Plans for secure emailing

Since next week is going to be last week of my vacation, I will spend it abroad with my family. But as usual, I have some serious business communication needs on next week and I have to be able to use GPG for encrypted email.

So how Nokia is supporting me with these E-series devices (E70 & E90), which I do have on there?

No way, it's not going to happen with Nokia only. I have to call linux to help me out there. I managed to setup one computer to be reachable over internet by SSH and installed there mutt with gpg support. So basicly I will be able to use N800 with SSH connection to access that email and E90 is spare for that.

Of course, if this would be normal business trip of mine, I would bring my trustworthy CF-18 with kubuntu 7.04 and inbuild EDGE capability for such communication needs.

This CF-18 is really robust at the moment, since I do have 16 GB Flash HD in there and it's very immune to drops and shocks it faces. I think this Flash HD thing is going to change a lot in future.

And yes, I had to do this all by myself, since Panasonic is not supporting Linux or other professional operating systems.

N800 with bt keyboard

Here is picture of N800 and Nokia bluetooth keyboard. It's nice combination and really works. Only thing needed would be small bt mouse, since touching screen with key tends to move whole N800 away.

But still, X-term and SSH sessions are joy with that keyboard. Only problem I noticed was the new Mozilla based browser for N800: there seems to be some trouble when filling forms inside that browser with keyboard.

But if you are not going to ride with wave and stick in with default (really nicely working) browser, you should be on safe side.

Picture of N800 and folded away bluetooth keyboard:

Watertight for GSM

I bought today pouch for phone, because we are heading to small trip and I think there is some water around.

Price was 16 € and it can barely hold my E70. I think I am going to have E70 as my primary and E90 packed better for 'just in case' use.

Switching phones

I've spend last few weeks, trying to decide which phone I was going to have for my primary business use. I have this possibility to choose mainly because my current employee, where I am responsible in various mobility related issues. Phones which have been under process are Nokias E61i, E90, 9300i and E70. Several others are also available, but mainly those can meet my demands.

E61i is great, kind of favorite for me. But E90 keeps trying, even I have smashed it before very heavily. Propably I am doomed to be switcher for rest of my life. Currently I try to make E90 work for me, it's not easy but I'll try. E90 has been critized in Finnish forums for it's hardware related issues, like markings in inner screen from keyboard. Never seen such flaming before. I have those markings also, so I keep you updated.

Kernel development

I enjoyed whole summer vacation with my CF-18 toughbook, with patched kernel (2.6.21) which made touchpad working once again (default kubuntu 7.04 kernel has feature in psmouse driver, which makes touchpad unusable). Patching and testing for psmouse developers, gave me an working 2.6.21 kernel.

I was excited when Linus released official 2.6.22 version of kernel, which was supposed to include those fixes for CF-18. First things after I got back to work was reinstall fresh kubuntu 7.04 (for 16 GB flash hard drive) and compile this brand new kernel. Everything else went smoothly, but touching touchscreen gave kernel panic. I was lost.

But here comes amazing part: I emailed to main developer my confirmation of current state of psmouse driver at 8.25 on that morning and I had fixing patch in my inbox at 8.45! Catch that microsoft! Now with official 2.6.22 + one patch everything works smoothly.

N800 and 16 GB

Last week I acquired two 8 GB SDHC cards for Nokia N800. It's amazing to see how Nokia is providing innovation to different platforms.

Now my N800 has 16 GB capacity for music, videos and other content. It's eye opener for my E90, which could only handle 2 GB card.

I am back

It was mental accident few weeks ago, when I deleted this blog. Since I couldn't preserve contents - I think it's safe to do it all over again. It also turned out that I have still much more to say, regarding mobility, linux and other issues around technology.