HP: webOS 2.0 and beyond

I have a Palm Pre mobile 'phone'. As soon as it was announced I knew I wanted it — not only because it wasn't tied down like an Apple iPhone is, or like Android phones are — because Palm was a brand I've used and supported for many years and their new WebOS (based on Linux) seemed to offer many great things those other two didn't.

But now, after patiently waiting for an upgrade from the WebOS 1.4.5 which arrived almost a year ago I now read on the (HP) Palm Developer Center Blog that

"First off, the decision not to release webOS 2.0 for the Pre and Pixi was incredibly tough, knowing that we couldn’t deliver the latest and greatest to people that supported webOS from the very beginning. But, it was a decision that had to be made and we hope our plans for the next generation of webOS will provide the best platform for everyone moving forward."

Now I'm one of those rapidly disappearing people, a Palm Pre user in the UK on the O2 network. But not only have O2 stopped making the — now HP — Pre available here or supplying add-ons, it seems nobody else is either! And this is a piece of kit I bought when it was first released here in October 2009, so not that much over a year.

I was a Palm Pilot user (and later Handspring) and waited semi-patiently for the release date for the Pre having promoted the new WebOS to everyone with all that it offered for users and developers. But it seems that non-US users are being bypassed, and even though the box itself is general purpose (let's face it, go in with SSH and you'll see a linux box) we early adopters and promoters are now being ignored when it is coming to upgrading the software - something that initially was one of the major selling points!

I DON'T want an iPhone. I DON'T want something running Android. I DO want a WebOS phone that let's me do things my way and doesn't require me to buy new hardware every time there is some little tweak.

We live in a software world.

It's about the heat

I've been getting concerned lately with heat. The temperature kind, that is. With the increase in the number of servers I run 24/7 I'm not only doing my bit for global warming but also for the heating of my server room which is, at present, the small bedroom. Not that it has had a bed in it for over 40 years, but it still gets called that!

So during the winter the fans have been cooling the machines and warming the room, which spills over into heating the house a bit. But last summer — with only two servers — it got pretty hot in there (no aircon or even fixed ventilation) and so now I'm thinking ahead to this year and the greater heat output of four servers.

The present option under consideration is moving them all to one end of the garage and building a 'server space' there. I could even fit a extractor fan too, though I have worries about security. I did consider utilising the loft space but that already gets exceedingly hot in summer because of all the sun on the roof above.

Anyone else solved this problem or have alternative suggestions?

Out the window

I've been very satisfied with the beta and release candidates of Windows 7 but the lifetime of the (free) RC is rapidly coming to an end and I had to consider my options as it had been the OS on my main laptop for the past year.

Except for one machine in London (mostly my tv and file archiver) all my other machines (up to 10 in regular use, including servers and notebook) all run on Linux or FreeBSD or Solaris, so the question under review was "do I actually *need* Windows?

So I made a list of the software I use. Much of it is FLOSS (Free, Libre, Open Source Software) or other 'free' stuff. Only a few programs are paid-for-in-hard-cash (such as my font tools).

The FLOSS stuff is nearly all cross-platform, so that was OK. The 'free' stuff is mostly available on other platforms, so might be OK. The paid-for stuff could either be replaced, chucked, or run under Wine if on Linux.

So I thought a little more … and scrapped Windows. Loved it and left it!

This post was just written on a laptop now running Ubuntu 9.10 with the 2.6.31-19 Linux Kernel and Gnome 2.28.1

The tweak that broke

Yes, I had a little accident ;-P

With the increase in technology came an increase in what I'd like to do with that technology, specifically be able to offer secure (https://) connections for security purposes on some of the sites I host. And although there have been moves to make virtual hosting of port 443 secure sites possible, they rely on changes to browsers which — as we all know — are a bit like a brick swimming against the prevailing current. Instead, therefore, just as with the ten year old specification of IPv6, we are required to use one IP (v4) address for each secure connection we wish to enable. So I obtained an increase in my IP allocation from a /29 (five effective addresses) to a /28 (with thirteen). Plans were made for a nice, smooth transition using proper scheduling of DNS and MX record changes when … I accidentally pulled the power on the modem-router and the change happened instantly. Without any of the advance setup.

Needless to say I was grateful for being the only person around at that moment as the world was filled with my choice 'language' about the unfortunate event, and I set to in trying to recover the systems. And, for the most part, I got the connections working again within the hour save for waiting for DNS servers around the world to play catch-up.

But e-mail wasn't arriving. My (Zimbra-based) mail server cold send messages out fine, but nothing seemed to be coming inbound. Eventually this was traced to a configuration error with my carrier this afternoon and they reset their end of things. Great? Well, no actually. At this end I lost all connectivity entirely. The outside world could see my router, yet I couldn't get beyond it. Three hours later the software-hardware-firmware-network interactions were finally resolved, I'm happy to say, so now everything should by A1 Bristol fashion.

That three hours without any connection was a bit scary though …