Benedikt Wolters

I’ using Lubuntu 13.04 more and more often lately on my Samsung Series 7 Chronos 700Z5A. While the most things worked pretty right out of the box. It took me a while to figure out why the adjustable keyboard backlight FN-Keys were not working. While there are plenty resources available for the Series 9 but no one in particular for Lubuntu and openboxi/i3 i’ve decided to share the knowledgde with the public and not only with google and the NSA.

The first think i’ve noticed that the standard installation has already loaded the samsung_labtob kernel module. You may check that by running

You also can test if the module works by setting a value between 1 and 8 to the backlight driver:

Unfortunately the udev mappings were not defined so i had to manually add the following lines to my /lib/udev/keymaps/samsung-other

and also add the following to the /lib/udev/keymaps/force-release/samsung-other

You may have to reload udev by

and reboot. After that you can check whether your mappings work by running

the kbdillumup and kbdillumdown events should appear.

Now the next thing we need to do is bind those keyboard events to an action. In order to allow a script to change the driver values i’ve setup a init script in /etc/init.d/brightness.sh

and gave it execution rights. Furthermore, i’ve added the following line to my /etc/rc.local that executes that script

Then, i wrote a tiny shell script in my home directory /home/bewo/Scripts/backlight.sh that allows me to increment or decrement the current backlight value

In order tu run it without a prefix-path i’ve created a symbolic link to it

Finally all was left to do is to bind my shell script in OpenBox by adding the following keybinds to my .config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml:

When you’re using i3 you can add the following to your .i3/config analogically

If that does not work check by running xev if you’re bindings trigger the proper X11 events.

Today finally the parts from China arrived which I’ve ordered a couple of weeks ago. Baiscally, in order for shooting videos once in a while with my Canon 7D, I wanted to have some kind of external monitor, for a more precise control over focus while shooting. However, professional battery-operated video monitors that can can be connected through the HDMI-out, are somewhat expensive. Furthermore, they dont give you control functionalities such adjusting focus/shutter-speed/iso/aperture on screen.

So, since I’m a proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 which has a nice 5,5” 1.280x720 HD Super AMOLED Screen, I was looking for Anroid Apps to remotely control a DSLR by USB. The by far best app, I’ve stumbled upon was DSRL Controller, which is still in beta, but has a huge amount of functionality.

DSLR Controller allows you to virtually shift almost every setting to your Android device. Furthermore, there is also a Wi-Fi Passthrough that allows you to delegate all functionality to another android device connected by Wi-Fi. There is also support for timelapses, HDR and whatnot. Beneath DSLR Controller there are other apps available, which I find not that far evolved.

For hardware I’m using a cold-shoe to ball head adapter, which can be aquired from ebay for around 7 EUR.

To mount my Note 2 I’ve dismounted a mini tripod, which also can be found on ebay from China.

For connecting your DSLR to your Samsung Note 2, one needs a USB On-The-Go Cable, which is basically a micro USB cable which the 4th and 5th Pin shorted and connected to ground, there are a lot of videos on youtube on how to build a OTG cable. Alternatively, one can aquire a small USB-Cable for 1-3 EUR, what I did. Furthermore, one need a USB-To Mini-USB cable to connect the OTG Cable to your camera.

This is what the final result looks like. I’m pretty happy, however next up is to build some kind of hood to protect the screen from ambient light.

It took me a bit of time to wrap my head around this syntax so I thought I share this little code.

The last two years my Apple iPhone 4 has served me kinda well. I’ve got to admit that I somewhat followed the Apple-Trend, but as a developer all I got was a lot of frustration over a rather long period of time.

In the defense of Apple, I have to state that the build quality and the haptic of the iPhone were extraordinary (at least for the time when I bought it). Also, it was the first smartphone for me which came with a data-plan, thus the iPhone paved my way for mobile internet. Nevertheless, as the years goes by one sees that Apple devices are build for dumb users, with limited ability for tinkering. Futhermore, there were quite a lot things aggregating which were really disturbing and influenced my formerly blurry hipster vision:

• Restrictness: As a technical enthusiast I like to tinker with all kinds of things on my phone. However the Apple ecosystem really restricts that. I like to use my Photo LED as a flashlight, i like to exchange my battery, i like to have an sd card. It’s nice to have a radio receiver in my phone,
• Hardware Self-Evidence: If my Phone has an usb port, i’d like to use it, say as a 2nd monitor for my Canon 7D for filming stuff, this is not possible with an iPhone. A typicall Apple enthusiast would say: “Why would you even do that?”
• Pricing: I got my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for around 530EUR the Apples equivalent iPhone 5 costs way more + for each stack of memory upgrade i have to add another 100eur, which is - compared to the price of an exchangeable Micro SD-HC Card - a total joke.
• Ecosystem: Apple devices interact flawlessly in their own ecosystem. Since the Apple ecosystem is closed under a very limited number of a handful devices u.e. Apple computers and Apple TV, interoperaperability is not that hard to archieve. However I’d like to leave the Apple ecosystem once in a while. For example I do not use Apple Devices for Desktop computing. I can not imagine myself using a Apple computer in the foreseeable future. Neither i want to be forced to switch plattforms just for the sake of interoperability.
• Lack of Innovation Apple has be known for it’s innovation when it comes to simple userinterfaces or rebranding stuff that has been out there for years (i.e. Siri) and bringing it to the larger public, however the last 2-3 years i sensed some standstill with regard to this innovation drive. All I saw were a few desperate acts of introducing new form factors and idea recycling.

I could certainly go on, but this is not ment to be a post of me ranting over Apple’s politics. However, I’m a now a very happy owner of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and experiencing the Android world.