Apple to use PA Semi PowerPC chips
Posted by: மோகன் on: June 12, 2008
- In: POWER
- 3 Comments
Apple has acquired PA Semi low power (consumption) PowerPC chip manufacturer recently. Now the news says that these chips will be used in their ipods, iphones.
Still its not sure that whether Apple will use these chips in its desktops and laptops in future or not.
Fedora 9
Posted by: மோகன் on: June 2, 2008
- In: Fedora| Linux
- 2 Comments
I moved to Fedora 9 a couple of weeks ago. I use KDE4 as my desktop.
I am happy with F9 & KDE4.
But there are some issues:
- NetworkManager – Same problem of connecting to wireless networks – It asks me the wireless key 5-6 times to connect. I don’t know how to fix this.
- Plasma – Most of the time when I log out KDE, plasma workspace crashes. But there is no harm. All your session details are saved.
- Desktop Effects – Hmmm, I can’t make the KDE desktop effects work on my Thinkpad T42p. I don’t use any properitery driver. Most of the time system hangs when I enable desktop effects. But don’t stop. When you reboot next time (ie after enabling desktop effects) it works. The lesson is if you want to enable desktop effects(KDE) you need to a reboot
- Fonts – Fonts are not that much pleasant when compared to Fedora 8 KDE.
Ok, enough complaints. What do I like in F9?
- Fast XStartup – Really fast!
- Firefox 3 – Good session management, download resume.
- KDE4
Another problem I have seen with flash plugin in Firefox is that there is no sound. You need to install libflashsupport. Thanks to this blog
MS to support OpenDocument
Posted by: மோகன் on: May 22, 2008
- In: Linux
- Leave a Comment
News says that Microsoft is going to support OpenDocument format in Office 2007 SP2. Still sharing the documents between Linux and Windows users are giving lots of troubles. Native Linux users tend to save all the documents in OpenDocument format, even though OpenOffice provides ways to save the documents in Microsoft Office document format, I think atleast they are not 100% compatible.
So after MS Office support for OpenOffice, I think Linux users can start sharing the documents in OpenDocument format itself.
My experience with Airtel and BSNL
Posted by: மோகன் on: May 15, 2008
For more than two years I am having a broadband connection from airtel. So far I have not faced any problem with Airtel. I used to get SMS from Airtel when their broadband service will be down(that will be usually in the midnight only, may be for maintenance). If there was a technical problem, after logging the complaint with the help desk within 24 hours, I used to get the prompt service.
Recently I got a connection from BSNL also. I got a landline and broadband connection. I wanted to change the broadband plan and when ever I tried to call the customer care, I was not able to reach them. So still I am continuing with the same broadband plan. I received the first month bill. I did the payment through Les Concierges. Even after making the payment, they have disconnected my landline and also broadband connection.
In my experience Airtel service is better than BSNL.
Apple bought PA Semi
Posted by: மோகன் on: May 14, 2008
- In: POWER
- Leave a Comment
Apple bought PA Semi last month. PA Semi is known for its POWER architecture based processors called PWRficient. 3 years back, Apple moved from PowerPC processors to Intel processors.
Now none of the Apple products seems to be using POWER based processors. So now the acquisition of PA Semi leads to questions, like where will be these PWRficient processors will be used? Will they be used in iPhones, iPods?
How to copy paste using Symbian Phones?
Posted by: மோகன் on: May 12, 2008
- Place the cursor in the text area (which you want to copy)
- Press the pencil/edit key for 5 seconds
- Status in the bottom line will become invisible
- Now use the scroll keys to select the text
- You can see the option “Copy” (Still the pencil button is pressed)
- Select the copy option to copy the text
- Place the cursor in the area where you want to pase
- Again press pencil/edit key for 5 seconds
- Now the “Paste” option is visible
- Select “Paste” to paste the clip board contents
Nokia N72
Posted by: மோகன் on: May 7, 2008
- In: Mobile| Nokia
- 2 Comments
I purchased a Nokia N72 mobile 1 year ago.
I have seen couple of bugs. I don’t know how to fix them. Even I tried with the latest firmware upgrade. But that also did not help.
I found out a very annoying bug, when the battery becomes low, the call log feature becomes disabled it seems. So if you make calls, receive calls(yes including missed calls) those calls will not be registered in the phone. If you reboot the mobile (even without charging it), this problem is resolved. Any how this bug is not always reproducible.
Second bug is that if I start my camera after few seconds it automatically exits, wait, after few seconds again I get the camera view. Hmmm, so when I need to take a snap, I really can’t do that.
Another bug, I copied 25 mp3 songs to the memory card and afterwards opening the music player, crashes it. So I can’t use Music Player to play all the songs. I need to go to File Manager select a song and play it one by one.
Luckily I don’t have any problem while making the calls and receiving the calls 
Has any one faced these problems?
Yaboot problem
Posted by: மோகன் on: April 27, 2008
Yaboot is a boot loader for Open Firmware based machines (like IBM pSeries) (In simple terms its like grub boot loader). If we make a small mistake in the yaboot.conf file (like missing a quote), yaboot refuses to read the conf file and you can’t boot the system. Still we can manually specify the vmlinux in the yaboot’s boot: prompt. We should be knowing the exact vmlinux file name. But no way we can pass the initrd option from yaboot. If the kernel needs initrd to load the scsi modules or mount the file system, you can’t boot the kernel.
We have these choices left:
- You need to boot from a rescue CD/DVD, mount the partition and update the yaboot.conf file
- Remove the hard disk from the system and connect it into a working system,, mount the partition and update the yaboot.conf file
- Reinstall
I checked the yaboot source, I think function get_params in file yaboot.c needs to be updated.
Which IRC client to use?
Posted by: மோகன் on: April 26, 2008
I need to be online in IRC channels for my work nature.
I started using pidgin(then gaim) to chat in IRC channels, I was quite happy with pidgin. Its not only IRC client, also Instant Messaging client. So you can add yahoo, msn, google, aim accounts also. You can group the chat windows based on the accounts, etc. It provides nice features. But it lacks one feature that other IRC clients provide, you can’t minimize the entire chat windows to system tray. From F8 recent update, pidgin often crashes for no reasons. So I am forced to find another alternate.
I tried Konversation, it’s also nice. It provides a way to minimize all your chat windows to system tray. But you can not create separate windows based on your server accounts. I was looking for this feature, but without this I need to have some 10 channels in a single window, I found this to be inconvenient.
Then I tried Xchat, it seems to give most of the functionalities I require. It does automatic nick name identification for our local irc server (but pidgin fails to do this). But it still does not give the group the windows based on account. I am still not convinced with the looks of Xchat. But I think I need to get used with this.
Waiting for Fedora 9
Posted by: மோகன் on: April 18, 2008
- In: Fedora| Linux
- 3 Comments
As a Fedora fan, I am eagerly waiting for the F9 release, but now Fedora Wiki says that F9 release is delayed by two weeks (F9 final release on May 13).
I am very much interested in the following features in F9
- Ext4
- Firefox 3
- Fast XStartup
- KDE4
- NetworkManager with Mobile Broadband support
I assume it means that I can use NetworkManager to connect to my Airtel GPRS network without much hassles.
I am personally not happy with NetworkManager in F8. I was happy with knetworkmanager, but from F8 I think even KDE uses Gnome NetworkManager. Connecting to encrypted wirelesss network from NetworkManager is a pain, particulary if you do suspend to RAM/Disk. knetworkmanager used to work as a charm. So when connecting to wireless I usually stop NetworkManager and use scripts to connect to wireless access points. This method works always for me.
I expect KDE4 in F9 will use knetworkmanager(with mobile phone ppp feature) instead of gnome NetworkManager.
I observed another bad thing in Fedora is that even if you don’t select gnome desktop, some of gnome desktop packages are installed. Its not possible to do only KDE install in Fedora. I wish if F9 could do a KDE alone spin.
Get your own domain
- زهير: You can try "irssi". It's so wonderful.. :D http://irssi.org/
- gurdev: i have bsnl broadband from the 2year i have not face problem from two year. i thing airtel can not provide broadband on such low prices at last east o
- Jerome: so far i have found different it's on the backlight on the keypad... sometimes it won't turn on.......then sometimes it's turn on when the display li
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