Archive - Nov 10, 2010
Updating to Kernel Power 44 on the #N900 - multiboot, nitdroid, fcam and blessn900
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 22:29This evening, I went to update any programs on my N900 that had new versions. One of which was kernel power. Kernel Power is a wonderful package for the N900. The parts I like most are the battery usage statistics, IPv6 support, different file system support, and the ability to run mobile hotspot.
That said, I like to push the limits of my N900 so I’ve also got multiboot and nitdroid installed. So, I’m not surprised when things break when I do an upgrade, and things broke when I tried updating the kernel power package.
After poking around for a while, I found a fairly easy way to get things back. First, I tried using various things like pressing 0 when multiboot came up to get a stock kernel boot. That didn’t work. I booted into Nitdroid, and tried to edit the files from Nitdroid. No luck.
Finally, I ended up with this as the best procedure I could come up with.
First, I reflashed just the kernel. I still had my image around from upgrading to PR 1.3, so it was pretty easy:
sudo ./flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_20.2010.36-2.002_PR_COMBINED_002_ARM.bin --flash-only=kernel -f -R
At this point, I rebooted, and still had multiboot and all my other applications running. I pressed 0, and this time I got to a stock kernel. I logged in, and uninstalled multiboot, and reinstalled it. I also installed multiboot-kernel-maemo and multiboot-kernel-power.
apt-get remove multiboot
apt-get install multiboot multiboot-kernel-maemo multiboot-kernel-power
I started testing and everything is back in order. Nitdroid is also still working. Now, I need to find out what the updated kernel power really does for me and start messing around a little bit more with Meego.
I also am using Blessn900 with the fcam drivers, and at this point, they appear to be working properly as well.
Next, I’ve reinstalled easy-chroot and easy-deb-chroot. I had these around a few reflashes ago and it is time to retry them. Next, I’ll see if I can get Qole’s easy-meego-chroot running.
Adding an RSS Feed Widget to Blogger
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 11:33Today, I received a phone call from an old friend asking how to add a list of recent blog posts from another blog onto the side of his blog. What he was looking for is an RSS Feed Widget. He uses Blogger, so I thought I would dust off my old Blogger blog and try to find the easiest and cleanest way to do it.
However, first, I had a problem. My old Blogger blog hasn’t been updated in years and was still using classic templates. My guess was that the there might already be a gadget easily available for the new templates, so I thought I would start off by upgrading to the new templates.
This is where I ran into my first problem. You see, I set up the Blogger account a long time ago using my gmail id. Since then, I’ve started using a Google Account tied to my Orient Lodge domain. It can be confusing at times and I wish there were better ways of linking the accounts.
Anyway, when I went into my dashboard on Blogger, I found that I could create a post, and change a few minor settings, but I couldn’t change the template or design. After a while I finally figured out that I was logged in using my Orient Lodge userid which did not have administrative rights to the blog. I logged in using my gmail id and upgraded to the new template.
Then, I started looking around for a good predefined template that provides a nice RSS feed functionality. I didn’t find any, so I started looking for a more general approach. Finally, I settled on Widgetbox.
Here is what you should do:
Go to http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/rss. Put in the desired Feed URL. This is not the URL for the website itself, but for the feed. As an example, the Feed URL for Orient Lodge is http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/feed. Different blogs have different URLs for their feeds, so you’ll probably have to poke around a little bit.
Once you set the parameters you want, click on Get Widget, and then the Blogger button. It will then take you to a page where you can add the widget to your blog. After this, you may want to go to the Design page on your blogger dashboard and in the page elements section, move the widget to the place you want it on your blog.
It is worth noting that you can also add widgets this way to other blogging platforms. There are probably lots of other ways to do this, but this is one that I found that seems particularly easy. Do you add lists of other blog posts on your website?
