Is Nokia Situations from BetaLabs really innovative ?

In 2006-2007 there were already some products on the market which were able to automatically change the profile of the phone based on the GSM cell / calendar entries …

For example: Best Profiles or Magic Comm Manager (for Nokia 9300i).

Here’s some of what MCM could do: “Magic Comm Manager can determine your location within a GSM network (using cell ids). You will never make a mistake enabling profiles being at work or at home, because Magic Comm Manager always knows where you are.”

Here‘s what Best Profiles could do: “Best Profiles allows automatic profiles switching according to your schedule or calendar. For each profile Best Profiles allows selection of additional settings such as: backlight, cover open/close sounds, run custom application.”

So if I would be a Big manager at Nokia, I would ask the team to remove this phrase “We’d like to hear from you what you think about the concept and having this kind of capability in your phone.” from the product page, for the following reason:
- it’s not a new capability, it’s not a new concept users discover now, it’s a 4 years old PRODUCT for Nokia phones!

N8 does not work for me on Windows XP

If I try to connect the Nokia N8 to a Windows XP PC, I do get is a E: drive letter; but both the phone memory as well as the SD Card memory contents appear mingled (for example two Images folders, etc).

To solve it, I needed to install Nokia OVI Suite. Now N8 appears as “Portable Media Player” and I am able to see the phone’s contents properly appearing in an ‘Explorer’ look-a-like window; I believe is not an real Explorer window since Irfan View or other file viewers can’t navigate to the next image.
Also.
Double clicking on a file in that Nokia Explorer window, the path of what is opened in Irfan View is a temporary path (which makes me believe that file is first copied into the TEMP folder and then opened).
Copy/paste is the only thing that works to copy ALL things from that Nokia Explorer window to a standard Windows folder, where then I can navigate properly with an image viewer.

Why I am forced to copy the files manually to a temporary folder and a 30Mb softwarre ?

Conclusion: If I would be a Big manager in Nokia, I would quit forcing Nokia OVI Suite on people, because if people want an phone forcing you to interact with its PC companion – they already have a range of products doing that, available from Apple.

Controlling the backlight of Nokia N8

After playing around with the CHWRMLight interface of Nokia N8, I got the following values:

TInt val = iLight->SupportedTargets();

The returned value is: 241 (0xF1)

It supports all the defines in CHWRMLight (such as EPrimaryDisplay, EPrimaryDisplayAndKeyboard, and so on), and 4 custom lights.

In the firmware that came with my N8, they are like this:

ECustomTarget1 -> Charging battery LED, the white one next to the USB port.
ECustomTarget2 -> Menu button light, appearing as fade in / fade out.
ECustomTarget3 -> Menu button light, but blinking like when you have a missed call / missed SMS.
ECustomTarget4 -> Menu button light – just on, without any other light effects on it.

Following the extensive Light tutorial from here: http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/CS000912_-_Controlling_light_settings_using_CHWRMLight

the simplest way to achieve the light control is:

#include <HWRMLight.h>
...
CHWRMLight* iLight;
iLight = CHWRMLight::NewL();
...
if (iLight != NULL) {
	iLight-&gt;LightOnL(CHWRMLight::ECustomTarget1, 2000);
}

In your .mmp file you also have to link against the HWRMLightClient.lib library.

PS: I don’t know if it’s needed but I do have the WriteDeviceData specified on the CAPABILITY line in my .mmp file.

Un Kwak în Toone

Am ieșit la o bere.

De care ? Kwak – una din cele mai bune beri belgiene, cu o formă interesantă de prezentare -> o halbă clepsidră; 8.5 grade.

Kwak

Unde se servește ? Toone – Teatrul de Marionete din Brussels, la 2 pași de Grand Place.

Toone

Iată alte câteva poze, de pe drum, pe post de reper

Magazin de dulciuri, dacă sunteți pofticioși, nu faceți click.

Manneken Pis, with a beer twist!

Un musafir Toone:

Interiorul barului:

Paris – București, Vagonul 96

Chiar daca site-ul latrecut.ro confirma o “obsesie” cu colectionat chibrituri, afli totusi mai multe despre gusturile oamenilor plimbandu-te si prin targurile de vechituri.

Dând o raită prin Jeu de Balle, Brussels, te intrebi daca nu cumva unora sa le placa sa colectioneze placile cu destinatii de pe vagoanele de tren:

Alt unghi:

Drum bun!

Android on non-android phones…

There are attempts to get Android to run on non-Android phones. There are also attempts to run Ubuntu on mobile phones.

Useless. They only boot.

No Calling / Texting, not to mention sluggishness.

I hope nobody tries to actually get those devices to work fully. For fun, just to boot, yes. But by the time of anything decent coming out of it, a newer, faster, better phone is out there, and nobody really cares anymore about the old phone that was doing so much.

InsydeFlash Bios downgrade.

After upgrading the BIOS of my Acer 3410 laptop, it started running hotter than usual, and more noisier …

Now I don’t know if this is specific to the newer BIOS, since the overly short description on Acer’s website doesn’t mention anything related to CPU speed / coolers, etc. It only says:

Improves battery charging performance.

And since I did not have any issue with its the battery, I was willing to try a downgrade.

The trouble ? The older 1.24 version did not want to cooperate:

The version of ROM file isn’t newer than version of BIOS.

Don’t know if all InsydeFlash BIOSes come with a platform.ini file, but the ZIP downloaded from Acer’s website included this file. I realized it is .ini file of the application and while looking through it I found the section below:

[Bios_Version_Check]
flag=1


I just had to put the flag=0 and that’s it!
I was able to proceed with the downgrade.

Dropped something inbetween the tube and the platform ?

Today I found out.

Location Brussels, morning rush hour, exiting the metro to allow other people behind to descend. In the commotion, my bag dropped between the metro wagon and the platform…

I waited it outside, and planned to jump on the lines to recuperate it. What stopped me were three things:

• It did not fall just below, it hit one of the electricity orange lines and went under the platform itself. I would have had to bend next to the electricity line and I did not want to learn new experiences
• I knew that the metro station was under supervision, and I did not want to justify my act to some security guys.
• I knew from a TV documentary that actually, for security reasons, the electricity line next to the platform is disabled (in the stations) in case somebody falls down – and this gave me courage. However … while carefully looking at both the electricity line, the one that seemed in use was the one that was just under the platform, the barrier between me and my bag.

So I did the next big thing, that is … wait for the next metro and talk to the driver. A jolly old fellow, took a while to bend over and open the door, coughing; I told the story using my poor French, he listened then said “You can’t go down there, I can’t go down there, there’s a guy with an Orange jacket that will help you.” (while pointing his finger upwards). I asked – “So shall I go upstairs and try to find him ?” and he said “No, no, I will call him”.

A glimpse of hope yeeey.

I think for 1-2 minutes, all people descending on the stairs were wondering why I stare at them. I was actually checking out which one of them is the guy in the orange jacket .. After a short while, I realized that even if I am in panic mode and believing others should act in panic mode too and get there ASAP, however there was actually nothing dramatic happening though, probably … it happened before and nobody rushes. To my surprise, the guys arrive very quickly after (Let’s say I did not wait more than 5 minutes). And BTW, the jacket was reflective green light, not orange. Duh.

Anyway, I explain again what happen, I show him the bag. I will now explain what happened next:

• He calls the control center / supervisor. I understand his French, but I do not hear what the center says back to him. Dialog is over an intercom that is somewhere at the beginning of the metro station, where he went after I told what happened. I can tell that he is reporting the issue. My mind wonders … will I have to sign some papers, to justify, to explain what happen ? How long will it take now ?
• After a short while I realize that he waits. I am thinking that maybe he waits for some sort of permission or something. It becomes clear that they have to cut off the electricity for him to be able to descend, but … when? Meanwhile, 2-3 more metros come then go …
• Now he gets the reply. He can decide, when, just at that moment, an annoyed old lady complains to him that the the her card was taxed twice when descending to the metro. She was such in distress (probably the lonely crazy one, which has 5 dogs at home) and revolted, betrayed, eeeetc. Just my luck now… you have to treat everybody polite, no matter what your instincts tell. So that’s what the green jacket guy is doing for a couple of phrases, until he realizes that the woman is a bit of a whack… Then he excuses that he can’t wait anymore (the time frame for him was short too). The lady is shocked and turns to me trying to find somebody else to complain how badly she was just treated!! But I was turning away too, going after the green jacket guy.
• He descends using some stairs in the beginning of the platform, walks proudly to where I told him the bag was (knowing probably that everybody looks at him), picks it up and rises it up to me.

That’s it! 15 minutes in total! I got my bag back! ID card, credit cards, phone …

The aftermath is that he went again to the intercom, and reported that all is ok. They restored the electricity back in the station, as there was already a metro train waiting (I could see it stopped 50 meters or so outside). I asked if I have to pay anything, he smiled at me and said no, it’s ok. He was very relaxed now, and so was I. And happy.

I like the way things work out in Belgium.

PS: all the ladies in the metro that saw me dropping the bag were like ‘Aaaa…’ – imaging themselves going through this. I think they were more scared than I do, why are the women so attached of their purses ?

I turn my head for a second, another Android tablet is announced!

I can’t imagine myself using Android as a media player; I find it insulting that I have to grope the phone searching for the unlock button, then unlocking the screen using swipe, then waiting 1 second for everything to load, then looking at the phone to find the Next button (usually small) on the screen and, then pressing it, then realizing that it did not react, then pressing it again. AAAAh. People are paying X00 euros for this ??

When I first got my Symbian many years ago (I’m not quite a Symbian fan anymore), it was unbelievable to be able to have ‘timed profiles’, or … profiles that were based on your GPS cell, or profiles turning your phone silent if there was a ‘meeting’ word in your calendar at that time. It was very easy to add a new internet connection and browse using the phone as a modem.

Now, you are forced to root your phone to be able to tether it ?

No guys and gals, it’s not fun any more at all, its annoying.

There are tablets from 2.8, 3.2, 4, 4.3, 5, 7, 9, 11 inches, and even Steve Jobs said something along the lines that size does matter .. Depending on the tastes and the size of the furniture object the tablet will collect dust on, you can buy anything.
Laptops, netbooks, notebooks, and hey, notebooks with screens instead of keyboard! Why not having a notebook that folds normally, but, each side too can fold again. Imagine you take your notebook with the case now consisting only of LCDs and then you unfold it like a windscreen shade and watch HD movies on it. WOW factor to the maxx!! You just need 1Kg charger and that’s it!

Why aren’t companies researching batteries ? Don’t know. You play 600 euros for a phone just to lasts you 2 days. Uhhh no sense of value anymore.

Ok, so tablets are flooding the market. I did not see anybody buying them though. I admit I saw one guy with an IPad on a flight to Brussels; 1 guy with an IPad at the office; and heard about 1 colleague getting the IPad as a present. And that’s it. It’s a different story at the Apple stands, everybody wants to interact, however, I did not hear anybody going to the clerk and closing the deal.You know the alarms at the phone stands – they are on all the time, but … when are all these things bought, during the lunch break ? As Friday nights I spend 10-20 mins in the big shops and nobody buys. Its like the extraterrestrial life paradox: we should be able to see at least something! Where are they ?

And one more thing. Why do people buy the tables when is clear that in 3 months something new will come along ? Why pay now 500 euros on a phone when in some months you will get a dual core one!? Or a bigger screen one at the same price!

I use the smallest Android phone (Sony X10 mini) for emails / news, and the lightest Nokia (5310Xpress Ed.) for music play as nothing beats physical Next / Pref, Play / Pause buttons when listening to music.

And speaking of other phones, yeah, HTC Desire HD / Samsung I9000 look nice, but they don’t have HDMI nor you are able to connect Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, like Nokia’s N8, 12 Mp camera phone.
On the other side, N8 is like that the n-th time you try to hook back with your ex. There’s still the magic, the memories and heights of the former nights, just, just, just something stupid happens, fight starts, all mood is gone.

I wonder tomorrow how many new Android tablets will be announced. Will they fill all the gap between 5 to 11 inches, in 0.1 increments ?

NoSQL – the Assembly Language of Data Storage

An year ago (well, still 4 days to be one full year), I played with a Windows port of Redis (a NoSQL database).

I abandoned the project because of lack of time, but now, 4 days to one year, I’m back again on it. Why ? Mainly because I like the momentum NoSQL is getting, but, more importantly, because I think as the databases became heavier and heavier, something lightwight and blazing fast should have appeared.

Redis reached version 2.0 (vs 0.9.1 from one year ago), a lot of changes in past year… the JDBC emulating driver I used is now unmaintained and there’s a new kid on the block, Jedis.

Let me show you what I mean by Assembly Language similarities Since I’m more or less familiarized with basics of Redis now, check this out:
INCR key vs INC dest
or
SET key value vs la $a0,value
or
LINDEX key index vs LODS – load word at address index

and so on… I can’t make up my mind if the NoSQL of Redis is more CISC or more RISC but due to the set intersections, and lists, it’s definitively leaning twards CISC.

But beside databases there’s also the big set of libraries needed to create a web application. I always felt that the amount of libraries required to make a basic Web Application was huge, and, beside the JVM interpreter, you look at more  than 20Mb of .jars ( so zipped content) just for starting. Which is HUGE amount of data, if you realize how games fit the 48Kb limit on 6Mhz Z80 CPU. Today’s programming world seems a waste from these resources point of view, not to mention the hardware required to run (Gigs of RAM, Gigs of CPU speed, etc).

I am surprised though that the challenge against the BIG came from the databases side – and instead of having a database engine be able to do everything (but at the price of the resources it needs / uses), the challenger is able to do atomic / basic things very fast.

And the momentum is growing:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=nosql

Google Trends for NoSQL on 24 Nov 2010

I think this is a normal and self regulating system now, the database ecosystem. Bears and squirrels sharing the same forest. You take your pick – you need wild, elementary, very fast or … trainable, obedient, with bigger brain ?

I hope there will be something like this for web applications too …… Right now you need:

• presentation layer (javascript is still slow on big pages with many ajax requests, JSF has a very deep stack trace for each small tag you want to use it will actually invoke a LOT of methods till it actually replaces it with what it has to)
• service layer (here you need something to abstract things a lot between the presentation and the database layer). somewhere here you need to also fit the validations.
• database layer (huge code base here too, to abstract the databases away). and what do you do when you start having big performance issues ?

The Law of Leaky Abstractions stands strong. Among the myriad of tools that help you get to the results faster, if something is broken along the way, you have to know the tools anyway to be able to fix.

I want to see something like NoSQL but for Web too … a NoMVC ?

I’ll be watching. So far … “Your terms – nomvc – do not have enough search volume to show graphs.” (but I found a person: http://engineeredweb.com/blog/10/4/its-time-nomvc ).

It’s starting!