First Impressions

So I’ve been using GoogleWave for a couple days now. Enough to get a bit of a first impression of it and see how it functions basically.

• The whole “see while you type” bit is cool and can be useful. What would be more useful? An option to turn it off. Some people just aren’t comfortable with that and I can understand. Seen more than a few people commenting on this, odds are we’ll see this option soon-ish. Although it really does bring me back to my ICQ days!
• Contacts are still buggy, sometimes have to log in and out to see new contacts listed. Tad annoying, but please let’s remember it’s still seriously under development.
• Wave is not really suited to IMing, except perhaps one on one in a private wave. Tried this out a few times and it’s alright.
  • It can be fun to muck about chatting in a thread with several ppl, but each time you add someone, with the inline threading, it can get really weird to follow. Good for abstract thinkers, a bit fail for the logical types. Personally I have fun with it
• People who try and say “Wave is for business project collab” are just seriously not thinking. I feel like I’ve been given this huge play ground where I can create whatever I want to try.

Aside from all the private Waves I have going, including a proper collab that is the discussion for the D&D game I plan on running via a Wave (see it’s called outside the box, it’s a brilliant place to be.) I’ve joined a few public waves. So far just TV show related ones, Dollhouse and SGU but they’re cool. Meet ppl from all over and chat with them.

Cool fact about Google Wave which really should just solidify it as awesome in everyone’s mind:

The name was inspired by the Firefly television series in which a Wave is an electronic communication (often consisting of a video call or video message)

The crash message of Wave being a popular quotation from the series: “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”.

So yeah, epic win. If that’s not enough…

Today I taught a bot some important truths of the universe:

Wave of Awesomeness

So someone out there in the Google world likes me I think. Or thinks that geek girls corset tanking is win… either way, I don’t care about the reason because…

wait for it…

I got a Google Wave invite!!!!!!!!! Yes that’s right, an official invite from the staff over there, not a nomination. Yes this is epic win and happiness for me. Especially as this includes the ability to nominate 8 other people to get invites.

Oh what’s that? You don’t believe me? How about some screen shot goodness?

That’s a convo I had this morning with @lostprocess who got a nomination a few days ago. And yes, I’m an epic multi-tasker in the morning over my coffee lol.

So first impressions? Love it… although I’m really needing more of my friends on here to get the feel. Seeing people type live is pretty awesome though. I’m hoping to get a D&D game started kinda forum style on there once we get more people waving. Could be a fun way to integrate some media in there as well… if that does happen I’ll be blogging more about that.

I’m trying to think outside the box of business collaborations with it so any suggestions are totally appreciated. Be neat to start some kind of story idea collab or perhaps a Nanowrimo wave? How about a photo challenge wave? Yes… I’m just throwing random ideas out into the universe.

Please do chime in with your thoughts, invite beggars will be shunned. If I really like you, your invite is otw already. I have 4 left, they will go to friends not random people. Atm I’m just giving everyone a chance to express interest in getting an invite and then I’ll start sending those ones out.

Invite others to Google Wave
Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.

Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

So if I’ve sent you an invite, don’t fret it will show up!

If you’re already riding the wave of awesome, add me as a contact! tehg33kgir1 AT gmail DOT com

Neglect

Ahh this site has been so sadly neglected. You all have my absolute apologies for that one. Life and all, yes I use that excuse every time. So here’s a quicky update.

Rogers has repaired the SMS text fail! Yay!!!! The time stamps on all text msgs will now show the correct time, meaning conversations thread properly. This is awesome, and resulted in a day with over 300 msgs sent. Heh. Makes it far easier to hold a “proper” conversation.

Cyanogen has been told to cease and desist making Android roms. This is super fail on Open Source Giant Google’s part. But I’m not going to get into it. My brother-in-law did a good write up over on his blog. No this isn’t the end of Cyanogen. He will be shipping his ROM minus all the embedded Google-fication stuffs. (yes that is a very technical term). The user will then have to re-Goole-fy (again with the technical terms) their own phone afterwards. So yeah. Fail.

Let’s see… oh! I got an invite for Jolicloud, internet-based OS. Really excited to get my netbook and give that bad boy a go. Will be perfect for blogging, word processing and social networking. Which is ideally what one would use the netbook for. Will be getting that just in time for NaNoWriMo.

Finally… something awesome I came across today.

An “almost” Anthro PC!

You’re welcome.

Mmmm Donuts!

So by now I hope you’ve heard, Google released Android 1.6 to the developer community. Yay for donuts! Should be seeing it available for upgrade possibly as early as October which would be awesome.

There’s no mention of an SMS time stamp fix yet, you can be sure if there isn’t one I am going to be an unhappy geek. Which may finally motivate me to get off my butt and flash with Cyanogen as I’ve been meaning to.

Some things that are mentioned:

• Different screen sizes and resolutions – Ok this could be neat, will have to see what the options are
• New txt-to-speech API – Never tried the old one, may have to do for comparison
• Market upgrade – This is the one I’m most interested to see aside from the time stamps… a quick search of *everything* could be useful. And will ti work better? I often get failures when I’m searching.

As more information is released I’ll share what I find. Let me know your thoughts! For now I’ll leave you with the official introduction video:

It’s August… Update? or Flash?

Unless… in my little self-inflicted exile from the blog-techno-world, I missed an update to the Android OS on my HTC Dream we are still waiting on an update to fix that annoying SMS problem. Or it’s fixed and I haven’t noticed, which is a possibility… although you think I’d have noticed an update.

This annoying-ness has got me thinking about flashing my phone with another Android build. So what to use? Is it worth it? Am I putting my nice new phone at risk by messing with it? Probably… does that mean I won’t do it? Debateable.

Seriously though, the SMS text thing is just getting amazingly irritating. I don’t even really text much anymore… and while that may be because I tend to have Twitter conversations now, I will bet that part of it is because it’s annoying. I use that word a lot today.

So… if I was to attempt this. Which build will I use? Cyanogen was suggested to me by @Bytey, and seeing as word of mouth is how I make most of my tech-related choices there’s a good shot I’ll go with that one. That is, assuming I do this.

First step is to confirm a release didn’t happen while I wasn’t looking, which will be as simple as finding someone at Rogers who knows what I’m talking about. One second thought, this may be insanely difficult. Actually it’s not usually that bad, it’s worse when they call me asking where my payment is only to notice the second they pull up my account info that the payment was made in full, on time. Oh yeah… they are awesome.

Decisions, choices, what is a geek to do?

Wait out the update? or take this opportunity to flash my ROM with something different?

A few things I want to figure out first. Does doing this totally void my warranty? Can I go back? What are some problems with unofficial builds? Anyone with any insight is really encouraged to reply!!

Turn About Is Fair Play

http://faltarego.com/2009/08/20/open-source-fan-fiction-for-geeks/

I find it mildly amusing we both picked the same general topic to blog about.

Open Source and Open Minds

One of things I’m going to be doing on my own blog is reviewing cool free stuff. I’ve already written about a couple of neat tools for writers, WriteMonkey and Celtx. I’m constantly amazed at the quality of products that come from very small teams of developers—often teams of one—who put these programs together just because they can and they want to.

The sheer amount of free software that is available out there is nothing short of staggering. Some of it is freeware, some is shareware, some is donate-ware, some is nag-ware, some is guilt-ware, and some is demo-ware. But an awful lot of it is Open Source.

Open Source software has been around for a long time. It actually began in 1983 with Richard Stallman’s GNU project. In 1985, Stallman started the Free Software Foundation, which promotes the universal freedom to both distribute and modify software.

Both the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation are alive and well today, mostly because of the dedication of innumerable individuals out there who actively work on developing good, free software and making sure that it’s available to whoever wants it. It’s not just a random collection of people hacking and tweaking, either. Most Open Source software is developed in an organized manner, with change logs, branches, and documentation. It’s possible to trace the “lineage” of any particular version of a program back to its roots.

I feel I would be remiss here if I didn’t mention that the Free Software Foundation, on its website, indicates that its principles, while simliar to those of Open Source, are philosophically distinct. Open Source is an offshoot off the FSF, and while the two are not incompatible, they are also not the same.

I’ve been aware of this model of software distribution since the early days of GNU, and I’ve always been intrigued by it. I’ve become much more interested in it over the last few months, partly because certain friends and acquaintances of mine (like Asheyna, for example) have been delving deeply into it, partly because I’m coming to realize that a lot of really good free software is available, and partly because I’m tired of the bloated proprietariness of Microsoft and Apple.

Confession: I have, at various times, used “borrowed” copies of commercial software. The motivation has usually been a particular technical need and a lack of funds, but it has occasionally been simple curiosity or desire for the “cool” factor.

For some people, the motivation to “borrow” commercial software is more along the lines of “Screw the big companies! Make them lose money!” However noble that sentiment might be, I’m coming to realize that it’s somewhat misguided. We might not add to the company’s bank account by “borrowing” software, but we’re still using their product.

The best way to promote a company’s product is to use it. Conversely, the best way not to promote a company’s product is not to use it. And the best way not to use it is to use something else.

I’ve started adopting this philosophy. While I still have Windows XP installed on my computer (it came with it), I now have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu installed on the second disk. I no longer use Microsoft Office and have switched to OpenOffice. I’ve abandoned Photoshop for The GIMP. I’ve opted for Celtx rather than Final Draft.

I want to support these folks who are so diligently moving free software ahead by giving of their time and talents. I want to move away from the corporate giants who are trying to put a strangle-hold on us by dictating how the technology in our lives is going to work.

I want to help promote choice.

And I want to thank Asheyna for letting me rant on her blog. Let’s hope more people get the message about Free Software and Open Source. It’s worthing checking out.

Success and a Blog!

The first geocache adventure was a success! But given that this site is not appropriate to post all the fun that is geocaching, a sub blog has been created.

The Adventures of a Geekette with a GPS

It will be mostly a photoblog with lots of comments! Hopefully it inspires some of you to grab a GPS and get going!

New Levels of Geekiness

So, thanks to my Brits (@Bytey, @darkliquid, @drux73) I’ve come across this interesting lil thing called Geocaching.

“Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world.”

Basically, that all reads as “full of win!” hehehe. Seems like quite the geeky activity, especially with my Google Phone, which I am still totally in love with bee tee dubs. Anyways, old school geocachers will tell you to go get a GPS and do it for real, and really old school guys will tell you to get a compass and a map and stop being a tool haha.

But, there is a whole new generation of people who have gotten into geocaching thanks to the Android making it a lot more accessible. And I am very happy to be one of those people.

So how does one get into geocaching on their HTC Dream (or similiar phone?)

First, go to geocaching.com and register, premium membership if you can, although personally I’m holding off until I see how I like it. Then you can search for a geocache a number of ways, zip code seems easiest. Thanks to the Google Phone though, you don’t need a PC for any of this, its just recommended.

On your phone you will need to download GeoBeagle from the Android Market on your phone, also Radar to help with tracking. When you access it make sure your GPS is turned on. Then, select a geocache, import the location into Google Maps and get out the door!

All that being said is to say that I think geocaching would be awesome. Every time one of my Brits goes geocaching it seems so awesome, and I get a bit jealous. It’s really not fair that the UK should be so far from Canada, and me without a teleporter bah! Although the geeks have promised to get on it.

Anyways, I’ve decided to start getting into this myself. The first trip will be with minime on Monday to a cache I found near here. Cameras will be packed and fun will be had! Expect my first photoblog shortly afterwards.

For those who have already gone on this awesome adventure… comments? Thoughts? Suggestions? Have I represented it correctly?

New Google Phone Apps!

An update of my Useful Google Phone Apps Page!

Ok, I’ve had the HTC Dream for a while now. And guess what? I still love it! Really, it only gets better the more things you find out it can do. For those who follow the world of open source probably heard about the release of Google Latitude. (More on what I think about this later!)

Between my grandpa and I we have come across some neat little programs. So what am I using right now?

NEW!

Google Maps +Latitude
The ultimate in any stalker’s arsenal! hehe. Don’t worry, your location isn’t given out at random, you invite your friends to join your network. Even there you have many privacy options. From letting certain friends see your exact GPS location to only showing others which city you’re currently in. You can turn it off whenever you like to prevent anyone from seeing where you are.

There’s also two methods for determining your location. Wifi/3G which is not as accurate, and GPS which is dead on.

3G Watchdog
I don’t have unlimited data plan, but 500MB is actually a lot when it comes to mobile phone data. However, with using programs such as Latitude I do want to keep an eye on how much bandwidth I’m using. This program tracks the uploaded and downloaded data (you can define what your quota is and when it refreshes). It also tells you useful information like how much bandwidth you will have used given your current rate when your quota ends.

NewsRob
Because a girl can never have too many RSS feeds to follow hehe. Seriously though it’s a nice light application that syncs with Google Reader so you don’t have to set up all your subscriptions again. You can star and share posts right from your phone!