Disadvantages of Evernote

The disadvantages include lock-in and proprietary and non-open-source.

Advantages of Evernote

The multi-platform approach (runs everywhere) and the fact that it does a good job at several different personal information management tasks, and has a decent business model (freemium) at an attractive price.

What it would replace

Likely it would replace two things, my collection of about 10 text documents (and use of TextWrangler as the editor) and the Wunderlist. My use of Dropbox would subside a little regarding the text documents (though not by much). Could this replace delicious/pinboard? Likely not.

In any case, I would quickly replace Evernote if it there were other options. But at this point it looks to be extremely functional and will help with the stack of text files I edit and copy from, as well as the task lists (that are largely ignored) in Wunderlist.

What it would enable

Quick, on-the-go, archived and synched voice messages to myself is an instant good thing. It may be the thing to deal with collections of things that can be put together, but aren’t quite a document. In addition, the capturing of parts of web pages (rather than only a URL or creating/printing a PDF, and the ability to share that, could be very cool.

More Stuff

Note that Skitch looks like a very useful drawing/annotating tool that is integrated into Evernote. The ability to treat each graphic element (text, boxes, lines, arrows, pencil drawings) as individual moveable items makes this converge on the functionality I use in cmaplite.

This project is basically a revamped/expanded WordPress installation with an “Article” data type (as well as Pages and Posts). This was released as a 1.0 late in 2011, and they are testing a 1.01 version. I will begin testing this platform, though it is a little early for robust deployment and will require Theme hacking at the very least to get running.

Workflow in Annotum is a bit more flexible than the standard editing workflow in WordPress.

Annotum is already available on WordPress.com and Annotum is available as a theme from WordPress.org.

Root Needed

Sometimes it is only Root that is needed to add functionality, or in some cases, remove it. Though more and more apps and functionality is available for non-rooted devices, root still has a lot of useful power:

• Some types of backup require Root, so if you want a nice full, easy-to-do backup get root, such as Titanium Backup, which will allow you to remove the apps that are otherwise unremovable (once you have root access).
• Some types of special proxies or device spoofing tools such as Market Enabler (good for making Google think you are in the US and not another country). On the other hand things like Orbot (a TOR proxy) can work without root
• More direct manipulation of Android via shell, scripts, etc.
• Handy things like volume control which starts at bootup and is an overlay on the screen. Necessary for devices with no hardware volume control such as the Kindle Fire.
• Replacing fonts to support things like Khmer script (ok, maybe a limit case but still, it works).

CyanogenMod Custom ROM features

• CM has a great feature for my HTC Desire which allows it to use a part of the MicroSD card as RAM, so that the phone allows me to install (and run) a lot more apps. Basically HTC Desire is somewhat crippled by its internals (512 RAM/512 ROM) and using S2E basically extends the usable life of this phone for another year or two.
• CM is just faster, it manages memory better, and can overclock and put min/max settings on the processor.
• More control over the interface including useful things like using the top of the screen as a dimmer switch on the backlight. Essentially once it is configured, using the phone is faster because of the ability to customize aspects of the interface, including how the various hardware buttons perform (e.g., hold down home button to get list of recent tasks used, hold down back button to kill current app (remove from memory).
• Custom launchers, themes, lockscreen customization, and also tablet tweaks (for tablets). All things tweakable means more power and getting an interface that is fast and fluid.

Basically it makes the phone experience better. How much better? Way better.

CHDK Installation

The installation used to have a lot of steps but this has been pretty much automated with the following tools:

• ACID Automatic Canon Identification and Downloader
• SDMinst SMD (and CHDK) Installer

Steps are as follows:

• Take a picture and keep it on the SD Card
• Copy off anything on the SD card you want to keep (the card will be formatted in this process)
• Use ACID to determine the camera firmware and download the files needed (basically get everything)
• Unzip the download to a folder
• Use SDMinst to copy everything in that folder to the SD Card (after formatting and repartitioning as two volumes)
• Eject volumes
• Turn the SD card to Locked

Done! You are now booting CHDK instead of the standard ROM.

P.S., there are three necessary accoutrements to this camera: a lightweight tripod, a hotshoe flash, and a wired remote. Now I’ve got to start putting in the time to figure all this stuff out. A challenge but one that comes after hacking android, kindle and migrating to OSX from Windows over the past six months…

Year One of the 2011-2020 Decade

Being the first year of the new decade, 2011 brought a lot of change. I stayed in the same general location (moved about 1km back to where I was living in 2010), and didn’t change jobs, but there were changes within, just as with all living things, internal changes manifest both before and after anything external. Portent or not, it is no longer clear.

There was a nice mixture of failure and success. Both unexpected, largely, though some of the failure was anticipated, and in that there was success. I mean to be a bit vague about this, but there has been, um, change. Progress and regress. And life goes on, stubbornly. Go to sleep at night, after whatever kind of day there was, and wake up again the next day, and it is stubbornly a new day there waiting to be made something of.

Love of Reading Returns

One thing that did happen, strangely enough, was a return of an earlier love of reading, and even literature. This was brought about by acquiring an ebook reader. Books, literature, have been returned to me by what some people consider to be something quite negative. The romanticized moldy stack of pages bound together really has value because of the writing, not the physical object itself. Indeed I now love the ebook reader as much as the books that I have been reading with it. Murakami’s 1Q84 is a particularly noteworthy read that has had a profound effect on me, followed up by Tales of the the Wind-Up Bird.

Prelude to the Next Career Path

Another realization slowly acquired throughout the year was an interest in Economics and the global economy and a disinterest in things like Venture Capital and Angel investing. It’s kind of strange since from some perspectives these things are very similar (bets on the global economy vs. investments in individual companies) and in some ways VC/Angel investors are given a sense of necessary involvement and some moral value. But I don’t believe any of that any more. The cult of personality is quite boring after a while. However, the idea of a real incubator along the lines of Idealab and what they try to get going inside of Google, this is still interesting. The real problem is that scale is the enemy of the small.

Yes, yes, this is all getting ahead of things. I am in the middle of this current career sojourn. So much more to learn about Internet Marketing and the Publishing. So much to do to improve. For this year, there has been real traction but more rows left to hoe. More to do to push things forward.

Self-Awareness

Aging is an opportunity for self-awareness. It is not necessarily taken up by people who simply attain some number of years on the planet, but it is possible to gain this, if effort is made. It really comes down as with many things, to figuring out the best fit for who you are and what kind of person you want to become, and what the world is and what sort of place it could become, and then the various people and relationships and resources at hand. Not that operations research could figure out the optimal solution, but it is a fitting problem to some degree.

That and poetry.

Android Fun

• First gain root access
• Use a tool from a Mac/PC that communicates with the phone in USB Debugging mode
• Set USB Debugging Mode Settings > Applications > Development > USB Debugging
• For HTC, try Unrevoked
• For SGS2, aka i9100, try One Click Root for SGS2 (requires PC)

Troubles? See the rooting guide. Yeah, maybe not enough info.

Make sure ClockworkModRecovery is installed. But sometimes this isn’t enough.

If you’ve got the ole s-on, then undo that with Alpha Rev. Yeah, that didn’t actually work for me either. Head on over to revolutionary.io for a handy s-off/ClockworkMod recovery install.

Some people like Amon Ra Recovery better, but I was able to get the rev.io going before finding the version of Amon Ra which would work for my Bravo PVT4 40000 which has its own set of issues. This thread explains the kind of troubles people have with this particular piece of hardware.

Now that you have root access, can do some interesting things, such as fully back up the device with Titanium Backup (App store, free version)

• Check out the complete guide to TB

Then because we have the HTC Desire, need to move the app cache and davlik cache to the microSD card (1gb) by partitioning the card (after backup, naturally)

Root

• All about Rooting

S-OFF

This is needed for flashing a modified hboot, and it gives you the permissions for example like removing system apps while you are in the android OS and put a personalized splash screen on boot. For me, trying to use Titanium to uninstall a pre-installed app, it would reboot. With S-OFF no problems.

Recovery Boot

Boot into recovery

Nandroid Backup

Do a Nandroid Backup

Titanium Backup

Free and paid versions of Titanium Backup, once Root and S-OFF can uninstall pre-loaded apps. W00t!

Rom Manager

This is the android app side of Clockwork Mod and allows for some management and reboot into recovery from a gui. Available in the Android market.

ROM Choice

From what I have seen out there, a ton of different Roms, but some of the more popular/interesting ones are [Cyanogenmod](http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=957344 ) (for the classic/early/stable) and MIUI (for the interesting/different). For MIUI there are many different English releases, such as MIUI.us and GalnetMIUI a group in Scotland. In addition to MIUI and Cyanogenmod there are, again, many others, too many to list and compare. For people with a phone that has Droid in the name, there is the Liberty rom.

CyanogenMod 7.1

• 10 reasons to try CyanogenMod
• Desire Index All ROM versions and variations for the HTC Desire (quite a few!)
• CyanogenMod 7 for HTC Desire GSM

Look and Feel

Android is an OS but there are various different look-and-feel options, as well as theming options.

• HTC Sense
• MIUI
• Samsung TouchWiz
• CyanogenMod with Themes (color schemes) and ADW Themer
• Etc., Etc.

Underneath all of this is the underlying widget/layout of the Android version (Froyo, Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich). The next version has not been officially named but apparently Jelly Bean is in the running.

With all of these are options of backgrounds and active backgrounds.

S2E

Back before installing a rom it is necessary to partition the microsd so that part of it can be used for app installation and the davlik cache. This is only needed because of a serious underpowering of the HTC Desire so in the future this might be an oddity. Note that the partition can be done nicely with the ROM Manager app, at least sizing up to 512mb.

S2E is another Android app which allows for ease of use of the partition created. This works great on CyanogenMod 7, and the CyanogenMod was chosen for the HTC Desire for just this reason (namely support of S2E).

Once you’ve gotten the Google app package installed (see above) and get the Google Market working, then

• A2SD+ and what it is/how it works

Radio Update

The radio (software handling the actual voice/data communication) is in a separate part of the hardware than the operating system rom. Big discussion on this monster thread at XDA.

• Steps to flashing the Radio
• Radios and checksums (make sure not corrupted, otherwise can brick the phone)

Note that the guy who wrote the last page says he uses my current Radio version. Hence I decided not to even change this.

Gold Card

This is needed for sim-locked phones. I buy unlocked phones in Asia so don’t encounter this issue. I believe this is something you create on the microsd card on which you then put a ROM. Apparently the sim-locked system will only accept a gold card rom (rom on gold card).

Websites and Pages with generally useful info

• MIUI Blog
• Some tools list on AndroidForums

Multilanguage

• MultiLang, MultiLang Script, MultiLang English, Thai and Khmer
• TouchPal Keyboard, TouchPal Thai Language Pack
• T-Swipe Pro
• Note, see my post on multilanguage keyboards for Android

Smartphone Hardware

Taking a look at hardware, there is a kind of convergence on specification with commodification in the touchscreen smartphone.

• Single or dual-core 1ghz processors
• 512mb to 1gb ram
• 16gb to 32gb storage
• 5mp to 8mp camera
• 1mp to 2mp secondary camera
• 3.5 to 4.65 inch screen with 800 x 480px to 1280 x 720px

Phones, Advantages, Drawbacks

Each mobile device is something we touch and use daily as well as carry around with us, so it naturally is something in which personal preference will play a role. That said, the specifications are important from an IT performance perspective.

HTC Desire

The HTC Desire is an 18 month old offering which strangely has about the same specs as the Nokia Lumia 800. An extremely limited 576mb ram/512mb rom, microSD. 5mp camera, 720p 30fps, no secondary camera, 135g, 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm, 480 x 800px, 3.7″, ~252 ppi. Ships with Eclair, upgradable to Froyo and CyanogenMod 7.1 for Gingerbread.

Nokia Lumia

The Nokia Lumia 800 is a new release (November, 2011) has the same HTC Desire screen at 3.7″ and 480 x 800px. 512mb Ram and 16gb storage is equivalent to the iPhone 4. It has a single 1.4ghz processor. The camera is 8mp and 720p at 30 fps, with no secondary camera. This phone is thicker than almost all other phones at 12.1mm. Clearly a lackluster offering for late 2011, unless there is pricing to target a bigger budget market. As with the BlackBerry, the lack of apps is probably its biggest drawback.

Blackberry Torch

The BlackBerry Torch 9850 has 768mb ram and 4gb storage with a microSD slot. This unit is similar to the HTC desire with just a bit more ram and much more rom, with a 800 x 480px, 3.7″ screen and weighs 135g. 5mp camera with 720p video. 1ghz single core processor. The bigger limitation is the smaller number of BlackBerry apps. Too bad that new OS won’t be out until the second half of 2012.

Motorola Droid Razr

The Motorola Droid Razr XT910 is a new offer with a large 4.3mp 960 x 540px screen at ~256 ppi. Released November 2011, this has 1gb ram and 16gb storage, as well as microsim slot, and a dual core 1.2ghz processor. 8mp 1080p at 30fps and 480p at 120fps camera with a 1.3mp secondary camera. The Razr XT912 has a 2mp, 720p secondary camera. At 130.7 x 68.9 x 7.1mm it is slightly taller and wider than the Samsung S2, but also thinner (though there is a 10mm buldge near the top). At 127g it is heavier than the S2 at 116g.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the latest Google phone, showcasing the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich release in October 2011, available in November. This is a large phone at 8.9mm thick (compared with 9.8mm and 9.8mm with iPhone 4/4S and HTC Desire) and 135.5mm x 67.9mm in height/weight. The screen is a massive 4.65 inches and 1280 x 720px, ~316 ppi. In terms of pixels this is almost 50% more than in the iphone and nearly the same pixel density. As with most iphone competitors, this is going big, and in the biggest way of all the competitors so far. The primary camera is only 5mp but supports 1080p at 30 fps and nearly continuous picture shooting. The secondary camera is 1.3mp. This phone has a dual core 1.2ghz processor, 1gb ram and 16/32gb storage. Weight is 135g, nearly identical with the HTC Desire and iPhone 4/4S.

Apple iPhone 4/4S

The difference between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S from a hardware perspective is single vs. dual core processor and 5mp 720p at 30fps vs. 1080p at 30fps. Both of these are still somewhat underpowered with 512k ram. Likely Siri voice recognition is not enabled on iPhone 4 because of the lag a single processor would introduce. The are both nearly identical in size and weight and the 3.5 inch 960 x 640 display at ~330ppi. Personally, this level of screen is a bit of an overkill. Anything above ~250ppi is a great looking screen (the S2 actually looks a bit shoddy at ~217 is actually noticeably grainy). At 137g this is a bit on the old/heavy side. Interestingly the new 4.65″ screen Galaxy Nexus is slightly less in weight but the size in pixels is nearly 50% greater. Of course the form factor of the iPhone which is the same for the HTC Desire, has a nice feel in the hand. The jumbo smartphone size over 4.3″ is yet to be determined as desirable. With handsets it is always a tradeoff with size in viewing and size in handling.

Samsung Galaxy S II

The Samsung Galaxy S II is the phone to beat. It isn’t perfect, but the 4.3″ screen and 117g at 8.5mm thickness makes it thin, light and a great screen. Unfortunatley this is an 800 x 480px, which is the same number of pixels on the HTC Desire at 3.7″ As mentioned above, the lower ~217ppi pixel density shows, and is a strike against this. However, dual processor 1.2ghz, 1gb ram and 16/32gb storage is solid. The 8mp camera is 1080p at 30fps and has a secondary camera at 2mp. At 125.3 x 66.1mm this is a bit of a handful and fits fewer and fewer pockets. However, nothing succeeds like success and this is an extremely popular phone, especially in Asia, but also the US and Europe.

On a sidenote, the Samsung Galaxy Note is a 5.3″ phone that is being touted as halfway between the phone and the tablet. Note that the Note is not much larger than the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and clearly Samsung is putting bets on all form factors to see which comes up the winner. 4.65″, 5.3″ 7.1″ 10.1″ and a myriad of formfactors below 4.65″ is now offered by Samsung.

No Perfect Mobile Device

There is no ideal phone, and the future will of course provide lighter smaller (or larger), better cameras, more powerful processors and more ram and storage. Given all the options, I believe a qHD 960 x 540px screen at 4″. If you go for the 4.65″ Galaxy Nexus then it is possible to squeeze in a 1280 x 720px, 720p HD screen. If the weight can be moved closer to 100g that would be great. Dual processors, 1gb ram and 16gb storage would be nice. In the future when storage approaches 128-256gb sim card support, it is conceivable to have the full contents of a laptop computer onboard, including days/weeks of video and months/years of audio.

Battle of the Operating Systems

• iOS is based on Darwin
• Android is based on Linux, and indeed will likely merge back within the next several years, according to both Google and Linux.
• If BlackBerry survives, it will completely replace it’s Blackberry OS with a QNX-based system. QNX is a unix-like microkernel operating system first released in 1982.
• Bada, a proprietary or Linux-kernel configurable OS by Samsung may be open sourced in 2012.
• Windows Phone currently is selling about 1% of phones but the impending rollout of Windows Phone to Nokia hardware devices may change that. Windows Phone has its roots in Windows CE which itself is based on Win32 architecture. However, CE was never a stripped down version of a desktop OS but was its’ own creature. This forms the basis of Windows Phone. However, the tablets that Microsoft will be developing for are supposed to use Windows 8 in a stripped-down mode.

This use of a Desktop OS stripped down for a Tablet rather than a Mobile OS, as is the model for Android and iOS, seems to be a mistake. While hardware functionality and price/performance does increase rapidly, applications will have to be written twice to target the tablet/phone platforms. This means that fewer applications will be available for both the phone and the tablet than for iOS and Android where apps for the phone run on the tablet.

The iOS and Android approaches are to build from the ground up a new OS in a low power, slower processor environment. This system can naturally grow to increase functionality as the hardware becomes faster and less expensive (though power is a much tougher problem since faster processors consume more energy).

The NEC MobilePro

As a blast from the past, let’s look at the 1999-2001 line of NEC MobilePro 770, 780 and 790. These are still available on Ebay and Amazon and I’ve owned several of these. They emerged before the subnotebook/netbooks and ran the WindowsCE OS. I found them extremely useful as a 1 pound (> 0.5 kg) device with a useable (79% size) keyboard, touchscreen and modem (also supported USB, PCMCIA and CF/II card slots for wifi and ethernet). The 790 had 32mb ram and 24mb rom. The touchscreen + keyboard with 8″ screen was the perfect note-taking device in the classroom and office meetings.

This form factor has been overcome on the one hand by touchscreen phones with up to 4.3″ screens and the emerging 7″ tablets from Nook and Amazon as well as Samsung, and on the other hand by netbooks with 9″ screens. However, the keyboard and 1 pound is still a sweet spot which could conceivably be a market. The Google Chromebook initiative is still to large a form factor, on the one hand, and too expensive, on the other.

One of the most interesting factors is that in the last 10 years, the cost and performance of such a form factor, using Android, would potentially hit the ideal price point.

How did we get to this multi-touch glass interface that look extremely similar, with really a two-horse race on operating system, apps, etc.? Innovation went from hardware to software with the new paradigm instituted by the iPhone. Witness the plethora of hardware innovations up until 2007…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQUt8C4iVKc

Ideal Form Factors

With the 7-8″ form factor we are not yet at the best place, and this shows the insight of Steve Jobs. While a 544g 9.7″ screen feels light when held in two hands, a 413g 7″ screen feels heavy in one hand (the weight of the Amazon Kindle Fire).

On the other hand, the form factor (nearly have the width and half the weight at 240g) of the Kindle 3 is pleasing and does not cause strain (roughly the same weight as a paperback book, or less).

The 135g HTC Desire (3.7″ screen) or Samsung Galaxy Nexus (4.65″ screen) feels heavy at first but also does not strain the hand.