New Toy

I have decided to resurrect my blog, partly due to the acquisition of a new toy, and partly to try and get back to writing some more interesting entries.

Firstly on to my new toy, it’s an Acer Aspire One. Just the 8.9 inch SD powered one that initially came with the Linpus Linux distribution. As a piece of hardware the device is very compact, feels very solid and is actually surprisingly easy to type on (when I don’t tap the touch pad). I read many reviews before deciding which one, of the ever growing stream of Netbooks, to buy and it came down to the Acer or the Dell, predominantly due to the keyboard. A recent round of price drops was the clincher though as the Acer came in at £165 in the end which is almost half the price that I found the Dell at. It’s even cheaper than the Asus EeePC 701s that I bought for the kids about 18 months ago which I found just a bit too small for my fingers but the kids are very happy with.

Linpus was very easy  to use and very quick but little niggles like the keyboard mapping in xterm and the outdated versions of Open Office and Firefox annoyed me a little too much. As a result I ended up installing the Ubuntu NetBook Re-Mix within two days of purchase. Having used it for a couple of days now it is definitely here to stay. Everything worked straight from the install (apart from hot-plug detection of SD cards if one isn’t inserted on boot which has a workaround of an additional boot option to the grub menu BUG). All te software versions, unsurprisingly, match the full Ubuntu install on my main laptop so I should have no worries about document interchange. So far I have even stuck with the Re-Mixed interface as it really does make it easier to use on the small screen.

On the negative side there has been some loss of speed compared to the Linpus installation but I think that is partly a consequence of the updated software stack. The boot option to fix the SD card issue also makes the start-up look messy and  takes longer which is a minor annoyance (which I hope will be fixed sometime soon).

The full library of Ubuntu software is also at my disposal now which had been a minor annoyance with Linpus when I tried to add things which conflicted with custom packages from Acer. I will have to try and be more selective than I have been on the main laptop though in order to preserve as much of the 16GB SD for some actual work. So far I have only added pyroom to provide some distraction free editing (after thinking it might be interesting to try from seeing a review of JDarkroom on lifehacker.com). I am sure I will add more as the days wear on but the intention is to try and keep this as clean as possible so that I can actually work on some ideas when time allows and not get distracted.

The future of Digital Broadcast

On reading the various diatribes on DAB on the register over the last few months of which Fixing the UKs DAB disaster | The Register was the most recent one to get me thinking. DAB as a technology is outdated and really hasn’t achieved the market penetration needed to bring digital broadcasting into the mainstream.

I tried DAB a few years ago and was disappointed then by the quality and reliability of the stations I was receiving and very quickly found myself returning to FM. In the intervening years I purchased a Roku Soundbridge with the primary purpose of listening to my growing MP3 collection over some decent speakers in my lounge when I am reading the odd book. The Soundbridge is also a very capable internet radio with 18 preset stations and more available from Radio Roku which are made available via the Sounbridge as My Favorites. So now I have a huge selection of Digital Radio stations available at home and to some extent on the move via my N800 which also has good internet radio capabilities.

There is one problem now for my digital life style now. The one place where digital radio has yet to make an impact and the one place where digital radio can make serious big wins. I spend a long time in my car when I am working and that is the one place I am still at the mercy of FM. Yes I can listen to CDs or I can re-play podcasts via my MP3 player but I can’t listen to my favorite radio stations unless I happen to be in their FM coverage areas. I like Virgin and Smooth FM and have them both on my various devices as internet streams but if I am working in the wrong areas then I am stuck.

I want to have my radio and listen to it where ever I am and that means the 10 or 12 hours a week I am in the car (sometimes more if I have a busy week). I have a phone with data and a data calling plan. I can get a Sat Nav that downloads up to the minute traffic announcements from the Web. I have a hands free kit in the car to make calls that will come out of the car stereo speakers. Why can’t I play my internet radio this way?

3g coverage and higher speed mobile data connections are getting better as the technology finally catches up with the spectrum allocation so expensively purchased by mobile networks. There are still some problems with more rural areas where broadband/3g coverage is still poor but I guess these areas are probably poorly served by DAB too so if we are going to invest money into any form of digital coverage for these areas it makes sense to me to ensure it is IP based coverage in one form or another to provide both digital broadcast and twenty first century network access. The growth of Multicast channels (as mentioned in the above article) should alleviate some of the additional bandwidth costs required by this switch and allow even the most rural of stretches of phone line to get reasonable sound quality.

Even the big radio makers are seeing the market trend with Roberts producing a WiFi Radio player and similar offerings can be seen from other major manufacturers. If I have the right phone then I can get a number of players from Sydus I just need to get an unlimited data plan that will not cost me an arm and a leg.

More UI Customisation

I seem to be just going on about the N800 at the moment but I have been having lots of fun with a whole host of additions since the last OS update. It seems like there is a flurry of activity for a month or so after each update or maybe thats just my perception. I find loads of new things to install after I have re-flashed the OS and the applications backup fails half way through restoring my previous config.

The latest bells and whistles come in the form of Large Statusbar Clock which provides two statusbar applets, one for minutes and one for hours. I tested an earlier version a while ago but it kept forgetting that I like 24 hour clock. The latest version is however much better and allows you to set alarms too. The other one I have added, mainly to make room for the clock, is Advanced Backlight which provides additional backlight settings and master volume control in one applet.

The final extra is Load Applet which gives a nice indicator of CPU and Memory utilization and access to a process list where you can kill off errant processes. It also takes screenshot (either instant or delayed) which is very handy. (hence the obligatory screen shot). (interestingly it doesn’t show in the screenshot below?????).

You will also notice the massively improved personal menu from my earlier post which has come on leaps and bounds in such a very short space of time. The on going discussion on the ITT Forums has really spurred this application on to the point where it would be a travesty not to include it in the next OS version.

Personal Menu

During the mornings boredom browsing I found this most promising little plug-in for OS2008 Personal Menu.

I have only slightly resented the fact that a button was being wasted by a set of applications that I rarely if ever used. Personal Menu allows me to replace this with an easily customisable set of favorite applications. This gives me extra choices, is much easier to add and remove things and re-order than the normal applications menu. It also means I can keep my applications organised by type in the main applications menu which I like.

It looks like the functionality may be coming in a future release of ITOS from one of the posts in the discussion but untill then this is an excellent usability add-on.

BBC iPlayer on N800 (almost working).

I saw this ground breaking annoucement (BBC iPlayer for iPhone and iPod Touch is iGo | The Register) and couldn’t resist trying it out on the N800. Since upgrading to OS2008 the general browser video experience with sites like YouTube has been excelent from the tablet so I had some moderate expectations for this experiment.

The experience was only slightly gratifying as I managed to start the embeded flash player and stream the opening credits of  Ashes to Ashes.  Once the program started I began to be irritated by some significant frame skip and rather annoying pauses as it refreshes what must be a pitiful in-memory cache. The rather annoying pauses were also experienced when I tried to watch the same program from my laptop so I can only assume it is some part of the flash applets programming to prevent people from stealing and re-distributing the content by copying the cache file. It would probably be better if I had slightly faster broadband (only on 512KB/s at the mo). The rather more constant issue of frame skip is probably due to the fact that the video is encoded at a significantly higher resolution than your average YouTube clip and the tweaks and hacks in OS2008 are not quite up to the job. The little button to pop up a full screen window also failed to work but thats a minor issue in comparison as the embeded player was already a reasonable proportion of the screen estate.

If anyone tries this on an N810 or even an N800 and has a better experience I would be pleased to hear.

GRSync Backup

After the last firmware upgrade for my N800 I have really started using it a lot more and as such needed to think about more routine backups than I have been. My other computers all backup over the network to a Buffalo LinkStation using rsync so as the N800 is linux based this seemed like the ideal solution.

The initial installation of rsnyc and openssh from maemo.org was trivial and every thing was ready to go within minutes. In my searches for rsync I also stumbled upon grsync. Grsync is a simple front end to rsync which seems to integrate nicely to the hildon interface and will make it much easier to keep up with regular backups than relying on me to open xterm and run a script.

In order to get the best out of grsync I used ssh-keygen to generate some ssh keys on my N800 and appended the id_rsa.pub to the authorized_keys file on the LinkStation. Once this was all done and I had connected to the LinkStation once from the N800 to sort out the known_hosts file I was ready to go.

Setting up the grsync was trivial as I already knew what rsync options I needed and the appropriate syntax for the remote side of the sync pair.

In operation grsync gives you very informative progress indicators and the actual output of the rsync command in a little window so you can check what has actually been done.

I only backup the /home/user directory from the internal memory as this is where I tend to put anything I actually create on the N800 (the SD cards are full of books and mp3s which have come from the laptop anyway) , the whole process only takes at most five minutes and with GRSync it’s now very simple to keep to a nearly regular backup routine.
Foonote :
The version listed appears only to be compatible with OS2007 but I am using it quite happily from OS2008. I did install it directly from the Application Manager but I couldn’t tell you which repository it came from.

Using The N800

I came across this review (Using The N810 – Writer’s Friend (Or Not?) as the tablet guru.com feeds are sucked into my N800 RSS reader and was very interested to read the comments and views expressed. I have long desired to do more writing and when I find myself away from my laptop is usually when I have my best ideas, fail to write them down and then forget about them completely. This was part of the justification for getting the N800 as it has a massive screen and I would be able to take it anywhere and jot down notes and ides whenever I felt the need.

I bought my N800 just before the N810 was due out and couldn’t justify waiting or the additional cost for the slideout keyboard (which looked un-usable to me anyway) and built in GPS which I didn’t need as I still had a perfectly good bluetooth one that I used with the Tapwave. Instead I shelled out for an iGo Ultra-Slim Keyboard which paired up nicely and fits very nicely into my other pocked to counterbalance the weight of the N800 in my fleece.

Now onto the practicalities. Most of the time for short notes and general use (browsing the internet, searches etc.) I find the on screen stylus operated keyboard very usable and very quick. The location of the N800s d-pad means it rests under the left thumb as you are typing so you can navigate about quite easily and the whole interaction feels very well designed. For slightly longer notes esp when I am tired I will resort to the on-screen thumb board which again can be very fast but seriously limits what you can see on the screen as you type. The best solution all round from when I am sat on the sofa/in bed or out in a coffee bar somewhere is to pull out the iGo. Even if I am mid note and I decide to use it I just open it, hit enter a couple of times (I am lazy and leave bluetooth on all the time, screw battery life it lasts long enough for me) and the on screen keyboard vanishes and I can tap away. I can even leave the N800 stood on the coffee table (WordPy allows you to increase font size) and type with the keyboard on my lap. The only occasional issue I have is with some double characters being typed especially when I use the function keys to get a number and get the number followed by the letter but thats easy to fix.

I did briefly make use of abiword for OS2007 and if this is a killer application for you then using an N800 with the stock OS2007 is definitely the way to go (although it is a little buggy in places but not un-usable). However  most of what I write will be posted to a blog or end up being dragged into another document at some point on my desk top for formatting so the combination of NoteCase and WordPy is easily enough for me. The built in Notes app is very good too though for very simple text but I just seem to have stopped using it now that I have Notecase.

In summary if you want to write then get a bluetooth keyboard and potentially save yourself some money by getting the N800 instead of the N810.

Toys in Harmony

I have been having some extra time at home recently and as a result I have had much more time to play with my N800 than I have previously. The latest addition to its ever growing list of installed apps is TabletBridge. This allows me to connect to my SoundBridge or SoundBridge Radio and gives me complete control over what is playing and even turn if off (which is very useful when I have left the SoundBridge Radio on in the bed room).

In use TabletBridge has very some excellent mapping of hardware keys for the N800 which allow me to control all aspects of the SoundBridge including switching libraries which has been missing from some of the other remote control applications I have tried on my laptop. All told for now I think this is an essential application for anyone that happens to own both an IT and a SoundBridge.

Technorati Tags: N800, maemo, SoundBridge

Encrypted Notes

A small follow on from the previous post I have now completely abandoned my Tapwave and tejpwriter with its simple encryption support. As a result I found myself with no safe place to keep my notes from prying eyes.

The ability to have some of the information I carry about with me encrypted is essential. Things like meeting notes or insane ramblings that might just make me a millionaire if no-one else steals my idea really ought to be safe from at least the casual eye. (I will never expect any data to be safe from a suitably determined individual or organisation but there really are very few of those compared to nosey little oiks who will just have a nose about because they can).

A very cursory browse round the Maemo Garage only listed a few solutions to my problem and I won’t go into a full review of all of them because I didn’t do one. One solution stood out a mile and that was Notecase. It is a Hierarchical note manager, so I can try to be organised in some of my note taking and structure things as I go, which also supports saving to encrypted files. There are other solutions out there that provide some encryption support but they did seem mainly for password lists and not just notes. The feature list is huge as you can see if you look at the site but the features that stand out for me are.

• Auto Load Last Document (just because I am lazy)
• Desktop counterparts for Windows and Linux (easy re-use of files)
• Auto Save and quit on idle (because I forget and then there would be no point would there)

The opening of the last file is really useful as it makes it very easy to just open the application and up comes the password dialogue and away you go.

In use the application is reasonably intuitive with some toolbar buttons to easily add new nodes and promote and demote the selected node in the hierarchy. The ability to mark nodes as completed also allows it to double up as a to-do list. The tool bar also provides options for easily adding images, links and simple formatting to a nodes text.

The only thing that would make this application perfect is if I could post directly from it into WordPress. There are some interesting export options including exporting to HTML which may warrant some more investigation as an intermediary. I might post more on that if I can find a solution (cut and paste loses all the formatting and links when pasted into WordPy).

Blogging Again

I have been an intermittent blogger for the couple of years. I started by trying to run my own software on my own site, not wanting to be beholding to some mega corporation who would own all my data. This endeavour was short lived as I came to realise how much effort there was to preventing your servers space being filled up with adverts for Viagra.

I have toyed with other sites over the last year and in almost all cases failed to post the things I wanted to post. The main impediment to this is my own idleness. I often have bright ideas, things I want to get off my chest or just read something that I feel the need to comment on. Half the time though I am not near my computer or I just don’t open that other browser window and log in cos my network is rubbish (depends where I am working) or access is restricted.

I then began just keeping notes on my handheld (a TapWave Zodiac ) This device was great and I managed to get it for an absolute steal when they stopped production (about £100 compared to the quoted £250). I used tejpwriter almost exclusively for its brilliant thumb board which made writing quick notes really easy on the device. (it does some quite cool encryption too if you don’t want casual snoops reading your stuff). This is where the idleness causes a problem as I would be left with a build up of notes and rants on the Tapwave that I would invariably not upload straightway when I got home as I would have to copy them on to my computer and paste them into a web page etc. As a result the old blog became a bit stale and I lost interest (even if I did keep up with the personal notes).

After using the Tapwave quite heavily for a couple of years it started to show it’s age, the limited connectivity (no WiFi) started to bug me and I needed a new toy. The product evaluation phase lasted a few months as I debated between a Palm TX (wifi/familliar os), Archos 604 WiFi (well it had WiFi and a browser and looked cool) or a Nokia N800 (WiFi, cool looks, Open Source).

I went for the N800 as it did everything I needed and more with a great thumb board for when I am adding notes, fold out blue tooth keyboard for when I want to write more and more additional software than you can shake a stick at from mameo.org. Having settled into a routine now with my new toy I thought I would re-visit the world of blogging see what I could do from this great device. Enter WordPy. This software allows me to just take notes where ever I am now and makes it very easy to upload them to here as soon as I get home directly from my N800 via my Wifi Link so there should be no more excuses. Unfortunately as my older rants were on LiveJournal and that isn’t supported by WordPy I have moved home to here (besides that blog had become stale and I can always re-post anything from there).

In case anyone is wondering I am not actually typing this on my N800 at the moment as I have also started playing with Drivel which solves my other problem of where to write things down when I am in an office with limited connectivity but actually have my laptop with me to use. I know I could just use any text editor but with Drivel I can type things in and save a Draft and then just load it when I am able to post it without messing about with re-formatting or cutting and pasting.

Its a bit of a long introduction really but it just provides some background to the trials and tribulations of a casual blogger and how they can be surmounted.