Is Labs Coming to Google Calendar?

Speculation has abounded regarding new features for Google Calendar, with users reporting the ability to see some new gadgets (albeit not use them). Now it seem that Calendar Labs is closer then ever. I'm not sure how long this has been up there, but take a look at the .gif that Google uses to display icons with in Calendar:


Notice the labs icon? This seems like a clear sign that Google intends to roll out more features to Google Calendar, hopefully in the near future.

Additional, notice the icon directly to the left of the labs icon. That looks like the drop down box from which you can chose to reply to an email in Gmail. I don't see that icon currently being used anywhere. Is Google thinking about integrating some sort of email-reply option directly from Calendar?

The truth is, try as I might, I can't think of any "killer" gadgets that I would want to see in Google Calendar. I think its an extremely mature and solid product. Yet I'm sure Google will dream up something that we didn't know were missing. What features would you like to see added?

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New hints about Gmail international smsing

Previously noted, Gmail temporarily had a (non working) option to send sms's to international cell phones (before they removed the sms option from Gmail Labs). (sms is currently limited to us phones) At the time, one of the error messages Gmail gave when trying to sms an international phone was "Your message was not delivered. [some number] cannot be verified as a valid mobile number...", leading to the obvious question: what is a verified number, and how do you verify your number?

Recently, Google has added the option to reset the password of a Google Account by SMS. Obviously, an option like this is a form of verification of your mobile number, by virtue of the fact that you wouldn't put in anybody else phone number - as this would put your account security at risk.

Additionally, there have been reports new accounts requiring sms activation. And for the longest time, you could receive your Google Calendar updates by sms - if you verify your phone first.

All of these requirements would seem to be a step towards gathering a database of verified sms users which would fulfill two of Google's important rules. First, it would prevent spamming, as you wouldn't be able to sms a "random" unverified number. Only Google users who verified there numbers will be "textable". There will probably be an opt-out option as well. Second, it will allow Google to monitor sms habits by not only seeing what you are writing, but also by knowing exactly to whom you are sending the sms, and if that person reply's, etc.

Bringing them yet one step closer to knowing more about you than you know about yourself.

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Create an empty file of a specific size

Recently, I wanted to run a quick test to see the download speed of a web host. All I wanted was to download a file, any file really, but I wanted something 1gb in size. Moving to the www root, here is what I did:

dd if=/dev/zero of=file_to-create bs=1k count=1000

This instantly gave me a 1gb file which I was then able to download!

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Is Google expanding sms's to the rest of the world?

Is the big G planning on adding sms capabilities to gmail for international destinations? After a rocky start, Google (re)introduced sms-ing to US phones in December 2008. Since then, if you would try to send an sms to a non US number you would get an error along the lines of "At this time sms is avalible to US numbers only".

Today it seems that they are starting to allow sms'ing to international destinations. Right clicking on a contact and selecting Vidoe & more -> Send SMS shows the following chat box:


Notice the new message quota system (which doesn't apply to US bound sms's). "Initially, you're granted a quota of fifty messages", says this help page which seems to have been posted today (2009-6-11). For every sms you send, your quota gets decresed by one. To earn them back: "Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat ... your quota increases by five". Additional, the quota gets reset every 24 hours.

I'm not sure when this service is going live, but every number that I tired to sms got one of the following error's:

Also, if you try to sms a contact that doesn't have any listed mobile numbers, the "add a number" prompt still warns you that "[sms chat is] US phones only for now".

What's interesting to note is Google's business model here. While in the US the cost for sms's are covered by the reciver of the sms - and hence Google can "afford" to send them for free, it's no secret that send sms's to Europeian providers can be rather expensive. Google seems to have some system worked out a system with the carriers where they recoup the expenses for sent sms's from the money they receive on received sms's (think of it like the 900 number of sms). They even offer you a this tip in case you've run out of sms's for the day:

"Keep in mind that if you'd like a higher message quota, you can always send an SMS to your own phone, and then reply to that message multiple times. Every time you send a reply message, your quota is increased by five. Effectively, you're buying more messages by paying your phone company for these outgoing messages."

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Use your Google Account to Auto-Login to Facebook

Facebook has a cool (new?) feature that allows you to log in in to your Facebook page using you're Google (or Yahoo/Myspace) account. This eliminates the need to remember a different username/password for every site. All you need is you're Google account. Here's how to set it up:

First sign in to Facebook like you normally do. Then click Settings -> Account Settings.


Click Linked Accounts.



Select Google and click Link New Account.

A new page from Google will pop-up asking you to (log in if necessary and to) confirm the association, click Allow, and ensure that "remember this Approval" is checked.


That's all! Next time you visit Facebook.com, if you are logged in to you're Google account, you will be automatically logged in - no need to enter your Facebook username/password. If only other sites would make life so simple. Twitter, are you listening?

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Gmail two way sync and calander sync for Nokia

Google just updated the supported sync protocol for Nokia s60 series phones such as the e71, to Microsoft's ActiveSync. This allows two-way syncing and calendar syncing.

Get the full how-to here. I needed to upgrade Mail for Exchange to version 2.09 first, in order to get the sync working.

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
lazytt - FreePBX forums
hi365 - IRC

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Use the keypad/number pad in nano

For the longest time, I've been trying to figure how I can use the number pad in the linux text editor GNU nano. It felt very unnatural to have to use the numbers in the top of the keyboard - unintuitive and unnatural. Then I decided to RTFM! It's really quite simple: just start nano with the -K option, like this:

nano -K /path/to/file

Remembering to add the -K every time you run nano can be quite a drag. No fret, alias is here! Just run the following, and you will never have to add the -K again:

alias nano='nano -K'

From now on, you can just run nano somefile and have your number pad enabled!

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
lazytt - FreePBX forums
hi365 - IRC


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Is Google reading your web history?

Generally, I'm not one of those that actually care much about privacy. Not that I don't value it. But in today's 'cloud' world, its inevitable that someone, somewhere will have a bit more control over your information that you would like. You phone records are stored at the phone company (and they can monitor any of your calls). You salary is clearly recorded in the books of you bank. Your cellphone movements are clearly tracked and your geographical position is know (more or less) every minute of that day.

So when people ask me "How can we trust Google with our email and docs, web history, etc.", I try to explain to them that you can't. But then again, who can you trust? Are you sure that your smiley friendly bus driver isn't working as an informant for some private eye, reporting every time you get on or off the bus? Can you prove that your favorite coffee place isn't reporting your coffee addiction to the IRS, as proof that you have undeclared income (c'mmon! there is no way you can really afford $4.50 lattes in this economy! Unless your making a little extra something on the side...)? And we all know about wikileakes...

What I'm trying to say is that, inasmuch as I would not post my password on the internet, and inasmuch as would NOT like it if you read my email, we all know that Google scans your email to display relevant ads. And, honestly, have you never clicked Web History - even just to see how many web searches you've done in your google life time? (I've got: 19180). They have a ton of information in there about you. I know that. We all know that. And I'm sure that somewhere in the legal fine print that now-one bothers to read when we sign up, we consented to that as well.

What I did find surprising though is this: apparently, every time Google serves you ad's, they also take a peek at your history. Yup, heard right. The take a look at your browsing history. It seems that at the moment they "only" read the amount of pages in your history, but they can theoretically read the entire history and every single site you visited.

If you've been following this long, you know that I'm not so adverse to Google knowing where I buy my underwear or how I like to spice my chicken (sesame or lemon). They know that anyway: either by reading the order confirmation emails, or usually because they referred me to the site in the first place! But all this is, at least theoretically, with my consent. However Google doesn't make you sign a legal document before it serves you ads (and if they did, who would consent ;) ). At any given time, they can have a peek at your web history (not just the count), and keep tabs on you - even if you don't use any of there products!

I'm not saying that they do - but the prospects sure are spooky.


Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
lazytt - FreePBX forums
hi365 - IRC

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VirtualBox using high CPU

Recently, I tired setting up CentOS in a VirtualBox VM. After many unsuccessful attempts (seems to have something to do with cleanpar that I had set in kickstart), I finally got it working. Murphy however didn't sleep and immediately my cpu was up to 95%. Luckily, thy O so great, omnipresent google came to my rescue, and pointed out that what I needed was a vm kernel. Here's how I did it:


cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://vmware.xaox.net/centos/5.2/VMware.repo
yum upgrade kernel

Type y at the prompt, and reboot when the process is done. Presto! Oh, did I mention I take no responsibility if you systems ends up in an un-bootable state? :)

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
lazytt - FreePBX forums
hi365 - IRC


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Restricting call transfers with FreePBX

So, you've managed to lock down your pbx. No unwanted calls to any premium rate numbers anymore. Some of your users cant even call home unless you whitelist their number (I mean you Susan, the chatty, always on the phone secretary!). But they have discovered one way to beat the system: [censored! (but here is a hint: it has to do with call transfers)]. Here is a simple and effective way restrict call transfers to internal extensions only.

First, a little technical jargon to confuse/impress you: transferring a call with asterisk, is almost like placing one. Asterisk takes the extension (i.e. any number) that you called and tries to find a matching extension in the "call-transfer-context" - whatever that may be. With freepbx, that context is set to from-internal, the omnipresent FreePBX context. For more on how FreePBX works with asterisk contexts and extensions, see here.

To restrict calls from being transferred to local extensions only, all you need to do is to replace the default context with a more restrictive one. To do that, open /etc/asterisk/globals_custom.conf and add the following one line:

TRANSFER_CONTEXT=ext-local

This will restrict all transfers to local extensions only. If you need more fine grained control over the context, concider creating a whitelist based context.

Moshe Brevda, FreePBX Development Team
lazytt - FreePBX forums
hi365 - IRC


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