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1151

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Android versions and upgrading?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 07:04 PM »

The applications are pretty standard, yes. The only exception is largely to due with hardware features, not software, as far as I understand, and that is generally specific to e.g. whether it has a GPS, the screen resolution, whether it has a physical keyboard, an enhanced gyroscope (6 axis), etc. Newer OS versions also bring newer features, so if an app takes advantage of them it will require that OS. But most apps probably run on at least 1.6 at this point.

The real problem is actually that most manufacturers *are* trying to differentiate themselves in software *not* hardware. Most phones out there, aside from physical design, are almost identical. 90% use ARM-based CPUs, similar GPUs, same size batteries, similar size and resolution displays, similar memory, have no physical keyboard, and similar support for GPS, wireless, bluetooth, etc. Where they differ more significantly in many cases is their custom UI and app set. Motoblur, HTC Sense, etc. If these were just application bundles that were only available from the phone manufacturer and/or carrier, you could upgrade the OS and keep the app, no problem. The thing is they fundamentally change the UI design and so require a change to the OS itself, thus needing to be updated with each OS version. Stupid! Well, not stupid, but really annoying and IMO unnecessary.

Much of what they're doing could be implemented back into Android core (open source) and then everyone would benefit from it, and it could be made as optional UIs or even simply applications. Even if they don't want to make it open source, doing it as a custom application bundle would still allow differentiation of devices while avoiding the update delays. We really need the time to come when phones will be more like regular computer purchases, not tied to any carrier, and allowing any OS version we want. Maybe it will never come though...

- Oshyan

1152

Living Room / Re: Should I buy a tablet pc, ipad, netbook, or other?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 06:56 PM »

I see you may have made up your mind by now, but I'll comment anyway just in case you're still thinking... hehe.

iPad isn't quite "instant on", it's about 15 seconds - some of the Linux instant-on solutions are faster than that. Hilariously the video I found to demonstrate this has a guy counting out about 10 seconds, but the video time elapsed shows at least 15 going by: http://www.ipadforum...ipad-boot-times.html

The iPad uses the same OS as the iPhone, which is a smart phone OS. They updated it to work with the iPad, but it's not a complete redesign by any means, and many people have mentioned the similarities and, in some cases, holdover stupidity from a phone UI on iPad, especially with apps not yet updated for the larger form factor. The same is true of Android, neither is particularly better designed for a tablet experience, and by the time the majority of Android tablets come out, they'll have had just as much time to customize for the tablet experience as iOS did.

The N5 does look interesting, but the screen is not much larger than the more recent touch-screen cell phones, and while the keyboard is a bit larger than sliders like the Samsung Epic (which is a phone I'm planning to get as soon as it comes out), you still can't use standard typing position so it's not necessarily going to be any faster. It's also a heavier and not really pocketable (depends on your pockets I guess). Running Win7 may be an advantage as far as flexibility, but you have to remember that Windows wasn't designed for screens that small, so it's really going to be cramped in, any any advantage from being able to e.g. run your typical desktop apps is probably going to be lost in many cases just because the UI is illegible. Win7 is also likely to be a bit heavier than e.g. Android and so may affect performance (although I know N5 reviews are so far saying performance is pretty good). Anyway it's certainly a viable option, but getting further away from the tablet benefits and more toward cell phone territory, in which case one wonders why you wouldn't consider a smart phone (granted there are data plan charges that most carriers require). It's a shame smart phones aren't sold more often unbundled...

Personally I've found a netbook to be the best solution so far (provided touch screen is not a requirement). They're light enough to be extremely portable - I take mine places I'd never bring my laptop - the keyboard is actually quite decent and can totally be typed on naturally and quickly with standard finger positioning, and you can do anything you want with it like a regular desktop. I've got an ASUS I'm extremely happy with, it claims 10.5 hrs battery life and in practical use I get about 9, so it's pretty good. Newer ones have dual core and can handle stuff like HD video better, but mine is great as-is. It's running XP but I imagine it would be great on Win7 too. Now I don't use it as much as my main desktop or laptop admittedly, but when I do go out and need the portability it's definitely my go-to. We'll see what happens when I get my new smart phone.

- Oshyan

1153

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with Android versions and upgrading?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 05:40 PM »

Nexus One is no longer being sold, in the US at least.

In general you can upgrade most any Android device to a newer OS, but you do have to do some hacking. Sometimes a lot of it, sometimes less. In many cases it is fortunately quite easy. But the phone hardware makers seem to be wanting to make it harder (see Motorola with their new hardware in the Droid X for disabling custom ROMs).

So the Android market is unfortunately somewhat fragmented. There are plusses and minuses to the Android approach in general. Sadly you do need to do some hacking for most Android phones to upgrade to a version of the OS not yet officially supported by your carrier. This is a carrier problem, not a fundamental OS or hardware limitation. The carriers want control, and they also want to differentiate their devices with custom UIs (if only they were optional!), and these UIs take time and dev money to upgrade for newer OS versions, so either there is a delay while the UI (e.g. "Sense" or "Motoblur") is updated, OR they choose not to bother spending money on the update for a really old device. In either case it's annoying and unnecessary restriction.

I'm honestly impressed Apple has managed to maintain upgradeability for their phones to the latest "iOS" versions as long as they have, but that's because they have complete control over the hardware and a very limited model line-up with minimal hardware differentiation. In fact it's a mirror of the classic Windows/Mac difference, with millions of different Windows PC models, and usually 5 or 10 (largely similar) ones on the Mac side. But if you want anything that is not standard on the Mac/iPhone side, you're out of luck. No physical keyboards, no alternate networks, etc.

Which leads me into Deo's point (that I was hoping someone would mention, or I was going to ), which is that in some cases it really is a hardware limitation, which is no different than how things are in the PC (or Mac) world. Newer versions of OS X for example have minimum hardware requirements, and won't run on older systems. In some cases (e.g. older CPU architectures no longer supported), you actually physically can not install the OS onto the older system as it doesn't include the right drivers. Maybe there is a way to get it to run with hacks, I don't know, but Apple makes it very, very hard.

In the case of Windows you can generally ignore the minimum specifications and install anyway, e.g. onto an old system with 128MB of RAM. If it works to install it, it probably works to run it, it just may be really, really, really slow. But it's your choice to do it. Since Windows has been based around standard x86 architecture for decades, it's not really a matter of a CPU not being supported. Maybe peripherals (e.g. audio drivers, etc.) won't be available for the newer OS, but the core system functions.

Anyway, what's going on in the Android space is that the hardware is on an accelerated development curve, and that's what separates it from the PC world and makes it seem so "wrong" to people (people used to Windows/Linux, or who bought in to the underlying promise of a Linux-based smartphone OS) that a device only a year or two old can't get the latest upgrade. The thing is we've more than doubled our CPU speed and memory in that time, and that's unprecedented in the desktop world. Think about any time in the past when you would have doubled CPU speed in a 1-2 year period (or less). Last year's Droid was the hot new phone at 600Mhz, and with 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM. The Droid 2, coming out less than 12 months later, has a 1Ghz CPU, and other phones (like the Samsung Epic I'm planning to get) have 1GB of memory and rising. Motorola is apparently aiming to have a 2Ghz phone by end of year! The speed of hardware upgrade is staggering, and to take advantage of the newer stuff, you inevitably leave the older stuff behind in certain ways. Maintaining backward compatibility is not always hard, but sometimes it's necessary.

On top of all this is the issue of the carriers and their lock-in desires, which I mentioned above. So no matter how much some of us might want it to be, the fact is just because Android is based on Linux doesn't mean it gives you that level of real freedom. You're still at the mercy of your carrier to some degree, even if you root your phone.

For me Anroid is still a big improvement over anything else out there, but I do wish the carriers and hardware vendors allowed a little bit more cohesion. If they weren't so concerned about lock-in and differentiating their devices *in software* (or if they at least made these things optional), everything would be a lot nicer in the smart phone world.

- Oshyan

1154

General Software Discussion / Re: Any Firefox addon to do multiple searches in same search engine?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:53 PM »

You must be working really fast! I use Google pretty much constantly on some days, with several searches a minute for sustained periods (as many as 15 in a minute, or one every 4 seconds, in some cases). Not that I doubt it's happened to you, I'm just surprised.

- Oshyan

1155

Programmer Libs / Re: MwImporter php script - Batch import html site into MediaWiki - v2.0 - 5/26/10

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:50 PM »

Very glad to see someone has a use for this! Hopefully once we publicize it more widely (and document it more fully), it will be of even broader interest.

RayOfLight, your use sounds very similar to what this was originally developed for. I was converting from Dr. Explain based help files to a wiki to allow for collaborative editing. And for that it worked pretty well, though I ultimately had to trim down the import quite a lot for other reasons. But the system is capable of quite complex (and customizable) import if desired, including image maps.

- Oshyan

1156

Circle Dock / Re: Return of Funds donated to the Touchscreen project.

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:47 PM »

I'm with Stoic Joker. I don't use CD but felt it was worth contributing to anyway. You can keep the donation.

- Oshyan

1157

Living Room / Re: Router Q: Bandwidth thottling

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:44 PM »

DD-WRT should do everything you need:
http://www.dd-wrt.co...p/Quality_of_Service

- Oshyan

1158

General Software Discussion / Re: Experiences selling digital downloads?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:41 PM »

I would just use a free eCommerce app. You say you don't want/need an ecommerce "shop", yet it sounds like that's exactly what you need. Without one, you'll be setting up the payments for each item manually in Paypal, and then trying to figure out how to interface Paypal's payment confirmation with a stand-alone secure downloads system, right? Why not just use one of the many free, easy, open source (or not) solutions that automatically integrate with Paypal (and other) payments, and automatically handle security, etc?

Something like Prestashop:
http://www.prestashop.com/
http://www.prestasho...wnloadable_products/

Or OpenCart:
http://www.opencart.com/
http://www.opencart....ation&path=25_29

Most of these systems can also integrate with other sites, either through template editing for visual cohesion or, in some cases, actual content embedding.

- Oshyan

1159

Living Room / Re: Learning from Cats -- My New Strategy for Dealing with Things I Don't Understand

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:36 PM »

Absolutely hilarious! Oh how I love cats. Wish I could have one now (rental restrictions). *sigh*

- Oshyan

1160

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: cross-platform puzzle game - They Must Be Stopped!

« Last post by JavaJones on August 07, 2010, 04:31 PM »

I am a big fan of Twigatelle, so I'm looking forward to this for sure. Good name!

- Oshyan

1161

Living Room / Re: Android and iPhone differences - a webcomic

« Last post by JavaJones on August 02, 2010, 03:40 AM »

Bahahah! True enough.

- Oshyan

1162

General Software Discussion / Re: Any "Flip Text" for dekstop use?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 01, 2010, 07:49 PM »

the fact that it's popular 'on facebook' should tell you something...

-Target (August 01, 2010, 05:56 PM)

Oh it did, believe me, it did.

- Oshyan

1163

Living Room / Re: Router Q: Bandwidth thottling

« Last post by JavaJones on August 01, 2010, 05:04 PM »

I would just buy something compatible with DDWRT (list here: http://www.dd-wrt.co...es#Supported_Devices ) and use the throttling feautures built-in to the software.

- Oshyan

1164

General Software Discussion / Re: Any "Flip Text" for dekstop use?

« Last post by JavaJones on August 01, 2010, 05:00 PM »

Dare I ask why in hell this is popular?

- Oshyan

1165

Living Room / Re: Some initial reflections on using an ebook reader

« Last post by JavaJones on July 18, 2010, 02:15 PM »

Tranglos, the limitations on sales of ebooks/audiobooks to non-US customers probably isn't an Amazon thing; I'd bet they'd be more than happy to sell you as many books as possible. More likely it's a publisher limitation. I agree it's stupid though.

- Oshyan

1166

Living Room / Re: Should Apple recall the iPhone4? Or should the user "Hold the phone the right"?

« Last post by JavaJones on July 16, 2010, 05:50 PM »

The problem with the iPhone 4 design is it puts the antenna on the outside of the phone (which most phones don't do) *and* it's bare metal, not insulated or covered in rubber or something (as some other external antenna phones do). Really this is a major design oversight by Apple. They should have known than putting the bare metal of the antenna on the outside was a bad idea. But they probably thought shiny was better, so...

- Oshyan

1167

Living Room / Re: Some initial reflections on using an ebook reader

« Last post by JavaJones on July 16, 2010, 01:36 AM »

He probably means the less feature-full and older (?) version that's half the price:
http://www.amazon.co...obally/dp/B0015T963C

- Oshyan

1168

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by JavaJones on July 15, 2010, 10:14 PM »

For god's sake, how does it even make sense for Google to high-rank sites in *organic search* that pay them for ads that compete with organic results? If their organic results are working well, why bother paying?

- Oshyan

1169

Site/Forum Features / Re: Feature Req: quote only selected text?

« Last post by JavaJones on July 15, 2010, 03:12 PM »

Works here. Firefox 3.6.3. Clicking Preview will switch to "advanced" (full editor) mode.

- Oshyan

1170

Living Room / Re: A software engineer might tell you that the fastest code is...

« Last post by JavaJones on July 14, 2010, 07:28 PM »

In fact, most legal documents are written with boilerplate like "If any part of this agreement shall be deemed unenforceable, this shall not affect the enforceability of any other part", etc.

Still, uber-complex legislation is bad, mmmkay?

- Oshyan

1171

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend collaboration software (over internet, offline or online)

« Last post by JavaJones on July 14, 2010, 07:25 PM »

Steve, that sounds very cool! I had looked at ManyMoon before as a GApps integrated project manager, but I hadn't found a CRM tool with that level of integration. Thanks for the recommendation.

- Oshyan

1172

General Software Discussion / Re: Partition Alignment increases performance

« Last post by JavaJones on July 14, 2010, 03:26 PM »

Has anyone here actually benchmarked their before and after results? I'd be very interested to know how big a difference this makes. IMO disk access is unacceptably slow these days compared to CPU, memory, and GPU speeds.

- Oshyan

1173

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by JavaJones on July 14, 2010, 03:19 PM »

I love Mythbusters. The actual science may be a bit iffy or incomplete at times, but they "get 'er done" and generally do a reasonable job of testing a hypothesis. It's infrequent that I sit there thinking "If only they had tried this!". Plus, hey, blowing stuff up is awesome.

- Oshyan

1174

General Software Discussion / Re: PC Monitoring - Need Help

« Last post by JavaJones on July 14, 2010, 12:13 PM »

I'm with Tomos, I didn't think anyone was being particularly rude. There's good advice in this thread, from 40hz and others on one side, and from ha14 on the other. If all that is wanted is monitoring software, ha14's post has some of the "usual suspects" to try.

- Oshyan

1175

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Open Menu

« Last post by JavaJones on July 14, 2010, 11:53 AM »

I think it looks good! I like the font, the impression in the logo of an "open menu" and how the M echoes the imagery. The only thing I'm not certain about is the green and whether overall it gives you enough of an idea of what Open Menu *is*. But then how many logos really tell you the whole story? No, I think it's good.

- Oshyan