Android…now what?

Posted on November 28, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in Android | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I got purchased myself a Samsung Galaxy S about 3 months ago. In Luxembourg, you got it free when subscribing to a data plan (49€/month) for 2 years. As I was waiting to buy an Android device for some time I took this chance.

Now I have been using this device for 3 months and this phone is great and annoying at the same time, sometimes I love this device and sometimes I just hate it. It’s my first “Smart”phone, so first of all I noticed spending a lot more time with my Phone than ever before, and at the same time using it less for calls. You don’t call people anymore, or even text messages are out, you do email, twitter and/or facebook.

When I started using the Galaxy S, I was even thinking about reading the instruction manual…, it was hard to get going with Android without any advice…not because it is so complicated…but there are so many things you can do with it. I guess getting started with the iPhone is easy as the only thing you can do is browsing for apps.

Things that frustrated my the most, and is still a major point for me is the battery life of the Samsung Galaxy S, by using it for your daily emails, RSS and some browsing the battery needs to be recharged every night. And if you want to use it for making calls, be aware because the talking time for me is just below 1 hour. This is quite unacceptable for an High-end Android device. (so always carry a micro-usb cable with you).

What I really like about Android is the way to handle contacts. You have one contact, for example Paul Smith, and you can group all the accounts you have with this person under one contact entry on your phone. So Android can pull automatically your contacts picture from Facebook. Accounts that I group are Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and last.fm.

I am still running version 2.1 of Android as without a windows computer it is impossible to upgrade to the newest version Froyo 2.2. And my first try to get the phone connected to the Samsung software Kies failed.

I will make a series of posts explaining what is good and bad about Android, what is nice to have and things to avoid. So stay tuned

Ubuntu 10.04 on EEEBox 1501 (towards the perfect media-center)

Posted on August 24, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in EEEBox, linux, Lucid Lynx | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

building the perfect media center is a difficult task, as there are many constraints for this task. connectivity with tv, network and other computers which includes a perfect choice of hardware, operating system and drivers. input devices are important as well, as you don’t want to get up from the couch when ever you need to launch the next episode of your favorite show.

my choice was the EEEBox 1501 with an Intel N330 Atom and nVidia ION. this very small box is available for 350€ in many online shops, and there are different versions like 1501U with USB 3.0 or a Blu-Ray version (apparently only available in Switzerland). A new version 1501P is announced to be released in september 2010 with a more powerful processor. Why this model? The first ION based nettop box with an integrated DVD recorder, 6USB ports, HDMI (Audio- and Video-out), eSata, WiFi, SD-card reader, low power consumption and drivers available for Ubuntu for nVidia ION.

Download the latest ISO from Ubuntu.com, then instead of burning and wasting a CD-ROM, make an install USB key (see how). After the default installation almost everything works out of the Ubuntu Box. Almost everything except the remote control with the built-in IR receiver. But the remote can be activated easily, check it out here. Since Ubuntu comes only with a limited package of codecs, I recommend you install them in the usual way. I tried Ubuntu Tweaks and I am happily impressed by this nice application.

To get the full power of the nVidia ION video chip, install the nVidia driver from the official repository, System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers.

I connected the EEEBox to my TV with a HDMI cable and was surprised to have no sound on the TV through the HDMI cable. In fact the audio line for HDMI was muted in Alsamixer.

user@computer:$ alsamixer

and you need to unmute the HDMI line.

I installed Boxee on top of Ubuntu to have on of the best freely available MediaCenter software on the box. However during video playback, I noticed for fast moving pictures a horizontal line on the screen, where the vertical sync of the display was not working correctly. This is due to the interaction of hardware driver and window managers. The best and easiest solution is to disable composite for the whole session. System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects -> None.

Video playback is working great, I have no FullHD TV but I guess the ION chip does not have any problems for 1080 playback. Ubuntu (32-bit) is faster than the pre-installed Windows 7, boots faster and applications start faster as well. The EEEBox is reasonably fast, meaning you can listen to music while browsing the internet, downloading torrents. However don’t expect to much from it, meaning it is a perfect media center, but clearly no desktop box!

To finish the whole experience get a Logitech diNovo mini Keyboard and mousepad (which is really plug-and-play under Ubuntu via Bluetooth with the dongle that comes with the diNovo Mini, No installation required!), and you will have an excellent media center for around 450€.

A YouTube video shows all how well this works. (video not by me) diNovo Mini Controls Ubuntu Media Center

Getting a Job in Luxembourg

Posted on August 23, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in my life | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

after about 80 sent job applications, i got a job in the country of luxembourg. in fact the job is located in a small village of rosport close to the german border. What will I do there? well programming computers and other stuff. the company is doing databases for their customers and the company is called oashi sarl. the company is a small team of 4 or 5 people, i haven’t met them all yet, but i am sure it will be a pleasure to work with these people.

i sent around 80 job application, all to open job position i found on jobs.lu, monster.lu and in local newspapers. i don’t know if that’s the case all around the world, but only 4 companies cared to write a response, where 3 were interested in meeting me. i talked to people about this and they said “well that’s normal!”. if all those companies want to be normal, well so be it. if people want to be normal in luxembourg, and we define normal by average… this person would earn 10$ a day, would not have a car, would have 2.54 children and divorced 0.78 times.

i don’t think that i am the super best programmer, but i guess i can live quite well without these normal companies and people! quality of service is decreasing extremely fast in luxembourg, people and companies just don’t care about their customers.

the worst of all however was centre lippmann based in esch, a public research center. i applied for a job as a research assistant, they invited my for a job position I did not apply (and i would not have applied), i spend 4 hours answering question about my life and why you should index some fields of a database. and after 4 hours of my life while outside was the best weather…they don’t give ANY response! After 5 weeks i wrote an email to inquire where i am in the process for the job and now after 7 weeks after the job interview no response yet. this is a public institution, running on huge sums of public money and yes it is a company but there are people doing the HR stuff. So come on, after an interview of 4 hours i deserve at least a copy-paste email.

in a country where distances are measured in minutes-driving-by-car, i am happy to have found a small company with people who care about their environment. my work place is now 1.5 hour of public transportation away, but i guess that’s the prize you have to pay in luxembourg for not becoming a jerk!

Ubuntu One Sync with Phone (SE Hazel)

Posted on August 12, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in Lucid Lynx | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

the ubuntu one service is a very nice idea. sync your files easily with multiple computers, easy to setup … easy to use. i use the service for syncing of my contacts, since i always have trouble keeping a contact list, i create in a great effort.

sometime ago ubuntu one added the possibility to sync your contacts with your mobile phone through syncml. the procedure is very easy again and can be very useful to keep your contacts in the case of the loss of your phone or similar. and it allows you to keep your contacts when upgrading your mobile phone. to activate this process go to one.ubuntu.com and login. activate the sync for phones and select your phone model. my phone model was not listed (j20 Hazel SonyEricsson), so I had to choose a similar model. but you only get the procedure for configuring the phone. just follow the on-screen instructions and enter the given username and password on your phone. and start syncing!!

This procedure makes it possible to sync your phone with your evolution, since evolution contacts can also sync easily with ubuntu one. (once the bug is fixed) right not evolution contacts are not syncing with ubuntu one due to a bug in couchdb stuff for ubuntu one!

What Browser for Ubuntu? (Firefox vs Chrome vs Opera)

Posted on July 30, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in Lucid Lynx, web | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Recently I made a small, informal post on Firefox vs Chrome on Ubuntu. This post was mainly inspired by the rumors that using the Windows Firefox in Wine is faster than running the native version on Ubuntu. (more info here) I haven’t tested a Windows version of any browser and I don’t like the idea of using an emulated software when there is a decent native alternative. So here I simply want to compare three browsers:

In fact I used the either the versions from the main Ubuntu channels or from the main websites. No Beta’s or Alpha’s are used. Right from the start, all three browsers are excellent products, no random freezing or problems.

look & feel

from the start the main difference is that firefox still uses one global addressbar, tabs below the addressbar, where for opera and chrome the addressbar is within each tab. from any point of view this makes much more sense to have the tabs above the addressbar. the height of the browser interface is important as most people have a small pixel height. The interface height (with window border) for the browsers are

  1. Chrome: 92 pixel
  2. Opera: 92 pixel
  3. Firefox: 158 pixel

The difference is quite huge and 60px on a 800px height of the display makes a difference. Firefox are going to move the addressbar within the tab in the upcoming release 4. (here) firefox integrates well into the gtk desktop of ubuntu and for chrome it is possible to set the theme such that it fits perfectly into the default ubuntu desktop. whereas personally, I think that opera does not fit that well into the ubuntu environment(using its own icon for the menus,…), but this is only a personal impression. however opera is the best looking browser. Opera is the only browser having tab preview by default installed, whereas it is available as plugins or extension for chrome and firefox. a new tab appears empty or shows a selected site for firefox, where opera and chrome have a nice view of most visited sites.

Comparison of Address Bar Height for Chrome, Opera and Firefox

Opening a new Tab in Opera, very similar in Chrome

browsing & speed

Startup time is important for modern browsers, as I often want to quickly check a site, news, a wikipedia article or look up a word in an online dictionary. The startup times (without plugins, under the same conditions and 3 tabs to load) I found on my system

  1. chrome: 1.1 secs
  2. firefox: 2.7 secs
  3. opera: 3.2 secs

chrome is still the speedy browser, very fast to open. firefox made some big improvements from the last version I tested (firefox 3.5.7: 4.7 secs). opera comes in last, but opera has the option to reduce the browser to the notification area, such that it can be opened instantly if it is loaded once (and never exited).

Important for a browser is how fast it handles sites and how correctly it displays them. there are tests around where you can test your browser on your system. I test with peacekeeper, tests are run in a browser instance with no other open tabs or windows, and I didn’t touch the window during the tests:

  1. chrome: 3877 pts
  2. opera: 3300 pts
  3. firefox: 1413 pts

for the acid 3 test,  verifying how browsers display websites, the more points a browsers scores, in general, the more correct it displays the site. both opera and chrome score 100/100pts, whereas firefox only comes close to 96/100pts.

processor & memory usage

to find the memory & processor usage of each browser I used the command line tool top. each browser has at least two processes running, one for the browser and one for the plugins. chrome has a process for for each open tab. with 2 open tabs, wordpress site, youtube video and cnn.com, chrome has 6 processes, opera and firefox have 2 processes running. the memory usage of a process is difficult to measure, as a process has a virtual allocated memory space and a reserved memory space. i took the values of the virtual memory

  1. opera: 329 mb
  2. firefox: 580mb
  3. chrome: 983mb

the memory usage of the browsers today depends a lot on the user’s installed extensions and add-ons. but a great difference is visible for the virtual memory of the three browsers, opera being quite in the lead position here. For the processor usage of all browser there I could not distinguish a major difference, the only interesting note is that often the processes for the plugins (opera and firefox) have a constant usage of 4-5% of the processor. again the plugins seems to be in need for the processor time, whereas the browser itself is quite optimized and only shows some load when doing some heavy JS or flash.

security

who needs security? well all browsers pass the security check here. using any of these browsers, you should be safe as regular updates are guaranteed by Mozilla, Google and Opera. together with linux or ubuntu, there shouldn’t be too much trouble right now, however the most insecure part in a system is often the user, so don’t get too lazy!

integration & extensions

for all browsers there are many add-ons or extensions, the most common exists for all three (delicious, feed reader, …) chrome integrates pretty good into the dark ubuntu desktop. firefox integrates to 100% with the ubuntu theme and also other gnome or ubuntu applications. you can sync your firefox bookmarks with ubuntu one for example. many other applications like gnome-do, always start with plugins for firefox. opera pretty much goes its own way for the integration. you clearly notice that opera does not follow the look of ubuntu, it is dark, but yet it feels as an alien. opera has pretty cool features, i like. for example their widgets allows to have a clock in your browsers on top of the websites and also if you want on top of your desktop. the unite features allows to share files, messages, music…which is working great, except that I don’t have any friends using it, but all this feature in a browser..wow!

Conclusion

opera and chrome definitely feels more responsive and faster than firefox, however firefox is the more complete solution as there are many extensions available, I guess it has the largest base of extensions. however having the tab-bar beneath the address bar is an old-style browser habit, opera and chrome have them on top and firefox beta 4 will do the same. choose firefox if you need the extensions, otherwise go for chrome or opera since they are faster for displaying websites with JS. I use chorme as I come to like it very much, fast for displaying websites and yet it feels small. if you go for opera let me know to test out unite.! all of them are very easy to install on ubuntu, just go to their homepage.

Install ANDROID Development Tools (ADT) on Ubuntu 10.04 (and Eclipse)

Posted on July 9, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in Android, Lucid Lynx, Programming | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

I recently installed eclipse 3.6 and Android Development Tools (ADT) on my fresh Ubuntu 10.04 install. I followed the excellent and simple Installation tutorial here. Installing Eclipse is as easy as downloading it from the official Download page (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/) and extracting it to a desired folder. I chose the Classic Eclipse 3.6 download and I created a folder in my home, called /home/thierry/Applications.

To install the ADT in Eclipse 3.6, the official instructions can be found here, go to HELP > INSTALL NEW SOFTWARE. Enter the address  to WORK WITH:

https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

Click OK. Then Select ‘Developer Tools’ to install Android DDMS and ADT. Then click NEXT followed by FINISH. At that point I am now sure if I had to restart Eclipse, but as it is suggested, do restart Eclipse.

Install ADT in Eclipse

Start a new Android project under FILE > NEW > Other > Android. The Project Name would be HelloWorld, as Build Target I choose Android 2.2. Scroll down to find the Application Name: Hello Android and the package Name: com.yourexample.helloandroid. A first Hello World program is as follows

package com.example.helloandroid;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class HelloAndroid extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
TextView tv = new TextView(this);
tv.setText("Hello, Android");
tv.setTag("Hi freaks, look at me");
tv.setText("Mama");
tv.s
setContentView(tv);
}
}

To run the code and test the application, you don’t need to have an android device, but you can use the android emulator. Use RUN > RUN AS > ANDROID APPLICATION and the emulator should show up, it might take 1 minute to boot!

Android Emulator

Of course this is not what you have done in your HelloWorld, but to test your Android application you need to boot Android first. Play around with Android and go to Applications to find your Application called Hello Android. Click it to launch your Hello World.

P.S.: I have a problem that auto-complete in Eclipse with ADT freezes as soon as for example “tv.s” is written in the editor. Apparently this bug is related to xulrunner, but not for sure. This bug is however very annoying making development impossible. For a Java file the auto-complete is however working fine.

Where to go after the HelloWorld? Go to the official documentation site for Android project, the page with sample code,

welcome to luxembourg

Posted on July 5, 2010 by littleiffel
Posted in luxembourg, my life | Leave a comment

i am back to my native land, after 3587 days in switzerland and chad, after studies and work. no job, no (own) place, no social security, but yet motivated to find a job in this small piece of europe.

right now i got one denial after a phone interview from chad with luxembourg based amazon (which costed me 150 €). they asked me the usual java questions, like what is the difference between an interface and an abstract class, how would you implement this and that? i have another job interview at a research center in luxembourg, apparently it is going to last 5 hours.

luxembourg skyline in a sunset

there are many job opportunities for IT, software developers here in luxembourg, but most of them are for consulting or banking companies, which are not yet in my field of interest. a good place to look for jobs here is online at monster and jobs.lu. many companies are based in luxembourg, like ebay, skype, amazon, paypal…to name a few. but they mainly are based here in luxembourg to (not) pay their taxes. as it seems however some of them are starting some projects at their luxembourg based sites.