Author: james

Gingerbread fixed my WiFi

Its been a few weeks now since Android 2.3, a.k.a. Gingerbread, was delivered to my Google Nexus One mobile phone. I had been experiencing terrible problems with the WiFi reconnecting to known networks, and randomly dropping off networks it was connected to. This was most frustrating; dropping back to 3G data is expensive, slow, and sometimes becuase of this, I disabled it which meant no data. All while sitting within 10 foot of my WiFi AP.

It appears that this is no longer a problem, ever since the Gingerbread update was installed. Yay! Thanks for the fix, Google Mobile team.

Optus thinks Perth is in East Timor

Today my smart phone (Google Nexus One, Android 2.3 Gigerbread), which uses the mobile network for reciving its time information, suddenly went an hour ahead. I looked at the TZ settings, and it reported I was at +0900, East Timor. Perth is normally in AWST +0800. I confirmed it several times by switching off “Automatic” (Use network-provided values), setting my TZ to Perth, and then turning Automatic back on; each time the phone would report it had gone to “+0900, East Timor”.

I can only imagine that the local cell tower is handing out the wrong time zone information (Melville, 6153 area). This was fine yesterday. Let’s see how long this takes for Optus, the carrier I am with,  to realise. Either that, or ther’s been a strong cell site thats just done nearly 3000 kilometres, or we’ve had some major techtonic plate movement.

Mark Pesce’s Keynote is up

The video that sparked controversy at LCA 2011 in Brisbane this year is now available, accompanied by a warning for some of the graphic elements used within. Sure, that’s fine, some people are sensative to this, but for the majority of the world, look at the message being delivererd and try to see the point that, whatever your private indulgences are, they have the potential to be exploited by unwanted yet naievely and implicitly trusted services that the world takes a free ride on.

I think Mark took a lot of flack for this, but the message of the presentation is good. This coverage will hopefully bring more focus on the content of this keynote.

So, if you’re a balanced and forward thinking mature individual, see the video here; if you’re not, look here.

The furore that this has sparked has oveshadowed much of this, and put enormous pressure on the LCA and LA teams. Numerous apologies for the graphic content have been given. So now its not time to harp on about this issue again, but to look at the message within.

Freedom ain’t free. Freedom costs more than free.

This same issue goes for all “cloud” services that you’re being advertised right now. It’s not magic. It’s handing your data to someone else; it’s making sacrafices for your ability to control your information. Offloading your infrastrucutre to a 3rd party is easy, flexible, but you’re at the whim of a third party. Imagine trying to open a large bookstore application on Amazon EC2? How long until Amazon decide that they don’t want you competing with them?

In case anyone’s watching, I’m replacing my old GPG key 1024D/0917A9E4 2000-12-31. Yes, its over 10 years old, and time for a replacement. Introducing 4096R/06E8B971 2011-02-03, with fingerprint C8BF C3E5 231E 53AD C2AD E715 24ED 3C46 06E8 B971. I’ve pushed this to public key servers already, and it’s signed by my old key. My old key had some 243 signatures on it. Hmm, need to fix that up at some stage.