Disabling wifi on the Eee PC 701

I have installed the normal Ubuntu 8.04 distribution on my EeeP, applying the usual fixes.

I still had problems with the Wifi hotkey: the ath0 interface was still up and consuming power. I finally set it up this way:

In /etc/acpi/events/eee-wifi-off and /etc/acpi/events/eee-wifi-on, use the wireless.sh script provided with ubuntu:

action=/etc/acpi/wireless.sh

Then edit /etc/acpi/wireless.sh and add these lines before the call to toggleAllWirelessStates:

if [[ -d /sys/class/net/ath0 ]]; then
   /etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh on
fi

After a reboot, I could totally disable the wifi interface: it isn't returned by ifconfig ath0 and the wifi led is out. I haven't had the time to check battery life without wifi, but it should help.

Now I still have to look at the configuration to get a notification when battery capacity is getting low....

Uploading is frustrating. Here's a solution.

So you're back from holyday, and you took a lot of pictures and you want to put them online or print them. But you have 2 gigs of them. I've been through that experience, and really hate it: my DSL connection is hijacked by the upload, the upload could break and then you have to look at which pics where uploaded, and which weren't. In short, quite a pain.

And it's from that painful experience that I've had the idea to start a new service: UploadForMe.com. Send us your data on DVD, and we'll bring it online either on our servers from where it can be imported into other services, or we'll import it directly into online services with which we have collaboration agreements (we don't want to know your login information!)

There are also offerings targetted to professionals in the works.

It was floating in my head since some time now, and when I started to talk about the idea, I was surprised of the interest. It's so unsexy and un-web2.0....

But hey, there are anterior examples, notably Netflix who built an empire on a snail mail based business.

I'm really looking forward to developing this, and am eager to read your reactions and suggestions, even negative (and I'm sure there will be). If you want to be part of the test phase starting in september, just let me know.

What's in a name?

A lot!

And this library must be really great stuff! :-)

Some things changes, some don't

This quote I remember from the movie Matrix Reloaded is really the best I could find to describe this post, even if it will mostly focus on something changing: Microsoft's stance towards Free and Open Source Software.

Of course, years spent thrashing FOSS and comparing the GPL to cancer can't be forgotten that rapidly. Old reflexes remain. But it seems clear things are changing.

And I was very surprised to experience it myself when I heard from Dirk Tombeur that Microsoft will be the Gold sponsor of the ERP event by Profoss. I had already met Dirk at Profoss events, but I saw his presence as a need for Microsoft to keep an eye on the competition. Becoming the Gold Sponsor of a Profoss event is clearly another approach.

It seems Microsoft is changing, and starts to understand that the IT world is more heterogeneous than it would have liked some years ago. Keeping its stance of some years ago can only lead it to irrelevance.

Of course Microsoft is a company, and as such is always looking to generate revenue. But now, it seems to be interested to also generate revenue with FOSS. They're working on IronRuby, worked on PHP performance on Windows, submitted 2 licenses to OSI, became Apache sponsor, ....

But let's hope this is only the beginning. There's still a lot Microsoft should do for Open Source.....

Before I finish writing this post, let me quicly talk about something that is not changing: Profoss' focus on informing objectively about the use of Free and Open Source Software in professional environments.

Really, some things change, some don't.....