First off I’d like to thank Broadcomm for being such a bunch of peasants as to make life hard for people not running operating systems from the West Coast USA.
Here is my contribution to the many, many, comments on the web on how to get the bmc wireless hardware working. Note that there seems to be a lot a variation in peoples’ experience — you would probably be advised to slaughter a chicken and sprinkle the warm blood over your laptop first (it can’t hurt) ndiswrapper I used the ndiswrapper route as the native OSS driver did not work for me. Also note that I am running KDE (kubuntu)
Download the latest driver package from hp.com. NB This is distributed as a Windows exe file but you can extract it using wine (sudo apt-get install wine), the file will end up in somewhere like ~/.wine/drive_c/SWSetup/SP34152A/
Make sure the native driver is disabled (instructions on URL above)
Run ndiswrapper -i … (as explained in URL above) but use the HP driver package you downloaded
In System settings/Network settings/ make sure the eth1 interface is configured for dhcp and then disabled.
Use kWifi Manager to confgure your WiFi connection and then activate it.
Please note that I did not follwo such a direct route so I have limited confidence this would work exactly as documented. I took me 3 days of fiddling around so please be patient.
…many of us are becoming technology nomads, carrying less and less with us in our daily travels because we know where the oasis (of WiFI rather than water)…
Oh if only it was that easy in Australia. There are so few open WiFi spots here (mainly because if the high cost of net access) that it’s a real struggle to wander and work. There are a few pay per use services (e.g. Telstra) — however they can be very expensive. We are seeing a lot of 3G wireless services being pushed as well, but cost is again an issue and they are limited to business use.
Maybe one day we’ll get cheap pervasive networking here (I know it’s better that many places in the world, but for a modern economy it’s pretty poor)
Police in Canberra have been given extra powers to search people and seize items during the Olympic torch relay next week. The ACT Government has made declarations under major events security laws, designed to prevent dangerous items from being brought into the torch relay area. Police will have greater authority to search people and to seize items, including eggs,…
When we will get warnings on the egg cartons and the public education program?
(I don’t usually do politics here unless there is a technology connection, but I couldn’t resist this.)
Software geeks often want to display code in their presentations. However there are a few problems
Displaying code can be a confusing amount of low level detail when you are really trying to make sure people remember a few key concepts and ideas. You risk your message getting lost as people change gears and attempt to analyse what they are reading.
The format of the presentation slide does not make is easy to present anything substantial (over 5 statements?) in a coherent fashion. Visual layout, font sizes and a need for consistency make it hard to present much code in single slide
In some presentation presenting ‘canned’ code looks fake and casts doubt on how genuine it is (e.g. when showing how to write code for a new framework)
What are some of the ways if getting around these issues?
Don’t use code at all. Refer the audience to examples they can examine later if required
Split the code into very small pieces (1-5) lines that can be used on a single slide to explain a concept (e.g. how to connect to a specific remote data source). Refer the audience to the complete examples they can examine later if required
Change the format of the presentation completely for the presentation of more substantial code. This can be done in one of two ways:
Presenting the material in another program such as a text editor. The editor should be pre-loaded with the code before the presentation starts
Changing the slide layout to help display code. e.g. remove all background, reduce the font size (carefully), use large margins so that the shorter lines look more natural, change font, change background and font colours to improve contrast
Type the text direclty into a text editor for demonstration purposes. Not recommended unless you are a very good typist or ‘dummy it’ using a tool such as IO::Prompt
Sex offenders’ e-mail addresses are to be passed to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo to prevent them contacting children.
As a parent of two young children and someone who has worked with survivors of childhood sexual assult in the past I am 150% behind measures that will provide protection to the young. However someone needs to educate polititions on what is effective, as opposed to measures designed to chase votes and lull people into a false sense of security.
All measures such as filtering, blocking email addresses etc. can be easily circumnavigated. They only effective protection is to physically ensure the children are safe at the point of delivery (i.e. the child’s computer). In the same way I don’t let my young children wander onto the road or alone into potentially risky situations, I make sure that I know (see) what they are doing online and educate them on safe internet practices.
As you can tell naive ideas as the one outlined above annoy me intensely.
My smartphone is at the menders (I walked on it and broke the screen!) so I bought a cheap phone until it comes back. However at AU$80 I feel ripped off. The phone has lots of neat features (email, camera, browser,…) which are all so badly done as to be unusable. Plus the connection software only works on bloody Windows!
I considered the EEE PC some time ago and decided that it was not really for me because of storage and screen limitations. However the new 900 has a 1024×600 display and 12Gb flash drive. With USB ports for mouse & keyboard and a monitor port plus storage expansion via SD and USB could this become a serious machine?
the rumor mill churning over 3G iPhones coming soon.
Along with the updated software roadmap announced last month (enterprise email, SDK etc etc) the iPhone is starting to look like a worthwhile appliance for serious people instead of a toy for Mac fanboys and girls. My current handset contract expires in 18 months so I’ll look forward to considering it then — provided it’s arrived in Australia of course…
Alec’s warped view on the world of software and sometimes life in general. Pithy, germane, comments are always welcome.
This content on this site is copyright Alec Clews and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License unless otherwise stated.
N.B. Postings on this site represent my personal opinion only and many factors specific to your environment may invalidate this information. You should check before relying on anything I say or quote here.
