If you’ve read my last couple of posts, you’ll know that I am, overall, extremely happy with my HTC Desire phone. Once HTC/Orange get around to pushing out Android 2.2 I suspect I will be even happier However, I have had a couple of mishaps. My previously mentioned fail with the Sense launcher was mostly harmless, if a little irritating. However, my own impatience with my Mac mounting the phone the other day lead to a worse problem – the microsd card wasn’t mounted/unmounted properly and failed to read either in my phone or on the Mac. The only solution was to format it. This meant I lost everything on it, some of which had been on it from my previous phone. I load a load of photos – nothing spectacular, but quite upsetting.
And so to the problem of syncing…..
There are a number of options available for Android. None of which are as good as iTunes, I suspect… DoubleTwist is an attempt to mimic iTunes-like functionality with an Android phone. However, I’m not overly impressed with it as a piece of software. They’ve just released a client app on the phone too – I guess I might check it out, but I’m not convinced by the reviews I’ve seen so far.
The Missing Sync promise to be a great solution, but it is $40 which grates a little. Plus, it seems to sync _everything_. As I noted in my previous post, I have a load of stuff that _already_ syncs. Contacts, mail and calendar are all sorted. There are only 2 things left I need to sync (that I can think of) – Photos/Videos and the HTC auto-backup file. (Apps is a possibility, but I’m thinking of going with AppBrain on that, as it seems a popular choice)
MyBackup is an online service with an Android app that appears to be highly rated….. but 2GB of space? That seems somewhat paltry for backing up images.
Google, of course, have their own image service – Picasa. Sadly, though, it doesn’t look like the integration with Android is there. And so I think I’m just going to sync photos with my laptop using….. the built in Image Capture programme for syncing with cameras. And I’ll make copies of the autobackup files too.
However, I will play around with DoubleTwist for a while as well, as it’s free , just in case I’ve missed something important.
So I’ve changed browser from Mozilla Firefox to Google Chrome. This is a big deal for me – I’ve been a Mozilla user for years now, and I still think they do great work. However, there are a few big advantages in Chrome for me:
1. It’s quicker.
2. It’s Webkit based, so it helps when working a lot with mobile Webkit stuff
3. My phone runs Webkit
4. The release of 2.2 includes some cool stuff for “cloud-to-device” work, and I suspect a chunk of that will be in Chrome in the near future.
5. The developer stuff is just a bit smoother and neater than firebug
I’m now pretty much a Google boy – I use Google Mail and Calendar, and I have a Google phone, which integrates everything nicely together. Talking of the Desire, I picked up a nasty bug (not sure of the source) which caused the HTC Sense Launcher to repeatedly die, which required a complete wipe of the phone. Luckily, all the magic backup stuff kicked in, and the only stuff I really lost was the connections between my phone, google and facebook contacts, which only took about 30 minutes to restore. (I do really need to sort through my contacts and cut them down – a lot of them are horribly duplicated, and my first phone couldn’t store multiple numbers for a single person, so I have loads of entries for all the different numbers and stuff).
Other than that problem, the Desire is a fantastic phone. I’m enjoying having a “smart phone”, and I suspect that by not having previously had an iPhone is a bit of an advantage. I don’t particularly feel any iPhone envy, and while I appreciate the appeal of an iPhone and the way that Apple handles it, I’m still a big fan of the open nature of Android. While it leads to a proliferation of crap available for the phone, I do believe in the long run it will increase the potential and quality. (Much like the internet). And the price was right.
Oh, and I can’t wait for 2.2 to arrive for my phone – latest news slates it for June 23rd.
No, I’ve not won the lottery. That’s my final score on ‘High Roller Casino’ on my Nokia after numerous successful Texas Hold ‘em tournaments. And it’s the final score because yesterday I took delivery of a new phone, the HTC Desire, which is the latest Google Android powered phone to hit the UK market. I got an amazingly good deal from Orange and it means I finally have a phone that I can use to show off the apps that we create at my work! (without having to sell-out and get an iPhone ) Plus, it’s got SatNav….
I’ve blogged in the past about my exploits with MythTV, and playing around with Personal Video Recorders. Over Christmas we bought ourselves a new TV and DVD player, to replace our aged tv, freeview box and dvd player, all of which had faults. However, our video recorder is also showing some signs of age – it was a wedding present – and I recently saw that eBuyer now have the Acer Revo “nettop” PCs for only £120, and I began investigating the world of PVRs again.
Here’s what I would really like:
something that can (at least) mimic the functions of the video recorder, ie recording and playing back shows from TV
something that can handle our library of DVDs
something that can give easy access to online video content, ideally iplayer and seesaw as they now cover most of the stuff I’d want
Other items (picture viewing, other video plugins, etc, etc) are a bonus that is a consideration, but not a deal breaker.
So I started to look around at some of the current popular offerings. As far as I can tell, MythTV is still the one to beat for straight PVR, although there’s a certain amount of confusing online as to whether or a not a Revo could handle it as a combined backend/frontend. (The dual-core model seems like it might, unsure about the ‘bargain’ box).
When it comes to the online content, there are 3 big boys out there – XBMC, Plex (which is only for MacOS) and Boxee. I’ve looked at all three, and here are my conclusions:
XBMC – the code upon which the other 2 are based, but seems to be nice. The interface is usable and looks a lot like plex. However, the browsing for plugins is rudimentary, and the list of plugins only had a couple of things I wanted. A search online seemed to come back with a lot of ‘this can’t be done because of DRM’ replies, and yet the plugins exist for Plex, so why not….?
Plex – pretty nice, although it did have one or two annoyances, not least the reliance on OSX which would make the Acer Revo a more difficult prospect (if a prospect at all)
Boxee – the new kid on the block making a lot of noise, but, in my opinion, not yet delivering. They need to sort out getting more plugins in there, and it needs an interface to MythTV too It had a whole load of “social” stuff built into it, but, frankly, I don’t think I want/need that. (Reminds me a bit of the Flock browser)
I _want_ to like Boxee, but I find myself leaning towards XBMC more at the moment. Alternatively, there are a load of plugins for MythTV itself, so maybe that is a better option?
I’d love to hear from anybody who has similar needs, and also anyone who’s running Myth on a Revo.
Those of you with geek leanings, and possibly some of you who aren’t, will have experienced the problem – you have a great idea for a new project/product/business/etc and you’ve come up with a name for it and it’s beginning to come together, and then you go to buy the domain, only to discover that .com, .net and .org are all taken. And suddenly you have to decide – do you go for a marginally more obscure ending – .co.uk, org.uk, .info, .me – or do you change the name of the project?
The happened for me with both linkpot.net and fosstr.org (both of which I handed over to a friend when I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to maintain them). In both of those, I took the option to choose a new name and get a ‘decent’ domain. However, it’s happened to me again, and, in light of the recent hubbub from ReadWriteWeb which seems to indicate that a significant proportion of the web use Google rather than actually type in addresses, am I better off keeping the name I like and having a longer TLD, or is there still value in having a short TLD?
Thoughts welcome (although let’s not have a discussion about whether someone in the UK should be using .***.uk rather than a US TLD )
OK – it’s not really new any more – been here for more than 3 months. But I promised Félim that I would blog about it
I started work on Nov 16th at Central with the job title of ‘Junior Developer’. The extra hour in bed in the mornings is wonderful, as is getting home a good 45 minutes earlier at night. I’ve been able to help out with the kids in the morning and evening, which I (hope/think) is a bit of relief for Heather.
I’m doing a stack of Python, which is great, and working on a product that I genuinely think is brilliant. (More on that when it gets formally released ). I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.
All in all, it was definitely the right move to make.
Back in December 2007 I tried a bit of cycle commuting on a borrowed mountain bike. I stopped when I realised that it wasn’t really saving me any money, and because I thought I was about to move to a job closer to home, whereupon I would start again. Sadly, the job never materialised, and I never started up cycling again, despite having done over 200 miles at that point.
Fast-forward to 2009, where I got 2 offers – a new job at Central and a new (to me) bike via an online friend. He had been given an old 10-speed road-bike, but wasn’t allowed by his wife to keep it, so I said I would take it.
I took delivery of an old Peugeot Carbolite 103 (actually the name of the frame, the model is an obscure number on a sticker near the bottom bracket that is a bit torn ) in November, but sadly there is no such thing as a free bike. New tyres were a good start, but when I went for my first serious test ride, the chain broke. A new chain then enabled me to see that the saddle was woefully uncomfortable, so a new saddle arrived for Christmas. I’m still in need of some mud guards, and I suspect a rack at some point, and some additional cycling clothes, etc, etc, etc. You get the picture
Me collecting the bike:
A few alterations later:
Of course, then there are the alterations that need doing. The brakes are shoddy and need a bit more work, if not replacing. The brake levers have been moved, but need moved a lot more to make the drops anything more than decoration. I have bar tape to fit (matching the saddle…). Plus it now needs a good clean and oiling.
However, I’ve done 100 miles in January, having ridden every work day, and I intend to ride at least 200 work days in 2010, which would be about 1000 miles of cycling. It will also save me in the region of £400, although I would need to minus expenses off that…… now – where’s that cycling mag….
Wow – I am so behind on blog posts it’s unbelievable. I have 3 or 4 in my head at the moment. However, just a small one for now to wish all our readers a Happy New Year. Some things to look forward to posts on:
My New Job
My New Bike / Commute / Fitness plan for 2010
Thoughts on PVRs
Snow!
But for now, a few excellent links for those of you who are into cycling. My aim this year (more later) is 200 weekday commutes, so I am officially “into” cycling (again!)
It’s been a while since I released any code into the public realm. Until today \o/
Sadly, the code is probably not something that many people are interested in, but I was interested and that’s enough for me
Whetstone is a small application to help you memorise verses of scripture over a period of time. Currently it only runs on Linux, although the Windows version is around the corner. Testers are welcomed
I am a huge fan of the BBC, and I gladly pay my license fee in return for the oodles of quality content we get over the airwaves and internet-tubes. Tying themselves down in the way described in this article would be a monumental fail, and I would cry.
Back in May I asked the question as to whether or not I should have two blogs, my existing Jedimoose blog (which you’re reading now) and an additional blog to cover the new work that Heather and I were beginning in the church.
After a certain amount of internal debate, I chose a rough compromise – I would have 2 blogs, but I would post regular summaries of links here to posts on the other site. This has the additional benefit that the other site will likely contain posts from multiple people involved with the project over time.
And so, at long last, I am pleased to officially announce (meaning it happened a while back, but I didn’t get around to posting before) the life`boat project. If you want to read the posts regularly, you’ll find them there, otherwise there will be summaries here every now and then when I remember (I hope to get something automagic, but haven’t found a plugin to my liking at the moment).
It’s been a week since my Aspire One got delivered, so here are a few thoughts (posted from it, of course).
Linpus Lite lasted about 10 minutes before the novelty wore off and Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) got installed
UNR is pretty sweet – installed quickly, and I really like the launcher and maximus (the window manager that auto-maximises most applications
The keyboard is surprisingly easy to type on
The screen is nice – Serenity looks great
I need to try one of the other wifi drivers – this one does seem to drop out when under high load
Adobe Flash is somewhat slow at times – need to see if anyone else suffers from that
Battery life is not as good as I would like, but liveable with
Overall, I’m extremely happy with my new piece of kit – it has outperformed my expectations in most areas, and I am anticipating it getting plenty of use over the next few weeks and months.
One thing I have been thinking about is storage, and whether or not to get some online storage. Dropbox has been around for a while and seems to be popular, although part of me is tempted by Ubuntu One, as a way to support Canonical. Anybody got experience of either of these, another service, or alternatively using something like space on Dreamhost for synchronising data?
It’s been 13 years since I bought a whole computer for myself. But today I put in my order for an Acer Aspire One netbook, which is very exciting. Sadly, in order to pay for it, I am selling on the Nokia N800 that I won at LugRadio Live 2007, which I do with some sadness, but it is at least going on to a good home at another former LugRadio Community Hero.
So, why the change. Well, I’d been thinking about Netbooks since Asus brought out the Eee pc – I love the balance between portability and power. While my N800 has bags of power for it’s size, and was definitely portable, it basically got relegated to being an audio media player, with the odd bit of video, and playing Aisleriot (and Flight of the Amazon Queen on SCUMMVM when I first got it). Certainly the screen is lovely for video, and it fulfilled it’s function wonderfully. If I didn’t need the cash to fund the netbook, I’d keep it….
Instead, however, my media player functions will move to my phone, and the netbook will become the place for watching video and playing games. In addition, I’m hoping to use the netbook as a calendar/diary, which the N800 wasn’t ideal for (although GPE Calendar twinned with Erminig to sync with google was not bad), plus take on some additional functions that I would normally use my laptop for, like running OpenOffice.org and GnomeSword (now apparently called Xiphos, but not yet in Ubuntu…).
According to Parcelforce, it’s out for delivery today, so hopefully my next post will be done via the netbook
Given that the news is mostly out through twitter/facebook, I thought I would put some extra information here as a bonus to my blog readers
Heather went in for a checkup yesterday evening, and we got home at 1900, at which point she had her first contractions, and they continued sporadically from then. At around 0030 they were consistent enough, and frequent enough, that it was time to head out. We arrived at the Southern General at around 0050.
The labour was actually pretty quick, and drugless apart from gas and air this time. At 0240 Jamie popped out and had some skintime with Mummy. He weighed in at exactly 9lbs, which is 1lb 13oz heavier than Mira was! He fed a bit and then I got my first hold, and then he slept for a good while, during which the midwives did all the necessary cleaning up and paperwork and stuff.
I hung around until after they had bathed Jamie and Heather had a shower, and then headed home for about 0600. Jackie had been staying over for Mira (thanks Jackie!) and so I got 90 minutes sleep and she handled getting Mira up and breakfast before I took over. The rest of the day has been a whirlwind of texting, emailing, phoning and taking Mira to visit her new baby brother.
Not what I normally get to see in my back garden in the middle of Glasgow. Sadly the photos are too shaky for public consumption, but this bit of video came out great:
In the past year of using Ubuntu fulltime at work, there have only been a couple of consistent annoyances. One was that when booting up with 2 screens attached it would default to the external monitor, not the internal. I wrote a quick script which sorts that.
The other was that, when the previous occurs, or when playing games etc, the panel icons and applets seem to move around, rather than staying where I had carefully placed them. Now, the positions of all the applets and icons are stored in gconf, so I thought it would be a cunning plan to write to script to store/restore them, and here it is!
To run it you simply do:
$ python panel-tool.py store
which will store the positions of all the icons/applets in your top panel in a text file, and then
$ python panel-tool.py restore
when you want them restored to normal. This requires a restart of the panel, which is a bit ugly (it does a complete reload, which takes a few seconds) but it works!
Anyway – thought somebody else might be wanting this, so I’m releasing this version into the wild. It’s nowhere near perfect, I’m sure, but it WFM…
(Save the file and rename to panel-tool.py due to hosting weirdness)
UPDATE
OK – there seems to be some issues with the login/out menu applet, and the clock applet. Sometimes they show up in the wrong place, although if you move them to where they should be and rerun panel-tool it seems to work itself out properly. I’ll see if I can resolve this (and do a proper config file as suggested by aq)
Wow – this is quite late. Here are some basic results, although, as has been pointed out many times, this is far from statistically accurate or in any way a valid experiment.
There were only 7 completed responses to the survey, and the results go something like this:
Background:
5 Female, 2 Male; 6 UK, 1 US; 6 Christians, 1 agnostic (nominally marked as Christian, but neutral in belief in God and neutral in following their prescribed set of beliefs). All but one prayed for more than 25 of the 40 (the one being one of the Christians, not the agnostic)
Prayer:
There was a spread between the different options for what to pray for. The Christians believed that God would answer (although one was unsure it would happen in this timescale). The Christians all felt they had an answer, although only one thought it was “complete”. The agnostic gave it a -1, so not a complete opposite, but worse than a no answer. Interestingly, the number of times people prayed did not seem to have much effect – the person who prayed the least seemed to have one of the more answered prayers.
Changes:
The Christians had no change in their belief in God, but a little more faith in prayer. The agnostic had less faith in God, and less faith in prayer. The Christians would definitely keep praying, whereas the agnostic stayed neutral.
I’ll leave the rest of you to formulate your own opinions on this, as you probably would anyway. Thanks to those who took part (especially those who filled out the survey).
There are few things in my life that have lasted a decade. I’ve never lived in the same house for 10 years. I’ve never had the same car for 10 years. Or computer. I’ve had my bike for more than 10 years, but it hasn’t been ridden for 10 either. I have been playing guitar for more than 10 years, but not the same guitar (although my first acoustic from 14 years ago is still kicking about). While it feels like eternity, I haven’t worked at IBM for 10 years. I have been using Linux on and off for 10 years, but only as my primary desktop for about 7 or 8.
But on Saturday, Heather and I will have been married for 10 years. Depending on the stats you read, it would appear that we are now in the minority. We’ve certainly passed through the statistically difficult period (the 25-29 age bracket has the highest %age of divorces). It hasn’t always been easy, but I have no regrets, and still very much believe in marriage, both generally and specifically.
Apparently, it takes the average person 9 years of marriage before they start thinking unselfishly. So things should be getting much better now Roll on the next 10.
I was recently given an old IBM i-series Thinkpad by someone who I work with and after having to salvage a cd-rom from another old Thinkpad (which had a busted screen) it works quite well.
No network, wireless or otherwise, and a busted modem. But it works.
And I replaced the existing WinXP with Puppy Linux.
Which runs like a charm. It’s a small system, picks up my hardware and my wireless pc card without any struggle and is perfect for Writing with so I don’t have to steal away Ruthy’s laptop whenever I’m out at a writing meet.
However, I have had a couple of mishaps. My previously mentioned fail with the Sense launcher was mostly harmless, if a little irritating. However, my own impatience with my Mac mounting the phone the other day lead to a worse problem – the microsd card wasn’t mounted/unmounted properly and failed to read either in my phone or on the Mac. The only solution was to format it. This meant I lost everything on it, some of which had been on it from my previous phone. I load a load of photos – nothing spectacular, but quite upsetting. 
) in November, but sadly there is no such thing as a free bike. New tyres were a good start, but when I went for my first serious test ride, the chain broke. A new chain then enabled me to see that the saddle was woefully uncomfortable, so a new saddle arrived for Christmas. I’m still in need of some mud guards, and I suspect a rack at some point, and some additional cycling clothes, etc, etc, etc. You get the picture 
