finally page 2 - Dave's Blog

G1 Android Phone

2008 Nov 9, 11:29

I finally replaced my old regular cell-phone which was literally being held together by a rubber band with a fancy new G1, my first Internet accessible phone.

I had to call the T-Mobile support line to get data added to my plan and the person helping me was disconcertingly friendly. She asked about my weekend plans and so I felt compelled to ask her the same. Her plans involved replacing her video card so she could get back to World of Warcraft and do I enjoy computer gaming? I couldn't tell if she was genuine or if she was signing me up for magazines.

I was with Sarah in her new car, trying out the phone's GPS functionality via Google Maps while she drove. I switched to Street View and happened to find my car. It was a weird feeling, kind of like those Google conspiracy videos.

The phone runs Google's open source OS and I really enjoy the application API. Its all in Java and URIs and mime-types are sort of basics. Rather than invoking the builtin item picker control directly you invoke an 'intent' specifying the URI of your list of items, a mime-type describing the type of items in the list, and an action 'PICK' and whatever is registered as the picker on the system pops up and lets the user pick from that list. The same goes if you want to 'EDIT' an image, or 'VIEW' an mp3.

I wanted to replace the Google search box gadget that appears on the home screen with my own search box widget that uses OpenSearch descriptors but apparently in the current API you can't make home screen gadgets without changing parts of the OS. My other desired application is something to replace this GPS photo tracker device by recording my location to a file and an additional program on my computer to apply those locations to photos.

tmobile personal api phone technical g1 android google

Leaking Information Through Delicious

2008 May 18, 6:45

While re-reading Cryptonomicon I thought about what kind of information I'm leaking by posting links on Delicious. At work I don't post any Intranet websites for fear of revealing anything but I wondered if not posting would reveal anything. For instance, if I'm particularly busy at work might I post less indicating something about the state of the things I work on? I got an archive of my Delicious posts via the Delicious API and then ran it through a tool I made to create a couple of tables which I've graphed on Many Eyes

I've graphed my posts per week and with red lines I've marked IE7 and IE8 releases as stated by Wikipedia. As you can see, there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern so I suppose my concerns we're unfounded. I use it for both work and non-work purposes and my use of Delicious isn't that consistent so I don't think it would be easy to find a pattern like I was thinking about. Perhaps if many people from my project used Delicious and that data could be compared together it might be easier. For fun I looked at my posts per day of week which starts off strong on Mondays and decreases as the week goes on, and my posts per hour of day. It looks like I mostly post around lunch and on the extremes I've only posted very late at night twice at 4am: converting media for the Zune, and Penn's archive of articles. In the morning at 7am I've posted only once: document introducing SGML.manyeyes graph cryptonomicon delicious

Finally finished Baroque Cycle Novels

2008 May 2, 10:20

I've finally finished the Baroque Cycle, a historical fiction series set in the 17th and 18th centuries by Neal Stephenson whose work I always enjoy. There were often delays where I'd forget about the books until I had to take plane somewhere, or get discouraged reading about the character's thoughts on economics, or have difficulty finding the next volume, or become more engrossed in other books, projects or video games, and leave the Baroque Cycle books untouched for many months at a time. Consequently, my reading of this series has, I'm ashamed to say, spanned years. After finishing some books which I enjoy I end up hungry for just a bit more to read. For this series I don't need a bit more to read, I'm done with that, but I do want a badge or maybe a medal. Or barring that, college credit in European History and Macro Economics. I can recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Neal Stephenson's other work and has a few years of free time to kill.

history neal stephenson baroque cycle book nontechnical

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 Released with Activities

2008 Mar 5, 11:36

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is available now. I can finally talk about some of the stuff I've been working on for the past year or so: activities. Activities let you select a document, some text on a document, or a link to a document and run that selection through a web service. For example, you could select a word on a webpage and look it up in Wikipedia, select an address and map it on Yahoo Maps, select a webpage and translate it into English with Windows Live Translator, or select a link and add it to Digg.

IE8 comes installed with some activities based on Microsoft web services but there's a page you can go to to install other activities. However, that page is missing some of my favorites that I use all the time, like del.icio.us. Accordingly, I've put together a page of the activities I use. MSDN has all the info on creating Activities.

Activities are very similar to other existing features in other browsers including the ability to add context menu items to IE. There's two important differences which make activities better. Activities have a preview window that pops out when you hover over an activity, which is useful to get in place information easily provided by developers. The other is that the interface is explicit and takes after HTML FORMs and OpenSearch descriptions. Because the interface is explicitly described in XML (unlike the context menu additions described above which run arbitrary script) we have the ability to use activities in places other than on a webpage in the future. And because activity definitions are similar to HTML FORMs, if your webservice has an HTML FORM describing it you can easily create an activity.

microsoft technical activity openservice ie8 ie activities msdn

Moved

2007 Aug 6, 4:07I've moved from my previous apartment in Redmond into Sarah's condo in Kirkland. Over the past week I'd been coming home from work and packing and sorting all of my belongings. Everything had a few destination options:

• Sarah's condo
• Storage
• My office
• Recycle/Donate

I donated two carts of computer related junk (two CRTs, two desktops, six laptops, untold number of cables, piles of network and sound cards, etc) to RE-PC and six garbage bags of clothing that I either never wear or into which I have worn holes into friendly looking clothing donation bins. Of course I still need to find some place to get rid of my 15 inch CRT TV, VCR, DVD player, and X-Box. I finally emptied my bags of coins that had been collecting for about seven years (one of the bags was from my college orientation) through Coinstar and got ~$160. Some items seemed to fit very well at work like my satirical RIAA propaganda poster and my Darth Vader Nutcracker. This past weekend I had movers come and actually move my furniture. Most of its now in storage except for my living room which is moved into Sarah's second bedroom. Now all I have to do is unpack...move personal repc recycle nontechnical

Plane Wackiness

2004 Apr 22, 6:44My interview was scheduled for Monday starting at 8am, so when I signed up for the trip and MS suggested a departure time of 4:30pm on Monday I thought that'd be good. Unfortunately the entire process ended at 4:15pm and it takes a little more than 15 minutes to get from Redmond to Seattle and then through the whole airport deal. So after the taxi ride to the airport and waiting in line for like 20 minutes its 5:30pm and I'm at the front of the line asking this woman for a new ticket.

Woman: *typing* Well I can get you to LA... Me: Yeah well that's the right state. Woman: *still typing* Oh... Hmm... Uhoh... *other non-words* Me: *waiting patiently* ... Woman: Are you ready to run? Here's your ticket. Gate C11.

I look at the ticket and the plane's boarding at, what do you know?, 5:30pm. So yeah I start running. I hit the security check point line and I know all about this. I take off my belt and shoes and empty my pockets into my backpack, my only luggage. I am Mr. Prepared, or maybe Prepared-ness is my middle name, whatever. I get through the line with no problem, put on my backpack and holding my shoes and belt in one hand I notice a big old clock just to my left. While I'm staring at it, it changes from 5:42 to 5:43. "Oh shit!" I think, so I start running again. I finally get to the appropriate gate and get on the plane all out of breath. I'm walking down the aisle with shoes and belt in hand, and I guess I look a bit out of sorts. I sit in my seat and I'm telling the guy next to me about my whole deal: "Ha. Yeah. I was late and with the running and the security checkpoint..." into incoherent mumbling and gesturing. So it turns out the pilot and copilot's incoming flight was way late and I ended up sitting in my seat for another 15 minutes before we could take off. All that wasted running. What a shame. Coming into LA we've been "landing" for like 20 minutes. We finally get on the ground and its 30 minutes passed the boarding time of my connecting flight. I start thinking about anyone I know who lives in LA. All the other passengers stand up and block the aisle. Then, an announcement "Will Daniel Riesney please come to the front of the plane." OK I can tell that's supposed to be my name, but how the hell am I supposed to get to the front of the plane? The people near me who have heard me talking to the guy next to me about this let me past easily enough. But now I have to explain this to each person out of ear shot to further my progress. "Hi. Excuse me. They called me to the front of the plane. Pardon me. Can I get by." And so on. Its getting more hostile the closer I get to first class. Up to this one guy. He's trying to talk on his cell phone but its not working because everybody is trying to talk on their cell phone now that we've landed. His phone connection has failed. I can't guess at what else has happened to him today but he's decided to make his Custerian last stand here between me and the rest of the plane.

Me: *continuing from previous passengers* Excuse me. Pardon me. Guy: *spinning around* WHAT!? Me: Can I please get by? Guy: What? Why? Were not going anywhere! This whole time I've been forcing my way past him. Guy: There OK your past me now! Your several feet ahead of me! Congratulations! Me: Dude, I'm sorry they called me to the front of the plane. Guy: I find that highly unlikely!

Whatever. I keep walking and like 7 people past the asshole I guess the flight attendants give up on me and start letting people off the plane. Now who feels like an asshole? Its me. I get off the plane and some airport guy has a new schedule for me. Oh good I'm thinking, I've got an hour until the next flight's boarding time at 10:30pm. So I get on a tram to travel to the other side of LAX. I wait for oncoming traffic to stop so I can climb up a stopped escalator (Incidentally right next to it is another escalator which has been closed off. Why would they do that? Escalators cannot break they just become stairs.) I get up there and wait in line for an extreeeeme amount of time and finally get up to claim my ticket. Its 10:20. I get my ticket and, yeah, the departure time is 10:30, the boarding time is 10:10. So I start running again. More security check fun. I finally find my boarding gate. I rush up...

Me: *breathing heavy* Here's my ticket Lady: Oh good your finally here. Just go right out that door, *points* down the stairs, *more pointing* and wait for the tram.

WHAT? Isn't there supposed to be a PLANE somewhere? This is what I'm thinking not what I'm saying. So I walk outside and down these steps. And I'm waiting. The lady from inside joins me.

*awkward silence* Lady: The bus should be here pretty soon. Me: So... I'm going to miss my plane huh? Lady: Oh no, see here? *points at my ticket* Your ticket is confirmed so they can't leave without you. Me: Oh good... I hope they didn't tell the other passengers that.

Lets see how many passengers I can piss off in one night. Eventually this bus shows up. I get in and the guy starts driving. "Do you know where I'm going?" I ask. "Yeah" the guy says. Great. Fine. Whatever. I don't care anymore. So we drive back around to the OTHER SIDE of the airport. You know, the side I started on. Yeah that side. So I get off the bus and walk into the small building set aside for smaller airlines. I see the frantic looking ladies manning another of these gates. They see me, check my ID and ticket, and one of them ushers me out the door next to the gate. Out the door and into a small gated area outside. So me and this new lady are just standing here. Even had I the energy to ask her what was going on its very loud what with all the planes. So we just stand here at this gate facing the planes for a while. I look at her trying to make eye contact and get some sort of acknowledgment that we are in fact waiting for SOMETHING. Eventually one of the day-glow guys appears from between some planes and saunters up. The lady hands him a paper and walks away. At the time I was kind of offended but looking back on it, maybe the lady was a deaf mute and I'm the one being insensitive. So now I follow this guy through a bunch of planes. I'm yelling "San Luis Obispo?" trying to be heard over all the ambient noise and this guy is somehow responding to me with an even tone no yelling required. I don't know how he did that. We finally get to the plane and its 10:40. So I delayed the flight ten minutes. I'm thinking its going to be really awkward when I sit down and we immediately leave. Its going to be suspicious even. But, not to worry, we wait while the flight attendant argues with the guy who brought me to the plane for another ten minutes about how many people are supposed to be on the plane. Whatever.