Backup X10i phone with Gingerbread

In cases where the X10i needs to be fully cleared, such as a fresh reinstall or upgrade, user data needs to be backup. If you are using contacts, calendar from google services, then it can be easily recovered anytime.

Several Android apps are available for backup of the Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) and this includes;

1. Titanium Backup * root
2. MyBackup pro (RERWARE, LLC), with free limited 30 trial
3. SMS Backup & Restore (RITESH SAHU)

What to backup? Well there is the;

1. Contact numbers,
2. SMS,
3. APN settings,
4. SDCard data, 

1. Contact numbers

Step 1: Start the dialer

On the X10i launch the phone dialer. Click LEFT button, choose Backup contacts, then Memory card.

This will prompt the name and location of the back up file, choose OO. E.g.

/sdcard/System/PIM/PIM000001.vcf

Step 2: Verify

Once the progress bar has completed saving all the address book, browse to the SDCard and copy the vcf file to your PC or USB disk.

2. SMS

Step 1: Install from Android Play Store the app, "SMS Backup & Restore"

This saves SMS in XML format. 

Launch the app, click on the "Tools" icon at the top. Select the Backup folder which is by default

/mnt/sdcard/SMSBackupRestore/

For advanced users, explorer the other options. For basic needs, I find that there isn't any need to change the other configurations.

Step 2: Do the backup.

Read and accept the screen prompts.

Click "Backup" and enter the backup file name. 

Click OK.

My 5,230 SMS was backup and verified in 45 seconds.

Click "Close"

Step 3: Donate

Oh...its optional and I have no idea who developed this app, but it does a pretty good basic backup of SMS. As for the Adds, its not too big to obstruct the buttons.

3. APN Settings

Step 1: Install from Android Play Store the app, "APN Backup & Restore"

This saves SMS in XML format. 

^^^Launch the app, click on the "Tools" icon at the top. Select the Backup folder which is by default

/mnt/sdcard/SMSBackupRestore/

For advanced users, explorer the other options. For basic needs, I find that there isn't any need to change the other configurations.

Step 2: Do the backup.

Click "Backup APNs" and enter the backup file name. E.g. default filename is apns-.xml

Click "Close".

It doesn't say where its backup to, but search for it in /mnt/sdcard/ApnBackupRestore/

4. Backup SD Card

Firstly, if you already have a PC backup software, you can perform Step 1, then continue with that backup software.

Step 1: Plug the X10i USB cable.

The PC should be installed with the Sony PC Companion software. This will launch the windows explorer.

Step 2: Copy files to your PC

Using Windows Explorer, drag all files from the SD Card to your PC.

Lightning can now edit Task

Just updated Lightning for Thunderbird to version 0.9pre build 2008070918 on Ubuntu 7.10.

Before this, the task can't be edited even if I choose the modify button. Now just double click and i can edit the task. That is what OSS is about, building stuff.

In the calendar, when I double click on a date to create a new event,
the date was always set to today. Now, it sets to the date I double clicked.

Things are looking good!

--

Thunderbird on CentOS 5.1

Everyone is using Thunderbird on MS Windows, Ubuntu Linux and Fedora Core Linux. So, why shouldnt Centos 5.1 be able to install?

1. Download Thunderbird 2 from Mozilla (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/) or other mirros like (http://mirror.oscc.org.my/mozilla/thunderbird/). I downloaded thunderbird-2.0.0.14.tar.gz to the directory /tmp.

2. Extract the files

3. Open a terminal and login as root to thee directory /opt
su -
cd /opt

4. Copy the extracted forlders to /opt
cp -rf /tmp/thunderbird /opt

5. Install the older library of libstdc++.so.5 (5.1 comes with version libstdc++.so.6)
yum install compat-libstdc++-33.i386

6. Test the Thunderbird as a normal user
/opt/thunderbird/thunderbird

7. Copy the icons to the user wide pixmap
cp thunderbird/icons/mozicon*.xpm /usr/share/pixmaps/

8. When Thunderbird starts, it complains about the mode for /var/spool/mail, as it cannot write to this folder. As root do the following
chmod 01777 /var/spool/mail

Add the application launcher in the panel/menu using the mozicon icon. Only things left is to install other plugins. My first plugins are always the Calendar (lightning) and birthday.

-

Installing Calendar Server on CentOS - part 2

Previous issue was that I could not get through the firewall to access http://svn.twistedmatrix.com. With the firewall settled, I can now continue this series of notes.

In the ~/dcs directory issue the command and download Twisted

svn co svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk Twisted

What is Twisted?
Examples of programs which were written using the Twisted framework are twisted.web (a web server), twisted.mail (a mail server, supporting both SMTP and POP3, as well as relaying), twisted.words (a chat application supporting integration between a variety of IM protocols, like IRC, AOL Instant Messenger's TOC and Perspective Broker, a remote-object protocol native to Twisted), im (an instant messenger which connects to twisted.words) and faucet (a GUI client for the twisted.reality interactive-fiction framework). Twisted can be useful for any network or GUI application written in Python.



Continue with the Calendar Server scripts

cd CalendarServer/
./run

Test this with a web browser pointing to the server with port 8008.
Example URL location http://10.20.20.205:8008/calendars/

See
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2433/6n4nlfjk2?a=view
http://fedoranews.org/mediawiki/index.php/Building_a_Simple_Calendar_Server_with_Fedora_and_WebDAV

Installing Calendar Server on CentOS - part I

I am interested to have a server to host my calendar using caldav over http on CentOS 5.1 Linux. The advantage is that this calendar can be shared, if I reformat my PC, the calendar will continue to survive. Copying an ics does not allow me to edit it from the server.

Based on the link http://www.mail-archive.com/calendarserver-users@lists.macosforge.org/msg00195/LinuxBuildAndRun-DarwinCalendarServer
Here are my steps:

1. Connect to the CentOS server as user nicholas
ssh nicholas@10.20.20.205

2. create the working folder ~/dcs
mkdir dcs
cd dcs

3. Ensure subversion is installed. Get the svn for Calendar Server

svn checkout http://svn.macosforge.org/repository/calendarserver/CalendarServer/trunk CalendarServer

4. Install python-kerberos and python-devel
su -c "yum install python-kerberos python-devel"

5. Setup the disk to use extended filesystem
su -c "vi /etc/fstab"

Edit the options to include user_xattr in the filesystem that will hold the calendar.
/dev/hdb1      /mnt/data           ext3    user,rw,user_xattr 0 2

6. Add a directory to put dcs data :
su -c "mkdir /mnt/data/dcs-data"
su -c "chown nicholas:nicholas /mnt/data/dcs-data/"


In DCS source directory, copy and edit the developement config file:
cd ~/dcs
cp ./conf/caldavd-test.plist ./conf/caldavd-dev.plist
vi ./conf/caldavd-dev.plist

Look for the string element specifying where to put data :
twistedcaldav/test/data/
And change it to point to a directory of your XATTR mounting point :

/mnt/data/dcs-data/


7. Run the CalendarServer scripts. This will download and place the required scripts at same level as dcs directory.
cd CalendarServer
./run -s

8. Trouble was encountered to download several subversion packages. Therefore I have to download and extract them manually.
cd ../xattr
wget http://svn.eby-sarna.com/ez_setup.tar.gz
tar xzvf ez_setup.tar.gz

I am stuck at the following...so will wait till i can find out why I cant download the Twisted.
svn co svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk Twisted