Tags: bluetooth, dial-up networking, e51, gprs, hsdpa, kpn, leopard, macosx, modem, nokia, rs-232, tethering
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Tethering MacOS X.5 Leopard with Nokia E51 via bluetooth
Bought myself a new phone (well, the company did so, because not being able to use ssh via my old one really sucks if you got a subscription to mobile internet just for those cases), a Nokia E51. Cool thing is that it supports up to HSDPA, which really has a lot better ping times than GPRS. Not sure about throughput, but I don’t care about throughput. I mainly check email and ssh, both use little bandwidth but really benefit from better latency (lower ping times).
Took about 30 minutes, with help from my coworker Kees to find how to tether my BlackBook with MacOS X.5 (Leopard). Writing it down here, because I couldn’t find it explained anywhere, really.
First, go to Network Settings and select Bluetooth. Now configure the Bluetooth device. From the little cog-menu in the bottom, select “Change serial devices” (name might be a little off, I’m using a Dutch version of MacOS X). Add a serial device with a name you can remember, privding service “Dial-Up Networking” and protocol RS-232. Close that window and select Advanced in the bottom right. Add a device in the bottom, using protocol RS-232 and changing the name to whatever you chose before. Close that window and go back to the Bluetooth connection setting.
Now choose Advanced from here and make sure your device maker is Nokia, but the device itself is “GPRS (GSM/3G)”. Not “E51″, at least it didn’t work for me with that setting. Now connect with your regular settings (which are empty for KPN in The Netherlands) and presto, you’re done.
Please leave a comment if this helped you!
Tags: access, keychain, macosx, pubsubagent, safari, safari 4, security
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[Safari 4] PubSubAgent wants access to KeyChain
But I have no reason to give it that access. This is a Safari 4 thing, I think. It keeps giving me a popup asking permission to access KeyChain for the login details of some internal website of ours. I don’t use anything from PubsubAgent, so have no reason to give access, but when I click “Deny”, it just gives me the same dialog again. Very annoying.
After some searching, I found the solution by disabling RSS in Safari. I use NewsFire for reading those, so this is a good enough workaround for me.
If anyone else has the same trouble, this is the command to disable RSS in Safari:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSyndicationEnabled 0
If only Apple would add a “Never allow” button to that window, it might be something useful…
Timezone in Java
A customer just called asking why his ColdFusion sees the time as being UTC, while the rest of the system and his own tests seem to indicate that the system is properly set for Europe/Amsterdam. Apparantly, java (or at least Sun’s JVM 1.4.2_09-b05, which is bundled with ColdFusion MX 7) only checks the system variable TZ to see which timezone it’s in. Since ColdFusion is started from initscript, this variable is not set yet. It’s in nearly the last of the init scripts.
So we had to add the following line to the initscript, somewhere near the beginning, to make sure ColdFusion uses the correct timezone:
export TZ="Europe/Amsterdam"
Thanks Geoff Mottram for pointing it out to me.
Resumé
Bart’s put his resumé online and it looks great, frankly. If anyone would apply to us with a resumé like that, he or she would score high marks based on that alone! Just look at it!
Aagje and other dogs
It’s always been a problem. Aagje is quite dominant towards other dogs and as a general rule I keep her away from other dogs, to prevent fighting. But it has always bugged me. I’d so much love to have a dog I could allow to run free without worrying for other dogs. Last Sunday I had a friend over who took along her dog and for the first time in a few years I tried convincing Aagje that she didn’t need to attack the other dog.
It went suprisingly well. After we walked a little while with both dogs on a leash, without them being able to get to each other, Aagje seemed to get a little more relaxed. Se we slowly allowed them to get closer and nothing happened. They just sniffed a bit. I was so relieved! So a little while later we untied the leashes and let them run. As I expected, Aagje had no interest whatsoever to play with the other dog, which is fine. I don’t need her to play with the dog, I’ll be happy if she just doesn’t attack it. She kept focussed on us and there was no problem. Only after she noticed no one was about to give her orders and play with her, did she get frustrated and started harassing the other dog, so I took her on the leash again. But she wasn’t really aggressive, just annoying the other dog. She still came for me after I called to her.
I’m mostly happy about this because it means she’ll be able to walk in line if we ever pass the exam for rescue dogs. That’s a prerequisite for being allowed to help in rescue missions. We can pass the exam without her being able to work next to another dog, but if we’d ever get called on to help, she’ll have to disregard all other dogs in the area she’s assigned to work on. So, good news 
Rescue Dog Training
Sunday May 31st, Aagje and I joined my dad with Daantje to the training for rescue dogs. Although Aagje was a little bit nervous, she did quite well. The next Wednesday we went again and she actually impressed the trainer (“you should’ve started years ago”). She likes doing it and she’s already very good at the basic steps. We’re still a long way away from actually being able to rescue people, of course, but still, I’m glad that we’re having such a good start.
We’re training with the Limburgse Reddingshonden Brigade and I hope to be able to take the SIN exam in about a year. Or 18 months. I don’t know, we’ll have to see how well Aagje keeps doing this. But I’m very excited and Aagje is having a lot of fun, which is the most important, of course.
