Set up bluetooth in Ubuntu

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Bluetooth tools

Setting bluetooth in Ubuntu needs some prerequisite. I guess all of you people are aware about Ubuntu package manager `apt`. I am using this package manager to install bluetooth.

We have to install 2 package

1) bluez-utils

2) gnome-bluetooth

Open a terminal window type the commands below.

sudo apt-get install bluez-utils

This will prompt for the user password, enter your admin password. Package bluez will be installed. You have to configure couple of things to make your bluetooth up and running. Restart your bluetooth device.

sudo /etc/init.d/bluez-utils restart

(In some machine it may be sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart)

You have to check whether the bluetooth module and associated drivers are working fine. Type a command `lsusb`. This will display the hardware address and manufacturer name.

The second package we are going to install is the `gnome-bluetooth` which contain all application that are used for file sending and receiving.

sudo apt-get install gnome-bluetooth

Enter the password of the admin and hit enter key. This will start installing the package gnome-bluetooth. After installing the package restart your bluetooth hardware and if possible your system.

Restarting you hardware driver is simple. Type the command

sudo /etc/init.d/bluez-utils restart

(In some machine it may be sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart)

Your system is now ready with bluetooth. . I will explain the steps involved in the configuration in my next post. Thats all for today !!!!

Bluetooth OBEX :- What is it?

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Bluetooth tools

Those who have bluetooth enabled mobile phone, are using file transfer service to exchange files between different bluetooth enabled mobile phones. Anyone can send any kind of files to nearby bluetooth device. The file may be either a image file or video file or even application installed in the mobile. Whatever file it may be, when we sent the file to nearby bluetooth enabled mobile phone it will receive appropriately. You know why it is receiving properly? Yes it is because those file sharing use OBEX, Object Exchange.

OBEX is a communication protocol that can be used to exchange binary objects between devices. It was developed by Infrared Association later bluetooth SIG(Special Interest group) adopted the same. OBEX is somewhat similar to HTTP, where the user can connect to the server is almost in the same way like HTTP. Afterwards the user can either make a request or provide object to push.

All the bluetooth enabled mobile phones are equipped with OBEX stack along with bluetooth driver. In my next post I will explain how to exchange files from your ubuntu system to any other bluetooth enabled device(s).

Top-level domains to be live in late 2009

Top level domain name (TLDN), is the last part of domain name ie letters after the final dots of the web address. For example com, in, gov, mobi, org these are some of the extensions. These are handled and managed by the non-profit organization called ICANN. The latest development in this domain suffix is organization can apply for any top level domains. For instance, organization could use brand names such as .intel, .ibm, .ebay etc as their suffix.

Registering a new top level domain name will cost around $100,000 to $500,000, Paul Twomey ICANN’s president and CEO said.

Today there are 160 million websites of which 70 million websites end with .com, 80 million ends with country specific suffixes. ICANN increased the pool of top-level domain in 2001 and 2003 but limited names are available now.ICANN is also making possible to register domains with non-English characters such as Chinese, Arabic etc.

ICANN spent years and around $10 million for this top-level domain. If the proposal come through, organization can able to register top-level domains by April 2009.

BlogcampKerala in Houseboat?

Yes that is true the blogcamp kerala is about to happen in houseboat. This is going to be the first unconference to happen on boat. The Event is hosted by Kerala Tourism.

Date and venue are 16th August 2008 and Alappuzha respectively. Open registration is available for 80 participants on first come first serve basis. If you are planning to attend and enjoy blogcamp in backwaters of Kerala confirm your participation now in this link below.

Url : http://www.contactvirus.com/blogcampkerala
Shared Key : godsowncountry

The houseboat is huge one with A/C and big conference hall. Just look at the pictures below to see the facilities of houseboat.

Pictures in gmail chat

This entry is part 10 of 14 in the series gmail tricks

Gmail web chat is the coolest chatting application I have ever seen. But I had some bad experience while using google web chat. The google web chat shows that status of the online user by displaying the name. In my messenger list I had more than one person with same name. Since it shows name in the chat list I misunderstood some person and talked about the other person.

But gmail recently released a feature called “Pictures in gmail chat”. This feature solves my problem. If this feature is enabled, along with name picture also get displayed in the conversation.

How to enable picture in gmail chat?

As I mentioned that it is enabled as Lab feature. Click on the Setting link on the top right corner of your mailbox. On the setting window click on the Lab tab. On the Lab tab select the Enable radio button labeled Pictures in chat and save the setting.

Add your business in google maps

Google maps is getting popular these days. So its a good idea to create your own local business entry in google maps. So whenever some one search about your business you will be appeared on the top level. This will definitely increase your business. In addition google maps include the geographic factors that determine the ranking order in search result.

Creating an entry in local business add more to our business. It will bring visitors to your site and also bring customers directly into your door. Local business center is available for owners who are located in Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Japan, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, the UK, and the U. S.

Signup for the service now and create your own business listing. But make sure that the information is not duplicated that means make sure someone else already listed your business. Search for listing before submitting new data. It can be done by searching [business name, zipcode]. If business is listed “Claim your business” else continue for signup.

Figure above shows new listing.

Search result from google map search.

Insert inline image in gmail

This entry is part 9 of 14 in the series gmail tricks

Gmail is one the coolest email client available. But it lacks an important feature. We can attach files but we are not able to add inline images in editor.

I will suggest a work around for this. But this is not much friendly moreover we need to carry some extra steps to attain inline imaging facility. We can exploit the rich text formatting of the gmail mail composing editor.

Steps to be carried out to attach an inline Image

(1) Upload image to some image hosting server like picasa, flickr or mobshare.

(2) Open the uploaded image in your web browser.

(3) Right click the mouse and click on the view image menu.

(4) Hit Ctrl-A then Ctrl-C. (This will copy the image to the clipboard)

(5) Open the compose gmail window.

(6) Make sure the rich text formatting is on in the gmail compose editor (Check out the red rounded part in the image above).

(7) Place your cursor into the place where your image need to appear.

(8) Hit Ctrl-V (This will paste the image into the editor).

Yahoo messenger invisible mode checker

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series yahoo series

Yahoo messenger had a cool feature called invisible mode. Sometime people misuse this functionality which so annoying. There are couple of solution to hack whether the invisible one are actually online.

Let me explain few methods to check whether invisible one is actually online or not? One which is very official way that provided by Yahoo itself by checking the profile directory. Suppose your target profile be `xyz`. Open the URL http://profiles.yahoo.com/xyz in your browser. The page entitled with Yahoo status. The page will display the information about the account like name, sex, age, occupation etc.

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Another way to check the user is invisible is http://mail.opi.yahoo.com/online?u=username&m=a&t=1

This will show the status of the user, If the status is 00 then user is invisible and 01 if the user is online.

Another way which is not generic one. Lot of providers are giving status message from yahoo. One such provider is Yahoo status checker. You can provide the username on the textfield provided and click on submit button. The application will provide you the status of yahoo messenger.

Superstars in gmail

This entry is part 8 of 14 in the series gmail tricks

All of us need to flag some of the important emails, thats why email clients provide the facility for flagging or starring. But what will do if we need to prioritizes the starred emails?

Team gmail recently enabled a feature called superstars, which provide us facility to add priority by assigning different labels accordingly upon our priority. There are 12 icon for assigning priorities. It is enabled as a Lab feature.

How to enable superstars?

As I mentioned that it is enabled as Lab feature. Click on the Setting link on the top right corner of your mailbox. On the setting window click on the Lab tab. On the Lab tab select the Enable radio button labeled Superstars and save the setting.

Proximity tracking using Bluetooth

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Bluetooth tools

As I mentioned in my earlier post that I am mainly concentrating on programs in Ubuntu. I am going to explain about a proximity tool called BlueProximity. This tool allow us to lock our desktop when we are away from the PC. We don’t need to lock our system manually it will automatically lock the computer.

How does it work?

There are mainly two part in this application. One is a bluetooth equipped PC and another bluetooth enabled cell phone of yours. Each and every bluetooth device have a unique hardware ID. The program use the unique ID to detect our presence. We can assign a bluetooth device in the application as authentic one. The bluetooth device may be our cell phone or some other device with bluetooth. We need to carry the device with us when we go away from our PC. The application installed in our ubuntu operating system search for the signal strength always. If the signal strength exceeds certain limit our PC got locked or it will start some other program when we are away.

The application is open source we can re-modify accordingly upon our use. The application is available for download here. Download the tar file and unzip using the command tar xvzf blueproximity-versionnumber.tar.gz. Check out the manual for its installation. After installing the application you need to start a program named “start_proximity.sh” you can add your mobile phone as authentic one. Then it will work as I described above.

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