Geocaching, Garmin and Linux
I'm a Geocacher and I've bought a new toy, the Garmin Vista HCx. This device has a special function for Geocaching. You have to upload these files directly to the device. It isn't possible to store them on the microSD.
On the geocaching.com you have an option to send the coordinates directly to the GPS. It downloads a web browser plugin from Garmin. To send the files (.loc or .gps) to the device on Linux there is a nice tool called gpsbabel. You can use it to send your files to the GPS. However the device supports only traditional caches 
So a simple script named "sendCache" is:
#!/bin/bash
# sendCache
gpsbabel -i gpx -f $1 -o garmin -F usb:
You have to remove the kernel module which is loaded automatically:
rmmod garmin_gps
Or blacklist it in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. Simply add 'blacklist garmin_gps'.
To get the permissions to work with gpsbabel as a user, you have to install a hal fdi file. Copy 80-gps.fdi to '/usr/share/hal/fdi/information/20thirdparty'. This will set acl rules for write access to the user if you attach it.
phonon and amarok wakeups
I've used my notebook the first time with openSUSE 11.1 without a power cable attached and wondered why my battery was empty after a short time. So I've did some research and found a knotify4 bug, this leads to a phonon and xine bug. I have the latest version of xine installed and the wakeup bug in xine is already fixed sine 1.1.9. So there must be still a bug in the phonen backend of KDE 4.1.3.
I found a new phonon-xine backend on kde-apps.org, here. I've found packages in the build service (click) and tested them. The wakeups of the whole system dropped to less than 200 wakeups per second.
During my research I stumbled over a amarok problem too. If you're playing music with amarok, it produces more than 900 wakeups, even if you stopped playing the music. The whole system should need more than 500 wakeups if you play music and browse the internet.
You have to quit the application!
UPDATE:
The bugs are fixed in KDE SVN (KDE 4.2). Thanks to Mark Kretschmann. The amarok bug for this was #177517.
csync and pam_csync 0.42.0 beta1
I've released a new version of csync and pam_csync. csync is a bidirectional file synchronizer for Linux and allows to keep two copies of files and directories in sync. It uses uses widly adopted protocols like smb or sftp so that there is no need for a server component of csync. It is a user-level program which means there is no need to be a superuser. With pam_csync it is possible to create roaming home directories.
This version fixes several bugs to increase the stability of the file synchronizer. It provides a new plugin to synchronize two replicas with the sftp protocol. To get the csync sftp plugin working you need libssh 0.2 with the following two patches:
Map permission fields
Errno mapping
The libssh package in the network:synchronization:files project in the build service has these two patches. The csync version of the BS project provides a csync-plugin-sftp package.
Packages for Fedora 9, openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 can be downloaded here.
More information at http://www.csync.org/.
Hackweek3: Logitech hacking
I planning to rewrite lomoco since a long time now. The problem is that Logitech has introduced a new protocol to talk to the devices. For the main features of these new mice we have already proof of concept code but some features aren't suppport.
I still don't know how they identify a cordless mouse connected to a receiver. The MX Revolution and the G7 share the same receiver. Yesterday I've discovered how to read the battery status from the MX and VX Revolution. I can display the battery status in percent and if the mouse is charging or is fully charged.
I've put together a proof-of-concept code here. Now it is time to think about a library, liblomoco. If someone is interested in hacking, feel free to contact me 
If you have a VX Nano or G7 please send me the output of the vx_hack. If you own a G7 please send me the output of the 'lsusb' command.
Pimp my KDE
As KDE 4.1 RC1 has been released I've installed it on my notebook and pimped it
I've build the Polyester theme in the openSUSE Build Service for KDE4 and Qt4. krusader for KDE4 is available too, here.
Roaming Home Directories for Linux
An interesting feature of Active Directory is Roaming Profiles. You can login on different workstations and you have all you data with you. If you use a Notebook you have the same and the ability to work offline. As soon as you're connected to you network again the data will be automatically synchronized again and you have a backup of your data.
Now the time has come to introduce Roaming Home Directories for Linux. Yesterday I've released a new version of csync and the first version of pam_csync. With both components you're able to use an Active Directory environment to share your data between workstation and notebooks and work offline.
Currently only the SMB protocol is supported but I will write more plugins for other protocols in future. I have sftp and rsync (if doable) in mind. So you will be able to use it at home with you're small NAS or in a Linux only company environment.
This is not the only use case. If you have a USB disk with your music collection. You can can attach it to PC1 and synchronize it with your local collection. Go to the next computer and synchronize it there again. As csync is a bidirectional file synchronizer the collection on PC1 and PC2 will be the same.
csync 0.42.0 alpha1
I've released the first alpha version of csync. csync is a client only bidirectional file synchronizer. You can use csync for different things. The intention is to provide Roaming Home Directories for Linux but you can use it to synchronize your music collection or create a backup of a directory. This is *not* intended for production environments and is designed for testing purposes only. This version is fully functional and you can sync two local directories or a local directory with a samba share.
More at http://www.csync.org/
csync 0.42.0 prealpha test version
I've released the first test version of csync. csync is a client only bidirectional file synchronizer. The intention is to get some testing and feedback about update detection and journal creation.
If you want to help to test click here. Packages for openSUSE are available in the Build Service, here.
The history game
anschneider@maximegalon:~> history | awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -rn|head
139 make
139 cd
105 vi
104 ll
68 man
50 git
46 fg
31 mc
26 grep
23 tests/check_csync_exclude
csync source code is online
I have released the source code of csync. csync is a user level file synchronizer to provide roaming home directories for Linux. The source code in an early state, but there is a complete prototype available.
Visit the homepage or the trac system for more information.