A weblog of everyday grace

Waze: Navigating traffic the social way

2011-11-19T21:47:00.003+08:00

While searching for an alternative navigation program, I came across an app called Waze. Aside from having a navigation program, the software comes with a social aspect where everyone helps with reporting traffic conditions. When you're in the car or even just commuting, leave the program on and it automatically tracks where you are using GPS as well as your travel speed. Other users can then see what roads are slow moving and avoid them.

Users can also post reports like police, hazards or just let people know traffic conditions using a shout out or even chat. Users can also help update the system by adding roads to the map when its not complete. From the desktop, users edit the map by adding and editing road or correcting the traffic flow like one-way roads or insert U-turns slots.

Security-wise, the system allows users to remain anonymous and there is nothing that allows one to track anyone in particular.

Though the traffic status function is similar to the MMDA traffic reports app for Android and on the Iphone, it is not limited to just the 9 major thoroughfares. The MMDA has their twitter account which allows people to post updates but its not as easy to just look at a map and see red line indicating slow moving or heavy traffic. The disadvantage though is the number of users out on the streets at anytime of the day. Now if there are more people using this, then it could make travel life easier for everyone.

The app is available for Android, the Iphone, Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile.

Reasons Why Professional Photographers Cannot Work for Free

2011-11-19T20:23:00.000+08:00

Here is something for our dear photographer friends. This is somewhat similar to the previous article on why we should never fix a computer for free.

A standard response for requests for free photography by Tony Wu. Check out the site of Tony for some fantastic underwater photographs.

Reasons Why Professional Photographers Cannot Work for Free

5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.

2011-10-20T14:40:00.000+08:00

I always have friends or relatives call and ask about their computer problems. Its ok if they are online since we have a remote access software that allows us to remotely control their computer. But more often than not, I tell them to bring it over since its impossible to see what they are doing wrong or what is wrong with the unit and they could not explain it properly.

Found this good article as to why one should never fix a computer for free.

Now the question is what should be my asking price...

MSN access problem and POP3

2011-09-09T15:27:00.000+08:00

Its rare that I use my hotmail or live email accounts. Kept it for testing purposes only. And while trying to do some tests today, I had problems with getting on to its webpage. The following error comes up:

Its a good thing I don't use this as my main email account. We have gotten used to relying everything being online. I'm using IMAP for all my email access since it is the most convenient specially with our network. This makes me think that I should be enabling my POP3 mailbox again. On the other hand, if the server is down, I probably won't even be able to download through POP3.

I did a test and setup a POP3 account on Thunderbird and it was able to download the mails. It seems the problem is more of web-based rather than the mail server.

Its good that Windows Live provided a POP3 access. But what if this happens to Yahoo? Unless you're a paid customer, you don't have any POP3 access as an alternative.

Partitioning sdcard on Android without Cynanogen

2011-08-11T01:20:00.000+08:00

After having problems with running out of internal memory on the LG Optimus One, I started researching on solutions for this problem. Mind you that not all programs come in with APP2SD support so one cannot move them to the sdcard.

The articles that I've found included booting into recovery mode and installing Cynanogen. But after several tries and not sure if I'm doing it correctly, I looked for other solutions. Having read a number of articles on booting into recovery mode, I understood that its possible to partition the sdcard and "install" a program that will move the app to the card. This should free up space on your phone's internal memory.

Since I am not able to go into recovery mode, my problem now is how to paritition the sdcard. Tried it under windows but there is no option to partition it. Tried mounting the card under linux and doing fdisk on it but somehow the partition appears to be incorrect and could not format it.

So after some head scratching, I tried searching Android market for an app that can format the card. I came across the app by Michael Chourdakis called Root # All Data2SD. What this program does is it will automatically create an embedded EXT2 partition on the sdcard and mounts it. The program will also automatically move your program to the sdcard thereby freeing up space.

However, I am not using the program for that purpose. For some reason that I don't remember, after having partitioned the sdcard, I uninstalled the program and installed Link2SD instead.

In any case, after installing all the usual programs that I want I still have more than 100mb free instead of the original 19mb free and not being able to receive anymore SMS.

Next thing to test is if I can still access the sdcard from windows. I've read a few comments that people are no longer able to access the card after formatting.

Rooting the LG Optimus One

2011-08-09T00:09:00.000+08:00

Coming from using the Nokia N900, where I am able to open a terminal and explore the files on the unit, I just had to do that same with this unit. Perhaps its curiosity or just an inherent itch that I would want to install, that for me are, basic softwares in the phone. Some of those includes know the wifi keys entered into the phone or using secure shell to access the phone internals or being able to expand the phone's limited internal memory.

In order to do that, one needs to root the phone.

Sites I've found on the Internet showed rooting the LG Optimus One P500 using z4root. But further readings showed that it only worked with the older software version. My unit came with Android version 2.2.1 and software version says its V10e-NOV-30-2010. I searched for other root programs and found Gingerbreak

Since I already have Dropbox installed on the phone, I just placed the file into my dropbox share directory and downloaded it into the LG. Run it and the unit is rooted.

Now that the phone is rooted, the next step is expanding the internal memory by using the sdcard as an expanded internal memory to hold the files.

LG Optimus One from Suncellular

2011-08-08T00:38:00.001+08:00

You may notice that sudden increase in the number of my posts to Twitter and/or Facebook. This is due to my getting an LG Optimus One from Suncellular. The phone came with the Call and Surf Plan which gives you unlimited calls and surfing.

The LG Optimus One comes with the Android OS and a number of apps that I am just starting to experiment with. Have also been installing the different software packages available from the Android market until I hit a snag. Apparently he unit comes with a small internal memory of around 170mb. Once you fill that up, you can't install anymore programs even if you have installed a 16gb sdcard.

After a few days, I am unable to receive any more text messages even when I still have 20mb of internal memory left. I read somewhere that it will not accept anymore messages when you have less than 10% of internal memory left. Will need to do something about this.

However, one good thing that came with this unit is that I now have a better signal even when I'm inside the house or the office. I used to tell people that I don't have a signal because there is no sun in my room.

Blogger.com

2011-08-07T23:45:00.000+08:00

Been playing with the settings of this Blogger setup. Didn't realize that I had setup this account since November 2008 but just didn't get around to using it. I don't recall trying it it before. I guess I might have been trying out the different Google account products and have accidentally enabled it.

From the current experiments and searches, it appears that I can put up multiple blogs under a single account. Am thinking if I can move the other websites that I'm maintaining under a single account. However, those sites contain a lot of pictures and it seems that pictures are counted again my Picasa quota. The free account comes with a 1GB limit. I should remember to resize my pictures and upload them somewhere else. The other option is to pay for the additional space. If I can monetize the contents from all those sites, $5/year for 20GB of space doesn't sound too expensive.

I will need to have the design of the website moved though and this will take extra time.

Moving my site again

2011-08-07T16:16:00.000+08:00

Here we go again. After a long hibernation, I'm starting on this blogging thing again. Supposed its going out of style with Facebook and Twitter around.

But there are limits on how much content you can share on Twitter and I have some things I would like to get off my chest or head.

The other reason for moving is that I'm sick of updating that I need to keep up whenever there are newer versions of the blogging softwares as well as the server. Recent updates to our server has caused a number of functions on Joomla to fail. My original Joomla pages are still accessible using the following link: http://purity.ph. My wordpress blog is still accessible using http://www1.purity.ph.

I also still have my copy and paste page on Tumblr which is accessible using http://notes.purity.ph.