blogdoch reloaded

I put the first RC for the Fonera 2.0 on one of my boxes just this morning and I must say that I’m quite impressed. One of the key advantages of the Fonera 2.0, compared against former Foneras, is it’s USB 2.0 port, which in the 2.2.0.0 release now can be used for e. g. an USB stick for 3G networks and connect to the internet via 3G instead of an wired network.
While I doubt that sharing 3G bandwidth instead of one’s DSL connection makes sense to most users (at least in Germany, most 3G “flatrates” only include a traffic of 5 to 10 GB per month), it is now possible to set up a WLAN access point with a 3G uplink with the Fonera 2.0.
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to drop the 3G connection except by either un-powering the Fonera or unplugging the USB stick; the latter has to be done while the stick is still in use. Based on experience an x86 machines, unplugging an USB device that is still in use usually harms confuses the USB subsystem in one or the other way — I would rather like to see a way to stop the pppd driving the 3G connection before unplugging the USB stick …

(Trying my english again, to be able to link to international locations out there.)
Ok; I’ve had the ipoki client running until noon today, that would have been roughly 12 hours. After that time, just as I was trying to get a new GPS fix out there on the streets with my E71, the phone just bootet :( I’d suggest that there’s some memory leak within the E71 client (S30 3rd), maybe especially triggered during long time without an actual GPS fix.
Not nice, but, hey, this happens to my own python scripts as well; on the 6630 much more frequent even when it has a GPS fix (via an external BT GPS device). (For the [censored] S60 3rd, I haven’t found python stuff that my E71 accepts for accessing the GPS. Dreaded signing bullshit I don’t even want to hear about …)
What I’m really missing in the ready-to-use offerings of ipoki is some information about when e. g. the last positional update to Rainer’s map happened — as he later on started his own service, BlogLoc, I strongly assume he stopped using ipoki some time in summer ;)
So, for now, I’m not that fancy anymore about ipoki being what I’m really after; like Rainer I’m mainly looking for a means of publishing my current location to those I whant to inform about it, and I did my own “shell scripting mess” for that reason quite some time ago. I think I’ll take another look at BlogLoc, especially since it’s now featuring GeoRSS …

Hmm, elburro hat mal wieder was ausgebuddelt: hipoqih ipoki.
Ich habe aufgehört zu zählen, der wievielte Lokalisierungsdienst – neben locatik, bliiin, twibble, … – das ist, an dem ich mich nun versuche, aber, hey, diesmal sieht’s auf den ersten Blick vernünftig aus:

1. Es gibt einen nativen Symbian-Client (sogar für mein olles 6630, i. e. S60 Series 2)
2. Die Updatefunktion, zumindest auf dem E71, scheint sauber implementiert; es läuft zumindest auch nach GPS-Fix-Verlust weiter ohne das Telefon lahm zu legen. (Auch wenn’s trivial klingt, das ist – empirisch ermittelt – keine Selbstverständlichkeit :()
3. Das Updateintervall ist mit 2 Sekunden voreingestellt (ich habe es mal auf 60 Sekunden erhöht), also auch klein genug möglich für richtig coole Dinge …
4. Die Website ist, ganz anders als bei bliin, nicht dermaßen überladen, daß selbst gestandene 1,8-GHz-Core-2-Duo-Notebooks ins Schwitzen kommen

Und ein nettes, auf Google Maps basierendes, iframe-basiertes Applet gibt’s auch noch dazu – siehe rechts :)