Bluetooth - Vista vs Ubuntu

I was pretty sure this laptop came with an inbuilt bluetooth device. As far as I could recollect, that's what I saw while purchasing it last January from Bandung. The sleek look of this HP Compaq Presario V3736TU model, with the Core 2 Duo CPU, 120St GB HDD, 2 GB RAM configuration made it quite a ne at piece of machinery worth purchasing. But when I decided to turn on the Bluetooth device, I could not find where to turn it on from! The Vista help suggested to look into the Control Panel, but I couldn't find anything pertinent there. The System Devices didn't show any Bluetooth device. So I was pretty much convinced that the laptop was probably Bluetooth compatible, but there was no device installed. They had oversold the commodity, and now that I'm back in India, I cannot go back to Bandung where I bought it from.

When I contacted the HP customer care, over their (quite impressive) chat facility, they confirmed that the Bluetooth device was indeed not there. And to use Bluetooth I would need to purchase a dongle. The customer care lady was cooperative and helpful in her approach, and I believed her. (Later thanked her too, and sent a feedback to HP commending her excellent customer service).

The funny thing happened next, quite recently - a twist in the tale! I installed Ubuntu Linux, turned on the Bluetooth application (just for the heck of it), turned on the Bluetooth in my mobile, and..... the devices started SEEING each other. WTF!!! So the problem didn't actually lie in the laptop. The culprit throughout had been Vista! It just couldn't recognize the Bluetooth hardware that was present in this machine. And with Linux I didn't have to make any conscious effort, it got presented gracefully in front of me.

However, technically, there's a bug (and a solution).

The bug: While my laptop was able to detect the phone, and send data to it, there seemed to be some problems to send data in the reverse direction – phone to laptop. My phone (SE K800i) could detect the laptop, but failed to successfully pair. It kept on asking for a passcode, whereas the laptop didn't, and the connection wouldn't persist.

The solution:

Installed kdebluetooth.

Put the phone in dicoverable mode.

In Ubuntu, opened up a terminal and typed 'hcitool scan' to find the pshone's address. It displayed something like “00:1A:59:58:A9:B2”.

Now ran the following - passkey-agent /usr/bin/bluez-pin. For eg., in my case, "passkey-agent /usr/bin/bluez-pin 00:1A:59:58:A9:B2".

Left it running in the terminal, then opened konqueror by clicking on the kbluetoothd icon. Clicked on the phone's icon, then the OBEX File transfer icon from the list that came up. The phone then showed up with a message asking if it could pair with the laptop. I entered a pin (now this was where it usually failed earlier) but now it waited and then the bluez-pin window opened up on the laptop. Entered the same code there, and it paired successfully.

This is a one-time job. Once the device (laptop) is successfully added to the phone, from the next time onwards it would pair automatically when bluetooth is turned on in both the devices.

I remain ever-thankful to jts88 (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=403717&highlight=bluetooth+pairing) for providing this wonderful solution. You're the man!!

Use the mobile to blog photos!

The magazine shop at Begumpet Railway Station was closed today morning. After searching frantically for a weekly mag in the surrounding newspaper stalls, which I would try to devour in my subsequent train journeys, and finding none, I returned back to the platform. Having nothing more to do before the train arrives, I tried to check out if I could use the "send to blog" feature in my Sony Ericsson K800i mobile phone to post pictures to my blog. I had tried this earlier, sometime last year in Indonesia, using their Indosat service. And had failed. This time it worked! Cheers to Airtel postpaid!

How this got achieved: First, selected a picture (it's an obscure one, that of a full moon taken from the railway station platform, while returning home one evening). Then clicked on 'Send'->'To blog'. Added the title, text, and clicked 'Publish'. A moving progress bar indicated that the data is being uploaded and the blog is being published. After successful upload, I received an SMS, containing the blog address (http://rapail754.blogspot.com) and instructing how to edit the blog entry. I chose to edit (where I had to login using my current blog credentials), after which I got an option of either keeping the picture in the newly created mobile blog (rapail754), or posting it to my "Railroad blues". Wow! I chose "Railroad blues", and the picture got posted there. 'rapail754' got removed.

Subsequently, whenever I would send any picture from my mobile, it would come in directly to this blog.

A neat job of service convergence done by Sony Ericsson (whose full potential I am getting to see slowly), Blogger, of course supported by Airtel GPRS.

Sent from my mobile

Details later.

The Hurricane

"Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world."
- Bob Dylan, Hurricane

How progressive are we, as a nation, where the IPL Cricket League makes headlines after headlines after headlines, and a doctor in Chhattisgarh, having devoted his life for the health care of the poor, is rotting in a prison cell? Shame!

I salute Dr. Binayak Sen, a Samaritan in the truest sense of the word, who continues to remain hopeful after one full year of imprisonment. From the Wiki: "Dr Sen is noted for extending health care to the poorest people, monitoring the health and nutrition status of the people of Chhattisgarh, and defending the human rights of tribal and other poor people. Dr. Sen insists that it is not possible for poor people to have health if they are denied their human rights and the right to livelihood. In May 2007, he was detained by security agencies for his alleged links with Maoist rebels, a charge which he denies. In December 2007, his bail petition was rejected by the Supreme Court of India. His trial commenced on 30 April 2008. He remains in prison."

People who are fighting for this cause have been helpless in front of the laws and governments of this country. 22 nobel laureates have already appealed to the Union Government for the release of Dr. Binayak Sen, without any effect. The politically construed incarceration continues to thrive. It's shameful and frustrating. Apart from some discrete news here and there, this issue lacks visibility, atleast from a national level. News sources say that the court proceedings are moving at a snail's pace, which clearly indicates a lack of pressure on the Government.

"How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game."
- Bob Dylan, Hurricane

An online petition is up on the net demanding the release of Dr. Sen, consisting 2945 signatures as I write this (in a country boasting more than 42 million internet users!).

More news here and here.

(Thoughts triggered by this article, which I happened to read in today's morning train.)

Hello, World!

It works!
Of course, it would.