June 2011 Archives

Photo taken with Ms. Jen's Nokia N8.

Wed 06.29.11 - I have Meego 1.2 community release dual booting on my Nokia N900. Amusingly, the first thing I did was take photos. The photo, above, on the home screen is not my photo, but the Meego Community default.

The photos that I took with the Meego N900 were much more entertaining, as the camera plus the Meego dual boot completely overexposed the images in a lovely way. My only problem is that I can't get them off the device right now to show you, not by bluetooth, usb, or web upload. Photos stuck on a device are unhappy photos.

The first Meego developer review released a couple of months ago was unusable for me as it did not have working wifi nor did it recognize my sim chip, but this new one, the Meego 1.2 Midsummer community release, is usable with a few caveats. It is exciting to see mobile OS software in progress. The wifi is working and so is my T-Mobile sim chip, so I can go online and connect, but I am not able to use bluetooth, the microUSB cable, nor have I been able to upload any photos to upload to Flickr's mobile web site.

My next trick is to attempt to build a QML Flickr upload app with Meego components. Wish me well.

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Here is how I did the dual boot install of Meego to my N900:

I followed these instructions at the Meego wiki for installing a dual boot on my Nokia N900 with the Meego 1.2 midsummer release on the MMC/MicroSD card:
wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900
wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/Dual_Boot
wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/MMC

I started by installing U-Boot from the Nokia Devel Extras repository to the Nokia N900 to do the boot to MMC on launch.

The BIG thing I did to make it all work was to first format the microSD card while it was in the Nokia N900 with the Maemo file manager, so that it was a clean microSD formatted the way that Maemo & Meego would like it best. Then, I used a card reader & the instructions for Mac OSX on my MacBook.

After being gone for the most part of three and a half months to Austin, Orlando, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and India, I am now home for a good stretch.

[Ms. Jen knocks on the nearest wooden object, which in this case is a chair.]

In late March, on my mom's birthday, her mother, my grandmother, passed away. In the intervening three months since, as my aunts, sister, and mom have worked to clean out grandma's apartment and get her estate settled, more and more things have entered my apartment. Things as small as tiny bird figurines and as large as a three bay couch. A much wanted couch, but it arrived the day I was departing for India. A mild panic ensued to try and rearrange furniture and the other newly arrived objects to make way for a couch nearly as long as my living room, as well as try to get to LAX on time.

I returned from India ten days ago to find there was only a small amount of room to get around in my place and now after recovering from jetlag, exhaustion, catching up with work, and an epic case of the hives, I cleaned my apartment today. By cleaning, I put things to right, determined what needed to go to my storage, what needs to be returned to its proper owner, and what needs to be put into the Closet of Doom for moderate ease of access.

I still need to rearrange the furniture in the living room, pack up one bookcase of books, notebooks, and sketchbooks, and take a whole load of things and one futon to storage. Once this in done, I will feel like my peace of my place is back. Although, after today's spree, I feel more than three-quarters of the way there.

Conquering the mess on my office desktop is next, after more blogging.

Tues. 06.14.11 - More photos to be added.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Thurs. 06.09.11 - Today we got up nice bright and early to get to the Hyderabad airport in time for a morning flight back to Chennai. Once in Chennai, we had lunch at Abhi's family's house before going back to the lovely Madras club for a good rest and then to dinner at Kryptos, a Greek restaurant. A lovely bridge day.

All wedding photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Wed. 06.08.11 - The wedding ceremonies, both in the Hyderbad and Tamil traditions, were conducted in the morning from 8am to about noon, with the Hyderbad brahmin ceremony being first and then the Tamil ceremony, followed by the wedding lunch afterwards.

The best part about the Hyderbad and Tamil Hindu wedding ceremonies is that almost all the families and close friends are involved and on the stage or involved in the pujas and rituals. It was really lovely to be able to be right there and be apart of the ceremonies.

It was a true treat to be invited to attend Abhi and Sudha's wedding, big thanks to both the Natarajan and Bahumanyam families for their gracious hospitality.

Big, gigantic congratulations to Abhi and Sudha, may their marriage be filled with love, laughter, and much joy.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Tues. 06.07.11 - Written description upcoming

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Mon 06.06.11 - Chennai to Hyderabad for the wedding. Write up coming next.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Sun 06.05.11 - These are all photos from my first day in Chennai for Abhi & Sudha's wedding. This was pre-wedding festivities 'down' day. Fellow(ess) wedding guest, Diana Morales, and I arrived about the same time in the early early morning to the Chennai airport and after a wee bit of delay due to slow baggage, we plus Abhi, who picked us up, were off the Madras Club to check in. A small sleep was procured and after Abhi had a groom ceremony, we met up with Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan (aka Chandru) for lunch at a famed Chennai dosa/idli place. It was tasty.

After lunch, Chandru and I went off to meet up with Sharanya Manivannan, and they guided me in shopping for some appropriate Indian attire to wear to the wedding. Chandru and Sharanya were very helpful, as my own taste veres towards minimalism and South Indian weddings are to be bright & sparkly. I am good at sparkly personality, but not sparkly clothes.

In the evening I met back up with Abhi and Diana, as well as met Kelvin another wedding guest who had just arrived and we went to dinner at Ente Keralam, which was very tasty, before turning in to get a good night's sleep.

Sat 06.04.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 when enroute to India, somewhere over Iran or the Caspian Sea.

In February 2008, I went to India for the Nokia Urbanista Diaries photo mobile blogging trip. It was great.

My second day in India, I met up with a bunch of Chennai area photographers to participate in the 4th Chennai Photowalk.

As I walked up to the arranged meeting area on Anna Salai, I did not see anyone else with a camera and began to panic a bit about getting the directions wrong in my jetlagged haze when I saw a tall guy wearing cargo shorts and a Quicksilver t-shirt with a big DSLR camera. I walked up to him and asked if he was going to the photowalk, he said yes and that he didn't know where folks were. We introduced ourselves and then he then called and found out the meeting place was around the corner.

Abhi and I have been friends ever since and every time I have come to London in last three years Abhi and I meet up for a meal and sometimes a photowalk. Tomorrow morning I am flying from London, where I am now on a layover, to Chennai to go to his wedding.

Big Congrats in advance to Abhi and Sudha on their wedding this week!

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 on Fri. 06.03.11.