Audio Icon (openclipart.org, public domain)
Though I’ll not attend, I’d like to advertise this year’s Linux Audio Conference, “the conference about Open Source Software for music and sound” which takes place from May 1-4 2010 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Hopefully the programme wets your appetite.
Hürschkäfer (Lucanus Cervus)
Being a Linux user for about 12 years now, I’ve also used KDE since version 1. I also used version 2, and KDE 3 finally provided a comfortable user interface for a Linux driven computer.
However, I avoided to install version 4 due to the heavy changes to the underlying system. I needed to install KDE 4.3 anyway as soon as the lifetime of my operating system was over. And frankly, 4.3 still had some minor but rather annoying bugs. I don’t want to complain. I’m a member of the global open source developer’s village, and my very own code is far from being bug free.
Meanwhile KDE 4.4 is out, and Ubuntu 10.04 (aka Lucid Lynx) was released today. Operating system upgrades usually break some things, so I’m usually reluctant to install them. But today, I could not resist.
So I’m running a backup right now, and will run the upgrade immediately after it. The weekend will be a rainy one, so I’ll have some time to fix potential issues. Wish me luck :) .
Lœwenstein Castle
As the weather is fine at the moment (and my bike is broken again), it is hiking time. Slowly it becomes difficult to find unmapped terrain, as openstreetmap.org meanwhile does not only attract car drivers but also hikers and (mountain) bikers. In the region where I grew up a lot of medieval castles can be found, and I visited them all. Time to resurrect the hobby of my youth as long there are still trails missing in the woods.
Jester (openclipart.org, by Johnny Automatic, public domain)
It’s not the first time it happened, but I was surprised anyway. I was hiking along the french-german border. I only ran Mæp and Waypointcatcher. I didn’t use osm2go to save some battery power. Even without Waypointcatcher not running, Mæp caused the device to crash four times. This usually happens when the device’s interface is locked, so you just notice that the device does not respond as soon as you try to unlock it. The only thing that helps is to remove the battery and boot anew. As data roaming is about 7¢ per 10KB of data (sic), I could not use AGPS. Thus the device needs up to twenty minutes to get a GPS fix after a reboot.
Unfortunately Mæp drops the recorded track after such a forced reboot. But hey, no prob, I have the WBT-201 running as a backup.
Fern near Blumenstein Castle
The N810 is a great device and the perfect mapper’s companion, but the N900 is even better and a joy to use. Here are some applications I use on a regular basis:
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Zawinul 2007 (taken from user bobtravis on Flickr, Attribution-Share Alike 2.0)
Though one of my favourite musicians died back in September 2007, the Band is still alive and on tour in Europe 2010. The current lineup consists of four remaining members.
Anguis fragilis
This weekend was an excellent one, providing very good weather conditions to do some mapping by bike. The Bienwald, a huge area of wood where I still seem to be the (almost) only mapper who collects data, still serves me well to combine three hobbies of mine – nature, riding my bike and mapping for openstreetmap.org.
I really love the smell of the pines during warm days in spring. You can see all kinds of animals – including crane flies, though. The Bienwaldmühle, including a traditional german restaurant, serves great food. The rest in their biergarten took too long, so the way back home included twilight – which was a good thing, because you can see even more animals (like foxes, roe deers etc.) which usually are not seen during daylight.
I collected a lot of missing ways, names of ways and names of the wooden parcels. Though it is the third year I’m mapping there, still a lot of details are missing.
I used the WBT-201 as an autonomous logger to track the whole trip. The N900 did a good job, but I left it alone until I crossed the rhine to save some battery power. This is necessary as one of my two batteries only lasts for about three hours – though I switched the device to offline mode. The two batteries have been sufficient for the whole trip, but I now know I will need a third one for whole-day-trips.
Weizsäcker, Reagan and Schmidt at Checkpoint Charlie (Berlin), 1982 (public domain, via wikipedia)
Richard von Weizsäcker, an elderly German statesman who served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin (1981-1984) and President of Germany (1984-1994), is celebrating his 90th birthday. I remember him as the dignified president of my youth, being a honest politician and a strong democrat. He is known for his famous speeches and his initiative in 1985¹ to finally understand the lost WW2 less as a defeat than the liberation from nazi terror and new chances. He is a man of the same category as Helmut Schmidt.
I read he is very well and still doing sports. I wish you health, luck and hope you will continue to influence the german, european, and even world politics with your wisdom.
Waypointcatcher on Maemo 5 (aka Fremantle)
As the location API has changed in Fremantle from libgpsbt to liblocation, the previously released version of waypointcatcher won’t do the job on the N900.
I’ve thus updated the python code, which despite its C&P nature just »works for me«. I’ll share the application on request, until I find the time to do the necessary cleanup and to offer a proper point and click installation link.
Its main purpose is to collect waypoints for openstreetmap, as Mapper does not record marks reliably ATM.
Lizard on the Loewenstein
When I took the above picture, I missed the zoom lens of a dedicated camera. It was not possible to get closer to the lizard, as it otherwise would have escaped. Of course noone would ever request a cell phone to provide an objective slot :) .
Photo with Geotags
I’m still impressed by the features, the versatility and the usability of the N900. I’m also still impressed by the quality of the built-in camera. It does not beat my Canon A650, but it gets close enough to leave the Canon at home when riding the bike. Plus the 5MP images are more handy than the quite huge 12MP images of the Canon.
During my last trip, I avoided to use an audio player and osm2go on the N900. The only application running was Mapper (formerly known as Maemo Mapper). Again the big bug occured, requiring two reboots.
Nevertheless the battery only lasted for two and a half hours. This really is very poor. Maybe Mapper needs more CPU than on the N810. I’m curious whether I’ll get better results during the next trips or if the uptime will remain the same. In either case, I’m desperately wating for the second battery I purchased to arrive.
I logged the track both using the N900 and the WBT-201 (aka G-Rays 2 ). Surprisingly, the track of the N900′s built-in GPS receiver was more accurate as the one of the WBT.
Quelques Guis
Aujourd’hui j’ai éte en Alsace, pour cartographier quelques chemins au bord du Rhin.
Easter eggs (openclipart.org, public domain)
Na denn, schöne bunte Eier und so :) .
Helmut Kohl (Picture taken by Engelbert Reineke, cc-by-sa, via de.wikipedia.org)
Helmut Kohl, former chancellor of Germany, today is celebrating his 80. birthday. Due to his »eternal« tenure of 16 years, I didn’t know of any other chancellor during my youth.
The Heilbach meanders the Bienwald
I grabbed the occasion of today’s excellent weather conditions for my first mapping tour with the N900. I used it for my continued effort to map the Heilbach for openstreetmap:
I left all the other gadgets I used until now (mp3 player, Canon camera, external bluetooth GPSr, N810) at home and only grabbed the N900 to check if it really can replace the previously used armada. To anticipate the result: yes it can. I’m quite impressed and really content with the device. It’s a great digital companion. You should read on, though, to learn more about some pitfalls and shortcomings to avoid frustration.
