A Couple of Major Upgrades for Me

I haven't posted much on this blog recently but I've had a couple of significant (to me, anyway) upgrades.

First, I finally decided to replace my 1997 Ford Expedition, which I had since 2003. The brake problems back on April 4th were the final straw. This was the second big repair bill I had on the Ford since the Fall and with a 14 year old truck, I just saw more big bills coming. Even though it was in generally good shape car parts in general start failing due to age, and I figured it was only a matter of time before I got stuck somewhere.

So, I did some looking around online and on April 23, I bought a 2007 Nissan Xterra with about 29,000 miles on it from Peruzzi Nissan in Fairless Hills, PA.  I got what I think is a decent deal. I negotiated the price down to a bit over $18K, got $3K for the Ford in trade, put another $2K down, and I'm financing the rest. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have a car payment again but I should now have a reliable vehicle that gets better gas mileage than the Expedition.  My new ride:

I've wanted an Xterra since they first came out about ten years ago.  So far, I'm loving it.

The other upgrade was to my cell phone. I'd been using one of the original Motorola Droids since Black Friday 2009. For most of the time I owned it I was happy with it but the past couple of months it felt like it was degrading.  I.e., slowing down and crashing a lot more than previously.  After rooting it, I tried a couple ROMs (Bugless Beast and Cyanogenmod).  Cyanogenmod was generally good at first but after a short while, the phone started misbehaving again.  I considered another Android phone like a Droid X or an HTC Thunderbolt as a replacement, but last Friday I went to the Apple store on Walnut St. in Philadelphia on my lunch break to look at the iPhones.  I checked out an iPhone 4 on Verizon, liked what I saw, and decided to give the Apple phone a try.  I got the 16 GB VZW model, a bumper to go around the phone, and a car charger.

I've only had it a couple of days but compared with the Droid it's much faster, the UI seems smoother, and overall feels more polished.  I still don't like that you need tools to get at the battery or that storage is non-expandable.  OTH, I never filled the 16 GB microSD card in my Droid.  As for the battery, I'll pick up an emergency cell phone charger.

A couple specific items on the iPhone which are better than the Droid are the maps application and the camera, both of which load much more quickly. The iPhone camera takes better pictures, too.

Call quality seems equivalent to the Droid.  I use only a fraction of my 450 minutes each month but use the heck out of the data features, especially email.  I'll be able to get ActiveSync enabled on my Exchange account at work and then iOS's native Exchange support will allow me to get my mail and calendar, without installing any extra software.  A few coworkers use iPhones for their work email and calendar and reported they works well.

OTH, the Android OS's support for widgets is a point in its favor, as is the better customizability when it comes to notifications. For example, the Android phones make no differentiation between ringtones and test message notification tones.  On the iPhones, ringtones are different from text message notification sounds.  So, while I was able to make some customer ringtones in iTunes and copy them to the phone, I couldn't use one for text messages; I'm stuck with the sounds Apple loaded. LAME.

If you use a Mac the integration between the computer and phone is impressive. For example, when I did my initial setup iTunes read the configuration of the email accounts I had setup in Mail.app and transferred them to the phone. Likewise, you can sync Safari bookmarks on your computer and the iPhone.  (I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with Safari on the Mac. I will say that Safari on the iPhone is quite a bit better than the stock Android browser.)

I still have a great deal to learn about the iPhone and will try to post about new things I discover.

Easytether

I’m spending today and tomorrow at the PBI Intellectual Property Institute.  The course materials were distributed as PDFs on a thumb 1 GB drive, which is a nice alternative from a pile of the normal yellow paperback books.  I brought Hobbit, my MSI Wind netbook with me but the PDFs PBI created have problems displaying in Foxit Reader.  So, I wanted to tether Hobbit to my Droid and download the Adobe Reader installer.

Unfortunately there’s no WiFi and yet again, PDAnet decided to not work.  Previously it’s been mostly usable under Windows but the Mac port was very flaky.  Today, I couldn’t get online in Windows 7.  I decided to give Easytether a try.  I installed it through the Android Market, then downloaded the desktop client on my Droid and transferred it to Hobbit via USB.

So far, so good. I’ll give it a try for awhile and if it continues to work well I’ll buy it.  For $9.99 if it continues to work it’ll be worth it.

Rooted my Droid

On Sunday I took the jump and rooted my Droid phone.  "Rooting" a smartphone gets you administrative access to the device, which in turn allows you to do some neat things like

• Make a backup image of the ROM's filesystem to the SD card.
• Run applications that allow you to do things not enabled by default, such as turning your phone into a WiFi hotspot.
• Run alternative ROMs.

To root the Droid, I followed the instructions found here.   One of the first things I did after rooting was to install ROM Manager, and make a backup of my existing setup to my SD card.  I then installed the Astro File Manager and had it make a backup of all the apps I had installed.  With that done I went into ROM Manager and used it to download and install the Bugless Beast ROM.  Per the instructions I allowed it to wipe the data cache, which also has the effect of removing all the apps you've installed.  One feature of Bugless Beast that I like is that it will automatically restore your applications from some backup formats, including Astro File Manager's.

I've been running Bugless Beast now for a couple days and so far, so good.  By default it overclocks the Droid's CPU to 800 MHz.  This made the phone feel a bit warm so I set it back to the standard 600 MHz.  At some point I may try CyanogenMod or other ROMs.

Dropbox on Android Phones

A few months ago I mentioned that I started using Dropbox for backing up some of my critical files, and syncronizing them between my MacBook Pro and my MSI Wind netbook.  I recently installed the Dropbox application on my Droid and was impressed with it this morning.

Using my Droid, I took a picture of a screen to record a firmware revision.  I figured that I would then email it to myself.  Instead, when I went into the Droid's picture gallery and selected the "Share" menu, not only was I given the opportunity to send it via email, MMS, Facebook, Twitter or Picasa, but to add it to my Dropbox.  I chose Dropbox and by the time I was back at my desk, the photo was in my Mac's Dropbox folder.  Compared with email or MMS, this eliminates the steps of addressing and sending an email.  And it's certainly more convenient than digging out a USB cable to connect the phone to my computer.

A basic 2 GB account is free but if you refer someone you'll get an extra 250 MB of space, up to 8 GB total.  You can also get a free 250 MB by 5 of the 6 tasks listed in the "Getting Started" tab viewable when you login to your Dropbox account on the web.

{Blantant self promotion.}If you're interested in this sort of product and want to try Dropbox, please click on my referral link, here.  I could use a little more space.{/Blatant self promotion.}

Standalone vs. Cell Phone Based GPS

A family trip this weekend reiterated for me why I do not think that cell phone based GPSes are viable 100% replacements for dedicated GPSes in your car.  At least, not yet.

We went up to Sullivan County, NY visit with some of my family.  The route we take to get there passes through NE PA, including the Delaware Water Gap.  My cousin, who's house we went to, lives in a rural area in which cell phone signal is spotty and often depends on how you orient your phone.

For navigation we had directions but also brought my Garmin Nuvi 200W, and both my wife and I have Android-based smartphones (a Droid and a Droid 2) with GPS integrated with Google Maps.  The Droids use the Verizon 3G data link to download maps on the fly.  In contrast, the Garmin stores maps locally.

We had no or poor cell phone signal, or no 3G for a good part of the drive.  Notably, the times when we had no signal were the times when the GPS was most needed.  I.e., rural back roads with poor signage and no street lighting.  If we had needed to depend on a phone-based GPS we'd have been out of luck.

There are a few applications designed to allow you to download and store maps offline in case you lose your cell phone signal, e.g., Maps (-).   However, this may not help you if you need to significantly deviate from your route, or if you need the GPS in an emergency and the cell network is down.

If your cell phone GPS usage is limited to areas with good cell coverage and don't consider your GPS unit as part of your emergency preps, then you don't need a standalone unit.  As for me, I'll be updating the maps in my Garmin soon.

Mac OS X to Droid Tethering Over USB

I occasionally find it handy to tether my laptop to my Droid for Internet access.  I've used PDANet for this in the past but due to some kind of an update, USB tethering to my Mac broke and I have not been able to fix it.  Blutetooth tethering works but it's slow.

Today I did some googling and ran across these instructions for tethering using free software.   It requires a more involved setup than PDANet but it works and the speed is pretty decent, about 1.5 Mbps down x 0.45 Mbps up.


I noticed that when I terminated the tethering session, before I could reconnect I had to physically disconnect my phone from my laptop and restart the azilink program on my phone.  That's a bit inconvenient but  I'm willing to put up with a little quirkiness when dealing with free software.

Edit 5/23/10:

I'd call this pretty darn acceptable:

Application Integration

Here's a good example of application integration:

This Sunday I'm planning to attend a shooting match at the New Holland Rifle & Pistol Club.  I entered the event in my Google Calendar, including the address.  After I saved the event I reopened it and I saw that Google Calendar had automatically pulled up a map of the location.

A minute or so later I pulled up the event in the Calendar app on my Droid, which is heavily tied-in with my Google account.  With the event open I am able to pull up the map and tap a link to get driving directions.  Additionally, the Droid has a built-in GPS and will be able to give me turn-by-turn directions.

Slick barely begins how cool this is.

PDANet for Android

I think I mentioned PDANet in a prior post.  If not, it's a program that installs on several different kinds of smart phones enabling their use as cellular modems (AKA "tethering").  With my Blackberry I had to pay VZW $15/month for this privilege but with PDANet on my Droid there's no recurring charge.

Today I was notified of an update to PDANet for Android.  It now supports USB tethering on Macs.  Previously, Mac tethering was supported only via Bluetooth, which is slow.  When I tried Bluetooth tethering my download speeds were in the 350 kbps range.  Via USB it's around 2 Mbps, quite an improvement.

I sent the developer an email requesting clarification on licensing.  Depending on which machine I'm using I may need to tether either my MacBook Pro or Hobbit, my MSI Wind Netbook running Windows 7.  I need to know if I need to buy one or two licenses, since a desktop client is required for USB tethering.  I'll post an update when I have an answer.

In the meantime, if you have a smartphone and the need to use it as a cellular modem, PDANet is worth checking out.

Edit 12/22/09:

I received the following reply from June Software regarding my desktop client licensing question:

Hi,

As long as you have PdaNet on only one phone device, you can install it on as many computers as you like.


Thanks,
June Fabrics PDA Software Support
http://www.junefabrics.com

Motorola Droid Phone

Thursday on Thanksgiving my brother came over with his new cell phone, a Motorola Droid on Verizon.  I caught a bad case of geek envy and wound up getting one of my own on Black Friday.

Although I've been happy with my Verizon BlackBerry 8330 I've been interested in something better.  Apple's iPhone was interesting but I have zero desire to switch to AT&T, whose 3G network is not nearly as widespread as Verizon's.  I also don't like the idea of a non-swappable battery.

Aside from a better wireless network, the Android has a slide out QWERTY keyboard which you can use instead of the touchscreen keyboard.  The keys are small but usable, at least for me.  It would be better if the keys weren't flat, i.e., if there was a more pronounced edge or space between adjacent keys.  There's also a square trackpad/scroll thingy on the keyboard for screen navigation.

The 3.7" screen is very nice, clear and sharp.  This is the first phone I've seen with virtual desktops, three total.

Of course, the Droid has a camera.  Resolution is good at 5 MP.  It also takes video.  I haven't done much with either yet but if I plan on taking pics I'll be grabbing my Nikon S560, not my phone.

The hardware seems like it has plenty of power.  When connected to my home WiFi network browsing, checking email, and downloading applications all go very fast.  Browsing on Verizon's 3G network is a bit faster than it was on my BlackBerry; it appears that pages render faster on the Droid.

I've only made a couple phone calls but quality seems fine.


The Droid uses the new Micro USB connector for charging or connections to a computer.  This is good in that it's a new standard across cell phone brands but bad for me in that I had to shell out for a new car charger.  C'est la vie.

Overall, the hardware feels very solid and well made.

So far I've mostly been using the Droid like a pocket computer, at which it is quite a bit more advanced than my BlackBerry.  The applications which I've installed are:

- Dolphin browser.  (Supports multi-touch like an iPhone.)
- Google Finance. (So I can watch my portfolio crater.)
- GPS App. (Gives you a compass and other stuff.)
- My Verizon. (Basically a shortcut to my online VZW account.)
- Weather Channel.
- OneKey Terminator. (Provides one touch killing of all open apps, in case your phone gets sluggish due to having too many open.)
- ScanLife barcode scanner. (Allows you to scan bar codes and look them up online. In the case of books takes you to the Google Books entry.)
- OI File Manager. (File manager for your SD card. The Droid comes with a 16 GB card.)
- Wardrive. (Scans for and detects wifi networks then stores them in a map database.)
- Wifi Toggle Widget. (Adds a one touch widget to the home screen to enable/disable WiFi.  This is handy because leaving WiFi on when you're not using it eats battery life.)
- Star Wars Sounds & Ringtones. (I'm in tech. Being a Star Wars nerd is pretty much required.)
- CIDR Calculator. (For calculating subnets and masks.)
- AK Notepad.
- ConnectBot. (SSH and Telnet client.)
- Tricorder. (Displays gravitation and magnetic field, environmental and geographic information, including a compass.  Also has a WiFi monitoring mode. The GUI is styled after the tricorders in ST:TNG.)

All of the above apps can be found in the Android Market, accessible through on Android phone.

I've also also using the included email, Gmail, Facebook, Google Maps, and YouTube apps, all of which work smoothly.  The Google Maps Navigation feature turns the phone into a car GPS.  If I was Garmin, Magellan, or a similar company I'd be concerned.

Like the iPhone, tethering is not yet supported on the Droid.  As I understand it, Verizon will be supporting tethering sometime in the Spring.  While I occasionally used tethering on my BlackBerry I doubt I'll spring for it with the Droid, saving myself about $15/month.

Since getting the Droid yesterday it's been hard to put down.  For gadget freaks this thing will be like crack.  For computer geeks like myself it's simply amazing.  Jerry Pournelle has said that his iPhone is almost the manifestation of the pocket computers from The Mote in God's Eye.   The Droid is another version of the same thing.

Edit 11/29/09: Thanks to a Facebook friend, I now can tether my Droid to my MacBook Pro or Hobbit (my MSI Wind netbook) using PDANet, even though Verizon does not yet officially support tethering the Droid.   PDANet supports only Bluetooth tethering on Mac and Linux, while Windows users can install a desktop client and use USB tethering.  Speeds on the Mac were slow, around 100k to 300k.  On Hobbit, though, it's around a 1 Mb connection, which is very usable.  Best part?  No monthly fee.