Woooaah … truckloads.

There are 1001 blog-worthy things to blog in my blog about.

Sadly, time (lusty and blithe) is at his apogee.

In brief, I have:

• Had a shave, since the last blog post;
• Upgraded The Surgery WordPress blog from 2.8.3 to 2.9;
• Moved WordPress blog from Fedora 9 machine with crappy dynamic IP address (it was killing me) to shiny Fedora 11 machine with static IP address;
• Marveled at my ability to upgrade WordPress, SQL databases and move them across Linux machines, AND make grown-up changes to DNS zone files – am surely a guru of such things now and legend in my own lunchbox;
• Undertaken 2 of 8 Tech Talk Radio Summer Series productions, time-consuming but rewarding;
• Upgraded the HTC Dream / Google phone to the next Android operating system, very successful;
• Teetered on the brink of e-mail bankruptcy;
• Ordered a new PC for Christmas;
• Ventured inside an Apple Store for the very first time, and escaped by making only a minor purchase (a new iPod Touch); and
• Just today, assisted Mrs Dr Ron in restoring her iTunes library, after she deleted all the music files from her PC’s hard disk  - successfully achieved restoration by using a third-party app called iRip which we’ve spoken about on Tech Talk in the past (thanks JD, saviour of Dr Ron’s marriage).

I have also Tweeted mercilessly about our well-intentioned (yet incompetent, foolish and mis-informed) Senator for Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy.  In case you hadn’t caught up with the news (which the good Senator saved until after the last live episode of Tech Talk for 2009), Australia will be ranked highly with the United Arab Emirates, Iran and China in its foolish deployment of an ISP-based Net Filter.

Adam Turner has had a lot to say about this, and made a clever analogy with a different type of infrastructure.  His blog posts here and here in The Age last week should be mandatory reading.

I’ll blog in more detail about these and other things soon.

I hope you have a great Chrissy and a safe and prosperous New Year.

#nocleanfeed · adam turner · andorid · apple · apple store · blog · fedora · Google Phone · HTC Dream · ipod touch · irip · linux · net filter · news · stephen conroy · tech talk · Tech Talk Radio · the age · the age tech · updates · what's happening · wordpress

For many months I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Google’s next version of the Android operating system – code-named Cupcake.

I was excited this morning when I turned on the handset, to be greeted with a simple upgrade message:

“Android OS 1.5 (Cupcake release).  This is an update for your HTC Dream.  Enjoy several new features such as on-screen soft keyboard, video recording, faster browser and more.”

Okay okay, you don’t need to prompt me twice.  Of course I did what every other self-respecting Google-phone owner would do: I tapped ’Upgrade’ with gay abandon.

In just a few moments I was sucking-down 44 megs of the best, all via the ‘3′ data network.

The installer prompted me to restart the phone twice, and within a few minutes I was running Android OS 1.5 on my HTC Dream.

What’s new?

There are lots of User Interface (UI) improvements.  In the ‘locked’ screen, the network type (3G or Roaming) is displayed, along with the carrier you’re connected to, and the date and time.  Also the phone’s wallpaper is displayed under the lock message which looks nice, instead of just a black screen.

Importantly, all my applications were still installed and all of my user data and settings were left intact. Good work Google.

On-screen keyboard. This is great, and long overdue.  Just tap wherever data-entry is required, and an on-screen soft keyboard appears, much like the Apple iPhone interface.  Press the hard back / return key to hide the on-screen keyboard.  It looks small, but seems to be quite accurate.  There’s also a predictive spelling option which works well.

Video recorder. At last!  A new application called ‘Camcorder’ lets you record audio and video.  There’s a setting for high-quality (to write to the SD card) and low-quality (for quick snippets intended for MMS’ing).

Accelerometer. The in-built acceleromter was never used in first incarnations of Google’s Android.  Now there’s a setting which automatically switches between landscape and portrait modes depending on the angle of the dangle.

Other tweaks and improvements.

Contacts. The Call Log, Contacts and Favourites menus are more polished.  Contacts’ image thumbnails appear in your favourites, which is nice.

There are also new menu options to edit sync groups, and import contacts from your SIM card.

Calendar. More UI changes: nice, more polished.

Browser. Again, more UI changes.  Looks good and loads everything a bit faster.

Battery Life. The much-bemoaned appalling battery life of the HTC Dream is said to be addressed in this release of Android.  All I can say, after one day of experimenting, is watch this space!!  The thing hasn’t died on me yet, but I’ve only made half-a-dozen calls today and haven’t given the Bluetooth or wireless features a good hammering.

Conclusion?

In my “HTC Dream – first impressions” post in March this year, I listed several things which irked me:

Battery Life – see above.  Stay tuned.

FM Radio – well that’s not going to happen in a software patch, is it?  Actually I’ve been using a 3rd-party app called StreamFurious to listen to on-line radio stations.  It works really well, and even has a bandwidth counter which runs in the foreground, so you’re always aware of the application’s ‘bandwidth footprint’.

Camera – video now supported, see above.  The lag’s still there.

Microsoft Integration, File Browsing and Notepad - No, no and no.

Google Latitude – fixed in a ‘point release’ about two months back: see this post for details.

All in all, I’d say that Cupcake is a good effort, and worth the upgrade.  The ability to record video, and tap an on-screen keyboard will be warmly welcomed.  Support for the in-built accelerometer is also a nice improvement.

Google, keep the updates coming.  Apple, pay attention to your competitors, I don’t think they’re that far behind.

android · android os 1.5 · Google Phone · HTC Dream · t-mobile g1

What’s Tethering?

If you have a laptop or netbook, chances are you might want to access the internet.

If you’ve got a blue network cable handy, then that might be useful.  If not, and you’ve got WiFi built-in to your laptop, or a WiFi adapter, AND you’re in a wireless hotspot, then you might be able to connect to the internet via wireless.

If you’ve purchased a data plan from one of Australia’s several mobile telecommunications service providers, and you’ve also purchased a data modem which plugs into a USB port, or a PCMCIA broadband card, then that’s a good option too.

But if you’ve got a data plan and your mobile telephone already operates on one of Australia’s 3G mobile networks, then surely you can use your telephone as a modem and connect to the internet through your mobile telephone?

Yep, you can.  That’s tethering.

Is it easy?  Technically, yes.  Practically, no.

Why not?

Because Australian telecommunications carriers want you to spend more money and buy their network adapters.  Like these.  IT Wire journalist and Tech Talk Radio’s Adam Turner explains it well in this article written for The Age Digital Life.

The Australian Android Market has no tethering applications and isn’t likely to in the near future, for reasons explained by Adam.  But is it mandatory to have applications listed in the Android Market, in order to install 3rd-party software on an Android-powered device?

No, not at all.

Introducing… Android Tethering!

Here’s what you need;

• An Android-powered phone, like the HTC Dream (aka T-Mobile G1, or “Google phone”); or an HTC Magic for example;
• A laptop / netbook / desktop computer;
• A USB cable to connect your phone to your laptop / netbook / desktop; and
• A data plan attached to your mobile telephone service.

Follow the steps at cp.blog, which are, in brief:

• Install the Tetherbot tethering application on your Google phone.  You need to tell your phone to allow installation of non-Android Market applications;
• Ensure the latest Android driver is installed on your laptop;
• Install the Android SDK or “adb” utility on your laptop;
• Open a command prompt and type “adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080″ to start the proxy server on your laptop (use  Task Manager to kill the process when you’re done – maybe setup a desktop shortcut to streamline this process);
• Use a web browser like Mozilla Firefox, and install a proxy manager like FoxyProxy.  Follow the configuration instructions in Mike’s post;
• Connect your Google phone, start Tetherbot and press “Start Socks”;

• Click on the web browser FoxyProxy button to force all traffic through the proxy server (“adb”) you have installed and started.  It would have looked something like this:

Bingo! All your web traffic is now routed through your Google phone.  You now have web access to the internet via your mobile telephone network.

I tested my new tethering by first checking my local IP address, through the WiFi connection:

…and then through the new tethered connection, via my mobile phone network:

Yep … definitely using a different network route now!

Warning! Watch your data usage.

Another Warning! Pay close attention to your data usage.

I would be interested to hear from people who have had similar success with this process, or modified the process slightly in order to use other handsets, proxy servers, browsers or browser plug-ins.

Many thanks to Mike Thompson and the Android Developer Community for assistance with this blog post.

android · android sdk · Google Android · Google Phone · HTC Dream · t-mobile g1 · tethering

Google Latitude

In March I blogged about my new HTC Google Phone and was disappointed, at the time, that Latitude wasn’t supported in Google Maps.

Low and behold, the Google Maps on my HTC Dream updated itself a few weeks ago.  Imagine my surprise when I saw a new “Latitude” button in Google Maps!  Hurrah!

I already had Latitude set up through a conventional web browser.  The HTC Dream detected my Google account details and settings, and I could see the location of all my “friends” straight away.  Awesome!  You can set Latitude to manually or automatically update your location, based on GPS latitude/longitude or wireless and telephone networks.  It seems to work well.

Skype Lite Beta

The other exciting development is the addition of Skype Lite Beta to the Australian Android Market.

Users of Android-powered devices can download and install applications from the online Android Market, but Skype is a new addition in Australia and has only just made itself available for download in the last week or so.

I was very excited when Skype Lite Beta finally appeared in my Android Market search results. I was pleased by the quick download and installation; a bit confused that it needed my mobile telephone number at the login screen; but impressed that all my contacts were instantly viewable with my pre-existing Skype account details, and that I could see all my contacts’ statuses (online, offline, busy and so on).

BUT when I made a call to a logged-on Skype contact (not using “Skype Out”), the HTC Dream set up a phone call to a Sydney number.  Huh?  Then I heard ‘ring ring’ and the call was answered at the other end (by my Skype contact, on a Skype client, on her PC in West Melbourne).

We chatted for some time, and the quality was good, but I was a bit confused that my HTC Dream had made a phone call to some type of gateway.  Must be a default setting, I thought, something I can easily change.

But this seems to be by design, and it’s not possible to change.  Read the not-so-fine-print on Skype’s webpage:

“With Skype on your mobile, you’ll always know when your friends are online and you can call them for the cost of a local call (or use your inclusive minutes from your mobile plan).”

And this:

“You can call friends and family from the bus or while you’re sipping a latte in your favorite coffee shop – wherever they are in the world. Best of all, your phone will work as normal – no WiFi or 3G connection needed – and you won’t need to change operator.”

Huh?!?!!  If I’m connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, or an HSDPA telephone network, why can’t I use good old-fashioned “voice-over-IP” Skype to talk to my contacts, and chew-up some of that 3GB on my new data plan?

Then I realised … okay … that’s why Skype Lite Beta needs your mobile telephone number at the login screen.  When the Skype client sets-up a call to the Skype gateway (which BTW is a Sydney indial range, 02 8005 89xx), the Skype server marries your incoming call with your login, and connects your circuit-switched call on the phone network to an outbound Skype call from the Skype data centre.

It also explains how those mysterious “Skype minutes” work on your mobile phone plan.  It’s got nothing to do with bandwidth used for voice traffic, and everything to do with call minutes to and from your local Skype gateway.

Now I’ve looked through all the settings and configuration screens, and I can’t find anything that lets you choose packet-switched calls instead of circuit-switched calls.  Surely the software supports native Skype VoIP?  Well, actually we know that it does, because handsets like these are “WiFi only”.  They’re not mobile phones and can’t “dial-up” a gateway.

The interface is great, call quality is good and the client seems to work quite well.  I just can’t understand why I can’t choose to use packet-switched VoIP Skype, as opposed to dial-up Skype.

Maybe it’s just me. I do get pedantic about these things sometimes.  More testing to be done and more updates soon.

Australian Android Market · Google Android · Google Latitude · Google Phone · HTC Dream · Latitude · skype · Skype Lite Beta

Early January this year, international VoIP-provider Skype announced the release of Skype Lite for Google Android and other Java-enabled phones.

For Android-powered phones like my trusty HTC Dream, all I have to do is connect to the Android Market from my phone, search for Skype, select install, and Bob’s-your-auntie’s-livin’-lover.

This all sounds great, but (*sigh*) Google appears to be maintaining separate Android Markets for Australia and the rest of the world.

Searching the Android Market for “Skype”, “Lite” or “VoIP” reveals diddly-squat.

A media release which appears on many news services and blogs says:

The Android version of Skype Lite will be / is available through the Android Market.

Java-enabled phones, including those from LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, can simply visit www.skype.com/m Skype website.

(Read more.)

Tech Talk Radio host Andrew McColm has Skype Lite working brilliantly on his new Nokia E61, and Hutchison 3 even offers Andrew and me “Skype minutes” on our current phone contracts.

But I’m faced with two problems:

1. International disparity with Google’s Android Market means that Australian users can’t download the application easily, if at all; and
2. Skype are not offering the application via any method other than the Android Market.

Bummer.  Come on Google, Skype, there are plenty of us waiting to chew-through those thousands of Skype minutes on our phone contracts which are currently going to waste.

android · australia · dream · google · HTC · lite · skype · voip

HTC is no stranger to the PDA market space.  The Taiwanese manufacturing juggernaut has been producing Personal Digital Assistants for Europe, America, Asia and Australasia for some years.  The popular iMate products, and the more recent Touch and Touch Diamond models have had a big impact on the local PDA market, with each version seemingly smaller, faster, lighter, more powerful and more feature-rich.

Enter the HTC Dream, now released in Australia: the first phone to run on Google’s Android operating system.

What’s a Google Android? Google Android is an operating system for mobile telephones and PDAs.  But not just any operating system.  This is the long-awaited open source solution from Google, which means developers have free and unfettered access to the nuts and bolts of the hardware it runs on.  Anyone from enthusiast to professional can write their own application to run on the Dream, and publish this application for download on HTC’s Android Market.  In other words, this is HTC’s version of the Apple Store.

Availability.

I bought the HTC Dream (known internationally as the T-Mobile G1) from a gadget store in Melbourne.  It wasn’t purchased on a mobile phone plan and it wasn’t badged as anything.  It’s “network unlocked” which means you can run the Dream with any SIM card on any network, i.e. it’s not locked to a particular carrier.  Consequently you may need to program the Dream with your carrier’s particular message centre settings.  Here are the settings that I got working for Hutchison 3.  Optus, and possibly reseller TeleChoice, are currently the only carriers offering the HTC Dream on mobile contracts in Australia.  I would hope that these are being sold with all the Optus settings pre-programmed.

Functionality: The Good…

Out of the box, presentation is excellent.  The Dream powers-up and the clarity of the 3″ capacitive touchscreen is very good indeed.  You can navigate around the Dream a number of different ways: by gently touching and dragging your finger across the screen; by using the mini track-ball to negotiate buttons, webpages and call logs; or a combination of these methods.  The “touch and flick” navigation system is easy to use and surprisingly accurate.  Some people have asked me if you can use the “Apple pinch” to resize photos and windows.  The answer is no, although this is more a limitation with Android than the HTC itself.  I’m sure we’ll see “pinching” and a heap of other things in versions to come.

Feature-packed. The Dream is an HSDPA 3G handset with Bluetooth, WiFi, a sliding QWERTY keyboard and a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus.  It’s a telephone, a web browser, a portable email client, a music player, an Instant Messaging client… the list goes on.

Gmail and Calendar integration. Automatic synchronisation with Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Contacts works very well.  Update something on your Mac or PC and the change will be reflected on your HTC Dream in a few moments.  Listeners to Tech Talk Radio will know that I recently re-jigged my personal email to use Google’s Gmail.  I’ve set-up Gmail to POP in to my usual email server, retrieve my messages, then using IMAP I can access my messages on Gmail from the HTC Dream, as well as other clients like Thunderbird running on Ubuntu or Outlook running on Windows.  This takes a little bit of getting used to but seems to be working very well.

Combined with Google’s free SMS alert to Australian subscribers, the automated appointment notification is an invaluable tool, and all but kills 3rd-party UM and notification applications that big corporates have traditionally paid big bucks for.

Android Market. This is Google’s answer to the Apple Store.  The Android Market is awesome and contains a heap of free applications which can be easily downloaded and installed on the HTC Dream.  My favourite Android Market application is Shazam (Sony Ericsson calls this “TrackID”), which detects and tags music you’re listening to.  The Android Market home page has more information for downloading to Android-powered devices, and links to resources for developers.

Contacts. The contacts / address book is smooth and easy to use.  There is a setting in each contact called “send straight to voicemail”… why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?!  Awesome!  The usual thumbnail-contact-picture feature is there and works well, along with fields for heaps of contact numbers and personal details.  As you’ve probably come to expect, changes in your address book are automatically replicated to Google Contacts online.  Updates happen fast.  Very cool.

Music Player. The music player is functional and indexes music tracks based on track name, artist, album name or playlist.  Album art is displayed as a thumbnail in search results, or as a large image during playback.  The great thing is that you don’t need proprietary software to load music onto the HTC Dream!  Simply plug the device into your PC or Mac via a USB cable, and the HTC Dream appears as an external device which you can copy music to and from.  My excitement about this simple feature is stupid, because it’s such an obvious thing to be able to do, but sad because modern so-called “music player phones”, manufactured by big names like Sony, still require you to run their own special software to simply transfer music and data files.

The supplied ear-bud headphones are okay as far as ear-bud headphones go.  They plug into the HTC Dream’s USB port and have a control button for answering calls, pausing music playback and so on, as well as a volume dial which works independently of the HTC volume controls.

QWERTY keyboard. The 5-row QWERTY keyboard is revealed by sliding the screen to one side.  The keyboard works well and I think I’m used to it now, after a few weeks.  It’s small, and my personal experience is that two thumbs are faster than two index fingers.  It’s illuminated and has good tactile feedback when you press a key.  Don’t try to use it while you’re driving though, you need two hands, and anyway you shouldn’t be using a PDA while you’re driving should you?

Messaging in portrait mode, or landscape mode with the QWERTY keyboard.

…The Bad…

While I really, really like the Dream, and clearly have a vested interest in my new best friend, there are things which HTC can do better.  Here are some things which strike me as needing improvement.  You may or may not agree.

Battery life. Sometimes I get a day from the supplied 1150 mAh battery, sometimes not.  If you don’t have access to a charger while you’re out on the road, this can be a nightmare.  HTC needs to address battery life urgently in the next version.

FM radio. There is none.  There are Android Market applications for streaming audio while you’re on the go, like Last.fm.  This is personal preference I guess but many people will be looking for a radio while they’re out and about driving; in the gym; walking the dog; wherever.

The camera. Comparatively low-res, 3.2 megapixels.  Video is not supported.  MMS is okay for still pictures, but not video.  No flash.  Also the shutter button has two positions: half depressed for auto-focus and fully depressed to take the picture.  Pressing the shutter button does not automatically launch the camera application, you need to find this through the applications menu.  Lag between pressing the button and taking the photo is quite distracting.  Images are generally good but don’t throw away your Pentax SLR just yet.

Microsoft integration. There’s no native syncing to Microsoft Outlook mail, contacts or calendar.  This is important to many people and probably needs to be addressed, although Google’s solution would be to use GMail which is tightly integrated with the HTC Dream.

File browsing. If you own a Nokia or Sony Ericsson phone, you will be familiar with a file explorer-type application, which lets you browse different file types and storage locations in the device.  On the HTC Dream there is no native file browser.  The Dream runs on a Debian variant of the Linux operating system.  To access data, such as photos, music and voice recordings, you need to launch the application that created the data.  For example, photos can only be accessed from within the “photo” application.  The file system is locked fairly tightly to prevent people doing stupid things, like deleting system files.  You get used to this fairly quickly, so it’s probably just a different way of doing things, not necessarily a bad way.

No native “notepad” application. If you want to scribble a note, reminder, password or anything else, there’s no native notepad-style application.  Again, you will need to download an application from the Android Market that does the job.

…and The Ugly.

Mini-USB. The mini-USB port for the Dream’s computer interface and battery charging is good… but not for audio.  The Dream needs a 3.5mm audio socket urgently for people hoping to replace their iPod.

Memory expansion.  The microSD card is tricky to get to, requiring removal of the back cover.

Google Latitude still doesn’t work with Google Maps.  This is ugly, ugly, ugly, and very disappointing.  If users of Nokia and Samsung phones running proprietary operating systems have access to Latitude, why doesn’t the first phone to be running Google Android?  This is more a criticism of Google, not HTC and it’s smartphone, but this noticeable oversight reflects poorly on the Google/HTC partnership.

Google Maps is sharp and accurate, but doesn't support Latitude

(Google Latitude is a new service which combines the power of Google Maps with ‘always on’ wireless and 3G phone networks.  Using Google Latitude, mobile devices can be configured to send regular location updates, and your position is plotted on Google Maps and can be shared with friends.)

Bill shock. The “always on” nature of the HTC Dream, and its regular data replication to Google, can chew-up valuable bandwidth.  This is fine if you have a 3GB data plan included with your mobile phone contract, but don’t try to use the HTC Dream on one of those old “$5 for 10MB” plans.  Also, be aware of your carrier’s data charges when you’re roaming on a partner network or if you’re using the device overseas.  Thankfully the HTC Dream has a “use data on home network only” setting which will be very helpful to many people.

Summing up?

In addition to addressing “the bad” and “the ugly”, it would also be nice to be able to add desktop shortcuts to frequently-dialled contacts, or access frequently-used system features like the wireless manager.  Currently the desktop is functional, but limited to only accessing installed programs.

There are heaps of other features I’ve glossed over or haven’t mentioned.  The HTC Dream is a robust, exciting new device from HTC and an excellent effort for “version 1″ of Google’s long-awaited mobile operating system.

Importantly, the HTC Dream is a serious contender to Apple’s iPhone, and Windows Mobile, Symbian and other proprietary smart-phone operating systems.  The HTC Dream is a fast, stable and intuitive platform and it’s my new best friend.  I can’t wait to see Android and HTC smartphones in one year from now.

android · dream · google · HTC

Here’s a sneak preview.

To answer some of your many questions:

• Yes it has a camera;
• Yes it supports MMS!
• It only supports 2100 MHz HSDPA;
• No it doesn’t have an accelerometer;
• It will support any type of POP3/IMAP4 email account, you’re not limited to using GMail; and
• No this model is NOT branded or locked with with any particular network!  I am using it on Hutchison ‘3′ straight out of the box.

Much, much more coming soon.

Need to sleep.  Work tomorrow morning.  Running out of stamina in my old age.

android · dream · google · HTC