webdevmatt

As I sit here contemplating weather to spend the $20 for Touchdown, a “better” exchange client for my Droid, I think to myself, am I starting to embody my stance on why Americans love America but are still down with complaining about it. My discussions about the USA can be misconstrued as negative when in fact the negativity is bread from how our “society” exploits all things great about America, our freedom.

I am of the belief that convenience is what drives the vast majority of humans living in America. Everything is so convenient, and when it’s not, we like to bitch about it. Good thing we don’t live somewhere where walking out your front door can be very inconvenient. “Honey, I’m going to the store and grab some milk, you need anything,” BLAM, my home has just been destroyed by a rocket. Do corner stores even exist in war zones?

The next time you feel like bitching about having to wait a few extra minutes in the express lane at the supermarket, remember that we are privileged to be able to have easily accessible food; food that we can buy in the store that is packaged, clean and sometimes ready to eat (semicolon is for you @alex_howansky).

I have a Droid, it’s a great device and delivers on most of the needs I have for a phone and comes drastically close to an efficiency machine that comes in the form of a Blackberry. I’m going stick with Active Sync out of the box for now. If my profile gets erased or the messages lag behind, I will go to the convenient store and grab the Touchdown Client.

As I get out of the shower on Thanksgiving morning and see the bruises emerge on my arms, I’m reminded of the game we had the Sunday before and how much of a pleasure it was to have Sean “If I can’t Beat You I’ll Beat on You” Brown playing his first complete Turkey Bowl. The weather was pleasant on this day and there were a few more things different going on besides Sean’s presence:

1. Founders Gil Steele and Robi Banerjee were not present (’this was their first missed turkey bowl in 6 years); but we got O’Leary back.
2. Teams were more “dictated” by senior, by age, Turkey Bowl softmore Jimmy “The Coach” Nichols
3. WE WERE WEARING FLAGS (no tackle)

The game commenced more promptly this year about 15 minutes from the scheduled starting time with former MVP Ben Evens in transit. We started the game as a 5 on 5 evenly balanced matchup, Ben would step in as all-time QB when he arrived.

The Coach’s dream team brought it early and often, and the youngest member of the clan started to position himself as a strong player starting the game off with an interception (this would happen 3 more times throughout the course of the game).

It was a few plays later when we would have our first casualty on the Turkey Bowl field. Mark went down in a heap of bodies coming up with a mouse in his ankle. The mouse would progress to about the size of a baseball before he had to be carted off for treatment by Sandie as the Beer, i mean medicine, was not quite doing the job in the healing process. The Tuities would miss Mark’s speed for the rest of the game.

While it appeared that the teams were well balanced on paper, Tuite’s team lacked the existence of a quarterback, which became evident after the first 6 possessions of the ball. Everyone attempted to fill the position resulting in 5 interceptions and another first at the Turkey Bowl, a punt.

Meanwhile on the other side of the ball, you had the bizzaro version of the Tuite team. Every player on Jimmy’s Giants converted on a touchdown pass, and with me at quarter back, the Coach drew up a beautiful draw play resulting in a QB TD on a blitz from the Tuities.

With the lack of the aerial assault from the Tuities, Jimmy’s team pretty much rolled over them. After the 5th or 6th intermission, Denzel (Gil’s Neighbor) stepped in as QB, and Charles made a valiant effort to contain the 6′3″ 15 year old phenom. With a QB at the helm for the Tuites, they made a late surge to come within 3 scores before the Giants stepped up when pressured on the good ole “last touchdown wins” rule.

Awards

Kyle Bartz Award: This was the easiest of all awards to give out. Nate Leader, you were the epitome this award. Talking smack on Tuesday, “injured” on Sunday, and I thought you were a bad man.

Sibling Rivalry: This might not have been the year of Christian Tuite, but newcomer Paul “I’m the better” Tuite showed his big brother a thing or two in true Tuite fashion, on both offense and defense. When Paul made the “give him a pump fake, I’ll burn em call” I personally was skeptical. Sure enough Paul left his brother, as Chris has left his opponent many times before at the Turkey Bowl, in the mud. Welcome to the game Paul, we look forward to the showdown again next year. NOTE: Paul put on this show in front of the kids, Riley and Paul’s son, I wonder if Riley will be talking smack next year.

MVP: Walker “Don’t Call Me Dr. Quinn” Nichols. His stats were the best, hands down, 4 interceptions and and 2 TD’s. While stats have not always been our criteria for MVP, the numbers were staggering and deserving of the award. NOTE: This award was a gift from Tuites’ QB’s

No Cleats, No Carnage: Late in the game we saw a new side of the one we call DUSA Dave. The only player without cleats, and maybe the most physically intimidating human on the field, Dave may very well have a mean streak in him K. With the use of flags, there were a few equipment issues and they appeared to get the better of Dave’s temper. Tim “the old man” Sullivan, who had previously owned Dave on Offense with a half a dozen completions and a touchdown, was thrust into the QB position after a minor ankle injury. After some fancy footwork, Dave tore 2 flags clearly off of Tim’s belt. That coupled with some nice jarring hits, I think Dave may be a game changer with cleats and full contact.

Unsung Hero: The MVP may have been given away this year. Our MVPs, in the past have been known to play 100% on every play with stats to boot. How does this sound; 6 TD passes, 1 interception, 1 rushing touchdown, a tipped pass to an interception, the shutting down of Sean Brown, 2 sacks (one being on Denzel). Just saying, one year the writer will get this award :).

Throw Me the Ball: We heard it all day from Sean Brown, and when Denzel stepped in, it looked like he might have been the go to guy. With Sean Brown’s physical offensive strike and the right QB, this guy might be dangerous.

Well, it’s another year and another game in the books. The presence of flags and the absence of menacing intimidation of crushing blows, changed our game a bit, and have the founding fathers pondering a bit. 2009 was the first year without tackle, and it resulted in our only, knock on wood, prolonged injury (Mark our thoughts are with you every day as you hobble around on that huge ankle), and a 13 year old MVP. Is tackle a safer game for our aging bodies and egos? Is Chris Tuite a menace both off and on the field (I’m pretty sure we know at least the answer to one of those)? Should the game go back to its roots? Maybe we should answer these questions in a Christmas Bowl.

WHO’S IN FOR THE INAGURAL CHRISTMAS BOWL, SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS? Please comment on your thought and attendance.

You have got to love the Droid Community. The Updates have started rolling out across the country. If you want to know where, check out this google map. The community will be updating it when as the OTA (Over The Air) update comes available.

If you have any trouble doing the update, check out Verizon’s helpful instructions on “Mandatory System Update: DROID by Motorola.”

The following enhancements to the Droid by Motorola have been made:

• OS stability is improved.
• Battery life is improved.
• Camera auto focus functionality is improved, and time between shots is reduced.
• Enhancements for three-way calling.
• Audio for incoming calls is improved.
• When receiving a call on call waiting, the speakerphone now remains on.
• Bluetooth® functionality is improved; background echo is eliminated.
• Improved Bluetooth phone book transfer of contacts to in-vehicle Bluetooth solutions.
• After closing a GPS application, the GPS icon will now automatically be removed from the notification panel.
• Users can now receive SMS and MMS messages after an EMS message is received.
• SMS and MMS may now be sent to seven-digit addresses.
• Google® contact merging has been updated to accommodate seven-digit numbers.
• Visual Voice Mail notices now arrive instantaneously.
• The corporate calendar widget user interface is updated.

Looks like we will be getting some solutions to some of the issues that we have been discussing with the Droid’s first updates rumored to be coming on December, 11 2009.

We’ll have to see how this pans out. Check out below the fold on this Boy Genius Post for the identified issues.

It is my option, that AOL is the devil for many reasons I will not get into right now, but there has been a request for a how to get “AOL Email on my Droid”, so this one’s for you doc:

1. Click on the email Icon
2. Once in email, click on the menu button
3. Select accounts
4. Select add account
5. You will have to fill out your email address and password and then click Next (incoming and outgoing servers are verified, you are done other wise click manual setup and continue)
6. Select “IMAP Account”
7. Incoming settings
   1. IMAP Server : imap.aol.com
   2. Port : 143
   3. Security Type : None
8. Go to the bottom of the screen and click “Next” (The Droid will make sure you login is valid)
9. Outgoing settings:
   1. SMTP Server: smtp.aol.com
   2. Port: 587
   3. Check Requires sign-in
   4. Username = just screen name eg. If your email address is tester@aol.com, just use tester
   5. Password

You should now be able to send and receive email on AOL. I will get update the post with screen shots if needed, let me know.

Overall, I still like the Droid a lot, but am not in love. The capabilities of the device and the peppiness of android 2.0 OS, coupled with the Verizon network has got me really close to love, but right now it’s just a hot chick with a really good personality, not quite the complete package.

The Good (Great for most users)

1. 1800 miles of east coast driving streaming audio with no interruption the whole way (even through the Lehigh valley). Thank you Verizon and Pandora.
2. Google navigation with traffic layer. Didn’t need the local radio stations to let me know when a slowdown was coming; green, blue, yellow and red with an occasional red circle with a line through it were all the cues needed to know when a slowdown was coming.
3. Games. This one is from my girlfriend, the complete package :). I know she appreciate the free game downloads from The Android Market

The Bad / Ugly (Business user related)

1. On more than one occasion, my exchange mail (Corporate Mail) account has "got behind". It would be 3 pm and my last message was received at 11am. In my business and for many of my clients, this would be unacceptable. I’m hoping this will work itself out. (The things I endure for my clients :))
2. Black Screen. In the 2+ weeks I’ve been using the Droid, I have had to pull the battery when the device has become unresponsive, just a black screen. This might have to do with some of the applications running, but there’s no real way for me to be sure. If you have any insight, please leave a comment.

If there’s anything you are looking to find out about the droid that you would like me to review, please leave a comment.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The past week I got back to exclusively using my Motion Slate Tablet for mobile computing. No more keyboard while I travel (I am handwriting this post, for conversion when I get home). After 11 years with only a laptop, or many at once, I finally have a desktop in the office and I am so happy.

Besides my impeccable tracking system for installed software, the key to both my migration to the desktop and the “2 device, one human” strategy is the use of offline folders. Using this technology over the past 9 years has provided me with confidence that my data is safe, and its integrity is solid. Even when synching up to four devices at one time, I could be confident that the most recent copy of a doc, and especially OneNote, was away at the end of my e-pen or an assorted keyboards.

The beauty about offline folders is that they can be managed by group policies on a domain or just used standalone for users that do not have a managed infrastructure. Weather you’re running a complex environment, right down to a single device with an external drive, offline folders can provide you with excellent mobility and file level synchronization for your Microsoft Devices. (Adam, what is the Penguin’s solution for this feature?)

If you would like to know more, let me know and the nature of your interest and I can write something up about it.

One sweet feature of the New Droid is in GPS; that’s right GPS for “free” (I paid $99 for my Droid). With GPS and Google together, you have a Maps Made In Heaven I mean Match Made In Heaven ;).

My first Google Maps and GPS combo app was introduced to me by good buddy @alex_howansky. We both share a love for tech and fitness so he turned me on to My Tracks. This application, on your Android powered device, will track your activity (Bike, Hike, Run, Walk, anything that has a trackJ). Turn on your GPS, fire up the app, click “Record Track” and whola, you, represented by a little triangle, will start moving around a Google map in one of two views you have come accustomed to on Google Maps (street view, satellite view).

So, we got a GPS that will track our motion. If we want, we can watch a little triangle move around a screen / the streets of your home or visiting town. Here are some more things that are also nice about My Tracks:

• Track time while you are moving and not moving (total time). That’s right it knows when you start and stop, and it keeps track of that for you.
• Track your distance, pace and speed
  • For both moving time and total time J
  • In real time and an average summary at the end of your run
  • Audio feedback, if requested on a configured interval eg. <robot voice>you have gone .9miles at 7minute 30second miles per hour</robot voice>
• Track and display your elevation
  • In real time and a summary of elevation max and min
  • Summary max and min grade in percent

Once you are finished with your track, you will push the stop track button and you are prompted to:

• Enter the name of your track
• Enter the type of activity you were tracking (running, walking, hiking, biking, etc.)
• Enter a description of the track (it was a nice day, it was flat, safe, etc.)

Once you are happy with all the pre and post run documentation, it’s time for the power of the Droid. Like most “things” you do on your Driod, you can share your track with just a couple swipes of your finger. There are many sharing options ranging from emailing the tech happy GPX or KML representation of your track to yourself or a favorite tracking site right down to old school sharing your map with your friends; like we used to with gmap-pedometer. If methods of sharing don’t work for you, how about uploading your track to Google Docs. When you hit this button, My Tracks will send the data to Google Docs, and it will be waiting for you in your Google Document repository as a new sheet (just like an excel spreadsheet) for you to tuck away or perform your own trending magic from day to day.

I have been running with my Droid for over a week and it is a pleasure. I’m still trying to find good accessory to hold the Droid while running so if there are any suggestions please post a comment so I can check it out. Happy Running and Droiding.

I’ve been using the new Verizon Droid for a week now and been asked to put down some thoughts, and I don’t want to disappoint. Furman this is for you.

To get some context, I have moved from a WinMo Samsung i760 which, over the past few months has been crashing on me about once a day (we had a good run i760, but it’s time to move on). This coupled with my inability to recommend devices solely on “what is being said” in cyberspace, I became a proud owner of a Moto Droid on the day of its release last Friday.

Now for the first week’s good bad and ugly report:

The Droid is pretty solid. Everything you hear and or might have read online are true. If you find this account of the Droid interesting please comment and let me know what else you want to know:

The Good

1. Voice quality and coverage is great.
   1. The phone’s speaker is great, and from what the recipients of the calls has said normal and speaker phone calls sound nearly identical.
   2. The mobile carrier is Verizon, can’t really say much more than that.
2. Email integration
   1. Google is perfect and cake to setup
   2. Exchange is very good and simple to set up
   3. *If you have other providers you would like me to check out, please leave a comment and I’ll check it out.
3. Network = Verizon, nothing else to say. I can stream my internet radio driving anywhere in my car (I will be driving over 1000 miles of east coast over the next couple weeks, I’ll report back on coverage)
4. GPS (more on this in another post, hint My Tracks kicks ass oh and so does Google Navigation K)
5. There is a very nice array of applications available on the Andriod Marketplace. Efficiency, practical, entertainment, games, … there’s a great selection and it’s only getting bigger and better
6. Audio and Video are great as long as the source is solid (lots of apps for good media)
7. Great web browser, very responsive and excellent rendering
8. Camera takes nice pictures. 5megapixles and dual led flash.
9. Sharing media is very easy, usually 1 or 2 clicks away without any hunting
   1. Facebook sharing
   2. Twitter
   3. Text Message
   4. Email
10. Notification management is unobtrusive and easily visible and accessible with the drag of finger.
    1. Nearly infinite abilities to customize notifications on individual applications and contacts
       1. Audio
       2. Vibrate
       3. Popup
11. Integration with Google Application
12. Can play wmv’s (that one’s for you Dixon Davis J)

The Bad

1. The Querty Keyboard is pretty poor, but the onscreen keyboard is as good as the iPhone / a good as an onscreen keyboard can be, with very good predictive text.
2. The marketplace doesn’t do a great job warning you if the app will work on your device. All apps are available for older versions of the Android operating system, but the market place does not discriminate, and leave it up to the developer to let you know if the app will work or not on the latest 2.0 OS
3. Occasional unresponsiveness of the touch screen when trying to get back to the home screen / out of an existing application
4. Unlocking the phone is done through a configuration of connecting the dots as opposed to a key code entry (if you have a dirty hand this can easily be seen by a trail on the screen)
5. No “email search” in exchange

The Ugly

1. The Bluetooth does not work with my car L(I have not checked it out with a Bluetooth headset)

    

In the first week of usage of this is a device I can recommend to my clients and friends. It has the “solidness” of network and function that my clients have come to expect and the cool factor that a lot of my friends are looking for. With just a few apps from the Marketplace, I am more informed from the media that I was once connected to, and for that I am thankful for the Droid. Everything from tech podcasts to online radio stations, they are always at my fingertips. If there is one drawback that I have with this device is that it doesn’t have a great keyboard that Blackberry users are accustomed to.

Leave a comment if you would like more detail on any of the features of functions of the Droid, I’ll do my best to give you the low down. Also, check out the Motorola site if you would like the lowdown on the device from those who made it J.

The Nike running log is nice. When I first started using it, I found it slow and a little to flashy, but it had something, which I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was being new to running and being more of a data guy, I was a little disappointed. It’s now been over 2 years since I started using Nike’s online logging, and I’ll tell you what I find it useful. It collects, stores and reports on my data very nicely. The easy canned reports for looking at running history, the ability to track sneakers and the wealth of content for interested runners are at the top of my list for this running log. On the downside, ease of entering your run and storing routes is disappointing compared to some of the other sites.
Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:
1. Customize what data you want to put in, you can put in as much or as little as you want, and it’s right at your finger tips
2. Sneaker miles tracking
3. Nice canned reports for easy progress tracking and look backs
4. All sorts of content for learning about everything from training to gear(of course). I stick to the training articles; they are very informative (http://nikerunning.nike.com).
5. Free training programs for everything to first 5k to advance marathon training.
6. *If you have Nike+ very nice community for setting goals, challenges, sharing ….

Cons:
1. Not so great data entry (can’t tab through text boxes, scrolling doesn’t work 100% as you would think)
2. Integration with only Nike+ (pedometer)
3. No reverse integration with Nike+ community (would be nice if manual entry people could participate in the Nike+ running community)
4. No easy way to create routes compared to others. I will say that when you do create a route, having the route data carry over is nice.

Recommendation:
If you like to collect a lot of data on your runs, use Nike+ and want to store more information about your runs, and want an easy way to look at your progress, this is a great running log. My recommendation is for seasoned runners or Nike+ users.