While the Owncloud Manual suggests enabling SSL, it unfortunately does not go into detail how to get a secure setup. The core problem is that the default SSL settings of Apache are not sane as in they do not enforce strong encryption. Furthermore the used default certificate will not match your server name and produce errors in the browser.

Android consists of three parts relevant to rooting

I recently ran into this problem and could not find any good solution on the Internet. So next comes a small summary of the problem with hopefully enough buzzwords, so Google can lead you here.

If you want to do C++ development on Android, you need the NDK for cross compilation. It comes by default with its own build system called ndk-build, which basically is a bunch of custom makefiles. But if you are sharing code between the Android Platform and lets say plain Linux, you have likely already a build system installed. For C/C++ CMake is quite popular as it supports different platforms and compilers. Fortunately there is already a project which adds Android support to CMake. I will not cover that – instead I assume you are using it already.

Unfortunately you cant use the ndk-gdb script supplied with the NDK to debug your application as it relies on the behaviour of ndk-build. But as said earlier, ndk-build is no wizardy, but just a bunch of scripts. So it is possible to emulate the behaviour using CMake, as following:

Add the following macro to your CMakeLists.txt file

macro(ndk_gdb_debuggable TARGET_NAME)
    get_property(TARGET_LOCATION TARGET ${TARGET_NAME} PROPERTY LOCATION)
    
    # create custom target that depends on the real target so it gets executed afterwards
    add_custom_target(NDK_GDB ALL) 
    add_dependencies(NDK_GDB ${TARGET_NAME})
    
    set(GDB_SOLIB_PATH ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/obj/local/${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}/)
    
    # 1. generate essential Android Makefiles
    file(WRITE ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/jni/Android.mk "APP_ABI := ${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}\n")
    file(WRITE ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/jni/Application.mk "APP_ABI := ${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}\n")

    # 2. generate gdb.setup
    get_directory_property(PROJECT_INCLUDES DIRECTORY ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR} INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES)
    string(REGEX REPLACE ";" " " PROJECT_INCLUDES "${PROJECT_INCLUDES}")
    file(WRITE ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}/gdb.setup "set solib-search-path ${GDB_SOLIB_PATH}\n")
    file(APPEND ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}/gdb.setup "directory ${PROJECT_INCLUDES}\n")

    # 3. copy gdbserver executable
    file(COPY ${ANDROID_NDK}/prebuilt/android-arm/gdbserver/gdbserver DESTINATION ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/libs/${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}/)

    # 4. copy lib to obj
    add_custom_command(TARGET NDK_GDB POST_BUILD COMMAND mkdir -p ${GDB_SOLIB_PATH})
    add_custom_command(TARGET NDK_GDB POST_BUILD COMMAND cp ${TARGET_LOCATION} ${GDB_SOLIB_PATH})

    # 5. strip symbols
    add_custom_command(TARGET NDK_GDB POST_BUILD COMMAND ${CMAKE_STRIP} ${TARGET_LOCATION})
endmacro()

Then use it like

add_library(YourTarget ...)
ndk_gdb_debuggable(YourTarget)

You should now be able to use ndk-gdb with CMake, just as if you would have used ndk-build.

Note that steps 4 and 5 are optional for debugging. They just reduce the size of the library that has to be transferred to the device. If you dont care, you can just leave them out. But then the solib search path from step 2 must be set to:

file(WRITE ./libs/${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}/gdb.setup "set solib-search-path ./libs/${ANDROID_NDK_ABI_NAME}\n")

Ideally someone should integrate that in the Android toolchain linked above.

Update Merged Upstream

When I first read about GNOME dropping support for BSD and Solaris, my impression was that this is a good idea to aiming to unify limit resources and get the work done. I was also excited about the idea of the GNOME OS. I think it is necessary to keep the big picture in mind when developing the different components. Previously Ubuntu was the only project that did this and it was also the reason why I started using Ubuntu. Because it made the different parts of Linux work together to achieve the big goal of a great overall system.

Canonical is doing the right thing. Yes morally as well. By choosing the MIT/X11 license instead of the GPL the Banshee developer explicitly allow using Banshee in a closed-source for-profit project without giving back anything.

To start whining about moral, now that someone actually takes advantage of this right is somehow premature – in the end you had the choice how to license it, right? If you don’t like what happens change the license! Maybe a proprietary one this time, as open source obviously is not restrictive enough for you and you have to resort to “morality”.

As for me I would be perfectly happy if Canonical would simply keep 100% of the Amazon revenue – after all its their product (yes putting together the pieces makes it something new).

As a user I care most whether the product works and I use ubuntu as it works best for me. And since canonical did a great job so far providing what I want, I think the decision should be up to them whether to spend the money on shiny new icons or to give something back to the banshee developers.

For reference: this and this.

finally I reached a stage where I could upload my small augmented reality app to extras-devel, so all those who asked for it can now play with it. But be aware that it is in extras-devel for a reason. In case you are wondering what I am writing about, here is a video of the demo:

in order to make it work, you will have to print the artoolkitplus markers. Furthermore there are these controls:

• scale the objects using the volume buttons
• select one of the objects for scaling by tapping on it
• tapping on the palette symbol triggers annotating by drawing on the screen
• tapping on the sun symbol fixes the sun to the current device position
• once fixed the shadows can be rotated using the arrow keys

it is time for the next demo of my project, as I reached the beta status. (feature complete) I think you can see quite clearly now where this is going and which kind of interactions will be possible using this technique. The concrete features are described in the annotations.

If you use more advanced tracking methods and add some physics to this, you could easily port numpty physics to this kind of interaction or create an easy to use level editor. In case you missed my last video, here is the link.

It will still take some weeks until this hits maemo-extras as there are still some bugs left and I still want to get rid of keyboard use for interaction.

In a country with freedom of speech, one has to say something to every happening, right? So here is my try:

Basically the merge of Maemo and Moblin is logical and consequent as Nokia and Intel already collaborated with ofono and merging helps joining the efforts. This is quite necessary as neither Maemo nor Moblin could survive on their own in a world where everybody else uses Android and soon will start using Chrome OS. There was also a need to make Moblin more like Meamo to be able to compete with the iPad.

That sounds greet so far, right? Joint efforts, bigger community, open to everybody… But the problem is the way the merge is going to happen. Moblin is more or less a huge techdemo so far – everybody who I know uses Ubuntu Netbook Remix on their Netbook, as it is more production ready and end user oriented. The same also applies to Maemo.

It is a bit sad that the next Maemo/ MeeGo Harmattan will be Qt based though, at it means that all the currently working applications have to be rewritten without gaining an immediate benefit. But considering that Qt is technically more advanced than GTK and that it allows deploying your application on the different OS Nokia uses this is understandable.

What is less understandable is that MeeGo will be based on RPM/ Moblin/ Fedora. And at least for Fedora the official motto is merging new features as fast possible, which is nice for developers but less nice for end users, as the distribution is less stable. So while it is logical to base a tech-demo like Moblin on Fedora, I would not base anything that is supposed to be stable on it.

But this is exactly what shall happen with MeeGo. This means Maemo has to abandon its Debian roots and rebase everything to RPM. By everything I mean the huge amount of packaging experience gained during the last 5 years, the build infrastructure and of course the core package management applications. This has also an impact on the community infrastructure, downloads, karma are coupled to the DEB format too.

So what do we gain by rebasing to RPM? Maybe the Moblin interface which is indeed nice? Actually no, as it is Clutter/GTK based while MeeGo will use Qt – besides the Moblin interface was packaged by Ubuntu as deb too. Ok the Moblin community will not need to change its infrastructure, but is the Moblin community actually that big?

As I really wonder why we switch to RPM I started a wiki to collect the arguments, and as it does not look too good for RPM also a brainstorm vote.

while my last video already contained augmented reality and shadow mapping, it did not really show the potential of shadowmapping, therefore I created another video

other news are the tracking of multiple individual markers(quite obvious) and the camera relative light source. The latter is necessary to cast the shadow of all objects in the same direction.

As some of you wondered where the sense behind all of this is; I write the program as a project work at the university. The aim is to create an easy way to create and modify 3D scenes.

I just have watched the Apple iPad announcement and I have to say that I am quite impressed by the Apple marketing team. Before the film I could not think of a good use case for a oversized iPod, but after the film I have to say that Apple greatly refined the use case of the netbooks as a second PC.

Instead of putting an ordinary OS into a differently shaped device, like Microsoft is seemingly doing with the Slate, Apple adjusted the OS to the new use case.

If you have a much smaller screen and a much smaller keyboard, like you have on netbooks, you don’t want to write long articles or aim for the tiny buttons of ordinary user interfaces. Instead one should of a netbook like a playback device, which only requires rudimentary interaction.

As apple is great at streamlining stuff, they simply left out the keyboard and used a modified version of the iPhone OS, which is optimized for easy usage and – voilla here comes the computer you actually want to use in your living room, to quickly peek on facebook or your mail inbox.

But there are two big disadvantages that come with using the iPhone OS. First it is stripped down to much; there is no multitasking and no system clipboard which takes a lot of the convenience you have when using a real OS.

And second you are again locked-in by apple. If you use the iPad, you are also more or less forced to use iTunes for your music, iBook Store for your eBook and the AppStore if you want new Software.

Of course you might be able to Jailbreak the device and use third-party software but this will be nowhere as convenient as using the defaults. This is Apples Achilles heel and where Maemo can triumph.

With Maemo you basically have a full-fledged Linux with a easy to use UI. You have multitasking, you have a system clipboard and most importantly you have an open software repository – and all of this very well integrated in the UI.

You can freely choose your email provide, your music player and even the format you save your music in. And even though Nokia does not support OGG by default, the open nature of the OS allows it to be just as integrated as everything else.

Actually Nokia only has to build a Internet Tablet with the size of the iPad…