Congratulations to Microsoft for buying Skype. They simply destroyed the compatibility with Linux.

Update: I actually seems to be working now. However, it's not brilliant at all, the quality is unacceptable for any standard, in my opinion. The sound tends to be very unnatural, and it gets stuck for a few times every single second, so you must sometimes guess what the person at the other end is saying. Furthermore, the video gets behind for about 7-10 seconds after just a few minutes of talking. I talked with a lot of  friends from twitter, and they all complain about Skype. I have no idea where Microsoft is heading towards. 

 Who has not heard of Skype? It's probably one of the most known and popular service for voice and video chatting over the web, and it's been a wonderful product a few years ago. The times in which the quality of both sound and video were great have disappeared a long time ago, and all that's left today is a poor service, with quality which is below any acceptable level and disastrous compatibility (given the fact that mobile and Linux usage have significantly increased over the last few years).

Skype's decay has actually started before it getting acquired by Microsoft, but Microsoft only made everything worse. Before the Microsoft story, Skype was somehow working for me. I am using Linux most of the time, because not only I enjoy it the most, but my University courseworks and tasks require me to use Linux for almost every single module I have on my course. So I had to use Skype under Linux, which used to work quite decent, I might say.

However, over the last few months, it's been getting worse and worse, and now it is completely unusable under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (after being bought by Microsoft, coincidence?) . From the very beginning, video quality was a total mess under Linux, as the colors were completely out of their place and I always had a lot of shadows of different colors going on in the place where my image should have been (my image was still in the background, with all that going on on top of it). But recently, it started to crash frequently, mostly when I was trying to answer a call (calling worked just fine). And it still used to be decent, even like that!

But now, it reached the point when it signs in, and that's virtually all it can do. There are no connections going on at all between me and the other contacts, no matter what device/OS they use. All contacts appear as offline, I appear offline to them, I can't call, they can't call, so it's completely useless, and this has been happening for about a month now.

I gave up any chance that Microsoft will even think about fixing something, the last update they launched has done nothing good (it seems to have broken anything which was working), except bringing compatibility with MSN (which by the way, I heard they are planning to close and use Skype as their main messaging service). I just suppose they are probably trying to close down the compatibility with Linux because their recently-launched Windows 8 seems to be a flop, and Linux seems to be gaining more and more market share (or simply "users", because it doesn't really have market share as it's open source).

Therefore, the only chance of getting a Skype conversation is through Windows, but the situation is not exceptionally good even there, while doing Windows-to-Windows video calls (but this is another story). Microsoft's own software doesn't work good on their own operating system, so there is nothing new here. They simply deserve their Windows 8 to fail so bad that they will be motivated to do much better software, which works exceptionally at least on their own software!

Don't get me wrong, I am not asking for a flawless product from them for Linux. All I want is one which just does its job, on software it used work on.

The best alternative out there: Google hangouts. Unfortunately, its interface is sometimes confusing for some users, but quality and compatibility wise, it is absolutely perfect. Recommended trying.

PGM Nexus is an application which makes you forget of the power button.

PGM Nexus is a great kernel module (or an app, if you prefer it in simple terms), designed for rooted Galaxy Nexus phones which allows you to turn your screen on or off using just swipe gestures. For example, on my Nexus I just swipe from left to right across the screen, and it powers on. If I do the same thing but on the other direction at the bottom of the screen (where the navigation buttons are located), screen just turns of. It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but after you start enjoying it, it'll be the exclusive mode you turn the screen on and off.

If your power button fails and you are afraid of that, this is exactly what you need. I still can't figure out how it actually works (the screen is off, it doesn't use any power but it still recognizes the swipes), but it's a great idea which is well implemented. It's really great, but because of the kernel thing, it will automatically turn off (if set to start on boot) when a kernel is flashed, but selecting that option again seems to stick through reboots afterwards.

Only drawback: it's $3. There's a free version available, but people complain that it completely stops working after a week. So you decide on which way to go. 

Jailbreaking Apple's iOS 5.1.1 proves not to be an easy task, you might run into trouble.

I've owned an iPhone 3G when it came out and after my experience with it, I will be never going to buy any iThing again: waiting for new exploits for jailbreak, waiting for new unlock solutions, for every and each iOS version. On Android it is much more simple, and on Nexus particularly, everything is done using Google's own software (and the unlock, if needed, can be realized through a simple PIN code). But I'm not going to compare these aspects, because it's clear who is the winner here.

The idea is that two days ago I've updated my brother's iPod Touch 4G to the latest iOS version (was running an antique one), promising that I'll jailbreak it again (he run into trouble when he was not allowed to install apps that were designed for newer versions of iOS).

So, I simply updated it without any problems, but afterwards I found myself into a stupid situation. No matter what I was doing, I couldn't jailbreak that iPod. I tried several applications of this kind, knowing they are supposed to work properly and to do untethered jailbreak on iPod Touch 4G. None of them finished their job, Absinthe for example started the jailbreak and seemed to do everything needed, but just after rebooting the iPod, it kept returning an error saying something went wrong. After a couple of reboots while trying to run it in different ways, it started to crash even before starting. I wasn't luckier at all with redsn0w, which sometimes seemed to start doing the jailbreak but crashed at the end (iPod still untouched), while other times it even refused to start the jailbreak. And I tried everything, even in Recovery Mode or in DFU, but with no avail.

The solution came with sn0wbreeze (I really recommend you trying with this one), which basically downloads the iOS version and modifies it, adding everything required for jailbreak (including Cyadia and everything else). By using iTunes (Shift + click on Restore, and selecting the modified iOS), I was able to jailbreak that iPod. Of course, this happened after having to apply something else first because I ran into another problem (failed to restore with an error code), but I fixed that easily with a search on Google.

I'm not here to criticize Apple or the guys who take care of jailbreak solutions, but I'm saying that everything is way too complicated and the only loser here is exactly Apple, because the fact that there are so many jailbreak options (4 at a first sight), translates into the following: there is a high demand for this kind of solutions, and iOS is more vulnerable than ever.

I'm not going to post here any links, but you can easily find everything you need with a search on Google. Good luck if you are trying to jailbreak an iDevice and...be patient. :)

In case you have issues with Market on your Android device, here is what you can try.

As you probably know, there are somewhere around 100 000 apps currently available in the Android Market, growing faster and coming forcefully behind Apple's App Store (which has around 200 000 apps). Is isn't currently any problem for Apple, but there's a matter of time until there will be a real challenge for Apple to keep up with the incredible grown of the Android Market.

However, the Market (the place from where apps for Android are officially installed) isn't a perfect app. Actually, it's quite buggy, maybe too buggy in some situations. Nexus One, a device on which the Market worked perfectly and which is considered "the Google Phone", got some problems since it was updated to 2.2. There weren't big problems until about a month ago, and, from then, my phone fails most of the times to install some updates (when more updates are available in the same time).

This is a common problem on many Android devices, and here is what you can try in order to get Android Market working properly. First, disconnect your device from wifi. Then go into Settings | Applications | Manage Applications | All (if these steps doesn't correspond to your device, just find in the settings the list with all apps).

From there, scroll down to "Market", tap on it, and then tap "Clear data", "Clear cache", and "Force stop". This will practically clear everything Market had saved about your apps. Then, connect again to wifi, and start Market. You'll be asked to Accept the "Terms of Use", and then it will list all your installed apps and the available updates on "Downloads" (just like it was before).

Now, just don't force it to update everything. Update every app from the update button (inside the app page), and make sure you don't update two or more apps in the same time. Otherwise, it will continue failing to update some of the apps.

Keep in mind that this is just a temporary solution, and doesn't work at all times. Additionally, make sure you have enough free internal storage memory on your device, as this could be the problem in some situations.

Samsung S2 are quite good external HDDs. Unless you're going to use them with Multimedia Players (Popcorn Hour/WD HD TV).

Samsung S2 external HDDs are quite attractive products. Mostly because of the variety of capacities, and because of the available colors. So, they look good, they are perfect for backups, and they work well (I get somewhere around 25-30 MBs reading/writing rates on my computers). But if you're planning to use them with multimedia players, such as Popcorn Hour or Western Digital HD TV Media Player, they are going to give you an enormous headache.

I also got one, a blue one, with 640 GB, and I have some issues with it. As long as it is on FAT32 file system or HFS+ (Apple native), it works like a charm, both on my Popcorn Hour and on my WD HD TV. But when I'm converting it to NTFS, it is completely unreadable by my both multimedia players.

WD HD TV used to say that it didn't recognize it, but after I was told that an unofficial firmware might make it work with my HDD, now it doesn't react at all when I'm connecting my HDD to it. On Popcorn Hour, it simply says that "USB failed". I tried connecting it through an external USB hub (which was externally powered), in order to exclude the possibility of failing because of not getting enough power, but the S2, formatted on NTFS, won't work at all.

I found on some forums users complaining of this (reproducing exactly the same situation, the S2 work on these multimedia players as long as it isn't formatted as NTFS), but there's no fix for this (only some suggestions that were tried by everybody having these issues, suggestions that don't help).

If you're stuck here, you can format the external HDD as HFS+ (FAT isn't an option, as it has  limitations), and then install MacDrive on your Windows computer (unfortunately, you have to buy it), which will give you the possibility of both reading and writing to HFS+ partitions from Windows. I don't know if MacDrive can format the HDD as HFS+, because I did it from my MacBook.

Anyway, the idea is that if you want to buy an external HDD and you're planning to use it with a multimedia player, you should avoid Samsung's S2 external HDD.

Setting up WDS between Asus WL 520GU and 520GC + WPA encryption gets the whole network into a conflict.

I've decided a few days ago that in order to improve the security of my wireless network, I should change the encryption of the network from WEP (which can be decrypted in under 60 seconds, that's proved), to WPA (which can resist even a year to a decryption attack, experts say).  The reasons was that I had some doubts about the devices operating on my network, but everything is clear now (I have over 10 devices usually connected on the network).

I have two Asus routers, a WL 520GU one (with print server), and a WL 520GC one. I've written some time ago an article on how to set up WDS (or Wireless Distribution System) between them (a method of improving signal into your house for example, by setting them to operate in the same way, under the same name), which is available here (it should be applicable to almost any other models of Asus routers).

So, let's return to the problem from the title. I've changed their both encryption method to WPA, and I've let them continue working. Everything worked smooth for a few tens of minutes, than my devices were disconnected.They reconnected very fast (a few seconds), and continued working, again, for a few tens of minutes.

Then, suddenly, the entire network crashed, all devices were disconnected, and all tries to reconnect failed, as the main router (from which comes the internet connection) was refusing to give addresses to the devices requesting them. I said that it refused to give addresses, because it is practically the one doing the whole job, with the second one only repeating what it "says" to the network. As I wasn't able to receive the addresses, there was no possibility of getting into the routers in order to check the reports to see what could possibly fail like this. A restart of the routers (disconnecting their power cables) made the network start working again (this happened somewhere around 1:30 A.M. in the morning).

And they continued working until the following afternoon, when the network crashed again, creating exactly the same situation. I've searched for an update for the firmware of the routers, but there wasn't any. I've also searched to see if somebody else was having the same problem, and I found a few users reproducing quite the same situation, but the provided fixes were not helping at all.

I changed the encryption back to WEP in that afternoon, and everything has been working perfectly since then (very stable). I can't imagine what could be the problem that caused that crashes, probably that there's an incompatibility between these routers when they're operating in WDS while encrypted with WPA.

So, I repeat. If your Asus WDS crashes while secured with WPA, try changing that with WEP. Hope this helps you.

Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 getting out of control.

A few days ago I presented you Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (here), telling you that it has some bugs at sound (it doesn't work at all with some sound cards) and at booting procedure (or more exactly, it fails the installation procedures and is forced to boot in live CD). However, there is another critical bug that I experienced a few minutes ago.

Here are some details: Pidgin + Chrome were running (nothing else) while I was notified that Gwibber crashed (it was not running, I didn't open it). Everything is...normal until now, I periodically receive notifications telling me that Gwibber crashes (even without running it). But what happened after was....let's say, normal for a pre-release version of Ubuntu. The main problem is that you it makes it difficult to save what you were working on at that time. This is what I'm talking about.

When Gwibber crashed, "Report a problem" has opened, in order to let me send details to developers, to help them fixing the problem. And it seems that, I don't know why, "Report a problem" crashed after that, too. And again. And over and over again. I think that every second, two windows of that type were appearing. That's not much, I know, but for my desktop, which doesn't have video hardware acceleration (lack of drivers), they are a real problem, as it is hard to save anything.

So, here's a new bug that developers need to fix for the final release of Ubuntu 10.10.

Apple promises to fix iPhone 4 signal problems via software update, experts say it's impossible.

Apple published today a letter regarding the iPhone 4 and its signal problems. Officially, it seems that the device really has some problems with the signal, and not the users were actually causing that problems (letter is available here). Apple declared that they have a failing algorithm which calculates the power of the signal, and explained the problem into the letter. They also promised that they are going to fix that problem via an update (in a few weeks), thanking everybody for their patience.

The wireless specialists don't agree with Apple. However, they say that the thing with the bad algorithm can be true, an update can possibly improve the accuracy of the displayed bars (they aren't currently displaying the real signal). But, there still is a problem. The phone loses completely the signal while in the hand, and this isn't a problem caused by a badly configured software. The experts say that this is a problem with the design of the device, when you cover with your fingers or your hand the region which causes the current problems, it will lose the signal in any situation. It doesn't matter what software it is or how it is configured, this is simply a problem with the design of antenna. 

I'm curious to see what happens when Apple will launch the next update, and which will be the people's reaction if the wireless reception problems will not be fixed. 


Full article on Gizmodo here. 

Yahoo! launches broken Android application.

Yahoo! launched two own applications for Android, Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. I've installed them both, and I must tell you that I am disappointed by both. The messenger is completely useless. It connects to Yahoo!, but it doesn't display any contact as online. All my contacts are seen as offline, even if I currently have about 45 of them online (and visible, of course).

Regarding to the mail, it works, but it does it really slow. Too slow for a mail client, in my opinion. Viewing through the content of the mails is fine, but the time from when you select another mail and you view it, is simply too much. On a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of ram, with Android 2.2 Froyo installed. OK, if it works like this on Nexus One, how does it work on slower devices?!

Have you installed these two programs? How are they working (if they are...) on your device?

iPhone 4 just arrived, as well as major problems.

iPhone 4, the phone which "changes everything, again", seems to fail quite much this time. The guys from Engadget have been using the iPhone 4 for 6 days now (this is really interesting), and they noticed some scratches on the back of the device. Apple said that this "Gorilla Glass" which covers the front and the back of the device is...I don't know how many times resistant than normal plastic, and it is very hard to scratch.  However, the guys from Engadget got it scratched. More here (+photos).

The front of the unit doesn't stay better, also. After just 4 drops on asphalt, the screen broke. Probably the screen didn't work anymore, but they (the guys from Engadget) couldn't test that, because the device stopped working from the second drop already!!! More here (photo+video).

There are problems, again, with the screen. Many users are seeing yellow spots at the bottom of the screen. It is not known if this is a manufacturing fail or an IPS LCD issue, but it is clear that there are problems with the screen. Apple said that they are working on a fix, but it is improbable that they are going to resolve something as they had 600 000 requests on the first day of pre-orders, and most probably there are over 1 million devices coming to their customers currently. Anyway, it seems that IPS screens are harder to create than it was thought, so only a half of Apple 4 units can be delivered at expected time. So, I think that it is 99% sure that we'll have problems with the stocks, again.

There are also problems with the signal. Cellular signal. We don't know yet if there are problems with the Wi-Fi, because there weren't any reports saying this, but as Apple's products are usually having problems with the  Wi-Fi, it is expected to come in the following period reports confirming this or not. Certain is that there are major problems with the cellular signal. If the device is kept on a flat table, the signal is excellent, the new construction of Apple does it's job excellent (the antenna is integrated on the structure of the device). But in the moment you take the device in your hand, the signal decreases, until it loses it. If you put the device on the table, it gets the signal again and goes even until full.

More about these two problems here (photos+video+polls).

Are you having any of these problems? Please leave a comment to let us know if you have or not.

Ubuntu One - note facilities only- is down (15:00 GMT Time, Saturday, 15 May).

Today I needed to look over a note I had made a few weeks ago, but after logging in, when I wanted to view my notes, I had a surprise. I got a screen like this.

As you can see in the picture, there is a problem with the notes. It says that "Something has gone wrong", with the error 500. This is really strange, because the files are available, only the notes are failing. And this was a moment when I really needed a note.

I hope that this problem won't take much time, and that my notes will be back again.

Update: 10:30 A.M, 16 May, notes are available again. All notes are in their place. No one has been lost.

BitDefender apologizes for a faulty update.

BitDefender launched yesterday a security update for all platforms. The problem is that it has an unnormal behavior under x64 version of Windows. It detects multiple files from Windows and from BitDefender as being infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5, so they are quarantined. And this is what happens: many of these computers are unable to boot anymore, or if they are able to boot, other vital applications have higher chances to fail.

This update has been removed from download servers, so if don't have any problems, you can update BitDefender. If you are experiencing issues and eventually you can't boot, instructions can be found by clicking here. You may also try a system restore if you can't boot (if possible).

Windows 7 shortcuts are... gone !

I opened my laptop a few hours ago, because I had to do a project for school, and after Windows 7 booted completely, I found a desktop without any shortcuts. I saw only the bar from the bottom and the widgets. I tough that there was a boot failure... so I gave it a reboot, hoping it will help. But, surprising, the were still no icons after reboot. So I've started Google-ing for any problems about that, but with no result so far. I don't know what happened.

I've been using Windows 7 Enterprise (its the free trial) for about 25 days and I have experienced multiple problems using it, so I'm not satisfied by it. I think I'll turn to Ubuntu on my laptop. The experience between Ubuntu and Windows 7 is comparable, and I would say that Ubuntu is better (my opinion). And the difference between Mac (which I'm using right now) and Windows is enormous, Mac being definitely better.

If you know how to fix the problem with shortcuts, or if you have the same problems, please leave a comment.

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