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Google Launches New Social Networking Platform – Google Buzz

yibi — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:47:40 +0000

Google Buzz

Google launched Google Buzz, a social networking platform. This is cool, because I’m an avid user of Google. But I’m wondering at the same time, what’s going to happen to Google Wave? The functions seems to overlap, although Wave seems to be more cutting edge.

Right now Google Buzz is only available on Gmail. I wished they had it on Google Apps for Your Domain as well. I host my email, docs, calendars etc on Google using my own domain. Unfortunately, I can’t use Buzz with my own domain. Same goes for Wave when it was launched.

Google Buzz *IS* available on Google Apps For Your Domain! For some reason it didn’t show up in the mail interface on the PC, but it works on my IPhone. Cool! That means now I can have all my stuff on Google. Mail, Calendar, Docs, Picassa.

Find out more about Google Buzz at http://buzz.google.com

And no. No IPhone app for Google Buzz yet. Probably never.

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IPhone Tethering – Use and Abuse!

yibi — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:46:51 +0000

This is the geeky sequel to my last Linux to IPhone tethering episode where we used and abused the IPhone tethering function.

Some background, I’m one of those people who contracted (and got stuck) with the 50G SingTel Mobile Broadband Plan before the days of 12GB IPhone plan. My usage was about 4G per month, so none of the plans was suitable for me at that time.

Anyway, that aside. For some reasons my team had to work in a place where we had no internet access while we are building the network for high speed internet access. What irony! The only systems engineer in the team (me) decided that I had alot of data to spare, so here we go…use and abuse!

Configuration’s simple. First you have to setup tethering as per my previous post on IPhone tethering. Once you are done with that, do the follow steps. And again, it’s a 5 minute quick hack.

1. vi linux-router.sh

2. Paste the following into the shell script

#!/bin/bash
/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
/sbin/iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o bnep0 -j MASQUERADE
/sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -i bnep0 -o wlan0 -m state –state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
/sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -o bnep0 -j ACCEPT

3. Save the file.
4. chmod 700 linux-router.sh
5. ./linux-router.sh
6. Done!

My colleagues are connected to a WIFI router, hence the use of wlan0 as the “inside” interface. bnep0 is the “outside” interface connected to the IPhone via bluetooth. All the machines point to my laptop as the gateway, which bears the IP address 192.168.0.1. All of them are NAT’d out from the outside interface.

I have 2Mbps for my plan. Good enough for the team to check email and do some simple web browsing for information.

There are other things you can do like transparent proxying so that you save abit of bandwidth.

Leave a comment if you have any questions on the configurations. Have fun!

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Linux to IPhone Tethering In 5 Mins

yibi — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:57:28 +0000

Tethering from a mobile phone is not new to me. I started from the days of having to script the ppp chat scripts to wvdial to finally having Network Manager recognizing my mobile phone as a 3G modem.

IPhone is new. I have been reading about tethering on Linux as soon as I bought it. Painful ways, jailbreak, run proxy etc etc etc.

Linux didn’t recognize the IPhone as a modem when I plugged in via USB, so it’s only bluetooth now. I tried the tethering of my Mac first. With bluetooth, I found that tethering actually happens over the PAN (Personal Area Network). That should work with Linux, and so it did.

These are steps for me to get tethering on Debian in 5 mins.

1. Run “sudo aptitude -y install blueman” in Debian.

2. Logout and login again. This is for the dbus and stuff to react correctly when you turn on your bluetooth later on.

3. Turn on your bluetooth or insert your USB bluetooth dongle. A bluetooth icon should appear in your system tray or whatever you call it in Gnome. That’s Blueman.

4. Discover and add your IPhone in Blueman

5. Turn on Internet Tethering under “Settings –> General –> Network”. Choose Bluetooth.

6. Go back to your Blueman, click on it and you should see your IPhone. Right click on your IPhone and select “Network Access Point”

7. And you are done!

That’s it! Simple right? No hacking, no jailbreak!

Do drop me a comment if anything’s unclear. The same solution should work with any of the modern distros like Fedora and Ubuntu.

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Bone Marrow Donor Programme – The Stem Cell Harvesting Procedure

yibi — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:06:24 +0000

After signing up as a donor for the Bone Marrow Donor Programme, I decided to find out more about the stem cell harvesting procedure that was described to me.

The alternative procedure is called apheresis, which is the collection of stem cells by filtering the blood for peripheral (circulating) blood cells (PBSC).

I extracted the following from the the url below:

http://rarediseases.about.com/od/rarediseasesb/a/bmt05.htm

Sources of Bone Marrow Stem Cells

Bone marrow harvest: Collecting stem cells by taking them directly out of the bone.

Apheresis: Collecting stem cells by filtering the blood for peripheral (circulating) blood cells (PBSC).

Umbilical cord blood: Stem cells are filtered from blood in the umbilical cord after a baby is born.

What the Donor Experiences

If stem cells are collected by bone marrow harvest (much less likely), the donor will go to the operating room and while asleep under anesthesia, a needle will be inserted into either the hip or the breastbone to take out some bone marrow. After awakening, he/she may feel some pain where the needle was inserted.

What the Recipient Experiences

Serious problems can occur during the time that the bone marrow is gone or very low. Infections are common, as is anemia, and low platelets in the blood can cause dangerous bleeding internally. Recipients often receive blood transfusions to treat these problems while they are waiting for the new stem cells to start growing.

The majority of marrow stem cell transplants are made using PBSC collected by apheresis, since this method has better results for both the donor and the recipient.In most cases, a donation is made using circulating stem cells (PBSC) collected by apheresis. First, the donor receives injections for a few days of a medication that causes stem cells to move out of the bone marrow and into the blood. For the stem cell collection, the donor is connected to a machine by a needle inserted in the vein (like for blood donation). Blood is taken from the vein, filtered by the machine to collect the stem cells, then returned back to the donor through a needle in the other arm. There is almost no need for a recovery time with this procedure.Bone marrow transplant is a difficult procedure to go through. Usually the person receives high doses of chemotherapy and/or radiation to eliminate whatever bone marrow he/she has left and make room for the new marrow transplant. Once this is done, the new stem cells are put into the person intravenously, like a blood transfusion. The stem cells will then find their way to the bone and start to grow and produce more cells (called engraftment).

Here’s video about how a person’s life was saved with stem cell donation from another person. The donor gives a first hand account of how the aphresis procedure was done and what it was about. And of course, at the end of it, the gratification that comes from saving another individual’s life.

Visit the Bone Marrow Donor Programme to find out more about signing up as a potential donor.

Please share this with your friends.

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A Serious Misconception About Bone Marrow Donation!

yibi — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:29:48 +0000

I learnt something very important today. There are 2 methods of harvesting stem cells for transplant.

1. The traditional way of harvesting bone marrow from the spine. The process, as depicted on TV, looks like a painful one. And indeed, there will be some post-op pain on the lower back.

2. Stem cell harvesting. This process is similar blood donation and is almost painless. The difference from blood donation is that the process takes 6 hours, but it can be broken into 3 sessions.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m totally unaware of the 2nd method of harvesting. Frankly speaking, the thought of sticking a long needle into my spine gives me 2nd thoughts about donating bone marrow, even for a worthy cause.

I spoke to the folks from the Bone Marrow Donor Programme today after my blood donation. They don’t get many people who are even willing to talk to them, let alone signing up as volunteers. Many people have the misconception as I do.

I’m glad I learnt about this today, which removes all misunderstandings. So, I signed up as a potential donor today. I hope this clears the doubts in the rest of you. Do consider signing up as a donor for potential donation. All they need is to prick your finger and take a sample to register you as a donor.

Realistically, the chance of a match is not very high, so we might not be called up in our whole lifetime. But if in the event that anyone is being shortlisted, a life would probably be saved.

Please share this piece of important information with your friends now.

More details of the Bone Marrow Donor Programme can be found at:

The Bone Marrow Donor Programme

These are the dates and locations for the upcoming donation drives.

More dates can be found here.

23 Jan 10
Donor Recruitment : Tampines Central CC

24 Jan 10
Donor Recruitment : Eunos CC

26 Jan 10
Donor Recruitment : Republic Polytechnic

31 Jan 10
Donor Recruitment : Kolam Ayer CC

7 Feb 10
Donor Recruitment : Gek Poh Ville CC

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Certificate Error When Building Your First IPhone App?

yibi — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:34:11 +0000

You probably ended up here while searching for the following error message in XCode when trying to build and run your first IPhone app :

Code Sign error: The identity ‘iPhone Developer’ doesn’t match any valid certificate/private key pair in the default keychain

Before you start googling and attempt to move certificates all over, or spend $99 USD getting the developer account check the following:

Make sure you are building and running for the simulator and not your IPhone device. This is rudimentary but easily missed.

I ran into this error upon compiling a test ‘Hello World’ app. So I’m pretty sure there are more people out there running into this error.

XCode defaults to building and running on the IPhone device, which is not possible until you have a developer’s account. Building and running on the IPhone requires the code to be signed before building, which results in the error that you have gotten.

I hope you have found this before going for the last resort of subscribing for the developer’s account. And if you already did, happy programming! Hope to see your app on the App Store soon!

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Getting The Wii Motion Plus? Hold Your Horses!

yibi — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:51:19 +0000

Screenshot taken from Engadget.com

Original article is at Engadget.com

Alright! Hold your horses if you have not bought your Wii Motion Plus. Even if you have already bought your’s, no problem. You can still get the Nyko Wand+

This product was exhibited at the CES 2010. What they have done is to build in the Wii Motion Plus into the WiiMote-size Nyko Wand+, so you won’t have to attach that addition piece of hardware to your WiiMote making it look quite awkward. With the Nunchuk it looks even messier. So this is cool. No additional attachment, no worries of breaking the contacts between the WiiMote and the Motion Plus.

This is a “must buy” item for me when it’s available in March.

But something puzzling me though. Why didn’t Nintendo think of it?

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Update – Cost of Nexus One For Singapore Buyers

yibi — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:48:56 +0000

This the cost of the phone plus shipping for Singapore buyers. You still have to add 7% more for GST when it arrives at the custom.

So now the cost is USD $806.10 excluding GST. Add the 7% GST, the total cost will be SGD $862.50 or SGD $862.60 depending on whether it’s rounded up or down.

I had a hard time resisting the urge to click on “Place Order” button.

And in case you are wondering about support, HTC has a local number for you to call. And I believe there’s a local service center too.

http://www.htc.com/www/support/nexusone/

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Nexus One – Some Figures For Singapore

yibi — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:17:16 +0000

The Google Nexus One is finally out, after half a month of rave rumours (which are surprisingly accurate). Here’s some figures for potential buyers in Singapore.

Cost of the phone $529

Cost of shipping: Approximately $26.65 by DHL

Import taxes and duty at Custom: 7% GST on Cost of phone + Shipping inclusive

The whole cost would come up to close to $600 USD, which is about $840 SGD.

All my figures are rounded up and based on my estimation of shipping charges. The cost might be higher depending on the type of shipping option that Google uses.

This looks like a phone that every geek should have, but I’m waiting. Who knows one of our local telcos might have a surprise for us in the next few days to offer this with contract.

Here’s some links for reference:

Official Nexus One Order Page – http://www.google.com/phone

Shipping Charges for Nexus One – http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=1ebc1fc326c1e75e&hl=en

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Update – Cost of Nexus One For Singapore Buyers

SCIM in Debian Lenny for Chinese Input

yibi — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:26:55 +0000

I have to struggle with this whenever I had a new Debian installation. SCIM does not work out of the box in Debian, so there’s some minor configurations to do. But I failed to note it down anywhere, just happily relying on Google.

So yet again, I have a new Debian Lenny installation on my new notebook. And the same story again, I got to search all over Google for the instructions to make it work. So this time round I decided to note it down here so that I can “Read My Own F$#king Manual” next time as well as for the benefit of others.

Step 1:

Install the fonts

aptitude install ttf-arphic-bkai00mp ttf-arphic-uming ttf-arphic-gkai00mp ttf-arphic-bsmi00lp ttf-arphic-gbsn00lp ttf-arphic-ukai xfonts-intl-chinese unifont ttf-unifont

Step 2:

Install all the scim related packages

aptitude install scim-pinyin uim-pinyin scim-uim scim-chinese scim-tables-zh

Step 3:

im-switch -c

Select scim and save.

Step 4:

Restart your session by logging out and logging in again.

You should have your SCIM work after that.

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