There's a Party in my Blackberry, No One Else is Invited

I've had a Blackberry Bold for a while now. I haven't blogged about it because the OS it was launched with became famous for instability. I upgraded twice looking for a stable platform. I'm also a developer for Blackberries, and there is nothing that can take the confidence away as fast as bricking your own Blackberry with the latest version of your own software.

I managed to beat down all the bugs except a pernicious and difficult to isolate one. Occasionally I would install a new version of my precious project. A reboot would be required, fine, no surprise. But, partway through the boot process it would halt at the dreaded white screen with tiny writing "App Err 200" and a "RESET" button. Some times resetting would result in a clean boot, often and more frequently as time passed, not. Finally I'd have to give up and wipe the device and re-install the OS. A good learning experience but once was enough. I eventually tried a removing the IT Policy. That worked by not really better than a re-install.

The event log was clear that the Application Manager (the program that displays the home screen and lets you launch other applications) detected too many processes, and just stops. I understand that a small device has limited resources, but stopping is perhaps a little drastic. Sometimes removing my, or other applications would result in a clean boot, often not. Frustration writ large.

Finding information on Blackberry errors is always a challenge, but when I found this knowledge base article I was a bit embarrassed. It claims to have been around since May 2006, I should have found it sooner. So Blackberries can only run 48 concurrent processes. That should be plenty no? Well apparently not. There are a lot of processes that run all the time in the background to do useful things. Over the past few months lots of user applications have been released for the Blackberry; Facebook, Flicker, Twitter, MySpace and a whole drawer full from Google. I don't run all of those, but some. Many need, or can be configured to run at startup. Most of my own applications also have to run at startup. So a routine reboot can turn into a process storm.

If RIM wants to keep pushing the social networking applications to broaden the appeal of the Blackberry beyond the boardroom they will have to come up with a more robust way of dealing with this situation. In the mean time their advice for developers building multiple auto starting applications is to have one seek out and run the others. And it works.

Yippie! Stability, it's a good thing.

COPA Flight Log - Part 5

I received an email last night announcing the Skymark Technologies Support Forum. There is a forum for COPA Flight Log which already contains a post of the error I complained about in Part 4. Perhaps there will be an answer or fix forth coming.

20 7b 45 51 f2 db 2a 70 73 26 d6 74 47 de 2b 8f

It has been a crazy few weeks on the copyright/DMCA front with the AACS trying to suppress the release of a processing key for high definition media, also reported int the New York Times. I don't condone piracy, but neither do I support stupidity.

My favourite, if somewhat whimsical treatment is Cali Lewis's music video of Geoff Smith's song commemorating the digital dust up.

If 128 bit integers can be controlled, then shouldn't anyone be able to own one? Freedom to Tinker think so. Now you can own an integer too -- get yours here. 20 7B 45 51 F2 DB 2A 70 73 26 D6 74 47 DE 2B 8F is mine.

In a related development it seems the Great White North will have to do without previews of Warner Brothers (see if you can find Canada in the choose your country menu) movies. You know, where in exchange for a free ticket and a body cavity search you get to see some horrible movie before anyone else. It seems no amount of security can prevent us intrepid Canucks from spiriting away with a pirated copy. I guess that is why US Army contractors live in fear of our loose change. Or is this just another bad Hollywood plot? I wonder if we don't smarten up if they will stop releasing movies in Canada all together. And the DVD, followed by the director's cut with the collectible chachkas.

This would just be sad if the rampant paranoia, and greed (on both sides of the issue) weren't going to cost the innocent bystander so much. If you have bought a PC with Windows Vista, are thinking about such a purchase, or know some one who has or is; you really need to read Peter Gutmann's white paper digital rights management in Vista. Or at least listen to the series of Security Now pod casts on the subject, starting with episode 73.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 4

In this series of articles I'm detailing my experience with COPA Flight Log. The last two times I've been flying I have made two flights. So I use the "Save & New" new button after the first entry, the "Save & Close" button after the second. Both times this resulted in the program crashing and loosing the entries. Making them one at a time and using the "Save & Close" button after each entry seems to work, but it is frustrating. I don't think I could trust it if I had more than two entries to make in a session.

I'm still using it, and still finding issues, but it does provide some value that I like. I'm still keeping a hard copy log book, but I've stopped updating my spreadsheet and database.

Further Adventures With the UX300

A comment from supper happy jen (who has lots to be happy about) that she is running XP, and Jan-Piet's blog for today (which directed me to something from the FAA so there is some aviation in here) that he won't upgrade if he can avoid it has prompted me to comment on my personal experience with Vista so far. First some background.

At work I use *nix based operating systems exclusively because I work in embeded development, application development, data trasportation and network security. At home I use Windows XP 99% of the time, mainly because, at home, I don't want to do development. Linux desktop applications are getting better, but in my opinion still lag behind XP in ease of use and integration, sad as that is to say. Having a penquin for a mascot doesn't seem to make much difference Jen.

I have hear/read some good and lots bad about Vista. The UX300 may not be the best platform to test drive Vista on, but it has a faster CPU, more memory and a larger disk drive than my laptop which runs XP Pro and Linux so I think it is. The first thing I notice is that Vista is slow, and the disk drive is awlays active. It is really cool to be able to walk around with a 1.33GHz computer in the palm of your hand, but chain Vista to its leg and it just gets frustrating. In each computer I've purchased in the last ten years it seems that all the increased computing performance goes to powering the user interface. Vista on the UX300 is this trend gone wild. I'm afraid that my next personal computer purchase is going to be a Mac.

There is also something different about the Vista NTFS file system from previous Windows implimentations. I don't know if this is causing my problems, but when I try to install openSUSE (which uses the same grub boot loader as Fedora, something happens to the Vista partition that prevents it from booting. However using a disk partition editor to set the Vista partition to active seems to solve the problem. I don't know why open source installations insist on playing with the partition table active flag when they don't use it, but this would certainly be a barrier to any non-technical user who was moving cautiously from the Microsoft Camp. Another reason to get a Mac?

Edit:
It seems that openSUSE is using the active partition flag. So to dual boot Vista and openSUSE one must configure grub to install on the Master Boot Record and set the Vista partition to active. This is what Fedora does.

Linux on the Sony VAIO UX300CN

A new toy, Sony Vaio UX300CN, came into my possession. It comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Buisiness Edition which is only to be expected but, out of the box, runs a bit slowish on this 1.33GHz Intel Core Solo CPU. It has 1GB of RAM, and 37GB hard disk space (about 7GB are dedicated to a recovery partition and 20GB are gobbled up by Vista). As you can see from my tag line, I'm not really a proprietary systems guy so my first question was 'can it run Linux?' The answer is yes and so far it is relatively straight forward.

Googling UX300 and Linux did not result in any help, but I did find Linux on the Sony VAIO UX180P which was encouraging. The first step is to make sure you create the recovery media. With a USB DVD R/RW drive this is also easily done by following the Vaio documentation.

The next step is to shrink the Vista partition to make room for linux. On other Windows pre-installed systems I would have used Power Quests Partition Magic, now available from Symantec as Norton Partition Magic. However this is not compatable with Vista, fortunately Vista disk management tools include the ability to resize partitions. I was able to pry a whopping 7.6GB loose, plenty for a Linux install.

I used Fedora Core 6 because that is what we use in the shop, but other distributions should work as well. To boot the installation media some minor changes to the BIOS configuration are needed. Shut down the Vaio. Slide the screen up to access the keyboard. Locate the Fn and F2 keys. Turn the unit on and when you see the Vaio logo press and hold the Fn key while pressing the F2 key. It should switch immediately into BIOS configuration.

Paging over to the BIOS Boot menu will show six items that should boot before the internal hard drive. So why can't we boot from a USB DVD by just plug-and-go? Look closely at the very tiny screen to see that all six items are marked with an asterisk. On the right side is a note which says: External drives are available when the External Drive Boot is set to Enabled. Page back to the Advanced menu to find External Drive Boot, set it to Enabled, save the settings and away we go. While there the Keyboard Backlight can be Disabled if desired.

Install linux to your taste. To be able to dual boot linux and Vista you will can install the grub boot loader on the hard drive boot sector and follow the instructions here: Dual boot Linux Vista. Actuall Fedora Core 6 does this quite well for you.

What works: Sound, wired networking, Bluetooth, USB, touch screen (some calibration issues), dual head display (at least on intitial install). Apparently wireless networking works, but I'm still looking for a site that has all the RPMs in sync to do it without compiling the driver.

What doesn't work (yet): Motion Eye, finger print scanner. zoom buttons.

I'm not finished yet so more later.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 3

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 2

I opened my copy of COPA Flight Log today to make some entries and it promptly informed me that there was a new version. According to the revision page this is version 1.02 and has been out since Feb 1. Here is the change log:

v1.02 (Feb. 1/07)

• Fixed problems with importing csf files
• Added navigation toolbar for logbook view

So I should be able to import all my flights. I've got other things on my plate right now but I will get to that soon and let you know how it works out.

GRC SecurAble: Determine Processor Security Features

GRC SecurAble: Determine Processor Security Features

For MS Windows users.

As reported on the Security Now podcast focusing on hardware data execution prevention (DEP), GRC has released a tool to determine if an Intel or AMD processor supports DEP, 64 bit instruction or visualization. The GRC site does a very good job explaining why these may be important to your machine. Suffice to say that if you are able to enable DEP on your machine it will protect your machine from the exploit that most malware uses to gain control over your computer.

In order to be in effect DEP must be enabled on the hardware and in the operating system. SecurAble will tell you if DEP is available on your machine. Then next steps are to make sure the BIOS does not disable it on boot, and the OS uses the capability. I will caution you that unless you really understand this material you should not just enable DEP. If any of your hardware drivers or critical software do not meet DEP constraints Windows may fail to boot. What is needed is a tool that will assist the average user to configure DEP in a way that will allow them to detect and work around any such issues. Happily, GRC is working on that tool now. More on this when it is released.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 2

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1.5

The insurance for one of the airplanes I'm listed on is due, so I must provide new logbook times. Goop incentive to finish loading up the COPA Flight Log to see how it does. If you have read my previous posts on this you know that imports of export files, even those create by Aloft cause a crash. I sent an email to Skymark on January 27th, so far I have not received any reply.

There is another bug as well. When I enter a number of flights, as in bringing the program up to date with my log book, there is a Save and New button which completes the current entry but leaves the flight entry dialog up ready for the next flight. Unfortunately using this option also occasionally causes the program to crash, loosing all entries made during the session.

Once all my data was entered the program was able to give me all the totals, and past 12 month figures the insurance company wants. Overall it seems like a fairly good design for private pilots or students, but the bugs and level of support are discouraging. If you're looking for an electronic logbook, and don't do a lot of flying, or have a very full log book this program may be worth your time.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1.5

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1

It has been quite a while since part 1 of this series so I thought I should get an update going. I haven't had too much success with the import feature. I created a query for my Access database to pull out the data this software wanted and put it in a comma separated list file. Unfortunately when I tried to import the data the Logbook crashed. I checked my file, made a few tweaks, but the Logbook still crashes. So I made some standard entries into the Logbook, exported them, cleared the log and tried to import the file just exported, and it still crashed.

So, I'm torn between submitting a support request and entering all my flight data by hand. I'll probably do the former and get a start on the latter this weekend so at least I can make some reasonable comments on the software.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1

COPA in conjunction with Skymark Technologies is offering members a free copy of COPA Flight Log electronic logbook. As an aircraft owner I have to be frugal, and the price is right. I'm a self confessed geek so my system is littered with all kinds of software that I have tried so what's one more download. I'm also skeptical, I've been in IT long enough to know that some free software isn't worth what it cost, on the other hand some free software is better than any you could buy no matter the cost. So off I go testing the software.

Since I'm a geek you might think I could write my own electronic log book. Well I have, but I'm also a pilot so given the choice between using brain cells writing software and flying I would rather fly. So I do have a spread sheet, and an Access database in addition to my hard copy logs, but neither is anything special. But I do know what I want from an electronic log book.

The first step is to get the swag installed. The COPA page has some nice screen shots, the standard download link and a form to request a serial number, more on that later. The download is an executable Install Shield package weighing in at 2.66MB. IE (shudder) will probably offer to install it for you, follow your heart.Firefox drops it in the location of your choice where opening it starts a quick and painless Windows (if you agree to the fine print) install.

To get a serial number you have to give your name and an email address. The serial number is related to your name. You have to give both to the software to activate it. Very common now but I don't have to like it. You are also given the option of opting in to marketing info email. Since I have my own domain and email server, I can create and destroy addresses at will, so I hand over an address and I'll take the hype, for now at least. I was thanked for my interest and told my serial number would be mailed to me soon. That was at 1840 so let's see what soon means.

While I'm waiting what kind of things do I want to see. Well, I've been flying for quite a while so I would like to be able to start using it without having to enter in all my flights. But I would like to be able to go back and enter all my flights over time so that my entire flying history is eventually in electronic format. It would be fantastic if I could import the data from Access or the Excel but that would have required them to know my schema, or me to write a translation schema so I don't seriously expect this. It should track all Transport Canada recency and currency milestones but it would be very nice if it would allow me to create my own checks to cover recency specified by flying clubs or organizations like Hope Air or CASARA.

The email with my serial number arrived by 2242. I don't know if 4 hours is typical, but you may end up doing this install over a couple of evenings because of this. I had gone to bed before the mail arrived so play had to wait until I got home from work again. Armed with the serial number I finished the install and found out two things I like:

• It has a feature to find new versions. The pop up contains information on the changes and were to go to get the new version.
• There is a logbook import feature and a comma separated data file translator. Importing data from Excel or any other program that will produce a CSV file should be easy.

I will let you know how the update, and import goes once I've worked through those steps.