Sick and twisted fruit

To scratch the topic of Mobile Computing once again I want to take you through the processes of setting up an iPhone and a Nokia N97 Mini with a Bluetooth driven wireless Keyboard. The reason I’m doing this is of course due to recent events I experienced and - SPOILER ALERT - the iPhone fails miserably under almost all circumstances. Successful ones could unfortunately not be tested.

The Keyboard used can be seen on the following picture, accompanied by the successfully paired N97 Mini:

Why it’s a Bluetooth Keyboard designed by Apple themselves, just to make it a little less tough for the iPhone one might think. But I digress.

The step-by-step Instructions for the N97 Mini (or basically any Symbian S60 device) go as follows:

1. Download the free Bluetooth Keyboard Application from Nokia.com. Choosing the right one shouldn’t be too hard, I didn’t find one for Symbian S60 5th Edition so i just took the first one which popped up an incompatibility alert but still installed and worked fine.
2. After opening said Application, turn on your Keyboard and pair it with the Phone. In my case this included defining a Passkey like “123456” and then entering exactly that Passkey on the Keyboard. Pressing Return should finish the pairing process. I assume this works the same on all Bluetooth enabled Keyboards.
3. That’s it. You’re set to write some text messages or even emails with your Bluetooth Keyboard.

On the iPhone on the other hand, the situation looks as follows. (At least that’s all I found out on a jailbroken iPhone 3G with the latest jailbreakable iPhone OS 3 on it).
When you turn on Bluetooth and search for devices, the (Apple !!) Keyboard does not show up. So if I’m not wrong that takes care of our first approach. The second approach then would be taking advantage of the freedom of a jailbroken iPhone. Do some searching on Google/Youtube and what I found was a Video explaining how to use an App (namely BTStack Keyboard) from the Cydia Store (which of course comes with jailbreaking the device) to use Bluetooth Keyboards with your iPhone. The only catch you ask? It costs 5 Dollars and since I neither own an iPhone, nor a Cydia Store Account (or whatever is needed to buy their Apps) my trail to success stopped there.

If there is another approach, be it for jailbroken or non-jailbroken iPhones please let me know. Nothing would please me more than knowing that Apple isn’t having such a tight stranglehold on its customers after all. Smartphones set aside, I’m one of them as you can see from the picture.

Of course it’s not surprising that the Nokia Device works with an Apple Keyboard. The Bluetooth Standard is the same for everybody, also for Apple luckily. And of course it might not make perfect sense to everybody that I’m connecting a Keyboard to a Mobile Phone that has a QWERTZ Keyboard built-in. To be honest I’d know a lot more to do with such a keyboard on an iPhone than on this N97 Mini. Seems like it’s not supposed to happen.

"Nao" from Aldebaran Robotics

A few days ago some of my colleagues and I took the chance to attend a guest lecture on campus about a robot designed in France due to be released within the next months. His name is Nao and he's intentionally designed to have Manga-Character-like looks.
The entire Computer that does the necessary computations is inside its replaceable head and runs a custom Linux on an AMD Geode processor with 2 Gigabytes of Flash memory and 256 Megabytes of RAM. It is fully controllable over WiFi, yet it only boasts 802.11b which we know only has a theoretical speed of 11 MBit/s. Hopefully they will at least get the G-Standard in there before the final release. It has two Cameras with standard VGA Resolution, one that looks straight ahead and one that looks down to the ground so the robot can identify objects directly in front of him.



To be honest I wasn't impressed too much by what this robot can do but what did impress me was how easy Aldebaran Robotics made it for the end-user slash programmer to work with this robot. You have drag-and-drop based editing of any movements or actions, like talking or listening (or remote controlling something with his Infared-enabled eyes), you want the robot to do and you can then export your work into C++ or Python code so you can work with it natively and refine it for example. I think this is going to be a successful product among the people of its target group, but the question is how large this target group can be at a starting price of 12.000 Euros for one unit.

Chrome OS

I've been one of those who were eagerly awaiting the first impressions of Google's Chrome OS since it was announced some time earlier this year. One positive remark right there can be made because they seem to have been quite eager to get it out there as well. Open Source, so much the better.

I knew that it was going to be a Browser-based OS like none has ever been before but judging by this first release I'm still a bit disappointed.

Chrome OS:

So to the right you see what the login-screen looks like. And "woohoo" you have to log in with your own Google Account. Internet Connection required of course. Pretty nice idea. But while that is handy because it enables you to log in to the same account on different computers you will see later why I dont think it's necessary for now.

Next up we have the Chrome Browser which shows up full-screen as soon as you've successfully logged in. The tabs I opened in the second screenshot aren't open at first Login. There's just the Google Calendar and an empty tab as far as I recall. Of course with every Google Service you use the Login-Information needed doesn't have to be entered separately every time. You can for example use Google Reader for RSS Reading, Google Mail for writing Emails and so on. So a colleague of mine dared me to write a Document on this thing and email it to her. Seems quite impossible on a Browser-Based OS with no desktop or additional applications. But in fact it's not that hard. Everybody who used Google Documents before should know that.

You just go to http://docs.google.com and have some basic possibilities of creating and editing Text Documents, Spreadsheets and so on. And as you can see you can then Email it as an attachment in a wide variety of file-formats. Since Chrome OS is only targeted towards Netbooks and those don't feature high resolution screens or highly capable hardware one can argue that this is already more than enough for the average netbook-user.

 With the help of another colleague and trying out random combinations on the  keyboard (banging my head against it for example) I found out how to get to the terminal. You just have to press Ctrl+Alt+T. The Concept of multiple Sessions like normal Linux Distributions have has been dropped. The Terminal goes full-screen and as you can see the "uname" command tells you absolutely nothing about this OS that you shouldn't already know as soon as you're enough of a freak to even bother searching for the Terminal. Other than that it's interesting that the "man" command suggested at the top isn't even available. And I was kind enough to give you a directory listing of the root directory just so this screenshot wouldn't use too little space.

Conclusion:

So while this is a nice Gadget to have it provides the user with absolutely no capabilities beyond what Web 2.0 (as we call it) has to offer. Some might say this is sufficient. I say it's not. Right now it isn't possible to change the Screen Resolution of Chrome OS over the menu and I didn't find any config-files i could edit to change it manually. Now that I "know" that Chrome OS is based on Ubuntu using Gnome (at least that's what I hear) I could try to find the config-file once more. But I'm just not that much of a geek. I feel I have enough of an idea right now of what Chrome OS is going to be as soon as it's finished. In the end it's just another tool for Google to grab its users by the chest and make them be part of their huge scheme of collecting information no matter if it's useful or not. So I think it would be cool to log into the OS without a Google Account. Other than that I have no requests towards the final product, probably because I won't be using it natively anyways.

What sucks Golf Balls through a Garden Hose?

There’s a few things boggling my mind from time to time. For one I am a regular visitor of both thedailyshow.com and colbertnation.com to watch their latest and greatest episodes which have been broadcasted on Comedy Central the day before. As a European Citizen I am not fortunate enough to be able to watch these shows live. On the other hand I read quite a lot of blogs regularly that attract my interest and among those are a few Apple/Mac related ones that show me what I should think about the company that assembled my beloved MacBook.

The 2 topics I want to go into in this post both apply to its title at least to some degree in my eyes. As someone who comes from a country where health care for everybody isn’t just a good idea but an applied concept I cannot possibly wrap my head around the issues this great nation called the United States of America is facing right now just to get a vague idea of what the future of 50 Million (!) Americans without Health Care is going to look like, let alone figuring out a real concept. And as someone who studies the matter this thing called iPhone wants to be a part of I want to provide my personal opinion on what has been happening around this product both since its release and recently.

Health Care:

I do have to say that my knowledge about the subject is solely based on many many Daily Show Episodes and a short documentary I’ve stumbled over on TV lately. I understand however that as much as this Comedy Central footage is supposed to be satire and entertainment it never fails to catch the essential and almost always disturbing truth behind its topics.

In the documentary I mentioned there was a woman who needed a liver transplant because of cancer but she just couldn’t afford one plus she was a single mother of three. Very touching story if someone from an equally structured society were to watch that. For me it was just enraging. Another person in this documentary was some cowboy-ish millionaire who was both a supporter of the Republican party and the US Health Care System, stating that it did not have any flaws at all and that it was necessary for at least some doctors to say “Hell yea, I want to get paid less than I’m worth just so I can help the poor free of charge by limiting my quality of service to the absolute minimum”. Of course he did not say that but I just did. Lots of people who struggle with health problems don’t have any option but to stand in line for free low-quality medical care in this country and to think that this can live up to any standard a rich nation like this one should provide their people is just bollocks.

The 2 “Points of Interest” I spin my thoughts around here are the Health Insurance Companies and the US Military Expenses.

If you want to get health insurance in the US it’s not much different from getting insurance for your car. You have to be perfectly healthy because the insurance has every right to turn you down if they think you won’t make them enough profit, meaning if you look like you could get sick anytime soon you won’t be insured. And if you get sick and they see any bit of proof that you could’ve been developing this medical condition before you got the insurance it’ll be called a “preexisting condition” and they won’t pay for you. Of course this doesn’t end your insurance. You’re still allowed to pay them money for not doing anything if you want to.

What I’m pretty sure had never been mentioned on any TV Station in all of the US though is how the Government’s Military Expenses could be redistributed so much better in this case. If you’re in the US you don’t talk shit about the wars they are fighting somewhere else. Just like you’re better off staying at home if you’re in Iran right now. I don’t remember the figures but those wars cost the US quite a bit of money every single day and to finish my rant about this topic I have to ask, is whining about how they have such huge money problems both concerning economy and health care an acceptable concept for the American people while they are fighting expensive questionable wars elsewhere?

iPhone:

As someone who specializes on Mobile Computing I have more than one reason to be against a purchase of this product. When the iPhone came it I have to admit I was all hyped up as well. I even pre-ordered the first generation iPod Touch when it got announced. I never regret that purchase but for a mobile phone there’s just too many flaws in its business plan.

The iPhone is the manifestation of what makes Apple’s fondness of Digital Rights Management (DRM) both work well and annoying at the same time. With products like the Palm Pre and various Android Devices coming out it raises the question whether it really is better to tell your users distinctively both what they are allowed and what they are not allowed to do. Apple sure does that and it sets boundaries that are often uncertain as to whether something you want to do can be done or not. For example a Software Developer who wants to get his piece of the App Store Cake can write a good piece of code hoping for an income from it but he will never know whether his App will make it into the App Store unless he spends the time on bringing out a working version of it and hope for the best as he submits it to Apple. If they turn it down, he might have wasted his time.

The most popular recent denial of an App was of course the official Google Talk iPhone App which was refused like many others because it provides functionality already inside the iPhone. And although these rejections are most probably rather thanks to Apples Partnership with AT&T than Apple itself it still does not make a bit of sense to me. Apple is a newbie in this market and they won’t have the courage of admitting that. The first generation iPhone was a technologic disaster by any measure and they used lame excuses like “battery life issues” for not using the 3G standard and going for the slower EDGE. They have quite a few guidelines for developers who want to write software for the App Store just because their phone is too slow to work smoothly with software that doesn’t follow these guidelines.

The iPhone OS which I get the chance of using through my iPod Touch has become a lot better since version 1.0 but it’s not necessarily better than any other mobile OS out there now. It finally got MMS capability, video capturing and the much needed Copy-Paste feature nearly any other Smartphone has.

What upsets me so much is that Apple can do all this seemingly without losing a single buck of stock market worth in the process. They can bring out a crappy phone to begin with but wrap it nicely and any fanboy will stand in line to buy it. They can upgrade it to a less crappy phone which implies admitting that the first one was crap and still more people will buy it. No matter how big they fail under the surface, what defines their success is how they present it on the surface and this is where I would like to advise people to take a look at things from a different angle before buying such a piece of hardware and literally trading it in for their soul and some cash.

There’s so many products out there that are both cheaper to buy and get you a better overall experience. Nokia would be my biggest recommendation for anybody seeking a phone right now. Falling for the advantages of the App Store is easy but the pressure under which others have to live because of those advantages is not worth it in my eyes. Apple needs to see that their current plan for a presence in the cellular market is not what people want. Or at least not what they should want.

Apple User Accounts, iPhone Development

So for my day off after yesterday’s “C# for Windows Mobile” exam I decided to join some colleagues of a higher semester as they start a brand-new course - which has its premiere here at University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg right now and maybe among all Univeristies of Austria - concerning iPhone Development.

When I entered the laboratory in which the entire course will be held, I encountered some new hardware which was acquired by the University some time in February already and obviously has found its primary use now. During the lecture I realised that all the students who are signed for the course could log in to the Mac Minis with their Active Directory Accounts the University provides them. As we all either know or can find out from the Link, Active Directory is a service by Microsoft that enables you to store user accounts including their files on a Windows Server so the respective users can log in from any computer and use them alike.

Prior to my research on the internet I did not know that Active Directory and Open Directory (from Apple) can interact with eachother at all. I was scared that some Administrator actually created those accounts one by one including their passwords, which would mean that I am not the only one who has legal access to my password (assuming that the Administrators of a System I use can do whatever they want with my data). My Research however showed at least some calming results. Active and Open Directory can be used in combination but there have to be both a Windows Server and a Mac OS X Server running on the network. It does seem to be very complicated to accomplish the wanted results though. What I also know is that others at University have already used Macintosh Computers for video cutting or other creativity related things, so it only seems logical that they have been using the possibility to log into their accounts from both Operating Systems all along.

When I tried it out myself the login went smoothly as you’d expect it. I still hope that no one has access to my password in plain-text but in the end I also know that I can be the only one held responsible for my own security, so how far I want to go with my paranoia defines how vulnerable my digital personality is.

And of course the conclusion of all this is that everyone who uses Computers without exception has to be aware of this.

have a nice weekend

HP iPAQ Review – Part 3: Data Messenger

The Data Messenger from HP is their newest flag-ship in Pocket PC Technology. At the moment you can only buy it from their website for none less than 599€ or 440 British Pounds (including VAT) and I myself am pretty sure that this amount of money is not worth it yet to own this device. As with most other devices the price will most certainly be lower with retailers and of course with carrier plans as soon as they’re introduced.

Why I wouldn’t pay 599 for this device:

Although it has a very nice optical appearance, just like its little brother, it is just another Windows Mobile device with its own little extras. Nothing really blew me away about the device. In Part 1 of  my review I promised to go into detail about the buttons and connectors on the side. On the left hand side you have (from top to bottom) a Lock-Button (which is just as complicated to operate with this device), 2 Volume Buttons and a Voice Dial/Command Button. On the right hand side you have (from top to bottom) the micro-USB connector, the 2.5mm audio out (read previous post for details) and the Snapshot-Button for taking photographs which worked better with this device. On Top of course you again have the Mute-Switch which was the first positive factor I recognized about both devices. And that’s about it.

Furthermore the Screen has a very static and stale feel to it, especially when you operate it with the stylus. I’m used to having a Touch-Screen sink in when operating it with a stylus. It assures me that I just made a click.

The full QWERT-Keyboard seems quite OK concerning the layout. I didn’t work too much with it since I assumed it would work just like you’d expect it to.

Conclusion:

So I assume that the previous iPAQ device of this category didn’t lack any major feature of this one and I would just consider it a minor update to it. As soon as I see it for a reasonable price I might know some people I could suggest it to but not yet.

HP iPAQ Review – Part 2: Voice Messenger

When I first saw the device I was pretty surprised by its slick design and the overall appearance. It’s got everything you’d expect from a Smartphone with Windows Mobile on it but because I don’t know too many details about past iPAQ devices it was very easy for me to point out a few flaws about this device. Things hardcore-iPAQ users might not be surprised by.

• The Lock-System, in my eyes, is impossible to understand for someone who’s new to this. I locked the device with the Lock-Button (see picture 2) and it always took me forever to unlock it again because what the screen told me to do wasn’t understandable.
• The Button for taking photographs was almost non-pressable. It did not move a bit. But I guess this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be shipped.
• Finding out that the 2 “Buttons” next to the iPAQ Logo (see right) are in fact buttons might be hard to find out for some. Because they are Touch-Sensitive and do not move at all.
• Turning the old numeric-keyboard system upside down by having just a few more buttons and arrange the letters on them in a QUERT-Layout might be a risky idea by HP because although you have 2 letters on most buttons it does not make a difference if you push the left or right half of a button.
• Just like the Data Messenger this device has a micro-USB connector for both data-synchronization and recharging, and it has a 2.5mm rather than a 3.5mm audio-out which I see as much market for as the audio-connector of the first iPhone which required a converter for connecting regular headphones. micro-USB might be a standard of the future which might seem annoying for now but 2.5mm audio has been around for ages and it just never caught on. Why should it do so now?

Conclusion:

Of course all I’ve been talking about now were negative factors of this mobile device. It sure has its upsides as well. If someone asked me whether to buy this device I would ask them what they were looking for. If you want to listen to music on your mobile phone this sure isn’t the way to go. If you want your mobile phone to have a wide variety of installable programs and if you want it to look good this will surely do the job. Since I don’t know any specific facts about the pricing I can’t tell you how good your wallet might feel in the process of buying it.

The reason why I decided to concentrate on the negative aspects I experienced within 15 minutes of basic usage of the phone is because I think this is what others can get the most profit out of. If someone buys a device without knowing what he will be confronted with immediately after, they might turn out non-satisfied buyers.

For a Review of its big brother, the Data Messenger, stay tuned till tomorrow. I think I might go a little bit into more detail with this one since it’s a more complex device.

HP iPAQ Review – Part 1: Introduction & Similarities

So I want to kick off my review with a short introduction to the devices and what they have in common. No personal opinion in this post.

The Voice Messenger (on the left in my last post) is a Smartphone in the shape of an ordinary mobile phone, so it is compact, yet with Windows Mobile it has a quite sophisticated Operating System on top of it for a rather small device.

The Data Messenger is a full-featured Pocket PC with a QUERT-Keyboard for landscape-operation and a touch-screen which can either be used with your finger or the included Stylus.

The things they have in common at first and second sight would be the following:

• Both have the exact same Status-LED to the upper left of their screens.
• The navigation is handled by a circular Hard-Button with a tiny Trackball in the middle.
• The Buttons and connectors on the sides are the same. Read my next posts for details.
• On top they have a Mute-Switch.
• They both have a 3.1 Megapixel autofocus camera with LED-flash.
• Furthermore you can of course see that they both have the same optical appearance concerning their enclosure and design.

Stay tuned some more for detailed Reviews of each device and a personal opinion. Hope I didn’t miss any similarities.

Preview: HP iPAQ Voice & Data Messenger

Just a little taste of the 2 new (and I think yet unreleased) HP iPAQ Devices I’m going to review for you either today or tomorrow.

So stay tuned…

My first Windows Mobile Project

So i just finished writing my first very basic Application for the Windows Mobile Platform.

It's basically a Calculator which supports the 4 Standard Operations and has a few additional features:

1. You have a history of your previous calculations included. (Screenshot 2)

2. You can choose any of your previous calculations and press the button "Ans" in order to include the result of that calculation in your next one. (Screenshot 2)

3. When you start typing into one of the Boxes or change the Operation type (Screenshot 1) the Application waits a certain amount of time before using your inputs for a new calculation. So you always have enough time to enter your desired values before the calculation fires.

4. And although not a feature I still included a Screenshot (3) of the "About" page with a working link to my Homepage which starts the Internet Explorer bundled with Windows Mobile.

Now I'm only looking forward to the Implementation-Phase of my own Project for this Semester which I will tell you about sometime in the future.