It's a sad fact that most of the mobile operators, in the UK at least, sell their mobile broadband solutions with no support for Linux computers, despite the popularity of this operating system on netbooks. There is one notable exception though; Vodafone, which has a research and development team dedicated to open source called Betavine and produce the Vodafone Mobile Connect (VMC) application which enables you to get more out of your mobile broadband. Despite its name, you don't have to be a Vodafone customer to use it, in fact I've been testing it out with my 3 UK account. VMC has been available for some time, but just recently an updated version has been made available and downloads created that target Ubuntu Netbook Remix and the new Dell Mini. The application will do the basics such as managing connections, but also has SMS functionality, usage information, signal strength and upload/download speed indication. If you use the e169g-switch tool currently, I've made a new version which will work with VMC.

Mobile devices are getting more and more powerful, if you get a mobile phone the odds are it will not just be a phone but a camera, organiser, music player, video player and web browser too. You can also extend the capabilities of you phone by downloading applications and games to it. One of the most significant aspects of this is that we are talking about technology that many people already own, not just-released or niche devices, so there is a sizeable potential audience for new applications. There are a vast array of mobile phones out there, each running their own operating system and with different ways of programming them. One thing is common to many of these devices though: Java, Micro Edition (also known as Java ME and J2ME), a version of the platform-independent Java language optimised for mobile devices. You can write applications using Java and the same application on many different types of devices, you don't have to worry about the specifics of the hardware, which might be just as well as models of mobile phone come and go very quickly. You can set up a fully featured development environment for Java Mobile on your Ubuntu machine, gain access to this very popular platform and create the next ground-breaking application for mobile devices!

Ubuntu MID is one of the newest members of the Ubuntu family, a version of Ubuntu made for touch screen mobile devices. It has a very different interface to regular Ubuntu and even Ubuntu Netbook Remix as it is designed with big finger-friendly icons. If you lack a suitable device though to install it on and get the full experience you can still find out a bit more about it by installing an image on VirtualBox. You can run the image in the same way as a live cd but installing it brings more scope for experimentation. As Ubuntu MID is supplied as a disc image rather than an ISO image of a CD the install process is a little different from regular machine setups, but is still quite straightforward; the first step is to grab a copy of the disc image from http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.10/, scroll down to "MID USB image" and download the "Low-Power Intel Architecture MID USB image" to your local hard disc, you should now have a file named "ubuntu-8.10-mid-lpia.img". Next we need to convert this to an image format that VirtualBox can recognise

A few days ago Lifehacker Australia carried a blog post where they said that they felt my method to get the Huawei E169G modem working on an EEE PC was a "tad fiddly". Well, they are probably right, so taking this as a challenge I've had a go at creating a package that will apply these steps automatically and make getting this modem up and running as simple as possible. This is one of my first attempts at packaging, so there might be some problems, however I've successfully tested that it works on both a Xandros and an Ubuntu powered EEE PC. The package is quite basic in what it does, so it may well work on some other Debian-based distributions too.

4777333366448844433777712226666 - a crazy long number, but what does it mean? It represents how you input 'greenhughes.com' into a browser on a mobile phone in terms of key-presses, that is without the pauses required to input the address correctly. Entering an address into a mobile web browser can be a time consuming and pretty miserable task, this example just takes you to the front page, if you wanted to get the RSS feed, which can work really well on a mobile phone, you will be confronted with an even longer task. Every day we walk past resources that feature web addresses with our mobile phones, like adverts, books, magazines and don't bother to use our mobile devices with them. Why? Well it just takes too long. This leads to a bit of a lost opportunity, fortunately there is a way to get web addresses, text and phone numbers onto your mobile by using a technology known as mobile codes, a two dimensional barcode (rather than the one dimensional bar codes scanned by the tills at shops) that contains a small amount of information within it that can be transferred by using the camera on the mobile to pick up the mobile code and turn it back to text. The whole process is quite painless for the user and takes advantage of the cameras on phones that have improved greatly over the last couple of years.

I can't help noticing the number of Asus EEE PCs around now, it is strange to think that twelve months ago these weren't really about and there was still discussion of when will be the "year of the Linux desktop". Of course, events took a different turn, and suddenly the desktop didn't seem so important anymore. The real prize was a computer that was small and convenient, inexpensive and easy to carry about. The EEE PC came supplied with a version of Linux called Xandros (which I'd never heard of until then), but more importantly, in a fatal blow to the argument that Linux is too difficult for non-technical users, it came with an "Easy mode" menu that made finding and running applications very easy, with a tabbed menu and large icons. Now other manufacturers are working on their competitors to the EEE, and Canonical, the company that provides commercial backing to Ubuntu, has been working with a couple of them to produce the Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Update: I've attempted to automate the steps above by using a package, have a look at: Huawei E169G - the easy way

Yesterday I treated myself to a new mobile internet "dongle" to go with my Asus EEE PC. I decided to go for the Huawei E169G usb modem as it matches my black EEE, however there is a small problem with getting this device to work straight away. The problem is that the E169G is a composite device, which basically means that it will ask as a USB memory stick until it is sent a command to tell it to be a modem. The EEE doesn't know about this so you can't use it straight away as a 3G modem in the connection wizard. Fortunatelty, back in April Dale Lane documented in his blog how to send the modem the right command to be able to use it wil the EEE, his blog post on the topic is worth reading as it explains the background to the issue. After experimenting with my friend Keren Mills' E169G (thanks Keren!) to check that I could get this method to work I took the plunge and got my own one. Following the instructions on Dale Lane's blog I was able to send some commands manually to the unit to get it to switch but what I really wanted to do was to get the EEE to recognise the device automatically so I can start a 3G connection without having to run any commands in the terminal. Fortunately this is possible.

One of my aims for this year is to learn the Python programming language. Why? Well it seems to be cropping up all over the place. If you own a Linux machine or an Apple Mac, chances are it is already installed. Google recently made it the primary language for their AppEngine platform. The design ethos behind it is very appealing, a down to business approach to programming that dispenses with needing lots and lots of code and allows the developer to ulitlise powerful libraries to get the job done. Python code can be run on many different devices, and it is possible to use it to develop desktop, server and web applications. Now it can also be used to develop applications for mobile phones. This is very appealing to me as a developer as it takes time to master a new skill and I would rather that skill provides a lot of flexibility and the chance to get involved in a wide variety of challenges.

The most popular post on this blog for some time has been Using you Asus EEE PC on the 3 mobile network, which is no doubt a lot to do with it being linked to from 3 Mobile Buzz. I think it is safe to say that the two hottest gadgets this year have been the Asus EEE PC and the 3G dongle from 3, which put together make a whole new computing experience. Why? I think this may be a similar change to the introduction of mobile phones. It seems to me there is a direct comparison between the way we get onto the Internet and how we use phones. First we started with a hard wired connection, just like the phone, now many of us are on a WiFi connection, which is a bit like a cordless phone, in fact it has a similar range, you can stray a short distance from the location of your network, but if you go to somebody else's house, another workplace or away somewhere you are left with a chore of trying to get access to another network. There are WiFi systems now where you can "roam" between different hotspots, but in some ways that reminds me of the old Rabbit phones where you took the handset with you and had to find a base station to go stand near to make a call.

If you are trying to get a Huawei E169G modem from 3 to work on your EEE then please have a look at this blog post: http://www.greenhughes.com/content/huawei-e169g-easy-way

I've just been helping a friend get her Asus EEE PC working with 3 mobile broadband, which is a service here in the UK that brings a broadband connection to your computer over the 3G mobile phone network rather than using a wired telephone line. Many mobile operators have started offering such a service and it is a great option for people who live in accomodation that does not have a fixed telehone line installed or available, it is also quicker to get up and running than having to wait for ADSL broadband to be provisioned.