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I’m still using old Compaq Evo laptop. It has 14.1″ LCD (so compact) but with with 1400 x 1050 resolution (full specs are here). Hi resolution is critical for me because I often use remote desktop on different hosts, and there are still only rare cases when remote desktop size is higher than my; so remote desctop almost always fit to my local desktop without scrolling.

CPU and memory is not quite big, but Ubuntu Linux still works good enough.

This model has changeable «multiport» module on the cover, with WiFi and Bluetooth modules available (some time ago; for now such spare module is rare thing). I bought my Evo with WiFi module, just to found that it works BAD under Windows, and almost not supported in Linux.

But, good news was that «multiport» connector is just USB interface. So, I (with help of my friend with soldering skill mutch better than my) was able to place USB type-A female connector on laptop cover.

Next logical step was to use polyurethane glue to put pieces of 50mm (2″) ‘loops’ part of velcro hooks-and-loops fastener to the cover surface, and ‘hooks’ pieces on various usb devices I’m using.

On this photo you could see how my laptop looks now. There are D-Link USB hub, in which WiFi card (TP-Link) and wireless mouse (Logitech ‘Nano’ series) are connected. Also there are two spare sockets on hub (there are extender n one of them), usually used for attaching memory sticks, card readers and 4G-modem when I need them.

Некоторое время назад попытался использовать в Ubuntu wifi-USB-карточку TP-Link TL-WN821N (чип Atheros Otus, ID 0cf3:9170). Она вполне стабильно работает через ndiswrapper (1.54-2ubuntu1) c драйвером от Windows, но только на нешифрованных соединениях. (read more…)

В связи с задачей недорого купить USB-GPRS-модем, обежал вчера офисы продаж ОПСОСов большой тройки (МТС, МегаФон, БиЛайн). МТС и MegaFon продают Huawei E1550, Билайн — ZTE MF100. Продавцы в салонах говорят — все залочены, т.е. будут работать только со «своим» оператором. Может, врут или говорят по заученному, но скорее правда. Мне же нужен модем, не привязанный к сети конкретного ОПСОСа, чтобы он мог работать в любой сети с любой симкой.

Розничные цены на модемы (точнее, комплекты модем+SIM-карта) операторы занижают, а модемы привязывают к своим сетям. Незалоченные модемы в питерской рознице продаются дороже раза в два.

Однако, порыв в инете, понимаю, что прогноз по разлочке по обоим вариантам в целом позитивный, так что в ближайшее время буду брать. Скорее всего от МТС — ценник самый дешевый, 900р., у остальных по 1150р.

PS: кстати, «обежал» — это я не от желания побегать. Просто по телефону решить этот вопрос оказалось нереально. У МТС, например, принципиально не связывают по телефону с конкретным центром обслуживания.. Короче, ОПСОСы — они такие и есть.

1. Shutdown your UPS monitoring software.
2. Contact your UPS directly using some terminal program such as minicom with the settings 2400 8N1 (2400 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit). Be extremely careful what you send to your UPS as certain characters may cause it to power down or may even cause damage to the UPS.
3. Try sending to the UPS an upper case ‘Y’ (without quotes and return at the end; the same applyes to all following commands). It should respond with ‘SM’. If you fat finger the ‘Y’ and enter ‘y’ instead, no cause for alarm, you will simply get the APC copyright notice.
4. When you are sure you are properly connected send an upper case ‘D’. This will put the UPS into calibration mode, and it will drain the battery down to 25% capacity (35% for a Matrix) at which point it will go back on the mains. In doing so, it will recompute the runtime calibration.
5. (If you wish to abort the calibration, enter a second ‘D’ command.)
6. When you are done, restart your monitoring software.

Notes:

• Does not apply to voltage-signalling or dumb UPSes such as the older BackUPS models.
• In a future release of apcupsd this procedure will be replaced by a daemon operation.
• Do not run the recalibration command more than once or twice per year as discharging these kinds of batteries tends to shorten their life span.
• While recalibrating you should supply a load of about 30 to 35% but not more than 50%. You can determine the load by looking at the output of the apcaccess status command while apcupsd is running.

Now i’m migrating from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux. For some time I will need both OSes to work with minimal time to switch between. As solution, I decide to setup VirtualBox on Windows, and run Ubuntu inside virtual machine. This is quite common situation, but one detail is specifical: Ubuntu is alreday set up on separate hard drive partition. So I need to run VirtualBox virtual machine from «raw» partition.

The trick was simple — all steps described in VirtualBox User Manual, see chapter 9.9.

I done such steps:

(pathtovboxprogramfolder)\VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive0

which gives:

Number Type StartCHS EndCHS Size (MiB) Start (Sect)
1 0x07 0 /1 /1 694 /239/63 5131 63
5 0x83 695 /1 /1 1023/239/63 9856 10508463
6 0x82 1023/1 /1 1023/239/63 1026 30693663
7 0x07 1023/1 /1 1023/239/63 136611 32795343

Partitions Ubuntu VM needs access are 5 (root fs) and 6 (swap). Next command makes special .vmdk file for such partitions:

(pathtovboxprogramfolder)\VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename (pathtovboxdisksfolder>)\raw5and6.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive0 -partitions 5,6

And, for last, this .vmdk file could be registered with VirtualBox «Virtual Disk Manager» and used for VM.