Last night, I finally got tethering between my T637 and laptop working. I had the two tethered before, but I could not get signed on to their network to allow me to surf the net using my phone as a modem. All it took was some searching for the proper configuration settings, and it worked fine. Below are the config files for reference.
/etc/ppp/peers/cingular
hide-password
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -v -f /etc/chatscripts/cingular"
debug
/dev/bluetooth/rfcomm/0
115200
defaultroute
noipdefault
noproxyarp
nodeflate
nobsdcomp
user "WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM"
usepeerdns
lcp-echo-failure 0
lcp-echo-interval 600
/etc/chatscripts/cingular
ABORT ERROR
'' AT&F
OK AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","WAP.CINGULAR"
OK ATDT*99#
CONNECT ''
/etc/ppp/pap-secrets
WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM * CINGULAR1
I have been having intermittent problems using Rhythmbox with ESD on my laptop playing MP3's. Every now and then, and not at a regular interval, I would get an error message when rhythmbox would go to switch songs. The error was "Could not open resource for writing", and then another one that said "Could not pause playback". This was quite annoying, as I had to switch over to rhythmbox and start the playback manually, and then sometimes it would repeat the same sequence of errors, again, randomly.
Poking around gentoo's forums site proved to be no help, but I did find a posting through google on a redhat bug listing that had steps to reproduce the problem. The bug noted that turning off the option in gnome-sound-properties to "enable sound server startup" was one of the steps to get this to faithfully reproduce. Well, taking the opposite to be true, I turned this option on for my sound properties and things seem to be working fine so far. It's been a few hours, and no issues as of yet. Even though it was random before, I could pretty reliable a few of those errors every two or so hours.
We'll just have to wait and see if this fixes it.
While on our way out to Indiana today, I was looking for a local NPR station around Pittsburgh. I called John and had him look up the local station for me. He found WDUQ out of Pittsburgh. Of course, I tuned in and listened. I really enjoy listening to the news on NPR. I feel they give a fair and balanced account, not just the conservative view I have to deal with from our local news stations.
I have yet to contribute, but everytime they do a fund drive, I say I will. Well, our local fund drive just ended last week, but WDUQ was running their fundraiser this week. Each station is responsible for raising their own money, and most of what they say to entice their listeners to become members is the same. But I did hear an interesting plea today. They said that every American adult spends $204 per year on advertising, just by purchasing goods and services that they use every day. Essentially, we are supporting radio and tv stations which we don't even like, or have any say in what they offer, because we consume goods, and this money is paid to the radio stations to carry their ads, and therefore, pays for their programming. Their plea was why not contribute to NPR (the local station actually) and pay for something you enjoy, and something you have a say in? Interesting when you actually think about it that way.
Some "light" reading for the week.
The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design. I won't detail this. Those of you who know me, know where I stand on this issue.
Not Milk. An interesting collection of articles putting forth the idea that milk, as it is sold in the US, is detrimental to our health.
This weekend, my brother-in-law and I went to the movies to see Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Earlier in the day, I had finished reading the book, so the novel version was fresh in my mind. I must say, I rather enjoyed it. The movie was mostly verbatim, with a few exceptions. They moved some of the back story around worked it into the main plot so it made more sense and wasn't as jumpy as the book is able to have it and still make sense. I also seem to think they added some things to the movie. I don't remember them going to the Vogon's homeplanet in the book, and they also dealt with the mice much differently.
Thinking of this, I remember back to my impressions of Jurassic Park and other such movies that were born from novels and the "dissapointment" from reading the book first, and then seeing the movie. Even with this in mind, I really enjoyed the movie and think they did an excellent job of telling the story, to those that know it well, and those that are new to the "trillogy".
They also left it open to the possibility of future releases, much like the books do, and I would definately pay to see them. I'll even purchase the DVD when it comes out.