Why the Telegraph & Twitter Are Full of Crap

So a hot topic this morning has my blood boiling. Now usually this is just because Mashable posts something ridiculous, most times some Apple loving spew. I'd like to think I keep my temper in check. I usually vent by posting some kind of overtly logical comment, reaping a few "likes" on Disqus and then moving on to something more useful like writing for Teknami. This morning the level of blind ridiculousness hit a new level when several, supposedly, respectable social media personalities were re-tweeting a story from the UK's Telegraph news paper found here that says, only in its title, that more Indians have cell phones than there are toilets.

The first issue is that no where in the article does it quote what the title states. Second there is no link or statement of any kind to back this up. Even the quotation used from the UN individual doesn't include a statement to that effect. The UN individual does state a total sum of money that is needed to meet UN sanitation targets for India but beyond that there is no indication that more phones exist than toilets.

Like wise if we use a little logic and know a little history it's pretty obvious communication has always been more valuable than sanitation. Just pulling a few broad examples. Pheidippides was a greek messenger more interested with delivering the message than stopping to shower up. I have to imagine he also wizzed all over and probably dropped a duce along the way. From the Wikipedia entry:

The legend states that he was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon (in which he had just fought),^[3] which took place in August or September, 490 BC.^[4] It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming "Νενικήκαμεν" (Nenikékamen, 'We have won.') before collapsing and dying.

 Like wise sailors through out history have gone with out proper sanitation to deliver reports of war, plague, famine and all sorts of other things back to their hiring parties. Are we all freaked out because soldiers routinely deal with high tech equipment like ROV vehicles, weapons and all sorts of technical toys even though they go weeks at a time in the field with nothing more than wet wipe showers and no toilets. Not so much. The point is the two things are totally unrelated and yet some how this is considered news. Are we seriously so bored with ourselves that we have to literally make crap up?

To top it off the old fashioned news paper style of writing what you want and ignoring the consumer/customer is still holding strong with no method to comment on the sorry excuse for a story. There by shoving this garbage down our throats. When are we as citizens of the internet going to start worrying about the sanitation of the net? Internet garbage like this seems to be piling up!

P.S. In what I thought would be a cute turn of play I borrowed the post image from the telegraph. What was more amusing was finding that that Telegraph apparently has a sort of potty mouth. The image came from an article about Britons tweeting or surfing on the toilet.

WebOS 2.0 Beta Screenshot Are Sexy!

Any one who knows me knows I'm an Android guy. I love open source, I love Google, I love the promise and the power that the Android OS has. Not long ago similar promise and power was available not just in one OS but two.

Web OS was the final software product of the now defunct(read, devoured by HP) Palm company. It, like Android, is a standards based mobile OS with incredibly good fit and finish and who's down fall was less the software and more the hardware Palm chose to put it on. Sharp looking devices that were a bit anemic compared to the likes of the iphone and Android offerings of the time. You can see below a screen shot of the application launcher from web OS.

Image via Wikipedia

Check the link below to peep some of the Web OS 2.0 beta screen shots they're flashing around.

WebOS 2.0 beta screenshot extravaganza -- Engadget

Android Tips and Tricks

Let it be known that I LOVE my Motorola Droid and I love the Android operating system. Both are rock solid and fast. The problem is that I'm a power user in every sense of the word. I'm pretty sure they don't make a phone fast enough to keep up with me. That said I strive to get the last little bit of performance out of most of the hardware that I get my hands on. This has led to a sort of crusade to find the best performance tweaks for my Motorola Droid which should also apply to any other Android based phones. Some of the stuff is kind of face palm simple but some other tweaks might surprise you. Lets get started.

1. Wifi ON. Traditional logic would say if you activate wifi and 3G that you are running twice as many chips so twice as much power usage. As it turns out Android is very very wifi friendly and will re-direct traffic to Wifi when ever it has it and will sort of low power mode the phone radio. I've gone from getting just about a day out of my phone to closer to a day and a half. Here's how on Android 2.0 and later:
1. Menu Icon
2. Settings
3. Location & Security
4. Check "Use wireless networks"
2. Turn OFF GPS. I've all ready found 3 family members who's Android phones came with GPS on by default and didn't know it. Obviously if they didn't know what the little satellite dish icon is about they certainly didn't know how to shut it off. So here's how on Android 2.0 and later:
1. Menu Icon
2. Settings
3. Location & Security
4. Uncheck "Use GPS satellites.
3. Set display brightness to automatic. Android has been designed pretty brilliantly to know when a screen needs to be fully lit or can be dimmed so setting the display brightness to automatic will help extend your battery life. Again it's pretty easy to get there. Here's how:
1. Menu Icon
2. Settings
3. Sound & Display settings
4. Brightness
5. Check "Automatic Brightness"
4. Finally get a good task manager. While this doesn't necessarily save battery it makes your phone feel snappy and "new" which makes you forgive any battery life short comings your phone may have. On Verizon both the Droid and the Droid Eris come with a manual task manager installed by default. Manually running a task killer is a waste of time and seems silly on a phone so grab the "Automatic Task Killer" app from the marketplace. It's free and will keep you from having to manage your tasks as it sits in the background and does what it's name implies. You can  whitelist/blacklist apps that are to be automatically killed and which ones are untouched. You can also set the time out where the app will wait a certain amount of time after screen sleep then kill your blacklisted apps. I haven't manually killed an app or worried about app management in at least a month.

Apple iPhone Conspiracy Theory

I'm not one to get all crazy over conspiracy theories and I think you'll find that most level headed geeks aren't either but this latest "leak" and soap opera with Apple and the new 4th generation iPhone definitely begs asking some questions.  There are plenty of stories out there about it at Gizmodo, Engadget, Gawker and the like and you can go get caught up with the story there. I'm simply going to discuss some key points and how odd they seem. While I'm certainly no Leo Laporte I'd like to think I have a more realistic view of the state of things being one of the tech peons. Leo has stated on multiple podcasts that he doesn't believe this situation was a setup or a publicity stunt. I have to take the opposite stance. Here's why.

First is that this thing was even found in the first place. We hear stories about how the iPad prior to release has to have special window-less bunkers constructed and the device tethered to tables and what not. The iPad is kind of a lesser device to the popularity and thus profitability of the iPhone. It's certain that if the security required for a lesser device like the iPad is as heightened as it was that it's certainly higher for the iPhone. How then does such a device get loose? I'd say it's highly unlikely unless its on purpose.

On a similar note regarding secrecy and control I doubt that Apple let an engineer or any one for that matter out of the house with a prototype device to do testing outside of business hours and with out a check in/out process to ensure their assets are under control. Which means the only way this got out is if it was on purpose or was taken with out permission.

Which brings me to yet another point. Via Leo Laporte and his story telling there is a case where an iPad 3G was shown to Wozniak who happens to be an Apple employee, if only honorary, and the dude who showed it to him got fired. As of yet there are no reports of the guy who lost this phone being fired at all. You want me to believe that one apple employee lets another look at a prototype/pre-release device outside of the company property and they get fired and yet another employee loses a prototype all together and he gets to stay. I know corporate BS can be backwards some times but this sort of thing is high dollar stuff to these companies and when things like that happen heads roll. No way no how this guy gets off the hook if it wasn't on purpose. I do suppose it's likely it may yet happen under the table and on the down low but until then you have to wonder.

Finally is just the timing. Right at the same time that the most amazing and beautiful Android phone is about to see the light of day. Certainly interesting timing. Android market share has been climbing like a two stage booster rocket lately and it certainly seems like the sort of grandiose thing Apple needed to do to turn peoples attention away from all the Android goodness.

Just some things to think about. Leave some comments or hit me up on twitter and let me know what you think.

Android Needs A Style Guide

I’ve suggested this for discussion on a few Android related blogs and yet to see this get any talk time. Android needs a style guide. In kind of a bad way. While it’s seeing a lot of up take and it’s gaining ground on market share it’s headed for a bad spot if Google doesn’t take some steps to clean some things up. I’m not saying everything needs to look and act the same every where but having a mostly common UI for things I think would help the uptake of the platform immensely. For example if they simply released some suggested guidelines for how far away from the edge of the screen is good/best for button elements to be or standardize common locations for common buttons e.g. File, Edit, View in the Windows world.

I’m not saying Google has to crack down on it or anything but may be put a system in place similar to the way they maintain the OS and offer a ‘Google’ stamp if programs meet the minimum style standards or something. That way I always know how to find the settings for a program and I get to feel at home even with a new media player. Comfort and familiarity play in to usability as much as originality and style.

Google Android Needs a Style Guide

I've suggested this for discussion on a few Android related blogs and yet to see this get any talk time. Android needs a style guide. In kind of a bad way. While it's seeing a lot of up take and it's gaining ground on market share it's headed for a bad spot if Google doesn't take some steps to clean some things up. I'm not saying everything needs to look and act the same every where but having a mostly common UI for things I think would help the uptake of the platform immensely. For example if they simply released some suggested guidelines for how far away from the edge of the screen is good/best for button elements to be or standardize common locations for common buttons e.g. File, Edit, View in the Windows world.

I'm not saying Google has to crack down on it or anything but may be put a system in place similar to the way they maintain the OS and offer a 'Google' stamp if programs meet the minimum style standards or something. That way I always know how to find the settings for a program and I get to feel at home even with a new media player. Comfort and familiarity play in to usability as much as originality and style.

RANT: Windows Phone 7

May be because I didn't go to the Microsoft launch event for Windows Phone 7 and wasn't threatened by a large man ready to break my knee caps if I don't stick to Microsoft's ridiculous naming convention but why does the media keep calling it that!? It's sooo ridiculous and we all know that if the crowd demands it companies give it up. So lets us, as in all of us, quit calling it that! Lets either call it Windows Phone, because series 8 doesn't exist so we're not going to get it confused. Or, call it what we've been calling it till Microsoft mandated this stupid name and call it Windows Phone 7. From this point on I refuse to type that entire kermudgeon of a name and you should too!