Fortunately there is a simpler way – Python.  The N900 has Python 2.5.4 and Xterm,  vi and PyMaemo.  This provides all you need to get started. Just type in a program and you’re in business. Here’s the hello world app from the PyMaemo documentation

import gtk
import hildon

def hello(widget, data):
 print "Hello World!"

def main():
 program = hildon.Program.get_instance()

 window = hildon.Window()
 program.add_window(window)
 window.connect("delete_event", gtk.main_quit, None)

 button = hildon.Button(gtk.HILDON_SIZE_AUTO, hildon.BUTTON_ARRANGEMENT_VERTICAL, "Hello world!")
 button.connect("clicked", hello, None)
 window.add(button)

 window.show_all()
 gtk.main()

if __name__ == "__main__":
 main()

To run the Python program,  use this command at the shell prompt.

run-standalone.sh python2.5 helloworld.py

Now typing on the N900 keyboard isn’t realistic. The Komodo IDE I use on the Mac has the ability to edit remote files via scp. Once you install the OpenSSH server on the N900 you’re in a position to directly edit files on the device with Komodo.

Bruce Schneier said this on the topic. Just as salient today as it was when it was written in 2006″

… Some clever answers: “If I’m not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me.” “Because the government gets to define what’s wrong, and they keep changing the definition.” “Because you might do something wrong with my information.” My problem with quips like these — as right as they are — is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It’s not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? (“Who watches the watchers?”) and “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.” Watch someone long enough, and you’ll find something to arrest — or just blackmail — with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies — whoever they happen to be at the time.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

… Too many wrongly characterize the debate as “security versus privacy.” The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that’s why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide…

Tagged: google, privacy ]]> http://johnmccombs.inmap.net/2009/12/09/google-ceo-on-privacy/feed/ 0 johnmccombs http://johnmccombs.inmap.net/2009/10/31/war-of-attrition/ http://johnmccombs.inmap.net/2009/10/31/war-of-attrition/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:05:15 +0000 John McCombs http://johnmccombs.inmap.net/?p=294 ]]>

Looks like the mosquitoes are back.  And so it begins….

“Over 1,500 members of national, regional, and international
science academies have signed the Warning. Sixtynine
nations from all parts of Earth are represented, including
each of the twelve most populous nations and the nineteen
largest economic powers. The full list includes a majority
of the Nobel laureates in the sciences.”

         WORLD SCIENTISTS' WARNING TO HUMANITY

    Human beings and the natural world are on a collision
course. Human activities inflict harsh and often
irreversible damage on the environment and on critical
resources.  If not checked, many of our current practices
put at serious risk the future that we wish for human
society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter
the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in
the manner that we know.  Fundamental changes are urgent if
we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring
about.

continued...

While not as weak as the earlier, and now completely broken, WEP security, this attack means that WPA/TKIP can no longer be trusted to keep your network safe.

The good news is that reasonably recent WiFi access-points offer the alternative AES encryption that is not vulnerable to this attack. Avoiding this problem is as simple as logging in to the access-point’s administration page and changing the encryption setting.

Use AES Encryption

This is an interesting example of an ever increasing web disease — that is: expressing mere opinions without foundations or checking. This one is easy, because there is a readily available “Early History of Smalltalk” that the ACM got me to write in 1993. So why wouldn’t people just type “history of smalltalk” into Google? (I don’t know and I haven’t been able to figure this out).

The very first hit finds this paper. (This one is not the best version of it because someone just scanned the doc I wrote to get an HTML version and left out lots of the pictures. But in looking at it, it seems to answer this question very straightforwardly — and that answer was given by “someone who was actually there” and had a hand in the invention of Smalltalk, rather than people with opinions from the side.)

What is wrong? Why is mere opinion so dominating discussions held on the easiest medium there has ever been that can provide substantiations with just a little curiosity and work? Is the world completely reverting to an oral culture of assertions held around an electronic campfire?

I’m not sure that our behaviour on the Internet is much different to what you get at the water-cooler, in the tea-room or on talk-back radio. But instant access to the facts makes it less excusable.

Anyway, if you’re a software developer, Alan Kay’s paper is a good read.

Bill Gates has purchased the rights to the seven-part series of lectures given by Richard Feynman at Cornell University in 1964.

The Project Tuva lectures, are hosted by Microsoft Research. The videos have a transcript and interactive annotations.

• Internet Explorer has fallen below 60% for the first time – $58%
• Firefox use has hit 30%
• Safari is 6% and Google’s Chrome is 4%
• Safari is pretty much only used by Mac owners. Safari use on Windows is negligible.

Uptake of new software versions differs markedly between Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Internet Explorer

The following tables show the percentage of users with each version and the release date for that version.

After 8 years the much loathed (by web developers) IE6 is still used by almost 20% of IE users. A look at the IP addresses of these users indicates that about 60% of them are corporate or institutional. They are probably stuck with IE6 through cost of change or the requirements of legacy intranet applications.

The number non-institutional users with either IE6 or the three-year old IE7 is surprising, as you’d expect the updates to have been pushed through by Windows Update. You have to wonder if these PC’s have updates disabled!

96% of Windows users are using either XP (69%) or Vista (27%).

Firefox

In contrast, with Firefox there is a very different pattern. 83% of the Firefox users had updated within the last two months and 94% of Firefox users were using a browser less than a year old.

Perhaps the difference is cultural. Firefox users have made a conscious choice to switch and are probably generally more aware of the need to stay up-to-date.

Life is connected. We have a lot of small grasses growing in the cracks between the paving stones in our yard.  You might have an urge to “tidy” these up, but their seeds  are currently sustaining a flock of 20 or so finches…

Swine Flu and Tuberculosis vs the news media

And two talks from TED. The first on HIV

And the second exposing preconceptions about the “developing world”

The Windows XP installation on this machine was crumbling. Suspend/hibernate didn’t work. There would be no fixing that without re-installing Windows.  Even when it was working properly, the XP user-interface was kind of awkward on the small keyboard and trackpad. This seemed like a good opportunity to try out the latest Ubuntu release – 9.04.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix

The Ubuntu installation took about 15 minutes, using an USB CD-ROM drive.  As far as I could tell everything worked except the network activity light and the SD slot. Fixed by running this, in the terminal, then rebooting

  sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-jaunty

The next step was  to install the Netbook Remix (UNR). Execute this in a terminal window and re-boot:

  sudo apt-get install go-home-applet human-netbook-theme \
    maximus netbook-launcher window-picker-appletsudo apt-get \
    install go-home-applet human-netbook-theme maximus \
    netbook-launcher window-picker-applet

The result is brilliant. The UNR user-interface is much more manageable with a small trackpad and keyboard.

UNR replaces the standard Gnome interface with one more suited to a small screen. Instead of the usual Applications/Places/System menu, there is a full-screen “home” panel that shows the icons for the installed applications. The applications are organised in a series of tabs. Clicking the tab shows the application in that category. The tabs and icons are large and easy to hit.

UNR Main Screen

The right-hand part of the the top bar has the usual status applets and you can add more from the standard selection

Status Bar

The task bar lives on the left of the top bar. The running applications are represented by 16×16 icons. Click the icon to bring the application to the front – much like the standard task bar. The front application gets a larger tab in the top bar.

Taskbar

Overlapping windows are gone.  All the applications run with their window maximised.  All the window decoration is stripped away leaving only the application, maximised against the top bar.  There is no title bar, minimise/maximise/close buttons or window resize controls.

Compared to a normal notebook, the netbook’s small trackpad and screen are quite fiddly. UNR’s simplification of the user-interface makes the netbook so much easier to work with.  The effect is surprisingly good and far better than using Windows XP.

Overall UNR has transformed the Acer from something that was tolerable to a device I actually like using….

Click on the image for a zoomable view (requires Microsoft Silverlight)

ANZAC Day 2009 - Canterbury Museum

• Choosing a GPS
• About datums and map projections
• New Zealand Transverse Mercator (NZTM) projection