Search Results: "ncm"

30 November 2007

Adrian von Bidder: Groupware suite

The topic of a groupware with SyncML support is still bothering me. What are people using, and with how many users? Please tell me (I'll update this article.) Looking around, it seems there aren't that many open source (or even commercial) projects if it should be usable on Linux (Clients, too) and be reasonable priced (which pretty much kills Lotus and similar big enterprise solutions AFAIK.). Oh, and a web frontend is an absolute necessity, too, but that's usually not a problem. There are some other groupware projects out there, and I might do them injustice, but on a first glance development seemed to either have stalled as a whole or at least regarding their SyncML support. I know of OpenGroupware.org (last news of SyncML support from 2005), Kolab (No production quality Web frontend, and I can't find much about SyncML either), Horde (Hmm. I didn't like the classical horde webmail very much, but "Horde Groupware" might be worth another look. The status of the SyncML part is not clear, judging from the website.) and phpGroupWare (egw's ancestor, when I last looked development seemed to stall, and the information I found about its SyncML support is somewhat scant.) The open direcory project lists some more, but I haven't looked at these.

1 November 2007

Andrew McMillan: DAViCal and support for Apple's CalDAV client in OS 10.5

Quite a few people seem impressed with the new release of Leopard, and are now looking for a CalDAV server to use with their shiny new iCal app. Unfortunately it seems that Apple wrote this primarily to work with their own (free, open-source) calendar server, which has the side effect that it doesn't work with DAViCal. Part of the "doesn't work" is due to DAViCal not implementing some areas of the CalDAV specification, which is fair enough. Part of it is due to DAViCal not implementing some draft extensions to the CalDAV specification, which I can also understand, since it allows them to provide some useful features that those extensions are designed to support. There also seem to be some parts of the "doesn't work" which are due to a dependence on extensions beyond either of these cases, which is a little more disappointing - and quite a bit harder to implement. So far I have made some fixes to the first point, and some additions towards parts of the second, but as of today it still does not work. This is complicated by my not having access to a Mac. Things are looking up, however, because Tom Robinson has kindly agreed to loan me a Mac running Leopard from next week. In order to "clear the slate" for that, I will be releasing a 0.9.2 over the weekend with the various minor enhancements and fixes that have been applied over the last week. So although this upcoming release will let you add your DAViCal account to iCal 3, it still won't actually work with it. I'm hoping that ready access to the application will enable me to correct that fairly quickly. Also waiting in the wings (and which unfortunately won't be in 0.9.2 either) Maxime Delorme has been working on SyncML support, and is nearly ready with a patch, so we can look forward to that addition fairly soon also.

2 October 2007

Adrian von Bidder: 64bit Mobile Platforms

So we finally need 64 bit CPUs in all our gadgets! (After having seen OpenXchange's SyncML code fail horribly on dates that are beyond 2038, which is something you quickly arrive at if people enter birthdays as repeating appointments until infinity.) Update: Neil Williams has some related information.

15 April 2007

Wouter Verhelst: Belgian eID proxy code

I was recently (at FOSDEM) made aware of the fact that apart from the client-side software, Zetes also provides some server-side software to allow one to verify electronic ID card certificates on an HTTP server. I didn't know about that, since nobody ever told me about it; and none of the eID sites that I know of mention it, either. So today I had a first look at the code to see what I'd need to do to properly package it. The code does contain a few WTFs, though. 
-    if (!r->proxyreq   !r->filename   strncmp(r->filename, "proxy:", 6) != 0)
+    if (!r->proxyreq)
+        return DECLINED;
+
+    if (!r->filename)
+        return DECLINED;
+
+    if (strncmp(r->filename, "proxy:", 6) != 0)
         return DECLINED;
This one is especially silly if you know that the above is the only change to mod_proxy.c. They do extensive changes to apache's mod_ssl, since that is where most of the needed work is done. The changes include the following stuff: 
 #ifndef BOOL
-#define BOOL unsigned int
+#define BOOL int
 #endif
It's a boolean. By definition, that needs to keep only 2 values. The ability to set it to negative values doesn't matter. But, well; the above two could be explained by compilers having strange ideas about what should be warned about. So let's ignore those. The code should be sane then, right? Well, almost. 
--- httpd-2.0.54/modules/ssl/mod_ssl.h  2005-02-04 21:21:18.000000000 +0100
+++ httpd-2.0.54-beid-proxy/modules/ssl/mod_ssl.h       2007-04-15 13:45:27.0000
00000 +0200
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
 #include "apr_global_mutex.h"
 #include "apr_optional.h"
 
-#define MOD_SSL_VERSION AP_SERVER_BASEREVISION
+#define MOD_SSL_VERSION AP_SERVER_BASEREVISION "+OCSP (1.0.8)"
 
 #ifdef HAVE_SSLC
   
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@
That's okay, sure? If you change mod_ssl to include OCSP support, you may want to change its version number to reflect that? Yes, indeed. But if you set the version number like above, and spread the rest of the mod_ssl code with patches like... 
+#ifndef NOOCSP
(...) 
+#endif
...and... 
+ifndef NO_OCSP
(...) 
+#endif
... then my guess is something's wrong with your processes. Anyway. The modified SSL code for apache will be coming to a Debian mirror near you some time. But not soon.

7 February 2007

Matthew Garrett: 7 Feb 2007

Since ncm asked so nicely, here's an article on how ACPI suspend/resume actually works. Or doesn't, as the case may be.

14 January 2007

Andreas Metzler: some tidbits

I have not blogged for quite some time, mostly due to real life eating up my energy for non-trivial stuff. Anyway there is some news:

16 May 2006

Barry Hawkins: A bit chilly in a hot place; a distributable Java JRE and JDK arrives

So it’s finally OK to mention it now; Java has made it explicitly possible (read legal) to distribute the Sun Java JRE/JDK on a GNU/Linux distrubtion. The new license is for Java SE 5 on Linux only, called the Operating System Distribution License for Java, or DLJ for short. You can read the license in text or pdf form. The FAQ for the DLJ is also available in text and pdf. Heck, go through the README for the JRE and JDK while you’re at it. So what does that mean? Well, GNU/Linux distrubtions like Debian can now package a Java runtime environment or Java development kit in their repositories. That was previously not possible due to restrictions present in Java licensing. Users still have to accept the Java SE 5 binary code license that is totally not free and has the same restrictions Java has always had, but this at least makes packaging and supporting Java less painful for distributions. Sun is coordinating the efforts via a java.net project, jdk-distros. This is an unprecedented level of cooperation from Sun with external parties in anything related to Java. I consider myself fortunate to have been a founding member of the project. It has been a pleasant and refreshing experience to meet a few optimistic and forward-thinking people from Sun who have a keen interest in Free Software; a big thanks to Simon Phipps and Tom Marble. I was encouraged that they allowed our contributions to be covered under the MIT license. If you would have told me that a month ago I would have laughed at you. The Debian announcment should be posted on the debian-devel-announce list today. I am sure this will draw both praise and ire from the Debian community. That’s cool, though; the rich diversity is part of what makes it such a vibrant organism.

9 May 2006

Martin F. Krafft: Choosing a new cellphone

For the past two years, I have been a moderately satisfied user of the Nokia 6230 cellphone, which does all a cellphone should do ("it even has a camera!"). However, it suffers from some shortcomings, namely:
  • While it's surely possible to connect a laptop to the Internet via bluetooth to the phone, then GSM, UMTS, or GPRS to the provider, it's not possible to do it the other way, phone via bluetooth to laptop, then Ethernet. This is annoying for two reasons: one, I have to pay expensive GPRS charges even if I am downloading something to the phone in the office, and two, I cannot use my SyncML server, because the perimeter firewall blocks access to its port from the outside. See these threads: A B C.
  • When connected to the headset, the phone cannot establish other bluetooth connections. So while it's possible for me to dial numbers from the laptop or my Palm (quite convenient), I cannot do that for calls using the headset. I'd really like to be able to stow my cellphone in the bag, and do communications with the Palm (which can also read and send SMS via the phone) and the headset only. Right now, I might have to search for the number on the Palm, dial it by hand, then stash the phone away to complete the call via headset.
  • I store all my contacts on the phone memory, not on the SIM card, for two reasons: the SIM card memory can only store one number per name, and I really don't want separate records for "John Home", "John Office", and "John Cell", and two, I often switch SIM cards when travelling to other countries. But switching the SIM card will always configure the phone to use phone and SIM memory for the addressbook, so I always have to change that back.
  • Even though the phone comes with timezone support, I have to press at least 10 keys to change the timezone.
  • The phone has five caller groups, to which you can assign separate ringing tones. I often wanted to be able to set ring tones per person instead.
Now, my provider is offering me a new phone if I choose to renew the contract (which I will). Thus, I am faced with a new choice, and so ventured out to the stores to get myself informed. I have somewhat of a preference for Nokia phones simply because I already have a set of chargers for them. My requirements for a phone are:
  • It has to be small, light, and sturdy.
  • It has to have bluetooth, ideally without the aforementioned shortcomings.
  • It has to have a long battery life, standby time of at least a week.
  • It should interface (via bluetooth) with the Palm Tungsten T5 as well as Linux (Gammu, or something else).
  • It has to have quick and intuitive navigation (this pretty much rules out Sony Ericsson, where it can be a second between keypress and display update, or so I've seen).
  • It has to have voice-activated dialing, but instead of pressing a key, speaking the name, then having the phone dial, I would like to press a key, speak the name, confirm the call within a set amount of time, and only then have the phone call. Alternatively, I'd accept if I had to keep a button pressed while speaking the name. Also, the phone should acknowledge failure to determine a name rather than choosing the closest one; it happened too many times that the key would be accidentally pressed while the phone was in my pocket, followed by the phone's "smart" decision to call some random person in my address book after listening to the background noise or the rustling of my pocket.
My most-wanted feature has always been a button you can press, which would make the phone ring 10 seconds later -- a great way to get out of an annoying conversation. Unfortunately, no manufacturer even bothered to reply to my feature request sent maybe 4 years ago, so it's unlikely I'll find a phone with this capability anytime soon. Another nice feature to have would be an in-phone answering machine, like the Sony CMD-Z5 used to have. Of course, the provider lobby is not going to let that happen, as they'd lose revenue not being able to charge people normal connection charges for calls to their own mailbox. What I don't need (but would not care about anyway) are:
  • Camera, video camera
  • MP3 player, other multimedia support
  • MMS support
  • Games, Java, other applications
Given all of the above, it seems that I only have one phone to choose: The Nokia 6230i, where the i stands for "improved", I guess. But before you get your hops up high (as I did mine), check out the list of improvements and join me in a big sigh. While every manufacturer, including Nokia, has released several new phones over the last two years, they have all been down their multimedia lines. In fact, it seems that the only improvements Nokia and the other manufacturers performed on their business lines was to make the phones larger, add keyboards, and turn them more into PDAs. How sad. Then again, a lot of new models are announced. I may well have to put off the decision until the 6233 is out, the 6021 available here, or I've had a chance to check out the 6822. Also, the E60 and E70 look like worth a look, especially because they integrate Voice-over-IP. And I feel I should have another look at Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens phones. However, so far I have not heard too many good things about any of these, and haven't seen models that are small and light. I really don't need to slide or fold the phone to use it. PS: if you are a phone manufacturer and read this, maybe you could again consider normal user needs when designing your next line of phones, rather than trying to forcefully push more multimedia upon our entertainment society, which nobody really needs but everyone ends up using.

Martin F. Krafft: Choosing a new cellphone

For the past two years, I have been a moderately satisfied user of the Nokia 6230 cellphone, which does all a cellphone should do ("it even has a camera!"). However, it suffers from some shortcomings, namely:
  • While it's surely possible to connect a laptop to the Internet via bluetooth to the phone, then GSM, UMTS, or GPRS to the provider, it's not possible to do it the other way, phone via bluetooth to laptop, then Ethernet. This is annoying for two reasons: one, I have to pay expensive GPRS charges even if I am downloading something to the phone in the office, and two, I cannot use my SyncML server, because the perimeter firewall blocks access to its port from the outside. See these threads: A B C.
  • When connected to the headset, the phone cannot establish other bluetooth connections. So while it's possible for me to dial numbers from the laptop or my Palm (quite convenient), I cannot do that for calls using the headset. I'd really like to be able to stow my cellphone in the bag, and do communications with the Palm (which can also read and send SMS via the phone) and the headset only. Right now, I might have to search for the number on the Palm, dial it by hand, then stash the phone away to complete the call via headset.
  • I store all my contacts on the phone memory, not on the SIM card, for two reasons: the SIM card memory can only store one number per name, and I really don't want separate records for "John Home", "John Office", and "John Cell", and two, I often switch SIM cards when travelling to other countries. But switching the SIM card will always configure the phone to use phone and SIM memory for the addressbook, so I always have to change that back.
  • Even though the phone comes with timezone support, I have to press at least 10 keys to change the timezone.
  • The phone has five caller groups, to which you can assign separate ringing tones. I often wanted to be able to set ring tones per person instead.
Now, my provider is offering me a new phone if I choose to renew the contract (which I will). Thus, I am faced with a new choice, and so ventured out to the stores to get myself informed. I have somewhat of a preference for Nokia phones simply because I already have a set of chargers for them. My requirements for a phone are:
  • It has to be small, light, and sturdy.
  • It has to have bluetooth, ideally without the aforementioned shortcomings.
  • It has to have a long battery life, standby time of at least a week.
  • It should interface (via bluetooth) with the Palm Tungsten T5 as well as Linux (Gammu, or something else).
  • It has to have quick and intuitive navigation (this pretty much rules out Sony Ericsson, where it can be a second between keypress and display update, or so I've seen).
  • It has to have voice-activated dialing, but instead of pressing a key, speaking the name, then having the phone dial, I would like to press a key, speak the name, confirm the call within a set amount of time, and only then have the phone call. Alternatively, I'd accept if I had to keep a button pressed while speaking the name. Also, the phone should acknowledge failure to determine a name rather than choosing the closest one; it happened too many times that the key would be accidentally pressed while the phone was in my pocket, followed by the phone's "smart" decision to call some random person in my address book after listening to the background noise or the rustling of my pocket.
My most-wanted feature has always been a button you can press, which would make the phone ring 10 seconds later -- a great way to get out of an annoying conversation. Unfortunately, no manufacturer even bothered to reply to my feature request sent maybe 4 years ago, so it's unlikely I'll find a phone with this capability anytime soon. Another nice feature to have would be an in-phone answering machine, like the Sony CMD-Z5 used to have. Of course, the provider lobby is not going to let that happen, as they'd lose revenue not being able to charge people normal connection charges for calls to their own mailbox. What I don't need (but would not care about anyway) are:
  • Camera, video camera
  • MP3 player, other multimedia support
  • MMS support
  • Games, Java, other applications
Given all of the above, it seems that I only have one phone to choose: The Nokia 6230i, where the i stands for "improved", I guess. But before you get your hops up high (as I did mine), check out the list of improvements and join me in a big sigh. While every manufacturer, including Nokia, has released several new phones over the last two years, they have all been down their multimedia lines. In fact, it seems that the only improvements Nokia and the other manufacturers performed on their business lines was to make the phones larger, add keyboards, and turn them more into PDAs. How sad. Then again, a lot of new models are announced. I may well have to put off the decision until the 6233 is out, the 6021 available here, or I've had a chance to check out the 6822. Also, the E60 and E70 look like worth a look, especially because they integrate Voice-over-IP. And I feel I should have another look at Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens phones. However, so far I have not heard too many good things about any of these, and haven't seen models that are small and light. I really don't need to slide or fold the phone to use it. PS: if you are a phone manufacturer and read this, maybe you could again consider normal user needs when designing your next line of phones, rather than trying to forcefully push more multimedia upon our entertainment society, which nobody really needs but everyone ends up using.

31 March 2006

Norbert Tretkowski: Music player

I switched to orpheus a while ago, but it lacks last.fm support. A friend told me he's quite happy with amarok, so I decided to give it a try. But I didn't like it. Then I installed mpd, ncmpc and mpdscribble. That's exactly what I wanted.

8 March 2006

Simon Richter: Nokia and SyncML

Ross, I also have one of those, and if you look at the output of sdptool browse, you will see the following snippet: Service Name: SyncML Client
Service RecHandle: 0x1000e
Service Class ID List:
  "Error: This is UUID-128" (0x00000002-0000-1000-8000-0002ee000002)
Protocol Descriptor List:
  "L2CAP" (0x0100)
  "RFCOMM" (0x0003)
    Channel: 11
  "OBEX" (0x0008)
Language Base Attr List:
  code_ISO639: 0x656e
  encoding: 0x6a
  base_offset: 0x100 IOW, what you need is a SyncML server that goes out, connects to that RFCOMM channel and then awaits commands from a client. Your other option is to have a SyncML server on the Internet, create a user-defined server profile for it, and initiate sync from the phone. Neither works with multisync ATM. The former because multisync does not like SyncML over Bluetooth, the latter because SyncML is too stupid to listen on a port.

Riku Voipio: lazyweb answers: gnokii

Ross, What you want is SyncML (WBXML encoded) over OBEX over bluetooth. Complex? Acronym overload? yes. There exists rumours that with an unreleased $REVISIONCONTROL snapshot of opensync syncml plugin it is actually possible with free software.

However you can cheat and just use (nostalogia alert!) AT commands to retrieve and write phonebook entries. gnokii --getphonebook and --writephonebook work perfectly here.

Ross Burton: New Phone, SyncML Hell

Yesterday my new phone, a Nokia 6230i, arrived. This morning I tried to use Multisync to restore the backup of the contacts I took trivially (via IrMC) from my old K700i. Well, that wasn't trivial. The 6230i uses SyncML which is groovy and everything, but is also hell to configure. Has anyone actually made this work? Ideally I'd have the phone as the SyncML server so that I can start syncs from my laptop running Multisync, but the manual for the phone doesn't exactly make it obvious how I'm supposed to connect to a machine via something other than GPRS (I want to use Bluetooth of some sort). Help!

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