Being eternally short of cash my planned solution was to use a "smartphone" and bluetooth GPS device borrowed from my mum, that I could install a piece of software and record my GPS tracks. The software exists, and is called TrekBuddy. Unfortunately my use of Ubuntu and free software in general has made me compliant with the ideal that when I install something on a device, I expect it to work as long as I have fulfilled the technical requirements. As far as I could see I had a compatible phone, GPS device, and java virtual machine installed, but the software would not work correctly. All because of the arbitrary will of a company.
Now the sense of confusion I have when it comes to mobile phones is what I imagine it is like for those who are unfamiliar with computers. There are a myriad of acronyms companies and products that overwhelm the novice user. Hence why I stick to my trusty Nokia 1100. So finding a solution was frustrating, only to be confronted with the problem of "Branding".
Now many people are familiar with the concept of "unlocking" where you can remove the software block that only allows one companies sim cards to be used in the phone. Unlocking is ubiquitous in the UK, the service is provided by many outlets and and can be done in a matter of minutes. Usually for around a tenner. I have had this done to all the phones that I ever inherited from contracts. It is much more useful to have a phone that can be swapped between networks, that it is to have one crippled and limping due to one provider.
"Branding" is a different matter entirely. "Branding" on mobile phones goes beyond painting your companies logo on the outside of the case, it now goes to the very core of the phone itself. Smartphones run full blown operating systems, this is what allows them to be "smart". But mobile telecommunications companies however are not, they will request that a manufacturer add extra customisations to the phones software. Superficially this is making the secondary button on the front go to your iTunes-a-like service or load up a browser pointing at your website. But it goes deeper, in my case the Java virtual machine would not allow java apps to write or read to memory unless they had been signed by the appropriate certificate authority. As far as I could see TrekBuddy had been signed, and the certificate was installed, but the certificate was not trusted enough to allow programs access to phone memory. A frustrating experience. This is all due to mobile manufacturers being paranoid about malware etc, but this seems to be to the detriment of users, and profit of certification companies.
A phone can be "unbranded" by flashing with the generic firmware of the manufacturer. I had this done, only to find the market stall where I had done it installed an old version of the firmware, and that the only place I could get an up-to-date version was from an official vendor, for even more money! Although this is due to the phone being so buggy it doesn't work with the official Windows updating software. Still there is no easy way to install certificates on the phone without a contract for 3G internet browsing.
Getting a smartphone to do what I wanted didn't seem like it should be difficult, but now its going to start costing me more in time and money to continue. The only conclusion I can come to is that in the future buying a product that supports a sensible development model, and recommend that others stay away from restricted mobiles. Unfortunately there are not many products on the market that fulfil my criteria, although there is hope.
The Neo1973 is based on work done by the OpenMoko project, a GPL mobile OS, and looks very promising. Fingers crossed!
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Dual flush toilets. Not an amazing topic but still. After speaking to a few people that had no idea how to use one I hope to help by telling everyone.
The toilet has two flushes, a small one and a large one. The small flush is for wee's, and the large flush is for your poos.
This is to save water by not wasting a full flush when its not needed, and everyone should have a toilet like it.
Thanks for reading. Now FLUSH!
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I went to see Taking Liberties the other day.
Its a brilliant film for all those interested in the human rights that we all posses and also believe that they are being erroded by the current UK government.
It presented me with a lot of information that I already knew and agreed with, but also new stuff. I may even go and see it a second time to take it all in.
One part of the film concerned ID cards. It included an obvious statement that "if no one uses ID cards then they become useless". I have always known this but now I'd like to say that I will not be getting and ID card and damning the concequences.
I encourage all those that care about their civil rights to see the film, it may not present much new information but its entertaining and at times quite sickening to see what is being done in our name.
Thank you.
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