Filed under: android, Go Go Gadget..Stuff!!, time out | Tags: android, apk, digital magazines, galaxy, gnex, google, market, nexus, play, tf101, transformer
So, I’ve been using android since what.. 2009? I even own the very first android handset, the T-Mobile G1. Well, 4 handsets and 2 tablets later, here I am, with the very zippy Galaxy Nexus, sporting the 4.02 version of Android, the Ice Cream Sandwich.
Back in 2011, I made a post about 10 android apps that I enjoy very much, so today I’m gonna expand the list with another 10 must-have android apps:
- Google Currents
Magazines for your tablet. At first, it was touted as “FlipBoard” for Android. Me? I used it as news reader for various digital magazines around the web. I get GigaOM, 500px, The Guardian, and many more. And since it uses your google account, news channels are synced between devices. So if I add a new subscription to my Currents on my GNex, it will automatically available on my TF101. And best thing of all, if you are like me, living in Jakarta where 3G coverage is spotty at best, you can do a full sync for your Currents at home in the morning over wi-fi, and read it later, while you’re away from your network’s coverage.
Google Currents on Asus Transformer TF101
...and on the GNex
- AirDroid
If you frequently move files to and from your android phones and tablets, AirDroid is your friend. You can also use it to read and write SMS messages, manage contacts and image gallery, and many more . Just fire up AirDroid, and point your favorite desktop browser to your phone url. Since it uses http protocol, there’s no need to install any kind of software or driver to your PC. perfect for Linux users like me
AirDroid can use your home wi-fi connection, or if there’s no wi-fi connection to be found, use the android built in tethering (wi-fi or usb) app.
AirDroid on GNex
...and how it looks on the browser
- Flip4Silence
I used to own a HTC Desire Z, and the Sense ROM baked into it has an option where you can “silence” your phone when it rang, by flipping it to its back. My Nokia E52 has this too. The Galaxy Nexus does not, what a shame. But you can add that function by using Flip4Silence. It has an additional function, where it can enable or disable vibration by detecting whether your phone is lying on a flat surface or not (such as being stored in your pocket). - SwiftKey X
SwiftKey X is in my opinion, the best keyboard replacement app on android. It’s a paid app, and trust me, it’s worth the price. You can get onefor your tablet too
Swiftkey X on GNex
- Dropbox
With the release of Google Drive, why would I need DropBox? Simple, Linux/Nautilus native client - EverNote
The best note taking app I’m currently syncing notes between my windows office PC, my Ubuntu notebook, tablet, and phone. - WhatsApp
I believe that WhatsApp needs no introduction Now, if only they provide web interface for their service 
- Any.Do
Any.Do is a very pretty interface for google task. You can jot down your task, set a reminder, and have Any.Do shows it on your home screen via its 4×4 widget (smaller sizes are also available). It also detects any missed call, and give you the option to set a task to make a call to the missed call… umm caller. - Remote for VLC
Well, it’s a remote for VLC installed on your PC. Just enable the VLC http interface, have your phone connect to the url via wi-fi network. One thing to remember is that you need to start VLC from the pc first, then connect the phone. Or you can always start the VLC http interface as background service every time you boot your PC. - Android browser for ICS
Simply put, the best iteration of android stock browser to date. The addition of quick control inherited from Honeycomb browser enables the browser interface to completely disappear when you don’t need it. It’s fast too, and has flash (well at least until adobe stops the support)
Android Stock Browser for ICS
I also recommend Juice Defender, Chrome for Android beta, and the ES File Explorer. And guys, please remember to always read the review section of the app page on Google Play, to get more information regarding the apps that sometime deliberately not disclosed by the developers
Filed under: time out
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Filed under: *Nix, Ubuntu, time out | Tags: Ubuntu, maverick, maverick meerkat, pulseaudio, alsa, creative, surround, 5.1, stereo
So I decided to spend my Ied bonus to beef up my PC audio setup. To do this, I need:
- At least 5.1 capable sound card. Since I’m going to hook this up on my Vaio, VPCEA36FG, USB connectivity is a must
- A 5.1 speaker set, analog or digital
After a bit of googling and browsing, I have two choices for sound card. The first one is Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi 5.1 Surround Pro, and the second one is a cheap C-Media 5.1 external sound card. I heard much success with the later, while installing the former might require me to ditch Pulse Audio, updating ALSA, etc etc. Also I can’t find a single forum post regarding the X-Fi and Maverick. There are a lot of posts about the X-Fi with Jaunty or Lucid, but no Maverick.
Anyway, finding shops or stores that sell the C-Media or the X-Fi card turned out to be quite a task. The X-Fi has not been in stock for quite sometime, and my search for the C-Media on every local brick and mortar and online shops in Indonesia, came out with empty. At the end, I asked a friend to get me the C-Media via dealextreme.com (since I don’t own a credit card)
Next, the speakers. There are several choices available on my price range from Creative, Edifier and Logitech, and I went with Logitech Z506. It’s cheap and quite easy to setup, and has a very decent sound output for the price. Plus, it support multiple inputs, so I can hook up the 36GF and my TV at the same time. Luckily, during my speaker hunt, I found one shop that carry the X-Fi 5.1!
Setting up the Logitech Z506 is very easy and straight forward, since everything is color coded. The Z506 can accept sound input via 2 RCA connector or from 1 (for stereo) or 3 (for analog 5.1 Surround) audio jacks from a sound card. Connecting the front audio jack to the 36FG internal sound card produced stereo output from all of the satellites, so everything is working. Next, surround sound
The X-Fi SP 5.1 connects and draws power via USB, so you need to plug it directly to the notebook, or like me, hook it to a powered USB hub ( mine is a Roccat Apuri). The X-Fi should be automatically detected by Maverick, you can check it by typing “lsusb”
ikhsan@Mach5-NX:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 118: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 002 Device 117: ID 1058:1102 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 116: ID 041e:30df Creative Technology, Ltd
Bus 002 Device 115: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0489:e00f Foxconn / Hon Hai
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:6409 Microdia
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
or go to System > Preferences > Sound, and open the “hardware” tab. The X-Fi is listed, but on the profile dropdown menu, you will see that no profile for 5.1 sound is available… yet.
Sound Preferences
To make things easier, install the Pulseaudio Volume Control by opening terminal, and do:
ikhsan@Mach5-NX:~$ sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
Next, edit the /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
ikhsan@Mach5-NX:~$ sudo nano /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
Find “; default-sample-channels = 2″ and change it to “; default-sample-channels = 6″, save, and restart Pulseaudio. Open the “pavucontrol” by pressing Alt+F2, and type “pavucontrol”. On the configuration tab, select “Analog Surround 5.1 Output + Analog Stereo Input” for the X-Fi profile. You can also do this via Sound Preferences.
5.1 Surround profile for X-Fi
..Next, connecting the X-Fi to the Z506. This is straight forward, as everything is color coded. Connect all of the three audio jacks from the Z506 to its corresponding port on the X-Fi. Now to test the 5.1 output, open System > Preferences > Sound, select the hardware tab, select the X-Fi from the list, make sure the 5.1 Surround profile is selected, and then press the “Test Speakers” button. Press each “test” button to test all of the speaker components
Speakers test
..And done. To set the X-Fi as the default sound output, go to System > Preferences > Sound, and select the X-Fi on the output tab.
Default output
To individually set the output level of the satellites and the sub, open “pavucontrol”, and find the X-Fi entry on the “Output Devices” tab
Output level
Next on the list is to try some 5.1 encoded videos. I’ll report back as soon as I’m done!
Filed under: time out
Ah yes, new header image featuring the sleek Razer Orochi. Check out all of my previous header image here.
Filed under: gaming, time out, Ubuntu | Tags: 10.10, bluetooth, maverick meerkat, mouse, orochi, razer, Ubuntu
The Razer Orochi is a mobile / notebook gaming mouse. Meaning it is small and compact as most of notebook mice, and just like all gaming mice, has a bunch of additional buttons, and above average DPI counts. the Orochi sports 2000 DPI in its bluetooth wireless mode, or a badass 4000 DPI in its wired, usb configuration.
The Razer Orochi and Goliathus mousepad
Yes, you read that right. The Orochi can be used either as a bluetooth wireless mouse, or a wired usb mouse. All you have to do is plug in (or out) the included braided, gold-plated micro-USB cable. The switch works seamlessly, you don’t have to turn the mouse on and off while switching between modes.
Aside from the reguler left, middle and right, the orochi has 4 additional buttons. The pair on the left side works as “back” and “forward” buttons while not in game, which works in ubuntu, while the pair on the right supposedly works as sensitivity adjustment button.
The Orochi Configurator can be downloaded from http://www.razersupport.com/ and available for Windows and OSX. To use the software, you need to connect the Orochi in USB mode. The configurator can be used to assign functions to the 7 available buttons, adjust the mouse sensitivity, and turnthe blue light on the scroll wheel on or off. Your setup then will be written to the Orochi’s onboard memory, and it will stay with the mouse. If you use the mouse on another box (or in my case, boot to another OS), your setting will be retained.
So, does it work in ubuntu? My first experience with bluetooth mouse on Ubuntu was a mixed bag. The Apple Magic Mouse, while looking sleek, frustrated me by frequently losing its connection, and even took down the Maverick’s bluetooth applet with it, forcing me to restart the applet from shell. Very nasty stuff… And I never get used to its flatness.
The Orochi on the other hand, admirably works without a hitch. I only have to pair it one time, and now it’s automatically connected everytime I turn it on. Switching between USB and bluetooth works, and as I have mentioned previously, the setting that I made on my Win7 install is retained and functional when i booted to Ubuntu. The Orochi so far, is also free from the mouse button problem that I have when using my Microsoft Wireless Mobile 4000.
All in all, aside from requiring Windows to setup, the Orochi works quite ok on Ubuntu, and I’m quite satisfied with it
Filed under: Active Directory, Exchange, time out | Tags: active directory, admodify, exchange, Microsoft
Need to modify the maximum size of incoming messages for 100 users in Exchange? Well AdModify is your friend. AdModify lets you search for certain type of users using LDAP query in Actice Directory, and change their attributes. Just download either version (the.NET version obviously requires you to have .NET framework installed on the source and target server), unzip, and double click admodify.exe to start the program
ADModify start screen
To begin, select “Modify Existing User’s Attributes”, and press next. Select one of the domain controller from the dropdown list
Select the domain controller
Select the OU that contains the targeted objects. Also check the “Traverse subcontainers when enumerating users” option. Press the advance button to enter the LDAP query.
Select the OU
A new window will pop-up, type the query. In my case, I want to select all users with Manager in their AD account description, so the query should look like this:
(&(ObjectClass=User)(Description=*manager*))
press OK to submit the query.
Insert the LDAP Query
Press the Add to List button to start the query and list the result on the right pane. Examine wether the result of the query matches your expectation, press the select All button, and then, press the Next button to go to the “Modify active directory users” window
Modify the attributes
Find the attributes that you wish to change from the tabs. You can change several Exchange related attributes from the “Exchange General” and “Exchange General Continued” tabs. In My case, I’m changing the maximum size of inbound message. Press the Change button to start the modification.
Filed under: *Nix, Red Hat, rhel, time out | Tags: export, import, redhat, rhel, volume group
This is a fairly straight-forward process.
- Exporting the volume group from its current host
- Unmount any LV residing on that particular VG. In my case, there’s only one LV on VG vg0
- list all lv in the vg
[root@hqhcmdev1 ~]# lvdisplay --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/vg0/lvol0 VG Name vg0 LV UUID 7HltCU-Elaq-x1pr-S7Wm-xvOt-NGk6-Fwufyd LV Write Access read/write LV Status NOT available LV Size 97.47 GB Current LE 6238 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors 0 - unmount the lv
[root@hqhcmdev1 ~]# umount /u01 - if there’s any, remove the fstab entry for that particular partition, so that the booting process will not try to mount the partition
[root@hqhcmdev1 ~]# vi /etc/fstabThe /etc/fstab should look like this:
# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1 LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2 none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0 #LABEL=/u01 /u01 ext3 defaults 1 1
- list all lv in the vg
- Deactivate, and export the volume group
- Deactivating vg0
[root@hqhcmdev1 ~]# vgchange -an vg0 0 logical volume(s) in volume group "vg0" now active - exporting vg0
[root@hqhcmdev1 ~]# vgexport vg0 file system Volume group "vg0" successfully exported
- Deactivating vg0
- Unmount any LV residing on that particular VG. In my case, there’s only one LV on VG vg0
- Import the volume group to the new server
- Present the exported partition to the new server
- Search for the new partition This step depends on what hardware are you using for the storage. Some SANs provide it’s own tool, and others use linux generic command such as:
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan - Check whether the partition has been detected by the target server using pvscan
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# pvscan PV /dev/sda2 VG VolGroup00 lvm2 [19.88 GB / 0 free] PV /dev/sdb1 is in exported VG vg0 [99.98 GB / 2.52 GB free] PV /dev/sdd1 VG VolGroup00 lvm2 [3.97 GB / 128.00 MB free] Total: 3 [123.83 GB] / in use: 3 [123.83 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0 ]
- Search for the new partition This step depends on what hardware are you using for the storage. Some SANs provide it’s own tool, and others use linux generic command such as:
- Activate and import the volumegroup
- Import the VG
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# vgimport vg0 Volume group "vg0" successfully imported - Activate the VG
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# vgchange -ay vg0
- Import the VG
- Mount the imported partition
- Create a mountpoint for the imported partition
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# mkdir /t01 - label the partition First, look for the logical volume residing on the newly imported partition
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# lvdisplay vg0 --- Logical volume --- LV Name /dev/vg0/lvol0 VG Name vg0 LV UUID 7HltCU-Elaq-x1pr-S7Wm-xvOt-NGk6-Fwufyd LV Write Access read/write LV Status available # open 1 LV Size 97.47 GB Current LE 6238 Segments 1 Allocation inherit Read ahead sectors 0 Block device 253:2Next, create a label for that LV
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# e2label /dev/vg0/lvol0 /t01 - optionally, create a fstab entry for the partition, if you want it to be automatically mounted on reboot
[root@hqhcmdev2 ~]# vi /etc/fstabThe /etc/fstab should look like this:
This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1 LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2 none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0 LABEL=/t01 /t01 ext3 defaults 1 1 - Mount the partition
[root@hqhcmdev1 ~]# mount /t01
- Create a mountpoint for the imported partition
- Present the exported partition to the new server
