I recently had some use for a program that could download a RSS and then notify me over SMS if there were any new entries. I could not find anything useful on the internets except rssdler – but that one is just geared towards content download as far I could see.

So I remembered an old script I made back in 2005. After ironing out some bugs I got it working again

Without further ado: RSS Action Daemon 0.2

The blog URL is intranet.domain.tld, and the allowed IPs should be 12.34.32.10 and the range 23.45.54.0/24. If the remote IP is not in the allowed range please go read the news…

The following snippet must be placed FIRST in the WordPress multisite .htaccess file

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !12\.34\.32\.10$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !23\.45\.54\..*$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} "intranet.domain.tld"
RewriteRule .* http://www.reddit.com [last]


So, how does the HTC Desire HD stack up to the iPhone? We’ll find out.

Exterior

The Desire HD seems quite solid, it’s frame is carved out from a single block of aluminium. However, they are using two very cheap plastic lids to cover the battery and SIM/SD card slots. The cover for the SIM/SD cards stands out from the back of the phone, and the battery lid is very difficult to open and close. What is far worse is the buttons on the Desire HD – it has quite rounded edges and the low-profile buttons are placed on the screen-side of the body’s rounded edges making them horribly difficult to locate and press. It’s very very annoying compared to the iPhone’s very easily located buttons. The only thing the Desire HD has got going for itself in this category is the placement of the 3.5 mm audio jack, which is at the bottom where it should be. However, this does not matter as I use a Jabra BT3030 over bluetooth both for music and hands-free anyway.

And what is up with placing the speaker on the back side of the phone? It’s unusable for conference calls where you want to lookup things on the phone while you speak, and for watching Youtube with my little kid it’s equally unusable. Not good.

Winner: iPhone.

Battery Life

The battery life on the Desire HD is a joke. If one is to actually use it’s smartphone features like the sync, notification and network connectivity the battery drains in a matter of hours. To make the battery last any longer than 5-6 hours before recharge one has to turn down screen brightness to a minimum, turn off all kind of network connectivity, never make any phone calls and religiously kill applications with a third-party application like Advanced Task Killer. To be able to use this phone as a business phone one needs to have an abundance of chargers and plug it in constantly. Not a very mobile phone, really. Even the iPhone will last you 14 hours and then some without being constantly recharged.

Winner: iPhone.

PIM Applications

Address book and Calendar applications are very important to me. The address book on the Desire HD is quite OK, but synchronizing private contacts is a mess if you do not want to import all private contacts into your corporate Exchange server or give Google control over your data. I had to shell out a lot of pennies for MarkSpace Missing sync in order to sync my contacts from my Mac over to the Desire HD. With the iPhone this is completely seamless and does not require any third party apps or vendors.

Getting Caldav calendars to work on the Desire HD is a no-go. The only way is with Calendar Sync BETA from Hypermatix, which does not work on the Desire HD. On the iPhone? Guess once.

Do you want to cancel a meeting on the Desire HD? Ok, you can delete the Calendar Event, but the organizer of the meeting will not get notified that you canceled. Seriously. This alone makes the Desire HD unusable as a business phone in my not so humble opinion.

Winner: iPhone. By far.

Email

Exchange email works well on the Desire HD, push mail is supported and works. IMAP IDLE is, as on the iPhone, not supported in the default email client. But unlike the iPhone there are alternate email clients that supports IDLE and gives you push functionality even for IMAP. The ability to save and attach any file type is also a plus on the Desire HD.

Winner: Desire HD

Third party Applications

Installing apps on the Desire HD is a breeze, since Android Market downloads and installs apps in the background. However, the general usability, look and feel of applications are way better on iPhone. On Android, developers are given a lot more freedom to cook up their own “usability” schemes, so usability is radically different from application to application. Quite annoying.

Also, everyone is at the moment developing iPhone (and iPad) apps so the selection of quality apps are better on the iPhone, and they get the new apps first. This may change as Android is more widely adopted.

Also you will have no guarantees as to what the hell you are REALLY installing on your Android, there are no quality or security control done on Android apps like on the iPhone.

Winner: iPhone

Customizability

Should be a walk-over for Android. Steve is the ruler of the iPhone, and he decides how things should look. No themes or tweaks are allowed on the iPhone, and for those that like that kind of fun the Android is the way to go. Some of us, like me, is quite willing to forget customilization over other functionality. But Android can have this small and unimportant victory.

Winner: Android

Freedom

The Android zealots are touting that Android is Linux and Linux is Free as in Freedom etc etc ad nausaeum. But you still have to root your device in order to get, say, something so basic as the possibility to take screenshots. And rooting your Desire HD involves a LOT of work, while rooting an iPhone is mostly done by downloading an application for your PC and pressing one button.

Winner: iPhone

Accessories

The accessory market for iPhones is huge, and you can get stuff for almost free from Asia, like from DealExtreme. HTC Desire HD accessories are harder to get by, and if you find any you’ll need to get them at a premium price from an authorized dealer – the shadow market aren’t really THAT interested in making a lot of accessories for phones that are only sold for a limited time before a new model with different physical appearance is released.

Winner: iPhone

Price

The Desire HD and a iPhone4 costs roughly the same. However, if you get an Desire HD you have to invest in extra software for sync and a lot of chargers for your office/home/car/laptop bag and extra batteries so the total price tag is much higher than for the iPhone.

Winner: iPhone

Conclusion:

Get an iPhone. The Desire HD eats battery, has poor build quality and the PIM applications that you rely on aren’t as good as on the iPhone. The iPhone, well, just works.

Same goes for GPS apps, getting a proper fix takes almost 15 minutes in some cases, how can one find out if the app is good enough in such a small time period?

Please, Android Market developers, don’t ruin the buying experience. If you need to lower it from 24 hours, how about giving us at least 12, 6 or 3 hours refund time? 15 minutes is a joke for people testing more advanced applications.

More to come later!

First, make sure you have an available http/https proxy. Setting up one of those is beyond the scope of this little reminder-to-self, so JFGI. Then, connect to the remote host with this command:

ssh -R 8080:<Adress to proxy server>:<proxy server port> root@remotehost

Then, on remotehost, make sure /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date contains the following (if your proxy needs authentication you will need additional configuration, that file is properly documented so just dive into it.):

# grep -e enableProxy= -e httpProxy= /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date
enableProxy=1
httpProxy=localhost:8080

Now you can run yum to your hearts content.

Borteseier denne gongen altså. Hæ, snakkar vi om fotball? Nei, dette er landskampen i ebok. Der svenskane er åleine på banen medan nordmennene sit i garderoben og sutrer over at bøkene deira ikkje får momsfritak medan dei så langt eg kan forstå går i same fella som musikkbransjen – i frustrasjon over at norspråkleg materiale ikkje er tilgjengeleg blir det konsumert musikk på engelsk¹, lest bøker på engelsk² og dessuten lasta ned ulovleg i stor stil. Folk får vanen at norske ebøker ikkje finnest og går til andre kjelder for å få tilfredsstilt leselysta si. Dette kan umogleg vere

I går såg eg ei bok av Jan Guillou som eg hadde lyst på i hylla på Coop. Pocketbok, og til ein svært overkommeleg pris – “Den indre fiende”³ kom ut i 2007 og går for tida på billegsal. Likevel likar eg ikkje å kjøpe bøker som er laga av daud vegetasjon, for det første har eg nettopp flytta og har bore nok tunge kassar med denslags opp på loftet, for det andre er det så utruleg upraktisk å måtte dra rundt på ein diger klump av ei bok når eg har ein suveren eboklesar i iPhonen min. Så eg droppa det kjøpet, og byrja leite etter “den indre fiende” som ebok.

Noko som ikkje er så lett. Den norske bokbransjen ser ut til å sitte på gjerdet og håpe at politikarane gjer om på vedtaket om at det er moms på ebøker, det einaste som møter meg på bokkilden.no er “Så snart e-bøker lanseres i Norge vil du finne komplett utvalg tilgjengelige norske e-bøker her på bokkilden.no! Foreløpig er dette kun en beta-side, med informasjon om e-bøker”. Svært nyttig. Lydbøker derimot er visstnok fritekne for meirverdiavgift dersom boka har vore utgjeven på papir frå før, så eg kan sjølvsagt vere einig med bokbransjen i at det burde vere fritak for meirverdiavgift òg for ebøker. Men det hjalp meg lite akkurat der og då, eg nektar å kjøpe bøker i anna enn DRM-fritt digital format.

Så kva no? Amazon hadde heller ikkje “Den indre fiende” som ebok. Men kva om eg sjekker dei svenske nettbokhandlane etter originaltittelen..? Å lese svensk er ikkje noko problem, så eg prøvde meg på Adlibris. Og bingo! Der var “Fienden inom oss” som ebok. Og ikkje nok med det, Adlibris har bøkene sine i DRM-fri epub også! Då kan eg lese boka på Macen, Linux-pøsen og viktigast: På iPhonen min med Stanza. Og for ein pris, 45,- svenske kroner inkludert meirverdiavgift. Merkeleg nok stoppar ikkje momsen svenskane frå å selje ebøker slik det gjer i Noreg.

Uansett, svanskane vann landskapen etter å ha scora desse poenga:

1. Dei tilbyr faktisk ebøker på morsmålet deira.
2. Prisen på ikkje heilt nye bøker er heilt overkomeleg.
3. Dei sel bøkene i DRM-fritt format (rett nok med vatnmerke, men det er OK)

Eirik Newth har nok også meir enn eitt poeng når han skriv at “Dette handler om økonomi og forretningsstrategi” på bloggen hans – må innrømme at sett i lys av at svenskane klarer selge svenske ebøker med moms så ser det veldig ut som om den norske bokbransjen berre brukar mangelen på momsfritak som eit påskót for å kunne halde fram den gamle forretningsmodellen sin. For norsk litteratur si skuld håpar eg dei ombestemmer seg snart.

1. spotify
2. ebøker frå Amazon
3. Originaltittel: Fienden inom oss

Eit av argumenta for å nekte arbeidsgjevar å lese epost er at det er “personlig epost”. Vel. Dersom ein vil ha personleg epost der ein er heilt sikker på at sjefen ikkje les eposten din hverken lovlig eller ulovlig så skaffer du deg ei epostadresse UTANFOR jobben sitt epostsystem – hos gmail eller liknande. Så kan ein bruke denne adressa til å utveksle sladder om sjefen og nakenbileta frå siste sydenferie. Heller enn å forby sjefen tilgang til den tilsette sin epost burde dei påby arbeidsgjevar å gje den tilsette assistanse til å komme i gang med ei gratis epost-teneste for personlige ting og så gjere det klart at jobb-eposten kan bli lest nårsomhelst av kvensomhelst.

Eg trur at med litt sterkare fokus på at jobb-mailen din faktisk ikkje er din personlige epost så vil vi unngå så mange problemer rundt dette. Det er lov å håpe..

The new multitouch trackpad does not come with a physical button, but it can detect “idle” fingers on the trackpad so when resting my thumb I can still use the trackpad as if the thumb was not in contact with the pad. Most of the time. If I am to move my thumb only the slightest – which I typically do when I try to tap-to-click with my index finger – it will start interpreting my movements as multitouch gestures and very diffrent things than I intended will start to happen. Most annoying.

After searching for a software solution to disable the lover one third of the trackpad I got pissed of and typed “I hate the macbook multitouch trackpad” and guess what, I am not the only one. First hit in the result list is Kustaa Nyholms site over at sparetimelabs.com, which on his Multitouch page explains why he hates the trackpad and what he did to fool it into behaving properly. I have to admit, It’s a sexy solution

Now my thumb rests nicely on a piece of former DVD case, and my erranous click rate has gone down to zero. It even looks good, although I will try to get some thinner double sided tape and do a better job with my scissors to get it perfect. Thanks Kusti!

EDIT: Oh well, I had to give up the DIY button, after some time it started misbehaving again. Could be that the double sided tape wasn’t really useful for this particular application..