Author: Daniel Mettler

Just another pointer for myself (JAPFM): OpenWRT (another site)

Unfortunately I unsubscribed from the FREITAG newsletter quite a while ago, so I missed these great news: FREITAG finally manufactures laptop/notebook bags! :) Officially, they’re only for iBooks and PowerBooks, but they obviously also fit other devices, e.g. a Toshiba Portégé TabletPC :)

Quoting an earlier entry by yours truly:

Why don’t Freitag produce any notebook cases? I’d happily be the first customer :) IMHO, this would well fit their business as their bags are a prime example of very successful mass-customization, too :) Uhm.. I think I will suggest it to them. They could also produce iBook, PowerBook, iPOD cases and such.

Somehow I forgot to mention it to them, but obviously they found it out all by themselves (that’s even better – I don’t like to care for everything myself ;) No doubt this will be a huge success as here, "form follows function" (FREITAG) meets "form follows function" (Apple). FREITAG iPOD cases would have even a greater potential (I don’t think we’ll have to wait for long ;)

Now.. I’m somewhat notorious for having a “difficult” taste in regard to design and functionality ;) So let me state that I’m a bit disappointed about FREITAG using zippers for these laptop bags. I understand that they want to make their bags water-proof, but for me, this is not necessary. I’ve never been a fan of zippers and when it comes to laptop bags I downright hate them. Zippers just aren’t handy (I bet you can imagine many situations where velcro fastenings would have been much handier than zippers, too ;)

Again, here’s what I expect from a good notebook case:

* fits well and tight (I don’t want it too add much to
thickness, weight or size). Basically, it should just add another
protective layer and fit into other bags. Don’t add any handles and
such, just the wrap, that’s it.
* is lightweight (among others, I bought the M200 for its moderate weight)
* is durable and provides sufficient protection. It shall not be
armored though, as this would make it too heavy and too thick and isn’t
necessary at all as I always carry it either in my Freitag “DRAGNET” messenger bag or – seldom – in my yellow/transparent/gray 600 Series Hardlite executive case.
* has Velcro fastening, so it can be opened and closed quickly.
* has an exciting/modern/urban design (don’t we all hate these boring
0815 laptop cases? Yet they are produced “en masse” – I don’t get it).
Likewise, I don’t want any case made of leather (too “classic” –
boring)

That’s the point where I should add, that owning both a Toshiba Portégé M200 TabletPC and an Apple Aluminium PowerBook 15″ I really didn’t find any suitable cases/bags for either of them (note that there weren’t any FREITAG laptop bags at that time yet). The most convincing bags (for my purpose) I found were the foofbag bags. However, whilst the foofbag design is unique and brave and functionality is great, it looks a bit too feminine for my taste. What could I do? I did what I always do in such situations (except when desperately lacking time): I decided to give it a try myself :) So I went to a handful of textiles shops in Zurich and asked whether they sell neoprene fabric. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any that did(!). I found one shop however that sold a fabric similar to neoprene (they use it to manufacture trousers for snowboarding), but I first wanted to check whether I could order some neoprene fabrics in other cities or countries perhaps. Hence I didn’t buy any to date. And well.. now there finally are FREITAG laptop bags! I don’t know whether I should still continue with my endeavour to create my very own, custom-made laptop bags :) For the curious, here’s one of the quick’n’dirty sketches I made (note that the colors are just examples, I would have rather chosen a silvery upper for my own bags):

This list is merely a pointer for myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the many VJ-related topics at 21C3 – hence I’m at home instead of attending 21C3: The Usual Suspects (BTW funny iPod advertisement spoof – Apple’s marketing division obviously hit the bull’s eye once again ;). At least I can cure my sore throat now ;)

21C3: Anti-Honeypot Technology
21C3: AVG ain’t vector graphics
21C3: Biometrie Überwinden
21C3: Black Ops of DNS
21C3: Bluetooth Hacking
21C3: Ciphire Mail
21C3: Cored Programming
21C3: Internet censorship in China
21C3: Introduction to 3DJ
21C3: Introduction to Cubensis
21C3: Introduction to ES-X
21C3: Introduction to Play
21C3: MD5 To Be Considered Harmful Someday
21C3: Mixing VJing and Post-Production
21C3: Natural Language Steganography
21C3: Next-Generation Peer-to-Peer Systems
21C3: Old Skewl Hacking: Infra Red
21C3: On finding the score to visuals
21C3: Passive covert channels in the Linux kernel
21C3: Pirate Radio
21C3: Pixels want to break free of the screen
21C3: Pixels want to dance
21C3: Pixels want to talk
21C3: Practical Mac OS X Insecurity
21C3: Pure Data and Gem for VJs
21C3: SAP R/3 Protocol Reverse Engineering
21C3: Secure Instant Messaging
21C3: Sicherheitsanalyse von IT-Grossprojekten der Öffentlichen Hand
21C3: Sicherheitsmanagement
21C3: State of Emergent Democracy
21C3: The Blinking Suspects
21C3: The Fiasco µKernel
21C3: The Kernel Accelerator Device
21C3: Tor
21C3: Unsicherheit von Personal Firewalls
21C3: USB – Unbekannter Serieller Bus
21C3: Verdeckte Netzwerkanalyse
21C3: Verified Fiasco
21C3: Voting Machine Technology
21C3: Wirklich selbst denken oder durchdrehen
21C3: xDash
21C3: XMPP/Jabber

(Credits to Firefox, Vim and regexps which greatly simplified the task of compiling this list :)

For Gentoo Linux, do the following (adjust where necessary):

0. Make sure you have an ATX board and a power button ;)

1. Make sure your kernel has support for ACPI (either built-in or as modules)

2. # emerge acpi acpid

3. # rc-update add acpid default

4. for kernel 2.6 (skip this step if ACPI support is compiled into the kernel):
# echo “ac” >>/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6
# echo “button” >>/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

5. add parameters apm=off and acpi=on to your kernel boot line (e.g. in /boot/grub/menu.lst)

6. # reboot

(Source: Linux für alle. Thanks to maol for the pointer; other interesting articles: Server shutdown via Apache [Caution!], LaTeX Business cards)

CleanSoftware.org – Internet software

mailexpire – free temporary email addresses…

DriverGuide.com

Let’s face it, finding the right device driver can be a tedious, time consuming, often impossible task! The Driver Guide was created to make finding driver updates a whole lot easier. With the help of thousands of our members, we have compiled a massive database archive of drivers and resources that is by far the largest and most comprehensive on the Web.

ACK! :)