Unfortunately, they don’t let you add custom photos for any of your contacts.
In fact, the only built-in way to get your contacts to have a photo is to have them setup a Live ID on their email, and have them add an avatar.

Oddly enough, my Android phone has a handy feature of syncing contacts from multiple sources (like my Address book and Facebook/Twitter) and it will bring all of their information and photos together into one contact. It’s really handy, and easy to use. While browsing some of Live Mail’s options, I wondered if the same would be possible for my desktop mail.

It turns out that Live Mail has a similar ability to integrate 3rd party services into your contact list.

Most people in the USA use Facebook as their social networking platform, and Microsoft products and Facebook like to play well together as much as possible.
From Microsoft’s Help webpages:

How do I connect Facebook?

You can get Facebook updates and chat with Facebook friends in Windows Live Messenger [or Live Mail] by connecting the Facebook service to Windows Live.

To connect the Facebook service

1. On a PC, go to the connect services webpage. You might need to sign in with your Windows Live ID.

2. Click Facebook.

3. On the Connect Facebook to Windows Live webpage, decide which activities you want friends to see in Messenger and in Facebook, and then click Connect with Facebook.
   [Note: I was able to see contact photos with just the first permission of "See Facebook friends and their updates"]

4. Follow the instructions to complete the connection.

There were many posts about how to fix this issue on the internet, but none of them worked for me. I stumbled upon my own answer based off ideas of uninstalling the USB Controllers (close, but didn’t work for me). Try this simple fix below.

1) Open Device Manager
2) In “Universal Serial Bus controllers” delete all entries that are “USB root hub”. Unplug and re-insert any USB devices (mice or keyboard for example) that stop working, and when they’re active again continue uninstalling any remaining listings.

Google FINALLY just introduced a way to remove your router from their system, however their method is ridiculous, and here’s why.

Reason #1: The “removal method” is so bothersome, most users won’t use it.

“You can opt out by changing the SSID of your WiFi access point (your wireless network name) so that it ends with “_nomap”. For example, if your SSID is “12345,” you would need to change it to “12345_nomap”.”

WHAT? I have to have an ugly SSID and reconfigure every device I own because Google won’t remove my router from their services any other way? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Companies that have Wireless Networks configured across their fleet of computers can’t suddenly change their SSID, again making it such a pain that companies will not change their SSIDs, and Google doesn’t give them any other way to opt out.

Additionally, I have no faith that Google (nor other wifi location companies) will do the right thing here. Google’s street cars have already “accidentally” captured wifi communications from users’ wifi networks, breaking privacy laws and Google said “oops! we didn’t mean to!”.

There’s no law or regulation forcing companies to not capture SSIDs that are listed with “_nomap”.

Reason #2: You have to tell Google where your router is so that you can “remove it” from their systems.

“So, for example, one way to ensure that your changed SSID is submitted to Google quickly, open Google Maps on an Android Device with WiFi enabled, and use the My Location feature to establish a location fix in the vicinity of your WiFi access point.”

You cannot simply search by MAC address to see if it is listed. So if your router isn’t in their system yet, you are telling Google, “Hi, here’s my router” and Google has to put your router’s info in a database of routers that can’t be used for location services.

Reason #3: It’s still only opt-out.

I didn’t setup a wifi network so that Google could profit off of knowing where a user was located when they’re nearby my wifi router. Nor did I ever give permission to Google to record this information.

“But you’re broadcasting your network, anyone can see it!”

Yes, just as anyone at Safeway with me can see that I’m there, but it doesn’t mean Google should have a right to store that I was there in some database automatically, and then serve me ads on my Google account later. Did Google scan all of our license plates when their street cars went by? What about image capture on the models of cars they drove by, to do a global survey of car models and colors?

When will the day come when going out in public to shop,or drive to work, is considered “full consent to have my location and behavior stored and re-used by everyone who has the capability to?”

So what should Google do instead?

1. Delete their database of locations they’ve unethically collected.
   After all, their unofficial creed is “Don’t be evil“.
2. Let users who want their wifi network to be used, to be able to opt-in.

How can I protect my network from Google & other wifi location databases?

The only way I believe that it is possible to keep your wifi router out of these databases is the following:

1. Never broadcast your SSID. 
2. Don’t let any electronics connect to your wireless network that have “wifi location” services enabled.
   This can include iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and more.

That’s a mighty annoying restriction of actions for most technology fans these days.
The price for privacy keeps rising every year, and eventually it’s going to be too troublesome for the common person to have any privacy left that someone hasn’t exploited.

A recent Reddit comment thread featured two users that did the math to come up with the answer of 1 Cubic Meter.

franksands wrote:
According to Wolfram Alpha:

A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. (According to the tongue twister, although the paper “The Ability of Woodchucks to Chuck Cellulose Fibers” by P.A. Paskevich and T.B. Shea in Annals of Improbable Research vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 4-9, July/August 1995, concluded that a woodchuck can chuck 361.9237001 cubic centimeters of wood per day.)

Last week, we ended up with a bad, nasty batch of milk. As a result, I wanted to try several types of milk, to finally see how they stack up. Brands were chosen to represent a good sample of milk available in the Seattle area.

All milk brands compared were 2% and rBST free.

“Normal” Milk

Lucern [Plastic Jug]
Thickness: Medium
Flavor: STRONG, yucky flavor
NASTY aftertaste (we believe this was a bad batch, it’s normally like the cardboard results below)

Lucern [Cardboard]
Thickness: Medium
Flavor: Milky, slightly creamy
Good, delicious (our favorite)

Darigold [Cardboard]
Thickness: Medium
Flavor: Strong creamy flavor
Ok, but the stronger flavor was unusual for us.

Trader Joes [Cardboard]
Thickness: Thin
Flavor: Bland, watery
No milk aftertaste… or much of a taste at all. The 2% was like drinking skim milk.

Organic Milk

Trader Joe’s Organic [Cardboard]
Thickness: Thin
Flavor: Bland, non-creamy flavor
Practically the same as the non-organic from Trader Joe’s.

Horizon Organic [Cardboard]
Thickness: Medium
Flavor: Strong cream flavor
This was the best of the “organic” milk we tried, but we still prefer Lucern.

Twin Brook Creamery [Glass] – Non-homoginized.
Thickness: Thick, chuncks of cream
Flavor: Non-creamy, very strong.
There is just something odd and undesirable about drinking milk that still has chunks in it (even after mixing it a lot).

My pick for winner: Lucern, followed by Darigold or maybe Horizon.

Leave a comment with the brand you buy, and why you choose that brand.

When Google’s “streetview cars” roamed around the world, they were performing wifi scans of their surrounding areas. By mapping the MAC address of your location to the van’s GPS coordinates, they built a map of locations that can accurately find your location, just by knowing the wifi router you’re connected to.

Google claimed this was “by accident”, and many countries objected to the collection of the data and the invasion of privacy.

As of 2010, Google had collected 600 gigabytes of data from over 30 nations. That list is now growing, as each new Android phone that gets purchased has the built-in ability to transfer locations of wireless networks to and from Google’s servers, to help aid in location services on the phone. The unfortunate part is even if you aren’t using these services, Google is still collecting this data via your phone.

So who has your wifi router’s location?

1. Google

   Every Android phone can collect wifi data for Google. If you’ve enabled “Use Wireless Networks” in the “Location and Security” settings, your phone is phoning home to Google to tell them where you are, and all the wifi networks around you.
   The first time you check the “Use Wireless Networks” option in Android, a pop-up appears saying “Allow Google’s locatino service to collect anonymous location data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running.“

2. Skyhook

   Skyhook was the main company that started Wifi location services. They were collecting data in 2003, years before other companies on this list cared. Apple’s iPhones used this technology until Apple made their own. Skyhook even claimed Google infringed on their patents.

3. Apple

   Apple originally used Skyhook, but they developed their own internal wifi database and technology for iOS 3.2. Your iPhone works just like Google’s Android phones do, but this time they told Steve Jobs where you were instead of telling Google. Apple got into privacy trouble when it was revealed in April 2011 that the iPhone recorded every location the iPhone went to. Apple “fixed” this shortly after the “flaw” was discovered.

4. Microsoft

   Not to be left out by the others, Microsoft made sure their Windows Phone 7 devices tracked wifi locations and phoned them home to Microsoft. Amid a security leak, and strong questions, Microsoft reported that they stopped collecting wifi data! I don’t know why people were scrutinizing Microsoft more than the other companies in this list, because Microsoft is arguably doing the least evil with the data.

So how do you protect your privacy, and not share your router’s location to these services?

1. Try hiding the SSID of your wifi router, so phones don’t detect it. (I can’t confirm this will work, but it should.)
   This only works though if you don’t turn around and use your wifi with a phone that sends this data back to the companies.

… and that’s about it.  If you thought you might try to remove your wifi router’s location from the databases, here’s your lack of options:

• Google: You can’t remove your wifi router from their database.
• Apple: Apple has kept quiet about their database, but there’s no known way to remove your router from their database.
• Skyhook:
  “There is no way for a customer to remove their AP from our database publicly.
  We ask that you send your wireless mac address that you submitted to
  support@skyhookwireless.com (or reply back to this email) that you want
  removed, then we quarantine it from the database, and it will no longer receive
  location from Skyhook.”
• Microsoft: With the database being shelved, I don’t think they’ll be offering a way to get into the data to remove devices.

Unfortunately, tools that work to reveal if your router is in the databases quickly break when Google/the rest stop giving access to those tools or fix their security flaws.

Samy Kamkar is one of the leaded people in this topic, and his blog has more details about this and the tools he’s made to tap into the databases.

So at the end of the day, why does this matter?  

It matters because companies can now trace where you’ve been to a few meters, simply by checking what wifi network you’re located nearby. Since they know where the wifi routers are, they don’t need to know where you are; they just need to know what wifi networks you’re connected to, and they have that same information (all without GPS).

Government can subpoena the databases and if they have a list of wifi networks you’ve been to (say physical access to a phone), they can easily cross reference and find where you are and where you go.

It all comes down to privacy, and as location technology advances your location will be known to more and more companies. I am highly skeptical of any company that makes me and my private data their product. The frightening part is that Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter get people to volunteer this data every day…

</tinfoil hat>

Why should you install a “Lost Phone” app?

1. Your phone has sensitive personal information in it.
2. If you browse the internet on your phone, if could have account login credentials. (Banks, emails)
3. Many people put their company’s emails on their phones.
4. You’d rather try recovering your phone before spending a few hundred $ on a new one.

So which app should you install?

iPhone “Lost Phone” Apps

• Find My iPhone (Free) (Only for iPhones running iOS  4.2 or greater.)
  - Limited, Basic Feature Set
  - WARNING: If you use this, it only takes a thief a few seconds to remove your MobileMe profile from your iDevice. If your MobileMe account is removed, Find My iPhone stops working, and your phone is gone forever.
  IF YOU USE Find My iPhone: Turn on your device’s Restrictions in Settings -> General -> Restrictions.  This allows you to add an additional Pin code that prevent uses from doing many things (with the important setting of preventing users to Remove Accounts).
• iLocalis (~$6/Year)- JAILBROKEN iPhone Only+ Can set the program to not allow it to be uninstalled!
  + MANY more features than Find My iPhone offers.
• Link to a blog post with a comparison of two other apps vs Find My iPhone

Android “Lost Phone” Apps

Due to Android’s open marketplace and open source nature, there are many more options for apps like these.
I was trying to find a good program, and these were my thoughts on a few of these programs.

The Good

• SeekDroid ($0.99)- The fact that it’s this cheap gives me concern about the longevity of the product, but it worked great.
  - No SMS support though.
  + Even worked without any simcard in (using wifi as the internet connection at that point).
• Lookout Mobile – Free (Premium is $3/mo, $30/year)
  + At $30 a year, this actually seemed like a decent price, for a trusted company.
  + It’ll also scan your software for spyware
  + Some backup features.
  + Didn’t say “SuperUser” app was spyware (unlike AVG, mentioned below).
• Plan B (Free)
  + Plan B is the only Android app that you can install after your phone is stolen, to try to get it back.

The Meh

• Prey – Free (Pro is $5/month)
  The free version only reports your phone’s information back in 20 minute intervals. That’s not very helpful if I lose my phone.
• AVG Mobilization aka Anti-Virus Free/Pro ($10)
  - Not impressed how the app treated the “SuperUser” rooted app as a threat.
  - Not impressed with the App scanning, as it just tells you you “have a problem” without specifically listing what those are.
  ~ Pro version only gets rid of ads and adds support.
  ~ Tied to Google Account for login, no user account creation.
  - Able to be uninstalled easily. :(
  + Free version can track your location and wipe device.
  - Phone “lock” is using an app, not the OS locking.

The Unknown (Ones I didn’t actually test on my phone)

• Cerberus ($3)
  + DEEP Integration into the Android OS, allowing it to be installed in ROMs and is resilient to work despite trying to uninstall it.
  + Works over Data and SMS. Few of the other apps could do this.
  + Many other features, and if I wasn’t ok with SeekDroid, I’d switch to this.
  - The website was very bare, lacked info until I dug around a bit. The developer’s site is available here, and responded to a tweet asking who maintains the app.
• McAffe WaveSecure ($20/year)
  - Reviews of this product were very poor on the Android Marketplace. Most users reflected poor service after McAffe bought the company that made this app.
• Norton Mobile Security (Free during Beta)
  - I wouldn’t trust the security of my device to a piece of beta software.
• ESET Mobile Security BETA
  Same as above…
• TheftAware
  + Good Root Support.
  - Austrian company, don’t know much about.

The most important part is that you have one of these apps installed on your phone BEFORE it gets stolen.

Read through the options and find the one that looks best to you.

Before saying anything else: Canadian drivers are horrible.

Alright, now that that’s out of the way, there’s a lot of fun things to do and cool places to see once you get through Vancouver’s horrible traffic. (Really, bridge construction on a Saturday afternoon?!)

Interesting Attractions

• Granville Island
• Metrotown Mall
• Vancouver Aquarium
• Stanley Park
• Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden (and surrounding Chinatown)
• Punjabi Market (Indian market area)
• Good Food (BANANA LEAF IS AMAZING)

I reviewed these places on Yelp, for easy reference. [LINK]

After switching ROMs and Kernals a few times, my GPS stopped working and the fix below didn’t help anymore.

chui101 created an amazing software patch that seems to fix my GPS issues without any complicated settings.  Try it out if you’re still having trouble with your Vibrant’s GPS.

———————————————

The Samsung Vibrant is hands down the best phone I’ve ever used, however it has a shortcoming in the GPS department.
The settings that come preloaded on the Samsung Vibrant for GPS are not optimal for trying to quickly connect to GPS.

Before making the changes below, I could only connect to GPS once per reboot of my phone.

1 – Disable “Use Wireless Networks” – Settings / Location & Security
2 – Dial *#*#3214789650#*#*
3 – Under “Application settings” Change “Operation Mode” to MS Based
4 – Under “SUPL/CP Settings” Change the SERVER & PORT to supl.google.com and port 7276 [ Do not use www. in front of supl]
5 – REBOOT

I also installed “GPS Status” which has a tool to Reset the local AGSP data, and redownload new data to help assist your phone finding the correct location.

The original GPS settings were:

Operation Mode: Standalone
Server: www.spirent-lcs.com
Port: 7275

After making these changes, I could now connect to GPS 3 different times, connecting under half a minute, all without requiring a single reboot of my phone.

Source and other alternative code if the above code doesn’t work on your firmware.

Thankfully, there’s also a really nice WordPress Plugin that will make a Google News Sitemap for you.