Just a quick update of the previous article on “Sony Xperia Z2 upgrading to CyanogenMod 11“. One thing is that CM now included the custom recovery and you do not need to download any other custom recoveries ! Download the CM 12 ZIP file for Sony Xperia Z2 (sirius) and extract the ‘boot.img’ file Download link: https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=sirius Get the device into fastboot (bootloader mode) fastboot -i 0xfce flash boot boot.img<br></br>fastboot reboot

On remote systems sometimes a web-based tool can be very handy. Webmin is such a tool that has been well maintained for decades. To install quickly on a Ubuntu Server without having to manage dependencies and keeping it updated as part of normal OS update operations installing from a PPA Repo is handy. sudo echo "deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list<br></br>wget -q http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -<br></br>sudo apt-get update<br></br>sudo apt-get install webmin

Since I have found some issues with my previous LXQT setup in real-life work I decided to fall back to standard Lubuntu for my cloud desktop. As part of this I also switched to TightVNC which seems a lot easier to configure. Add local user account adduser USERNAME<br></br>adduser USERNAME sudo Install Lubuntu Desktop sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends lubuntu-desktop tightvncserver TightVNC Configuration sudo vim /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf #<br></br># VNC Server configuration<br></br>#<br></br># enabled = True if VNC connections should be allowed<br></br># port = TCP/IP port to listen for connections on<br></br>#<br></br>[VNCServer]<br></br>enabled=true<br></br>port=5900<br></br>width=1366<br></br>height=768<br></br>depth=24

One of the main reasons for setting up a cloud desktop is that I tend to use a lot of different devices some of which are not very powerful. One of my favorite devices of late has been a HP 11 Chromebook. I originally bought it for a new employee and wanted to check myself how this thing stacks up to do day-to-day computing tasks more efficiently than a standard laptop without all the headaches of running Windows (viruses, endless driver installs, bloatware, malware, …).

I have had some issues recently with getting LTE (4G) connectivity on the Vodafone Australia Network using CyanogenMod 11 on multiple devices (http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/92919-no-4g-signal-on-vodafone-au/). Turns out that it was an APN issue after all. The APN provisioned by default when the Voda SIM card is inserted (vfinternet.au) does not work for the LTE Data Network. It works with GPRS & WCDMA, but fails to connect when the phone is set to prefer LTE (4G) Networks and they are actually available.

Contrary to my normal inclinations not to buy anything but Stock Android phones I ended up with a Sony Xperia Z2 in a hurry over the weekend (it’s a long story…). It appears to be quite a decent handset (with a pretty good camera actually) and one of the main reason to choose this over the other options was that is was one of the few high-end devices which already had a CM snapshot rather than just nightly releases.

This ‘feature’ has been annoying me for a while and after this has caused some confusion with some of my clients I decided to go and look where to disable this. Why this has been made a system wide default is beyond me. Rather than in the users Calendar Settings this is actually in the Google Apps Admin Console (https://admin.google.com/) Console –> Google Apps –> Settings for Calendar –> Sharing Settings

Foursquare decided that it was too hard for them to compete with location services like Yelp and split their app into two separate apps. Whilst that might make sense to the 4Square CEO and his VC masters, it makes no sense from a users perspective. Foursquare can be a bit of a battery hog already, and having 2 apps to open and “annoy” you with notifications is not an improvement by any means.

Install dependencies sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"<br></br>sudo yum install kernel-devel Mount the Virtualbox Additions CD ISO sudo mkdir /media/cdrom/<br></br>sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom/<br></br>sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

Since I am a bit of a sucker for German “Krimis” as well as some their excellent documentaries I like to watch ARD Mediathek IPTV. However there are several problems with this when you live at the opposite side of the world. ARD has a block for any films that are 15+ years outside of 20.00h-6.00h GMT+1. Which makes it pretty much impossible to watch at a reasonable time in Australia.

Using Amazon EC2’s free usage tier to host your own cloud desktop is a very economical way to to have a desktop at hand anytime you can not be near one. Since I quite often use Chromebooks these days when on the road this is a particular handy way should I need a full desktop for certain tasks. Since Ubuntu 14.05 is my default desktop on my normal hardware I obviously want to have my cloud desktop running the same underlying OS.

The Nokia X seems to be a nice piece of hardware for just around $125 AUD. Nothing spectacular in terms of computing power, but much better build quality than your average cheap Chinese Android clone. I have always been a fan of Nokia hardware until they decided to commit suicide by firstly adding CEO Stephen Elop and ditching all of their software for Windows Mobile. The problem with the device out of the box is that is has a horribly butchered version of Android.