How to use your Android phone as a pc
So for anyone who doesn't know, the Samsung Galaxy SII is quite possibly the world's sexiest phone.
I'm in love with Android, and wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm also a big proponent of mobile devices in general and believe they will supersede personal computers in the next 5 or so years.
To test my theory of how relevant this was, I used only my phone at home for 3 months. No PC or laptops.
The result was... interesting. I was amazed at how much I could do, but my battery hated me.
It now only lasts about 60% of what it used to brand new. This was quite easy to fix as I just bought a few new ones.
But the critical part of how I was able to do this was the use of a few clever gadgets. The crux of which is a new standard called MHL.
It allows you to link your phone to your TV via a small cable which also has an adapter for the charger.
With this little connector, you can blow your phone screen on to any size TV over HDMI, and watch full 1080p videos on it. It is thus also your entertainment centre... in your pocket.
I also acquired a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse which worked perfectly with the phone.
You have many choices for the keyboard including an apple keyboard, the fabulous Logitech Dinovo mini or various other ones from ebay.
For the mouse, I chose a Logitech V470, but any Bluetooth mouse would have done fine.
This allowed me to play music, write documents, surf the web, and do pretty much anything I would normally do on a PC. Since Android also has support for flash, all websites render just fine on the device.
This opens some interesting doors for the future, and I'm very excited. Imagine having all your files in the cloud ready to be downloaded over high speed 4G internet anywhere you are. When you get to work, you plug your phone into your monitor and you are ready to go. Get home, plug it into your TV and watch a movie in 1080p, browse the net, and catch up with some friends. All your computing needs in the palm of your hand. We are so close. I can't wait.
First gen Macbook Air weak link
Just spent a large part of tonight trying to figure out why my macbook air had spotty wifi connection... it was driving me insane!
I finally tore it up and found two wires broken from the hinge body of the air. Manually joining the b0rked wire changed wifi condition from 50% packet drops to 900 kb/s rsync. Anybody know why the wifi wires are so thin? I'm thinking of soldering it back, but i'm worried about the thinness of the connections. Is there a better way?
Update: I soldiered it two lines today and full wireless strength now w00t!
new ipad case and new apps yay
Hey boys and girls...
Here are some of my new apps...
First things first I jabroke my iPad :) finally some multitasking goodness. I also got the new apple rubber case. It's not bad, in certain situations it makes the iPad easier to hold. The flap up the back which props up the iPad is very helpful... $50 in my opinion is a tad dear.
Here are the fresh meat:
Penultimate - its a doodle/note taking app, good for drawing diagrams then emailing them as PDFs. I tried writing words on it with my fingers... Fingers just doesn't slide across the page smoothly. Maybe a pen device would fix the issue.
eBay - this is the us eBay app which Australia still haven't had access to, it's pretty flash. Definitely a step up from from the iPhone vesion.
Backgrounder - a free jail broken app. This one is a must, gives the ipad OS some much needed multitasking capabilities. Sure the new IOS will have some limited multitasking but:
1) it's not here yet :)
2) it's limited in it's scope, not all apps will be allowed to permanently run in the background... Stupid Apple.
3) backgrounder is quite elegant, no fancy UI, no screwing around, just what the name said.
It's not all beer and skittles however... Lots of my apps crash under backgrounder like IM+
Goodreader - finally a good app to store all my entire library of PDFs. It's even got a great file management system. It's a shame the iTunes file management system isn't more open... Further more it's a shame the ipad's OS isn't more open even in the area of file management. I hear iBooks will have PDF support, I hope it comes with some file management features... I already have too many books in iBooks and it's quite unwieldy.
VLC remote - just a little gadget to remotely control playback of vlc on your desktop.
Reeder - the best rss reader used to date. Google reader, beautiful interface and cheap. The holy trinity of rss readers :)
Instapaper - used in conjunction with Reeder to ear mark long articles to read later beautiful as there is no ads hurrah!
Things - my to-do app syncs with Mac and iPhone... Wished it had cloud syncing.
1password - I'm extremely disappointed with this app. I was hoping it would have the same level of integration as it does on the Mac. Instead of being able to pull up details inside safari 1password is standalone you can only take advantage of saved details inside the app... Completely mucks up my workflow :( The default keychain inside safari can remember some passwords for you but it's a incomplete solution, it only remembers forms and fails on things like http basic auth :(
Not happy with Tweetdeck it's still got no Facebook integration, I want tweetie for iPad.
Aperture 3 woes
First Apple release Aperture 3, i'm happy as Larry jumping on the band wagon to upgrade. I really wanted the facebook, flickr and video support. Little did I realise what a painful experience would be. It didn't warn me about not having enough disk space (I didn't) it complained something about FS error and crashed before you know it it deleted my entire Aperture library. None of the file restore applications would pick up the lost files due to the amount the intense reading/writing and moving which happened just before it deleted the library… I lost 2 nights in Hong Kong and 2 days worth of photos in China because of this. I learnt my lesson, no more upgrading without proper backups and no more trusting jobs! I do want that iPad though...
Now there should never ever have be a branch of the code where this is even permitted to happen! Come on testing 101!
Now Apple releases an update to Aperture 3 which presumerbly fixed most of the issues I had only to have the update program not detecting Aperture 3 properly, dear God! Apparently this was an issue they have had before from the upgrade process of Aperture 1 to Aperture 2. Is there no process at Apple to manage these historical blunders? FFS!!! Apple!
Delete the following file from Library > Preferences:
com.apple.AECT.plist
That's the file the 3.0.1 updater is checking and then revealing the incorrect Alert! message. Apple had the same problem with 2.0, and history seems to be repeating itself.
How to succeed in a start-up
I just stumbled upon a great lecture at Stanford university by a successful entrepreneur Eric Ries, co-founder of IMVU.
He talks about how to succeed and fail at a start-up. Retelling some of the mistakes along the way.
Some highlights include:
- Short iteration cycles, don't build big software that no one will use.
- learn fast and if something's not working change direction, something he calls the "pivot"
- Waterfall should be avoided unless both the problem and the solution is very well known (which is almost never)
- You think you know what customers want but you don't because you haven't asked
- All major assumptions (what he calls the shadow beliefs) should come out in the open.
Highly recommended to anyone who has started, thinking about starting or just thinking about a start-up.
So without further adieu here's the lecture homepage and the direct podcast.
New Look for Higher Logic
Welcome to the new look of Higher Logic!! Its been 3 years and I finally got off my ass and put up wordpress =). Keep an eye out on this space for info on our latest projects and inane ramblings from Tony and myself …
In the next month we are looking to wrap up our courses.com.au project (Yahoooooooo!!!) and our first iPhone app. Couple of things on my plate right now:
- Wrap up courses.com.au
- Clean up and release our first iPhone app
- Slaying the Atlassian dragon, I got in on the $10 deal went a little overboard and bought everything atassian had on offer Here Be Dragons
- Clean up the dev server … its quite yukky
- Hookup my shiny new mac mini with shiny yet to arrive Elgato Eyetv 250 as my new media setup
- Watch some good old anime!!!
