For all the time that I was with Microsoft’s mobile platform, although it was not really an open platform, a fringe developer community (centered around xda-developers) filled the gap to make modifications and “improve” the user experience. However, as Google has pushed Android to be a viable mobile operating system and a more open development platform, it was time to make the jump.

In a nod to HTC smartphone success, I was originally trying to maintain my loyalty, but they were taking too long to come out with a high-end Android device on ATT. So after seeing the Samsung Captivate in action, and hearing Samsung’s announcement that they would be limiting their Super AMOLED screen to their own devices (i.e. no AMOLED for HTC), I made my choice.

The Samsung Captivate is a part of Samsung’s Galaxy S family which is a big push using the Android operating system into mobile communication and multimedia devices across multiple carriers. In addition to the awesome 4-inch screen, the Captivate with Android has some other cool features that I like:

• native Gmail, Contacts, Calendar support (push, stars, labels), including Google Apps accounts.
• strong apps and widget development and support via Android Market.
• open user development environment (xda-developers, still my favorite)
• Gorilla Glass for screen protection
• nice hardware touches: sliding USB port door, clever and secure access to battery and rear slots

However, there’s no such thing as perfection. So here are some gripes and dislikes, some are Android-related which have workarounds and eventual solutions while others are hardware-specific limitations:

• fail to filter My Contacts (stupid Samsung customization) [xda-dev]
• no default select of Google Calendars for new events [xda-dev]
• no native Google Docs support (come on, Google)
• no camera flash (limited indoor and night shooting)
• no front-facing camera (do I really need video calls)
• camera rotation tagging (annoying landscape/portrait fail)
• slow GPS lock (supposed fix coming)
• [update 9/14/2010] no way to designate default gmail account on sharing intent

After using the Captivate for almost a  month, I’ve pretty much settled on my current installed apps which are listed on AppBrain. Here is a highlight of those that I use more regularly:

• FBReader: ebook reader
• Google Maps: full featured maps, navigation and places
• Cubed (3): music player
• mVideoPlayer: video player, duh
• Astrid Task List: syncs with Remember the Milk
• Google Listen: podcast player (streamed and offline)
• LauncherPro: customizable homescreen
• JustPictures!: photo viewer (local and flickr)
• Profile: sound and settings by profile
• Google Voice: full integration and control
• AppBrain: application manager integrated with Market
• Yelp: restaurant reviews
• Root Explorer: file manager with root access

For some of the apps that are more web-based, it will be interesting how they come up with offline support when you are off the grid. Another wishlist app is something that can do automatic background cloud-storage syncing, whether for photos, docs or any other files.

A note on tablets. When Apple first came out with the iPad, I bought into the idea that tablets were going to be a new viable form factor. At the time, I was thinking that Android would be a great platform, and there are quite a few Android tablets launching in the coming months, including one from Samsung. But after using Android on the phone, it seems that any tablet based on Android would still feel like a big phone. This is not a dig on Android, but more like a recognition of how well Android works in the smartphone form factor. And just as the iPad is limited by iOS, I think the right platform for tablets would be a full-fledged operating system like Google’s Chrome OS. Regardless, it’ll be cool to see how this plays out in the coming year.

Lately, the INOi MH720 that we use in our living room to watch movies has been showing its age, having trouble with new audio/video codecs and subtitle formats. I had been considering getting a new media player, but after looking into, figured it might be a better deal to get a nettop to use as a media center and as an additional family computer.

I finally settled on the AspireRevo 3610 and got lucky picking up the last one from our local Fry’s. It came equipped with 2GB RAM (enough for basic needs), 160GB hard drive (no big deal since using externals for storage) and an NVIDIA ION chip for graphics (hardware acceleration for HD video), along with an HDMI port out for both audio and video (easy HD connectivity to home theater).

The nettop came installed with Windows 7, which has and once again turned out to be a good upgrade. At first the network folder sharing was throwing me off because I was used to the previous Windows method. But after I got the hang of using HomeGroup [how-to geek], everything came together nicely. No more long USB cable running along the floor to transfer shows

For the media player application, Boxee came out with their latest beta, which does a nifty job of integrating local and web content to make a more complete browsing and watching experience. Basically, Boxee scans local folders and then displays the multimedia files with additional descriptions from the web, along with web-based episodes. It can even grab subtitles directly from opensubtitles for both movies and TV shows. Also, to keep from drowning in kids’ cartoons, I created a separate Boxee account to manage their content.

As for the remote control, the nettop came with a wireless mouse and keyboard, but that’s not very user-friendly for regular media use. I wanted to stick with our trusty universal remote URC-200 which has worked fine all these years, even with the different component upgrades. Unfortunately, the nettop didn’t come with an IR port. So I got a cheap media center remote with an IR receiver included. I used the media center remote to program my universal remote with the basic functions. Then, I found a program called Intelliremote which allowed me to control multiple applications with customized functions for each.

On a side note, I got to try out AmazonBasics when I ordered an HDMI cable. It was a good deal, came quick with Prime, and nice not having to wrangle with clamshell plastic packaging.

Of course, not everything is perfect particularly when on the “bleeding edge”, so here is my list of issues with the current setup:

• Boxee’s latest version does not have the ability to manually add, correct or update media files and descriptions.
• There’s some occasional strange resolution behavior when turning on the HDTV with Boxee already running in background.
• Annoying ads on web episodes, but nothing to be done about that.
• Flickr App on Boxee has been running slow, hopefully just a beta glitch.
• BBC App limited by geo-location (what’s with cold-war era borders).
• Easier customization of Boxee Homepage.
• Latest Boxee beta broke support for embedded subtitles (i.e. anime not working)
• Stronger parental controls on Boxee to limit content access.
• The current remote setup has limited mouse and text input ability.
• Windows 7 Homegroup folder sharing not backwards compatible with previous Windows versions.

We have also tried combining biking with geocaching which makes both activities more enjoyable, since biking makes the transportation part of hunting easier and geocaching gives purpose to our exercise. We have even recruited cousin Toby to join us in our Biking + Geocaching events.

When we first dabbled in geocaching about five years ago, we used a big black and white GPS unit and had to print out the geocache info ahead of time, which made it difficult to be a “spur of the moment” activity. In the intervening years, GPS and data technology has advanced to the point that paperless geocaching is readily accomplished.

Now, our Windows Mobile-based phones are equipped with GPS and mapping software via Google Maps. Couple that with a nifty geocaching software called GCz, we are able to download geocache entries and even do a simple search of caches nearby our current GPS location, wherever we are.

Here’s a geocaching.com badge link of what we have found so far:

We still need to work up to hiding our own caches. That will be the next level in our geocaching adventure.

Let us know if you ever want to go hunting with us. Who knows, there might be a cache right near where you are now.

Of course, this change required some equipment changes to accomplish. The first challenge was that our LCD TV did not come with a digital TV tuner since we had bought it before the US finalized its protocol. On top of that, the Tivos that we had could not record HDTV content. So I decided we could solve both problems with a new Tivo HD, which had 2 built-in digital tv tuners AND could record HDTV.

Next was to figure out how to receive the OTA signal. I decided to go with a Terk Indoor Antenna which simplified wiring and setup. And with the Tivo HD which seemed to have a more powerful signal decoder, we have been able to get most of the channels and shows that are available.

One of the benefits of switching over is that the girls have been getting better shows through the different PBS channels. And after the first few days, they don’t even miss the Disney channel anymore. Good-bye, cable tv.

One of the complaints that I had with my new PDA-phone is that the volume is actually too loud straight out of the phone. So on top of the headphone port adapter required to use my preferred headphones, I had to get a volume control adapter, which after it was all connected made my headphone cable ridiculously long. This really become a hassle on my latest trip to Asia, as I was using my phone to listen to music and podcasts while traveling.

So while researching a solution, I discovered that bluetooth headphones have become much more common and usable. It was just earlier this year, when I was with Elijah in Hong Kong, we saw some bluetooth headphones in the computer mall, and we commented that we couldn’t see any actual use for them. And here I am seriously considering them.

Some of the advantages of using a bluetooth headphone adapter are that the headphone cables aren’t directly connected to the phone and dragging all over the place and also that as a phone adapter, I can take calls without getting my phone out or taking my headphones off. One of the more recent improvements is that these adapters can also control the music player remotely.

After some searching, I settled on the i.Tech Clip R35 because I could use my own headphones and i.Tech products are much more available in Asia, where I was at the time. I ended up getting them at my second stop in Singapore, because I didn’t have time to search for them in Taipei. Turns out that if I waited to get them in Malaysia, I would have saved a few bucks :p.

Once I got the R35 adapter, I configured it with my PDA-phone and tested it out with different settings and players. Unfortunately, the bluetooth stack that comes with Windows Mobile 5 is not that efficient with the limited memory and the sound quality is pretty bad. I tried some different hacks and eventually got a configuration which required installing a hacked third-party bluetooth stack. The sound quality was better but not optimal (some minor skipping).

For software, I then tried both the included Windows Media Player and Conduits Pocket Player. Pocket Player has better playlist management and saves your ‘last played’ position among other features. But I ended up settling on the included player since it didn’t take up additional memory and the basic operation worked well enough.

As a bluetooth headphone adapter, the R35 itself works pretty well. The sound quality while talking on the phone worked fine, and the battery life is remarkably good. But I guess I expected too much, forgetting to pack the charger on my 30-hr flight back and running out of juice. In the end, the limitation is more with the device that I was pairing it with.

Fortunately, after I got back from Asia, I upgraded my phone operating system to Windows Mobile 6, which has a much improved bluetooth stack, and works as you would expect (good sound quality and no skipping). I still stuck with the included player because for some unexplained reason Conduits Pocket Player didn’t work with the remote bluetooth controls as it did with the old operating system.

One unrelated observation is that I use these a lot more when in Asia than I do back home. The primary reason being that in SoCal, most of my ‘traveling’ is spent in my car where I don’t need to use my PDA-phone to listen to music and I can just connect it to the in-car bluetooth for hands-free phone calling. While in Asia, most of my time is spent walking or in mass-transit and on planes, and with the bluetooth headphone adapter, I have my own self-contained media/phone environment.

I can’t even remember when I first started to save and preserve my internet bookmarks from version to version, computer to computer, and even in the switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox (I’m sure it didn’t go all the way back to my Netscape browsing days). Well, last week, I finally went through my old bookmarks that have been stagnating in my Firefox browser ignored and unused.

I used to spend a lot of time organizing and maintaining them, but in the last few years, I’ve slowly moved away from using them, having found more effective solutions online. Hence the title of this post, which is in reference to an increasingly popular concept, cloud computing. This is the notion that instead of storing information, in this example bookmarks, locally on my computer, I save them on the web, or “in the clouds”.

Here’s a list of web applications that I use in place of my old bookmarks folders and some descriptions of how I use them:

• del.icio.us: any interesting sites that I want to ‘bookmark’ go into this account, which I also publish as an RSS feed.
• Bloglines: RSS feed reader to keep up with news items published from websites that I follow.
• Google Maps: geographical tagging of locations which I frequent or would like to check out.
• Google Docs: organized notes of topics that I have researched online
• Google Web History: using the Google Toolbar I have an online accessible record of my browsing history which is also searchable in case I want to find a site that I visited before but forgot to record.
• Remember the Milk: task list of things to do, websites to visit, topics to research, etc.
• diigo: in conjunction with a Firefox add-on, I can annotate and highlight web documents.
• Amazon Wishlist: for products that I am interested in or want to keep track of.
• Review sites: keep track of those items which I have tried or would like to try.
  • Yelp: restaurants and stores
  • Flixster: movies
  • Goodreads: books

By definition, these applications are accessible from any computer or device that can go online. But that is also one of their downsides, since for the most part they cannot be accessed offline. That is until offline solutions like Google Gears are more widely implemented.

Another interesting thing that I noticed as I was putting together this post was that these web applications are more than just a repository for what I used to use as ‘bookmarks’. They provide a richer experience and collection of all the things that I do both online AND offline. I guess I should re-word the title, but ‘Stuff in the Clouds’ just didn’t sound right.

[Asia.0710 photoset]

This trip was 10 days long, and as always, packed with meetings both internal and external. This was my first time giving longer presentations from 1-3 hours. My dad and I tried a different format on a couple of the talks, more in the form of interviews or a dialogue which seemed to invite the audience to participate more. For our company, we are making a strategic shift in focus towards customers and specifically consumers. It’s going to take some time since this is a big change from what we have been doing and teaching for the past 5 years, but it is ultimately more consistent with who we are as a company and the products that we develop and sell.

One big gadget plus this trip was my new GSM network compatible PDA phone, which worked quite well. The SIM unlock worked in every country. The only down-side is that pre-paid SIM cards don’t allow the use of the data networks, so I could only go online with my phone on available wifi networks. This worked well enough since most of the time I was stuck in meetings at our local offices. However, I am considering whether it makes sense to get a subscription plan with data in one country, maybe Taiwan, and just roam in other countries. Have to see how much the roaming costs would be for voice and data too.

Another part of traveling in Asia that has improved is that all the hotels and all but one of the airline lounges that we visited had a working internet connection whether via hardline or wifi. In past trips, some of the more remote locales had non-functional or no connections available. This certainly made it easier for me to stay in communication for work, but it also made it possible for me to keep up to date on my news feeds and to download the latest episodes of my TV shows for offline viewing.

One observation that I made during this trip is that I seem to sleep better when I am in Taiwan as opposed to other countries like Singapore or Malaysia. One reason could be that I feel more comfortable in Taiwan having spent more time there and being more familiar with the city beyond just the hotel and our office. This makes sense since Taiwan is the only country that I spend any extra time in, whereas the other countries are usually just quick trips with all my time spent in meetings, and little time to relax and explore. This is unfortunate since for the most part, all of the major cities are similarly accessible via mass transit and taxi.

Lastly, thanks to those of you that replied with the brain-assist and reminded me that the above picture is of The Grand Hotel in Taipei.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a power inverter from a friend whose company sells them through a lot of big box retailers. I actually bought one about 10 years ago, but it was really bulky and I think I used it just once. I have been wanting to get one to use in the car as a backup in case I needed to charge my notebook, phone or other electronic device.

The one I got this time was the Wagan SmartAC 2382, which is space efficient in its design and includes a USB port for charging accessories. It even came with a nice segmented pouch for carrying the inverter and the power cable.

On a recent business trip to Baltimore, I brought the Wagan with the plan to try it in the car when we were driving around town. But it turned out that it was a real life saver on the plane, which included a 3 hour flight to Dallas and then another 3 hour flight into Baltimore, with no time to charge batteries in transit.

On the first leg of our flight, I used up my notebook’s extended battery and was going to run out of juice before we reached Baltimore. Then I thought about checking to see if the plane on our second flight had any power outlets and I was totally surprised to find what looked like cigarette adapters underneath our seats. I plugged in the Wagan and everything worked great. Unfortunately, on our flight back, the outlets on the second plane didn’t work, but at least I had enough batteries to make it through the flight.

The Wagan is going into my travel gear bag wherever I go now

Earlier this year, I got a GPS unit for my bike. The reason (or excuse, depending on who you ask) I wanted to get one was because my bike computer of several years had not been working for the past couple of months. And there’s no way that I could live without a constant stream of data inputting into my brain, even when I am riding. And with a GPS, I’d be getting even more information!

I decided on getting the Garmin Edge 205 because it was designed and worked well on a bike. I was using it more to track my own movements rather than as a normal mapping device. And I didn’t need the higher end model which had an integrated heart-rate monitor and displayed altitude (both pieces of information that would distract and discourage me rather than provide me useful info to ride on).

So after a few months of usage, I had a good sample of data to start evaluating and displaying my rides (or “tracks” in GPS lingo). Initially, I had tried the Garmin software that came with the unit, but that was not a happy experience. I then looked for some third-party solutions, and found an open source application, GPSBabel, that enabled me to transfer and convert the proprietary GPS data to an open format GPX. I would then be able to view the GPS data in Google Earth.

Unfortunately, the conversion application didn’t work as well as I would like. The good thing was when I looked again at Google Earth, I found that the Plus version allowed for importing GPS data directly. I had to pay a little for the Plus functionality, but I figure it was worth it because it worked seamlessly and properly.

The next step was to figure out how to save and display the tracks that were generated from the GPS data. Fortunately, Google Maps could now display GPS data from Google Earth (as KML files). Here’s a screenshot of one track:

From there, I used one of my dormant del.icio.us accounts to create a feed linking to each of my mountain biking tracks. This way, I could post new tracks after each ride and even put down some ride notes.

You can see it all on the right side panel under MTB-Tracks or directly at del.icio.us/emmfan/mtb-tracks.

P.S. Wouldn’t you know it, the day I post this, I forget to bring my GPS on my ride.

For my birthday, I got a new digital audio/video receiver to complete and bring together the different pieces of our home entertainment system which has been assembled over the years. I started installing it this past week and knew that I could get myself in a lot of trouble technically and socially (the family needs their Tivo and their dad/husband) if I let it drag too long. Fortunately, with some grace and patience from the girls and some web trolling for digital audio and video reference and advice, I finally have it to the point where I am happy with it.

I thought I would put down what I learned here in case I need to refer back some time down the road and also for the benefit of anyone that might be making the jump to a digital a/v system.

DIGITAL VIDEO
Gathering from the diagram at the beginning of this post, HDTV is not nearly as simple or clear (irony intended) as one would expect a digital video technology to be. Not only is it a matter of resolution, but then there’s the matter of progressive [p] or interlaced [i]. It really comes down to what each piece of hardware can handle and maximizing the quality as best as possible without creating undue complexity for regular use. The new receiver has the capacity and capability to make this possible.

The quality of the signal depends primarily on the connections, cables and encoding and whether they are digital or analog, and preserving the signal from each individual source all the way to the screen. So, at present, the highest connection / cable technology is HDMI (thus the title of this post), which stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface.

HDMI, as its name would suggest, actually incorporates and combines both digital video and audio into the same cable connection. Unfortunately, real life is not so simple as to allow all devices to be so consistent and compatible. Here are a few technical challenges / lessons in going with HDMI.

The first problem was more a result of too many options offered by the new receiver. Using HDMI with the receiver, I could upscale (in a sense, upgrade) the video signals from each source to higher quality resolutions, the highest being 1080i. But when I did that, it essentially forced all the video to be widescreen, completely filling the HDTV screen, but distorting those sources which were produced at a different aspect ratio. This was fine if you didn’t mind seeing images that were out of proportion and as one web resource (HDTVoice.com) indicated, our eyes tend to adjust and filter out those distortions after a while.

However, after looking into the resolution quality discussion at HDTVoice.com, I learned that most analog video looks pretty good upscaled to 480p, and particularly with LCD screens, going to 1080i does not provide that much of an increase in picture quality. Fortunately, the new receiver is intelligent enough to not upscale those video signals that are higher than the target resolution. Another interesting fact is that component video should be considered on par with HDMI or DVI in terms of picture quality.

Anyways, once I settled on upscaling the analog signals to 480p, I noticed that my LCD screen was automatically changing the zoom mode to accommodate for the aspect ratio of the video source. I had basically two Tivo’s sending analog video, but I had one hooked up via S-Video and the other via composite video (RCA). The strange thing was that the LCD screen was automatically choosing a different zoom setting for each of them. It turns out that S-Video for some reason indicates a different aspect ratio. So even though S-Video is technically a higher quality connection, in this case, it turned out to be the wrong choice. Once I switched both Tivo’s back to composite video, it was much easier to handle the zoom settings.

The last challenge doesn’t have a happy ending but I was able to do a workaround. It turns out that with a digital video connection to the LCD screen, the closed captioning information gets stripped out. The reason I needed closed captioning was because at nights when the girls are sleeping, I normally turn the volume low and just read the captions. Unfortunately, there is no way to have the higher quality digital video and the captioning at the same time (at least not that I could find with existing equipment). I ended up connecting a composite video cable to the monitor out connection on the receiver directly to the LCD screen. So when I wanted the captions, I would have to forego the digital connection, route around and switch the LCD to receive the analog signal.

DIGITAL AUDIO
This was not nearly as complicated as the video side since digital audio for the most part has been around longer than digital video. I even got to use a cable that I had purchased 10 years before to test out digital audio quality back then. Let’s start with what worked first.

With the new receiver, I was able to upgrade the audio connection of the DVD player and XBOX 360 to digital using optical cables (yeah, go figure, optical for audio). What was additionally impressive was that the receiver could sense the connection type and also receive audio encoding information from the digital source to select which surround decoding program to use. Everyone says that you have to play the XBOX 360 on an HDTV to appreciate the video quality, I would venture to say that the digital audio output from the 360 is equally as stunning and necessary to the gaming experience.

Now for the confusing bit, and once again, it’s a matter of too many choices, or in this instance, too many speakers. Originally, with surround sound, it was a matter of 5.1 or 5 speakers plus one subwoofer. In the 10 years since I purchased my original a/v receiver, they went and upgraded the surround specifications to 7.1 or 7 speaker signals plus one subwoofer. I say speaker signals for 7.1 because in actuality, the number of speakers is more like 9 since two of the signals have dual symmetrical positions.

Anyways, I took the simpler road, and decided to ignore the two new audio signals, until at such time my living room can actually accommodate that many speakers in a non-intrusive way. I think you would really need a bigger room and probably a custom room and built-in speaker configuration to take full advantage of the digital audio technology, but that’s for some time down the line.

Did It Work?
When Rebecca first saw the remote for the new receiver, she was more than a little skeptical about having to learn how to use it. One of my objectives was to make it such that there would be little change to how we actually use the system via our existing universal remote, and yet still be able to take advantage of the new receiver and digital connections.

In the end, the only change in user behavior was to use the ‘off’ button to shutdown the components rather than simply pushing the ‘power/on’ button. As for the improvements to the audio and video, Rebecca commented that the video picture looks better than before, which is all the validation that I could hope for

I wanted to thank Rebecca for being patient with me and allowing me to work on the system even though I was sick and should have spent more time resting. And I wanted to thank my parents for offering to pay for the receiver as my birthday present from them.