I’m a self-confessed Sudoku addict. I like regular Sudoku, Samurai Sudoku and even hexadecimal Sudoku. I do Sudoku in books, newspapers, and (until very recently) on-line. I find it relaxing, entertaining and mentally stimulating.

Hence my horror last week, when in a personal vendetta launched wholly at me and intended to achieve nothing other than leave me in crumpled, listless, lifeless state on the floor of the computer room, grubby Zynga Games shut down their massively popular Challenge Sudoku game on Facebook. At the time this digital atrocity was committed, nearly 20,000 fans were friends of the game and Challenge Sudoku had received a rating of 3.9 stars out of 5 stars, based on 1,468 reviews.

Here’s the heart-wrenching message which greeted me when I logged on, in order to finish a 5-round “harder” marathon against my Facebook arch-nemesis, a game which I can only assume will now remain unfinished until the end of time itself:

Needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – “important” games like Farmville, CafeWorld and Mafia Wars are still going strong.

Despondent, heart-broken, despised and rejected, I logged off Facebook, shut down the computer and wept quietly for some hours. I then started driving around aimlessly, in an effort to think clearly. I found myself at mum & dad’s, where I stopped seeking consolation and a mug of International Rust.

I confided in my mother, explaining  my Sudoku dilemma.

Mum said, “Well, there’s always the games you used to play in the garage. Let’s have a look.”

Curious, I followed my mother into the garage, where every single game, toy, camping tool, school book and scouting provision from my childhood was safely stored, and will also possibly (and coincidentally) be stored until the end of time itself.

Would you believe, in next to no time, my mother was able to produce 1 x original, genuine, 30-year-old Intellivision games console??!?!?

Woo hooo!! The Intellivision was manufactured in the late-1970s by Mattel, and was a state-of-the-art machine in its day. My family spent thousands of hours in front of this bleeding-edge games console as we attacked aliens from outer space, negotiated Pitfall Harry over alligators and swamps, and even dodged dangerous barrels of burning oil in Donkey Kong.

The Intellivision is a cartridge machine and mum found a big bag of game cartridges too. I raced home and plugged everything in. No fancy HDMI output on this little sucker: the Intellivision was equipped with an RF modulator. Kids, this means you switch the television to channel 0 or channel 1, and plug a coaxial cable between the system and the antenna socket on your TV.

I was concerned that the Intellivision wouldn’t work after all these years, and I was especially concerned that the magnetic media on the games cartridges would have long since become corrupt or erased completely.

I was, however, excitedly surprised to find that most cartridges still actually worked, after at least 30 years of use and abuse, and storage in a high-humidity garage.

Here are some exciting images from the next few hours of my life, showing-off the Intellivision’s magnificent 159 x 192 aspect ratio and 16-colour graphics palette:

…and last, but certainly not least:

Other exciting titles include Happy Trails, Utopia, Star Strike, Auto Racing, Baseball and Thunder Castle.

And the GREAT thing I’m discovering about the Intellivision, 30 years on, is that no-one in the world knows who I am – or anything about me – when I’m playing a game; AND there’s not one single privacy setting which can mean the difference between access to the game itself and criminally-motivated identity fraud.

I’m yet to find a Sudoku cartridge, but for now, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learned to deal with my Zynga pain. I’m too busy shooting demons and jumping oil barrels.

Long live Mattel!

facebook · games · intellivision · mattel · retro · sudoku

Something exciting happened a few months back: my local telephone exchange (or ‘Central Office’ for my American brothers and sisters) was upgraded to support ADSL 2+.

Actually, it had supported ADSL 2+ for some time, but only by Telstra resellers. When the Internet Service Provider iiNet came along, which runs its own back-haul network independent of Telstra, I committed to doing a number of things:

1. Upgrading my home internet from ADSL (supplied by Internet Service Provider aaNet)  to ADSL 2+ (supplied by iiNet),
2. Converting to Naked DSL;
3. Porting my telephone service from traditional PSTN to VoIP, and
4. Freeing myself from the expensive Telstra service and equipment fees and call costs.

Would this be an expensive exercise? Would I ultimately save money? Or would I pay more for the privilege (as I saw it) of being Telstra-free?

Now the dust has settled, it’s time to find out.

The Existing (Old) Setup

I have a small analogue PABX, with extensions cabled to most rooms in the house. This should neither detract from my internet story or cause any undue alarm.

Now, Mr & Mrs Dr Ron have had a common, garden-variety 19th-century analogue telephone line for many years. We only used this for incoming calls. Why? Because Telstra call costs are generally more expensive than… well, anything, really. So when someone called our home telephone number, all the phones in the house would ring and we would speak to the caller. I was on Telstra’s “Homeline Budget” plan, which is the cheapest line rental vs most expensive call rates, at $71.64 per quarter including “recurring costs” (about $23.88 /month). I was on this plan deliberately, to minimise the service and equipment fees, given that we didn’t use the service for outgoing calls. So far so good.

For outgoing calls, we had an account with engin, the VoIP telephone company. Engin offered 10 cent untimed calls to any number in Australia, (a third the cost of Telstra on the “Homeline Budget” plan,) and timed calls to mobiles and international numbers. My engin plan was like a mobile telephone “cap” and I paid at least $14.95 /month for the privilege.

So to make an outgoing call to a local or national number, we would “dial 0″ on an extension, and the PABX would pre-select the line connected to engin’s SIP voice box. We would get a “second dial tone” and make the call.

Now to keep down costs, I successfully trained Mrs Dr Ron to use her mobile telephone to make mobile-to-mobile calls. I did the same. I think calls to mobiles are always expensive on landlines and VoIP accounts, compared with mobile-to-mobile rates, especially when you can take advantage of “free 3 to 3″ and similar promotions run by other carriers.

My wife has a lot of family overseas, and we ring friends overseas too. Weekly calls to England, Scotland and Denmark are not uncommon. International rates on engin weren’t too bad and international rates on the mobiles weren’t too bad either.

The New Setup

We have kept the PABX: no change.

We’re still using mobile phones for mobile-to-mobile: no change.

We churned from the old ISP (aaNet) to the new ISP (iiNet).

We ported our telephone number, from Telstra PSTN to iiNet VoIP. This went surprisingly smoothly. We experienced a service outage for a few days, which was expected and clearly explained in the T’s & C’s provided by iiNet.

We cancelled the engin account, as it was no longer needed, and I got sick of their poor customer service (but that’s another story).

Incoming calls still arrive by dialling the same phone number, but these are now carried by iiNet VoIP into the PABX. (The iiNet router has anFXS port which drives an analogue trunk circuit on the PABX.) Similarly, outgoing calls are carried via iiNet VoIP instead of engin VoIP.

For richer or poorer?

Previously I was paying:

• Monthly Telstra bill: $23.88 + call costs, if any
• Monthly aaNet bill: $94.25 for 40 GB bandwidth
• Monthly engin bill: $14.95 + call costs not included in this cap, e.g. international calls

So previously I had a minimum monthly investment of $133.08 for home internet and telephone calls.

Remember I haven’t changed my call usage patterns, or the way I use my mobile telephone.

Now I’m paying:

• Monthly iiNet bill: $69.95 for 30GB peak/30GB off-peak + call costs not included in this cap

In addition to a financial windfall of $63.13 per month, I’m also ahead because:

• There’s no separate Telstra account;
• There’s no separate engin account;
• I’m using ADSL 2+ technology, better (albeit marginally, at my house) than first-generation ADSL;
• I’ve got half as much bandwidth again, compared with the previous internet plan;
• Unlimited, free, local and national telephone calls, as opposed to engin’s 10 cent calls which chipped-away at a “cap”; and
• VoIP quality is much better, for two reasons: (1) I’m on a faster network connection; and (2) my new router, provided by iiNet, has a Quality of Service feature which was missing in the old SIP box.

So Dr Ron wins. Faster, cheaper internet, and more cash towards that Mediterranean retirement villa.

Seriously though … that’s $756 /year in my pocket.

What have we learnt from this exercise?

Review your internet contract, and personal internet requirements, regularly.

Internet “plans” come and go, just as fast as mobile phone plans these days. If you stay on a plan for longer than 12 months, chances are that a faster, cheaper plan offering more bandwidth has become available, that might better suit your needs.

Shop around, and monitor consumer advocacy websites – like Broadband Choice in Australia – to compare “apples with apples”.

Happy hunting, good luck.  See you in the Med.

aaNet · ADSL · ADSL 2+ · engin · iiNet · naked DSL · SIP · telstra · voip

Dr Ron has a telephone line provided by Telstra.

Telstra is the largest telecommunications service provider in Australia. Telstra operates and maintains the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, sells its own services, and allows other service providers to re-sell parts of its network.

Unfortunately, Dr Ron’s telephone line has no dial tone, and no battery (FAIL).  This is probably caused by an open circuit, or faulty equipment or a power failure at the telephone exchange.

Dr Ron rings Telstra on his mobile phone, asking for help.

The IVR answers promptly (WIN) and asks Dr Ron to enter the phone number he is having difficulty with, which he does. He then presses the “#” key as instructed. The IVR says that it’s putting him through to an operator. The ensuing conversation goes something like this:

Telstra Operator: “Hello, welcome to Telstra, my name is Sonny. How can I help you?”

Dr Ron: “Hi Sonny, my name’s Ron. I’m ringing to get help with my telephone service. It’s not working, there’s no dial tone.”

TO: “Okay can I get the phone number you are having problems with please?” (FAIL)

DR: “Sure, it’s the one I just entered into your computer 10 seconds ago.”

TO: “Ohh, ahhhh, it hasn’t come through for some reason, (FAIL) what number are you having problems with?”

DR: “Why hasn’t the number come through? I did what I was told, and even pressed the ‘#’ key.”

TO: “I’m sure you did but the number didn’t come through. What number are you having problems with?”

DR: “03 98xx xxxx.”

TO: “I just need to check your name, address and date of birth please?”

DR Ron provides this information.

TO: “Thankyou Ron, let me put you on hold, just one moment.”

Dum dum dum, da dum da da dum… the girl from Ipanema goes walking and… when she passes, each time she passes….

TO: “Hello Ron?”

DR: “I’m here.”

TO: “Yes there’s a fault with that line.” (FAIL)

DR: “Yes. I know. I’m pretty sure I told you that. That’s why I’m ringing.”

TO: “How many telephone handsets do you have on your line please?’

DR: “Just one,” lies Dr Ron convincingly, for the purposes of keeping this already untenable situation as simple as possible.

TO: “Have you unplugged your fax machines?” (FAIL)

DR: “Almost certainly.”

TO: “And computer modems?” (FAIL)

DR: “Yep.”

TO: “Do you have ADSL internet on that line?” (How can Telstra not know this? FAIL.)

DR: “No, it’s dead.”

TO: “But ordinarily?”

DR: “Yes.”

TO: “Okay a telephone technician will need to come out to have a look. I just have to let you know, that if the fault is found in the customer equipment, a charge of $105 may be applied to your account – but you will be advised accordingly if we’re going to do that.”

DR: “Okay, great,” says Dr Ron, confident that his $105 will remain safely in his wallet.

TO: “Okay just one moment please.”

…and when she walks … she’s like a samba that… swings so cool, and sways so gentle, and…

TO: “Hello Ron?”

DR: “I’m still here.”

TO: “Can I just get an alternative contact number for you, like a mobile?”

DR: “Sure, use the one I’m calling from now.”

TO: “What’s that one?” (FAIL)

DR: “I’m sending it with this call. It will come up on your telephone, and your computer. I always send my number with outgoing calls.”

TO: “Ahhhhh, oooh, it hasn’t come up.” (FAIL FAIL FAIL)

DR: “Why not? Maybe you have a faulty telephone there too?”

TO: “Ahhhh … maybe…?”

DR: “Okay, it’s 0419 xxx xxx.”

TO: “Thankyou Ron, the fault will be fixed by 7PM tomorrow at the latest (POTENTIAL WIN). We will send you a text message to let you know when the service has been restored (POTENTIAL WIN). Is there anything else I can help you with?”

DR: “Absolutely not. Thankyou for your time Sonny.”

TO: “Thankyou Ron, and thankyou for calling Telstra. HAVE A NICE DAY.”

Call #2

Needless to say, 7PM the next day came and went. No telephone service for about 20 hours now. (FAIL)

The IVR prompts Dr Ron to enter the phone number he is having difficulty with, which he does, and even presses the “#” key as instructed. The IVR puts him through to an operator. The ensuing conversation is this:

Telstra Operator: “Hello, welcome to Telstra, my name is Gilbert. Can I get the phone number you are having difficulties with please?”

Dr Ron: “Sure, it’s the one I just entered into your computer.”

TO: “Ohh. Well it hasn’t come through for some reason, what is the number please?” (ARGHGHGGHHH FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL)

DR: “Why hasn’t the number come through? I think you’ve got a faulty call centre. It didn’t come through last time I rang either.”

TO: “Okay, I’m sorry sir, but you will need to tell me the number you are having problems with.”

DR: deep sigh of despair, followed by “03 98xx xxxx”.

TO: “Thankyou sir, one moment please.”

…through early morning fog I see… visions of the things to be…

TO: “Are you there sir?”

DR: “You betcha.”

TO: “Yes there is a fault with that line, sir.” (FAIL)

DR: “I know. That’s why I reported it faulty. Yesterday. Your colleague Sonny said it would be fixed by 7PM today. It’s now 10PM. Why isn’t it fixed?”

TO: “Ahhh, let me have a look sir … just one moment.”

… suicide is painless… it brings on many changes…

TO: “Yes sir, I can see that it was supposed to be fixed by 7PM. I am very sorry, I don’t know why it hasn’t been fixed (FAIL). But there will be a technician come out tomorrow to fix it.”

DR: “What time?”

TO: “Between 8AM and 4PM.”

DR: “Do I need to be home to let them in?”

TO: “No, there is no need to be home, they will call you if they need access to the premises (POTENTIAL WIN). In case they do, can I just grab a contact number?”

DR: “Sure, use the one I’m calling from now.”

TO: “Oh. Ahhhh…” (FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL)

Déjà vu: the experience of feeling as though an event has already happened, or has happened in the recent past – the experience is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of “eeriness”, “strangeness”, or “weirdness”. The “previous” experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience “genuinely happened” in the past. Read more.

DR: “0419 xxx xxx.”

TO: “Thankyou sir, we will call you if we need to access the premises, so someone can be home (POTENTIAL WIN). Also we will send you a text message to let you know when your service has been restored (POTENTIAL WIN). Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

DR: “Almost certainly not. Good bye.”

TO: “Thankyou for calling Telstra sir, HAVE A N…” <click>

Day #3

Telstra technician arrives on the front doorstep at 8AM, with no advance phone call or warning (FAIL). Grunts, and says he’s here to fix the telephone. After a quick inspection of the “customer equipment”, technician decides that the problem lies elsewhere, and leaves.

Service magically restored at about 2PM (WIN), almost 48 hours after being reported faulty.

Customer service fail?

The Telstra customer service IVR is bloody woeful. It answers promptly, but why do customers have to repeat numbers back to an operator, who should have the numbers on a computer screen? This isn’t rocket science, the technology to do this has been around for 20 years. Same goes for capturing a caller’s CLI.

No text messages ever arrived from Telstra.

No explanation was ever given as to what went wrong with my service.

No-one rang to pre-arrange an appointment time.

The estimated fault resolution time was over-run by 19 hours.

Do the WINS outweigh the FAILS?

Well, let’s not quibble about such things as “customer service” or “fault resolution”. Surely the ends justify the means in such circumstances.

In any case, your call is important to us.

Have a nice day.

customer service · customer service fail · failure · fault · service fault · telstra

Hi all,

This is just a simple house-keeping post.

Today I deleted over 1000 WordPress user accounts on The Surgery.

Chances are, if your username was “buy_viagra”, “animesex” or “fdksjahgiliegdlzzq” then your account has been deleted.

If I deleted any legitimate accounts, then I apologise a thousand times over. Please re-register with my eternal gratitude.

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One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to cable a network socket to the lounge room, and a network socket to the bedroom.

This would enable me, in theory, to stream audio and video from my network to the television and sound system in my living room; and to stream audio and video from my network to the television in the master bedroom.

Why not just use wireless?

I’ve been using WiFi to the lounge room Media Centre for some time (well, years) now. It works adequately. But wireless technology is designed for portable devices, and in the case where I’ve got a Media Centre PC which never moves, the better option from a technical standpoint is to connect to the network using a wired network port. A fixed network connection is faster than wireless, more reliable, and my Media Centre won’t be competing with other wireless devices for bandwidth, using the same hotspot ‘legitimately’ (e.g. net books, smart phones etc.).

Conspiracy theorists that obsess about security will also agree that a wired network connection is a better option than wireless. I, however, do not obsess about such things. Honestly.

Yesterday I got out the fashionable white overalls, retrieved my toolbox from a bygone era and proceeded to cable new network points to the lounge room and the master bedroom. This involved much swearing, grunting, bashing-of-head-against-low-floorboards and grazed elbows, but I got there eventually.

In Australia, make sure any infrastructure cabling, at work or at home, is undertaken by a licensed cabler.  Like me.

Lounge Room – wired for internets!

I plugged the Media Centre into its new network port, and was pleased to see a noticeable improvement in network speed. I’ll keep using the PC as a Media Centre in the lounge room. It makes a lot of sense to me to have a networked PC connected to your television and sound system.

The Bedroom Solution

- or -

“How to browse internets and network file shares in your bedroom without a computer”

A PC in the bedroom, however, is a bit excessive (IMHO). So what’s the best way to access content on the network and stream it to the television?

I had my eye on a fashionable media streamer from Western Digital which Andrew spoke about on Tech Talk Radio in November. After seeing a demonstration, viewing a Blu-Ray rip over Andrew’s network in his lounge room, I was sold. The quality was great.

There are three versions of these little boxes, and I bought the most expensive one, the WD TV Live, which supports networking. This set me back $198 from JB Hi Fi.

The WD TV Live is a small unassuming box which provides an interface between your television and your computer network, with a nifty little remote control (yes, batteries are included!). All the WD TV Live needs is power and a nearby network connection, which I now have, thanks to yesterday’s wrangling.

The WD TV Live outputs to composite or component video (cables supplied) or HDMI (cable not supplied), in full HD 1080P video. When it powers-up, the WD TV Live finds shares on your computer network and lets you watch video and listen to music. It also has 2 x USB ports so you can connect external drives, memory sticks and the like.

To get it going, all I needed to do was connect HDMI to my television, connect the blue network cable and plug-in the power. The WD TV Live did everything else, and the default settings are very usable. It found my network’s DHCP server, assigned itself an IP address, found my network shares and just started working.

Format Support

According to the documentation, supported video formats include AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG 1, 2 & 4, WMV9 & VC-1), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (H.264, X.264, AVC, MPEG 1, 2 & 4, WMV9 & VC-1), TS / TP / M2T (MPEG 1, 2 & 4, AVC & VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4 & H.264), M2TS & WMV9.

Supported image formats include JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP & PNG.

Supported audio formats include MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital & DTS.

The WD TV Live also supports common playlist and subtitle formats, and it’s got the DLNA stamp of approval.

Andrew says he’s had huge success with MKV video formats, in terms of quality.

User Interface

Nice.  Fast and smooth.

There’s also a nice interface which streams content directly from Google’s video-sharing website YouTube, popular photo-sharing site Flickr and Live 365 internet radio. You can login to YouTube if you have an existing account.

My only gripe is the on-screen keyboard, which is clunky and frustrating. You’re driving it with the up/down/left/right arrows on the remote control, so I’m not really sure how Western Digital could improve on this. You only need to use the on-screen keyboard if you’re entering custom network settings, or user names and passwords for network shares and such things. Fortunately the WD TV Live remembers these settings, so you rarely need to use the on-screen keyboard.

Problems with HomeGroup Networking

Tech Talk’s Graeme Callaghan also purchased one of these little boxes some weeks ago. He told me that the only difficulties he has experienced have been with Windows 7 “HomeGroup” networking, which apparently does strange things, e.g. causing network shares to disappear, reappear then disappear again. Graeme said that after he disabled HomeGroup networking, in favour of traditional Windows workgroups, everything worked consistently and well. I’m sharing content off a Windows 7 Professional machine in traditional ‘workgroups’ mode and everything with the WD TV Live has been smooth-sailing.

The Verdict

Good.

Easy to set up; reliable; intuitive user interface; excellent playback quality. High WAF*. This is a media streamer which fills a fundamental hole in the digital lounge room.

Or, in this case, Dr Ron’s Digital Bedroom.

* Wife Acceptability Factor

Digital Living Network Alliance · digital lounge room · DLNA · HomeGroup · media streamer · Tech Talk Radio · video streamer · video streaming · WD TV Live · Western Digital

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

Amused?

Laughing at my misfortune?

Good for you, but it’s gonna cost real money.

Click on Dr Ron’s Movember Link and donate some small change to a worthy cause.

The Movember Foundation of Australia is raising awareness of men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer and clinical depression.

Thanks Adam, Waulok and Thadius for your support.  Every little bit helps.

No tags

Why do I find these things so funny?

funny · how to stop time · motivational

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

Driving home tonight, I was listening to the Victorian Premier John Brumby’s announcement about the preferred tenderers to run Melbourne’s rail and tram networks.

Mr Brumby, and indeed his speech writers, need to understand that the world exists, as indeed the public transport system exists, in three dimensions of space and one dimension of time.  We’ve got considerable freedom when it comes to moving through each of the spatial dimensions, but we’re constrained by time in that, generally speaking, everyone and every thing moves forward.  We can’t, generally speaking, move backwards in time.

Mr Brumby, however, felt it necessary (amidst collaborating with stakeholders and ensuring the availability of multi-modal transport solutions) to reiterate that we are, in fact, going forward.  The transport plan is going forward.  The announcement is about looking forward.   The preferred tenderers are moving forward.  Everything, Mr Brumby assured us, is going forward:

“I can tell you quite emphatically that the performance standards in place going forward are higher performance standards than we have had in the past.”

“They (the new operators) will partner with our government in transforming the network going forward and they represent the best value for money for Victorian taxpayers.”

And when asked about the incumbent operator’s performance: “I don’t think it’s helpful to look back, this is about looking forward.”

Mr Brumby’s comments are reassuring, because those of us who regularly use Melbourne’s public transport system know that it’s been hurtling backwards for some time now.

Here’s a link to the Weasel Words website (essential reading).

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