Argos, GNOME Shell extensions

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Argos is a free GNOME version of BitBar. Both lets you run any script to create an icon in the panel (or Mac OS X Menu Bar). You can see lots of plugins here: BitBar plugins.

This screenshot shows the hosts file, opened from the argos extension. The extension is shown as a notebook icon with the number of unknown entries.

It complains on forgotten entries in your /etc/hosts file. See Argos-hosts for more info.

Car-logger - part 2

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

# Overview

Read part one of Car-logger first, if you haven’t.

I chose to go with outdated Android phones in the previous article. Phones with CyanogenMod and no Google Play. This means that they run all free software, except for some firmware blobs and drivers. No background services driving up data or battery usage, no third party tracking my location.

I tried out Traccar. The app worked fine, but the backend was a big, horrible java thing. Poor UI, overkill for my purpose, and too much for me to get hacking on.

After trying out a few different ones I finally found BigBrotherGPS. It was half of what I wanted. An app that simply makes a http request with a few parameters in post-data. The backend wasn’t more than a proof-of-concept, but http requests are easy to work with and language agnostic.

So I created BigBrotherGPSweb (a better name is needed). See github for a proper description, but the basics are:

Receive http/https requests.
Store requests and devices in mysql.
Display results in a map.

It still need some work, and I’ll be working on it until I get bored or find a new project. But it currently serves the purpose.

And of course it can be used to track more than cars.

# Edit 20140930

This requires a SIM card. My operator supplies a twin SIM for NOK 20 / month, so it’s a low cost for me.

Software on falkp.no/blog

Argos, GNOME Shell extensions

Car-logger - part 2

# Overview

# Edit 20140930

# Pics, or it didn’t happen!