Android Call Reminder

As long time readers of my blog and my rants may remember, I once owned a Nokia 6233 which could schedule calls, i.e. have a calendar/todo/reminder entry for a phone call you wanted to make. When it was due, it would alert you, and you could - with only one click (on the green button) - make that call.

Then came my Nokia E71, which was in all ways superior (and most probably the best Nokia handset I ever had), except for this: It simply could not schedule calls, and I could not find any 3rd party software for it.

Now on my HTC Desire Z / Vision I again went on a quest for such a beast. Android doesn't have any stock reminder/todolist app at all, and none of the ones I saw so far, could handle calls (Astrid, Remember-The-Milk).

Then I found Call Reminder (and more importantly Call Reminder Pro).

It does exactly what I was looking for.

You can set a reminder for a specific call (number or entry from your contacts) and it will notify you then.
Then you can call, snooze or dismiss this reminder.


But more importantly - or conveniently:
It also sends you a notification for every incoming call (or every missed call, this is a preference setting).

So let's say you were away from your phone, and a call in the meantime that you obviously then missed. You will see the default Android missed-call logo and notification, acknowledge (and thus remove) it, get distracted and not return this call.

Well, 30 minutes or an hour later (again depending on our settings) Call Reminder Pro will step in and remind you of this missed call, and what you want to do with it.

This auto-reminder feature is really handy.[1]

Of course you can manually schedule calls (as noted before), you can change the time/date of the reminders etc etc. 

One weird effect is for calls you actually took: you still get a reminder.

Sure you can turn this off. But ever so often you briefly take a call, tell the other party "I'll call you right back!" and then of course fail to do exactly this.

So this is the one more case where Call Reminder Pro comes in handy. That's why I still keep it enabled for all calls, not only missed calls.
Would be cool to have an option to say, "Missed calls and call calls less then 20 seconds"...

Call Reminder comes as free (trial) version with limited features, i.e. you cannot manually schedule a call for any other day than today... annoying.  So for only 1 buck don't even bother with the free version. And also, if you install first the free and then later the Pro version, you have 2 call reminder apps running, and get all the notifications twice (until you uninstall one of them)... As I said, don't even bother with the free version. Call Reminder Pro is worth its money.

I've been using it for about 1 week know, and it already caught 3 calls I'd have otherwise forgotten[2].

--
[1] And at times, really annoying, because I might just be the 7th reminder for this call... with the voice box, maybe an text/SMS or email, etc etc... you know those guys.
[2] yes, this is rather a problem with me, than a feature of the app, but still. :)

Android SMS client replacement

This is my favorite replacement for the stock SMS client/app on my Android (HTC Desire Z aka Vision):

ChompSMS

Apart from presenting the conversations iPhone-style and does iPhonish smileys, it - more importantly - pops up a dialog when a text arrives and let's you immediately reply from there. Totally handy.

I've been using it for a bit more than a week now, and never regretted it.

Also it is not really intrusive: you keep the old (stock) client, and all you have to do is disable the notifications there (to avoid double-notifications). So you can always go back to the regular app.

WTF HP?

So HP just killed WebOS... Just why?
What changed since they acquired Palm?

WebOS goes down in quiet death | Wireless - CNET News

Mozilla's new version policy

With Firefox 4 Mozilla introduced their new release policy, which basically means a new release every quarter, and also changing the major version number with every such release. Thus we got Firefox 6 only yesterday.

Since I'm not an enterprise, I do not have a problem with quarterly releases... some IT organizations do.
Also, I personally couldn't care less if they call their releases 4, 5, 6, 7, or Bob, Frank, Josephina, ... or IV/2011, X/2011, Fall 09... whatever.

If it were not for the add-ons... Usually you test an add-on you develop against a certain release, and also declare this in the install.rdf:

<!-- Thunderbird -->
<em:targetApplication>
<Description>
<em:id>{3550f703-e582-4d05-9a08-453d09bdfdc6}</em:id>
<em:minVersion>1.0</em:minVersion>
<em:maxVersion>5+</em:maxVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>

In the past you knew that the architecture would be stable for a major release, so if you'd tested successfully against a late Thunderbird 3 beta you could increase the maxVersion to "3+". And you'd not have to bother for the next 18 month, until the next major version would go to alpha or beta, you'd have a look at it, test your add-on against it, maybe a tweak here or there, and voila, maxVersion++; and publish it.

Now, you have to do this every 3 months; since everything is now a major version, you either have to declare the add-on as universally compatible (and it might break with version 8) or you have to update the install.rdf every 3 month. Even if there is no major change in Firefox or Thunderbird (as this week with v6).

From a users perspective the same happens, with every update you'll see a couple of add-ons as "incompatible" and disabled. And you either go to your profile and patch the install.rdf (which is what I do) or you have to wait a couple of days (at least) until the developers publish the new "version".

True for both Firefox and Thunderbird.
Somewhat annoying. There's a reason why the separation of major and minor version number has been introduced a couple of decades ago...

Totally un-applish

I just recently had to do the routine password change on my corporate email/calendar.  Not a big deal.

However,  why does an iOS device (both iPod touch and iPad) prompt me for the new Calendar password (and remembers it from then on), but not for email (neither IMAP nor SMTP). I really have to go through settings to change this.

This is totally not like Apple.
First of all its annoying (to have to go to settings), and secondly its inconsistent (automatic for calendar, manual for email).

(ah, end yes, Android is manual only... up to 2.3 at least).

Recommendations

I do enjoy "digital" recommendations, both Amazon-style (with just pattern matching on clicks and orders) and the social way, i.e. recommendations you get from your social networks via Facebook, Twitter and co.

But it's also really nice to see the old-fashioned analog recommendation at work, like two weeks ago in London.

As is almost mandatory we were a Foyles.. most probably the best book store in the world.
With the best Jazz (and world-music) department... (at least for a book-store).

While I was browsing their Jazz CD titles there, sorting through the Keith Jarretts... I noticed the excellent music they were playing in the background... So I asked the guy at the counter, he smiled, pointed to the "Currently Playing" display right next to him, looked at the two Keith Jarrett albums I was about to buy and added something in the lines of "You will love this if you like Keith Jarrett", and then went to shelf to get the CD for me.

The artist is Gwilym Simcock ... a jazz and classical piano player I have to admit I have never heard of, and the album in question is Good Days at Schloss Elmau. Now part of my CD collection.

Maybe Amazon could have done this as well... it would definitely fit my buying pattern there... but this analog recommendation was a nice experience and flash-back into the eighties. When "social" was still something you experienced in person.

BTW: this reminds me of the early days of digital recommendations some 10+ years ago, when we were discussing locations based services(LBS) and restaurant recommendations (based on location). We were talking so some providers of LBS and ranting about the quality problems of such recommendations, when one of their managers said "You can't even get a decent restaurant recommendation out of a human being."

True.

UK Public Wifi - A Disappointment

So I just spent two and a half weeks of vacation in the UK, touring South England (all from Oxford via Stratford-upon-Avon to Bath, Cornwall, South, Kent, and then a couple of days in London) with only my HTC and the company SIM card in it... which allows me to data-roam only up to 20MB... (company policy) and I can't even top that up, although A1 would offer such a service. I did not really mind this, because I really was expecting to hit a public open Wifi spot every odd day.

Well, I did not... or hardly ever!

Many times pubs, hotels and other places (like Pret-A-Manger, Starbucks, ...) actually advertise "Free Wifi available" but you end up with a pay-version, like BT-Openzone and others. I only found two (2) truly open, public, free Wifi spots (one in a totally loveable B&B near Bath, the other in a bar in St.Ives). Thank you, guys.

This both surprised an disappointed me.

Next time, I should get a local (i.e. UK) prepaid SIM card with  a cheap data plan or pay-as-you-go data... in Austria I would do this with Bob for 4 EUR per 1GB/month... much cheaper than adding the one-time A1 roaming-option to my SIM card from 10-100 EUR), although this offer is quite OK (if you need to keep your own SIM/number in your phone).

For two weeks it would be at least cheaper than getting Wifi from 3 or so different providers, and always available...

Google+ Android App

While everyone seems to be waiting for their G+ activation and/or iOS app, I just like to point out that the current Android App for Google+ is in all aspects superior to the Facebook app on Android (and on iOS).

• Faster
• Syncs with all other google services (check this in Settings -> Accounts & Sync -> Google)
• Faster
• Not sure if the Huddle (group texting) service is really a plus... haven't used it so far
• Faster
• The photo/video auto upload feature is great:
  privacy is OK, because your pictures will only go to a private folder in Picasa and they are almost instantaneously available in G+ to share
• Faster
• Images/Photos actually are shown/loaded, whereas in the FB app they fail to load at all in about 1/3 of the times I click on one (Wifi or 3G/HSDPA connection)

So all in all: big + for the G+ app.

Android Gallery Problem

Every Android phone I've seen so far has a problem that all of a sudden recent photos are missing from the Gallery.
Most users then think the picture they just took has not been saved to the phone or sd-card.

Wrong.

This is - as a simple google search will reveal - a problem of the media scanner.
The standard Gallery app relies on the MediaScanner to collect images from the various folders of the SD card. And apps should notify the MediaScanner when they store a new image/video/... on the SD card.

However, something is broken in the media scanner and it seems to die frequently - or at least not work.

Easiest work around (apart from rebooting the device):

Go to Settings and unmount and re-mount the SD-card.
This will force the media to be re-scanned.
However, this is a bad idea to do when you are listening to podcasts at the same time (because they are on the SD-card as well, which you are about to unmount...)

Therefore - even better, download an app like "Rescan Media" from the market place. All it does, is re-invoke the Media Scanner.
Just click on it - voila, the images will be back again.

iPad - the missing key

If you want to edit HTML on the iPad, you quite frequently have to switch to the special character keyboard.
Conveniently it contains all the keys/characters you need to e.g. type in a those nasty HTML tags.

Almost.
The forward-slash (/) key is actually missing.

Oddly enough, there would be enough room for it, see my rendering of this

(The place where I put the key is actually empty).

Mid-Year Resolution

I haven't been working on my Mid-May Resolution:

"I'll get a second (CPU) core in my home PC before I get it in my smart phone."

Granted, I neither have a dual/multi-core CPU in my PC *nor* in my smart phone right now...

but I should be working on the PC issue. Especially the Android Emulator could need it.

Google+

I've been using Google+ now for a couple of days, and I have to admit I like it.
Currently it suffers from being almost 100% self-referential... everyone on G+ only talks about G+.
Apart from that it reminds me a lot of friendfeed. (Odd, since FF was bought by Facebook - of all).

I wonder why they did not implement hash-tags (like twitter). They'd link individual posts to topics, so they provide additional (and in many cases) valuable information - or meta information.

G+'s most important task is to get additional signals to improve Google search/index, so hash-tags should serve well there. Wouldn't they?

Or does Google consider hash-tags as "messing with the algorithm" because they are being entered by humans... and not derived from their algorithms?

Google Takeout

So I joined Google+ today (thanks, Martin, for the invitation), but more importantly I want to write about Google Takeout today.

Best starting point is the video from the The Data Liberation Front:



The announcement seems a lot more promising than the current implementation itself.
It must have been written exclusively for Google+, becaus that's what Google Takeout focuses on.

There is neither Gmail nor Calendar export... Contacts are exported, though, and conveniently grouped into .vcf files (per contact group... and your circles (see, I told you it was designed for Google+).

Still a good start. Better than Facebook for now. And I like their mindset... that this is MY data, not theirs.

Platformness, part two

I recently claimed that a true platform has to protect it's developers from (ridiculous) claims of third parties (indemnification), the same is of course try in the opposite direction:

When an ecosystem around this platform evolves that adds new and important features to this platform, the platform itself should not step in and re-create those add-ons.

Current (counter-) example: Twitter just added their own photo sharing service, thus rendering e Twitpics and Yfrogs obsolete... who were instrumental in Twitter's success during the last years.

In other words: a platform shall not compete with (or against) its developers.
I'd like to call this quality trust.

In The Plex

I just finished this book:
In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy.

Excellent reading, good insights into Google; a bit google-sided but not too much.
I highly recommend this to anyone involved with or interested in Google... (even the opponents and Google haters).

iCloud

Apple's just announced  multimedia cloud storage thingy, iCloud[1] looks like a real threat to Dropbox.
Especially if well integrated into the Apple ecosystem (Mac, iOS and applications).

Not for me, though; the 2GB Dropbox offers for free are sufficient for me... but thats only because I do not keep music or photos/videos there..

Also Dropbox will probably always be more cross-platform.

So I'll keep using Dropbox - and invite you to do the same.

--
[1]  if they can keep the name :-)

Platformness

The recent (if not still ongoing)  Lodsys v. Apple fight over patent infringement around in-app purchase revealed another important criteria for something to be a platform: indemnification.

Apple (or any platform provider) has to protect developers for their platform from such claims - whether they are justified or - as in this case - just patent trolls.

For a true platform this must never be burdened on the developers.

Hope Google/Android will follow Apple's example.

Mid-May Resolution

Why only have new-years resolutions? Why not start with Mid-May resolutions?

so here's mine:

I'll get a second (CPU) core in my home PC before I get it in my smart phone.

Tough one... off to buy a new PC in the next 2 weeks (after 8+ years with the one I currently own).

Cloud rants

With the outage of the Amazon S3 storage about two weeks ago  and the downtime of the Playstation Network (PSN) due to security problems, the cloud sceptics are on the rise again.

The usual “we told you so” and “the cloud is not safe”... etc etc.

Two thoughts on this

1. Show me one internal IT operation that has an availability or up-time like S3.
2. If people would only spend the right amount of money on the cloud services and subscribe to the full package with proper redundancies, etc etc this would probably not happen.
   Well, the single outage at one Amazon site will still happen, but not the same net effect on all the other services.

I guess one of the reasons is, that IT managers or CxOs compare the cheapest price they find on the brochures for the cloud services with their internal (total) cost. And then tend to buy only the cheapest flavor of whatever cloud service they want, without any consideration regarding availability (don't even get me started on security).

Like at least one IT manager who I heard complaining how expansive 1 TB of storage is in an enterprise grade storage box (or even in a SAN) when they can get 1TB for roughly 50€ as a USB disk...

Awesome Thunderbird Plugin

So, the other day I sat down to write myself an add-on that was more than overdue for me... or for the way I use mail and Thunderbird.

At that time I called it Domain Specific Move, and it did exactly that. I took the most domain with the most occurrence in an email (scanning to, from, cc) and suggested a folder for this mail; and you were able to train it.

Through Max's comment I learned about the Nostalgy add-on. It actually is about defining keyboard shortcuts and stuff for Thunderbird:

Adds keyboard shortcuts to change folder, move/copy messages, with folder name auto-completion (using only the keyboard). 

The folder name auto-completion is the really awesome stuff. I just have to hit S (for Save == Move) and an entry field pops up at the bottom of the window and I only need to type two or three letters of the folder name and that's it.

When you really use nested folders like I do - with about 5-6 levels deep, this saves a lot of time.

Same for G as GoTo folder. And there's a nice B (whatever that stands for) that Moves the message to the folder and then goes to the folder (sort of S+G).

Great stuff. Thanks Max, for the hint.