A weird one: RTM on my HTC

Earlier this week I noticed that the battery on my HTC One S drained really fast.
I check some settings and stats and found that the Remember the Milk app (RTM) seems to be the culprit.

1. GPS was on all the time (seen in power > history)
   even though I explicitly turned it off... it stayed on
2. the RTM app used more than one third of the power
   (and location alerts were disabled... so there should not have been any link to the GPS thingy above)
3. however, RTM was using GPS all the time, as can be seen in the details.

That was weird.

And I could not make this go away.

I was pretty sure that during the previous days, I rebooted the phone (just because for lack of power...)

So I posted a question to the RTM support forum and disabled the app for the time being.

You have to re-read the last half sentence to fully understand how this was bothering me:
I - totally dependent on RTM - disabled the app on my phone. Imagine that.

The RTM folks responded, I described the problem in more detail, and got the tip/request to 

1. uninstall RTM app (not simply disable)
2. reboot the phone
3. re-install RTM app from the play store.

I did as requested, and voilà the problem was gone.

RTM does not even show up any longer in the power statistic. (So nowhere near 34%).

And GPS is really only on when I need it (see history).

Should have thought of this myself: I mean, I'm in the business too long not to consider re-boot and re-install :)

Big thanks to the RTM team for their fast help

Beyond Google Reader - Backup

So, when I will be back from vacation next week there wont be any Google Reader left.
Time to declare myself a coward and take a backup of my OPML and put it to Dropbox.
Just to be sure.

You might consider that, too.

Beyond Google Reader - Part 5

Maybe the final part... but then again, maybe not.

Yesterday my Feedly account got migrated from Google Reader Backend to the Feedly backend - the Feedly Cloud.

Can be verified at the URL http://www.feedly.com/home#console.

You'll either see Google Reader or feedly cloud as the back end service (in the nice json output you get there).

So on all of my devices (PC, laptop, Android mobile, iPad) I'm on feedly now. Google Reader bookmark and app... unpinned and gone.
Fingers crossed.

I hope that Reedr - still my favorite on the iPad - will use the feedly cloud soon.

Recommendations: music vs apps

I think it was on a recent episode of This Week in Google where someone was expressing their hope that now that Google seems to have good recommendation engine in their Google Music service, that this would extend to the Apps market/store as well.

I beg to differ: recommendation for music (or books, or "arts" in general) is rather easy [1], because you (the consumer, the audience) is very likely interested in stuff similar to what they already head/read/like/love.

On the apps side, this does not make any sense; you don't need an app that has a similar user interface to ones you already have/use, you don't need a second or third todo app, or calendar app.

You might collect jazz or Beethoven or Sci-Fi books, but you don't collect todo apps.

--
[1] not that I knew how to program it, but easy as a concept

Beyond Google Reader - Part 4

So, feedly finally announced that they are building the back-end service for the Google Reader replacement and - more importantly - are working with 3rd party app developers such as Reeder to support them... *before* the sun will set on Google Reader.

Building Feedly | Re-imagine how people keep in touch with their favorite sites.: 

"We have been working behind the curtains with the developers of Reeder,Press, Nextgen Reader, Newsify and gReader as design partners for our Normandy project[1]. Today we are excited to announce that you will be able to access your feedly from all these apps before Google Reader retires and that the access to feedly API will be free. More details soon."

CalConnect: 7 Things You Should Know About Tasks

One of those conundrums [1]: The more popular mobile devices get, the more people care about data interchange. Don't ask me, why they did care less on PCs... Probably it is easier on a PC to read and re-type a calendar event, than on a smartphone.

So, I'm glad to read that the CalConnect consortium is doubling their efforts on Task (todo) exchange/interchange/compatibility.

CalConnect: 7 Things You Should Know About Tasks

--

or is it conundra ?

Beyond Google Reader - Part 3

So, only 5 more weeks or so to go before we geeks have to eke out our miserable existence without Google Reader.
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I will most probably switch to Feedly.

Here's where I stand today:

• I mostly gave up the Google Reader app on my Android mobile, 99.9% on Feedly.
• On my iPad I do 80% on Reeder, 20% on Feedly... and Feedly's share is increasing.
  Reeder's future is not entirely clear, except they say they plan to continue.
• On the PC I'm also 80% still in Google Reader, 20% in Feedly.

Basically I'm waiting for Feedly to launch their own back-end service, then import (hopefully auto-magically) my Google Reader feeds in there and just continue.

Ah, and in the meantime Digg seems to be progressing with their Reader back-end. Let's hope they'll launch it openly for any reader app out there.

Syncing Google Contacts to iPad/iPhone Address Book via CardDAV

The cloudier software and services get, the less I sync my iPad with iTunes.
It took Apple a while, but even podcasts can now be sync'd over the air without iTunes.

The only thing that I really needed to go through iTunes was syncing my iPad address book with Google Contacts (in GMail). I only synced about once a month (probably even less often) so my address book really missed some contacts.

But now that we have 2013 Apple and Google both support CardDAV - if you will, the address book equivalent of the more popular CalDAV (for calendar data).

With CardDAV the iPad (or iPhone for that matter) directly goes to Google without the detour through iTunes on the PC. The benefit: you'll be really in sync, like on Android. (SCNR)

Here's what you need to do:

Create a new Account with CardDAV

In Settings find the Mail, Concacts, Calender bullet; the first section is the Accounts section, and there click on Add Account.... Create a new Other account and then select Add CardDAV Accont in the Contacts section.

All you need to provide then is google.com for the server, and your Google credentials (userid and password). You can of course modify the description, but the default - taken from the server name - google.com sounds quite apt, doesn't it.

That's it.
Really.



Unless...

... you did sync your Google contacts previously through iTunes - like I did.

Because then you will notice - in the contacts app - that now all entries are duplicate. Once from the new CardDAV account, and once from the iTunes sync.

Let me show you the fastest way to
Delete the old Address Book

Back to the Settings / Mail, ... page.
Create a new Microsoft Exchange account with dummy parameters like test for Email, Username and Password. I used "test" for it.

Then the iPad will prompt you for a server name, say m.google.com, just to have one that really exists and answers.

Next the iPad will ask you for the services on this account, make sure you turn Contacts to ON.

And now the nice part: you will be prompted if you want to delete all your local contacts. Say you do. And confirm. Be sure to save the account settings, because it will only delete when you save.

And now the old local address book will be gone.
Remove the dummy Exchange account you just created.

Now you have all your Google contacts sync'd to the iPad through CardDav... over the air. No iTunes needed.
Don't forget to go to the PC and turn of Contacts sync (to Google) for the iPad as well.

How not to share on Android

This morning my wife told me that one of our favorite restaurant guides for Vienna (Wien, wie es isst) now has an Android app. I knew this app from the iOS version (earlier on my iPod touch) and I had not been impressed by it - largely because of the required paid subscription and lack of features.

Well, half an hour later she found a review of a new restaurant in Vienna, which we decided to try soon, and she wanted to make a note of this (address, phone, ...) in Evernote.
When I saw her typing like there was no tomorrow, I asked here, why she did not simply share this restaurant from the guide app to Evernote.

Well, turns out, you can't.  Because those (strong language deleted here) developers decided not to properly implement the share functionality (with the Android SEND intent), but implement their own.

And guess what happens then: you only implement a view of the share functions / targets... and this is not what Android is supposed to be.

Of course, we can only find Facebook, Twitter and E-mail there, because the developer had no clue that I had e.g. Remember-The-Milk on my smartphone; or Evernote, or Google Keep for that matter, or any other app that might want to receive this information.

Simply freaking share with the SEND intent, please! It is easier, less effort (for the developer) and will actually fit the user's needs and expectations. That's why it is there.

One of thoooose popups

So, which is it...
Cancel or Stop ?

Well in this case at least it can be resolved: Cancel cancels the stopping of the download, i.e. resumes the download.

Developers and Designers, listen to me!

You have to pay more attention to  wording and/or translation.

HTC Contacts and Google Maps

I don't like the HTC Locations service on HTC Android phones. And I don't know anyone who does.
I really do prefer Google Maps and Google Navigation.

Bummer is was that when you click/tap on the location of an event in the (HTC) Calendar, it always takes you to "locations" instead of Google Maps.

Turns out, there is an app for that :)
Aptly called Select Other Map for HTC and available in the Play Store.

And it does just that. It is only there to register Google Maps for the same intent/scheme as HTC did with locations.
Once installed, the next time you click on a location in the calender, the Android system will find two apps registered for the same action, and will ask you for your preference.

You can pick Location Picker (which you wont, because that's the whole point) or Select Other Map.

Choose this one and say Always (unless you just want to try this once).
And - voilà - Google Maps will open and search for the location from the event.

You can always change this back, by going to the Select Other Map app in Settings > Apps and click on Clear Defaults in the Select Other Map app.  This will undo the Always selection from above and you are free to go back to the cra**y HTC location picker.

Two random yet timely thoughts on Android

1.  I finally gave up (to wait for JB ever to be released by HTC for the S3 variety of the One S) and had my "old" HTC One S (the one with the S4 chip) repaired.  Got the phone back 20 minutes before we went on a  a marvelous week of vacation with the family in Nice, France. So, finally, when we came back it was time to migrate from One S to One S.
Thus I - again - ran into the issue of Back / Migration of Android.
Not an easy task.

First, there is the Android 4+ trick of using the Android dev kit (ADK) on the PC, connecting the phone via USB and running

adb backup –apk –shared –all

That was the easy part, especially since as an Android developer I of course have ADK on my PC:
The  adb restore to the other phone did not work for me, because it always stopped with an exception after a while.
When trying to root my phone to get Titanium Backup to run, I must have selected one wrong option - it only takes one - and totally erased my phone.
Good thing I had the adb backup files.

So...breath deeply... root the "new" phone... because this is pristine anyway, login with google account, go to Google Playstore on the web and click through all the apps to re-send them to the phone.
Run adb restore for the data only, to get all text messages and other data back.
Worked quite fine, most of the apps found their settings again.
Took me altogether like 5 hours or so.

Then, take the S3 variante - the one I just got rid of - and set it up for my wife... Moving from a Gingerbread Samsung Galaxy S (the "old" I9000 one) is harder, because adb backup does not work there.
Anyway, I pulled most of the data through USB file system mode. Register her account on the new phone, restore some select folders from the PC (like media, and beyond pod, ...) ... 2 hours and it was done.

This is probable the only realm where apple is still ahead... Migrating a phone through an iTunes or iCloud backup is really easy. As easy as it can be.

Google / Android: This is where you need to learn from Apple. You really have to.

2. Facebook last week announced their Facebook Home for Android.
Good thing. Instead of building their own phone, they just "skin" Android and potentially all hardware. Seems to be 4+ only, which is OK as well.
Not sure, however, if their premise is right: What do they mean, that I want "people" on my phone, not "apps"?
It will be a success, because Facebook junkies might use it. I personally rather have my widgets on my home screen, and not 100% Facebook. I don't even have any of the social/facebook/google+... widgets active on my home screen, so this part of Facebook home is not for me.

The chat heads (talk about a fit yet bad name) seem to be interesting; non intrusive / disruptive chat layers on top of the apps might actually work, especially if the combine SMS/text and facebook chat (and the other messaging services in the future maybe).

I'm not talking about the privacy aspect here. Facebook does have a worse track record than Google, so not sure I want them to have total access to my phone and thus contacts, location, texts, ... But that's a different story

It is, however, a wonderful testimonial for the power of Android. A truly modular and open architecture.

MyScript Calculator for Android

This is a nice little calculator.

Even works fine without a stylus on a smartphone as well...

Get it from the play store here.

Beyond Google Reader - Part 2

(see, I told you, this might become a series).

Of the many companies that now claim to come to the rescue of Google Reader EOL victims, the one that stuck out is digg.

Of all !!

I wanted to leave digg for more than a year now... because it became irrelevant, pointless and even annoying. But I never even bother enough to take the time to close my account there.

So, do i see digg becoming the "backbone" of RSS or just lets say a replacement for Google Reader ? not for me.

Delicious for example - though they did not "come out" yet - would be a much better choice for this.

Beyond Google Reader - Part 1

I'm pretty sure this will become a series, so I decided to call this post here part 1 ...

After Google announced the shutdown of Google Reader two days ago, the internet was of course full of rants and stuff. Some even declared RSS dead. Yeah, right... Whatever.

I want to stick to RSS (as a style of receiving and consuming news, articles and posts) for as long as possible. And I need my reader synchronized between devices.

Always.

Here's why.

1. I start with Reeder on my iPad in the morning (at home);
2. then on the train & underground on my commute to work I usually continue reading a lot (or rather quickly browse through the headlines) on my Android Phone using Google Reader (ahem). Interesting articles which I really want to read on a proper screen are save to pocket.
3. And then at work (as well as at home) there is always one browser tab open with Google Reader. 

So I have this one feed of news wherever I am.
Therefore I need the (almost) instant synchronization of the read/unread state between devices. And this is what Google Reader did perfectly.

Google Reader is was not only a front-end / user-interface, but also this great back-end synchronization service (or rather: central repository). Reeder, Feedly, Pulse, Flipboard, ... they are were all relying on this infrastructure.
This now needs to be replicated or picked up by someone else.

A new hope:
In the aftermath of thurday's EOL announcement, Feedly (which I was using a bit already on my Android) said, they were actually anticipating this move by Google, and already starting building their own backend infrastructure, essentially cloning on the Google Reader API. And more importantly, that they will open this to others.

So my hope is now that

1. Feedly will do the backend service 
2. existing clients like Reeder (unbeatably, to me),  Flipboard, ... will use this service and concentrate on the GUI. (This of course includes Feedly, the client, as well)

In the meantime, if you are facing a situation like mine, I suggest you try feedly.

Go and get the Chrome or Firefox plugin, the iOS app, or the Android app. Or all. Here.

Fingers crossed.

Google reader to be discontinued

Google, are you nuts ???

What am I to do after July 1st ??

Repair while you wait

Since I'm still waiting for the Jelly Bean upgrade for my HTC One S (the "new" one I bought to replace the one with the broken glass, the one with the S3 processor) I did enough JB Testing on the "old" one (the one with the broken glass) ... I finally brought it in for repair ... hope to have it back soon, so I can go back to my "old" phone with the "new" Android version.

My, this sounds odd.
And only because ${expletive} HTC still did not release JB for some of the S3 processor versions on the One S... Arrrrrghksdfkjh

LG acquires webOS from HP, plans to use it in smart TV platform

This is a surprise ... (via engadget)

LG acquires webOS from HP, plans to use it in smart TV platform: "LG acquires webOS from HP, plans to use it in smart TV platform"

So with HP moving towards Android (in their tablets at least) LG is picking up webOS... good for them.

Opening ICS Files with Thunderbird/Lightning

Now as the world is slowly progressing towards the 21st century when it comes to calendaring tools, some websites offer to download a calendar file (ical, ics, ...) for events they publish.

The problem in my environment is, that no application on my (Windows) PC is registered to handle this file type.
Thunderbird/Lightning simply does no do this.

The out-of-the-box solution without any hacking is to simply download the .ics file e.g. to the desktop, and then drag&drop it to Thunderbird's today pane. This triggers an import. Quite OK.

Works with TB17 and Lightning 1.9.
(Sometimes it seems I have to hold the Ctrl key to force a copy (instead of a move)... awkward.

Did Facebook Replace Restaurant Homepages?

This stems from a couple of conversations that I had recently, about how restaurant homepages lack content.
Many of them at best have their contact details, but nothing else.

In one case the phone number was an image file, so I could not even copy-paste the phone number :(
(Or they are total flash-crap).

I don't want to single out anyone, just give examples here, that came up.
All of them, however, do have very active Facebook pages.

One reason I can think of is that Facebook has actually replaced those store / restaurant homepages. And there are good reasons for this

• it comes with hosting / homepage / everything
• it does have a simple content management system (if you really stretch the term) and you don't have to mess around with HTML/CSS or any of that
• it comes with statistics
• you can easily enter a conversation with your "visitors" (or friends or followers)

However, you still might consider having one of those half-empty pages (and domain) so that Google will still index you.

And: no, I could not find any of them on Google+ :(

Why, Flickr, Why ?

As much as I like the new flickr app for iPhone [1] and Android, I wonder, why they could not decide on one layout for the toolbar

The above is from iPhone, the lower is from Android.

Why, Flickr, why ?


--
[1] actually, I use it on my iPad, but there is no HD version yet, so I have to use the iPhone version... room for another rant :)

HTC One S JB Test Upgrade

So, since I broke my original HTC One S about 6 weeks ago, I replaced it with a new one... the broken one (broken glass) to be sent in for repair  for one of the other family members later. Lazy as I am, I did not send it in yet, so I have 2 HTC One S right now.

Two days ago the Jelly Beans upgrade for HTC One S Worldwide/European versions has been released. But mine did not pick up. So I checked on the "old" one, and - voila - Jelly Beans is available for it.

Both phones have CID  HTC_102, (you can check with with the CID Getter app), a version that is listed to be ready for the update. Still only one found the update.
So I did some digging around and found that the "new" one has the older CPU (S3) whereas the broken/old one seems to be equipped with the newer S4 chip. So there most be some other parameters to identify the update
version/file. As the discussion on XDA says, the S3 update wont be out for another 2-3 weeks...

Annoying, but still good news... Because this actually means that I can test the JB upgrade on the broken/old/S4 model.

Download takes a while (612MB), but then it installs smoothly.

So I now have 2-3 weeks to play around with it, before my "real" phone gets the benefit of Jelly Beans.
I guess the broken one wont get repaired for another 3 weeks...

You're asking me, Google?

Have a smartphone or tablet? Get Chrome for Mobile

Oh c'mon, Google, you know anyway. Why are you asking me?

Especially since I'm using chrome on my Android as the default browser.

Someone hacked my gmail

... or in any other way got access to it and sent (non critical) spam from it.

So first and foremost, if you got an unsolicited email from my gmail account this night, I do apologize. It probably only contains a link to a non existent document. If you can see any data / route / ip / trace in the email that could help me identify the source, kindly reply to me via this email.

I was under the impression that a) my google password is quite strong, and b) that I'm very selective with app or site I allow access to my gmail account.

The weird thing is the list of recipients they picked. It's a strange combination from people I've sent email to in the past, and people I follow on g+ (but did not send an email to).
They all exist in my gmail address book, and the only common denominator I found  so far is, that none of them have a phone number in the address book entry... apart from that I have to draw a blank.

I also found the original email (not only the non-delivery replies) in my sent folder, so I looks like the email has really been sent through my gmail account (and not only with my email in from/reply-to).

Of course in the meantime I not only changed my gmail password, I also reviewed the web-apps and services that have access to my gmail, and will go through the apps on my iPad and Android phone.

Again, sorry... If you have any data to help, just pass it on.

Android Automatic WiFi Login

Most of the public and free (as in beer) Wifi spots force you to click on a freaking "Accept" button before you can use them.

In Vienna, for example, we have a free Wifi operator called "Freewave" who have quite acceptable coverage in and around restaurants, cafés, hotels, etc, etc. So I do have freewave wifi configured and "enabled" if you will in my Android phone.
Bad thing is, whenever I come close to a freewave hotspot, I have to click "accept" in order to get connectivity.
There is a freewave app for Android (and iOS), but it only helps you to locate the next hotspot, not to automatically sign in.

I used to have an app called "Wifi Browser Login" that would open a browser page, so I'd only need to accept without opening a browser first.
But this was still to cumbersome for me (talk about first world problems, eh).

What I had in mind was an app, that would detect that there was only a button to click (or sometimes a checkbox to select) and submit the HTML form. automatically

Just before I wanted to hack this myself I checked the play store and found  WiFi Web Login, which does exactly this.
Even more, you can record the sequence on your first "login", and it will automatically replay it, when you connect to this wifi hotspot.

Works like a charm on freewave.
Haven't tried it with a real username/password situation yet, because I don't have any such Wifis.

There's a 3 day trial, and the "full" or perpetual version is just 1.22 EUR. So go for it.

Loving it.

I Hate Apps That...

... are only a badly written container for HTML, without any proper error handling...

And btw: this is not Android specific...

Second Screen - part II

While we are talking about Second Screen:

Google Glasses are the Second Screen to Life.

Really, I mean it. With all the consequences. Think about it.
I'm not even saying this is good.

Thoughts on Second Screen

With the ongoing success of tablets, media companies and many social platforms get all exited about the "Second Screen".
Second Screen is short hand for getting additional content on your tablet while watching TV. Sometimes it refers to the device itself, sometimes to certain apps on this device.

The quest for the perfect second screen app reminds me of the race for killer app in the early 2000s for the mobile phones. Everyone is jumping in and wants to define the second screen experience.

TV stations, networks and content owners/producers rush to the race in creating very narrow and limited second screen apps for certain programs, TV series', ... Just because they noticed the success of Twitter (and probably Facebook as well).

My 0.02$:

Yes, there is a (very positive) second screen trend right now... but it is defined by the users, not be the content providers. I don't see a lot of sense in creating separate apps per TV program, because that's not like we users behave.

When I watch TV (or a DVD, or streaming, for that matter) I do have my iPad on my lap (or next to me), and I spend quite some time with it: e.g. in IMDB, or Twitter, or Facebook, or Google+ (or my email).
Point is, it is somewhat, but not 100% related to the program I'm watching. I'd never open one specific app e.g. the Breaking Bad app just because I'm watching Breaking Bad...

I don't want to engage in anything (and most probably not the things, the network wants me to), I want to look up actors; or find some background information; or see where Downton Abbey exteriors where shot (link) and find that on Google maps; or have the twitter stream for the election night run by while I watch as Ohio is being called.

But that's my personal second screen usage or experience, not a pre-defined one.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking has changed a lot over the last couple of years.
What started with simple (and some say ugly) pure heading/URL lists, turned into magazine style full-color, hi-res, rich-media, insert-your-buzzword-here pages.

Observe - as an example - the change from he good old del.icio.us to Pocket or Flipboard.

I don't really won't to compare them with or against each other, because to me they define different categories or sub-categories of social bookmarking.

Here is how I use the various tools and platforms:

• To publish or almost broadcast links, I use Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.
• To publish for a certain interest group - kind of newsletter like - I still use delicious and have people subscribe to the tag via RSS.
• To store for later reading, I use Pocket - especially because of the text-only view in Pocket, which make medium-size to long articles and posts really good to read on an iPad or phone.
• To save or archive URLs, I use delicious, sort of my bookmark vault.

ifttt to the rescue

Since my feed from flickr to Facebook has been broken for a while now (and I re-authorized flickr on facebook and v.v.) I decided to work around this with ifttt.

No, I'm not out of my breath, I'm just using if this then that

A simple but very convenient service, with rules of the nature

If (this) happens then trigger (that)

with predefined "channels" for this and that. E.g. flickr and Facebook.

So I created a rule

which takes every new picture I upload to flickr (with the tag #FB) and posts the URL to facebook
Bingo, it works again, and I can now control what is being posted to Facebook by adding or omitting the #FB tag.
Cool

You can slightly modify those rules, but you are bound to what ifttt offers. Pretty much actually.

Sort of competes with Yahoo Pipes in a way (if they were really still alive). Bit more powerful in some aspect, less powerful in others.

[revisited] Google's reference gadgets

Almost 2 years ago (Jan 2011) I was musing about Google's reference device strategy; see my post from then.

At that time Google had the Nexus One (by HTC) and the Nexus S (by Samsung)  devices out, they also released the Cr48 as a reference for their Chrome line.
And I was wondering

I wonder when they will release such a reference device for tablets (with Android).
Or will they ever?

Well, they did, didn't they.
Here's the full Nexus family of devices as of now;

• a really cool smart-phone (Nexus 4)
• a mid size tablet (Nexus 7), that I really long for
  and
• a full tablet (Next 10)

So, they did it.
Thanks

No Jelly Beans yet

Ok, so it does not really look like October, does it ...

After the earlier report  about October, I was really ...optimistic 

IT conservations: Jelly Bean on its way: From The Verge : The Taiwan-based manufacturer also revealed that a Jelly Bean update for the HTC  One X  and  One S  will arrive in Oct...

Maps mash up: Underground vs post office

The other day, when I had to post an important letter, I was wondering if there is any post office close to an underground station on my commute, and I could not come up with one. So - me being me after all - I decided to do some in-depth analysis on this. And learn Python along the way.

1.  The Idea

Get all the underground stations and post offices as geo coordinates, and find those closest to each other.

2. Getting the underground data

Easy, the geo data of all the public transport stations (or ony the underground stations) can be found easily, since the are part of the open government data, shared by the municipality of Vienna.

3. Going postal

Getting the post office data is rather challenging, because they are seemingly not considered to be public enough.

Still, this can be done; so first get a list of all the post offices in Vienna from post.at. Best with a little python script (my first!!) to parse it.
Get all those with a ZIP code starting with '1' into a CSV file including their full street address.

Then - thanks for the hint, martin - use the Yahoo! PlaceFinder API to convert those postal addresses to geo coordinates. Get an Appid for Yahoo!, if you don't yet have one.

Important trick here: Don't place everything into the q=... query string, but separate it into postal, city, street, etc. Like this

u = yahooURL+"?appid="+yahooAppidy
u += "&postal="+po.zip
u += "&city="+po.city
u += "&street="+quote_plus(unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', po.addr).encode('ascii','ignore'))
u += "&country=Austria"

From Y! we get some fine XML back and use XPath to access the geo coordinates

doc = ElementTree(file=urlopen(u))
lat = doc.findall('.//Result/latitude')[0].text
lon = doc.findall('.//Result/longitude')[0].text

So now we have the geo coordinates of all the underground stations and all the post offices.

4. Visualize & Verify the data
Let's again use Python to create a simple KML file to load the date acquired so far into Google Maps (or Google Earth). There's a Simple KML python library to do just that. Here's are the maps (post offices, underground stations)

5. Do the Geo Math
This is the tricky part. I decided to put all the data into a (relational) database, and since I have DB2 installed on my system, it was of course DB2. I did not use any geo/spatial extension, but just put the latitude and longitude into proper types. Then I created a user defined function (UDF) to do the geo math. Actually, for this purpose this could have been simpler, since one can disregard all spherical aspects and assume the surface (of the Earth in Vienna) to be flat.
With my newly created haversine function the query then looks like this:

select haversine(p.lat,p.lon, u.lat,u.lon) as distance, p.plz,p.street,p.lat,p.lon,u.station,u.lat,u.lon
from ubahn.post p, ubahn.stationen u
where haversine(p.lat,p.lon, u.lat,u.lon) <1
order by 1 asc
fetch first 20 rows only

I'm only interested in post offices that are maximum 1km (distance<1) from an underground, and I only want the closest 20 of those (first 20 rows only)

6. Create a map
Export those data into a CSV file, and run a pyhton script that creates the KML file for this, with the post office being a point, the distance being a line, and the underground again a point. Map can be found here.

Turns out, there are more pairs than I actually thought.

Geo-Distance vlg Haversine as a DB2 UDF

In a hack I'm currently working on (to be published soon) I needed to calculate the distance between two locations (on the surface of our planet). Admittedly, those are close addresses (all in Vienna), so I could have assumed them all to be on a plane (not an airplane, a flat surface...), but I felt like some real math.

This is a workaround for all of you who do not have spatial extender available or installed.

To calculate the distance of two points on (a perfectly spherical earth) you apply the haversine formula.
This is the representation of it as a DB2 user defined function (UDF)

CREATE FUNCTION HAVERSINE( lat1 decimal(10,8), lon1 decimal(10,8), lat2 decimal(10,8), lon2 decimal(10,8))
RETURNS DECIMAL(15,8)
F1: BEGIN ATOMIC
declare dlat, dlon, a, d double;
set dlat = radians(lat2-lat1);
set dlon = radians(lon2-lon1);
set a = sin(dlat/2) * sin(dlat/2) + cos(radians(lat1)) * cos(radians(lat2)) * sin(dlon/2) * sin(dlon/2);
set d = 2*6367*asin(sqrt(a));
return d;
END

The two points are given in latitude and longitude (in degrees) as lat1/lon1 and lat2/lon2. It returns the distance in kilometers. If you want to change this, replace 6367 (which happens to be the Earth's radius im km in Vienna, for which I needed this) with your radius and units,e.g. 3956 if you want miles in London.
Check it simply at Wolfram Alpha with "earth radius in london".

I guess it is not perfect, but it does work well. I should probably make it DETERMINISTIC (because it is) to improve performance.
Go ahead, play around.

Something's odd here

In tablets we currently observe two business models:

The Apple model -  make money on the hardware, therefore lock users in,  and make sure that there's enough content available for iOS to do so

The Amazon model - get consumers to buy content and stuff from Amazon,  and make sure they have a device for this.

What is odd here,  is that the Apple model,  which depends on globally availability and distribution of a physical goods (the iPad) is more scalable than the distribution of purely electric or virtual goods (content) in the Amazon model, because Amazon is (still) limited by availability of said content in each country and has to negotiate it...

Sick.

Firefox 16 is out

... and fighting with he F1 addon (an addon to share pages via Facebook, Twitter, gmail)

Problem was that the tab-key stopped working... both in web-pages as well as in the awesome bar (to jump to the search inbox).
Google revealed bug 788050  with the following exchange:

Luckily, F1 has been replaced by the Firefox Share addon, which solves the tab-key problem, but does not have a share button/icon on the address bar... 

The worrisome part of it, is that the addon is from Mozilla Labs, and not some thirdparty script kiddie.

Jelly Bean on its way

From The Verge:

The Taiwan-based manufacturer also revealed that a Jelly Bean update for the HTC One X and One S will arrive in October

hell yeah...

A New Baby - Raspberry Pi

Finally - thanks to Max, I got my new baby:

a Raspberry Pi.

What for, you ask?

Don't know yet... I'm thinking along the lines of

• a thermostat - with some fancy features
• a power meter - for some "private" smart metering

Any other ideas welcome.

Today I finally found the time to get the beast running: only needed an SD card (believe it or not, I could not find any SD card at home... probably because my Nikon uses CF). 

I also got myself a new Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse; the first time I'm using a wireless... but only because the Pi is next to the TV (via HDMI cable), and I don't want any more cables lying around.

Apache is running, the dhcp lease is permanent... cool times ahead.

Oh boy!

Last Friday, late  afternoon, just when we arrived at our b&b for our 2 days vacation in Styria, my beloved HTC One S went into a reboot loop. Meaning, it would power off, restart and right after the HTC logo reboot again, and again, and again, ... forever.
Didn't change when connected to power.
Didn't change when I let the battery run out (which was fairly fast and easy with this behaviour).
Nothing.
After about 2 hours I was not only really annoyed, but also quite allergic to the Quietly brilliant logo and sound.

So I finally managed to get into the bootloader or diagnostics menu (or whatever it is called). The one you get when you press volume-down while powering up. There I - after some playing around - decided to go for a factory reset.
This helped.

Bad thing is, I only had a 2 months old Backup I took with My Backup Pro. Not only that, I didn't actually have it, because it was on the memory of the phone I just wiped...
At this time, I really wished, the HTC One still had physical SD cards...

And this in the middle of nowhere. I only had an Edge connection from time to time.
Luckily the b&b had at least free Wifi, so I could re-install all my apps from Google Play.

From there it was easy: all contacts were synched with Google. Nothing to do there.
My emails, tasks, appointments are of course all "in the cloud" and/or on our corporate server(s), so once I logged into the respective app, it was done.
My photos/videos got periodically backed up to Dropbox with the automatic camera upload. Nothing lost there.
Most podcasts I had in Google Reader, and BeyondPod does sync with Google reader. Good.

The only real pain (apart from losing all my achievements in Temple Run) was to get the application settings back again. Still working on some of those.

Lesson learned: always do a backup and do it to an external medium or the cloud. Will set this up tomorrow.
Really.
I swear.

How to Prevent Tangled and Broken Earbud-style Headphones

Oh I really need this.

via gigaom

ToS;DR

We all know, that no-one ever - ever!! - reads the terms-of-service of a web service. So in a very laudable effort, the guys around ToS;DR did this for us.

ToS;DR is of course a play on the ever popular tl;dr, which is not a broken HTML tag, but stands for too-long, didn't read:

Said whenever a nerd makes a post that is too long to bother reading.

(source: Urban Dictionary)

ToS;DR - short for Terms of Service; Didn't Read - takes care of that:

They created a dash board of the most important web services out there, and flagged them from class A (green) to class E (sooo red, you don't really want to touch it) with the most important aspects and consequences of using said service, like e.g. that twitpic by the terms of service you agree to (!) takes credit for your content.

This catalog of services and their ToS is just great. Imagine, this were to be represented as XML (or in any other machine readable format); then a browser extension could actually flag web pages you visit according to their service, i.e. really warn you about your "loss of copyright" (exaggerating) if you upload to twitpic...

I want this!

Look, What I just did to my HTC One S!

No, the Jelly Bean upgrade is still not here for HTC One S, but at least here in Europe we got the 4.0.4 upgrade on ICS.

Upgrade was totally smooth and flawless. And now, back to waiting for JB...

Listen, listen, gone.

So, finally, Google Listen is gone from my mobile.

I'll stick with BeyondPod.

Google Play Store Gift Cards

According to several reports, the Google Play Store is finally getting gift cards.
Google Play Store Gift Cards - Great Idea!:

This essentially places the Google Play Store on par with the Apple iTunes ecosystem.

It means that anyone can purchase apps and content from the Play Store, without the need for a credit card.
For example, my kids!

And thus it gives more revenue opportunities to app developers in the Android ecosystem.

Well, let's see when it will become available outside the US...

Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client for Android

Finally, with my move to an ICS device I do have a VPN client compatible with our corporate VPN, Cisco AnyConnect. For earlier versions, this was only sort-of available for rooted devices, and I did not really want to root my old HTC just for this.

But now for Android 4 and above (ICS+) there is AnyConnect ICS+ available in the Google Play Store.

 Setup and installation is straightforward. Of course you need to know the connection details of your VPN (hostname, mainly; assuming you do know your userid and password anyway).

It comes with a nice widget for fast and easy access; remembers your userid after the first connect, and also shows the VPN status with a key (connected) in the notification area.

Works great.

Still don't know what I should do in the corporate network with my mobile, though.

Replacing Google Listen

The other day Google announced they would discontinue Google Listen (my favorite podcast fetcher and player for Android until now):

We launched Google Listen through Google Labs in August 2009, to give people a way to discover and listen to podcasts. However, with Google Play, people now have access to a wider variety of podcast apps, so we’ve discontinued Listen. People who have already installed the app can still use it, but after November 1, podcast search won’t function. You can access your podcast subscriptions in Google Reader in the “Listen Subscriptions” folder and download them from the Import/Export tab.

So I finally did some research for a good podcast player for Android; my criteria were:

• use or at least import my current podcast feeds from Google Reader
• an option to restrict episode download on Wifi only
• an option to restrict episode download only when charging (not too critical, though)
• easily accessible controls for play/pause and skip
• good control over the order the episodes play (playlist)
• good UI
  

I found all this in ... drumroll ... BeyondPod.

What I really like is the smart play list, where you can configure BeyondPod to e.g. take all episodes from category x from oldest to newest first, and the all other episodes from category y. I use this to start with all the short 2-5 minutes episodes from e.g. FM4 or OE1 (both from Austrian public radio), followed by the longer ones, e.g. Tech News Today, or In Beta.[1].

The concept of categories makes it easier to configure update frequency, order in which to play episodes, etc etc. Really nice set of settings there.

BeyondPod comes as a free trial version, with all features enabled for the first 7 days. After that, you either continue using the free version - what they call "Lite" - with a limited feature set:

When using the Lite version, you can still add feeds, update, download and play your podcasts. The main limitation is that in order to get the latest episodes, you have to manualy refresh each of your feeds using the circular "Refresh" button located in the top right corner the Feed Content View.

This is too "Lite" for me, so I purchased the BeyondPod Unlock Key from the Google Play store for €5.51/$6.99 so I can continue to use the full version. Still worth the money.

I moved to BeyondPod about a week ago and I'm glad I did.

btw: you can find a review of BeyondPod All About Android episode #5 (minute 38:20)

--
[1] other weekly podcasts like TWiT, or TWiG, or AAA I still listen to on my iPod nano

Data Usage Monitor in Android ICS

Found this while playing around with my HTC One S running Ice Cream Sandwich (aka ICS, aka Android 4.0) while on vacation and roaming (!).

If you pull down the Settings menu or open it via the apps screen under *** more you will find a Usage menu.

Opening this will reveal some very useful and detailed statistics about the data usage of your phone.

You can see the wireless data as it accumulates over the data usage cycle as you define it. Since I am on a corporate plan where the billing cycle starts with the first of the months, I set the usage cycle to the month. If your billing cycle starts on the - say - 21st, you should change this to 21st to 21st of the following month. Set the Reset data count value for this.

You can also set two different thresholds.

1. A simple warning when a certain data volume is reached within the usage cycle - see the 1.0GB bar in the graphic
2. A real limit, where - once reached - the phone will no longer allow a data connection. As you can see I have not activated the hard limit.

If you scroll down further, you can see in detail how the data is been use per application. This lets you easily identify data hogs, giving you some good data points when you want to tweak your data consumption.

In my cases here (just for demo) a good idea would be turn of one of the podcast players (I have both, BeyondPod and Google Listen active right now... more on this later), and also restrict them to Wifi only... Or maybe do less Facebook while commuting :)

Very useful indeed. If you are running ICS already, take a look at it.

BTW: You can turn this on for Wifi, too. This will give a separate tab on this page.