Friday 22 April 2011
Fun with Technology
It's silly, but one of the reason's I'm looking forward to my upcoming bike adventure is the technology I'll have an excuse to play with. Shortly after I signed up for Tour TransCanada, I picked up a Samsung Captivate Android phone from Best Buy. Now I'll be able to keep in touch with people, take photos and videos, record GPS tracks, navigate, read eBooks, listen to music and update this blog, all from a single little device.
I was thinking recently about my love-hate relationship with technology. I love learning about new technology but I hate when it doesn't do what I think it should. I compared it with studying and researching at school. With science, I'm frustrated by my own stupidity; with technology, I'm frustrated by others' stupidity. For some reason, the latter gets under my skin even more. The worst is when a piece of technology is so close to doing exactly what you want but just comes up short, and there's not a thing you can do about it.
However, when a system is designed so that its limitations can be overcome by an intrepid individual, that is a thing of beauty. You may have noticed my previous posts with links (or not quite links) to Google maps. These were published from the My Tracks Android app through the Blogger app. Unfortunately, you can't configure the text that gets inserted in the blog post and the URL of the map is inserted as inline text. Good try, Google, but that's kinda crappy. So, last night I made an application called "PostProxy". I now get My Tracks to publish its crappy text to PostProxy, which rips out the URL and makes it an actual link, and posts the result to the Blogger app.
How long did it take me, a total Android noob, to develop this application and test it on my handset? Maybe a couple of hours, with not a single expletive uttered in the process. Believe me, when it comes to dealing with new technology, that is rare for me. In fact, aside from a hardware issue with my phone (eventually replaced -- ask me for my thoughts on customer service), everything I have done with Android has been as easy or easier than I expected. Listen up folks, Android is a force to be reckoned with.
I was thinking recently about my love-hate relationship with technology. I love learning about new technology but I hate when it doesn't do what I think it should. I compared it with studying and researching at school. With science, I'm frustrated by my own stupidity; with technology, I'm frustrated by others' stupidity. For some reason, the latter gets under my skin even more. The worst is when a piece of technology is so close to doing exactly what you want but just comes up short, and there's not a thing you can do about it.
However, when a system is designed so that its limitations can be overcome by an intrepid individual, that is a thing of beauty. You may have noticed my previous posts with links (or not quite links) to Google maps. These were published from the My Tracks Android app through the Blogger app. Unfortunately, you can't configure the text that gets inserted in the blog post and the URL of the map is inserted as inline text. Good try, Google, but that's kinda crappy. So, last night I made an application called "PostProxy". I now get My Tracks to publish its crappy text to PostProxy, which rips out the URL and makes it an actual link, and posts the result to the Blogger app.
How long did it take me, a total Android noob, to develop this application and test it on my handset? Maybe a couple of hours, with not a single expletive uttered in the process. Believe me, when it comes to dealing with new technology, that is rare for me. In fact, aside from a hardware issue with my phone (eventually replaced -- ask me for my thoughts on customer service), everything I have done with Android has been as easy or easier than I expected. Listen up folks, Android is a force to be reckoned with.
Thursday 21 April 2011
Wednesday 20 April 2011
Monday 18 April 2011
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