DiPot: Ice Tea tech » Hardware

9th Techblog Workshop; Android or WP7?

ageor — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:45:17 +0000

Last Friday, October 22nd, 2010, HTC Hellas hosted the first presentation of its recent lineup of Windows Phone 7 and Android moblies in Greece, in the form of the 9th Techblog Workshop. We were welcomed warmly in a very hospitable environment. No less than four of HTC Hellas’ staff and management team were there to answer all our questions. They offerred us enough room and time to fiddle with the Desire HD, Desire Z, HD7, Trophy and Mozart in an informal and quire friendly atmosphere.

In a room full of cheerfull people, unique, desirable mobile phones and plenty of snacks and drinks to go around, my task was to answer all the questions raised by the relevant literature I read after the introduction of WP7 to get an informed opinion about both the latest Androids and WP7. More than that, I am to be the first consumer of my own verdict!

All the phones are impressive, but HTC does that all the time. So much so that I regularly wonder why they don’t make a device with a choice of Android or Windows or both so everybody would be happy and able to switch platform at will…

My dilemma between the two platforms has been the major issue since the announcement of WP7. So, having the opportunity for a hands-on experience with a top-of-the-line WP7 device (thanks to Costas Vlachakis and techblog.gr, I had tried many Android devices including Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab) is all it took to resolve it.

WP7 is great as it should be, but some of its limitations are just unacceptable to me: controlled multitasking, fixed browser, search engine & media player, no flash support, no copy/paste, windows live account requirement (plus my old hotmail account probably won’t do) and no greek keyboard out of the box.

Based on the above, my preference goes to Android. While it has limitations of its own, it is more open and developers get more freedom to deliver on the platform. Which Android, then? An intentional Android limitation quite serious to me is lack of direct Outlook synchronization. So, since HTC has the only real solution to this problem that I know of and its devices are top notch anyway, I am having an easy choice there: If Android then HTC.

Yes, Super AMOLED is probably better than SLCD. Interestingy, Desire HD, with its 4.3′ screen, did not feel as bulky as the HD2 originally felt although their actual size is about the same; I guess the idea hs grown into me. And 4.3″ is better than Samsung Galaxy S’s 4″. The other contender, Galaxy Tab, is still at the back of my head as a single, middle ground solution, compared to a phone and a netbook or notebook. However, I think I am not ready to carry my phone in a bag just yet.

I am now waiting for HTC Desire HD’s availability to go on and get it. But I’m not talking about it much, because last year I was saying that about HD2 and then WP7 was announced…

Thank you, techblog.gr for a great workshop. Thank you HTC Hellas for your hospitality. Thank you both for a very productive evening!

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WM, Android, or, maybe, a Maemo smartphone?

ageor — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:13:11 +0000

I am a long time user of Windows CE, Pocket PC and lately Windows Mobile devices. I am no fan of Microsoft’s. However, I have always thought their mobile OS, although not always the best and, certainly not open, it was a step in the right direction with decent devices and plenty of software.

It’s time for a new smartphone. I admit habits die hard and this is the first time since 2000 I am actually considering changing mobile platform. Not because touchscreens were “non-existent” before multi-touch, as Apple fans would put it, but because Microsoft has, or is close to managing what seemed impossible: lose in the software availability arena. Most new mobile applications for new Web 2 needs are created for the iPhone and Android first and for Blackberry and WM later.

Microsoft clearly failed to recognize the mobile devices market trends in time and doesn’t even seem to do anything serious about it. WM updates are drugged by hardware and other developments and are nothing to write home about. Devices are still best-of-breed, thanks to HTC and others, but this can’t be credited to MS.

So, these are the lists for and against staying with WM:

Stay with WM

10 years of usage (habit)
It does work, most of the time
I have almost all the applications I need
MS Outlook synchronization. What about Outlook synchronization with Android? Android Market’s web interface is bad to useless. It’s a Google product with no search!
HTC HD2

Leave WM

WM is not open. Android or Maemo would be candidates as open platforms
Most hip programs and services are first available on other platforms. Android is the only candidate here as the iPhone is closed, regulated and not the best hardware around
All else being equal, open platforms are also hosted by cheaper devices

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

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The Google Android Platform

ageor — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:47:52 +0000

I read about Open Handset Alliance’s Android platform and cellular phones with great interest. The web is full of specs, reviews, comparisons and the like. I just can’t help but share the following thoughts:

Sometimes it seems Google’s Android is the second touch screen platform after Apple’s iPhone

I can’t understand why Android-based HTC G1 and other touch devices are automatically compared to the iPhone. Yes, it is a great looking device. It has a great touch screen. And that’s where innovation ends and limitations begin.

Great as the iPhone may (or not) be, it’s not clearly and objectively superior to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile devices hardware-, software- nor appearance-wise. Plus, Windows (Mobile and its previous incarnations) has been, so far, dominant in the touch arena. So, how come the iPhone (a new comer with plenty of flaws of its own) is the ad hoc point of reference? And how come all Windows Mobile’s long-standing features (touch screen, great sofware library, multitasking) are rarely mentioned?

Android, anyone? Sure, on what hardware?

Maybe I understand a new platform like Android needs to come with new hardware for psychological (marketing) reasons. Now that’s over and done with, why not introduce Android for old and new hardware? Wasn’t one of Linux’s advantages better performance on old PCs? I’m sure I would love to run Android on my current Windows Mobile Phone but I fear this won’t happen any day soon, if at all. How about selling the HTC Touch HD (my favorite, in the absence of an Android phone with no hardware keyboard. With a camera flash, please) with a choice between Android and Windows Mobile? Better yet, sell it able to dual-boot both platforms? I would buy it right now. Now this is not so, I just have to wait and I am not happy about it at all.

Consider how nice it would be to compare different platforms’ sales and performance on the same hardware (isn’t that what Apple avoids at all cost on the PC market?)! How different the HTC G1 is from the Touch HD or any other current model?

It is my prediction that we will see Android and Windows Mobile running on the same hardware not later than 2009. And this will be the start of a new era on the “choice” and “objective comparison” fronts.

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Music on Hold

ageor — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:01:55 +0000

I am in search of a simple “music on hold” (and background music) system for the office PBX.

I have already tried a CD player and WinAmp on a PC. The CD is short in duration and eventually wears out. WinAmp is better, but it requires a PC with a dedicated sound card (or every other sound source disabled), it doesn’t run as a service out of the box and it does occasionally stop playing for no apparent reason.

All these were happening before the portable MP3 players days. So, the obvious today’s choice would be an MP3 player with enough memory, set to shuffle and repeat. Using an AC to USB adapter should solve the power problem, as batteries don’t last for ever, right? Unfortunately, most USB-powered MP3 players switch to data mode when connected, even if connected to power-only USB. And when in data mode, they just won’t play songs! Experiments with several players and asking various salespersons confirmed that fact.

So, how can it be done? I got a suggestion to find a player powered from a non-USB source. Not an easy task, these days. The last such device I remember was an MPIO MP3 player (yes, it still works, but it’s not mine). Although this was before USB totally dominated the peripherals market, I always held using a non-USB power adapter against it. Little did I know…

Then I accidentally came across the Creative MuVo V100. Its design is exactly such that it distinguishes connection to data USB vs power only USB and acts accordingly, that is play MP3s even when powered! Perfect, at least in theory. Preliminary tests show that, while it works as advertised, it, too (like WinAmp), occasionally stops playback for no apparent reason.

While tests continue, it seems I am still searching…

Update: Creative is in the clear. Apparently, MuVo works fine. When I tried another USB power supply all problems disappeared. It turns out even a simple device like that can be faulty enough to work at random! I am finally happy with my music on hold.

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Your home on camera, live

ageor — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:06:09 +0000

Two weeks ago I was asked again to install a couple of cameras to watch a newborn baby at home (with the sitter…).

Provided there is an ADSL in the premises, the task is trivial, tech-wise. In this case, the heart of the system is an AVM Fritz ADSL modem, 4 port switch, wireless Access Point with SIP, complemented by 2 VIVOTEK PT7137 wifi IP pan-tilt (but not zoom) VGA cameras.

The first problem in serving content from a non-static (dynamic) IP address is how to hit the correct IP, which is a moving target (I recently came across the fact that, in Greece, ISP OTEnet actually disconnects dynamic ADSL connections every 54 hours, just to change IP address!). The solution to this is dynamic DNS, in this case in the form of the free service DynDNS (other such services also exist). What dynamic DNS does is have a client program automatically update the current IP address of an ADSL connection to a host of the form .dyndns.org. In this case (lucky me), both the router and the cameras have dyndns.org support built-in. If this wasn’t the case, I could set up a dyndns.org client in a windows or linux pc to do the job. I could, alternatively, buy a static IP address, which I do not prefer for security and cost reasons. More than one dynamic DNS client can be set up for redundancy, if needed.

The other problem in serving content this way is that the Internet IP one’s router uses is different from the local IP address of this same router and each of his local network devices (yes, it’s too technical). The router takes care of back-and-forth IP translation for the outgoing connections (browsing, email reception & transmission, Instant Messaging etc.) automatically (using NAPT, Network Address Port Translation). However, when a local server needs to listen to Internet incoming traffic, this must be routed to it in a way that cannot be automated (not until UPnP, anyway, which is another story), so port translation must be manually programmed to the router and the method is called “port forwarding”. What this does is tell the router what to do with any incoming traffic, depending on the Port it uses: drop it or forward it to a different internal IP and Port, where a server is standing by.

When similar content is served by more than one servers (in this case all the IP cameras transmit audio & video using the http protocol which by default “listens” and “transmits” on port 80), we have the third problem: We need to reference two (or more) different servers serving the same service (http) using the same single external IP address.

The solution here is in the way protocol calls are made: when our browser shows it connects to http://blog.dipot.com, it is actually connecting to http://blog.dipot.com:80, where 80 represents the connection’s port number (which has possible values from 1 to 65535). The port value of 80 is implied, because it is the standard port number for the http protocol (other protocols by default, but not necessarily, connect to other ports). This essentially means that we can reference ~65000 different services (protocols) on the same IP address. So, what we do is agree between ourselves and the router to use these two (or more) addresses to call our two (or more) IP cameras (the “http://” prefix is important, because the specified ports are not usually intended for this protocol):
Camera 1: http://.dyndns.org:12001
Camera 2: http://.dyndns.org:12002
Camera n: http://.dyndns.org:1200n

So, assuming the cameras addresses are 192.168.1.21, 192.168.1.22 (& 192.168.1.2n) and all transmit to port 80 (the default) we program the router to forward calls to ports 12001, 12002 (& 1200n) to 192.168.1.21:80, 192.168.1.22:80 (& 192.168.1.2n:80). It is important for the cameras IP addresses to be static, so we don’t have another moving target to cope with.

In case the router didn’t support forwarding to a different port than the incoming, we should then program the cameras to listen and transmit to ports 12001, 12002, … 1200n, which is perfectly possible, if not simpler.

This came out larger and more technical than intended. All these, however, can be implemented in about 30′ and are applicable to other services as well.

For router-specific instructions to program port forwarding, refer to the excellent guide “Free Help Setting up Your Router or Firewall“.

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NAS for shared storage

ageor — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:46:56 +0000

I have been hooked on the idea of NAS (Network Attached Storage) since around 2000, when I first read about it. Of course, capacities and costs back then were out of this world.

Today I installed an Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV+ with 4 Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 500GB SATA2 hot-swappable hard disks and 1 gigabit ethernet port. For a total cost around 1.400â‚¬, I got a 3-disk RAID5 configuration with 875 usable GB and a hot-spare disk. In plain english, 2 disks have to fail before any data is lost.

I preferred the Infrant (now owned by Netgear) solution to the much cheaper (~900â‚¬) 2 gigabit Ethernet Intel Entry Storage System SS4000-E, (also with 4 500GB SATA2 disks) for its Active Directory support. However, apart from increased peace of mind (thanks to the hot-spare) the NV+ offers some nice built-in backup and media streaming features, in addition to the 3 USB ports with support for a UPS, printers, flash and USB disks.

I am fairly sure that NAS is the way to go for shared storage. With LAN speeds, disk capacities, users and uses increasing at a hectic pace NAS is cheap (starting at <200â‚¬), scalable and very easy to setup. Please note I am not referring to server applications storage; that’s a different, much more expensive, story.