The Untouted Tech of Vcards and QR Codes

This is a QR Code, This one holds vCard info.

I've got a question for you. Well, actually, I might have more than one.

1. When was the last time that you used a vCard?  
2. Do you know what they are? 
3. Have you explained them to anyone else? 
4. Have you sent or received them? 
5. And, would you know how to share export/import them? 

vCards are a great little text files of contact information, if you want to really get into the study of them you might want to check out the wiki page about them.

QR codes can hold vCard info in an image, and with the proper bar-code scanner on your phone you can import the above image with the same info as the vCard. Very handy.  In fact, while writing this, I scanned the above info into my phone from the QR Code above.  It showed up on my phone as:

Ken Starks
Reglue
307 Ferguson Street
Taylor
Tx
76574
512-269-3115
ken@reglue.org
reglue.org

But I'm digressing into QR Code info, vs the old vCard text file.

OK, back to the vCard stuff, and why they're important and how they're different and better is some ways than a QR Code. vCards are still used in the old feature phones, and they're easy to text to someone. They're also easy to export (backup) them to an SD card or on your computer.  This can also be very useful if you've got a friend or family member that DIDN'T back up their info, and lost all of their contacts. Maybe even yourself. You can text or email them selected .vcf files from your computer and they'll be able to easily import those shared contacts (other family members perhaps?) into their phone. Keep in mind that if they have a lowly feature phone that texting them the info might be easiest way to share contacts vs email. Speaking of email one can also import vcard contacts into Gmail.

If you were to open up a vCard in your text editor you'll see that it looks something like this.

There's not a lot to them. It's worth the extra time and effort to get to know your phone so you can share them.  Granted a QR code and Barcode scanner might be the easiest way to import contacts, but when was the last time you had a folder full of QR Codes to scan or share?  Yea, me neither. 

There's plenty of sites to create QR codes, etc.  I used Moongate to create the above code. Are there better sites? Why?

So again, I will ask, when was the last time that you used a vCard or scanned a random QR Code?

Ditched By Kate - Album Release.

One of my favorite people that I've met online has been Phil Rossi  (G+). I recall trying to listen to an a live streaming interview with him. I don't even know who was doing the interview, but this was pre-smartphone days, and I was trying to catch the stream while trucking through the bowels of Mississippi on my laptop and Sprint CDMA dongle.  I was able to catch most of it.  At the time, I think that Phil was celebrating the end of his book Crescent. (Amazon, and Podiobook) versions.

I'm not sure how  or when Phil and I connected, but Twitter comes to mind, but needless to say we conversed. Out of those conversations he also wrote a chapter in his Notes From the Vault Episode 15 (Audio) about a truck driver that get's stranded.  Phil asked me for some input to help him out on it, and I did.  He gave me a little nod with that, and I'm forever flattered.

Well, now, it's time for me to give a little nod to him, and his band, Ditched by Kate.  I'm not sure how Phil is able to have any kind of sanity, being a talented as he is, and his mind must be racing with ideas and talent, as he's also a very, VERY accomplished musician.

I for one, will be looking forward his bands release on April 4th.  It'll be available in all of the normal places.  I'll grab my via Google Play, but that's because I'm more of a Googler then anything else.  Please visit their site(s), and listen to and DL some of their soulful music.  They've got some weirdly cool tunes, and some good boogie woogie butt bumping tunes. Each track that I was able to listen to on their site sounded fresh, and well done.

Phil, and the rest of the Gang. Well done. Well done.
R_

Diggin' Salix 14.0 Xfce

One of my G+ buddies recently mentioned Salix OS, a Slackware Based Distro the other day, as he was putting it on some old hardware.  This was just about a week before a hard drive died on an old 256 MB P4 Laptop, that serves as a digital picture frame, and sometimes doubles as a remote "stereo" unit in our living room.

This laptop had been running Xubuntu on it, as I had wanted a light distro for this older hardware, but even that seemed a little heavy.  Another one of the challenges this machine poses, is that it doesn't have DVD drive, just CD-ROM, nor does it support booting off of a USB. It has only one 1.0 USB port on it.  So after searching Distrowatch for another distro, I decided on Salix. After all, someone else I knew spoke well of it.  I knew that I was going to get outside of my "comfort zone" with something that wasn't  Ubuntu / Debian based.  I figured I was up for the challenge. As it turned out, it wasn't that hard.

Aside from the need for the Broadcom drivers, for the WiFi to work, the install went smooth.  I did the "full" install, and also let it wipe out anything that might be on the drive. Had I not had a network connection via wire, it wouldn't have gone so smooth.

Next came the snigglies and snags for me.  Not having been baptized into Linux via Slackware, etc, and the floppy disk installs of the 90's, some of the struggles some of you long term Linux fans have triumphed over, I had to do some digging and learning to get the the rest of the system setup as I wanted.

I wanted to be able to view this machine via Remote Desktop Viewer on my Linux Mint machine.  After some trial and error, and some more errors, and trials. I got it setup.  I got x11vnc going on it, for it's VNC server. Once I got that installed via GSlapt, and added the proper line for it to autostart I'm now able to access the machine while it sits on the shelf where it normally sits.  For what it's worth, (note to self)  the line that one needs in the Applications Autostart is this:

/usr/bin/x11vnc -repeat -forever

If you don't use the "-repeat -forever"  it'll boot, and start the x11vnc server, but once you exit your first vnc session, it will not start up again. It took me a little while to get those two additional switches figured out.

Next, was to try and get Rhythmbox on it, as it was listed in Sourcery Slackbuild Manager.  But it failed due to dependency's not being met.  I intend to get back to figure out how to build from source, or at least get it on the system in the future.  The reason for wanting Rhythmbox on the system, is so far, Rhythmbox is about the best thing out there that works with DAAP music shares, or at least with the one on my NAS drive.  But since that failed to install out of the box, I went ahead and copied the music from the NAS drive to the unit. That backs up the music, something I had considered anyway.  Also Rhythmbox handles the Shoutcast Streams if one wishes to add a few to it. I usually do.  But, that didn't work out.  So had to stick with the default media player of Exaile.  Even though I don't need Rhythmbox on it now, it's a puzzle that I want to figure out. 

Exaile looked like it would work right, right out of the box, as it says it supports DAAP shares. But it didn't find mine.  It did work with a manual entry, so it's good to go. Also the Radio Streams didn't work. Audacious and VLC both can do those, so it's good. 

So, overall, I'd say that Salix 14.0 with XFCE is a winner.  Much snappier than it's Debian/Ubuntu based Xfce counterparts.  While I didn't get it EXACTLY the way that I wanted, or had expected, it turned out well for my purpose. 

As a standalone OS, for most people, I think that Salix would work well, it has LibreOffice, and handles network drives well. If you want to see a full rundown of it, check this posting out.

Simple Time and Weather Conky Desktop

Systems installed on: Linux Mint 10, Mint 13 MATE, and Peppermint 3.  

Let me start this off saying that I'm not a Conky expert, nor can I provide a ton of help for anyone that runs into problems with this script. I also mention an error that I've getting at the end of the blog post, and would love to know how to get rid of it.

What I was after was a clean and simple Time and Temp display for my Netbook that sits on a nightstand. It's really a glorified Clock radio. And the end results I got and wanted were something like this. 

If haven't you already installed conky, and played around with it you will need to. For those that use the Ubuntu Repositories and PPA's this is how you do it. ConkyForecast and a few other conky tweaks are part of the "Conky Companions" PPA. 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:conky-companions/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install conkyforecast

Or Download ConkyForecast 2.24 for Linux from launchpad yourself.

Built packages

• conkyforecast Weather forecast script with support for language files, for use in Conky
  Package files

• conkyforecast_2.24.dsc (1.1 KiB)
• conkyforecast_2.24.tar.gz (10.8 MiB)
• conkyforecast_2.24_all.deb (3.2 MiB) 

Once you have it installed that should be it for conkyForecast, but should you want to modify it, or need to modify it you can copy it to your home directory from within the terminal with this simple command, and then edit it with your text editor.

cp /usr/share/conkyforecast/conkyForecast.config ~/.conkyForecast.config

I had to edit my .conkyForecast.config file, for fahrenheit instead of celcius temperatures, and I also removed a # mark on line 5 to make the .xml infor available to conkyForecast.


#=============================================#
# EXPERT SETTINGS, NOT REQUIRED TO BE ALTERED #
#=============================================#
BASE_XOAP_URL = http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/<LOCATION>?cc=*&dayf=5&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=<XOAP_PARTNER_ID>&key=<XOAP_LICENCE_KEY>&unit=i
BASE_XOAP_URL = http://xml.weather.com/weather/local/<LOCATION>?cc=*&dayf=10&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=<XOAP_PARTNER_ID>&key=<XOAP_LICENCE_KEY>&unit=i
MAXIMUM_DAYS_FORECAST = 4

#===============================================#
# USER SETTINGS, EDIT BASED ON DOCUMENTED SETUP #
#===============================================#
CACHE_FOLDERPATH = /tmp/
CONNECTION_TIMEOUT = 5
EXPIRY_MINUTES = 30
TIME_FORMAT = %H:%M
DATE_FORMAT = %Y-%m-%d
LOCALE = en
XOAP_PARTNER_ID = 
XOAP_LICENCE_KEY =
DEFAULT_LOCATION = UKXX0103 
AUTO_NIGHT = False
PROXY_HOST = 
PROXY_PORT = 8080
PROXY_USERNAME = 
PROXY_PASSWORD = 

Now that you've got conkyForecast on your system, next all your should have to do is to create or modify your .conkyrc text file. This can be the tricky part.  Below is a copy of my .conkyrc file. OR you can download a copy of it from here. 

# Modified by RandyNose(.com) for simple desktop time and temp #
# Original code swipped from Conky Metro Clock by Satya #
# satya164.deviantart.com #


# Conky settings #
background no
update_interval 1

override_utf8_locale yes

double_buffer yes
no_buffers yes

text_buffer_size 2048

# Window specifications #
own_window yes
own_window_class conky
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorate,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

border_inner_margin 0
border_outer_margin 0

alignment bl
gap_x 100
gap_y 100

# Graphics settings #
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders no

# Text settings #
use_xft yes
xftalpha 0
text_buffer_size 2048

uppercase no

default_color FFFFFF


TEXT
${voffset 10}${font Ubuntu Light:size=40}${goto 550}${execi 600 conkyForecast --location=44107 --datatype=CN --refetch}${voffset -10}
${voffset 10}${font Ubuntu Light:size=50}${goto 550}${execi 1800 conkyForecast --location=44107 --datatype=CT --refetch}${voffset -10}${goto 875}${execi 1800 conkyForecast --location=44107 -u --datatype=HT --refetch}
${voffset 10}${font Ubuntu Light:size=40}${time %A}${font}${voffset -10}
${voffset 10}${font Ubuntu Light:size=40}${time %B} ${time %e}${font}${voffset -10}
${voffset 10}${font Ubuntu Light:size=100}${time %I:%M %p}${font}${voffset -10}


Be sure to save the text file as .conkyrc in your home dir. The location setting that I have is 44107, my US zip code. I am going to guess that any valid US zip code will work.  If that doesn't work for you, try going to your city on weather.com and using the location code in the URL. OR try this posting to sort it out.

Now you should be all set to run conky at the terminal and test it out, and/or add it to your start up applications. 

I should also note, that I AM getting an error on my system when I run in the terminal. How to fix it at this point, I'm not sure. But maybe this posting will ferret out an answer. :) 
The error is this:


WARNING: gnome-keyring:: couldn't connect to: /tmp/keyring-nITDzm/pkcs11: No such file or directory
Conky: desktop window (180012f) is subwindow of root window (13a)
Conky: window type - normal
Conky: drawing to created window (0x2600001)
Conky: drawing to double buffer
ERROR: Server connection error: HTTP Error 503: Service Unavailable

Some of Sites that I visited while creating this post were:https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=139962http://ashu-geek.blogspot.com/2012/03/conkyforecast-224-current-weather.htmlhttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869328http://satya164.deviantart.com/   He's also here: http://funsurf-blog.blogspot.com/

Tethering in a Tempest

Unless you've been living in another hemisphere, or not, I think that most everyone has heard about Hurricane Sandy.  If not, then, I'd like to know where you've been. As there were many folks just hammered by the storm, and were without power and or without internet service.  And even a few lost lives and houses. Us in the Cleveland, Ohio area had our share of the storm.

I'm one of the more fortunate, as we had a landlord who lives in the same building, (duplex) that hooked us up to generator power for a few hours each day.  But our internet service was on and off, so I wanted to use my Android Phone, (Thunderbolt HTC) to get online. I really don't like to type more than I have to if I'm using a phone, or a touch screen. Since I was also lucky enough to still have a Verizon Unlimited Data Package, I wanted to flex that option. 

One of my G+ Geek Trucker Buds  mentioned to use FoxFi for my phone, and turn it into a WiFi hotspot. FoxFi is a free App, etc.  So, off I go tap tap tapping away on my phone to around the Google Play app selection. I find it, download it, and Install it, and ZOinK!  No joy. I am informed by FoxFi that HTC has a locked up the WiFi or some such nonsense, but it suggests and supports Bluetooth.  I don't have a Bluetooth connection for my computer, so I opt to search for a more mundane method of USB cable tether.

I browse around on Google Play, and found the Demo Version of KLink.  I install it, expect that I'll have to fire up Windows in order to get the PC side to work, but nope.  Easy to follow links and instructions to DL a .DEB file to my phone that I can then install onto my Linux Mint 9 LTS endowed Acer PC.  

Viola! App is downloaded and installed, DEB file is found on Android via USB cable connection,  I fire up a terminal session, as suggested, type in Klink, and Bingo! We're live on the interwebs with a good and speedy connection too!  As the image below suggests. 

Man, I was so tickled, I bought the app, even though there are some freebie versions that are supposed to work, that I hadn't even tried at the time.  So, I shelled out $4.99 for the app, and get the full version, as I don't feel like mucking around with anything else. 

I was so happy, I had to celebrate with some cookies, milk, and a couple screen shots of my shenanigans. And I'm +1'd by a couple of other geek friends, Mat and Claudio. 

Thanks, Brandt,  Stephen, and others for the suggestions of FoxFi. Looks like a nice tool, but not the right tool for my phone and this job. 

Thanks Christophe Versieux for the suggestion of ClockworkMod Tether, as it might do the trick,  and while it IS free, I still had to DL and install g++ to make and compile it, something of a show stopper when you don't have any connections to do an apt-get install. Also, not something everyone would be willing or know how to tackle.  

Oh! About this "superstorm" word. 

This from PopSi.com 

"Hurricane Sandy wasn't a "superstorm." Not because it wasn't a "super" "storm," but because "superstorm" is an imaginary scare-term that exists exclusively for shock value."

And now, I have to go make sure that I don't break my neck to change the time on a clock that was perfectly fine until some bastards (who are now dead, I'm sure) decided that we need to muck around with our timepieces in order to make them make more sense with the orb that we live on, and the one that gives use light and life.  Yea, I'm against changed the time on our clocks twice a year. It no longer serves a purpose. Go AWAY Daylight savings!!  

Bumping up from Mint 10 to Mint 13 via Mint Backup

I really wanted to document this a little bit more so I could have had a fresher brain dump of what I did for this post.  I did a post back when Mint 9 LTS came out, about the changes and tweaking that I did to it to get it more like the Ubuntu (8?ish) experience that I had come to enjoy.  Much of what I had done had become even more do-able with Ubuntu Tweak as that GAVE back much of what Ubuntu and Canonical and been shunting along the way to simplify the OS. You can't give someone a 5 speed, and expect them to be happy with "3 on the tree" with a newer model just for the sake of "simplicity".

I also like the idea of the LTS release. As I do tend to add this and that to my system. So, for this update I decided to try out the Mint Backup Tool. While Mint backup does do some things simply, it's far from perfect.  It also takes quite a bit of time for 200 gigabytes of data. Would I use it to easily pick and choose dir's that I'd want to back up to another drive? Definitely. Would I use it to back up my software selection? Absolutely.  Getting a copy of your data to another location it worked very well.  Where the problem comes in, or the pain, is when you do your restore.

The APT repositories or PPA's that are on a default system are added automatically. Those that aren't you have to go back and add manually.

Also, since I was moving from a Gnome2 system to MATE, I had some duplication of programs,  such as Gedit, AND Pluma, XScreensaver AND Gnome Screensaver, but that proved interesting, as I have two monitors, and there were two different screen savers going at the same time.

A Good majority of my dir's were given ROOT permissions, so I had to go back and change those later. I'm not sure if it was my fumbling around, by not restoring things in the correct order or not. Meaning, I restored my software selection prior to restoring my file directories. The tutorial did it the other way around.

One of the first things that I added was the Ubuntu Tweak PPA, and Downloaded the Google Chrome browser via Firefox. Yes, I'm not as FOSS sensitive as some of my other Linux Brethren.  I've also moved my music and plan on moving other large directories to another drive and link to them, so when I DO backup things in the future, they're more segmented. So, more or less whatever I've created is on one partition, and more static files, like Music, Videos, etc, would be on another.

Overall, I'd say that the Mint Backup utility did it's job. It DID back things up well. Restoring was much quicker, than backing up. I'd give it 4 out of 5. The ability to use a GUI to pick and choose what to backup or restore is slick. But some directories, such as my ./lastpass dir or any other "Piped" dir wouldn't backup, and hang the process, so you'd have to start over. With 200 GB, it took quite a bit of time. 8 hrs or more. On a system such as my wife's who's \home dir was only 2GB I suspect it would be much quicker, though, on her machine, I just did a clean install.

So tell me, have you used Mint Backup?
If so would you use it again?

I think I might, but not all the time. Sometimes a fresh install is just, well, Minty Fresh. :)



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Digital or Electronic Signing of your documents

I don't know about you, but I don't like to print out a document, sign it, and then have to re-scan it back into the computer. This can happen a lot if you're also in the process of looking for a job.

For this example, I also wanted to pay a little homage to Neil Armstrong, as he just passed away.  Don Pablo Pereira, a reporter had a little story about a letter from Mr. Armstrong and I'll post a link to that at the end of the blog post.

You'll need to also have created a scanned image of your own signature, that you will be using.  If you need help with that, leave a comment, here or on G+ and I'll do a separate blog post about how to create your own digital signature with the GIMP.

If you want, you can grab the document that I made in LibreOffice and edit it too.  I imagine this will work in OpenOffice too, but I've not tested it with OpenOffice.

Once you have your document open,  you will want to import the image file.  Be sure to have your cursor near the spot you want it to be imported to, if you can.

Insert>Picture>From File...

Once you've done that,  you'll notice that it's not lined up the way that you'd want it to be on your document as a signature. 

It'll look all wonky like this:

This is certainly not the way you'd have a signature show up on a real document! It's got to be fixed!

It's an easy fix. Just go up to the top of the page and click on Wrap Trough.

Then move your signature to the spot that you want it on your page, and save. 

Once you save it, print it to paper, if you want, or Export it as a PDF or Print it as a PDF. 

The choice is yours. 

Pretty simple, eh? 

If you used my document,  you'll also have a fresh .PDF of the same letter that Neil Armstrong sent Don Pereira.

Don Pablo Pereira's real reply from Neil Armstrong.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to leave them!

How many others have struggled to get their documents signed, but didn't want to go through the hassle of print, sign, scan, save, etc?  Do you have some stories of how you'd go about this?

Until next time,
Hang Loose!

RandyNose

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