Patrick's Blog(2)

By default minicom uses ctrl-a which also happens to be used by screen. If you started minicom inside a screen session and hit ctrl-a then your ctrl-a will be caught by screen. Now how to issue a minicom command? Just hit ctrl-a a. You can also use screen to connect to the serial port so that you don’t even need minicom anymore:

# screen /dev/ttyS0 38400

Here’s a quick way to get rid of that annoying beep sound when selecting a login name in the GDM greeter on Fedora 14:

As root type the following command:
sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 –type=bool –set /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds false

Recently Linus commented on the problems kernel developers have when they branch master at some random point:

To get cleaner history, people should try to keep their tree clean.
Not add random patches to random branches, and not start random
branches at random points in time that aren’t necessarily stable.

Git is extremely powerful and with great power comes great responsibility to not mess things up. Anyone who ever had the “pleasure” of bisecting a branch that was rebased when it should not have been will probably nod in agreement and either will follow or is already following Linus’ best practice.

Fearless Fedora Project leader Jared Smith has announced the election results for FAmSCo, FESCo and seats on the Fedora Board.  Congratulations to Joerg Simon and Jaroslav Reznik for being elected to the Board, Christoph Wickert, Adam Jackson, Matthew Garrett and Marcela Maslanova for being elected to FESCo and to Neville A. Cross, Larry Cafiero, Rahul Sundaram, Gerard Braad, Igor Soares, Pierros Papadeas and Caius Chance for being elected to FAmSCo.

The new PR 1.2 firmware release for the N900 was just released and it’s time to upgrade. Then you bump into your first challenge: how to backup your SMS messages on the N900? Nokia’s PC Suite only backs up Contacts etc. but not your SMS messages. And Ovi Suite still does not support the N900 (what’s up with that Nokia?!).

So how do you backup your SMS messages (and Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Bookmarks and Settings)?

Here is how:

1) make sure your N900 has a full battery or is plugged into the charger

2) on your N900 start the Backup application

3) select “New Backup”, fill in a name like N900_Backup_<date> and press “Proceed”

4) in the next screen make your selection or leave all enabled and press “Select”. Make sure at least “Communication and Calendar” is selected as that one contains your Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes and SMS messages

5) wait for the Backup to finish after which you are returned to the main Backup screen where you see your shiny new backup

6) copy the backup (directory + contents) from your N900 to your PC

7) upgrade the N900 to PR 1.2

8) copy the backup (directory + contents) on your PC to your N900. The location on the N900 is /home/user/MyDocs/backups

9) start the Backup application. yuo should now see your backup listed

10) press “Restore”, select your backup and voila all your data should be restored

Disclaimer: no guarantees, this is how it worked for me. Your mileage may vary.