There's an App for That

Huh? I was searching for a swype application for my daughter's iPhone (unsuccessfully I might add) and found some hits on ipadforums.net.

When I clicked on the link I got the following pop-up on my Captivate.

I guess they realize where the market is going too.

Yum! Frozen Yogurt

Samsung and AT&T finally got their Android 2.2 (FroYo) update pushed out to Captivates. I lurked in the forums for a couple of days and then went for it this morning.

All is well.

It took about an hour end to end using the instructions from Samsung. The only unclear points are a couple of times when it says things like Step 3.2 "It will do this for several devices and may take a few moments." Wonder how long a "few moments" is? And in Step 3.3 "Once the computer has finished..." I just waited 2 minutes after the last message and went on to the next step.

When the upgrade was done on the phone it buzzed for several minutes and then rebooted. It seemed like it took an extra long time to boot up but all was fine. It went through a new phone type setup. I had to redo my home screens but I had documented this beforehand so that was easy. All my local documents and pictures were fine.

I went to the market and got the new Gmail app. This allows me to send from alternate e-mail addresses. I also had to reset my settings in Gmail, things like how many days to sync which labels.

Pressing and holding the Home key brings up recent tasks like Android 2.1 did but also has a button for a Task Manager.

I've played with the GPS a little inside and haven't seen a miraculous improvement.

Google Docs are editable with Android 2.2 but I've discovered that the documents have to be in the newer format. I'm still using some documents in the old format. You can edit them using Quickoffice that came with AT&T's OTA update last year.

Android Bandwidth

I've had my AT&T Captivate (Samsung Galaxy S) for almost 2 months, long enough to get an insight into the bandwidth usage. AT&T does a good job of tracking the usage and presenting it in an organized manner.

My wife now has my BlackBerry Curve using it for her work e-mail. She doesn't really use any other data on it.

Here's what the last 6 months of her data usage looks like. Look carefully at the units down the left axis. It pretty well tops out just under 4 MB per month.

Now here's my last 6 months of data usage. The first 4 months are on my BlackBerry Bold and the last 2 on the Samsung Captivate.

Wow!

And I have the Captivate setup to use Wi-Fi wherever possible. I don't stream anything. I download podcasts but I have that set to only download using Wi-Fi.

I have the grandfathered AT&T "unlimited" plan. Even so, I'm well within the currently offered 2 GB plan. Still, that's a huge jump in data traffic.

I've Been Captivated

I've been getting hand-me-down phones from my son-in-law until he upgraded from his iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4. He gave the 3GS to my daughter!

I never wanted an iPhone anyway. ;)

I had been watching Android phones. AT&T was slow to get Android phones, perhaps because they had the iPhone. They finally got the HTC Aria and the Samsung Captivate (a Galaxy S variant).

My rationale was to wait until these devices were upgraded to Android 2.2. The reason was that I wanted the newest Gmail and Google Docs applications and tethering (really unlikely due to AT&T).

Then the battery in my BlackBerry Bold started to get less and less capacity. And the holster broke. I needed some kind of excuse!

I thought I wanted the Aria until I touched the Captivate. It's so slim and light and the OLED screen is so bright!

Just before Christmas I discovered that AT&T had refurbished Captivates on their web site for $9.99. Yes, the decimal is in the correct place.

Compared to the iPhone 4 the Captivate is lighter with a bigger screen. And it doesn't need iTunes. Did I mention that it's cheaper?

There's a great comparison here.

When it arrived, I had never played with an Android. I spent the next 12 hours playing. It's amazing.

I use Google Hosted Apps to host the e-mail for my domain so I was able to use my domain e-mail as the Google account. I expected everything to work smoothly but I wasn't prepared for how well integrated all the Google services were.

I was used to the BlackBerry BIS e-mail being quick to deliver but it was really a copy of my Google e-mail. So when I deleted an e-mail from the BlackBerry I still had to dispose of it on my Google e-mail. On the Captivate, I can archive an e-mail on the phone and when I look over to my web Google e-mail, the e-mail has disappeared.

The calendar is the same. Today I created an event on my web Google calendar. As soon as I saved it, the phone buzzed. That was the notification for the new event.

I have been challenged by the battery life. I did all the suggestions I found in the forums with little success. AT&T exchanged the phone for me and the new one seems to be some better but still erratic. Most days I have 50%-60% at the end of the work day but then some days it'll be 20% and complaining. I can't discern a pattern nor cause. I've just laid in microUSB cables at strategic locations to recharge but I really haven't needed them.

I use Wi-Fi (802.11n) heavily at home and at work. The work network uses 802.1x authentication and with a little fiddling it works great.

The original phone's GPS was good. This is apparently a problem area with Galaxy S phones. The new phone's GPS is Ok but not as good as the original phone. I guess I'd rather have better battery life than a quick GPS.

I'm not an app hog but I've installed a number of apps from the market. AT&T has restricted the Captivate to only Android Market apps but that hasn't been an issue.

Here's what I've installed:

• Graffiti Pro for Android
• GasBuddy
• Car Cast Podcast Planner
• Classic Tetris - Game Blaster S
• gReader (Google Reader)
• FourSquare - foursquare
• Barcode Scanner - ZXing Team
• Text Edit - Paul Mach
• Dropbox - Dropbox
• Klondike Solitaire - Softick
• Angry Birds - Rovio
• GPS Test - Chartcross Limited
• GDocs - WildArt
• GPS Logger for Android - Mendhak
• WeatherBug - WeatherBug Mobile
• NOOK for Android - Barnes & Noble
• Google Voice - Google
• Google Maps - Google

I'll write additional posts on several of these apps.

I haven't rooted it like I did the NOOKcolor and don't expect to. If Samsung and AT&T don't ever deliver Android 2.2 then I'll have to reconsider this.

Not Your Mother's Flip Phone

I'm sold on smartphones, particularly my new Samsung Captivate.

But...

There's always a "but" isn't there?

Smartphone users obviously benefit from the tremendous capabilities of their new phones (really a handheld computer). The latest smartphones have powerful Internet access, applications, still and video cameras, etc.

But they aren't as capable phones as they used to be.

I came across this blog post that got me to thinking.

This poster mentioned his three "biggies:"

1. Blackberry Messenger
   
2. BB Holster Magnet
   
3. Security

I hadn't enumerated my "biggies" but my experiences recently inspired me to write this.

The battery cable came lose on my car and reset my radio so I had to find and enter the radio's security code. That isn't a phone issue except that it triggered havoc with my Samsung Captivate.

I put the security code in and thought I was done. Ok. That's "easy." I set the input to "Aux" to get the signal from my BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway. Then I fired up Car Cast to resume listening to my podcast.

But wait, that's where I got the Android equivalent of a Blue Screen of Death. It said that the Car Cast app had been Forced Closed. Ok. That's "easy." Just go to the home screen and restart it.

But wait, it crashed again. And I noticed an alert in the notifications area. Ok, That's "easy." Just pull it down and it said that the external microSD card was now unmounted. I hadn't done anything with the menus and hadn't dropped or bumped the phone. I opened the back of the phone and removed and reinserted the microSD card.

But wait, that got me a message that the "mount point was invalid." I wouldn't call that very user friendly. Ok, that's "easy." So I powered the phone down and rebooted it. That got the microSD recognized. And now Car Cast would run.

But wait, now the phone wasn't connected to the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway's Bluetooth. Ok. That's "easy." Navigate on the phone to "Setting," "Wireless and network," and "Bluetooth settings."

But wait, there were NO Bluetooth devices listed. Ok. That's "easy." Click on "Scan devices."

But wait, it didn't see the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway. Ok. That's "easy." Just turn off "Bluetooth" and turn it back on then "Scan devices" again.

But wait, the BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway shows "Paired but not connected." Ok. That's "easy." Click on the device entry for BlackBerry Remote Stereo Gateway and in a few seconds it connects.

Try explaining that to your mother.

The Rook Is Nooted

I finally gave in and rooted my NOOKcolor.

It was sooooo easy. I simply followed the step-by-step instructions here. The biggest problem I had was that my first USB SD adapter didn't work.

I used the Auto-Nooter variation. There are more details here. Auto-Nooter also:

• Installs su and Superuser.apk
• Installs Busybox
• Installs Calendar and Calculator
• Installs and enables Android Market, Gmail, Youtube
• Enables Multi-touch for Android Apps
• Enables Live Wallpapers
• Enables Android Market and Gmail
• App Auto Install (automatically install apps that you drop into the sdcards /data/app folder via USB)
• Installs Soft Keys 3.0
• Installs Genie Widgets
• Installs Droid X Multi-touch Keyboard as an option
• Adds a removable Custom Boot Animation

In addition to the basic rooting instructions, I also followed these to enable my Google Apps account. While this all worked fine, read through both of these posts a couple of times to see how they fit together.

I installed ADW.Launcher. I had gotten a recommendation for LauncherPro but I discovered that on the Nook you have to really hack at changing the apps in the dock bar.

I had one spontaneous reboot but it's been rock solid since then.

The latest root process even enables the Android Market so you can download whatever apps you'd like. I have downloaded ADW.Launcher, Home Switcher, Dropbox, greader (Google Reader RSS), Titanium Backup, Klondike Solitaire, and Angry Birds.

I used Home Switcher to make ADW.Launcher the default launcher. I changed the grid size on ADW.Launcher to 6 x 6. I'm not sure that's the "right" size but it's a good start.

The root process installs SoftKeys which lets you bring up the equivalent of the normal 4 buttons on the bottom of an Android screen.

To get youtube working, I had to use Titanium Backup and "wipe data" for youtube.

Pretty nice Android tablet for $249.

Good Job AT&T

We're all too quick to whine and complain about service, especially me. And who better to complain about but TPC (The Phone Company)?

I have AT&T's DSL XTreme promising 6.0 Mbps (and delivering pretty much that).

Starting last Friday evening, I began noticing my Internet speeds stalling every now and then. I logged into my D-Link DIR-655 router and looked at the log. It didn't show any problems. Then I went over and looked at the statistics. I refreshed the screen every 1-2 seconds. When it was running good I could see that I was receiving 100-200 packets every time. I was attempting a youtube upload at the time.

But every 30 minutes or so, the receiving rate would drop to pretty much nothing. The symptoms were that pages wouldn't load and my youtube upload would fail.

I reset the modem and reset the router with no change.

Saturday I finally gave up and called AT&T's DSL support. I was prepared for the worse but I was pleasantly surprised.

After the obligatory chatter about modems and routers I asked the representative to check for problems in the area. He reached out to the technical support team. We went back and forth on hold for 30 minutes or so.

At one point I noticed all my instant messaging clients drop and restart. A few seconds later the representative came back and and said the technical support team had reprovisioned my DSL service.

It's been fine ever since.

Good Job AT&T!

DKIM

You get an "atta boy" if you know what DKIM stands for.

DKIM - DomainKeys Identified Mail. This is a technique for signing outgoing e-mail messages so sent mail is less likely to get caught up in recipients’ spam filters.

Google has added this to all Google Apps users. Administrators can enable DKIM signing in the “Advanced Tools” tab of their control panel.

Once you get this text string, you have to go create a TXT record in your DNS.

Here's what mine looks like:

It took 20-30 minutes for the DNS updates to propagate.

There's a nice tutorial here.

Nice job Google! And the price is right: FREE.

Browser Share III

I didn't realize it had been so long since I looked at and shared my browser statistics.

A recent exchange about file sharing tools got me looking at the distribution of operating systems visiting my web sites. I specifically looked at www.desotonet.com and benmoore.blogspot.com DeSotoNet is more of a general purpose site and gets non-techie visitors. My blog gets the geeks (like you).

The exchange that triggered this was with a Microsoft representive. His comment was "Yeah, XP is gone - wasn't happy about that, but it's so old and antiquated now." When I shared that with a manager at a Fortune 100 company his response was "And XP is not gone. Probably on >50% of the home and work machines that are active."

Anyway here's what I found on operating system share on my web sites. I threw in browser share just for fun.

I use 2 different statistics tools so some interpretation is necessary.

Here's the operating system view on desotonet.com:

XP is practically 50% of the Windows visitors. The Vista share surprised me. I'd guess that "Windows 2008" is Windows 7. I suspect that a large portion of the "Others" is some kind of Windows as well. Web crawlers would show up there also.

Here's the browser share on desotonet.com:

Internet Explorer dominates. This isn't the techie crowd.

Here's the operating systems on my benmoore.blogspot.com:

My Windows 7 shows up as "Windows NT." None of the techies are running Vista!

Here's the browsers on benmoore.blogspot.com:

Thankfully IE 6 is pretty much gone.

NOOKcolor

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I bought a NOOKcolor by Barnes & Noble. I had tried to get my wife interested in an iPad by showing it to her at the Apple store. Here response was "Is that all it does?" I didn't want to make that mistake again.

With the Nook I bought it and loaded a trial copy of a book by her favorite author before I showed it to her. That made the difference.

There's her Mary Higgins Clark book at the bottom left.

The Nook is actually an Android tablet. It has a gorgeous 1024x600 7" capacitive touch screen. It is running Android 2.1 (for now).

Look carefully and you'll see that this is an Android homescreen with three panels.

Click on the book and this is how it looks in reading mode.

You can change the font, the point size and the margins.

But this isn't just an e-reader. Barnes & Noble has added several nice apps. You access these by pressing the soft button at the bottom. Touch "Library" and then "My Files" and you can see part of the file system.

Navigate down to "Videos."

These are videos that I've transcoded using Handbrake. Detailed instructions are here.

Back to the soft button and choose "Extras." There are a couple of games and a "Gallery" and "Music."

These are simple apps but my wife liked the straightforward music player.

Press and hold on a song and you'll get a context menu.

But wait, there's more!

Back to the soft button and choose "Web." Yes, the Nook has a browser. Like the apps, it's pretty simple. I've been able to get many services working by using their mobile URLs.

YouTube even works but the playback is pretty choppy.

Content sites like usatoday.com work better.

Back to the soft button and choose "Settings."

That gets you information on wireless and the device.


There's lots more to the Nook.

By the way, I captured these screenshots by pressing the Nook button and the volume down button at the same time.

My next challenge is to decide whether to root the Nook or not.

Bluetooth Tethering with Windows 7

Last spring I got my Asus Eee PC 1000H running Windows XP tethered via Bluetooth to my BlackBerry Bold.

Then this summer I got the ThinkPad X100e and installed Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

Windows 7's networking is pretty different than Windows XP networking so I had to work some to get the tethering working.

First you have to pair the X100e and the BlackBerry. Remember that you have to make the X100e discoverable first.

Then click on the Start button and type "dial-up." Select "Set up a dial-up connection." Choose the Bluetooth link.

Here's what it looks like when its done.




This string is:

at+cgdcont=1,"IP","wap.cingular"

The password is CINGULAR1.

Then go into the "Network and Sharing Center" and choose "Internet Options."

Go to the Connections tab and check "Never dial a connection."

Finally go to "Network Connections" and uncheck "Cancel as default connection."

Adobe Reader X

Like you've seen everywhere else on the web, Adobe has released Adobe Reader X (10.0) with sandboxing. If you want to read the gory details, start here. Here's a direct download link.

What I'm here to tell you is how to make sure you don't lose any security when you install it.

If you're following all the best practices, you've turned off JavaScript and cranked down the Trust Manager in Reader.

You've got to do that again in Reader X.

Click on "Edit" and then "Preferences." Select "Trust Manager." Uncheck "Allow opening of non-PDF attachments with external applications."

Now select "JavaScript." Uncheck "Enable Acrobat JavaScript."

Click on "Ok" and you're ready.

It sure is frustrating that Adobe didn't keep security preferences from the previous version but did keep some non-security preferences, e.g. disabling of the splash screen.

When you open your first document, you'll see this little tool tip in the upper right corner. If you hover your mouse over the top right corner of it, an "X" will appear. Click that and the tool tip seems to be gone forever. Irritating!

Google Voice and Mobile-to-Mobile

Maybe nobody cares about this but me but I got to wondering. Since I have my Google Voice set to pass through to me the Caller ID of the caller, does AT&T Wireless think that the incoming call is really mobile-to-mobile?

YES!

Here's my Google Voice setting relative to incoming Caller ID.

Here's the entry in the Google Voice History for an incoming call from an AT&T mobile.

Then here's the entry in the AT&T call log showing a matching number, time, and duration and indicating it was "M2MCNG."

Just to close the loop, here is AT&T's definition of "M2MCNG."

What this means is that you can share your Google Voice number with everyone. If someone then calls your Google Voice number with an AT&T mobile phone and you answer it on your AT&T mobile phone that call will be counted as mobile-to-mobile, i.e. free.

If you're not an AT&T Wireless customer, your mileage may vary. Try it and post your results in the comments.

Election Day 2010

No, this is not a rant on the elections. Rather this is a compliment to one of my area's local papers, the DeSoto Times-Tribune.

As I surfed around last night looking for early returns, I went to the Memphis paper and the Jackson, MS paper but there wasn't anything there. As a last resort, I went to the DeSoto Times-Tribune.

On the front page was a link to live results. I apologize that I didn't screen capture that page but what was there was a list of local races and links to Google Docs spreadsheets!

What the DeSoto Times-Tribune had done was created Google Docs spreadsheets for each race with rows for each ballot box and columns for each candidate.

With Google Docs real-time collaboration, you could actually watch them post the results ballot box by candidate live! Incredible.

Here's what one looked like.

But wait, there's more.

Google Docs lets you download these spreadsheets so you can keep your own copy of these detailed results.

Good job DeSoto Times-Tribune.

Windows 7 and ThinkPad T43

I was all ready to install Windows 7 on my ThinkPad T42.

Before I could get around to it, the image on the T42 screen made a little swirling motion and froze. That pretty much wound up the T42. There was clearly something cracked inside. If you turned it off and let it cool, it would work for a couple of minutes then freeze again.

The T42 had served me well. I got in in July 2007 so it lasted me 3 years. It was probably 4 years old when I got it.

I managed to get all the data off it and ordered a T43 from Intechra. It came with 2GB RAM and a 802.11g WiFi card so I was in business.

I used the technique I had learned on the X40. Do a clean install of Windows 7. Then plug it into an Ethernet port and run Windows Update. Then for what's left, go to Lenovo/IBM. Everything works.

I was hoping for Aero capabilities but wasn't sure. After hours of Google searching, it won't do Aero. My first impression of Aero on Vista was that it was eye candy. Now after using it on a couple of systems, I really miss it.

Another Short Term Victory Over Spam

Late in 2008 I wrote a post about a huge drop in spam.

In that post I was amazed by a period where there was almost a 50% drop in spam. Recently I have measured a drop of more than 80%.

Again I turned to Brian Krebs for an explanation.

Given that my spam dropped in late August/early September I think the key point is in Brian's update near the bottom. In summary, two major spam botnets have been slowed down.

Thank goodness.

Windows 7 and WAV Files

Years ago (exactly how long ago in a minute) I recorded a short WAV file that I used as an announcement that my daughter had gotten on AIM.

When I upgraded to Windows 7 I set this as a pidgin Buddy Pounce. But it didn't work!

Oddly Windows Media Player would play it but Media Player Classic wouldn't nor would Windows 7 play it as a system sound. Hmmm.

Off to Google.

It wasn't on the first page but on the second page was this link.

That held the key and the solution to the problem.

I had recorded that WAV file using Windows 98's Sound Recorder application.

I fired up AudacityPortable and opened the old WAV file. Then I exported it as a WAV but obviously Audacity used a different codec.

That fixed it.

Windows 7 and ThinkPad X100e

I've made good use of my Asus Eee PC 1000H. Recently upgraded to Windows 7, it has been my "in the car" laptop for months.

But it's still not a ThinkPad. Lenovo recently came out with several new models that piqued my interest, the Edge and the X100e. I started lurking around Lenovo's outlet site and finally found a deal on an X100e.

The specifications for the refurbished X100e that I got are:

Processor	AMD® Athlon™ Neo MV-40 (1.60GHz, 512KB L2)
Operating System	Genuine Windows 7 Professional 32 - English
Keyboard/Pointing Device	UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad)
Total Memory	2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz SDRAM SODIMM Memory
Hard Drive	250GB, 5400RPM Serial ATA 2.5" Hard Drive
Display	11.6” WXGA HD (1366 X 768) LED, W/ 0.3 MP Camera
Graphics	ATI™ Radeon™ HD 3200
Ethernet/Wireless	11b/g/n Wi-Fi wireless
Bluetooth	No
Integrated Camera	Yes

The outlet price was 50% of list and since it was very slow to ship, Lenovo gave me an 10% "sales concession" (credit) so the price was very good.

Although Lenovo doesn't put a lot of crapware on their PCs, I wanted it running Windows 7 64-bit so I reformated and loaded Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I had let Windows Update install all the drivers it had and then went to Lenovo to get all the rest of the drivers.

The only issue I had after the reload was that when running Google Documents using the new document format, highlighted text was barely discernible when on battery power. As you can imagine, that took a while to figure out what all the conditions were.

I turned to my favorite problem solver Google and came up with a solution. What had happened was that Windows Update installed a standard ATI driver but the Lenovo driver had the Catalyst Control Center included. This solution uses the Catalyst Control Center to turn off the Vari-Bright feature. With this off, the contrast is back to normal.

Just for fun, I installed Office 2010 64-bit as well.

Windows 7 and Asus Eee PC

My Asus Eee PC came with Windows XP Home. I've used it as my travel laptop. I got a cigarette lighter adapter and keep the Eee PC in the car.

When I got the Eee PC in the fall of 2008 there was lots of chatter on the forums of installing Vista on it. There were some bootleg drivers out there but no formal support from Asus.

After I got the TechNet Standard subscription, the Eee PC was high on my list for Windows 7. As it turns out, Asus not only supports Windows 7 on the Eee PC with drivers but actually provides a self-upgrade guide to install Windows 7.

It all worked great. I had already installed 2GB of RAM so that wasn't a problem. There are a few subtleties of the Eee PC that don't work. For example, the XP load has the ability to configure the display to 1024x768 and either make it scroll or compress. The vanilla Windows 7 video drivers don't support that. I never used that capability but there are some hacks out there if you must.

Even the Eee PC "bells and whistles" work. For example, the multi-touch track pad (actually from ELAN) is fully functioning along with Asus' Eee Super Hybrid Engine.

Flashing the BIOS was the toughest part. I haven't figured out how to get rid of the grey POST screen but I haven't tried very hard.

Bugzilla Entertainment

Here's another of those threads where the open source contributors take a "holier than thou" approach to users of their software.

Firefox 4 is now in public beta. With Beta 2, a new "bug" was fixed.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654

This change nullified some simple about:config parameters that were widely used to basically turn off tab scrolling. The submitter of this "bug" said "Users can override this using userChrome.css if they absolutely want it. I don't think the prefs are worth it." userChrome.css doesn't ship with Firefox. You have to create it yourself then insert CSS code into it to reinstate this capability. Skip on down in the thread and see the uproar.

The author of this change submitted some sample CSS code that hadn't been tested and didn't work so even the author was having trouble implementing it! "Sorry, I didn't actually try it myself and got confused. This should work (although it's again untested):"

The good news is this is in a beta, albeit public.

This certainly gives some credence to concern over open source software in a corporate environment although similar points could be made over some of Microsoft's choices.

Hopefully this will all be cleared up by the time Firefox 4 goes gold.