nokia e63 with ubuntu 11.04

i have this old (no so smart)phone, nokia e63. earlier, i used to sync up my phone with nokia's own suite. now on ubuntu, things have changed. i wasn't planning on using wine to run my windows applications. i googled a little and found nokuntu. hence, downloaded it.

let the installation begin.
since the file downloaded has .deb extension, it's somewhat easy to install. simply, right click it and say "open with ubuntu package manager" :) and then click on install. see, this easy, no next, next, next and finish.

i clicked on install and unfortunately, i got this warning!

i tried to move on and clicked "ignore and install" but yikes, it failed!

anyway, i had to transfer media files to my cellphone. i plugged it in with the micro-usb cable that comes with standard box packaging. on cellphone, it pops up which mode to choose and i chose, "mass storage".

it easily gets detected as a media device, like a card reader. i did transfer my files to card however, it wasn't getting read on cellphone. somehow, the phone was not able to recognize my sandisk micro sd card which i had bought recently and used for the first time with ubuntu. 

well, i think reboot is sometimes the best solution to our problem (as previously i worked on microsoft windows operating system), i rebooted my phone and yippe, everything worked ;)

so, it seems like i would have to find another alternative for syncing my sms and contacts in ubuntu. nokuntu doesn't work!

ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) on acer aspire 5500z

well, i have my laptop running ubuntu 11.04 smoothly. is it enough? no. when you take something from community, you should give back too. so, i signed up for ubuntu laptop testing time and also subscribed to their mailing list (this is sometimes cheeky).

as they had standard set of tests to do on laptop installed with ubuntu, i went through all of them over this weekend and now there's a report with everything which succeeded. here's the link of laptop testing to which i contributed.

go ubuntu!

transferring files from my canon digital camera

i have this cute little camera from canon called powershot sx 130 is. i had not transferred files from it for long time now. in windows xp (earlier os on my laptop) i used to get it detected as a canon powershot sx130is camera and it was quite slow to copy files from camera.

i connected my camera today to ubuntu 11.04 and it did detect my camera as "canon digital camera". however, in the default photo manager "shotwell photo manager", it just showed me 1 (one) photo. i tried to import all pics, but it only just imported that photo. luckily as it's linux, that wasn't the only way. i had this camera listed as "canon digital camera" (no model information), and when i opened that, it let me browse my memory card of camera which wasn't available in earlier os windows xp.

a bug or something i would say is, whenever i connect my camera, the display screen of my camera, lights up with the last photo i clicked in viewing mode. it's a battery drainer. i don't know if it's a bug at canon's end or ubuntu's end. i'll try to investigate when i starting looking at source code.

i was then able to copy all photos to my hdd. however again, i faced problem getting those photos scanned into library of "shotwell photo manager". i frankly, couldn't find any option in gui. i had to install google picasa which took a lot time to install (i don't know why) but after installation, it worked seamlessly. It also has an option to import photos when a camera is detected, however i didn't check that out yet. my advice, use google picasa on linux.

i'm still searching for a solution which
1. scans and lets me manage all my photos.
2. gives options to upload my photos to all popular web services like flickr, picasaweb etc (not just one).
3. provides little touch up editing options to photos.

if you know any such, please let me know.

loading........be patient

3 words, bring up hope! i don't know why but whenever anyone sees them, [s]he thinks something is being worked upon and i just have to wait a little. it's 1:47 am on 23rd september 2011 in india.

that's what my this new blog/initiative is going to be about. after using amazing microsoft windows operating system on personal laptop for 7 years, i've made my decision to make it something which runs on linux. i know, it's a stupid move ;) but there's much to explore here. it's like moving to a new place where you don't know anyone, don't know the roads or anything and everything looks strange and you have that excitement to explore and learn.

i use a almost 7 year old acer aspire 5500z laptop with very basic hw. intel centrino m 1.7ghz 2gb ram, 60gb hitachi hdd, non-functioning sony cd/dvd drive. 1280x800 display resolution. only good thing is it works fine!

i've successfully installed ubuntu 11.04 (waiting for 11.10) and everything seems to work. i also installed macbuntu to make it look like macos as i love that ui. it looks pretty awesome as i can enjoy.

i'll keep everyone posted about my experiences and things i find out. comments and critics are welcomed as i'm keeping anonymous commenting on.