This is why I love Android
My current home screen. Launcher Pro Plus, Tajm, BattStatt, custom dock background, wallpaper from Mabilo Wallpapers, and this icon set.
I'm a web developer, tech addict, and all-round nice guy from Stellenbosch, South Africa.
I happened upon one of my dad's old photographic gizmos (an Autoknips V, if you were wondering, which I brought back with me, because it's shiny and mechanical) - which lead me to Google for it, which made me look over at the Mamiya C220 he gave to me. And then I remembered these photos. The camera has a roll of 220 in it right now, and another waiting. I should probably start using it again. The photos it produces are quite unique (especially, as you'll note with most of the attached pictures, you don't have a light meter on hand - and you have to guess the correct exposure settings).
I absolutely love it. It's lightweight, pretty (just look at that widget!), has a clean and intuitive UI, and a rich featureset - which can be expanded with plug-ins. Best of all, it's free.
There are one or two niggles, but it's mostly language-related, and it's understandable, as the dev's native tongue isn't English.
I'm not too sure I'll go back to Twidroid any time soon.
So far I'm very happy with my new toy, a Garmin Oregon 450. It is way more precise than my phone, and the battery lasts ages. It also has a few neat tricks up its sleeve. Apart from the BirdsEye imagery (which is little more than a novelty, seeing as most of the imagery outside the US is obstructed by cloud cover), you can upload Custom Map to the unit. It's easy enough to create and export these maps with Google Earth, and could be super-helpful if you're going hiking somewhere you've never been before.
As I create these, I'll post them right here on my blog for public consumption. You can also head over to my WikiLoc for trails, because I'll upload one after every hike.
Download my first custom map, for Jonkershoek Nature Reserve near Stellenbosch, South Africa right here (you can also view it in Google Earth, as it's simply a KMZ file).
So, the Soccer World Cup is in full swing, and if you're visiting from abroad you may have trouble finding your way around. The folks over at ALK Technologies were nice enough to provide me with a copy of Copilot Live 8, with the South African maps, for the Android platform, to review. So if you haven't landed in good old Zud Afrika yet, you may seriously want to consider giving Copilot Live a go, because, as cool as Google Streetview is, we haven't been graced with Google Navigation over here just quite yet.
Minnaar has scooped me over at his blog (after Copilot Live got us to the Net Prophet conference safe and sound, his interest was probably piqued), so be sure to get over there and give his very thorough review a read.
I'm not going to run through all the features as Minnaar did (you can also find the list of features here - and there is a veritable smörgåsbord of features, to rival even the most complicated dedicated GPSrs out there). I've used the software on an off for the past month, so I'll give you a quick rundown on real world use, and the experience specific to the Android platform.
Now, you may recoil when you first look at the price, but keep in mind that it's a damn sight cheaper than a dedicated GPSr. There's also the added benefit of not having to carry around yet another gadget (which can be lost or stolen).
I'm not sure whether the application runs native code, but one of the first things I noticed is that the interface can be a bit sluggish. Not unusable, though. The good news is that there's a noticeable increase in responsiveness when jumping to Android 2.1 from 1.5. I can also say that I've recently used one of the newer dedicated automotive GPSrs on the market, and the interface responsiveness of Copilot Live is pretty much on par.
The South African mapset's coverage is very complete. Apart from myriad points of interest - you'll find anything you can think of, bar a shebeen or two ;) - even most of the backroads are present and named. Even our little gated community is fully mapped. Copilot even managed to guide me to a lesser-known wine farm, or three, without any problems. Routing is good, and recalculation is lightning-quick. The interface is relatively intuitive, but could use a little bit of work (I still haven't figured out, for example, how to stop navigation once I reach my destination). On the whole, however, I'd wholly recommend buying a copy of CoPilot Live (with whatever mapset you may need), before you even think of buying a dedicated automotive GPSr.
You can ask anyone in the Android world, and they would say that Copilot Live beats any other navigation software out there, hands down (even Google Navigation). Apart from the very complete mapsets and massive POI database, there's the added benefit of having offline maps. Multitasking works as well as expected, and receiving a call doesn't mean that you'll have to start navigation all over again. Loading times and in-app response times are quick (most of the time, quicker than any dedicated GPSr I've worked with). Battery drain isn't worse than with any other application that uses the GPS (and you can also keep it powered up via a car charger). So yes, my experiences are consistent with the rest of the Android community. No other Android application (at the moment, anyway), comes close to the navigation experience that Copilot Live gives you.
So, my conclusion? If you have an Android phone and you're looking for a thorough, complete navigational experience...spend the money on something like Copilot Live and a mount for your phone, before you spend it on a dedicated GPSr.
Read more: http://www.alk.eu.com/copilot/android/
I'm not too sure that everybody realizes that the implications of the changes we've been seeing in South African Internet during the last two weeks or so are a lot bigger, and much more far-reaching, than they seem to be on the surface.
Those that do realize it, are either extremely excited (as they should be), or feel very threatened right now. Let me try to explain what I mean, and why I'm saying this. I may digress a few times, but bear with me.
The two changes I'm going to address are obvious. Realistically affordable, uncapped broadband access, and the FNB/PayPal deal.
Up to this stage, bandwidth has been a precious commodity that had to be measured like a Weigh-Less member measures their food. While this wasn't a good thing for your average consumer, what it meant was that an isolated web that only stretched as far as the borders of South Africa slowly, but surely, emerged. A few people saw this, and jumped on the opportunity. So today we have a few localized clones of global web services, that have either been wildly successful, or a complete flop. This, in turn, has led to a closely-knit community of South African tech specialists. Depending on who you ask, this can be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing (but I won't voice my opinion on that here).
The lack of an easy way for small business to receive money online (if you've tried, you'd know about the whole merchant account gauntlet that had to be run) only aggravated this isolated South African web. To put it simply, it took a lot of money to get an SA based website that receives money up and running, and then the rules and regulations made it so difficult to receive money from outside of South Africa that no one really bothered.
The long and the short of it is, that up to now, unless your web-based business was so successful that you could pack it in and move abroad, you were pretty much restricted to operating within South African borders.
Now, in my humble opinion, this isn't a good thing. The internet is a global network, but we've been forced into using it as if it's a local network.
Now here's the kicker: I foresee that this is going to change, rapidly, starting right now.
Uncapped broadband means we can start using the internet as it was always intended to be used. Paradigms will shift, mindsets will change. If there's no difference to the consumer, why would they use a local, smaller, alternative over a huge, established service (let me just mention that many of the successful local services are catering for the long tail - and those that do, are doing things right, and will probably keep on being successful). Why would people that build these services now cater for a local-only audience, when suddenly it makes no difference where in the world they're hosted. Now that anyone (with an FNB account, but I'll get to that) can receive money from anywhere, why would they target a smaller audience, if they can target the whole world? Do you see where I'm going with this? Finally, the end of our isolation is in sight. South Africa is now as connected to the rest of the world as it's never been before.
If you're aren't excited, you should be. Whether you're a consumer or a producer of internet-based services, things are going to be different from now on. If you're feeling threatened, rightly so. It's adapt or die time. if you're part of the closely-knit community, now is the time to shift your focus and realize that South Africa can start making an impact on the web, internationally! Now is the time for all our talent to start shining.
Now, there will be naysayers out there. Those that say that uncapped broadband is still too expensive. Well, it's a damn sight cheaper than it was a few weeks ago, and with all the planned cables landing over the next few years, it will only get cheaper. People whining about FNB's implementation of PayPal...here, have some cheese. It doesn't matter that you have to do things from the FNB side, or that they take 1.5% your precious money. The fact of the matter is that they've overcome some major hurdles, so who the hell cares if there are one or two small niggles? You can receive money from anywhere in the world, and within seconds, have it in your South African bank account. Could you do that before yesterday? Thought not.
Yes, there are still a few problems that need to be overcome, but the changes we've seen in the last few weeks bode well for what lies in the future.
I, for one, welcome these changes, and the ripple it has set off, and I look forward to seeing what happens in the next few years.
If you've been following the right people on Twitter, you'd know by know that a (mostly) fully working leak of Android 2.1 for the Droid Eris (with HTC's SenseUI) has been leaked. Seeing as they're basically the same phone, it's already been ported to the Hero.
I've installed Benocharm's BeHero for now, and so far I'm quite impressed. The speed is amazing. Everything that I care about works (there are issues with MMS, but it should be fixed soon, and the SuperUser app - that's already been fixed). If this ROM is any indication of what HTC's final product will be like, there's much to be excited about (especially once Paul from Modaco gets his hands on it).
For now, if you'd like to play around, the two big release can be found here, and here.
I'd recommend you do a full wipe. If you were running MCR, it would probably be best to wipe the ext partition as well.
Update: The Superuser app now works as it should, and MMS settings can be applied with a seperate app called MMSZap. My GPS not working has also been fixed. Right now, BeHero is, in my opinion, as close as you'll get to a fully functioning, production-ready 2.1 SenseUI ROM for the HTC Hero. In short: everything, and I do mean everything, works!
So, you might have come here expecting something else entirely. You may have expected to find an enormous, comprehensive web space for me. The truth is, life changes and priorities shift.
Here are the steps I'm planning take (or have taken) concerning my online presence:
There are a couple of reasons I'm doing all this. Most of all being that I don't want to waste time on maintaining two or three servers and the software on it. It's distracting and I've got better things to spend my time on. Time is actually what it all boils down to. My priorities, as mentioned, have radically changed. During the day I'd like to focus on my job one-hundred-and-ten-percent, especially now. After hours I'd like to spend with my girlfriend, outdoors, or working on a new side-project. I'll also be saving a little bit of money, as soon as I get to stop one or two hosting accounts.
So yeah, this will be my space where I'll be verbose and talk about things from now on. Sometime in the future, compl33t.com may be restored to its former glory (I am a web-developer by trade, after all), but for now it's in my best interests to have all my stuff on hosted solutions.
To the future! Pröst! ;)
