ipod touch(IPT) and MobileCast

March 7, 2008

I bought an ipod touch recently. I used to listen to a podcast with a laptop through wifi in bed before I sleep. Now I can do this with IPT!
Even better, I found MobileCast. I can download a podcast through a wifi at work and listen to it on my way home.

Since I get busy, I have no time to download the podcast on a pc and then to plug the ipod to it to transfer the mp3 files to the ipod. This is especially annoying for a news program.

The next thing is to import a podcast list. Typing the feed address in IPT is not fun. I find a good way.

Edit a simple “opml” file with a list of my favorite podcast and save it to a web server. MobileCast can import it. Here is the opml file.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”ISO-8859-1″?>
<opml version=”1.0″>
<head>
<dateCreated>07-Mar-2008</dateCreated>
</head>
<body>
<outline text=”NewsPod” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio/newspod/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”Business Daily” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/bizdaily/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”Global News” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/globalnews/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”World Business” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio/worldbiz/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”Science in Action” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/scia/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”Digital Planet” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/digitalp/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”606 Football Phone-in” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/fivelive/606/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”From Our Own Correspondent” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/fooc/rss.xml”/>
<outline text=”In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg” type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/rss.xml”/>
</body>
</opml>

Posted in ipod touch | 1 Comment »

“Close the lid” = “Suspend to memory” on thinkpad x40 and Ubuntu Gutsy

November 26, 2007

Having used debian Sarge, Etch, Lenny for three years on my thinkpad x40 laptop, I have recently switched to Ubuntu Gutsy because things (acpi and gui fails for users other than root due to permission issues on /dev/null etc) were broken when I upgrade from Etch to Lenny. This turns out to be a good move. More things worked out of the box. E.g. no need to recompile madwifi for the atheros WiFi chip.

The suspend-to-memory(F4) and suspend-to-disk(F12) also worked well. However, when I close the lid, it does not do suspend-to-memory. It does /etc/acpi/lid.sh which still consumes a lot of energy. This default behaviour drives me nuts. Now there is a simple solution:

cat /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn

I get

# /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn
# Called when the user closes or opens the lid

event=button[ /]lid
action=/etc/acpi/lid.sh

Simply replace the last line with

action=/etc/acpi/sleepbtn.sh

Done!

I would also hope to skip the password check after resuming since this protection does not make sense for a personal laptop. It was suggested to uncomment

LOCK_SCREEN=true

in /etc/default/acpi-support. But it does not work on x40. I will keep looking.

Posted in linux tips | 3 Comments »

Set up chinese fonts using Microsoft’s simsun.ttf in Ubuntu 7.1 (Gutsy)

November 25, 2007

Mostly, I follow http://www.fwolf.com/blog/post/170, but that is old (for Ubuntu dapper). They suggested modifying /etc/fonts/fonts.conf which is bad in case of upgrading since fonts.conf will be overwritten. A better way is to add /etc/fonst/local.conf

1) My laptop has XP/Ubuntu Gutsy dual boot. The XP partition is mounted on /c.

mkdir /home/xgwang/win-fonts
cd /home/xgwang/win-fonts
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/simsun.ttc simsun.ttf
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/simhei.ttf .
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/tahoma.ttf .
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/tahomabd.ttf .
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/verdana.ttf .
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/verdanab.ttf .
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/verdanai.ttf .
cp /c/WINDOWS/Fonts/verdanaz.ttf .
chmod 644 *

2)
cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype
ln -s /home/xgwang/win-fonts/ win-fonts
cd win-fonts
mkfontscale
mkfontdir

3)
fc-cache

4)Edit two files (due to Feisty and Gutsy’s new way of mananaging /etc/fonts/)
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/40-generic.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/60-latin.conf
append
<family>Simsun</family>
after
<family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>
in fields of ‘serif’, ‘sans-serif’, ‘monospace’

5)do the same in a new file, /etc/fonts/local.conf
(For a starting local.conf, copy http://www.gnome.org/fonts/local.conf)
append
<family>Simsun</family>
after
<family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>
in ‘serif’, ‘sans-serif’, ‘monospace’

4) and 5) may not be needed both. Any one to confirm ?

Posted in linux tips | 3 Comments »

Missing “Show Desktop” quick launch icon in XP

May 21, 2007

To recreate it :

  • Click Start->Run
  • In the “open” box, type “notepad” (without the quotes)
  • Click ok
  • Copy the following lines in your new notepad window :

[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

  • Click “File” in the notepad menu and select “Save As”
  • Save the file to your desktop as “Show Desktop.scf”
  • Drag the new icon from your desktop to your Quick Launch toobar and select “Move here”

XGW’s note: this tip is copied from http://www.windows-help-central.com/show-desktop-icon-in-xp-missing.html

Posted in Windows tips | Leave a Comment »

Today I configured pine to read and send gmail. Cool.

January 16, 2007

create a file .pinerc.gmail with the following contents

smtp-server=smtp.gmail.com/user=USERID@gmail.com/ssl

inbox-path={pop.gmail.com/pop3/ssl/user=USERID@gmail.com}inbox

Then,

pine -p .pinerc.gmail

The first time you run it, pine will insert other configuration stuff into .pinerc.gmail. This is fine. This is the simplest way.

Posted in linux tips | 12 Comments »

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