But after a while, I missed the small form factor of the Incredible! So now I am back it it and really do like the little things HTC adds to its version of Android. Here are a few tips I can offer after taking the time to bring this new phone up to speed.

• Install Amazon app store. I like this store, and it does a great job of keeping your apps and making them easy to re-install when you switch phones.
• Ignore the Skype that comes w/ the phone. You can’t (easily) uninstall it, but just go to the Android marketplace and install the official Skype (NOT the one from Verizon) then you can do web calls w/ the front facing camera
• If you use Swype (and if you don’t, you should try it), the Incredible 2 does not come with it installed. You need to visit swype.com and download the “beta” which is really better than a beta at this point.
• Install Vlingo for voice recognition functions like calling, asking questions, etc. It’s Android’s “Siri”.

If you review the past code names for Fedora, you get the idea that the people making them went from being alcoholics, to Twilight fans, to gassy historians, to Nasa enthusiasts, to Bachelor-Pad viewers who like the letter “L”.

But I digress.

Outside of some sys admin changes that can throw you for a loop if you are used to core things not changing, the system feels the same which is nice. One GREAT thing is that I didn’t have to adjust anything for my 3 screens/monitors configuration to still work!

One oddity is that Thunderbird 6 (I had thunderbird 3 previously) seems to run slow, so I am investigating plugins/settings to see what can be done.

For Webmin, you should:

1. Go to Webmin -> Webmin Configuration -> SSL Encryption
2. Enter this into Allowed SSL Ciphers field: “ALL:!ADH:!LOW:!MEDIUM:!SSLv2:!EXP:+HIGH”
3. Set SSL protocol version to “3″

You can check from the command line to make sure SSL-2 is not allowed via:

openssl s_client -connect localhost:10000 -ssl2

and you should get a line that has “error” in it to verify.

I did have problems getting the NATing properly working on the Cisco851 however. The first attempt had the Cisco getting the Comcast IP assigned properly w/ DHCP, and the router could ping out just fine. But, no computers behind it using NAT could get out. After much trial-and-error and dozens of google results, I got the following config that worked. I haven’t fully cleaned it up yet and fleshed out the access lists completely, but the important stuff is there

Another point to add, is that I had heard things about the MAC address getting tied to the first computer you plug in. When I was troubleshooting, I called Comcast and talked to a tech about this, and it is NOT a worry when you are plugging a router in. They claim they only use the MAC with Comcast equipment. I will say that I had first plugged a laptop in to test the line, and then I switched to the cisco without reseting the box, so my experience seemed to prove the tech’s statement.

Click here for the cisco config

I haven’t changed any settings, I only keep the bluetooth on (no wi-fi or gps) and whereas my battery would usually last around 14+ hours with normal usage, this new version seems to die in around 8 hours.

UPDATE: I had a reason to flush my android and start from scratch, and this seemed to clear up the battery problem! Why? Who knows! Logic would indicate some app was causing a problem, but I am careful on apps and when I reinstalled everything the battery life was still good.

The main thing is to edit the /etc/sudoers file, and typically you can (as root) use the ”visudo” command to do so.

Make sure apache can run commands, AND not require a password:

apache  ALL=(ALL)       NOPASSWD: ALL

Then you need to comment out this line:

#Defaults    requiretty

If you don’t, then you will see these errors in /var/log/secure: “sorry, you must have a tty to run sudo”. Now you are ready to go, and the PHP code is simple:

$results = shell_exec(‘sudo date’);

But nonetheless, I am sad to see this particular Borders shut down, since they had an AWESOME selection of tech books! And I was just there a few days ago to see ALL the bookshelves empty of knowledge.

They were selling everything in the store, even those big-ass bookshelves. I thought briefly of putting in a 12 foot high bookshelf in my home office but decided against it.

I downloaded the change_sqlpass plugin, and ran into an issue where once the user changed the password, it gave an error “Your session has expired, but will be resumed after logging in again.”

I had to dig around to find some patches people recommended to use, but that plugin download is over 5 years old and has not been updated with it! You basically need to update one file, “functions.php”, so I have done so and you can just grab it here.

I spent a fair amount of time searching around for an answer and finally found it at http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/webhosting/php/php-38.html

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find this switch option! After I made this post, Yahoo support replied to give me the proper link and some more information, which I must compliment Yahoo support for doing.

I did have one case lately where I would connect in and it would hang while “entering passive mode”. It turns out I needed to add some extra stuff into iptables. This did the trick:

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp –dport 20 -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 20 -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 21 -m recent –set –name FTP –rdest -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 1024:65535 -m recent –rcheck –seconds 9800 –name FTP –rdest -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp –dport 20 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 20 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 21 -m recent –set –name FTP –rdest -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp –dport 1024:65535 -m recent –rcheck –seconds 9800 –name FTP –rdest -j ACCEPT