Dashcam Wiring

When I wrote the post about my dashcam I hadn't hardwired it. I was collecting the parts and installed it recently.

My plan was to run a miniUSB cable from the windshield mounted dashcam, under the headliner, under the door trim and to a switched socket in the primary fuse block.

It worked perfectly.

I found a miniUSB cable that had the proper angle to fit flat against the windshield and leave the dashcam headed directly to the top of the windshield. The headliner was loose enough to slide the cable under it.

When I got the to driver's A pillar, I was able to slip the cable into the gap between the trim and the windshield. I snaked it down to the top of the dash and moved it over to the soft rubber door jamb trim. I slipped the cable under the trim and ran it down to the bottom of the dash.

I put an Add-A-Circuit in the rightmost middle fuse socket. In my 2013 Accord this socket is switched with the ignition. I put the 10A fuse displaced from the fuse socket into the primary socket of the Add-A-Circuit and put a 7.5A fuse (included with the Add-A-Circuit) in the additional fuse socket of the Add-A-Circuit.

I got a car outlet adapter splitter and cut off one leg near the plug end leaving about a foot of cable and a socket.

I attached one wire from the socket to the Add-A-Circuit with a wire nut and the other end to a convenient ground screw.

I grabbed a spare USB car outlet adapter from my junk drawer and inserted it into the car outlet adapter socket. Then I plugged the miniUSB cable into it.

I should have zip tied all this together and velcroed it under the dash. I didn't. There wasn't much spare cable left so I just slipped the car outlet adapter socket up under the edge of dash. It seemed secure and has been there every since.

Here's what it looks like.

I slipped this up under the edge of dash.

Third Time Third Time is a Charm

My 2 previous installs/upgrades of Windows 10 went almost flawlessly. My time using them still is a good experience.

I knew that I was going to hit a bump in the road.

The third time was an old ThinkPad X100e running Windows 7 Pro and it was slooooooow. Maybe Windows 10 would freshen it up.

As previously I used this procedure.

It wasn't as smooth as before.

The first time the upgrade just hung and I had to hard power down the laptop.

The second time I got error "0xc1900101 - 0x2000c" and it rolled back to Windows 7. Windows 7 was not well at that point.

I restored the X100e from a previous system image and tried again.

This time I used a USB drive version of Windows 10 Pro that I had built using this Microsoft tool.

The third time worked.

The poor old X100e limped along until it ran Windows Update a couple of times and now it's fine.

It's too early to tell if it's faster but I think not.

Incidentally I have noticed on all 3 installs/upgrades of Windows 10 that System Recovery has been turned off. Be sure and check this on your system.

Google Hangouts and VoIP

I've been using Google Voice since it was Grand Central. Initially I was using it to overcome the confusion that arose with my traveling from office to office. When I'd call someone they'd get the caller ID of the extension that I was using. Then when I'd call them again they wouldn't recognize the extension. Grand Central gave me the ability to always present a consistent caller ID.

Further it lets me keep a good log of calls and even block callers if necessary.

However as I have transitioned to almost exclusive use of a cell phone, originating calls from my Google Voice number is difficult.

I've discovered that the Android Hangouts app handles that nicely. There is also a Hangouts Dialer app but that function has been incorporated into the main Hangouts app.

Here's what you normally see in the Hangouts app.

But notice over to the right is an icon for a dial pad. Swipe from the right to the left and you'll get this.

It comes up with Recent Calls from your Google Voice number. Now it's not a pretty as the phone's Dialer app but it works fine.

Just start typing a contact's name and you'll get a list of matches.

Or from the Recent Calls screen tap on the dial pad icon at the bottom.

The call will be placed over cellular data or Wi-Fi and present the caller ID of your Google Voice number.

Here's what it looks like during a call.

Now if you want to really get out there, you can go to Hangouts / Settings and turn on "Ring Hangouts for incoming phone calls made to your Google Voice number".

Now you're not using any cellular minutes. And if you have persistent Wi-Fi you don't even need cellular service.

Pretty cool.

OMG(oogle) Now

On a recent trip to the Gulf Coast we were driving through a heavy rain. I got an unusual alert tone on my OnePlus One. It was Google Now with the following alert.

And it really was a severe thunderstorm because soon I got another similar alert.

As we approached the location the information got more complete.

This accident was reported by a Waze user.

By now I was fascinated with the Google Now cards that were being presented to me. As I scrolled down I saw this one.

All this was completely passive on my part. I was not using Google to navigate nor had I searched for gas stations.

On Mondays, I visit my mother and take her to my brother's house. Here are the Google Now cards I had on a recent Monday morning.

Later that day Google Now reminded me of my frequent dinner destination on Mondays.

Some may call this creepy. I call it pretty useful.

OnePlus One GPS

Cell phone GPS capability has gotten so much better since I struggled with my Samsung Captivate.

I captured this screenshot on my OnePlus One as we were driving on the Interstate. I was impressed with the quick GPS fix and the accuracy.

Then I installed Cyanogen OS 12 and things changed.

The next morning when I went out for a walk Runkeeper didn't get a GPS fix. Well, I had just updated Runkeeper the evening before. So off I went without a GPS fix. When I returned I discovered that while I was walking Runkeeper had gotten a GPS fix. Yeah, something wrong with Runkeeper.

Not.

The second morning Runkeeper didn't get a fix again so I fired up GPS Test. No fix. Can't blame Runkeeper for that.

I stood in my driveway for 5 minutes or so and finally got a GPS fix and took my walk. When I returned I headed to Google.

What I found was that elongated times to get a GPS fix were particularly common after upgrading fom Cyanogen OS 11 (KitKat 4.4.4) to Cyanogen OS 12 (Lollipop 5.0.2).

There are all kinds of mystical fixes out there but the one that seemed to make the most sense to me was to reset the AGPS data.

It turns out that GPS Test has Clear AGPS and Update AGPS functions hidden in its menus. Tap "..." at the top right.

A couple of taps later and my problem was gone.

In the following screencast you can see that the GPS gets a fix in the 6-7 seconds that it took Runkeeper to paint the screen.

Windows 10 Early Report

tl;dr Overall, I couldn't be more pleased.

I've been playing with Windows 10 through the Insider program since it started.

I ran Windows 10 Technical Preview in a VirtualBox virtual machine. While Windows 10 always ran well, the installation and upgrade process wasn't smooth. I believe that was due principally to the virtual environment.

I have an old ThinkPad T61 that was still running XP. All I did with it was run iTunes offline. That seemed like a perfect opportunity to load Windows 10 on. It had 2GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. It was a  Intel Core2 Duo T9300 64-bit.

I had a copy of Windows 10 Enterprise so why not?

I deleted the XP partition and redefined it and did a clean install of Windows 10.

It was an absolutely flawless install. Everything worked the first time.

There have been a couple of things I've fiddled with. The wireless adapter doesn't always reconnect after restarting. I haven't searched to see if there's a better driver for it. The TrackPad center button doesn't scroll on Metro Modern Universal apps. Unfortunately that includes the new Settings dialogs.

I fought with the desktop theme. I prefer to use a desktop image with a white background. Windows 10 insisted on using a white font for the desktop icons with a black drop shadow. If I turned off the drop shadow, the icon text simply disappeared. In a minute I'll get to the solution.

With that under my belt I moved on to a Windows 7 instance on a ThinkPad X220.

The X220 was running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and was eligible for a free upgrade. I followed these instructions and forced the upgrade in place.

From start to finish the procedure took just under 3 hours. Again it was an absolutely flawless install. Everything worked the first time.

I haven't had any problem with the wireless adapter and the TrackPad center button works like it should. I had already hacked around with the desktop icons to get them looking like I wanted them under Windows 7 and they stayed "fixed." The X220 had Office 2013 installed and after a brief "installation" dialog all the Office apps worked fine and retained all the settings. Even little things like power settings stayed intact. Oddly all the printers went away but were easy to reinstall. And Windows 10 has its own "Print to PDF" service. Microsoft Security Essentials quietly disappeared.

Back to the T61 desktop. I exported the desktop theme from the X220 and installed it on the T61. Then again turned off the drop shadows. After logging off and back on the desktop was fine. I've tried everything with the TrackPad driver. The driver dialog doesn't have the "ThinkPad" tab like on the X220. I even tried reinstalling the driver in Windows 8.1 compatibility mode. I used Device Manager to uninstall the device and let Windows reinstall it. No luck.

So far I've stuck with the new Windows 10 Start menu. I don't like it but I think it'll be Ok. It's taken both systems a while to successfully build the index and search right.

Overall, I couldn't be more pleased. My "Big Honker" server offered to install Windows 10 Pro today and I declined for the time being. That system has a couple of applications that, although cleared by the compatibility checker, I'm concerned about, e.g. Picasa, Tivoli Continuous Data Protection, and a USB scanner. That system is 5+ years old and I wish it had USB 3. It may be simpler to just replace it.

NFC and Android Beam

With the recent announcement of the OnePlus 2 which doesn't have NFC (Near Field Communication) I felt like I needed to revisit NFC and Android Beam.

I've written about this technology previously and described the use cases but with all the grumbling about the lack of NFC on the OnePlus 2 I wanted to actually demonstrate how NFC and Android Beam work.

To turn on NFC and Android Beam go to "Settings". In the "Wireless and networks" section, tap on "More". Tap on "NFC" to enable it.

Android Beam will show "Ready to transmit app content via NFC".

Here's how it actually works.

This function isn't limited to Google Maps. For example if you have a web site up in your browser on one phone and tap two phones together the URL will be sent to the second phone and it will open in the browser on the second phone.

Android Pay, successor to Google Wallet, also uses NFC. Here's my post on Google Wallet. It was written before the announcement of the iPhone 6 with Apple Pay. The proliferation of NFC ready cashier terminals has accelerated with refresh of terminals due to the upcoming EMV transition.

Enjoy! Unless you have a OnePlus 2. Or an iPhone.

Google My Maps

After my Geotagging IV post I realized that I didn't cover how to make the Google maps I included.

Set GPSLogger to "Log to KML" and to create a new file "Every time I start". Also set location providers to "GPS".

After recording a track use GPSLogger's integrated support for Dropbox to upload the KML files.

While logged into Google, go to https://maps.google.com and click on "My maps."

Then click on "Create."

Click on "Untitled map" to name the map. Click on "Base map" to specify the background map.

Then click on "Import" to import your KML.

Drag your KML files (from Dropbox) here.

You can change the line color and width by clicking on the paint bucket.

Have fun!

OnePlus One

I volunteered for Motorola's Test Drive of Lollipop 5.0.2 on my 2013 Moto X. Let's just say it didn't go well. After I got the replacement device I got the itch for something new.

I'd bought a couple of OnePlus Ones before and sold or traded them off. In early June, OnePlus started having "flash" sales of the One. I bought a 64GB SandStone Black for $299.

My OnePlus One came with CyanogenMod 11S. OnePlus has had a squabble with Cyanogen and subsequently built their own Android ROM called Oxygen. OnePlus has Lollipop variants of both of these but mine shipped with KitKat 4.4.4. They're promising 5.1.1 "soon." I haven't been in a hurry to flash Lollipop on the OnePlus One.

The OnePlus One goes against my bias toward modest, even small, phones. I'm still struggling with the One's size. The things that sweeten the deal are the gorgeous screen and the long lasting battery.

Source: phoneArena.com

I never had the Moto X battery completely go dead but I found myself "managing" the battery by just not using the phone. I didn't think that was what you were supposed to do with a phone.

The OnePlus One's battery life isn't "magical" but I don't not use it for fear of exhausting the battery. At the end of the day I often find that I have more than 50% battery capacity left. You can watch my battery usage here.

The OnePlus One came with a pair of SIM trays. One for a micro-SIM and one for a nano-SIM so I was able to just slip the nano-SIM out of my Moto X and into the OnePlus One. I did this before I did the initial power up and the LTE has worked perfectly on AT&T.

	Motorola Moto X	OnePlus One
DESIGN
Device type	Smart phone	Smart phone
OS	Android (4.4.2, 4.4, 4.3, 4.2.2)	Android (4.4.4, 4.4) CyanogenMod 11S UI
Dimensions	5.09 x 2.57 x 0.41 inches (129.3 x 65.3 x 10.4 mm)	6.02 x 2.99 x 0.35 inches (152.9 x 75.9 x 8.9 mm)
Weight	4.59 oz (130 g)	5.71 oz (162 g)
DISPLAY
Physical size	4.7 inches	5.5 inches
Resolution	720 x 1280 pixels	1080 x 1920 pixels
Pixel density	316 ppi	401 ppi
Technology	AMOLED	IPS LCD
Colors	16 777 216	16 777 216
Touchscreen	Multi-touch	Multi-touch
Features	Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Scratch-resistant glass (Corning Gorilla Glass)	Light sensor, Proximity sensor, Scratch-resistant glass (Corning Gorilla Glass 3)
CAMERA
Camera	10 megapixels	13 megapixels
Flash	LED	Dual LED
Aperture size	F2.4	F2.0
Focal length (35mm equivalent)	30 mm
Camera sensor size	1/2.6"	1/3.06"
Features	Digital zoom, Autofocus, Touch to focus, Geo tagging	CMOS image sensor, Autofocus
Camcorder	1920x1080 (1080p HD) (60 fps)	3840x2160 (4K), 1280x720 (720p HD) (120 fps)
Features
Front-facing camera	2 megapixels	5 megapixels
HARDWARE
System chip	Motorola X8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 8974-AC
Processor	Dual core, 1700 MHz, Krait	Quad core, 2500 MHz, Krait 400
Graphics processor	Adreno 320	Adreno 320
System memory	2048 MB RAM	3072 MB RAM
Built-in storage	32 GB	64 GB
Maximum User Storage	28 GB
Storage expansion
BATTERY
Talk time	12.00 hours
Stand-by time	10.0 days (240 hours)
Capacity	2200 mAh	3100 mAh
Not user replaceable	Yes
MULTIMEDIA
Music player
Filter by	Album, Artist, Playlists	Album, Artist, Playlists
Features	Album art cover, Background playback	Album art cover, Background playback
Speakers	Earpiece, Loudspeaker	Earpiece, Loudspeaker
YouTube player	Yes	Yes
INTERNET BROWSING
Built-in online services support	YouTube (upload), Picasa/Google+	YouTube (upload), Picasa/Google+
TECHNOLOGY
GSM	850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz	850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
UMTS	850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz	850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz
FDD LTE	700 (band 13), 850 (band 5), 1700/2100 (band 4), 1900 (band 2) MHz	700 (band 17), 1700/2100 (band 4), 1800 (band 3), 2100 (band 1), 2600 (band 7) MHz
Data	LTE, HSDPA+ (4G) 42.2 Mbit/s, HSUPA 5.76 Mbit/s, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS	LTE, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS
nano-SIM	Yes	Yes
Positioning	GPS, A-GPS, S-GPS, Glonass	GPS, A-GPS, Glonass
Navigation	Turn-by-turn navigation	Turn-by-turn navigation
CONNECTIVITY
Bluetooth	4.0 EDR	4.0
Wi-Fi	802.11 a, b, g, n, n 5GHz, ac	802.11 a, b, g, n, n 5GHz, ac
Mobile hotspot	Yes	Yes
USB	USB 2.0	USB 2.0
Connector	microUSB	microUSB
Features	Mass storage device, USB charging	Mass storage device, USB Host, USB charging
HDMI
Other	NFC, Tethering, Computer sync, OTA sync	NFC, DLNA, Tethering, Computer sync, OTA sync
OTHER FEATURES
Notifications	Haptic feedback, Music ringtones (MP3), Polyphonic ringtones, Vibration, Flight mode, Silent mode, Speakerphone	Haptic feedback, Music ringtones (MP3), Polyphonic ringtones, Vibration, Flight mode, Silent mode, Speakerphone
Sensors	Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Thermometer, Barometer	Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Gesture
Hearing aid compatibility	M3, T3
Other	Voice dialing, Voice commands, Voice recording	Voice dialing, Voice commands, Voice recording
AVAILABILITY
Officially announced	01 Aug 2013	23 Apr 2014

Source: phoneArena.com

As with the Moto X I got a Seidio Spring-Clip Holster (HLSSGT3AS). This holster is for a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 but it fits the OnePlus One fine.

My OnePlus One came with a non-standard build XNF9XBS28K of KitKat. This is apparently a OnePlus internal build that is not intended to reach customers. Unfortunately many of the phones in the flash sales were shipped with this build. The downside is that this build doesn't receive Over The Air (OTA) updates so it won't get Lollipop. The upside is that it is really solid.

I followed the instructions here and flashed Cyanogen OS 12 (5.0.2) and it's as wonderful as I expected.

Oh, and I've installed the OTA Lollipop 5.1 on my Moto X.

Which one am I using?

BOTH!

Google Photos

Google seems to be killing Google Plus with 1,000 cuts. Latest is moving photos out to it's own app.

I don't have the time or patience to address the "free" photo storage of Google Photos. Suffice it to say it's not "free."

Anyway on to a subject dearer to my heart, viewing.

I previously looked at Google Plus Photos and compared them to Picasaweb. All of my findings/comments from there still stand.

You'd hope that Google had noted those issues and addressed them in Google Photos.

You'd be disappointed then.

Just to recap here's the presentation of a photo in Picasaweb.

And in Google Plus.

No changes here.

And in Google Photos.

Aaarg! Still no way to see all the exif data. No way to zoom the map. No way to change the base map, i.e. to satellite.

Oh, do you want to change the sequence of the photos in an Album (or is it Collection?) in Google Photos? Sorry. You have to go back to Google Plus or Picasaweb to do that. And Google Plus will nag you when you do. It seems only a matter of time until Google kills Google Plus Photos.

What I do like is the sharing of Google Photos. You no longer get tangled up with needing Google Plus profiles.

After I wrote this Google did another flip-flop restoring function previously removed from Picasaweb.

This comment is exactly my feeling.

Matt Baer
At first I was against Picasa redirecting me to Google + photos. But after a few added features in Google + photos. I stopped trying to go to Picasa. I am really not a fan of the new Photo. Photos seems to be very limited compared to Picasa and Google + photos.

Chrome and "Ok Google"

A while back, Google added support for "Ok Google" to Chrome. This article on CNET discusses it.

But...

All the links I could find on how to manage this feature are out of date, even Google's support article.

Chrome actually doesn't work that way for me on Version 43.0.2357.130 m (64-bit).

The first time I clicked on the microphone on the Google search page I got this dialog:

I chose "No thanks."

But...

Now when I click on the microphone on the Google search page I get this:

Notice the red dot on the tab. It's listening.

But...

This post isn't about how to manage Google's voice search.

It's about how Google snuck the bits into the open source Chromium project.

Steve Gibson's Security Now is one of my regular podcasts. A recent episode covered the concern over Google inserting a binary "blob" into Chromium.

http://chrome://voicesearch

          Microphone: Yes
          Audio Capture Allowed: Yes

Wow!

9TO5Google had a good article on the concern.

The extension that powers Chrome’s voice search is not only downloaded automatically upon installing and launching the browser, but it’s also downloaded automatically in the Chromium open source version of the browser; the extension isn’t listed in the chrome://extensions UI... 

...the open source version of the browser, which is not owned by Google, automatically installs proprietary Google technology for both managing whether the microphone is enabled and listening for hotwords. [emphasis original]

What's happened to "Don't be evil?"

Travel Gadgets

Recently we took a family vacation to Ireland. Being the family geek I felt like I had to take enough gadgets to cover the family including a 6-year old granddaughter.

There were at least 3 different modes of travel: airplane, car, and hotel. I got ziploc bags and labeled them for each set of gadgets.

Before you look, I went way overboard. I *ed the items I actually used. And yeah, I got pulled aside by the TSA guys!

Dashcam
*Dashcam
*Cigarette lighter to mini-USB cable
*MicroSD to SD adapter

GPS
*GPS
*Cigarette lighter to mini-USB cable

Camera
Mini tripod
*External battery charger and spare batteries
*USB power adapter
*USB power cable
*External 1TB drive

Spare Camera
Samsung CL65 camera
MicroSD card
USB power cable

Car Power
*Cigarette lighter to MicroUSB adapter
Cigarette lighter to 5 USB adapter
*Cigarette lighter splitter
USB to MicroUSB cable

Airplane Power
Fenix battery pack
RAVPower
EmPower to cigarette socket adapter

(Both trans-Atlantic flights (Delta 767-400ER) had 110V power under the seat, which I didn't use)

Chargers
*Power plug adapters
*Belkin 3-Outlet Mini Travel Swivel Charger
*Orange power cube
*USB to MicroUSB cable (several)
*Apple USB power adapter
*4 USB power adapter
*Lightning cable

Miscellaneous

Cigarette lighter to 110V inverter

Devices
*Lenovo ThinkPad X201
*iPad Mini
*iPad Air
*2013 Moto X
*iPhone 5S

Dashcam

After the dashcam videos of the meteor over Russia in 2013, I had lusted for a dashcam.

I did my typical deep research and came away confused. I finally just went with price. I bought an OJOCam Pro Mini 0801 and added a SanDisk 32GB microSDHC which gives about 5 hours of 1080p video before it wraps.

I mounted it in front of my rear-view mirror and ran the cord under my headliner. I added a miniUSB cable with a right-angle plug to make the connection flatter.

Recently we took a vacation in Ireland and drove several hundred miles on "interesting" roads. I wanted to video as much of this as I could so I bought an additional windshield mount with GPS for the rental car.

The quality is incredible and it comes with a great program for viewing.

Here're the highlights from my Ireland vacation.

OJOCam appears to be responsive on Amazon answering questions on this product.

Geotagging IV

In Geotagging III I discussed my quest to capture a geotrack of a then upcoming trip. Well, we're back. We spent a week in Ireland.

As I noted in Part II of that post I had discovered that I could specify for GPSLogger to only use the device's GPS for getting location. This significantly improved location quality at the expense of battery.

After I posted Geotagging III I got an anonymous comment that told me that the author of GPSLogger (for Blackberry) has created an Android version. While I haven't tried it yet I would expect a it to be stellar app.

On our vacation I used my 2013 Moto X with GPSLogger for Android with the frequency set to 1 minute and location from GPS only. While this was hard on my battery I never ran out of charge.

The result was fabulous.

After a sleepless night across the Atlantic and then a day long drive on the wrong side of the road, I forgot to turn on the GPSLogger tracking until after lunch. This was near Ballinasloe. So the track from Dublin to Ballinasloe was using the Google Now tracking.

Likewise on the trip on 05/29/15 I turned off GPSLogger at Moneygall and didn't turn it back on until just before Kildare resulting in the straight line connection between those 2 points.

You can see the My Maps map here. If you zoom in you can even see where we walked through the woods with the hawks at Ashford Castle.

Chip and NOT PIN

I just returned from a trip to Ireland. In preparation I looked into chip and PIN (EMV). As a result of several recent major data breaches the US credit card industry has set a deadline of October 2015 for the first round of chip and PIN implementations. This will apply to retail transactions with gas pumps coming in October 2017.

Europe (and hence Ireland) has been using chip and PIN cards for decades. I've heard tales of US magnetic stripe cards not being accepted in unattended out of the way places in Europe, e.g. unattended train stations in Scotland. Ireland is nothing if not "out of the way."

I really didn't expect any problems but this gave me an opportunity to upgrade my credit cards.

My primary credit card is a national branded MasterCard. When I called them they were right on top of chip and PIN cards. They readily offered to send me a new card with a chip. I went through the discussion with them on how to set the PIN and we seemed to have accomplished that. In hindsight I believe that this was the magnetic stripe PIN. More later.

I called my bank about my Visa debit card. The customer service representative didn't even know what I was talking about.

So one for two. I still felt comfortable. My intent was to only use my debit card in ATMs.

I continued to nose around and came across a discussion about the technical considerations for EMV cards.

It seems that the chip has the ability to specify what authentication methods are used and the preferred sequence. The discussion suggested that most EMV cards being issued in the US for now are chip and signature. Brian Krebs covers that thoroughly here.

What this means is that if you process the card as an EMV, e.g. use the slot on the bottom of the credit card machine, that rather than being prompted for a PIN you will be asked to sign the receipt.

This is exactly what I observed in Ireland.

The retailers were prepared for this. The thoroughness of the clerks varied from paying no attention to the signature to protesting when my daughter had not signed her EMV card.

My daughter had another national bank Visa and like my MasterCard it was accepted everywhere with a signature.

Interestingly one of the hotels we stayed at used an EMV card for room entry. No authentication was required.

Another thing I've run into is that one magnetic stripe credit card reader in Memphis wouldn't accept the EMV card because it was too thick to go into the reader. This particular reader wasn't a traditional magnetic stripe reader but rather used a system that took the card into the reader much like an ATM.

Web Collaboration Revisited

Two years ago I looked at Web Collaboration tools. My conclusion was "Close but no cigar."

This Lifehacker article prompted me to revisit the topic.

Sadly there doesn't seem to be much news here.

Lifehacker said:

There are really just two collaboration tools in Word:

• Track Changes allows you to visibly keep track of each person’s revisions within a document. Added text shows up in a different color for each person who’s made changes. Deleted text also changes color and appears struck through with a line. When it’s time to review the document, you can accept or reject each individual change.

• Comments annotate a document with notes that don’t really belong in the document text itself. These notes appear in the right margin, are color coded along the same lines as tracked changes, and include the commenter’s initials.

Really?

Maybe Lifehacker missed something. PCworld looked at this and found:

When you start collaborating from the desktop, a pop-up notification appears at the bottom of the app to alert you that someone else is editing the document. But in our tests in Word, Excel, and OneNote, several minutes passed before the desktop user received the notification. In some cases, changes to the document were available before we were notified that another person was editing the document.

Thinking/hoping that that still wasn't the situation I went to the horse's mouth, Microsoft Office Support.

Not so much.

Geotagging III

This is a two part blog post. Be sure to read both parts.

Part I

Well, not exactly geotagging. Finally I found a camera that does a satisfactory job of geotagging on its own.

But I'm still into logging my location, particularly on trips. For example on a recent trip to Italy I created several maps (here's one).

From my previous research into geotagging I had concluded:

...if you have an Android phone? Don't even bother.

But I've changed phones since then so I thought I'd give Android another chance.

You'll remember that Google "spring cleaned" Google Latitude. But you can still get location history from your Android phone. From a geotagging/geotracking perspective that's what you want.

So I did an bake-off.

I compared Google Now location history to GPSLogger for Android (on my 2013 Moto X) to GPSLogger for Blackberry (on a BlackBerry Bold).

This GIF compares the tracks from all 3 tools.

There are a couple of conclusions. First Google Now's location history is pretty good. However it seems to have it's own mind about when to take a GPS fix. It increases its frequency when it determines that you're moving and slows down when you stop. But the result is that if when you start moving shortly after a fix it may be 5 minutes or more before it takes another fix. I believe that that results in the odd "jumps" in the Google Now location history.

On GPSLogger for Android I have the fix frequency set to one minute. This results in less of those odd "jumps" but they're still there.

I have no explanation as to why both Google Now and GPSLogger for Android indicate that I traveled to the I-55/I-69 junction near the bottom left of the map. One can only surmise that the GPS processor in the Moto X is not very good. But I don't think that this is particular to the Moto X. My previous efforts with GPS logging on Android were on Samsung Galaxys and they had the same results.

Once again GPSLogger for BlackBerry blew away the other alternatives. As I said in my Geotagging II post:

a BlackBerry is a first class method to geotag your photos.

For full disclosure I had GPSLogger for BlackBerry set to take a fix every 30 seconds. This is a remnant from my geotagging efforts. I believe for simply recording a track of travels that every 60 seconds is more than sufficient. Obviously this will reduce the battery impact on the BlackBerry.

Part II

This has continued to bother me. Today when I was driving (actually stopped at a light) I looked at the screen for GPSLogger.

It's getting my location from cell towers. Why? GPS Test was getting 21 satellites!

Why wasn't GPSLogger using them?

I had Android's Settings / Location / Mode set to "High accuracy." (screen capture taken later)

But wait. Read the description for "High accuracy." It says "Use GPS, Wi-Fi, and mobile networks to determine location." "(M)obile networks" means "cell towers" to GPSLogger.

So it looks like "High accuracy" isn't really high accuracy. KitKat seems to be preferring the lower battery impact of cell towers over GPS accuracy.

When I set Android's "Location mode" to "Device only" (GPS) look at the result from Google Now.

Notice the "jump" that I highlighted at 9:03AM. And there are a couple of similar ones to the left (earlier). The track tightens up after 9:03AM. I turned on "Device only" at 9:06AM. Those "jumps" are apparently the result of using cell towers with improper location signatures.

Could that really be it? So I Googled for a while and found this.

if i use 'device GPS only' it works fine. widgets and weather data are correct within a few feet. in High Accuracy mode it tends to put me in the wrong place. often another state or country, or it shows my current location as the location of a cell tower (and GNow tells me i'm like 20 mins from home when i'm already there). in this mode, it seems to never use GPS radio at all, relying entirely on wifi and cell towers. this wasn't always part of the location settings, it just showed up with the update.

Hmmm.

So I went to the GPSLogger web site and found this feature.

Selectively choose network, gps and passive location providers

Then back to GPSLogger and Performance / Location Providers.

So I unchecked "Network" and "Passive."

Now look at the result.

I realize that this is a pretty coarse view so here's a zoom in at one location.

Pretty good.

This seems to have significantly improved Android's GPS tracking. It certainly will have an impact on battery life though. Time will tell.

My thinking is to leave Android's "Location mode" to "High accuracy." Generally that works good enough for Google Now's Location History. And I'm going to set GPSLogger Performance / Location Providers to "GPS." That way I'll get more precise logging (and more battery impact) when I want it.

Thanks to gifmaker.me for their online animated GIF tool.

RAID Problems

RAID is good. Right? Keep on reading.

First read this article in The Register.

tl;dr - "Rebuild times are so long that the chances of an unrecoverable read error (URE) occurring are dangerously high."

Here's the long version.

RAID 5 uses a parity set to recover from a failed drive. The problem is that spinning disks are getting larger. This increases the chance of an unrecoverable read error occurring during the rebuild of a failed drive from the parity set. Your data is gone at that point.

The math behind this is really complicated but here's the punch line:

Consumer magnetic disk error rate is ... an error every 12.5TB.

Now let's look at that for today's big drives.

Putting this into rather brutal context, consider the data sheet for the 8TB Archive Drive from Seagate. This has an error rate of 10^14 bits. That is one URE every 12.5TB. That means Seagate will not guarantee that you can fully read the entire drive twice before encountering a URE.

Gulp!

How big are the drives in your RAID? Mine are 2TB consumer class.

What's a person to do?

Buy more expensive drives.

Enterprise magnetic disk error rate is ... an error every 125TB.

That reduces the failure rate by an order of magnitude.

The elapsed time of the rebuild is still problematic. Realizing that a Drobo (1st generation) is not an enterprise class RAID system my experience is that the Drobo rebuild time is in excess of 24 hours per TB.

Or buy SSDs.

Enterprise SSD error rates are ... an error every 12.5PB.

That gets you another order of magnitude. But those are expensive.

There are alternative RAID modes that give more protection and better recovery time as well.

Big Blue Clouds

I've recently added Ben Kepes to my reading list. The Forbes web site is awfully heavy with clutter but I let Adblock Plus do its thing.

A recent article was about IBM (hence "Big Blue" in the title) and their cloud activities.

Ben drug out all the old stories, e.g. Watson winning Jeopardy and "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" but went on to relate a conversation that he had with Robert LeBlanc, SVP of IBM’s Cloud business.

LeBlanc's comments are full of platitudes - "No enterprise is going to lift trillions of dollars of existing assets into the cloud." and "New development will happen in the cloud, but existing assets will stay put."

Then LeBlanc got into classic IBM speak. Kepes asked him if IBM "would begin to zero rate international traffic." LeBlanc's response was that "high availability is important."

Huh?

Kepes did call out IBM on their continual claims to be the biggest cloud vendor. "I've not seen any independent commentator who gives their claims any real credence."

An Order of Magnitude Improvement in Compute Density

Remember 2 1/2 years ago I posted on the emergence of ARM servers. It's taken a while but they're being adopted by mainstream enterprises.

During Applied Micro's 4Q conference call CEO and president Paramesh Gop said:

PayPal achieved "... an order of magnitude improvement in compute density"

That's the kind of leap you have to have to displace x86. This reminds me of the transition from mainframes to x86. But remember that RISC systems made a brief appearance during that time. ARM may not be the next big thing.

It's going to be interesting over the next couple of years.