Relax and talk phones

Hi there reader,

It is time to sit back, relax and have a nice sip of root beer.
You don't have any root beer? Well then it sucks to be you.

Along with root beer I have a newly rooted Google Nexus One (root phone?).
Why did I root my phone?
Simple really: I was sick of the contacts icon.
You see the contacts icon seems so unnecessary.
When you've seen the slick design of the HTC Sense UI the native google one seems clunky.
Of course I was being a complete idiot, as both the Cyanogen Mod ROM and the Modaco ROM don't change the stock interface*. (The screen grab on the left is actually the Modaco ROM).

What rooting my phone has done for me is allow me to install great root-only applications this includes ROM Manger, which I used to switch from Cyanogen Mod to Modaco (and am currently switching back with) and the screen grabbing tool I used to take that screenshot.
I'll continue to play around with it and install the HTC Desire ROM when I'm sure it's stable.

*Technically this isn't true Cyanogen changes the interface a little bit, it adds more blue and makes the WindowShade (Notification Pulldown) transparent.

Thanks for reading!

-Rory

@eske conversation show notes

Applications:

Twicca

Listen

My Tracks

Hoccer

AndAppStore

BatteryLeft

Battery Indicator

Podcasts:

No Agenda

Daily Source Code (from restart)

Skeptics Guide To The Universe

NSFW (second to last episode)

Phil Hendrie Show Flashback

Websites:

Escapist Magazine. Com

Android Guys

These Are The Droids

Comrades Fore

Dear Friends First,

Today a man in your employment acted in a manner that would inspire animosity, distrust and even dislike between us. But I believe we should not accept that we are enemies yet, we should endeavor to be friends first.

The man in question was a security guard tasked with protecting your property, and he came to tell me that I was not allowed to make use of your sparsely populated bike-racks.

Although he was friendly at first he made it clear to me that I was unwelcome.

I am a student working three-days a week in your neighboring company HiberniaEvros.

I was let-go some time ago, but found work with HiberniaEvros, much to the delight of my friends.

First I got the job and then I realized that to get to that job I would need a bicycle.

Unfortunately I am unable to find a better home for my bike during work hours than your rarely used bike-rack.

I worry that if I leave my bicycle in a less sheltered spot than your rack it might be damaged, stolen or mistreated, and that would be a shame because to me, my bicycle is a very valuable friend.

First: It gets me to work on time.

Second: It helps me get in shape.

I am willing to waive you of any responsibility for what happens to me or my property while on your property.

So please, ask yourself, instead of becoming enemies don't you want to be friends first?

Rory Glynn

Appz.ie

Hey there!

I've decided to follow my star, take a chance and build a website.

So I bought a domain and hosting from blacknight.com.

The url for my new site is http://appz.ie, when it's done it should be fun and interactive.

If you want to keep track of my progress just go to the site blog at blog.appz.ie.

Have fun!
-Rory

Nexus And Me - Podcasts

I am a big fan of podcasts, in fact I listen to them so much I occasionally  go a week without listening to any music.

When I got my Nokia it was a revolution to be able to download podcasts directly to my device.

But Nokia's podcatcher has some issues:

It is difficult to set up - URLs must be put in manually, because the built-in search only finds podcasts that were around four years ago.

The most crippling problem however is that Nokia podcatcher occasionally just stops working. It simply dies and refuses to open again. The only solution is to hard reset the phone.

On Android you have choices, lots of choices.

After trying a few different podcatching apps (including listen and mypod) I have settled on a very good free app called MediaFly.

Mediafly is great because it allows you to:

Manage your podcasts online.

Stream/download podcasts.

Stream/download video podcasts.

So... mediafly literally does everything I want and more.

Mediafly does have issues though:

As with every podcasting application I've tried on Android, Mediafly occasionally fails to find updates I know (because I subscribe to the same RSS feed in Google Reader) are out. (This issue might be caused by Meteor, my carried blocking ports. But I definitely never had it on the 5800.)

-Rory

Nexus And Me - Twitter

I know it might seem odd to start with Twitter, but ever since I first purchased a data plan some months ago the functionality and quality of my Twitter application has been paramount for me.

The Symbian OS has what I consider to the be the best Twitter application in the world.

It's called Gravity and its developer Janole has become something of a hero to me by keeping his users up to date on his latest activities on his twitter stream, and generally fighting the good fight for Symbian.

On the NexusOne there are many, many twitter applications. I have tried a few, here are my problems with them:

Failure to connect:
Several clients simply refuse to work on my data network the two best ones are:
Seesmic & Tweetcaster

Some clients worked but were overly reliant on the menu button, which kills it for me for example:
TwitterRide & Swift

The clients I use can thus be said to have run the gauntlet they are:
Twidroid: The old reliable of the android platform, Twidroid is a favourite of many users who have been using android since the G1 came out.
Twidroid can be relied upon to work, it's not pretty and the on-screen buttons are too damn small but it always works.
&
Twicca: My current favourite is the very dark and very cool Twicca. Twicca offers more customisation that almost any of the other options. It has a funny way of finding tweets but not loading them until you go to look at them. Sadly the buttons are still a bit small and the menu button is relied upon a bit too much for my liking. (You can sort of work around it with the back button).
But when it comes right down to it Twicca is just beautiful, you can even colour-code your tweets.

I don't have root access to take a screenshot, so here is one from the web. (The developer is Japanese, so they have a big following in Asia).

Nexus and Me.

I am a recovering symbian user. I introduced myself to the smartphones by purchasing a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, a device which runs the Symbian S60 V5 touch-screen operating system.

I spent a year with the 5800, broke one, drowned one and eventually came to the conclusion that Symbian was the wrong OS for me.

When Google announced the NexusOne, I resisted as best I could. But when NexusOne News posted this article:

http://news.nexus-one.co.uk/post/329073525/how-to-get-your-hands-on-a-nexus-one-if-you-live

My resolve broke down.

I hit buy, and relations in the U.S. forwarded me the device.

A week ago I received my NexusOne, and I have used it exclusively since then.

In my next few posts I will stack the 5800 and the Nexus against one another and tell you about my experiences with them.

-Rory

Read Comics And Books On Your S60 V5 Device

Got a Nokia with a touch screen?
Great!

Here's how its done.
(This is going to be quite a ride, so hang on!)

First we need to lay the groundwork, so you need to install Python for S60.
Maemo Garage is the home of PyS60.

In order to do this properly you would have to download the latest version from the version list ( the file with the name ending .tar.gz) onto your computer.
Then you would have to decompress it (twice) with 7-zip.
and dig through it and install these two files:
Which you would install on your phone.

Instead I have put them on my webserver for you, you can download them and install them directly on the phone.
( Remember the version on my server may not be up to date.)

Once you have installed these I recommend you run the updater application on your phone (It may be called 'Application Updater' or 'SW Update') and update python.

Now that we have python installed we can go get our comic book reader.
The reader is called 'TouchComic' and the creators blog is here.
You can get the latest version of TouchComic and txt_converter here.
You should download and install TouchComic on the phone, you only need to download the txt_converter.

Now you should be all set, if you have a comic in .cbz (a bunch of image files in a renamed zip folder) you should be able to open it with TouchComic and read it.

If you have a .txt file (for example Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom) that you would like to read, put it on the device (I have yet to figure out a way to download a txt file directly).
Then fire up the Pythonx.x.x [x being the version numbers] in your applications folder and go options=>Run script=>txt_convertor.py select the .txt file and it will convert it to a .cbz for you.

So now you have a functioning ebook reader and comic book reader.

If you are ready for yet more adventure this is a list of Python for S60 applications you could try.

If you find a cool apps, or have any problems setting up the software, just comment below.

Have fun!
-Rory

My MemoryC.ie order arrived today

I don't mean to gush... but I will:
I am really impressed with MemoryC.ie
Why?

• Their prices are fair (about the same as their competitors: Elara.ie and Komplett.ie)
• They have a great interface for finding your ram. And I really mean that. If you know what your machine needs you will have it priced in 5 minutes or less. Komplett and elara make pricing laptop ram incredibly difficult by not sorting it properly, memoryc just sort it.
• It's usually not difficult to find a discount voucher. (I have a thing about those discount code boxes, whenever I see one I need to put something in it. I've cancelled orders before because I got pissed off about not having a code, with MemoryC a quick google usually solves it.)
• They put stuff in the post, fast. I ordered something (Standard Post) before lunch on Tuesday, and recieved it before lunch on Wednesday. That happened because they got it to the post office before 5. Awesome.

There are also somethings that annoy me about MemoryC:

• They're sponsoring the gaming clan I belong to, but they didn't give us a discount code. (I mean why not? Just give us a 5/10% code to track what purchases are driven by us and encourage us to spend money with them. They're sponsoring PC gamers because we buy so much stuff anyway.)
• Out side of RAM, Memory Sticks and Hard Drives their range and pricing is quite poor.

So there you have it, if you're in Ireland looking to buy RAM, Memory Sticks or Hard Drives MemoryC is the place to go. If your looking for other computer bits, they're probably only going to irritate you.

-Rory

P.S. I got irritated by the Blogger interface while writing this post, and wrote this.

The Tic-Tac Song

Life is fun as a tic-tac,
Things get done as a tic-tac
When you're orange and round,
And you don't hit the ground.
Life is fun as a tic-tac!

This better work this time.

I'm sending this blog update from pixelpipe, it should only appear on A Thought For A Day if the routing tag works!

And French

It is now only 20 minutes until boarding starts. my headache has pretty much abated as has my tiredness. I'm starting to like it here, the sun is low in the sky and is casting big shadows through the floor to ceiling windows, I have a nice cool hand rail to rest my head against and the relaxing cacophony of rowing Indian Children as a backdrop to my thoughts.
Now back to important issues: Canadian Small Change:
Canadian Small Change (as used in Toronto International at least) seems like a good metaphor for everything in Canada.
Canada feels to me as a mid-point between the tastes and attitudes of The US, The UK with a good whack of their own home-grown identy mixed in.
In my wallet of Canadian cash I have a few US quarters, a US nickel, a couple of Canadian Dollar and two Dollar coins, I have notes with pictures of the queen.
The convenience-kiosk provided a similar mix: You see beef jerky and think, this Canada thing is bs, I'm in the 51st state. But then you realise that the package describes it in English And French.

The Sacred Cow

I'm now waiting at the gate for my flight to LAX. It should start boarding in 40 minutes, and take off in 70. The airport staff are using the doors here as a shortcut into the arrivals system. They seem to be feeding people who somehow accidentally escaped the customs and passports control back in.
I bought a bag of beef jerky in an attempt to lighten my load of Canadian pocket-change left over from buying a meal and a drink.
I think I've been coping surprisingly well for a half-drunk, sleep-deprived tourist who has never seen this weird little currency before.
I'm sitting in a little enclove with an Indian-looking Mother and her Sons, I can't help but feel a little guilty as I rip chunks of the sacred cow apart in front of them.
But never mind, if we start worrying about other people's belief's in this time of modern multi-cultural society, we soon won't allow ourselves do anything. Which would be bad... but at least my jaw would stop hurting.

Molson

I'm sitting in the Molson-Pub Bar & Grill in Toronto International Airport, I'm sucking an ice-water through a lemony straw. I've probably got another half an hour or so of good faith with the staff before they encourage me to order or leave.
The good faith I have is based on the Double Morgan and Coke I had when I came in.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but instead of making me pleasantly drunk it gave me a wet-slap of a headache which nearly knocked me unconscious.
It suddenly occurred to my body-clock that I had been awake for 18 straight hours (ironic because it is 6 o'clock pm here in Toronto) and it responded my making me so incapable of focus that I had a tricky time making eye contact with the staff to ask for water.
My wonderful master-plan for my trip through Toronto has completely fallen through.
The aformentioned plan went something like this: go to Toronto. leave the airport, and get a train into a nice downtown area. Eat a meal and wonder around. Return to the Airport and Fly to LAX.
Naturally enough my plane to Canada was hideously delayed and I spent time that was meant to be spent investigating Toronto, sitting on a floor in Dublin.
When I arrived at YYZ I discovered that US Immigration had created a marvellous, inescapable red-tape maze, which chewed me up and spat me into the US departures end of YYZ.
Time to move on.

Michelle In DIT

Michelle In DIT
Originally uploaded by ankhwatcher

Took this picture of Michelle in DIT today.
(Also found out that I can post pictures and posts straight to my blog from flickr)
-Rory

Update

One of my poems and two of my articles were read out in Joels Awful Snack 89b!
Thanks for the mention Joel!
-Rory

First Kiss

We danced slowly, I am naturally uncomfortable with dancing so I was very relieved to find her a willing and capable lead. I followed her as we gently moved from side to side.
I did my best to pick up any other mannerisms, like looks and gestures: if she looked down and to her left I looked down and two my right. I immediately drew the comparison to 'looks' from Zoolander.
After a while I stopped clowning around... I was distracted by the smile which had bloomed on my partners face.
I noticed that she was much, much closer than she had been when we started dancing. I wanted to know that she was on board with us kissing (part of why I enjoy being drunk is that I stop worrying about this stuff) so while doing my best to keep the slow beat of the song I looked in her eyes and notified her that we had been moving closer together.
She insisted that I had been the one moving closer to her but I still held it was mutual. I told her that 'regardless of the cause we will meet in...' and I trailed off, I had no idea how long we were dancing, when did we start? How far apart were we then? What distance had we covered so far? In the end I decided there were simply too many variables so I chose an arbitrary number that would give her time to laugh at this outlandish statement and resume dancing in time to steadily lean in and kiss before the song ended.
'thirty or forty seconds' I said immediately regretting it, it suddenly sounded like an eternity. But before I knew it we were locked in a tight embrace on a dance floor kissing in a somewhat melodramatic way.
It was a truly excellent first kiss.

-ANkh

Bastard Review Song

On Tuesday my good friend Neil told me about an idea of his to make Zero Punctuation style reviews of the plays we would see as members of DIT Drama.
I was quite taken with this idea and in this shower this morning (A great deal of my ideas arrive in the shower... typically the only place I cant use a notebook or a tape recorder) I had an idea for song.
In order to keep the song structured and in my head I continued to sing it to myself for the next half-hour. So if anyone asks... that is my excuse.

Anyway this should be sung in a loud and verbose manner, possibly accompanied by a piano.
It's times like this I wish I had given a crap when I was taking piano lessons*.

Bastard Review
Before
It's just another crazy bastard review!
Find out what those crazy bastards, think of you!
In yet another crazy, BAS-TARD REV-IEW!

After
That was a crazy, bastard review.
Just another crazy bastard review.
Oh please mother, don't make me watch another...
BAS-TARD RE-VIEW!

I hope we get to use it.
-ANkh


*It's an odd fact that I was never interested in art or drawing anything until well after people stopped trying to teach it to me, the same with music.

Evil Crane

Arwen's rather demented belief that The Crane looked 'evil' prompted me to attempt to make an evil Ralph Steadman style crane.
Thus we have: Evil Crane.
As usual drawing a female of the species caused my normal breast-drawing-panic and I had to go scurrying through my photo archive for a girl in t-shirt. I eventually used a picture of my ex-girlfriend.
Ah... I don't miss her much... but I do miss her breasts...

-ANkh
P.S. Check out plurk. I'm really starting to like it.

Crane

I blame Randall Munroe for this, him and that Farside Guy.
And I just downloaded the new Ben Folds track Ben put on his myspace page! Thanks Ben!
Get 'Way To Normal' here.

-ANkh