Like most Americans, I get the majority of my political news from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Cobert Report.  I’ve found it’s also a great platform to educate my son on how the world works.  He gets to laugh and I get to explain why it’s funny after he laughs.  Which then leads me to a question:  WHAT ARE THEY TEACHING KIDS IN SCHOOL????

Anyway, I digress on that topic… On Friday, the Jon Stewart had some commentary on the situation in Libya.  I laughed so hard I feel off the couch.  Prepare yourself!

The rooting process was a little more complicated, but the guys over at XDA had great info on the process.  They’ve actually written a script to do the full process in just a couple steps.  I went through the process and used the script a few times while I tested out the various ROMs available for the Droid 2.

A friend of mine recently bought a Droid 2 as an upgrade for his Droid (he also ran ChevyNo1).  Since I was pretty comfortable with the rooting process he asked me to help him out.  After two days of attempting using both the manual process and the script, I was just about ready to chuck his phone out the window.  Basically, right after the exploit that allows root access was run, the phone would drop USB connectivity until it was rebooted.  So, the process could not be finished.

My first thoughts were that Motorola had released an upgrade that fixed the exploit, but I could not find anyone else that was having the same issue.  I decided to try doing an SBF restore on his phone, which failed.  For those that don’t know, an SBF restore basically writes the factory OS back to the phone.  I have never seen it fail before.  During the restore process, I noticed that his bootloader version was different from my phone.  In fact it was a lower version, which seemed unusual since I had my phone months before him.  Then the lightbulb went off…

I had him check his Verizon account and he actually had a Droid 2 Global (D2G).  The Droid 2 Global has numerous discussions around the rooting process and exactly what I was experiencing.  This was known.

XDA also has a work around for this via an app called z4root.  Z4root will perform the entire rooting process on the phone without a script or having to jump through hoops.

You can get z4root here:  http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=833953

Download the file, then copy it over to your sdcard.  To install, you will need to enable untrusted sources for application installation.  Then install the package using your favorite file browser.  Once it is installed, you can run it and perform the root process.  It took about 5 minutes on my friend’s phone.

I then installed Koush’s Droid 2 Boot Manager and Team DeFuse’s Fission ROM Manager.  After downloading the D2G version of Fission ROM, I had him up and running.

As a side note, the Fission ROM Manager has broken out some of the Motorola Blur applications so that you can install them separately.  Some of them are better than the stock Android version.

Koush had a free version of the Boot Manager on his website.  I can’t seem to find it right now (try Google).  There is an inexpensive paid version on the Android market.  My personal choice was to buy the paid version as it gives him a reason to keep working on it.

Fission ROM can be found at:  http://www.teamdefuse.com

It goes without saying (but I will anyway), that rooting your phone (and installing custom ROMs) does pose various risks including voiding your warranty and potentially damaging your phone.  The responsibility is all yours if something goes wrong.

After doing some investigation using my favorite search engine, I found many articles outlining a process of setting up the iPad to use Exchange to connect to GMail, then going to m.google.com/sync and selecting your device/calendars.  All of them pointed to Google’s own instructions, which seemed like the right way to go.

After several attempts I realized the instructions were flawed/wrong or something had changed.

• On my iPad, going to m.google.com/sync told me I needed to backup my iPad.  After following that process, I still could go no further.
• Following a process of setting Safari into developer mode and activating sync on it, had the same result.
• In both cases, I should have been prompted to log into m.google.com/sync but no option was there.

After quite a bit more digging, I found a forum post that discussed the same problem.  Basically, it sounds like Google changed something and did not update their docs.  Fortunately, some intrepid user figured out the fix and shared it, just as I am going to do here.  (The more that know… the better)

Prior to iOS 4.2.1, since you could only have ONE Exchange account on your iPad.  With 4.2.1 that limitation is removed.  Either way, I’ve tested this solution using Exchange and the native GMail client on my iPad – they both work.  One big advantage of using Exchange is that your contacts will sync automatically, while using GMail does not (you have to sync using iTunes)

First step is to set up your email on the iPad.  (I would suggest backing it up first).

If you are using Exchange.  Go to Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

Tap Microsoft Exhcnage

Email: you@gamil.com

Username: you@gmail.com

Password: your passowrd

Domain: Leave it blank

Description: What Ever You Want

Tap Next, your iPad will attempt to verify your account.  It should come back asking for a server name.

Server: m.google.com

You can leave the rest of the settings alone, assuming they are correct.

Tap Done.

Now to set up your Calendars.

Go back into your Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Tap Add Account

Tap Other

Tap Add CalDAV Account

These are the settings from all of the Google Documentation

Server: www.google.com

User Name: you@gmail.com

Password: your password

Description: Whatever you want

Click Next and you should be all set up for Calendars.

Next you need to set up the shared calendars to sync.

In Safari on your iPad, browse to http://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

You will need to log in with your GMail username and password.  You can then select the calendars you want.

Once you are done Tap Save.

The addition of the calendars is not instant.  So don’t panic if they aren’t there right away.  If after 10 minutes or so, they don’t come up.  First check your Google Calendars to make sure they are shared.  I actually ended up removing all of my accounts from my iPad and re-adding them.  BE WARNED – That method will delete your contacts and calendar items on your iPad.  If you haven’t synced to something else, THEY ARE GONE FOREVER.

A few notes:

I think the Calendar is enabled by default when you setup up your GMail using Exchange.  This can create duplicate events in your calendar.  To fix this, I edited my Exchange settings and turned off the Calendar Sync.

Calendar sets your default calendar to the iPad calendar.  You can change this under Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar.  Scroll down to the bottom.

Thanks to Sarah for sending this to me in an email.  :-)

So, I’m back on the books and practicing the entire body of knowledge – even ISDN (if it’s there).  Even though the labs in the books are *childs play*, it is a good idea to do them at least once.  This helps to ensure you’re thinking at the level of the test.  While I have many routers and switches at work, I can’t exactly implement the lab environment on them.  I also don’t have the money to buy all the hardware myself, a decent lab will run you $300 – $700 on ebay.  So, a simulator is the next best thing – unlimited routers and switches!

I have looked at some of the commercially available simulators, such as Boson & Routersim, both of which are pretty cool.  You get the unlimited routers and switches, but the command sets are not entirely complete.  That’s not to say they aren’t enough for CCNA, but I would prefer the real experience.  Enter GNS3 and Dynamips.

Dynamips is an emulator program that was written by Christophe Fillot to emulate Cisco routers.  The one caveaught with Dynamips is that it uses REAL Cisco IOS images.  This means that, under the Cisco EULA, you must have the right to have the IOS in order to use it.  If you have the right, Dynamips might be the right option for you.  There is another option for using Dynamips, which I will discuss later in the article.  I am fortunate to have one of the routers supported by Dynamips at work.  (I am not certain if I am skirting a grey area here…)

In order to quickly configure your routers, sometimes it helps to have a GUI.  GNS3 seems to be the favorite among many studying for CCNA.  I’m not going to get into the details of installing GNS3, it’s painless and easy to do.  Their website provides easy to follow instructions for installing on Windows and Linux (they seem to favor Ubuntu).

You can get GNS3 here:  http://www.gns3.net/

Once you have installed, click Read More to see the rest of this article.

So, let’s assume you have access to any one of the supported router modules on GNS3, what can you do?  Let’s start with a simple network and create one router.  You drag the router to your topology and right click on it to configure.  Because it is a “real” router, you have the option to configure any of the same hardware that router supports.



Click OK and add another router with the same configuration.  And now you have two routers that are configured, but not connected.

To connect the routers, click the add link button, select the appropriate type of link, on the toolbar.  Click on R1 and draw a line to R2.  To complete the link, Click on R2.  Once you are done connecting, you need to click the add link button again to get out of the link mode.

For my purposes, I selected FastEthernet.  GNS will automatically link to the lowest numbered available port.  For me that is F0/0 to F0/0.

Now it’s time to power your router on and see what happens.  Right click on the R1 and select Start.  Very quickly right click on it again and click Console.

If you configured your router correctly (remember you have to set the RAM size to at least the minimum Cisco says for the IOS you are running) you should see the router bootup process.

If you do not see the #### part and the router does not appear responsive when you press Enter, you probably need to check your configuration and make sure you have the RAM correct.

If it booted up, go ahead and Start up R2.  Once it starts up, you should have green lights on the devices.

You can right click on each of the routers and console in to configure the interfaces, routing and connectivity exactly as though you were working on a router setup.

Now here comes the cool part.  The guys over at GNS3.net have labs you can download – that are preconfigured for different scenarios.  You save them and load them in your GNS3 and you can practice doing many of the labs that are listed in the CCNA books.

Some thing to think about.  Each router is USING the RAM you specify, so this can really put a load on your computer.  If you create a network that is very large, you can drop your computer to its knees.

Now, suppose you don’t have access to any Cisco IOS images.  Dynamips was originally developed to simulate the Cisco 7200 router – as a result, the creator did create 7200 IOS image – which you can download @ http://www.ipflow.utc.fr/blog/

As always, do your research and good luck!

Jeff

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