tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-222938562011-04-22T05:23:18.098Z<b>Risto Varanka</b> works with embedded unix platforms in R&amp;D projects for <a href="http://www.nixu.com/">Nixu</a>'s customers. This blog brings you his thoughts on Internet, communication, civilization and technology.Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.comBlogger271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-23806982694864365252011-04-10T09:41:00.003Z2011-04-10T10:37:33.521Z

Well, here I am again. After several years with various BSDs, and even OSX and Windows, I'm back with my long lost love - Linux. I installed a new PC, and Linux was a natural choice, being the most sensible desktop OS. I chose ArchLinux as the distro - this is a minimalist one well suited for technical users - reminds one a bit of BSD - and seems to be getting popular nowadays. Over the years,

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11589804929303554622noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-9213713834228672902007-12-24T01:45:00.000Z2007-12-24T03:19:43.763Z

Looking at my blog with renewed interest, I wonder what should come of it. More than a year and a half have passed since the last entry - something that's not so uncommon in the blogosphere, but rather a natural and widespread phenomenon. New interests come along and the old ones wither and wane.Why would one keep blogging? Perhaps to:Drive a personal brand (marketing and egoboo)Advocate ideas

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1147806245164527582006-05-16T18:44:00.000Z2006-05-16T19:04:05.180Z

Nokia and Google announced today their partnership in relation to the Nokia 770, which will implement VoIP functionality in the form of Google Talk. So it turns out that this upgrade does not involve hardware after all, and it looks like future internet tablet devices from Nokia are still at least 6-9 months away. However, the press release seems to imply that the 2006 OS update for the 770 is

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1147517008034212612006-05-13T10:36:00.000Z2006-05-13T10:48:47.986Z

Chippy reports that people have already booted Linux on the UMPC (also known as Microsoft Origami). The X windowing environment was up and running, but of course quite a few device drivers are missing on the platform. One would assume that it is going to take a fair bit of reverse engineering to get these done. Until the touchscreen and the wireless network interfaces are supported, Linux users

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1146448703026215642006-05-01T01:30:00.000Z2006-05-01T02:27:18.416Z

I have recently been putting together an embedded, do-it-all OpenBSD router box. The only remaining problem is the poorly supported Intel wi-fi card for the mini-PCI slot. The driving motivation behind this project is the necessity of having a low-power, low-noise firewall box for my home network. I guess it would have been easier and cheaper to just get one of the popular Linksys Linux-based

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1145716070886681622006-04-22T13:49:00.000Z2006-04-22T15:38:05.483Z

During the last 2 weeks I have been testing Konttori's MaemoThemeMaker a little bit. This is a Java-based, multiplatform application which allows you to easily create themes for Maemo, that is, customize how the UI on your Nokia 770 handheld appears. Together with the "Customizing and theming maemo" HOWTO, this is a nice starting point for anybody who wants to tinker with themes at this time.

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1145175604366105872006-04-16T08:03:00.000Z2006-04-16T08:20:04.386Z

GUADEC 2006 is going to be 24-30th June in Catalonia, Spain. Nokia is again the key sponsor so it's no surprise that there is going to be lots of stuff relating to Maemo (the software platform on Nokia 770), in addition to the usual GNOME and general open source topics. Time to book your flights, people.Link: GUADEC 2006 preliminary scheduleTechnorati tags: handheld, nokia, nokia 770, maemo,gnome

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1144450891045729602006-04-07T21:42:00.000Z2006-04-07T23:30:50.346Z

Time for the Carrypad? is an analytical blog which covers the emergence of a new device, dubbed the carrypad. It is between your PDA and mini-laptop, with a 5"-7" screen and a miniature keyboard. In other words, a bit like Sharp Zaurus or Fujitsu Lifebook. Such a device does not yet exist, but would be nice to have.Chippy, the keeper of the blog, has in the recent weeks been busy tracking what's

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1144089036559339022006-04-03T18:20:00.000Z2006-04-03T18:48:18.306Z

Nokia today gave us some more information on what is going to be included in the software update for Nokia 770 Internet tablet. Mostly the new version concentrates on improved infrastructure, making Maemo a much stronger development platform. There will be support for VoIP, instant messaging, and surprisingly, video conferencing. I wonder where they will get the camera from?There will be a new

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1144017251733162262006-04-02T21:58:00.000Z2006-04-02T22:34:11.746Z

Saturday was a rather unusual day. Sometimes one stays up late as things swirl around in one's head - I woke up at around noon, I got up but then went back to bed, and actually got up for real at 21:00... I fell asleep again after 5:00. I think it was one of those days when one needs to offload some stress, so I ended up lazing online for what appears to have been around 17 hours. Let's see what

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1143932611419360582006-04-01T22:48:00.000Z2006-04-01T23:10:51.016Z

Nokia just published two new documents for Maemo, the Help Framework HOWTO and the HOWTO: Customizing and theming Maemo. The first one is useful for developers who want to have online help in their applications while the latter one will be an interesting read for all of us who want to configure the appearance of their GUI on the Nokia 770. Any operators that want to carry the 770 might also be

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1143666476182780692006-03-29T20:46:00.000Z2006-03-29T21:26:05.026Z

Chippy has posted an analysis of UMPC power consumption. The conclusion is that the display makes up a good deal of the power consumed. This probably applies to devices like Nokia 770 as well, and may explain why the display usually doesn't seem to cover as much of the device's surface as would seem theoretically possible. Perhaps the vendors should develop smarter software which would be more

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1143244951505355142006-03-24T23:48:00.000Z2006-03-25T00:16:18.346Z

Recently I have been tinkering with a personal sig for the PC game Battlefield2. When you play the game on a ranked server, the stats of your session are logged and archived. You can compose an image and include a selection of these stats on dedicated web sites for BF2 sigs. Once you have created a sig on the site, you can attach that under your postings on BF2-related forums. For example this

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1143057645238253032006-03-22T19:07:00.000Z2006-03-22T20:33:35.593Z

The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet has created a good deal of excitement since it first entered the market in early November 2005. Most readers are probably familiar with this device but this post will give the essentials to the rest. The 770 measures 141 x 79 x 19 mm and weighs 230 g. The cost is around 360 euros. It is a general purpose mobile computing device that runs Linux. With its 800x480

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1142687404439387362006-03-18T13:09:00.000Z2006-03-18T14:05:43.466Z

Michael Geist, a Canadian researcher at the University of Ottawa, summarizes a recent report by the CRIA. The study is ground-breaking as it goes contrary to the long-term claims of the record industry about mp3 downloads and their effects on record sales. The study found that P2P downloads only constitute 1/3 of music on people's computers, while the main source is still ripping CDs owned by the

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1141928743046167012006-03-09T18:20:00.000Z2006-03-09T19:19:22.726Z

Today, the Wintel camp has provided us with a bunch of tangible information on the upcoming Microsoft Origami devices, or as they more likely should be called, Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers (UMPC). It appears that the UMPC will run the plain old Windows XP from Microsoft, with some Origami software layers on top. Intel's role as the technology provider will be crucial as it has been using many

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1141569676942215332006-03-05T14:12:00.000Z2006-03-05T15:14:21.790Z

In the near future, we are going to see people migrating into various mobile, smart gadgets from their conventional communication/computing devices. There is (at least) two kinds of migration: people may replace their old device or they may use the new gadget as complementary to the old device. To illustrate the migration paths, I drew a figure about which devices people are migrating to which. I

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1141478992448042502006-03-04T12:55:00.000Z2006-03-04T13:29:52.460Z

Asher Moses writes in the above C|Net article: "rather than obliterate our social lives, always-on connectivity and the increased flexibility it brings will allow us to break free from the office and actually socialise more." Work will be freed from the constraints of time and place.While the technological capacity for this exists, I don't think our companies and employees are quite ready yet.

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1141327597818374782006-03-02T18:22:00.000Z2006-03-02T19:47:32.463Z

My Nokia 7110 phone has served me faithfully for 6 years as a phone and an alarm clock. Now however I need a cellular data connection and a working calendar solution, so it is time to retire it. Phones are the popular convergence device of our day, but pads like the Nokia 770 make many of the smart phone functions almost useless. Symbian/s60 is a fairly limited platform in comparison to Linux (

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1141072694921021682006-02-27T20:28:00.000Z2006-02-27T20:57:22.240Z

Apparently quite like the Microsoft Origami, the Pepper Pad is different in the respects that it runs MontaVista Linux (the most widespread embedded Linux variant) and also that it is a real product, available on the market now, and not only a marketing video. Like the Microsoft Origami, and unlike the Nokia 770, it is rather large so you won't be inclined to carry it with you everywhere you go.

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1140911936127904772006-02-25T23:20:00.000Z2006-02-26T13:56:03.346Z

I am about to describe something which, ten years from now, could be the most important computing platform. It is a radical vision of the ultimate, optimal, all-in-one mobile device, but it is neither a new nor an original vision. Largely it is just taking our internet- and PC-centric experience of computer use and realizing it in a mobile format.However, what makes this vision interesting is

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1140795999674038812006-02-24T15:16:00.000Z2006-02-24T15:46:39.686Z

The OSDL Analyst/Strategist Bill Weinberg writes in a recent, very interesting whitepaper: "Linux is coming to a phone near you, and coming soon. In your product lines -- on your networks, or in your pocket, Linux-based mobile phones are changing the mobile-wireless industry -- and offering new opportunities for value-added." (See the link above.) The somewhat badly commented graphs in this

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1140686641627121442006-02-23T09:11:00.000Z2006-02-23T09:24:01.643Z

PalmSource has demonstrated its ALP platform at the recent 3GSM 2006 conference. Mobile-review has a few comments on this with photos of some applications on the platform (see the link above). Mobile-review points out that in practice applications for the various mobile Linux distributions will be incompatible, because vendors like to replace system libraries and develop their own middleware.I

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1140390858078068122006-02-19T22:53:00.000Z2006-02-19T23:19:33.060Z

So, I decided to keep the blog here and I gave it a sexy new name, icct (Internet, Communication, Civilization and Technology). Blogspot service I find to be very good for a new blogger - you have good looking templates and the user is given almost total control over them, you can edit the CSS/HTML code for the template that your blog pages are made of. Livejournal on its side would have some

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1139920528170590882006-02-14T11:48:00.000Z2006-02-14T12:41:25.746Z

PalmSource has previously announced that they will concentrate on developing middleware and will adopt the Linux kernel. Today they poured more water to the mill by announcing details of their Linux platform (see the link). ALP will be able to run on different mobile Linux distributions, and existing PalmOS applications should run on it with very little changes. Java is supported as well. They

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1139857613976733042006-02-13T19:05:00.000Z2006-02-13T19:06:53.990Z

Old news, but Mobile-review provided some rather interesting predictions for the year 2006, see link: http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/articles/2006-forecast-en.shtml. According to IDC's Worldwide Handheld QView, shipments of PDAs dropped by 20.8% from 2Q04 to 2Q05. The reason is clear: many users have migrated to the more attractive smart phones and communicators. A communicator offers all the

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22293856.post-1139659840062397232006-02-11T10:29:00.000Z2006-02-11T12:27:20.933Z

For the world is changing: i feel it in the water, i feel it in the earth, and i smell it in the air. --Treebeard, The Lord of the RingsLast night we had a discussion on the IRC channel #tolkien about how bloggers are exhibitionist, modest at best writers to whom discussing details of their sex life in their blog is a way to feel accepted. I guess that's just the characteristic of obscenity in

Varishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17403073559160753686noreply@blogger.com0