Jason Wood software, music, graphics, television

I got caught out by a bug in android recently that I want to share. This bug is very specific to people in the UK and won't affect everybody, as I will describe below.

Google mail came out yonks ago, and when it did, everyone in the world happily went about using xxxxx@gmail.com - except in england. Due to various legal wranglings, google was not allowed to use gmail.com over here, and so instead used xxxxxxxx@googlemail.com

(As it happens, early adopters did have a gmail.com address, which got silently translated into a googlemail account instead.)

HTC Desire

Having eked out my xperia X1 for a couple of more months through custom ROM upgrades and the like, I threw it out and got a HTC Desire

What a fine phone! Three days in and I am still drooling and talking incessantly about it on any poor souls who get stuck with me. (Sorry guys!) I thoroughly recommend it to anybody who is looking for a new smart phone,doesn't want to go the apple route, and wants a better phone than the iphone.

Yes, that's right - better. That's a big statement that you should pull me up on, so here is a bullet-point list of why the desire is better.

First, a quick summary of why it's as good as an iphone :

• Very quick and smooth operation, the phone never skips a beat even when skimming between three or four apps in quick succession.
• Simple to use, everything Just Works. The HTC Sense interface over the top of android is a killer combination.
• Web browser is webkit based - the same as the iphone, and works very well, dealing with complex sites such as the full facebook site.
• Proper headphone jack.
• Thousands of free apps available via the andriod market.
• Supports Multi-touch

Now for the reasons why the desire is better than the iphone.

• Plug it into your computer and use it as a USB stick. Still don't understand why the iphone doesn't allow this.
• Better camera - 5 mega pixel with an auto-correcting flash (so no over-exposed pictures), and face detection for easier focussing.
• Full facebook/twitter/flicker intigration. (Iphone OS 4.0 poportedly has facebook integration see http://bit.ly/at27sZ)
• You can download an updated google maps from the android market that provides full, free car navigation. And having used it last night, I can say that it is mighty fine! Sorry iphone guys, seems like you don't get this - http://bit.ly/dzI9FQ
• Installing new music is a breeze, just copy songs to the phone- no ITunes synchronisation hell!
• Larger, better screen, (but not so big it doesn't fit in your pocket)
• Flash support. Yes, that means you can browse my website with it and listen to music and watch the videos! Currently Flash lite support, it wil get a Flash 10.1 update when it becomes available.

So all good so far, any bad points?

Well, one. The battery life is quite poor. Expect to be charging the desire daily if you are a moderate to heavy user of it's functionality, maybe twice daily if you spend all your time glued to it's screen. Which I can tell you, in the first week of owning it, is very likely!

Jason Wood after a tOG Sports demonstration for RT Software at IBC 2009, at the RAI in Amsterdam

A bunch of links that I find useful or interesting.

Past Projects

Kdenlive, KDE Non Linear Video Editor

Feature Tracking

http://svr-www.eng.cam.ac.uk/~er258/work/papers.html

If you, like me, find it hard to concentrate in a noisy environment, you may want to consider looking into a random noise generator to help.

Put simply, the human ear is very good at picking up patterns in sound, and focusing your attention on them. That was a good evolutionary thing when it was, say, a tiger creeping up behind to eat you, but not so good when it's an old couple on the bus gossiping about their grand children.

If you listen to a noise source, the noise will break up the patterns, so that you don't get disturbed. You don't need a particularly loud noise source to do this. And because the noise is patternless, your brain will quickly tune it out, leaving you in (and this is the unintuitive bit) peace and quiet.

Random noise = peace and quiet

There are several types of noise, some harsher sounding than others. Without going into the details, pink noise is the best to start with for masking out sounds.

I recommend that you check out a site I have come across called SimplyNoise.com.

On here, you can choose between various noise sources without having to download anything.

Try it, I think you'll be surprised at how well it works.

I have been using www.meebo.com, a web-based instant messenging client recently, and thought I would share it with anybody who has yet to discover it.

You get a complete instant messenger client in your browser, which supports all of the big providers (msn, aim, yahoo, google talk) There is no need to install any software, and it works like any other web page, so there's a chance it's not blocked on your work machine.

It is wonderful if, like me, you often find yourself working on different machines. Pop open your browser, and stay in touch!

Well well well, this week has been busy. Since your here, you can see my handy work, the website is still a work in progress and I have not finished styling the site fully, but I will sort these things out over then next week or so.

I would like to put a big thankyou out to the guys who made Drupal, which forms the basis of this site. It has been very transparent and easy to use as far as getting the site off the ground!