2008

Tue, Dec 30

<16:03 EEST> At work we have these pretty basic Nokia phones with cameras, and my colleague needed to get a copy of a picture from his. I started to play with Gnokii, as well as USB and Bluetooth connections; interesting in its own right, but now with a work-related twist ;)

I did get the basic connection up after a quick glance at Developerworks examples (non-AT mode) but accessing the files was harder. It turned out these phones use a fairly standard protocol for file transfer. After emerging obexftp (with the USE flags bluetooth and usb already in /etc/make.conf after all the fuss) I got the photo I wanted, using the fancy wireless way. Windows seemed to have the protocol already, as my colleague got a file browser popping up soon after plugging in the phone via USB.

Actually I've toyed with Bluetooth before in order to set up a wireless link between computers, in a lack of 802.11x hardware, but the recent changes in bluez-utils made it somewhat harder: the formerly separate daemons, for example pand for wireless access point, are subsumed into a bigger blob. However, at least for this simple computer-phone link, it was probably easier than before.

Fri, Dec 26

<00:19 EEST> Funnily enough, I found a semi-permanent replacement for the 12-volt supply in an old Pentium MMX machine. Of course, had it contained an ATX PSU, I could have replaced the whole hog, but it was a more ancient AT instead. On the plus side, AT supplies don't have a 'soft power' switch so they are easier to convert into a generic bench supply. However, as I found out in this PSU conversion guide, they need quite a load on the 5-volt rail as well, in order to work at all.

A straightforward solution was to use that AT PSU directly for Hoo's drives. Even that wasn't enough for a stable bootup, so I hooked up a hard drive in the old machine as well — fortunately it doesn't spin up, as the rest of the machine is disconnected. 12 volts from another molex then go to the splitter circuit to provide full ATX. It's a somewhat ugly and noisy hack, but a working one nevertheless :)

Thu, Dec 25

<21:09 EEST> Back in Jyväskylä with the PicoPSU, I'm finding that the problem is in fact with the 12-volt adapter/transformer, rather than the PSU module I'd expected and replaced. To rule out further problems, such as the motherboard, I managed a makeshift replacement for the power adapter. Using two different 12-volters in parallel, I got enough current to get a stable beginning (mobo LEDs on, rather than blinking in sync with the PSU sounds), and something resembling a bootup. At that point the current got too high (as measured by a multimeter) and lights went out (just the mobo ones), but it was a good enough demonstration. I guess I ought to order the power adapter straight away, instead of another salesman cluelessness survey.

But hey, at least it's Xmas, when you get to spend your free (as in beer, certainly not leisure) time in yet another forced social convention.

Sat, Dec 13

<19:49 EEST> It's been four weeks since I started work in Kuopio, and I'm already getting pissed off with the constant traveling around. A further source of irritation at this time of the year are the pre-Xmas parties that you're supposed to attend if you're part of the gang.

I guess I've ranted on this problem before, and it's somewhat related to my introverted personality. While I enjoy parties in general, they are a social chore, and cannot substitute for a proper free time. I also imagine that no sane person enjoys constantly scampering between work and parties, with no time/place to sit down and breathe. Factor in the hauling of your distributed.life around in the miserable Finnish weather.

This is somewhat tolerable only because my work requires a good dose of sitting down and thinking. Which is a rather roundabout way of living. My free time (as defined by not being paid work) has become a complete frustration. So the social connections I'm trying to maintain, better be worth it. Of course, these social connections can now enjoy an (even more than usually) exhausted and disgruntled me.

Ironically, my decision to find work outside Jyväskylä was related to my increasing frustrations with JYT. I'd found myself doing all kinds of chores that had nothing to do with my main interest in the theatre: the chance to do something creative with like-minded people for public presentation. Of course, an organization like that cannot be just fun and games, but it was too far from a nice balance for me.

Adding to all this crap, my media server blew its power supply last night as I came back to JKL. During a number of emerges (Gentoo software updates) on different machines, using NFS on that server, a bus error came up (but that wasn't really surprising as my bus had just been remarkably late, with no passengers dumped though). The machine got flaky overall, and it didn't boot again. All signs pointed to a broken PSU module, meaning the thing between a 12-volt brick and the ATX voltages.

So I ordered a PicoPSU for replacement. Actually I first went to three different computer stores, but none of them had any idea of something like PicoPSU. I guess it's too much to expect sales people to know about anything in their field; I'd bought the current PSU back in 2004. These days the modules are much more common, with PicoPSU being the most famous with its small size.