My elder daughter does need to run educational software from school. And my wife wants to run education software for our younger son. And making all that running under different emulation environments does eat my time, and result is not always good. And also children start to want games…

Issue 1. Need hardware to run more or less modern windows on.

For last 6 years, my home network consists of a more or less powerful headless server, and 3 terminals to access that. Terminals are definitely too weak for windows. And server is needed in 24/7 mode so sorry no windows there.

Likely solution for this is – one of 3 terminals is actually dying (it is doing so already for months but still works, just hangs sometimes) and needs a replacement, so I can just replace it now and use more powerful hardware.

Issue 2. Windows host or windows VM?

While windows VM feels preferable for a such a deep-linux person as myself, I tend to think that dual-boot host is better here. If the very reason of allowing windows into this house is – make it easy to install and run random windows software, then doing so in VM environment is explicitly against the goal.

Issue 3. Use unlicensed windows or buy a license?

Although absolute majority of windows users here is Russia use unlicensed windows, it is somewhat unfair to promote free software and use unlicensed windows at the same time. And windows home basic license is not that expensive after all.

The setup that makes me less uncomfortable than others is:
- obtain powerful enough hardware, and install that instead of failing terminal,
- obtain windows 7 home basic license
- install dual boot linux + windows, and under linux install windows VM
- when needed, try windows VM first, and in case of any issues, immediately reboot into windows host.

What I can’t find out for some time already is – does microsoft retail license allow to have both host and VM installation on the same computer? These will be physically different installations, but on the same computer, and will never run at the same time. License wording does not give exact answer on this.

I wanted to ask on Microsoft’s support forum but failed to register there. After asking me quite a few things it claimed that there is some temporary problem and suggested to retry later. I retried later and got the same.

I then asked here but looks like nobody knows.

At least I want to know, what will happen if I will try to activate windows in VM after I’ve activated windows (with the same key) on host. Will this render both installations “non-genuine”?

Also I’d appreciate any comments on the whole situation

… until recent. Looks like now everybody is moving to skype. Quite a few of my contacts no longer use anything else. This is starting to cause problems.

I feel quite discomfortable about moving to proprietary software that is a questionable quality (1) implementation of a secret protocol. But pressure increases: staying away from skype already does cause difficulties.

(1) After recent unclean shutdown of server that hosts desktop sessions for thin clients here, quite a few users have been unable to login to Skype without erasing entire ~/.Skype directory.

And there is no working jabber transport for skype.

Bad.

I’m aware that some multi-protocol IM clients can talk skype via api provided by official skype client. This is better than nothing, but still uncomfortable.

Need: without making much noise, hide private files from too curious relatives.

Solution: aptitude install cryptkeeper.

Does anybody know a fix/workaround?

Update: looks like running gimp with LD_LIBRARY_PATH set to directory containing library files from squeeze libcairo2 package (1.8.10-6) workarounds this.

But this story makes me think again that bundling libraries with applications is not that bad idea – at least for users who need to get things done.

Sorry people for calling you spammers, and many thanks for your comments. I’ve manually approved everything that NoSpamNX incorrectly filtered, and disabled NoSpamNX for now. Will look for a good replacement.

Since I do need mobile phone every day, I had to get some replacement quickly. Given Maemo was dead and Meego device not available, I decided to go Android. Since after n900 hardware keyboard became a must for me, I decided to try HTC Desire Z.

That device made me angry every day, both because of hardware (what a silly idea to place volume buttons such that they are below hardware keyboard when it’s opened? they got pressed almost every time when I used keyboard!) and Android itself. I think quite a few things are broken in Android, but most annoying is broken multitasking. I can’t live with dialog elements content get lost when I switch to other app and back. Please don’t tell me that it’s app fault: maybe technically it is, however too many apps have it so I have to generalize. I will likely write more about this later.

At the same time, exciting things have been happening in Maemo community. It was the time when Community SSU raised, also several mapping applications went out of dark, and more. I was still subscribed to Maemo resources so I read about all that and got more and more frustrated with my new Android device.

And on one sunday evening, after reading more exciting news from Maemo side, I decided that enough is enough. And ordered a new n900. Few days later, I’ve sold HTC for about 80% of it’s original price.

That was an emotional solution, and of course it could not play well in the long term. Despite of individual exciting news, Maemo community was becoming weaker. Device itself had major usability issues (e.g. it could occasionally unlock while being in my pocket, and call a random number from address book – and I have quite a few addresses abroad so such calls not only bother people, but also are expensive). There was not many applications, and those available had problems. There was a visible difference between my friends who could just take a phone and quickly do something, and myself who had to struggle with incomplete and buggy software. Also skype quality was very bad. Also when I was planning a 2-week trip to location without mobile network, I tried to preload map of planned route, but it preloaded only part and I was unable to make it preload the rest. Also many similar issues.

So it became clear that if I want usability, I have to go to a standard platform. And as such, Android still is the only option.

I searched for a device that runs more or less modern Android version, has hardware keyboard, and is not HTC Desire Z. There was not much to choose from. I ordered SonyEricsson sk17i.

I’m already using it for about 4 months. For common use cases, such as locating a business nearby, or routing to a given address, or quickly browsing a web page, it works. However, all Android flaws including broken multitasking and no-undo-in-text-fields are here, causing everyday frustration.

My conclusion is that no smartphone-like devices without major usability issues are available today. What is available probably could be used to somehow satisfy immediate communication needs, but nothing above that. Bells and whistles are there, but I’m not interested in those. I want a linux-based pocket-sized mobile computer that will handle both my communication needs and other interests. That could be hacked when I want to, but just works at the rest of time. Something like my Debian desktop.

Openmoko was a big hope but it failed. Maemo was a big hope but incompetence of Nokia killed it. Meego was dead before it was born. There is still some life around several mobile linux projects (GTA04, Maemo, Meego, some others), but hopes for it to grow into something that could be used without huge hacking are little.

After this command, nothing is changed in working tree or in branch history. But reflog gets a reference to the current tree content, which could be extracted (git help reflog) if you suddenly realize that you’ve messed things up.

Con’s: depends on proper .gitignore to avoid garbage in repository; can’t be used if there is something valuable in the staging area; reflog has limited lifetime, decreased even more by large rebases

However, given what is happening in my country these days, I *must* write at least one entry, just to put a number there.

632305222316434

Everyone who disagrees with criminal behaviour of Russian president, government and all those rascals, must do that.

I’ve lost my n900.

Most likely, case was not properly mounted on my belt today, and fell down at some point.

Chance to get device back is near-zero. It does not respond to calls to itself (“off or out of network coverage”) – so likely somebody found it, and turned it off and/or replaced SIM, etc.

I’ve used it for more than a year. It had lots of customizations, large chat logs, and lots of other data. And it was tightly integrated into my day-to-day life.
Some backups are available – but not very recent. And not sure that these backups could be used to recover things into other device – and, given all those recent news about Nokia, it is definitely unwise to buy a new n900, as well as any other Nokia device.

This blog will unlikely get any more n900-related posts.

I’m quite frustrated, and can’t do anything useful already for several hours .