I’ve been struggling to get a Remote Desktop connection from my Ubuntu laptop to Xubuntu running on my Viglen MPC-L.
foxmajik provides a simple solution on the Ubuntu Forums: ditch vino in favour of x11vnc. Works a treat 
I saw the phrase “stolen from Carmen” and it led me to write this. It’s pure fiction, very rough and I wouldn’t usually post it here but I quite enjoyed writing it. It hasn’t benefited from editing or more than just a few minutes in a text editor.
Last night, when the rain made bubbles in your windscreen glass, I tried so hard not to look.
Motorway lights flashed amber as we passed; gave me seconds-long glimpses of the face I’d so long dreamt I’d wake to. Your hand on the gear-stick — shaking with the vibration of that dying car — pulled at me. But touching you — even there, alone — would have too soon shattered our odd little truce.
Songs in minor keys played on the radio, drew tears across my cheeks. No matter: as I counted down the miles I knew I’d always hold close the memories of that, our final journey.
Soon, we came to the sea and my thoughts turned to that one night we’d spent together. I swallowed hard as I remembered the shivers your fingers sent through me, the ache you nurtured. Those few moments — stolen from Carmen — would be the barrier to any normal future I could hope for.
Out of the car window I saw the bridge and felt the seconds slipping away; yet again I was falling towards something, out of control. You stopped, I opened the door; could’ve sworn I heard the ping of a submarine from beneath the waves. You stared directly ahead but I saw it: that quiver of your eyelid meant more to me than anything you might have said.
Within seconds, you were nothing more than tail-lights and memories.
After seeing yet another friend get an iPhone I decided it was time I got hold of a phone that would give me email on the move and something more akin to a usable web browsing experience.
The iPhone wasn’t an option for me: I don’t run Windows or Mac OS, I didn’t want to pay a lump sum up-front and I want to be able to use my phone as a modem for my laptop.
I’ve only ever really been happy with Nokia phones and have heard great things about the N95. For the past six months I’ve been using the Series 60 3rd edition Nokia 6120 and it’s great. Three offered me the N95 — at the £15 I’m paying now each month — so it seemed I’d be getting more of a good thing but for the same price.
So far, I’m quite disappointed with the Nokia N95. It’s slower than the 6120, by a noticeable margin, and it has hung more times in the past day than the 6120 has in the past six months. The screen seems less crisp, the 5 megapixel camera oddly appears to produce fuzzier images than the 6120′s 2 megapixel camera and by Baal is it large.
The interface is clunky in comparison to my hopes, the iPhone and, yes, even my 6120. The battery life seems poor. The wifi support — a major selling point for me — can’t handle DHCP with my Linksys router.
So, the good: the larger screen is welcome and the GPS seems to work (although I haven’t left the house with it yet). There is more but none of which I couldn’t have had with the 6120. Opera Mini, for example, provides a better web browser than the standard S60 browser but I could have had it with the 6120.
Perhaps what I really wanted was unlimited mobile data so I could get email on the move and not a new phone.
I really do want to find more positive to say about the N95 but, having come from the 6120, it hasn’t yet wowed me; I s’ppose I’ve got 18 months to find it.