Christian Mangold :: neversfelde

Using an UMTS Medion USB Stick with Kubuntu 9.10

January 6, 2010 – 17:48

Aldi, a big german discounter offers an UMTS stick for 59,90 Euro. After buying a “starter set” for about 12 Euro and a prepaid card for 15 Euro, you are equipped to get a mobile network flat for 14,99 Euro per month. The following post describes, how to use the connection with Kubuntu Karmic Koala. The sim card has to be activated on http://medionmobile.de, this might take some time.

After that you have to activate the 30 days internet option first. Put the sim card in your mobile device and call 1155. Follow the instructions and note that the option will be renewed and cost another 14,99 Euro, if you have enough credit and if you not cancel it explicitly.

Unfortunately the KDE network manager is in an early state of development. It is very promising and integrates perfectly into KDE, but I couldn’t get it working with a mobile broadband connection. That’s why I use the network-manager-gnome until I can figure out what the problem is or a newer release fixes my problems.

Edit: See the comments for solving this issue and using knetworkmanager instead the Gnome software.

Install network-manager-gnome and remove the network manager KDE:

sudo apt-get –purge remove plasma-widget-networkmanagement && sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome

Quit the KDE network manager and restart the network-manager backend:

kquitapp knetworkmanager && sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Start the network-manager-gnome with:

nm-applet

Connect the stick to your USB port, of course you have to put in the sim card again. The network manager will tell you that a new network device is available after some seconds. Add a new mobile broadband connection, the correct options should be given to you, if you choose AldiTalk/MedionMobile.

Be careful choosing th wrong APN can be very expensive.

By neversfelde | Posted in Kubuntu | Tagged Aldi, eplus, Mobile, Network, UMTS | Comments (4)

Android AIRMail

January 1, 2010 – 13:28

Did you know, that you have 50 free SMS, when you are using o2’s “Internet Pack M”. I did not, till I read this review on AndroidPIT. I tested Android AIRMail (link only available with the Android browser) and it works although it is a beta version. Nice, because know I will not have to pay for SMS anymore, because I never write more than 30 of them in a month. An the best thing about it, it is free software, released like Android itself under the Apache License 2.0. For more details see the project’s website.

Edit: Seems that I was to fast with being happy about a free license. It is only freeware .

By neversfelde | Posted in Android | Tagged Android, o2, sms | Comments (2)

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 3

December 13, 2009 – 14:10

Last part of syncing your Android phone with Kontact is really simple. Go to the “Info” Tab in your Rememberthemilk account and search for the entry iCalendar Service (all lists). Copy the Link.
Now open the systemsettings and Go to “Advanced >> Akonadi Configuration”. Add a “ICal Calendar File” resource and enter the link from Rememberthemilk there. If you followed part 2, Kontact should now show your todos from rtm.

As I mentioned in the first part I use Astrid for managing todos on Android. Astrid can sync with Rememberthemilk. It is quite easy to configure, unfortunately I cannot post screenshots, because I do not root my phone. Open Astrid and go to “More”. Activate “Remember The Milk” there and eventually use “Auto Sync”. Kontact should now show the tasks from your phone. It is read only, but better than noting.

A nice addition is probably the rtm plasma widget, which is part of KDE SC, so you should have it in your default installation.

By neversfelde | Posted in Android, Kubuntu | Tagged Android, Astrid, KDE, Kontact, rtm, Sync | Comments Off

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 2

November 15, 2009 – 16:35

You should read part 1 before. After installing the necessary software, next step is the configuration of Kontact and Akonadi. It is not too complicated, but needs probably some experimentation. If you make mistakes, you probably want to delete the whole configuration to make a new start. It is necessary to remove all Akonadi files in your ~ directory. They are placed at several locations:

~/.config/akonadi
~/.kde/share/config/akonadi-firstrunrc
~/.kde/share/config/akonadi_gcal_resource_0rc
~/.kde/share/config/akonadi_googledata_resource_0rc
~/.kde/share/config/akonadi_ical_resource_1rc
~/.local/share/akonadi

It should be self-evident that you backup your data before you change your configuration. Again I have to say, that this procedure is more a proof of concept than a solution for productive environments.

Akonadi:

We’ll start with Akonadi itself, settings can be found in “Systemsettings >> Advanced >> Akonadi Configuration”. First make sure that the Akonadi server is running, you can check this by activating the “Akonadi Server Configuration” tab and having a look at the section “Status”. If the server is stopped, start it. You should also check if it is started automatically after next KDE reboot. I read about some problems with Akonadi not starting, but I could not reproduce it myself.

Altogether I’m using four different resources for Akonadi, two for contacts and two for the calendar. If have some contacts and appointments that have to stay private and I do not want to send them to my Google account. I store this private data local only. You can add these resources by adding “ICal Calendar File” and “VCard File”. Kontact stores the contacts in ~/.kde/share/apps/kabc/std.vcf and the calendar file is ~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer/std.ics. Of course you can also use different locations.

The more important resources are the Google ones. They are called “Akonadi Google Calendar Resource” and “Akonadi Google Contacts Resource”. After adding them, you will be asked after your Google username and password. Username is the first part of your gmail address, @gmail.com is added automatically. After adding these two resources Akonadi is ready. Unfortunately I ran into some problems with the Akonadi Google resource, I am sure you will notice these problems, too. I am also sure that it will be better in the next versions, so please report or confirm bugs.

Kontact:

Last step for this part of the howto is the configuration of Kontact. It is not very difficult, all you have to do is to add the newly configured Akonadi resources to the used adressbooks and calendars. If you like, you can also make the Google calendar default. If you do not, you will be asked whether you want to store tho contact or appointment in the local files or in the Google resource. I think a screenshot is best to explain this step:

Make sure that you add the Akonadi resources for kaddressbook and korganizer.

You will notice that todos are not synced. As I mentioned before, I do this via Rememberthemilk and Astrid, but this has to wait untill I get part 3 ready. Stay tuned.

By neversfelde | Posted in Android, Kubuntu | Tagged Akonadi, Android, Kontact, Kubuntu, Sync | Comments (2)

Koffice 2.1 rc1 for Karmic in the backports beta ppa

November 14, 2009 – 18:04

Koffice 2.0.91 was released some time ago. Kubuntu packages were not ready in time, because, as I always, I was to slow . However now packages are in Kubuntu’s backports beta ppa. We also backported a newer wv2 library, so that hopefully support for MS documents should work better than with the last beta packages. You can activate the backports beta repo by adding

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/beta/ubuntu karmic main.

to your /etc/apt/sources.list.

Also it is good security practice to add the key for this archive, type:

sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 8AC93F7A

Install Koffice with

sudo apt-get install koffice-kde4

Note: Koffice 1.6 will be removed. Enjoy and report bugs.

By neversfelde | Posted in Kubuntu | Tagged Koffice, Kubuntu, packages, ppa | Comments (4)

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 1

November 8, 2009 – 22:42

Kontact is a really powerful tool for organizing your appointments, todos and contacts. Unfortunately there is no way to sync it with a mobile device or a syncml server like Funambol. A solution for that is currently in development, but is not ready for stable use. In the meantime there are at least possibilities to show the data from an android based mobile device in Kontact. Todos are read only with this solution, appointments and contacts should be not, but I ran into several problems like doubled entries, so I do not use Kontact for creating new entries. I use the phone or the Google webinterface instead

You need a Google Mail and also a Rememberthemilk account. So if you do not want or even if you are not allowed to sync your data to third party services you should not follow this howto.

Part 1 is about preparing your Kubuntu and your Android mobile device.

Kubuntu 9.10:

Of course Kontact is installed by default, but we need to install a plugin for Akonadi that can access the Google data. Installation can be done on the command line with

sudo apt-get install akonadi-kde-resource-googledata

As you can see we’ll have to use Akonadi to sync the android phone with Kontact. Part 2 will be about the configuration of Akonadi and Kontact.

Android:

My device is a Samsung Galaxy, but the next steps should be the same for all Android based mobile devices that run Android 1.5. There are several replacements for the default calendar and contacts applications in the market, anyway I am happy with them, so there is nothing more to do for contacts and calendar than syncing to google with the integrated sync option. For todos I’m using an application called Astrid (link only works with the Android browser). I do not know if Astrid is in the market everywhere around the world, anyhow you can download it from Launchpad. Astrid’s configuration will be part 3.

Part 2 is here.

By neversfelde | Posted in Android, Kubuntu | Tagged Android, Astrid, Google, Kontact, Kubuntu, rtm, Sync | Comments (4)

Christian Mangold :: neversfelde

Using an UMTS Medion USB Stick with Kubuntu 9.10

Android AIRMail

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 3

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 2

Akonadi:

Kontact:

Koffice 2.1 rc1 for Karmic in the backports beta ppa

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 1

Kubuntu 9.10:

Android:

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Christian Mangold :: neversfelde

Using an UMTS Medion USB Stick with Kubuntu 9.10

Android AIRMail

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 3

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 2

Akonadi:

Kontact:

Koffice 2.1 rc1 for Karmic in the backports beta ppa

Sync your Android phone with Kubuntu 9.10 – part 1

Kubuntu 9.10:

Android:

Search

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Categories

Archives

Recent Comments

Blogroll

Social Networks

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