the birdhouse in my soul

Bluetooth carkits come in three main categories: those with bluetooth HSP , those with bluetooth HFP , and ones that do bluetooth SAP . Some implement multiple of these profiles and allow you to choose. HSP (head set profile) is the simplest profile: your carkit is basically a speaker-microphone combo, and will play the received audio and send your voice to the telephone. The telephone connects to the cellular network and handles the call. HSP is commonly used in bluetooth earpieces. HFP (hands free profile) is the most common protocol in carkits with a display: your phone still handles the call, and the carkit provides the two-way audio function just like HSP. But the carkit also has basic control over the phone: it can access the received/dialled/missed call lists. It can also instruct the phone to dial a number, to accept or to reject an incoming call. Most carkits also access the phonebook. SAP (SIM access profile, also known as rSAP or SIM) is the most complex of the three: this c...

That's an easy question, and the answer isn't too difficult either: Query the MAC address of the local network card. If it starts with "00:50:56", that indicates that it's a VMware VM. List devices on the PCI bus. If there's devices with vendor ID 15ad, you can be sure that this is a VMware VM. Look at the BIOS information (DMI). If you see Manufacturer "VMware, Inc", and the serial number starts with "VMware", and the Product Name is "VMware Virtual Platform", that's again very clear. In a typical VMware VM, you should find the VMware Tools running: the vmmemctl driver, maybe the vmxnet network card driver maybe, the vmware-guestd or VMwareUser or VMwareTray processes, ... And here's a practical list of tools you'd use to run these checks: use "/sbin/ifconfig eth0" on Linux, "ipconfig /all" on Windows. You can do this as a normal user. use "/sbin/lspci" on Linux. Also possible as a norma...

My 2008 Volkswagen Touran came with Parking Distance Control, beeping to indicate the remaining distance to objects when the car is in reverse gear. The control unit that I had was of an old type, and I had the impression it wasn't functioning 100%. So I got a new module from Kufatec , to replace the old one. Kufatec explains that you need to run a wire from the back of the vehicle to the front, but as it turns out this is not necessary when the old module is already at address 10 on the CANBUS network. If the old module is at address 76, then you do need the new wiring. I already ran the wire to the front of the vehicle and connected it before realizing that I didn't need it. Result: countless electronics error messages in the on-board diagnostics. It could have been a simple drop-in replacement, if the documentation would have explained this correctly. Clearing all the error messages took quire some time, but was succesful in the end. The new module works well now, and as a...

Yes, my phone has a "death grip". No, it's not a v4 iPhone, it's a Nokia E71. But the comforting thing is, Nokia documented it in the manual all along (page 16/17). That indicates that they knew this while designing the phone. That figures, because covering/connecting both antenna areas would require a very awkward grip. Whereas the reaction Apple displayed recently has a distinct "Oh f*ck, we forgot about that" feel to it.

VMware pre-compiles the VMware tools for selected OS kernels. The stock RHEL kernels are included, but not the intermediate updates. If you can live with that, you can simply add the VMware tools YUM repository: # cd /etc/yum.repos.d/ # wget http://bert.debruijn.be/linux-stuff/vmwaretools.repo and download the VMware RPM signing key # cd /etc/pki/rpm-gpg # wget http://packages.vmware.com/tools/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-KEY.pub Then install the tools packages: # yum install vmware-tools-nox or # yum install vmware-tools vCenter will report the tools version as "Unmanaged" rather than "OK", but you have heartbeat (so HA and alarms can detect guest OS crashes), balloon driver, etc.

The factory-installed UHV carkit [0] in my Volkswagen Touran worked well with a normal cellphone-holder, but in combination with the Bluetooth Touch Adapter [1] , it became a very unreliable combination. I've read many succes stories with the Touch Adapter, but the flaky communication between the TA and the UHV was a nightmare sometimes. To fix that, I ordered a replacement carkit from Kufatec [2] . The module replaces the simple factory UHV with a newer one (also original from VW). The new module does not only bluetooth sound, but also address book, call lists, etc. It doesn't offer cellphone specific holders for power and antenna connections. Installation was quite easy, as there are many howto's describing VW Low-to-Premium modding. In the Touran (1T0), the UHV is under the passenger seat, and requires removal of the lowest drawer. A T15 Torx screwdriver does the trick. Then you can open the floor cover, get the original module out, and the new module in. Replace the dr...

I recently added a dedicated storage box to my lab environment. After a week these are my first impressions: Pro: Small. I needed a shallow rack-mountable device, and this one is perfect, only about 50cm deep. Fast. I knew that a NAS device like this wouldn't be the speed king of the storage world, but I'm pleasantly surprised. Open software. It runs Linux, you get SSH access to your device, and you can add packages if you want. Evidently, I added tools like dstat to keep an eye on things. Compatibility. Used it from Windows Vista, VMware vSphere, and Linux (CentOS and others). No problems at all. Cheap. I could have gone for an EMC Symmetrix instead, but decided against it :-) Con: Fragile. Just a bit. The SATA ports of the disk drives slide directly in sata plugs inside the device. I hope I won't have to re-plug drives all too often. Not all operations happen online. QNAP advertises RAID1 to RAID5 migration, and it does that, by using one of the mirrored drives and the n...