Chris’ Blog

In short the (Evangelical) Christian Union here at Exeter University is beginning legal action against the University and Students’ Guild because they do not agree with Guild policies et cetera. Its all going crazy and getting lots of press attention from certain organisations, some more biased than others.

• BBC Politics Show
• BBC News
• Guardian
• Times

Can history be repeated?

It would appear some HP ScanJet’s are musically gifted, as these videos prove.

This is a draft document

I will be discussing the setup of my Dell Axim X5 on Ubuntu.

This guide assumes you are using a USB cable for connectivity.

1. Plug the Axim, powered up, into the USB connector.

   Run ‘dmesg | tail’ which should produce output relating to Pocket PC

2. If you want internet access on your Pocket PC you will need to obtain the DNS servers you use, this can be done with this little snippet.

   $ cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep "^nameserver" | awk '{ print $2; }' | xargs

3. Next we need to get some packages.

   $ sudo aptitude install synce-serial synce-dccm

   When configuring synce-serial I used the following values:

   /dev/ttyUSB0
   192.168.43.1
   192.168.43.2
   144.173.6.71 144.173.6.6

4. Now we should test synce can connect to the device

   $ dccm
   $ sudo synce-serial-start

   With a little luck the connection should appear on your Pocket PC and you are now away. Next we proceed to get the device to auto connect for our user, this is a little more in depth.

5. I created a collection of scripts which I keep in ~/bin/ that control the Pocket PC connection.
   • ~/bin/pda_connect

     #!/bin/bash
     
     if [ -f $($HOME/bin/pda_disable file) ]; then
     	exit 1;
     fi
     
     dccm > /dev/null
     sudo synce-serial-start > /dev/null

   • ~/bin/pda_disconnect

     #!/bin/bash
     killall dccm > /dev/null
     sleep 2

   • ~/bin/pda_disable

     #!/bin/bash
     FILE="/tmp/${USER}_pda_disable";
     
     if [ "$1" == "file" ]; then
     	echo $FILE;
     else
     	touch $FILE;
     fi

   • ~/bin/pda_enable

     #!/bin/bash
     FILE=$(pda_disable file);
     rm $FILE;

6. Next, we need to make some adjustments to the sudoers file so that the scripts run without a password prompt. Open the file for editing, you must use the visudo command.

   $ sudo visudo

   To the file add after # Cmnd alias specification:

   Cmnd_Alias	POCKETPC = /usr/bin/synce-serial-start, /usr/bin/synce-serial-abort

   Then add at the end of the file, replacing chris with your own username.

   # chris can start/stop synce
   chris	ALL=NOPASSWD: POCKETPC

7. Now to tie it all together we modify the udev daemons configuration files so that it automatically connects your device.

   $ sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/z10_synce.rules

   It should be filled out like this:

   BUS!="usb", ACTION!="add", KERNEL!="ttyUSB*", GOTO="synce_rules_end"
   SYSFS{idVendor}=="413c", SYSFS{idProduct}=="4001", RUN+="/usr/bin/sudo -H -u chris /home/chris/bin/pda_connect"
   LABEL="synce_rules_end"

What do you do on a fine winters day*? Go to the seaside of course … on the train we hoped and trundled down the line to Paignton for a nice day by the sea. It was good fun, skipping stones into the sea and trying to hit the pier supports was fun, getting damp was not so much fun but it was in the name of fun so it all squares out.

Walk on the pier and walk back down via the amusements, rip off places I here you cry, I made money. Second go on one machine I won the jackpot of a fiver (£5) in 10 pence coins (that’s 50 coins.) After we got bored bought some donuts and paid for them in 10p coins :).

Short train ride back home, via The Imperial for dinner, and back to my flat for general farting around. What fun.

* I don’t care if it is not officially winter yet it might as well be!

(19:10:23) Dave: oh fuck
(19:10:34) Dave: i just projectile drueled on my screen

Lovely!

So, what a predicament do you leave the roundabout disobeying the law or sit on it until somebody rescues you? Madness, yes, but real madness at that. From BBC News.