Posts

Showing posts from October, 2010

Backups on Ubuntu One

Ubuntu One 2GB Might not seem like much, but is actually enough to store a few documents. There are some primitive command line utilities that can be used to perform some basic tasks. Once a folder has been created on the server, then simple commands can be used to keep them synchronised between machines that have subscribed to them. It is sort of tricky as the default behaviour is to subscribe to all folders. And as subscription requires a folder Id, unsubscribing to a folder before it gets synchronised is a bit of a pain. Installation Installation is very easy with: apt-get install ubuntuone-client ubuntuone-client-tools An example Here is a simple Ubuntu One example to show how to: start server and connect: u1sdtool --start u1sdtool --connect Then show current status with: u1sdtool --status link a local folder to the server: u1sdtool --create-folder=[local_fully_qualified_path] Then to list folders on server: u1sdtool --list-folders subscribe or unsubscribe from a fold...

[Update] Ubuntu Netbook Remix - Tethering to iPhone

UNR 10.10 - Update on Tethering to iPhone Like a few others, upgrading to Maverick Meerkat killed iPhone tethering. Actually I found that this occurred on most kernel upgrades. Luckily, the fix is simple. Recall , that normal installation is simply: Set repositories: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmcenery/ppa sudo apt-get update Then install the drivers: sudo apt-get install gvfs ipheth-dkms ipheth-utils Now, on an upgrade these are already installed, and even a re-installation failed: sudo apt-get install --reinstall gvfs ipheth-dkms ipheth-utils Though, this normally works on a kernel upgrade. Instead, un-install then re-install. If the kernel isn't updated on the re-installation the chances are it hasn't worked. sudo apt-get remove gvfs ipheth-dkms ipheth-utils sudo apt-get install gvfs ipheth-dkms ipheth-utils

[Update] A Simple Reminder System

This is an update to my last post A Simple Reminder System Scanning the technical news I recently came across: gcalcli . Can this be used with my reminder system? Well, yes it can! Very simply in fact. It took a short Bourne shell script which reads calendar entries forward from today, then post them to Google Calendars. This is the script: #!/bin/sh # Update Google calendar with local calendar. # # $Id: syncgcal.sh 706 2010-10-09 05:28:44Z frank $ echo -n 'Reading calendar events ...' forwardDate=`/bin/date --date="+7 days" "+%Y%m%d"` /usr/bin/calendar -t $forwardDate | while read entry do    /usr/bin/gcalcli quick "$entry" done echo ' done!' exit 0 The trick used here is to check upcoming events for a fixed number of days forward.  If you use  calendar -A  then you'll get events repeated. This is a compromise: checking only a fixed number of days forward and posting items for that date only. What would be better, would be to identify ...

A Simple Reminder System

This is a continuation of my post on running a paperless office . Ever faced with the problem of constantly forgetting important events, missing bill payments or forgetting anniversaries? Don't want to publish billing information onto an online calendar? This  simple email reminder system seemed the most versatile. This is how it works: The solution centres upon the calendar(1) command from the bsdmainutils package. It takes a simple formatted text file as input, and displays events within a user specified number of days forward from today. The format is really easy maintain a list of birthdays, or of bills requiring payment. Create a file called ~/.calendar/calendar . The file will contain entries like: #ifndef _calendar_frank_ #define _calendar_frank_ LANG=en_AU #include <calendar.australia><calendar.australia> #include <calendar.birthday><calendar.birthday> #include <calendar.reminder><calendar.reminder> #endif And this is what a th...