Blrg

So I've gotten myself a Nexus One, an Android-powered cell phone, hoping to have a good platform to test Android apps on (Only to learn that months ago, Google was giving away phones to developers).

Anyway, so far it's been great. The only gripes I have is that the touchscreen seems to be a little off and the wifi has issues remaining connected now (it used to work fine), but the Wifi Fixer app works as a work-around for the latter.

Furthermore, I've gotten the phone connected to WIND Mobile, and so far my experience with WIND has been OK. Even ignoring the issues getting started (the people signing me up were kinda new, so I forgive them), every now and then I seem to drop out of their towers' reach and be considered roaming! Also, in some situations where other providers would manage to get *some* signal, I get none at all - but I shouldn't be too surprised, I guess. These situations are the usual suspects - elevators, bus network basements, etc..

On the bright side, though, the cost is fairly small (~30$ for voice+voicemail+data) and I have unlimited texts for a year.

Yeah, so I have an HTC Dream from Rogers because my boss wants me to be able to get e-mails and calls when things go wrong - expensive for an on-call phone, eh? - and I was having difficulty updating it. See, Rogers has been for the past month demanding that users update their phone due to a bug concerning dialling 911 (apparently, if you have GPS enabled and try to call 911, the call fails or somesuch; but I never have GPS enabled anyway, since Google tracks you if you have it on and I have no use for it - besides, the cell location works better), and they disable your data plan until you update. After trying to update it on two Windows systems and trying to manually put the firmware on it as well as calling Rogers tech support, I finally found these instructions:

Windows 7 Instructions for Rogers HTC

It's actually pretty simple, but here's the real problem I was encountering:

I had mistakenly assumed that since it was a new device, the SD card was formatted FAT32, as they need to be for the update. However, it was not (Good job, Rogers). After getting everything off the card and formatting it to FAT32 then replacing the firmware onto the card, I was able to update the phone without a hitch.

I'm still disappointed that it took Rogers so long to update the HTC Dream... ...and didn't even provide a real update. Geez, guys, get with the program already.

I don't understand this obsession with widescreens. I don't.

No, I don't like widescreen at all. It has it's uses, but for me, I'd rather it stick to TVs. Leave my monitors and especially my laptops alone! Arg!

The only laptop I could find that was still being sold that isn't a widescreen is Eurocom's D700T Enigma. A fine laptop, but I'm having an incredible amount of difficulty with them and getting a working laptop. (When I bought it, I had to bring it back the "next" day to get it fixed. Only about three weeks later did they finally stop trying to fix it and basically gave me a new system; Even so, the video card appears to have issues and I may have to bring it in again!)

I'm still looking for a portable media player that can be truly customized. First one to suggest an iPod will be shot. It may seem silly, I want to load the 10+ different file types that I use and not have any problems playing them (companies looking for small codecs may be interested in looking at the source code of foobar2000). Bonus points if it comes with (or there is, somewhere on the internet) software that can re-encode certain formats to lower bitrates (since you aren't going to get full sound quality from a P.A.P. anyway) automatically and still manage to handle changes on both sides transparently (e.g. if, on another computer, I change the tags or add/delete files, those changes will affect the library on my main system).

What? I can dream, can't I?

On a related aside, I've been looking at the GP2X (official) (which has found it's way into my wishlist) and VirtualCogs - specifically, the Portable Computing COG which I may yet use to build and sell a mix between P.A.P. I'm looking for and the GP2X. Hmm, I could sell that. I wonder if Virtual Cogs Embedded Systems Inc. has anything against that sort of thing.

So I've gotten a new Palm.

My reasoning for this purchase was that I could use it to write while on the go, or even just if I felt like writing somewhere other than at home. Naturally, I got a keyboard for it as well as I wasn't going to be able to write all that much using the stylus (it has character recognition (at least technically), but I don't enjoy handwriting). Sadly, I neglected to notice that it didn't include a sync cable/cradle in the bundle, and had to get that separately. While waiting for it to arrive, though, I've been fairly impatient about getting programs on there.

Especially the driver for the keyboard!

Thus, I decided to try the only two other methods available to get data onto the Palm: infrared and SD card. I don't have a card reader/writer, so I thought that option was out (turns out it isn't quite - more on that later), so I proceeded with trying to communicate using the infrared port. You see, I eventually remembered that the Lego Spybotics kits that I have came with infrared transceivers; I figured they'd be good enough to transmit data to the Palm.

I first thought of trying it with my Windows system, but the transceivers connect on the serial port and I didn't bother putting a panel for one (the onboard ports of this motherboard don't actually include a serial port), and didn't feel like going through the hassle of adding it (not that it's that much effort, mind you). Instead, I used my laptop, which currently has Zenwalk Linux installed on it. Getting the infrared support was fairly simple (new kernel config plus the tool package), and one reboot later I was in business.

Sort of, anyway.

Linux seems to receive the data from the Palm just fine, and it seems to respond in kind; However, the Palm makes no sign of receiving anything, and eventually gives up on the connection attempt. It seems the problem stems from the most unlikely-seeming source: The Spybotics infrared transceiver. It's not meant for this sort of thing, really; When you use it to transmit data to a spybot, it's actually plugged in directly. I think you can use it to "broadcast" infrared signals to it too, but I don't really remember how that works and if it actually transmits any information. Therefore, I believe it's only meant for really short distances, and the problem with that is that the transmitter and receiver on the Palm aren't spaced the same as the ones on the Spybotics transceiver, and thus one doesn't see the other in one way or another.

I might try putting a much larger distance between the two and see if that works better... infrared is supposed to be able to do more than an inch or two, after all, but unless I had a very specific distance between the transceiver and the Palm, nothing showed up on either side... it's weird.

Time flies. I really don't know what it is, but it seems I've little time for anything these days. I guess it's more a matter of prioritising things, and I haven't been doing that; Problem is, that's a task on it's own. I figure, though, people deserve an update, especially a certain someone out there who doesn't seem to be fairing too well and probably doesn't have the time to contact my directly. My heart goes out to you and I hope things get better... and yes, I'm na?vely thinking they will.

Well, let's see - my posts have been far and few between, as well as rather bare. I'm going to take what is probably going to be a few hours, and try to give some detail on what's going on. Knowing myself, though, I'm probably going to get tired of it halfway through or forget things I wanted to mention.

Continue reading "It's... been a while."