Reading on Mobile Phone

Lately I am reading a lot on mobile phone. Two thinghs combined encouraged me to do so - damage to my BeBook mini and Kindle application for Android mobile phones.

After reading few books on my phone and more than a few on stand-alone eBook reader with EInk screen I feel quite capable of judging which one is better. In short - mobile phone sucks.

Screen size

My phone has 3.7" screen and this is just barely enough for normal reading. As soon as I have need for bigger font size (I like to read while walking), phone fails me misserably. Screen is just too small.

BeBook mini was on small side of e-book reader and while 5" may not seem much, I consider it quite a good balance between portability and readability.

Reading at daylight

Lot of my reading is in sunlight. Anything not eInk is just painful. Visibility under direct sun is zero and shade improves things only marginally. Fingerprints on my touch screen do not help much either. I keep finding myself cleaning damn thing every few minutes.

Reading at night

Here is where mobile phone shines. Backlight is just something that you don’t get with eInk. Kindle application even allows adjustments of brightness level and paper color.

Final verdict

Anybody saying that LCD is perfectly suited for reading probably never tried eInk. - Yes, eInk is expensive. - Yes, eInk devices are only good for reading. - Yes, eInk has no backlight.

With all that in mind I still prefer it. For pure reading pleasure eInk is way to go.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

It was easy to recognize me on my way to work - I was one reading from small black device. Not anymore.

Worst thing has came to pass - my BeBook mini is broken. From all symptoms I can deduce that inner glass layer has shattered and that there is no revival here. It was in cover, I did handle it gently (ok, at least I handled it with more care than other devices I own) and I did adore it.

What now? Currently I use my mobile phone (HTC Desire) for reading books but that will not last. Once you start using e-Ink, there is no going back to inferior technologies (as far as book reading is concerned). There is no other choice than buying another book reader. Problem is which one.

Since my kids do like to eat occasionally, my choice is limited to devices under $200. And really there are only two devices I consider worth buying in that range. Amazon Kindle and (yet another) BeBook mini. BeBook is devil I know and it did serve me well. I prefer it mostly for it’s small size and huge capacity (with additional SD card). Kindle is big, bulky and has huge keyboard that just gets into way but it also has huge choice of books and you can use it without any computer near.

I will not make decision this week, probably not even next one, but I am quite sure that next spare money goes to this purpose.

In memoriam BeBook mini (Nov 2009 - Jun 2010).

KulenDayz 2010

There is still hope in this world. KulenDayz 2010 conference will be held this year at little bit later date. As usual it will be three-day event starting on Friday evening (2009-09-03) and ending on Sunday afternoon (2010-09-05).

While I did give presentation on KulenDayz 2009, I am not sure whether I will give one this year but I am sure that I will attend anyhow.

Since conference will be held in Beli Manastir, Croatia I do understand that it is probably somewhat inconvenient to 97% of my foreign readers but I can promise that anyone coming will not be sorry.

Conference is small, friendly, free and you have a chance to meet me. It does not get better than that. :)

I'm on the Market

My first Android applications are out in-the-wild.

I will list them here:

• Poštanski broj will allow you to search through all places in Croatia in order to find their post number, geographic location or just to view map of their surrounding.
• Praznik will give you overview which holiday comes next in Croatia.
• Rođoš makes use of existing birthday field in contacts and shows them all in one place.

As you might guess, user interface is in Croatian. Fortunately all applications are quite simple so usage for non-Croatian speakers should also be possible. English version might come in future but that highly depends on my free time.

Bing Maps for Developers

Today I gave presentation to local Microsoft Community User Group. It was redelivery of Windays presentation with small changes (most of them related with speed).

In any case, presentation is over and content can be downloaded here.

Interested parties might also check similar presentation for Windows Mobile 6.5.

Microsoft Kinect

I wrote some time ago about Project Natal. It seemed like great technology but I heard no news about commercial release for quite a while.

Yesterday (2010-06-13) it was presented at Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles (E3) under it’s new name - Microsoft Kinect. Somebody ought to shoot marketing department since developer code names are pretty much always better than final product name.

Although release date was not specified, technology seems to be quite ready and I do hope that it will be released this year. Even with it’s new name it remains best thing to have in living room and, for me, single reason why I might buy XBox.

What Is Happening to Me?

Few days ago I wrote instructions for setting-up Android development environment. Since I am mostly known as Windows developer this caused lot of questions in my neighborhood. Here are answers to most common ones and some observations of mine.

1. Yes, I am still C# developer at heart.

2. I still love Windows Mobile. This goes for 6.5. As far as Windows Mobile 7 is concerned, I have my reservations (this is drastic change after all) but it is really hard to comment anything at this time. Most of known limitations and features of that platform are subject to change by the time of launch. Anyhow most of things that bother me are just political decision (e.g. multitasking) and not a real limitation.

3. I do not consider my work in Android as betrayal of my love. While I love Visual Studio and what it does offer, I think that trying other environments can only lead to good things.

4. My phone ratio is 2:1 in favor of Windows Mobile (HP iPAQ 514, HTC S740 and HTC Desire).

5. Exchange ActiveSync is best protocol there is. I am not sure how good it was for Microsoft to allow Google and others to use it in their products but from customer side I must confess it is great decision. It allows all my phones to share same data regardless of their underlying platform and everything gets synchronized by “it-self”.

6. Both Windows Mobile and Android share same hate for letters Đ and đ (latin capital/small letter D with stroke). While I can synchronize existing contacts with this letter, neither of these platforms will allow me to enter this letter via keyboard. When letter is part of your alphabet it gets annoying fast.

7. Yes, I will probably make some comparison of development experience between these platforms in future.

Targus Laser Presentation Remote

As I prepared my WinDays presentation, I noticed that I was missing one key piece of hardware - wireless presenter. While I could jump back and forth toward my keyboard, I decided to take lazy way out and to buy cheapest presenter that I could find. My choice fell on AMP13EU (AMP13US for U.S.A. market) priced at $50.

First sight was spoiled by indestructible plastic package. It took five bazooka shots to open it half-way. Once I opened it, everything got better - batteries ARE included. As I was inserting batteries inside I noticed that only one battery is really needed. You will get two batteries. There will even be place for two batteries inside, but only one battery has electric contact. Other one just sits in it’s compartment as emergency spare. Great idea.

In between batteries there is one additional compartment with small USB receiver. I am usually nervous about loosing such small USB thingies but place for storage inside of presenter made me feel little bit easier. It is not as comfortable as having bluetooth based one but this at least works with Windows Server 2008.

USB was immediately recognized as “Human Interface Device” and system thought of it as generic keyboard. Previous/Next slide buttons are interpreted by Windows as PageUp/PageDown keys and they can be used in any application. If you are Apple fan, support for KeyNote and PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts is available via small hardware switch.

As buttons go, on top you have standard next and previous slide buttons, start/stop presentation, blank screen and laser pointer. On side there is on/off and lock button. Locking device disables all buttons except next, previous and laser. I do like this mode just because of color changes (yes, I am that shallow :)) but I do not find it particularly useful otherwise. Buttons are spaced quite nicely so there is little if no chance of accidental key presses.

Front of device is polished black (a.k.a. as shade that attracts fingerprints) while background is rigged. While I prefer gummy finish myself I also must admit that device wasn’t slippery even in wet hands.

I am not sure about official range for device but it seems to be quite large. During my presentations I moved something like 10 meters from computer and it was still working. I do not think that I need more than that.

Only real problem I had with device is turning it off since you must press on/off button for couple of seconds. Since there is no visual feedback on “shutdown” status this usually results in more than one attempt.

Device did it’s job and I must recommend it for that. There are no advanced features (e.g. mouse control) so I am not sure whether it will be good fit for advanced presenter but for me it is more that enough. And, if they added storage “baggie” in packing it would be near to perfect.

P.S. If you are not interested in laser pointer or any other feature except for next/previous slide, AMP18EU (or AMP12US) has pretty much same features while being slightly cheaper.

Cannot Contact Steam Network

Jeff Atwood has some strange hobbies that include (but are not limited to) giving away games. Fortunately I was on receiving end of latest giveaway. Condition was good score on one or more trilogy sites and steam account.

Installation of steam client wen’t without issues but program would not start. It would just give standard non-descriptive message “Cannot contact steam network”. For troubleshooting purposes I tested it in Windows XP Mode and everything worked there. That confirmed that compatibility with my Windows 7 (64-bit) is issue here.

Solution was annoyingly simple. I went into properties for Steam and checked “Run this program in compatibility mode” check-box. I opted for Windows XP compatibility (default) and started it again. Update went without hitch.

After update I got nasty message from Windows telling me that I should consider removing compatibility settings. Once I removed compatibility application continued to work but my download rate went to 0.0 KB/s. Going against all warnings I reactivated Windows XP compatibility and everything was good once more.

Worthless Precision

Calculations show that Earth’s oil reserves will cease to exist at 20:58 on Oct 22, 2047. It is scary figure to see and it is probably as good of an guess as any. Saying this, it is also just rubbish. I will explain on example of thermometer.

My new kitchen thermometer shows me temperature of 19.3 °C. I think that all thermometers that you can buy show results with one decimal digit (with resolution of 0.1 °C). However, once I checked specification, I was puzzled. Precision of measurement is only ±2°C. Simply said it means that actual temperature is anywhere from 17.3 to 21.3 °C.

It is in human nature to assume that all that is shown actually matters. I can bet you that people would trust thermometer with five decimal digits more (e.g. 19.24133 °C) than one without them (e.g. 19 °C). It just looks better when our numbers have higher resolution. Real truth is hidden in precision. And that number is not always easy to find.

Time of oil exhaustion is nonsense for same reason. They showed it with resolution of one minute just to make it more believable. Real precision is probably give-or-take few years if not more.

P.S. Yes, we will run out of oil one day. We just cannot pinpoint date.