Kevin Blake's Blog

Don’t get me wrong, buying the Trackstick was a really good idea, it’s fuelled my interest in the location-aware Internet, it’s given me excuses to connect with other developers on Gallery2, had me writing geo-based modules, updates and hacks, and eased geotagging a whole bunch of photos.

But in the past two years, it’s also caused me to create and use some really really complicated geotagging techniques, frustration over forgetting what the flashing lights mean in Krakow, and aided and abetted in destroying one man’s Internet business in Split, even if just for a day.

Even the new Trackstick II’s still only boast a 1MB block of memory for storing tracks on, and I still need their proprietary drivers that caused me to destroy the book store/Internet Cafe in Split.  So for my next trip to Vietnam, I’ve bought the Genie BGT-31.  Granted, it’s almost twice the size of the Trackstick but contains a USB-chargeable battery which means no more carrying around stacks of AAA batteries and separate charger.

The built-in memory will store up to 20,000 records – but more importantly, supports SD cards, increases the measly 1MB into 1GB (thanks to the numerous cards lying around my flat and down the side of sofas).  These can taken out very quickly and dropped into the EEE where gpsbabel will convert the flat NMEA text format to whatever you might need … GPX, for example.

It also has a screen, so I no longer need to repeat the mantra constantly to myself in my head (or aloud) – “green for good, red for bad”.  Not to mention keep my blog posts updated with some more positioning (well, possibly).

So far the first impressions are good – and it will certainly tide me over until we can just tag the photos using our government-issue ID card’s weekly e-statements.

Eee Ubuntu

Since installing Ubuntu on the Eee, I had no doubt it was going to replace the Xandros install full-time.  It has a lot more features for my inner geek and better support for the applications that only I can find essential.

It also takes a hell of a lot longer to boot up.

But that’s okay, these new Atom processors don’t take up a lot of battery life when they’re in standby… If I were a real reporter, I’d test that theory.  But since I’m blogging, so I’ll throw out any kinds of lies that I like – so long as I’m upfront and honest about it.

So far so good, except Resume doesn’t work on Ubuntu Eee, either.

Great.

So I followed the steps on the usual eee user wiki about suspend/resume.  And that didn’t work either.

What I did find, is that you can actually resume from the never-ending sleep of the Ubuntu if you run the command:

sudo /etc/acpi/sleep.sh force

Furthermore, you can replace the pm-suspend command with the same – and your shiny new Ubuntu Eee will wake up when you ask it.  Rather than whining about it being too early and throwing the covers over its head.
#Make a backup, just in case.
sudo cp /usr/sbin/pm-suspend /usr/sbin/pm-suspend.bak
sudo echo "/etc/acpi/sleep.sh force" >/usr/sbin/pm-suspend


And that will let you continue to use the lid or the shut-down screen for all your eee suspension needs.  Hopefully I can do something about that initial boot-time, next.