fan, but once in a while, a surprising and really interesting game comes along.

The game is called "The World of Goo". It features blobs which you can manipulate into wobbly shapes to build structures; towers, bridges to get the goo blobs from one place to another. It looks like a really souped up Flash game, except that the gameplay is far more complex and enthralling.

Whats better, the developers invested a little bit more to release it on Linux (deb, rpm and tarballs are available.) And it doesn't cost that much, at USD20.
This is what it looks like when you are tasked to build a bridge over a crevase. The links between the goo blobs are strong, but very wobbly. Any chance of latching on to solid walls must be taken advantaged of to build rigidity.
I really liked the Frog level, which was entitled "Not too high, not too low" because as you can see in the background of this screenshot, the "tongue" of the frog has to be suspended by the pink baloons which you manipulate. However if you place too many baloons, the ceiling is laced with spikes which would explode em, dropping your bridge to the bottom which destroys your ladder. Its quite evil.
What Im really impressed about is the art direction of this game. Its very colourful, the UI elements blend extremely well including the blobby cursor. The sound is cute, with a suitable soundtrack. The squeels of the blobs as you pick and place them remind me of Lemmings. Infact the game play is Lemming-like.
2D Boy, the developers have not DRM'ed the game, and offered Chapter 1 as the free demo levels. Ive played it Linux, and the performance was smooth, with no problems full-screen and windowed (as pictured). There is virtually no help in the game, not that its needed, but each level has some sign boards which are crypting and haiku like. Annoying but you just have to click on it.
Its a really good game, and I would recommend it, especially for those who love abit of puzzle solving, mouse dexterity and good clean fun.

Read on for more info via the HeliOS project.

yk

Random Pictures #1

I spotted a few funny opportunities to snap a few pictures over the past Chinese New Year holidays, and within a span of three days, an Adult theme seemed to emerge.

First off, spotted in Genting Highlands was this poster which highlighted the attractions at their Theme Park. At attraction #10, Gentings is proud to present "Adult Bumper Cars".
Now. I wonder if clothing is optional, or they have private rooms, or there are big exotic dancers. Whatever it is, they'd better practise "Safe Driving."


Then the very innocent game called "Super Mario Galaxy" sports a rather unfortunate camera angle when Mario, that hot blooded italian plumber, captures several cute white fluffy rabbits which talk. The picture doesn't do much justice to the lewdness, because the bunny squirms in a way which is rather disturbing. And look at Mario's face, that pervert!

Good thing its bunnys and not .... cats. Or goats.


To conclude the "Inadvertent Adult theme", around the streets of Wangsa Maju, a suburb north east of KL, there seems to be a demand for "Spring Return" the ultimate male performance enhancing drug. I wonder if it comes with sound effects - "g-doiiiiiingggg!" "bwaaaang!" Or it actually means something more romantic like the return of Spring, the season. I think not.
Im just wondering if the flat for sale is the neighbour who lives under an addict of this drug. Whatever the case, Ditesh's wifey methods would be a great complement to this new enhancement.




yk.

Lessig denied by Viacom

Was just having a look at Lawrence Lessig's blog since he twittered that he had an interview with Stephen Colbert. He puts up YouTube link in the post "let the remixes begin", unfortunately ...

Yup, "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc."

Kinda ironic, but expected.

However here is the interview which still works (for now)


I loved the great example Colbert makes by "adding value" to Lessigs book by scratching out Lessig's name and drawing a Snoopy inside.

"Now, my book! My Work of Art! You OK with that?"
"OK, put this on EBay, and see if its going to get more than amazon.com"
"Yes!"
"Thats exactly my point! You've added value to that! Bravo."

Colbert then does what he does best and says:

" ... nobody should take my work and add anything thats inappropriate, thats what I'm saying. Never, EVER!"

yk.

Touch N Go Scam

Ive been using the Touch n Go card for quite some time, and never had much issues with it. Ive found it really useful especially with the SmartTag device. This is a rant about the little interaction I have with Touch n Go Sdn Bhd, and why they suck.

A few weeks ago, I got denied entry with a bizzare message "Kad Tamat Tempoh". I never new TnG cards could expire! Because of this, I was inconvenienced in having to queue up and pay cash in the manual toll booths. The problem was that whenever I use any toll booths, its either after work hours, or the TnG offices would be at the opposite side of the road.

So this morning, I decided to spend two trips around the Ulu Klang Elevated Highway (thats 2 x RM1.50) just to get to an open TnG office. I asked the lady at the counter if she can renew my expired card, and she said sure. Just fill in a form. Great.

So while I was doing that, she punched in some stuff in her keyboard, and when I was done, she handed me a shiny new TnG card. Hooray, I thought, that was relatively painless.

Until I looked at the receipt:

Sorry about the bad pic, but thats the best my phone could do.

Old card No: 00000000000
Old Mfg No: 0488145330
New Card No: 601464000xxxx
New Mfg No: 1832xxxxxxx

Old Card Balance: 70.75
Old Deposit:15.00
Amount Forfeited: 0.00
Card Price: 10.00
New Card Balance: 70.75

Warranty Expires om 1/13/2010

What was interesting was that there was a Card Price! WHAT? I just needed them to extend my card expiry! So I asked the lady what was this about. She said that

"its standard policy, and instead of taking money, we've deduct it from the Deposit amount."
"Gee thanks, but it doesn't explain why you have deducted RM10 in the first place"
"A new card costs RM10"
"But I've just given you my old card to exchange!"
"Ive given you a new card"
"Its your own companies arbitrary expiry ..."
"Yes, the card expires after 10 years."
"So when does this card expire?"
... she checks the computer and says:
"on 17th April 2016"
"But thats just over 8 years from now: Whats this about 10 years?"
" .... "
"What's this about returning my deposit? My Old Balance was 70, you deduct 10, so why isnt my new balance 75?"
"No, I entered the old balance for you. Previously it was 65"
... I have no way of verifying this. *grrr* Why doesnt the receipt correctly read what it should read? Why can there be manipulation on their end?
"So who can I talk to about this?"
"You can call the Customer Hotline below ... "
"No, do you have a manager?"
"No, we are just resellers ... I too have to call the hotline when I need help"

WTF

So it looked like I was not going to get anywhere with this drone. I then checked their website, and found this helpful warning:

This is consistent with my experience, so I just would like to know why TnG charges for a new card in the first place. A deposit model is almost bearable. Considering that people will be loading these pieces of plastic with their own money, if they lose it or abuse it, then its their fault and their monies should be forfeitted. The "loss" to TnG is minimal if not at all: they gain when people do silly things with their cards.

So what justifies them charging people for using their tickets? Do credit card companies charge for cards? Do LRT companies charge for those paper tickets? No! The cost of the tokens are covered by the services paid for by the consumer.

Its completely unjustified to charge for something which would arbirarily "expire" after a few years.

Plus what is the story about reducing the expiry date to 8 years? The warning merely says "give you more years of driving", and doesnt quantify the next round of expiring cards.

I checked my MyKad (as I've loaded a few RM in it for LRT usage) and she said that it expires in 2050. Er ... why should there be an expiry at all? What is going to happen in 2050 when everyone's MyKads "expire" because of a third party? Will there be IC counters at all TnG outlets while they "exchange" cards again? Gah.

On speaking to my colleagues, it seems Touch N Go have other scams which they run. They have a loyalty card which refunds 5% off your toll usage. However there are hoops to jump through. These refunds only kick in IF you use more than RM200 per month! My colleague who lives in Klang and therefore pays more toll than an average KLite, says that he barely makes this "quota". Some months like February and holiday filled months make him miss the alloted amount, and he loses out on the RM10 rebate. In addition, there is an annual membership fee of RM20. Plus you have to physically go to an outlet to redeem your rebates. It renders the "loyalty card" completely useless, if not frustrating.

So Touch N Go, what are you up to really? Your "Quality Statement" says that:

TNGSB aims to enhance customer satisfaction by complying with the requirement of the Quality Management System (QMS) and continually improving the effectiveness of QMS

I have no idea what this QMS is nor what it defines but judging from my interaction, I'd say it can be very spectacular.

Also, why is it that when we use TnG in carparks, its costs more? Are you charging the carpark operators a surcharge on the traffic? These shortsighted scams of yours certainly hinders on your Mission Statement:

To provide secure, swift and convenient cashless payment mode to all

Pfft.

Ten years on, and we don't have a cashless card as prevalent as Singapore's or Hong Kongs. With 3rd World mentality like TnG, you'd just have to wonder why.

Yes, its a rant, and Im pissed.

yk