David Carrington

Google have released their latest version of Google Maps for Mobile devices. On the right is a screenshot I’ve just taken on an HTC Touch to track my phone’s current location within the Google Maps software.

Not quite the accuracy that is required of phone’s in the US for their E911 system, my phone can only identify which is the current cell tower it’s connected to. If I switched to satellite view and zoomed right in, I’d be able to see all the way down to the big mast sticking up into the air.

This is pretty much exactly what I’ve been trying to achieve with my own attempts at cell location lately. My method doesn’t link directly into maps, but it does keep a history of where I’ve been, by relaying the information to my website and also updates Jaiku with my location as I go.

I’ll certainly be using this in the future, as there are a few times when I’ve found myself wanting to quickly load up a map without worrying about entering details. Google have made this ridiculously easy. On my phone I didn’t even have to press any buttons or do anything. As soon as the software was installed, it took my straight to my current cell tower, as in the screenshot.

I’m very impressed. When do we get an API?

UPDATE: I jumped the gun on the screenshot. A couple of minutes later, my phone decided to connect to a different nearby cell tower. At this point, the software probably looks at the previous tower, the two signal strengths, and looks up both locations to mark me as being half way between the two. If it does real triangulation based on multiple current towers then I’m jealous.

Some facts to get started:

• Sending an SMS to Jaiku from my phone costs me 25p.
• Sending an SMS to any UK number from my phone is free.

I had a quick go at asking if people were interested, and it seems I’m not the only one that would benefit from a service which can forward UK messages to Jaiku in Finland - especially if it was free.

Who is this for?

This service is designed for UK residents that want to send messages to Jaiku by SMS on their phone without paying the international fee. I don’t guarantee uptime or service or anything like that, so please don’t rely on it working forever. I’ll let people know of any changes.

Instructions:

1. Sign in to Jaiku.
2. Visit the API page to find your personal API key.
3. Register: Send an SMS to +447786202820 with the message “tojaiku register myusername myapikey”. e.g. “tojaiku register davidcarrington 123abc456def”.
4. Test: Send an SMS to the same number with your message, prefixed “tojaiku”. For example: “tojaiku This is my first test message via Dave’s UK gateway”.
5. And that’s it!

Costs:

You will pay your usual SMS cost of sending a text message to a UK number for each message sent. I personally get 3000 free texts on Orange, so I don’t worry about it.

General Notes:

• This service will never send you any messages, including during registration.
• The “tojaiku” and “register” commands are not case sensitive.
• I don’t store your messages or any usage stats.
• I do store your username and API key in a MySQL database (there’s no other way to make it work).

If you have any questions or comments, please add a comment or contact me via Jaiku if you prefer.

New SMS notification: “nicholasclarke: A crazy week of work coming up! Never a good thing.”

Combine that with ability to intercept text messages into my own application on my phone, this basically means I can write a Jaiku application which keeps track of everyone’s Jaikus but doesn’t interfere in my day by beeping and flashing at me 24/7.

In theory, this means I could write a Windows Mobile Jaiku client that stays off GPRS.

At work I’ve got a pretty nice dual-screen setup. Recently I have become more aware of the personalities that each screen has developed. Personalities? Sure. They don’t talk back to me, but what they show me and how I use them differs greatly:

Screen 1: Mr Left

Mr Left is a creator and a developer. He loves code, databases, and image manipulation. This is where all the real work gets carried out. If I’m being productive, I’m working with Mr Left. Left is currently showing me a SQL query. We’ve also been working together in Visual Studio on some reports. He has the windows start menu, so he’s the one that dishes out work to everyone.

Screen 2: Mr Right

Mr Right is about results. He loves websites, files, task management, and emails. As soon as Mr Left has done his thing, he passes the work over to Mr Right to test. Mr Right gets the final say on whether something is right or wrong. If the final result on the Right isn’t good enough, it gets given back to Left to deal with.

But Mr Right has a secret: he’s all about fun and media. He runs Mozilla Firefox and browses the web. He listens to music on Winamp through the day and occasionally watches videos for lunch. He loves to keep in touch with people, through Outlook E-mails, internal IM using Office Communicator, and keeps an eye on the web in general using Google Reader.

Thank you, Mr Left and Right, for making me more productive.

Scouts night hike

Our Scouts came joint 7th out of 17 groups from around the district on the night hike on Friday. This is pretty surprising, since we had to rush back by skipping 2 bases with a shortcut. It turns out that very few teams went to all 10 bases, with one team only managing 6. My legs have recovered now, but my sleeping pattern is still a bit off.

Prawns in tikka masala sauce with pilau rice

In an attempt to expand my cooking abilities, I bought a bunch of spices and checked out a recipe for pilau rice. I’m very slowly working on becoming a better cook. Perhaps the next part is making the sauce by myself too - as I’m pretty unlikely to go catch my own prawns.

GSM stumbler failed

My attempts at making my GSM stumbler application run while my phone is sleeping has not gone well. The latest version doesn’t seem to pick up any changes of cell tower at all while the phone is off, and takes a pretty long time to discover that I’ve moved. I’ll have to look into this again.