Vacationing

Summer came and with it my vacation and the heat in my apartment is really draining my will to do anything (such as blogging).

RSS

Things that have happened since April, I wrote a RSS feature into the blog applet, but I'm not happy with it. It's using PyRSS2Gen and that module can't handle markup in the article description (such as most RSS feeds these days use CDATA tags to embed the content in the RSS item description).

When I have some energy I'll have to rewrite that using etree or something.

Things breaking

I finally got around to updating the last system that was running NetBSD 7.1 to 8.1; a Soekris Engineering Inc. NET6501-30. It's a really nice, compact (1RU) system with a real serial port, serial BIOS and even a serial management controller.

What I noticed was that the system would not get as far as runnig its POST, although powering down and powering up again would sometimes work. Going to the uManager with +++ on the serial console would reailably work and from there it's possible to reset the CPU which would also sometimes get it to POST.

Once it gets to POST it runs just fine again, so I'm good until the power goes out.

Soekris Engineering Inc. apparently has gone out of business so no possibility to RMA it either... But according to a forum post(tm) it might be possible to prolong its life by replacing a pair of caps near the power plug, so I've ordered some and will try it when they arrive.

More things breaking

And while I was annoyed with this problem, I noticed that my phone's battery apparently has started to swell, levering the back off the edge of the phone. Great. It's still under warranty but of course as I filled out the form on "Nokia"'s website they a) didn't have an option to choose swelling battery and b) their system wouldn't email me the RMA shipping label. What's even more fun is that when I told support about it and confirmed that no, it's not in my spam folder, went completely silent.

This is a device under warranty, WTF?

Fortunately my brother lent me his old nexus 5x (a really nice phone! If only it had QI charging it would be perfect) or I'd be without a phone or have to buy something just to get by. Pretty ridiculous.

I guess I'll wait a bit and see if they do anything. If not I guess I'll have to make an appointment with the Hon. Customer Ombudsman. Grr.

Make note, dear reader, don't ever buy anything from HMD Global a.k.a. "Nokia".

Not broken

Someone on /r/pebble linked to an ebay auction for original pebble time metal wrist straps though and I bought one on impulse. It's beautiful but a bit on the heavy side. Seems to weigh more than the watch itself.. :-)

As I recall, the reason I didn't get the metal strap with my pebble when I bought it was that it was on backorder, so it's nice to finally have it.

Vacation

On to the present! This vacation I've promised myself that I won't sleep it away like usual but will actually get up at 7am when Alfons wakes me (it's also cooler in the morning which is nice) so I can actually do something. So far it's just about worked which makes me optimistic.

If I can get over the mental hurdle of getting my butt out the door I will see about implementing one or two of the plans I've brewed up (camping with the bike or going to Tallin or something).

Cheerio,

Staffan