iPhone review

Since iPhone came out I have not been very interested in it, it always seemed to be inferior to other phones.
It had lower specifications, it was overpriced, it was 2G, was lacking basic features such as copy/paste, video recording, MMS, multitasking etc.
But Apple has an amazing marketing machine, and even if the platform is closed and so far from being open as it can get people still bought it, made applications and games for it and now in it’s 3rd generation it actually started looking like something.
It has 3G, MMS, video recording, and a pretty clever way of handeling copy/paste, and an amazing amount of apps and games.
So my old phone was getting old and felt pretty outdated, HTC Trinity started out as a Windows mobile 5 device, and thanks to the people over at xda developers I was able to
Upgrade to home cooked 6.1 versions. But it did not change the fact that the device was slow and memory were more and more getting to small.
So it was time for a new phone, I was having my eye on Android, and with HTC having some very nice phones and more and more manufacturers planning Android phones I was concidering it, but perhaps my next phone will be Android.
I ended up picking the iPhone mostly due to the applications out there, my main concern for not picking the iPhone was the lack of multitasking and customization, and Apples insistance on locking down the platform.
I wanted to use the Spotify client instead of iPod as I like the idea of having access to the wast library of music that exists in Spotify but the advantage of the built in iPod is that you can play music and browse the web or use other apps while listening to music, something not possible with Spotify due to Apples in my oppinion stupid policy.
But I came across the jailbrake community, I started following the iPhone download blog and found out about the whole homebrew scene.
One of the apps I came accros were Backgrounder an application that allows you to run program in the background.
This made the whole iPhone thing much more attractive.
So Sunday soon 2 weeks ago I went into the 3 store and bought the black 32GB iPhone 3GS.
So after using it for soon 2 weeks, how do I feel about my choice?
Well I think I made the right choice, it is a very nice looking phone, the OS works really well, it is a bit like OSX (I know it is based on it) in that it just works, no fuzz easy to use.
The Appstore works great, the sync with my google apps mail, contacts and calendar was a breeze to set up with push working like a charm, updates in contacts were pushes on both directions almost instantly, mail would sometime pop up on my phone before the browser showed that new mail has arrived.
I started out downloading a bunch off different free apps from the app store, Spotify was one of the first followed by some games and others. I subscribed to some podcast that I listened to on my way to work, and they told about different apps and games and one game called Dungeon hunter got very good reviews, a kind of Diablo clone with very good graphics and gameplay, so this was my first purchase from the app store and indeed a very nice game that I spent a lot of time playing.
But It was deeply annoying me that I could not listen to Spotify while using safari to read my rss feeds or reading my mail, etc.
When I bought it there were no Jailbrake available, not until last weekend was I able to jailbrake it, so I got a week of locked in usage, and it was bugging me a lot.
But thanks to Blackra1n I was able to jailbrake and install backgrounder and a bunch of other applications for example winterboard, an application to customize the looks of the iPhone and an app called sbsettings that adds a quick menu to enable and dissable various things like wifi and Bluetooth without having to dig into the settings dialog.
And now it works as I wanted it, nice OS that I can customize to my taste.
And it is great to use, last weekend we went to Denmark for a baptizing, and in the train I used the iPhone as a mobile Internet for my laptop so I could surf and chat on the go, I could have done this directly on the phone but it is nicer with a big screen for extended use.
Once there I used it as camera and videocamera.
On the night before we had to go home, Emilia got a fever and stuffed nose, and on the way home we realized we did not have any medicine for babies such as fever lowering medicine, so I used the iPhone to log in to the website for the pharmacy to see where to find a night open pharmacy, then used the built in google maps app to find out which one was closest to the train station, and to find our way there using the built in GPS and compass when we got there.

All in all I think the iPhone will work well for me, but had it not been for the abillity to jailbreak I think I would be less happy about it.

Oh and by the way, I typed this entire post on the iphone using the wordpress app.

Google Wave

Today I was reading on Engadget that Google is launching a new system called Google Wave.
It is a new system that integrates Mail, Chat, Collaboration, Wiki, and a whole lot more into one tool.
The protocol is open, and the application it will be open source also.
Check out the demo, it is a bit long but It is worth the time, this looks amazing, I really like the way it looks and works.
I signed up for the Beta, I just hope it will not stay in Beta as long as Google Apps did.

Interesting as I was writing this post the server went down and I could not post it.
I rebooted it and it took very long to come up, but when it did I got database connection error trying to get to the site.
After some investigation, I found out that the disk was full on the server, so cleaned out some files, and now It has some more space.
But it reminded me I need to fix the original server as this server is only temporary and have no redundancy.

For Dogs: How to hug a baby.

My mom forwarded me a mail, with some very cute images, of a dog hugging a baby.
So wanted to share them.
It is a guide for dogs how to hug a baby.
Note. I have no clue who the baby or the dog is. This is not Emilia…
Enjoy…..

Emilia is born.

On 28 March 2009 at 05:52, Emilia was born at Huddinge Hospital.
As I have written before we were expecting a baby, and on Saturday morning she was born.
It is funny because earlier on the week I told to her while still in the belly that Friday would be a good day, and it all started Friday morning.

Well, my part of the story starts at lunch on Friday.
I’m sitting eating my lunch when I get an SMS from Marina asking me why I’m not on-line on MSN.
I reply back, with just “Lunch”.
After lunch I get back to my desk and log in to MSN again, here is a copy of the conversation.

Marina säger: (13.13.39)
hi

Marina säger: (13.20.42)
take the metal plate from cake


The cake was one Marina made, that I had brought with me for Friday afternoon coffee.
For that reason I had also taken the car, since bringing a cake in a stuffed bus , is not a good idea, well secretly I think Marina had told me to take the car not for the cake, but in case something would happen, since later she told me that the water had broken already before I was even awake that morning, but she did not want to tell me anything since no contractions at the time.

Anyway so on the way home Marina calls me, and tell me to go to the midwife clinic (Barnomorskemottagningen) on the way home to pick up some blood tests, we have been waiting for.

So I’m not home until about 14:30.
And when I get home I call the hospital, according to the phone log this is at 14:40, I explain that the water had broken this morning and that she had started to have small contractions, they told us to come in for a check to see, since we suspected the water had broken.

We drive to the hospital, a 15 minute drive, and arrive around 15:15.
They take us into an intake room and put some sensors on Marinas belly, to listen at the baby’s Heart rate as well as measuring the contractions, this lasts I think about 30 minutes, they then come back and say that they want a doctor to have a look, since if the water broke they can’t “Feel” down there, due to the risk of infection.
Unfortunately this is a very busy Friday afternoon and only one doctor on duty.
And since the contractions are not so strong, we have low priority, and have to wait.
And waiting we did, some 5 hours, apparently someone had to get an emergency cecarium (is it spelled like that?)
Meanwhile the contractions are getting stronger, but are not frequent, sometimes 20 minutes in between.
We move to a TV room while waiting, since sitting in that intake room is getting rather boring.

At about 21:30 the doctor finally has time, and we go back to the intake room, and she starts checking, she tells that the water has not broken, and that the wetness that Marina had felt that morning in combination with a bit of red slime, was a so called slime plug(Not sure how to translate it), and sometimes if at all, comes a week or two before delivery.
She also measures, and Marina is about 1.5-2cm open.
She asks Marina if she wants this baby soon, and Marina says yes, so she does something, I think she said to stimulate, but she points out that it is not sure that it will work.
Then she says that now we wait, the baby could come in a couple of days or even in a week or two.

The doctor leaves, and there is a midwife who explains a bit more in detail, she tells that the contractions should be more frequent and much much stronger, like a knife in the back, to quote what she said. She also tells that type of contractions she has now are more like the body exercising for the real thing.
We wait a bit longer, since we need to get our papers back, and also the journal for our visit.

And then we go back home.
We are home around 22:30, I read the journal of our visit, and it is very cryptic and with a lot of medical abbreviations, but I read something about going home with two citadon, not sure what that is, later on I find out we were supposed to have gotten some pain killers with us home, they just forgot to give it.

Marinas contractions are still getting stronger, but they are still not frequent and sometimes takes a break of up to 20 minutes.
She takes 2 Alvedon (Paracetamol)
But some time after midnight, Marina is getting in more pain, she goes into the shower to get some warm water to, lower the pain, I start timing the contractions, and get that they are between 3 and 5 minutes in between, but still sometimes takes a break of 10-20 minutes, I did not know I had to time the length also.

At around 02:00 while she is in the shower I call the hospital again, and they ask for the frequency and length of contractions, while on the phone i time the length, and get that they are about 20-30 seconds in length, the lady from the hospital tells me that they should be about 1minute, and not so long breaks.
They tell me to wait, since there are still some longer pauses in between, and they don’t think they are strong enough yet.

So we hang up, and I explain this to Marina, and she is not happy about it.
She is tired, and in pain, but we decided to try and get some sleep in between when the longer breaks come.
However there is no chance for this, so it ends up being a mix of sleeping, and timing the contractions, they are getting more frequent and stronger, but still not longer than 40 seconds, and still occasionally takes a longer break.
She takes another Alvedon.

The pain is getting stronger, and a bit after 04:00 Marina is in such pain, that I again call the hospital, asking what I can do to help her, since she is in such pain.
After a bit of convincing, they now agree that perhaps it is a good idea that we come in.

We grab the stuff we need, and I go and get the car from the parking, and then we go to the hospital.
We arrive around 05:00, according to the Journal we got written in at 05:15.
The time I have now are from the Journal, I only know that it all went very fast.

They again ask if the water had broken, and I explain no, but that we were there earlier since we thought it had broken earlier.

The again put the monitor thing on her belly, and this time the contractions show up strong, so half an hour later the midwife comes back, and feel inside of her, this time they say, that she is fully open, and the baby want to get out, so we go directly to the delivery room.

When we get there, they ask Marina to push, hoping the water will break. But it doesn’t, so at 05:40 they manually break the water, the first birth contraction starts at 05:45, and 4 pushes and some laughing gas later at 05:52, Emilia is born.

The first thing she does when she comes out is pooping, then screaming, but only briefly, as soon as she is on Marinas chest, she is quiet again.

I was so happy, I even cried a little bit, very emotional moment.
We spend most of the morning in the delivery room, waiting for a free spot on the BB, (This is a department on Swedish Hospitals, where women go to recover after the delivery)
While we waited they came to weigh the baby as well as doing some basic checks.
She weighed in at 3.7kg, and was 51cm long, and they also measured 35.5cm around the head.

But right after lunch we got a family room in the BB department, We went there, and I went home to grab some stuff, as well as getting some sleep, and a shower, did not get much sleep, to much excitement, but at dinner I came back, I took the laptop with me since I had earlier found out there were wireless internet at the hospital, we called Marinas parents on Skype and turned on video.
We slept there over night, we were both very tired, with not much sleep, she did scream once a lot, and it was when we put her in the baby bed, we took her back but she kept screaming, we rang the bell for the Midwife, and she came, and explained that many babies don’t like to sleep alone, and that she might be hungry.

I got a nice talk to this Midwife, and she gave many very handy tips, I also asked about cat’s, sicne we have two of them, she told that she herself has cats, and two children and that it was never an issue, also officially there are no recommendations, there are two believes, one is that having them around when you are small will strengthen the resistance to allergy, and the other is that one should be careful if there are allergies already in the family.
Since my whole family has pets, and I had them aroudn when I was a kid, and Marina is clearly not allergic, we are not so worried, we do keep them out of the children bed and stuff, but they are allowed to come and sniff, and investigate.

Anyway, the night went pretty smooth, we did wake up several times, but we did get some sleep. The next morning we were waiting to have the children doctor check up the health of Emilia, they asked if we wanted to stay another night, but both Marina and me wanted to go home.
The doctor checked Emilia, and all was well, so he allowed us to go home, but that we had to come back for additional check-up.
So I went home to go and get the car, and in the afternoon we were back home.
Since none of us had much sleep over the weekend, we tried to get some sleep, I was very tired, and so was Emilia.

Today we went back to see the doctor as well as making a hearing test.
All is well except she is a bit Yellow, apparently something quite common that should go away, but just in case we have another appointment on Thursday to see that it is getting less.

For more pictures, be sure to head over to the album.

Give Blood

So I have joined the group of people who donate blood.
I’m already a donor, and now I’m also a blood donor.
It is something I had been thinking about but never got around to, and when The Swedish Pirate Party launched the campaign Sharing is Caring I decided to join, so I went there and did the “intake test” where they ask you a whole bunch of questions, take blood samples etc.
And Yesterday I was there for the first time to give blood.
Pretty pain less actually, they give some sandwiches and Juice while you wait, then they drain 4.5dl of blood, that is approx 10% of the total amount in the body, and it all took some 30 minutes while the actual blood giving was only 10 minutes.
So I strongly encourage everyone to do the same, help your fellow humans and give blood.
And if you want to support the Sharing is Caring campaign at the same time then you can click the banner above, and register every time you donate.

Server Outage

As some of you noticed since Sunday at 09:18 Stockholm Time, the server has been mostly offline.
Well the reason why is that since I moved I have a new ISP called ComHem.
Unfortunatly it is the only choice for high speed internet besides ADSL in this house.
The reason I say unfortunatly is that I have heard really bad things about them, and well when I did my research I found that they block several ports such as port 25(Mail), port 80(HTTP) and since a web server needs to have port 80 open for the world to be able to see it, I had to find some kind of solution.

And here in Sweden there is a company called PRQ, some of you might know them as the company that hosted Piratebay back in the days.

Anyway they also have a VPN solution, where you VPN to them and get a anonymous internet connection, but this service can also be used to run a server when your ISP is blocking it, I pay 150kr/month for this.

But this last 2 days it was down, I could traceroute to their internal network, so my end was fine, but after that it just timed out.

I have been trying to reach them several times, both by Mail and by Phone, and only once was I able to speak to them, that was Sunday evening, and they guy explained that they are rebuilding on the site, but no ETA.

What I’m most dissapointed about is that no notification was given prior to this work, and no status during the work, Not even a notice on the website. I also find it rather annoying that as a paying customer my service was down for almost 3 days.

According to my Sitemonitoring the site has been up for very short times, but that it is now stable for some time.
I have still not got a reply on the mail I sent to them, so I have no confirmation that it will stay up, but let’s hope it stays stable.

Issues with album

I noticed there were some issues with the album not working.
This was because I had changed the URL for the gallery when I moved it.
I have now reverted it back and it should all work again.
Sorry about that.

Suggestion for server fix?

Ok so I have looked around a bit for a replacement for the broken server hardware.

Going for Co-location will be to expensive I think, as I would have to build a completely new server to fit in a server rack cabinet, and pay a rather steep monthly cost.
If I have the server at my house the only monthly cost would be the electricity bill, the server I already have, except it is currently broken.

I Identified it to be a problem with the Motherboard and one of the harddrives, not sure what broke what, but the fact is that one of the drives will spin down all of a sudden and then spin up and make noises repetably, not a good sign.
Also the motherboard will not detect any harddrives connected to the Primary IDE channel, This is the same place the broken harddrive were connected.

Currently in the server there are 3 IDE drives(2x 250GB and 1x 160GB) and 1x SATA(250GB) drive, the drive that is not working is one of the 250GB IDE drives.

Since I bought the two 250GB IDE drives at the same time, and they are of the same brand I don’t trust the second drive to last much longer.
The drives were set up to in a RAID 1, mirroring each other as a safety, this is also why I was able to pull the data off them, and move the pictures to the other server.
However this redundancy is not in place at the moment on the temp server, as i told before I have no ongoing backup on it, I do have a backup of the albums as they looked when i Copied it to the temp server, but anything new added will not be backed up at the moment.

But I have looked around for a new Motherboard that will support most of the hardware I already have to limit the cost of the repair, but also to add some future proofing.
And I found a nice board that has repeated good reviews, and has confirmed support for Linux.
The Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R costs about €100, and supports the current CPU and RAM that I have, as well as future many current CPU’s.

But since one of the IDE drives are failed and the other one is likely to soon fail, I was thinking to add new SATA drives instead, and set up a RAID 5 for a performance boost as well as keep redundancy.
And harddrives are not so expensive now, so I could add some performance and capacity to the server by just replacing the IDE drives with SATA.
Since server is on all the time, I look at server grade harddrives, they usually cost slighly more but in the end they last longer, the previous 250GB SATA drive is a server grade drive, and the MTBF is almost double than a normal drive.
While the IDE drivers were just the cheapest I could find at the time, and he 160GB IDE drives is an old drive I had lying around I use it as boot drive and for the operating system.

I wanted to get Samsung drives since the have good performance, low noise level and usually resonabley priced, also the server grade drives carry a 5 Year warranty.
Unfortuantly I could not find a price or anyone selling the 250GB version, the closest I could find was the 320GB, this one cost €65 and in a Raid5 you need a minimum of 3 drives making a total of €195.

This way I can use the 250GB as a boot drive, and set the 3 drives up in a Raid5.

So there it is, I need about €300 to get the server up and running again, if you are interested in donating towards this, let me know, I will take the Electricity bill, and you get my promise that your site/album will be Green energy, I buy only wind power.

Falling back.

Ok I have moved everything to the temporary server since Wordpress and Gallery dont’ like to be on different servers if you want to integrate them.

But it is working now, Album is up and working, and so is the blog.
If you are hosted on eldaria, and something is not working let me know.

Please do remember however there is no backup or disk redunadancy on this temp server.
Also the hardware is not so new, so it might be slow at times.

But untill I can afford to replace the parts in my real server, this will have to do.

Update on Troubles.

Ok so I have transfered the pictures, it took 2 days.
But they are there now. However it does not work.
I am currently hosting at a provider called Dreamhost.
And not only was it super slow to transfer, but I can not get the album to work.
And I’m 99% sure it has to do with the way they built their servers, it is super slow, and basically the album times out.

So I will for now leave the blog there, but will set up one of my older computers to act as a web server for only the album, unfortunatly it is not so fast hardware, but at least we get the album back online, please note that I have no backup running on this server.
I will try to do this tomorrow, I’m too tired today from work, so will take it a bit easy.

For the future I’m thinking of some different solutions, Since my current server is not working, and I have identified it to be a problem with the mother board and possibly one of the harddrives, there is little I can do now, due to tight finances.
For the hosting in US I pay about USD380 for 2 years, this hosting is expiering in April, and I’m not sure I will renew it, it is too slow, and does not work really good.

Additionally I am paying electricity to keep my home server on 24/7, Now that was not a problem before, since it was included in my rent.
Now it is no longer included, so although electricity is not so expensive in Sweden, and My electricity is Green, I buy from a company that only sells Electricity from Windpower, it is still an extra cost.

So I was thinking of building a new server, and put it in a co-location.
This is more expensive than having a web hosting, but it has a lot of advantages.

First, it is still my own server and I decide what to do with it, how much hardware is in it, etc.
By Co-locating it, it will be in a secure environment and have a high speed link to the internet(Electricity is included).
Cost: about 60 Euro per month + initial cost of building a server that can bo co-located(different casing and cooling system).

Other option is when I have some more money I will just fix the server I have, and put it back online keeping it at my house, it has worked for many years, actually I had a server online since 2001, have a look here: Internet Archive
And according to The site monitoring service That I signed up for back in 2005 I have an average uptime of 97.835% since June 2005. Pretty good I think.
Cost: Some electricity, not sure how much actually, have not calculated how much it uses. + some Hardware to fix it up.

Well for now and until april I think we can survive with the temporary solution.
Let me know what you think, in the comments, or by mail, msn, Pigeons, smoke signals.