The solution to this problem is to use a VPN service that will give you an IP of the country of your choice.

I’ve now tried BlackVPN, a global OpenVPN service, located in the Netherlands.

It has VPN servers in 3 countries:

• USA
• UK
• Netherlands

You can either buy access to one of these countries (for 5 EUR per month) or to all of them (for 10 EUR per month).

You can access the service by using OpenVPN (that’s what I’m using and recommending) or PPTP.

See https://www.blackvpn.com/support/ for sample configurations for several platforms (Windows/Linux/MacOSX/iPhone…).

I’ve created a global account for 10 EUR and did some quick tests.

To check the speed of the OpenVPN, I’ve tried to download a Debian NetInst image (debian-506-amd64-netinst.iso). The file has a size of 132MiB.

Here are the results of my little speed test:

• Direct download (without active VPN): 795KiB/s (2:53 minutes)
• BlackVPN USA: 213KiB/s (14:42 minutes)
• BlackVPN UK: 594KiB/s (3:21 minutes)
• BlackVPN NL: 393KiB/s (7:06 minutes)

Of course, traffic through the VPN is slower than a direct connection, but I’m pretty impressed by the speed.
>200KiB/s (=1600KiBit/s) should be enough even for video streaming.

As I’m located in Germany, especially the UK/NL VPN servers are really fast.

If you like to try BlackVPN, you can use my Referral Code “BCFYSFP”.

Using this referral code, you will get 2 months VPN access as a free bonus (i.e. you pay for 1 month but get 3) and I will get one month for free.

Have fun!

For fearless and lazy people only:

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Installing_Debian_Squeeze#Install_scripts_for_lazy_people

Update 2010-06-06, Version 0.2:

prepare_squeeze_joggler.sh has a –usage parameter now (and many more parameters):

che@x2:~$ ./prepare_squeeze_joggler.sh --usage
prepare_squeeze_joggler.sh v0.2 2010-06-06
by Christian Erpelding aka flattermann aka che09

http://www.flattermann.net

Join #joggler on irc.freenode.net for help
See also http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Installing_Debian_Squeeze
**************************************************************************

Usage:
prepare_squeeze_joggler.sh [-o DIR] [--schroot NAME] [-d] [--r8168] [--debmirror URL] [--mythtv]

--outdir DIR, -o DIR   Output directory (defaults to /opt/squeeze-joggler)
--schroot NAME         Use schroot instead of chroot
                       A schroot called NAME must be defined in /etc/schroot/schroot.conf
                       (This option overrides --outdir!)
--delete, -d           Delete old directory
--r8168                Use r8168 ethernet driver instead of r8169
                       (for AO2JOGXN Jogglers)
--debmirror URL        Use URL as debian mirror
                       (e.g. --debmirror http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian)
--hostname NAME        Set hostname to NAME (defaults to 'joggler')
--locale NAME          Set locale to NAME (defaults to 'en_US')
--mythtv               Install MythTV frontend and EasyStroke
--squeezeplay          Install SqueezePlay (v7.6 beta from SVN)
--cellwriter           Install Cellwriter (OnScreenKeyboard)

Have fun!

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Installing_Debian_Squeeze

It’s working great with SqueezePlay and MythTV-frontend!

If you want to use MythTV, I can recommend EasyStroke to control it by gestures.

As said in http://www.flattermann.net/2010/04/android-on-o2-joggler/ I’ve tried to install Android on the Joggler/OpenPeak.

In the last post, I said that Sound and Wifi did not work yet.

Well, that’s solved by now.
You can use Sound and Wifi on the Joggler now!

BTW: The sound quality is pretty good!

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Build_Android_Image

The Prebuilt Image will be updated soon:

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Android_Prebuild_Image

Have fun!

http://www.openpeak.com/OpenFrame.php

What’s your first thought?

Right: Why didn’t they install Android on it?

I was able to get one of these gadgets from O2/UK for a discount price of 49GBP, so couldn’t resist.

In the meantime, I was able to install Android on the Joggler!

See the JogglerWiki for instructions:

(BTW: It also contains info about Ubuntu and Meego on the Joggler!)

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Android

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Build_Android_Image

http://jogglerwiki.info/index.php?title=Android_Prebuild_Image

Not everything works yet, but it is a start.

• It boots (albeit GUI is still slow)
• Ethernet works
• Touchscreen works
• /sdcard & /data works
• And the most important thing: SqueezeCommander works!

Wifi & Sound are still missing, though.

[Update 2010-04-24: Wifi & Sound are now working!]

If you are interested, you are invited to join the other hackers at #mer on irc.freenode.net.

Have fun!

There’s a great project to port Android to x86!

They offer a LiveCD that you can try without changing anything on your PC.

Furthermore, you can even install it on your PC/Netbook!
It should already run on e.g. many Netbooks like the Asus EeePC.

I’ve installed it in a VirtualBox under Linux and it runs pretty well.

Some hints:

• The Windows key acts as HOME key
• The Context key (on the right of the right Windows key) acts as MENU key
• ESC acts as BACK key

To keep the settings in a VirtualBox permanently, you need to create two partitions:

• A data partition (500MB should be sufficient)
• A SD card partition (as large as you need)

You need to add the partition identifiers to the boot kernel line, see also:

http://www.android-x86.org/documents/virtualboxhowto

Have fun!

In this case, you should take a look at the SheevaPlug embedded PC.

It’s not exactly very pretty, but it’s cheap (~100$) and it serves it purpose. It uses a 1.2GHz ARM CPU, 512MB RAM and uses as little as 2.3W (idle) to 7W (100% CPU usage).

You can attach an external USB drive to store your music on and install the SqueezeBoxServer to serve the music to your SqueezeBoxes.

Thomas Rühl created some images for the SheevaPlug that include the SqueezeBoxServer. His project is called SqueezePlug. It makes it very easy to get the SBS on SheevaPlug running.

Of course, it’s perfectly controllable with your Android mobile using SqueezeCommander.

It’s very nice to have internet-everywhere via the internal UMTS G3.5 modem, and this is very easy to accomplish with (Debian) Linux.

I’ve written a small HowTo that describes the necessary steps.

Introduction

As I’ve already described in other blog articles, the Asus EeePC 901 Go is a great piece of hardware, fast and reliable with encrypted disks, and for me the perfect travel companion. Since I own this Netbook, I virtually never carry my old, big Notebook with me when I visit my customers.

Of course I’ve installed Debian Linux (Lenny) on the EeePC, so that I have my familiar desktop environment on the Netbook.

	BASE offers an UMTS flatrate for 17.50€
	Simyo offers a prepaid UMTS solution, 24ct/MB or 10€ for 1GB

HowTo configure UMTS via the internal UMTS modem

First of all, remove the battery of the Asus EeePC 901 Go and insert the SIM card of your provider into the  SIM slot. Reconnect the battery and startup your Debian system…

Activating the internal UMTS modem is pretty simple:

(You can skip the first steps if you want, they are just to make sure that the drivers are loaded correctly.)

• Make sure the correct kernel driver is loaded:
  • Open a terminal and enter the command:
  • dmesg | grep HUAWEI
  • The output should look like this:
  • [    5.426460] usb 5-6: Manufacturer: HUAWEI Technology
    [    5.417153] usb 5-6: Product: HUAWEI Mobile
• If that works, check if the USB modem is correctly bound:
  • dmesg | grep GSM
  • The output should look like this:
  • [   12.478987] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for GSM modem (1-port)
    [   12.487549] option 5-6:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
    [   12.496203] usb 5-6: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
    [   12.504920] option 5-6:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
    [   12.513610] usb 5-6: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
    [   12.525525] option 5-6:1.2: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
    [   12.534178] usb 5-6: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB2
    [   12.551416] option: USB Driver for GSM modems: v0.7.2
• You can see that the UMTS modem can be accessed via ttyUSB0..2
• Install Gnome-PPP:
  • aptitude install gnome-ppp
• Now, you need to configure Gnome-PPP to access the internet via UMTS:
• Start Gnome-PPP via the menu (Applications / Internet / Gnome-PPP)
• The main window should appear. Most providers do not need any special username/password because the authentication is done via your GSM card:
  • Username: umts (does not matter)
  • Password: umts (does not matter)
  • Phone number: *99**1# (this is important)
• Press “Setup”
• Tab “Modem”:
  • Device: /dev/ttyUSB0
  • Type: USM Modem
  • Speed: 460800
  • Phone Line: Tone
  • Check “Wait for dialtone”
• Click on “Init Strings”:
  • Init 2: AT&F (Reset to defaults)
  • Init 3: AT+CSQ (Show link quality)
  • Init 4: AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”internet.eplus.de”
    (this is the APN AccessPoint)
  • This APN (internet.eplus.de) is correct for
    BASE and Simyo. If you are using another provider, ask him about the correct APN.
  • Close the “Init Strings” window
• Tab “Networking”:
  • Check “Dynamic IP address”
  • Check “Automatic DNS”
• Tab “Options”:
  • Check “Minimize”
  • Check “Dock in notification area”
  • Check “Auto reconnect”
  • Select “Check carrier line”
  • Select “Check default route”
  • Check “Ignore terminal strings (stupid mode)”
• That’s it!
• Close the “Setup” window and click on “Connect”.

Congratulations, you should now have a working internal UMTS connection!

You can distinguish the two models by looking at P/N on the EeePC box or by opening the EeePC and identifying the SSD itself:

• The slow SSD model has this P/N: 90OA0BTI4214AFNE2X2Q, the SSD is labeled “P2-SSD PS Rev. 2.0G”
• The fast SSD model has this P/N: 90OA0BTI8214AFNE2X2Q, the SSD is labeled “S4-SSD JM Rev. 1.1″

I made sure that I got a fast SSD model, but the question arises:

How fast is it?

Today, I found the time to perform some benchmarks of the SSD read/write speed.

For your information, I’m using two partitions with ext3 filesystem.

One partition contains the Linux base system and the programs and is not encrypted. The other partition keeps my data (including my /home) and is encrypted using Linux’s LUKS infrastructure. I’m using AES 256 bit encryption (aes-cbc-essiv:sha256).

For the test, I created a 512MiB testfile using “dd”.
To avoid biased results because of Linux’s extensive file caching, I’ve rebooted the system after the write command, before doing the read speed test.

Unencrypted write test

che@eee:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/unencrypted/ssdtest bs=512k count=1k
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
536870912 Bytes (537 MB) copied, 22,7062 s, 23,6 MB/s

Unencrypted read test

eee:~$ dd if=/unencrypted/ssdtest of=/dev/null bs=512k
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
536870912 Bytes (537 MB) copied, 6,62449 s, 81,0 MB/s

Encrypted write test (aes-cbc-essiv:sha256)

eee:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/crypto/ssdtest bs=512k count=1k
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
536870912 Bytes (537 MB) copied, 31,3594 s, 17,1 MB/s

Encrypted read test (aes-cbc-essiv:sha256)

eee:~$ dd if=/crypto/ssdtest of=/dev/null bs=512k
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
536870912 Bytes (537 MB) copied, 28,2782 s, 19,0 MB/s

Of course, the performance on the encrypted partition is much slower than on the unencrypted partition. Furthermore, the CPU performs at 100% load when encrypting/decrypting, and that leads to a much shorter battery life. Therefore, I think it’s the best trade-off to only encrypt the data and keep the Linux base system unencrypted.

Conclusion

I’m very happy with the overall speed of my system, the slower performance of the encrypted “/home” is not really noticeable under real work conditions.

In this benchmark, there is of course a big difference between the unencrypted (W: 23.6MB/s, R: 81.0MB/s) and the encrypted (W: 17.1MB/s, R: 19.0MB/s) filesystem.

But remember: To have a secure system, it’s very important to move some directories to the encrypted partition, like:

• /home
• /tmp
• /var/tmp (I’ve moved the whole “/var” to the encrypted partition)

And depending on your system setup:

• /srv
• /var/spool
• /var/cache
• /root
• …everything else that you like to protect from thieves

Furthermore, it very important that you either also encrypt your swap partition or do not use a swap partition at all!

I’ve installed 2GB in the EeePC and do not use a swap. Of course, using a LUKS swap partition with a random key would also be secure.

	BASE offers an UMTS flatrate for 17.50€
	Simyo offers a prepaid UMTS solution, 24ct/MB or 10€ for 1GB

• The EeePC is great!
• The screen is a little bit to dark
• The workmanship could be improved
• Conclusion

The EeePC is great!

It’s (for my purpose) the perfect travel companion with a good tradeoff between size/weight and performance. The battery runs for a long time (5-6 hours).

The screen is a little bit to dark

When using the EeePC outside on sunny days, the screen is a little hard to read because even with 100% brightness, it’s still pretty dark.

The workmanship could be improved

One thing that bothers me is the poor workmanship of the EeePC case. My EeePC is only one month old and I always transport it carefully in a suitable notebook bag. Nevertheless, the case already looks very “used”.

There are some kinds of “micro cracks” in all four corners of the lid cover. I think the glue between the (transparent) top of the lid cover and the (white) main part of the lid did loose a bit and that creates this “micro cracked look”.

Furthermore, the hotkey bar stained the inner side of the lid.

But these small quality problems do not really change my opinion about the EeePC. It’s just a recommendation what could be further improved…

Conclusion

Buying the Asus EeePC 901 Go was one of the best acquisitions in my life!

It’s size, weight, performance, battery life and connections (LAN/WLAN/UMTS) make it the best companion for people who need “real” access to internet (not some kind of semi-internet-access like e.g. an iPhone offers) while travelling around.

I love it!

	BASE offers an UMTS flatrate for 17.50€
	Simyo offers a prepaid UMTS solution, 24ct/MB or 10€ for 1GB