upgrade complete

I need a new mp3-player: why not buy again a (used) Sansa Clip+ and Rockbox it?

Written by  on November 18, 2017

Guide is still valid.
Downloading the firmware-binary and running the Rockbox-installer (now at version 3.14) under Linux was not a problem.

Five minutes later I got a “new” working player. Still prefer it to the (smart-)phone while doing fitness.

Certify yourself!

Written by  on October 22, 2017

Ok, I am in the situation that I have a university-degree in computer science, gained some years of experience as professional software-designer for desktop applications, speak English fluently (because of daily conversation with my wife) and also dug into several different aspects of IT (raspberry, system configuration, build systems and deployment, software architecture, Android, ..) out of pure interest.
BUT: I can’t prove that. Ok, the degree – yes. But else?*

Therefore I attended this year already several seminars dealing with project management, Lasten-/Pflichtenheft, work ethics, 3d printing, ..
In November a full-week seminar will introduce me to Python.
In December I will do the Cambridge B2-level-certificate (officially called: First Certificate in English), for what I attend courses after work.
And 2018 will offer even more opportunities …
So stay tuned. I will improve!

Hopefully also with writing enthusiastically articles which don’t sound so bad when proofread 😉

*: ok, yes, some mini-projects on github prove that software is part of my daily life. Even after closing hours, but still

Speed up the Lotus Notes-start

Written by  on September 25, 2017

Given the following (annoying) behavior: when you start Lotus Notes 8.5, you ALWAYS have to enter the password. There is no way around this. Research and discussion with colleagues showed that no one knows a way.

Idea: automate this!
(In detail what needs to be done: start Lotus Notes with the current parameters; wait until the logon-window appears; enter the password; press manually the Enter-Button in the input-mask, because just sending the Enter-key creates another issue).

So, I used the AutoIt-recorder (just in earlier versions available, so refer to this stack overflow-post how to download), recorded my user-actions (instead of specifying it myself command-by-command); compiled it to a x86-exe, and pinned a link to the Windows taskbar (as replacement for the Lotus Notes-starter).

Done 🙂

What to do with spare 2 TB-drives?

Written by  on May 7, 2016

Let’s prevent that this blog turns into pure rants and finalize some articles which were (almost) finished for weeks.
I had a spare 2 TiByte 3.5″-SATA-drive from the NAS (replaced with 4 TiByte each), but did not want to use it in my PC. Why? An SSD with 128 GiByte is enough. I don’t want to replicate the archive.org ..
So I decided to make an Apple-fanboi happy: external drive for TimeMachine (tm!) XD

Read more…

Bye bye Stagefright 2.0 (and other issues)

Written by  on October 22, 2015

Since the discovery of the big vulnerability called Stagefright (summer 2015) some additional were disclosed. Time for an update of the already cyanogenmodded Galaxy S4.
Found a good description of what the names for the different gapps-packages mean: page (includes downloads). I choose pico!

  1. 5 min real work: get the ROMs, put them to the SD-card, boot into TWRP; select the nightly, then add also gapps-pico, wipe DALVIK, reboot
  2. 20 min waiting: after flashing for first boot-up (self-configuration) .. works like a charm

My first (?) offical fork?

Written by  on October 2, 2015

I want to fix several smaller, but annoying issues with QtScrobbler. Originally hosted on sourceforge, but development was discontinued in 2013. I mean: it worked. I used it for years with my upgraded SANSA clips.
So I forked the project to github, upgraded the whole project to the current Qt-version (5.5) and fixed immediately some ‘klein-klein’. But now I am too tired …

Well-equipped and already upgraded.

Written by  on September 22, 2015

Due to the fact that I shoot a lot of expired 135 film, developd and digitalize it, I decided it’s time to acquire my own film scanner.
After some brief thinking I aimed for a Nikon LS 4000 or 5000. Facts which mattered were the unreached resolution of 4.000 dpi (for real – not some marketing speech), high dynamic range and the automatic transport of filmstrips (pure convenience).
With some luck I grabbed a fairly cheap LS 4000 in nearly mint condition with MA21- and SA21-holders. Needless to say I spent some more money on new firewire-cables, a pc-express-card and other crap. After upgrading the firmware from 1.05 to 1.10 SilverFast 8 also recognized the holder correctly. Nikon Scan and vueScan did right out of the box.

But at least the best improvement was quite cheap: why stay with a “just 6 frames per filmstrip allowed”-holder if you can have a SA30?
I bought the combination with the following upgrade in mind. For now the revertable version is applied and working 🙂

Step 0: connect pin 4 and 5 with a thin wire; Step 1: put cover it with some tape and poke holes inside for the male connectors; Step 2: gently push it inside

steps

Upgrade complete!

Increase Storage for Synology DS213 (RAID1)

Written by  on July 28, 2015

I used a Synology DS213 with two WesternDigital 2 TB-drives and RAID1 since september 2013 (?) for backup, music-storage and -remote access and for presenting my photos (via photostation). After starting the processing of analog-film strips my remaining space melted like ice in the sunshine (One 135er film as 4000dpi-HDR-scan, with intermediate results and the scaled final results takes roundabout 5 GByte!). So there was the choice to buy a completely new rack and drives and then transfer the data (safe way; old data would be never harmed; but costly) or to replace the drives one-by-one and trust on the automatic-replication of the NAS. Since I wanted to overcome my fear after that failed RAID-replication-attempt several years ago when the onboard-RAID-controller got lost and in the end NO data was restored, I chose the latter 😉

Read more…

No one said this will be easy: GT-i9506 with CM12 & no bloatware

Written by  on July 22, 2015

I just wanted to replace the OEM-Samsung Lollipop with the latest CyanogenMod-version on my Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE (GT-i9506).
So the simple plan was to: root the device; replace the ROM with CM12; add the Gapps-package; reboot and be happy ..
.. in the end I tried so many different ways involving Linux Mint, OSX 10.9 and Windows 7 as host-system; flashing via adb, heimdall and Odin; different nightlies and kernels; several gapps-packages and seven hours lifetime .. but I learned a lot 😀

tl;dr:

    • Win7: install Samsung driver; reboot, reboot, reboot
    • root with CF-AutoRoot: guide // download – use “root checker” or some other app to verify the superuser-access before rebooting into download mode
    • flash TWRP via Odin
    • flash CM12-nightly: download
    • flash gapps: download flash minimal GApps: download (is without the useless crap)
    • wipe cache/dalvik
    • reboot and setup everything from scratch (or with some backups … you created some, didn’t you? 😀 I used “Easy Backup & Restore” – worked perfectly. K-9 Mail can restore itself ..)

edit: 20150724 replaced Gapps with “GAPPS minimal”; restored all settings, SMS, contacts, …

OSX: How to get imageMagick (working with fonts)?

Written by  on June 15, 2015

Hmm, OSX offers out of the box a lot of UI-programs, but is missing most of the *NIX-fun. So if you need imageMagick for your work, you are missing it. The prepared installers are missing the support for the font-manipulation.
Of course, you can download and build all packages by yourself from scratch … or you use one of the nice packet-managers like fink, macports or homebrew.

The fastest way to get a usable OSX (tried with 10.10 and 10.8) for the contactSheet-script is by executing those simple four commands in your terminal. Existing internet-connection assumed:

(Linux: use your favorite package-manager.
Windows: :DDDDD I guess it won’t work until you also get some bash-replacement.)

Check afterwards the current configuration. The list of delegates should show “freetype” or “fontconfig”. If both are missing, then rendering the filename onto the thumbnails won’t work!

 

« Older Entries Newer Entries »