5 worst things about G1

5 worst things about G1:

1
I don't care what anybody says the gPhone is Google's Beta phone, and the consumers are its Beta testers, fortunately the typical consumer of this type of device is more likely to fix its bugs than not. The iPhone, alternatively came out with a well crafted hardware device out the gate and has had time to mature and flesh itself out and keep the Beta testing to the Apple experts and its price point testing to the consumers.


2
Lacks applications, not really the fault of the gPhone, its just hard to develop for a hardware platform that is emulated and not real. The applications it does have need to be debugged better and should be screened for malicious wares since it is a free for all marketplace. This is where Apple's Market tariff of 30% could be arguable as justified, but with the "I am Rich" application slipping past their QA guard or the fire-walling of interesting, but competing, applications destroys the investment value of the 30% tax.


3
Battery Life sucks, but to the HTC's credit the battery is interchangeable. Thank you Apple for making it easier for us to make better decisions concerning non-removable, proprietary changing of lithium Ion batteries. At least its good to know that HTC thinks we have enough brains to swap out batteries by our selves. Battery life can be improved.


4
I have heard of the G1 has a lack of modem tethering and the 1gb cap, but I think I heard this was the ISP T-Mobile's call, while it this is not bad for the Android environment as it is fully capable of being programmed to allow tethering, etc. But when you deal with the ISP, (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.) T-Mobile seems the best current choice since I passed their credit check with my FICO score in the low 600's and AT&T wanted some ridicules deposit to hold in their coffers for a "limited time" to prove my worthiness to their snobby iPhone "bitch plan". To AT&T I middle finger salute your offer and go with the German firm, T-Mobile.

I can't say I like the contract for 2 years and a $200 per line early termination "fee", but when you choosing between the lesser of two evils, at least currently until the networking options are sorted out, that is the current price of doing business.


5
Remote removal of code by Google, yeah its open. Why this would be a bad thing for the Gods are the same reason that makes it a good thing for the mere mortals. It levels the playing field, Now its a developers race. Gentlemen, start your Sdk/Eclipse engines? The real question is can *you* harden this open box of Pandora before anybody else does this for you.

Where to go?

Where to go?

It is hard now, our economy is diminishing, contracts are few and far between giving a feast or famine future and local prospects just don't recognize an entrepreneurial spirit.

I have been contracting as a web designer, since early 2000 and have been reassessing and shifting to freelance photography and even to shooting video trying to build my skills in a diversified manner that marks me as "indispensable" to future patrons. But the truth is, I am just a clone of all the other "hopefuls" that are doing the exact same thing.

The reality is, while knowledge of computers and enthusiasm for writing and creating videos are fun to do. They tend to leave one standing beside themselves.

While I have had dreams of working for Google and Apple, even to the extent of bettering my odds by actively promoting Google's technology with the gPhone and proudly attended the Apple's Developers Conference. Not a single offer has come to my table. Oh I get recruiters calling me to no end, promising me the moon and all the cheese it is made of but as the date progresses I am just another name and number for their little black book and I don't even know how many stars they give me.

So, I stick to my freelancer ways, insisting to contract out my professional services as opposed to delude myself into thinking that a job will really give me security, not that I believe that any corporation could truly provide anything more stable than I could.

True to my nature I find it hard to work for people than to work with them for a mutual business advantage. To be an employee seems to be a joke, not because I am adverse to working as a team or to work for a greater common goal of fiscal success, far from it. The frustrations of dealing with the politics of nepotism and playing favorites to under-qualified "buddies" of the manager is a constant theme of working a regular job, with regular people as opposed to an interesting gig that will allow for more dynamic possibilities.

All things being equal, I must confess hindsight being 20/20 I do not feel that my focus in freelancing endeavors are a waste of time or my resources. To be honest, I don't think I would of been introduced to the variety of opportunities (even if those opportunities did not land anything or go the direction I had hoped for). But that is just me.

So, would I ever consider conventional employment? Well, as strange as this may sound I do not see the distinction between a full time job or a contract that requires my full time attentions. The legal world seems to create a artificial circumstance for a full-time employee, a W2 employee seems to be more controlled and dummied down control of creativity and time (punch in the time clock, do work, clock out for lunch, eat lunch, clock back in for lunch, do more work, clock out).

As a contractor you have more control over this time to use it creatively and more efficiently and here in lies the problem as described to me by the CEO of Javaground:

I was interviewing with the CEO who explicitly told me that he would never consider incorporating me into his company as a contractor for the main reason that he could not have complete control over me. As an employee he could better have control over me and my loyalties would be more to his company and not my own consultancy.

I protested and told him that as a consultant, contractor he would have access to my entire professional network and as far as my loyalties to his company, Non Disclosure Agreements would legally prohibit me from playing the field and compromising secrets of his company. He still wanted me to be a regular employee, he still wanted that illusionary control over my time and loyalties. To my perception as a contractor/consultant the demand on my time and the loyalties to my new patron would be no different than being a regular full time employee.

My rational words fell on deaf ears, he didn't care, he wanted an employee and I wanted a business partner and I politely disengaged from further negotiations on the subject and consequently did not receive an offer to work for his company.

It would of been a cool company to work for, but in retrospect I am glad he never followed up with me. In my eyes if he was honestly that adamant over the semantics of my professional relation to him and his company then we probably would not of been able to work well with each other in the first place.

So, Where to go? Is probably not the right question to ask, more to the point should be the question Whom do I ally myself with?

More 3D models...PDM Young Actors Workshop

This is some work that I did transcribing a blue-print layout for a Theatre design from the 2D layout to the SketchUp 3D image.   The program (SketchUp) is a breeze to work with, not as complicated as conventional 3D programs (but also without animation, a plug-in is required and may cost some money).

I will report more as I create 3D objects.

Google's SketchUp, Learn it and Love it!

I was playing with Google's SketchUp, and I have to say it rocks.   You can build any 3D object with ease.   This is one concept idea I had for a sub-stellar space craft called the Solar Surfer, made to hop local planets with in a solar system.

I certainly intend to port this into a game that teaches the planets just by hopping them on this craft.

Google's Summer of CODE

Ok coders break out the technical manuals, buy a case of energy drinks and say goodbye to your social life (well outside of the geeks circle of course).

I got a link here that sorts the categories of the organizations. check it out and contribute and karma will thank you for it. There are some very cool projects out there very savvy ideas and its a great thing to add to your resume.

Not to mention that you will learn more about programming by actually doing programming for real world applications than writing a hello world program.

High Expectations For Android

The great battle of the cellphones.   iPhone vs./ Android (gPhone).   This is a big deal for both companies both Apple and Google.   Each company has advantages and disadvantages attached to them.   Slashdot has a great link on the story.

Apple, well, put their iPhone on the market.   Its a slick phone, with touch screen capabilities and a sweet GUI interface.   Actually a nice phone.   But it has some serious fatal flaws attached.

First off, Apple mandates AT&T as the sole service provider, yes the same AT&T that has a monitoring station in San Francisco for the Government ease dropping program.   AT&T mandated the need for social security numbers just to activate one.   In addition to the insane initial price of the phone itself $600, a 2 year minimum contract was required, figure at least $100 a month for 24 months...$2,400 + $600 = $3,000 total.   I call bullshit on that.

Also, initially there was no SDK (Software Development Kit) for the iPhone.   Well, now there is but the insanity of the Non-Disclosure agreement prohibits any other developer from advising or helping further the development of this platform.   Are they serious?!?

The iPhone has been hacked only to be patched to turn the hacked iPhone into a bricked $600 paper weight.

Apple, did some very bone-headed maneuvers with the iPhone, but they have a real phone on the market.   A phone that I have absolutely no desire to have.

Don't get me wrong, I love Apple's products.   I have a PowerBook G4 (PPC) that I have had virtually zero downtime with and a MacBook (Intel) that, aside from a Battery Bug with Leopard that does not charge my battery.   Works very well.

But, even with their newer systems like the Mac Air, altho beautiful, lacks an optical drive and has only one USB port!?!   But I digress, back to the showdown between Apple and Google.

What does Google have to bring to the table?   Well, nothing, but virtually something...the Android platform.   Yeah, they don't have a phone, they have many phones that only need to be Linux compatible.   Google, is smart, they have a actual open OS available to any and all that care enough to develop for it, literally any way they choose.  Hell they even put prize money out to sway developers.

Now, I will be the first to say that Google is not just being altruistic, they are in business to make more money, just like Apple, but the main difference is this they are smarter about how they approach business.  They know enough to give a little to get a little.

Android, Mobile Device Emulator

Android is the platform for the gPhone. The gPhone is Google's own Linux compatible, hardware platform. The device is not available to the public, yet, but the emulator allows programs to be written and tested be for the actual release of the gPhone itself.

Android, of course, is the complete solution for cellular phone services and specialized applications. This has the power of Linux on a cellular device, that trumps the iPhone, hands down.

I would trust Google to engineer this right, the first time. Since they have the stance of playing the field of cellular business, but not an actual "player" in the cellular business, meaning, they do not have any biases or ties, like Apple does with AT&T.

Google is offering a reward for applications developed under their Android system. It is very nice but still lacks in demonstrating very key features.


And now the downside...

• No support for placing or receiving actual phone calls. You can simulate phone calls (placed and received) through the emulator console, however.
• No support for USB connections
• No support for camera/video capture (input).
• No support for audio input (capture). Output (playback) is supported.
• No support for device-attached headphones
• No support for determining connected state
• No support for determining battery charge level and AC charging state
• No support for determining SD card insert/eject
• No support for Bluetooth

But the upside, rocks.

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EEtimes Speculates on The Initial gPhone details

I would encourage the majority of our readers to take a look at the detail link for the gPhone device. Android, of course, will be the platform of choice and the capability to port Java applications over to it makes it a nice segway into becoming a standard for the cellphone market.

If this does not show Google as a major player in the cellphone market I am unsure what will. Google had their eye on the spectrum market, and made the auction a level playing field as much as it could. Well, for the billionaires that could afford the minimum bid of about 4 billion.

I am excited to see where this is going and what we can do with this technology.

Google's gPhone coming in February!?!

When I got the word on this, I couldn't contain myself. This will give us a base of code that we can be relatively assured of working. With Google's "summer of code" and the colossus resources at their disposal its small wonder they are able to get this out early.

Gentlemen, install your SDKs, and get ready to rock. With hardware units specifically designed to utilize Google's gPhone platform, this will allow pretty much everybody to program just about anything one can imagine. In the immortal words of Han Solo, "I can imagine quite allot".

Having a platform like this rocks...

Android Set Up...

Ok, here is the first step, download the Android SDK, its freely available.

http://code.google.com/android/download.html

Also it is advisable to also download the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) called Eclipse, while it is not the only "option" out there some of the truly old school types can roll-there-own using emacs or vi as a text editor and maybe configuring by hand the Java path.

Here is the download link for Eclipse

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/


There is a plug-in that is required to develop Android under Eclipse

http://code.google.com/android/intro/installing.html

I myself can verify it installs and works correctly on MacBook (Intel) for both the Eclipse IDE, the Android plug-in and Android SDK.

On Windows it should install easily, but I do not have a Windows machine and cannot verify this.

On Linux, I am not sure, but if it installs on the Mac it should install on Linux platforms as well.

Google's Andriod

We are going to go into Google's Android development in developing games. It's a very powerful system which includes its own Operating System, middle ware and surface applications. By our understanding this wins hands down over Symbian and Windows CE for the very fact that it is a open-sourced software platform that is capable of being placed on any linux based handset phone and is capable of incorporating the hardware features within the chip set of the phone devices.

This is very cool.

The fact that it is capable of utilizing hardware on the handset it is installed upon gives it great flexibility and capability limited only by the hardware it is on.

The official language is Java, using the Sun compiler, but it can also be developed at the lowest levels in C/C++ giving it added granular flexibility to modify the lowest levels of the Android Operating System.

I would like Python to be used as one of the primary languages to develop this in. With direct access to the graphics acceleration and even low levels of the device (bluetooth, WiFi, etc.) This will make for a power.
One of the more inreging features is the fact that it is capable of OpenGL and