Zomg teh Blargs! - geek

Google analytics is fun

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:03:19 -0500

Apparently I'm getting a few hits a month from people googling for UHF antenna instructions. Maybe I should edit that post or make a new one with more actual instructions.

Ehw. Two of them came from AOL search.

G1 software I use so far:

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:45:43 -0500

Here's a list of the Android apps I've played with in the first two weeks of having my G1 (and what I think of them):

OI Shopping List: It's decent, but I preferred the J2ME 'SmartShopper' on my Motorola phones. Once you check something off this list and hit 'clean up list' it disappears forever. In SmartShopper you could switch between a setup view (selecting which things would be on the shopping list, adding new things, etc) and the actual shopping list. When you checked things off the shopping list they disappeared off that screen but stayed in the main list.

OI Convert CSV: Makes the above shopping list tolerable because I can import a previously saved list instead of having to type everything in each time.

OI File Manager: Prereq of OI Convert CSV, but it makes poking around the FS kinda fun. Nothing too fancy.

Twilight: a combination Sun/World clock that tells you sunrise/set times locally (as determined by GPS; no memory of last location, which kinda sucks) and for other cities/airport codes around the world. Sunrise locally is kinda important so I know when to put up the flag, and times in other places is handy cause I'm calling European and Aisian places for work every so often.

Terminal Emulator: Does what it says on the tin. Note that the restrictions inside Android itself make it nearly useless, but having ping is handy every once and a while.

ToggleWiFi: yes, this is an app that lets you turn wifi on and off. Having it on (one of) the home screen(s) is better than digging through 3 menu options to do the same.

Toggle GPS: same as above but for GPS.

Power Manager: one of the necessities according to lots of people out there, it works pretty well

Rings Extended: also one of the necessities (according to others) but I'm not sure I get it. I have yet to see what it does that I couldn't do with the native ringtone manager.

Bubble: a level based on the accelerometer data. I haven't needed it yet but it's fun to play with.

ConnectBot: very very handy SSH client (see other post below about controling my home computer with my cell phone) that I can't say enough good about. It works. It works very well. My only annoyance with it right now is that while it supports multiple concurrent connections to different hosts, you can't have two to one host (where 'host' is one of the saved profiles). I may be able to had two profiles that do the same thing and get around that but I haven't tried yet.

Orienteer: A fairly simple compass, but it's already come in handy tweaking the direction of my UHF antenna. It also has a second screen to show the raw GPS data (if GPS is on).

Sky Map: This is an awesome program. While I haven't posted my astronomygeekyness on here yet, let's just say I have a lot of time at night to look at the stars. This app combines data from the clock, GPS, accelerometer and compass such that when you hold the phone up to the sky it shows you a sky map of what you're looking at. It's unbelievable how well it works considering how new the G1 is. I can stand outside at work, look up, go "what's that star" and hold up my phone and find out. I'm not sure if there's something similar for the 'other' phones/PDAs/things out there, but if you're a star geek this is a major selling point for the G1.

Flashlight: Probably the most simple and useful app, it turns up the brightness, turns off the auto-dim/auto-sleep, and displays a white screen. I've oft used my RAZR screen as an impromptu flashlight before but my wallpaper isn't that bright. This is another case of "why didn't I think of that" that I use probably 2 or 3 times a week (with blacked out windows in the bedroom I need it more than I thought I did).

Hmm, I thought there was a list of the other apps I'd downloaded (but uninstalled) but I can't find it. The ones I remember are a few games, a brain-age type thing, and a j2me emulator that I couldn't get the jar/jad from my SmartShopper into (browser balked at downloading it cause it's unsupported and there's no option to install from the SD card). Oh well.

and now, an entry from my g1

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:34:58 -0500

I'm blogging from my phone.

Is this a great country or what?

-- ETA: I need to work on the css to make the colors a tad higher contrast for this screen.

I edited the crontab on my home pc from my G1 last night

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:51:43 -0500

Connectbot + EDGE + G1 + 3 computers running sshd.

Getting the hosts.allow on my home router to recognize the phone was a PITA, so I just set it to allow another computer I have access to. So I ssh into that computer (type that password), ConnectBot automatically runs the command to ssh to my home routerbox (type that password), then I ssh into my home desktop (type that password), and su (type that password).

But the keyboard's useable enough. Connectbot remaps the right 'alt' key to / (otherwise it'd be alt+.) and the right shift to [tab] (otherwise it'd be alt+q). Both ConnectBot and the Terminal for the phone use trackballpress as ctrl, which works well. So, 4 passwords, crontab -e, the editing, and trackball+x,y,enter and I've edited my crontab from work without touching a company computer.

Yay.

UHF antenna finished!

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:52:20 -0400

(for now)

Over 4 feet tall, with a 44" wide reflector, 11" long elements and a pair of 33" feedlines.

And duct tape. Lots of duct tape (mostly on the back of the reflector which is all cardboard and tape and foil.

I get all 4 channels I care about very well (would be absolutely awesome if it were outside, but the cardboard would fail and the apartment people would probably bitch about it).

More pix:
Continue reading "UHF antenna finished!"

How to build a UHF antenna...

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Sun, 7 Sep 2008 07:37:55 -0400

How to build a UHF antenna... - AVS Forum

I've spent the last 4 hours reading the first half of that thread (and making a cardboard/al foil reflector for the back of mine).

The 4 stations I really want are 16, 17, 31 and 35, meaning that a 9-11" dipole would be ideal.

My coat hangers are 33" when cut and straightened. This gives 8.25" whiskers if I just cut them in half. This is longer than the ~7" (or shorter) the current proof-of-concept cardboard/duct tape version is.

I now know a few more things about RF than I did before. The spacing between each whisker is important, as is the spacing between the whiskers and the reflector. For 8.25" dipoles, the bases should be 8.25" apart and the reflector should be half that, i.e. 4.125". I may cut everything to 8" even just to make the measuring easier.

I don't think I have any wood around and I know I don't have any washes (I think I have some screws). I may be head to Home Depot. If I do, I may have to pick up some other things while there. >:)

Then again, I really should be working on my Ethics homework.

It's the simple things

nospam@example.com (Evan) — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 08:44:16 -0400

I don't know why I'm so geeked about my new keyboard. It's Copyright 1984 (though this one was made in 1995, making it old enough to be online without parental supervision). It's used but not abused (actually quite clean), though it came from some equipment that probably hasn't been touched in this decade.

Oh, I know why I'm so geeked.

It's an IBM Model M.

CLICKY!!!!!111111

I explained it to a coworker as being like driving a manual transmission. You feel like you're really doing something to help the process along.

I dunno.

Maybe I'm just weird that way.