Category Archives: Linux

With my Wife’s new HTC Inspire (Android 2.2 based) phone, we had a strange issue with the wireless connection to our home router.  After a week of using it, it suddenly stopped connecting to our router, it was so irritating, we nearly returned the phone.

Luckily I found this fix online:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=683639

1) Download an app called WiFiStatic from the App Market. WiFiStatic takes each DHCP assigned IP address and stores it in a small database to be re-applied whenever you are back in range of the same Router again. It is not an ideal solution as you may have to re-scan and re-assign if you visit a busy hotspot, but this is a two press function, so it’s not that onerous.

2) Turn off your Router. Make sure the WiFi on your phone is off too.

3) With the router off, clear your Remembered WiFi connections (or at the very least the Netgear connection). Once that’s done, turn the Router on again and wait until it is full back up again.

4) When the Router is fully operational again, turn on your wifi on the phone and let is scan for and connect to the Netgear Router. You may need to tell it to connect from the Wireless Settings menu on the phone.

5) The phone should now connect to the Router successfully. If it doesn’t, repeat the above procedure.

6) With the phone connected to the router, fire up WiFiStatic. Check Auto Switch and Show Visual Prompt if they are not already selected, then Tap Add configuration at the bottom of the screen.

7) The IP address and other settings assigned by your router should be displayed at the top of the screen, at the bottom should be the name of your router and its MAC address. If not then tap Menu > Generate to populate the form.

8)Tap Menu > Done when everything is ok.

That’s it. Now when you move into range of your Netgear, you should get connected, though it does take a bit longer than normal (the Router still wants to assign an address first before accepting the static IP). You can speed this up by changing the Device table on the router to always keep the Phone’s static IP open.

This shouldn’t work as all my other attempts with Static IP failed, but I’ve had five days now of instant connection to WiFi at home, so something has been freed up.

I has worked like a charm so far for us, and the phone is just amazing.  I see why people really like smart phones, and in particular, Android phones.  It replaces your MP3 player, camera, phone,  PDA, camcorder, and even you netbook for most things.  Pretty remarkable what they can put in your pocket now.

A quick bit of advice, if you want to extend the battery life of your Linux (and probaby windows) netbook and use Firefox, install Flashblock.  It turns out when ANY flash animation is playing, the processor clocks to maximum and the CPU use goes way up.  The faster the clock, the more power it uses and the more heat it generates.  The nice thing about Flashblock is that you can decide if you want to see something like a Flash video you can, but most of the time you can just load a web page quickly and easily without sucking down the battery.  What made me realize this was thinking about the iPad.  It is very quick on the net, and the reason, partially, is that it does not run Flash.  So, no Flash increases battery life, speeds page load times, and makes the machine look like it is blazing fast on the internet.  You only really notice the lack of Flash on some sites, like Ikea and Rolex, both of witch are impossible to use without flash.  Most of the time, it just blocks annoying ads.

Ah, finally, some Linux again on the Netbook. I fully agree with a statement my wife Tiffany made last night, Netbook makers should just admit they really suck at running any version of Windows and just install Linux on there all the time. It is much smaller, can run on much less RAM, and never crashes. The never crashes is the most crucial thing to me. My typical Windows XP computing experience on the netbook:

Boot the machine. Pretty quick.

Wait the desktop to load and wait for the hard drive to stop grinding away.

Acknowledge even more updates are needed.

Install operating system updates.

Acknowledge virus scan updates needed.

Install virus scanner updates.

Reboot machine

Wait for updates to install while shutting down.

Wait for the desktop to come back.

Get more warning about updates.

Rinse, repeat about 3 times.

Finally get to working desktop (which I have unused icons on, acknowledge that warning.)

Try to run a web browser and virus scanning software at the same time.

Cry

The sad thing is, under Windows XP, the netbooks can surf the web, ok, and run basic productivity, barely.

Under Linux I can surf at almost full speed, perform real world computing, such as image editing and word processing, and not worry about if I have extra icons on my desktop or an update needs to be performed. All at the same time. I know for a fact Microsoft wants netbooks dead. Why do you think paid pundits are all saying netbooks are dead already. It’s because you can’t charge $300 for an operating system on a item which often costs less than $300. Heck, even the OEM price is close to $85 for most versions of Windows. This is a HUGE chunk of the price of a netbook. We have not even begun to count the price of some decent productivity software, like Office or Photoshop, which cost more than the hardware!

Under Linux (Ubuntu in this case) I have a FREE (As in free beer) Office Suite, OpenOffice 3.1. It is not a stripped down, basic office suite, but the exact same software I run on my desktop. Then I have the GIMP. Again, this is not stripped down, basic graphics program, but something that can rival Photoshop for any home user. They both free and run much better under Linux than Windows. I also have video editors, sounds editors, games, and a thousands of other applications, for free, available to me. So, to summarize, I can pay Around $400 for a decent netbook + $300 for MS Office, + $80 for Photoshop Elements (or $600 for full version) + $??? for everything else. So, you are looking at spending $1,000 or so for your “Cheap” netbook, or you can get it with Linux on there and spend $350 nothing extra. Hmm, which should I choose? This is why Mircosoft wants netbooks to die, and die quickly. Sadly, the makers of netbooks want them to die as well. Not enough profit and just as many warrany repairs and unhappy customers as a $1,500 laptop they made a couple hundred bucks on.

If netbooks go away, it is not because the public does not want them or abandons them for iPhones or tablets, it is because the makers and Microsoft can’t make much money off of them. In the end, that is why companies are in business, to make money. If they don’t, they kill the product, and who can blame them? They just won’t be honest why they killed them off.