From dual-boot to vmware with minimal changes

I had set up my Dell D620 for dual boot in Linux and Windows Vista. What I really want is to be able to instantly switch between the two depending on needs. So VMWare is the way to go. I gave up my initial idea of running Vista inside VMWare on Ubuntu. Microsoft didn't give me the permission. So I set it up the other way round -- Vista host and Ubuntu guest.



I didn't want to set up a new hard disk for Ubuntu. So I downloaded VMware server and VMware player. Installed the first, created a virtual machine using my existing hard disk as the VMware hard disk. Then I uninstalled VMware server and installed VMware player. The server software is older. Networking and sound didn't work. I edited the .vmx file ( C:\Virtual Machines\Ubuntu\Ubuntu.vmx ) to enable sound



sound.enable = "TRUE"



VMware player took off from where VMware server left off. And I am posting this from Ubuntu inside VMware.

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Setting up bluetooth headset under Linux

I figured out how to use my new Jabra BT-150 headset with Linux. Here's the deal.

• Install bluetooth-alsa and libsbc packages (feisty backports not there yet)
  
  
• Put the headset in pairing mode
• bdaddr=$(hcitool scan | awk '/BT150/ {print $1}')
  
  
• sudo hcitool info $bdaddr
• cat /usr/share/doc/bluetooth-alsa/sample.asoundrc >> ~/.asoundrc
• Change the default BDADDR in .asoundrc
  
  
• headsetd

That's it. Test using 'mplayer -ao alsa:device=headset'. Now I need to find out how to dynamically switch output based on whether bluetooth headset is there or not.

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US Supreme Court raises bar for obviousness in patents

Until now, the obviousness test was defined as non-obvious "to a person having ordinary skills". This allowed for rather low standards of obviousness and there are a lot of patents that are simply blocking innovation. The latest decision makes mere combination of existing technologies fail the test.



May be one day we will see the length of exclusivity granted under a patent depend on the industry it is in. A patent about cars is useful for 20 years. A patent on software (which shouldn't be patentable anyways) is not.

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