The home of Scott

iPhone’s are awesome

scottelane — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:51:17 +0000

The title says it all – iPhones are awesome. Just got a 32gb 3gs the other day and it’s exceeded my expectations twofold. It’s opened my eyes up to a whole new way of looking at mobiles and the Internet. I’ve hardly used my desktop pc this week and don’t intend to unless absolutely necessary. The iPhone can do 90% of the tasks I used my desktop for and that’s a good effort for such a tiny device. Heck, I’m even writing this post on it! Wow…

Photography Game Idea

scottelane — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:44:20 +0000

On the train I just had what I believe is a completely original game idea. The game can only be played on a device that has a camera. It would consist of series of levels, with the goal of each being to match the object shown on screen with an object in the real world. For example, a simple level may show a circle outline on the screen with the ‘live’ camera feed behind that picture. The objective of the level is to hunt around the real world and find an object that has the same shape as the overlayed circle. Once the real world object is found, the player would take a picture of it and the game would compare the real world object to the ‘target’ object. If they’re close enough, the user would move onto the next level. As the game moves on, the target objects get more and more difficult to match in the real world, and also start to involve other factors like colour and eventually animation.

Obviously it would be easy to cheat at the game by simply drawing the target object on a piece of paper and taking a picture of it. Luckily this wouldn’t work for the harder levels that require matching an animated target. As the game would be targeted at children this wouldn’t be such an issue anyway. If older people want to cheat that’s their choice.

The animated levels would be lots of fun with several people involved. A simple example may be to make a bouncing ball the real world replicate the movement of a ball on screen. This would really test spatial awareness, especially if the camera needs to move. The player would have to interpret the 2D representation of the real world even and work out how that can be replicated in 3D. Very cool.

Anyway, will sit on it for a while and hopefully no-one will steal this idea…

An afterthought – could this be combined with augmented reality on some way?

No iPhone for me

scottelane — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:14:22 +0000

After looking into it I’ve decided not to get an iPhone. The main reason is that my current phone plan still has a year to go and I figure that in a year, a 32gb model will be available that will hopefully fix up some of my biggest annoyances. If I wait a hear there’s also a chance that an alternative phone will come out that has all of the features I want and that hasn’t been deliberately cripped like the iPhone. I bet it won’t have such a nice UI though

Get an iPhone?

scottelane — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:47:20 +0000

I’m thinking of getting an iPhone. I catch the train to work and use my Nokia 6120 classic to listen to podcasts, but I’d also like to be able to watch recorded TV from my Media Center and also watch movies/episodes from my personal collection. The Nokia 6120 classic can play videos, but it really struggles with anything bigger than a really low bitrate 3gp or mp4 file. I’d also like a better calendar than the Nokia provides and I’d also like to be able to connect to the web using my home’s wireless network. Here’s a summary of the features I want:

Easily make phone calls
Easily send SMS messages
Play music and podcasts
Synchronise podcasts overnight using WIFI
Watch videos from my home collection
Watch YouTube videos based on my subscriptions
Play games (emulated if possible)
A calendar than can track birthdays, events, etc with reminders
Send the occasional MMS message
Take short notes/reminders
Browse the web at home or on the road
Download and read RSS feeds

Some less essential but still important features I’d like are:

Stream music from the web/Last.Fm
Stream live or recorded TV from my Media Center over WIFI
Make VOIP/Skype calls allowing me to potentially ditch my land line

Some cool stuff I’d like but can live without include:

Remote desktop into my home PCs
Remotely control my Media Center and other devices

I’ve looked into the iPhone and it seems to have most of the features I want, but I’m concerned with several common peaves from iPhone users:

It can’t copy/paste text (!!?!?!)
It can’t record video (!?!?!)
It has poor battery life
It can’t send MMS messages (wtf?!?!?!)
You can’t use custom ringtones (omg!?!?!)
It doesn’t have a replaceable battery
It doesn’t have an expandable memory slot
It can’t display Flash-based web content (coming soon I hear though)

I CAN’T BELIEVE that you can’t put custom ringtones on the iPhone. That is completely ridiculous. Is it 2008 or 1998? Hold on – in 1998 you COULD customise ringtones. Oh my…

I’m also concerned that it’s a very closed device (yes, you can make apps, but Apple is being extremely secretive and intrusive in the development process), it can’t play many common media formats and it locks you into using iTunes; a very bloated app that I don’t want to install on my home PC.

Anyway, I’m going to do some reasearch into the iPhone and make a decision soon. The aim is to get one for Xmas if all is good. Below are some random links I’ve found that I need to stash somewhere.

XBMC plugin: http://tlrobinson.net/projects/xbmciphone/

Streaming TV: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Streaming_to_iPod_touch_or_iPhone

Video compression: http://mcebuddy.com/

MMS: http://www.juicecaster.com/flutter/

MMS: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2007/12/iphone-mms-app.html

Streaming music: http://pixelcity.com/iphone-streaming-music/

Samba Shares: http://signalblue.com/iphone/

Australian plans: http://www.mobilechoice.com.au/compare-iphone3g-plans-spreadsheet

XBMC

scottelane — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:44:09 +0000

X-Box Media Center, now known as XMBC, was the piece of software that originally inspired me to build my own HTPC over 2 years ago. I’ve been running a Windows XP MCE based HTPC since then and have never looked back. Recently I saw a post on the Green Button that linked to an amazing skin for XBMC called Aeon. Aeon looks to be everything I’ve ever wanted in a Media Center UI. Vista Media Center does a great job, but Aeon takes it to a whole new level. Check out some of the screenshots in the gallery. What’s really appealling about XBMC is that its fully self contained – you don’t have to install any third party codecs or applications to get the product working. In addition, it can even be installed on a USB thumb drive, meaning that theoretically you wouldn’t even need to buy an operating system to get a XBMC system operational. This gives it a great opportunity to be used as a media center extender for minimal cost or as a media player for a room in the house.

Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t have inbuilt TV tuner support. If it did, I could easily see myself transitioning across from Windows Media Center. Microsoft aren’t adequately supporting Media Center at the moment and there’s no sign of this changing. This is really sad as they have built a great product that unfortunately doesn’t successfully implement its most basic functionality correctly (ie. music/video collection and artwork issues). At least with XBMC there is a team of developers always adding new functionality for the community to enjoy. Over the next few days I’ll have a look around to see if there is a solution whereby XBMC could be used to tap into a TV stream from another program (VLC?) or whether XBMC could be launched from Media Center or vice versa.

Zoho

scottelane — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:45:04 +0000

Well I might be a bit behind the times, but I’ve just tried Zoho and it’s unbelievable. I never knew that online apps were so advanced. The spreadsheet, word processing and presentation capabilities are far beyond what Google Docs has to offer and the interface is beautiful and clean. Goodbye Microsoft Office…

Media Center Configuration Guide

scottelane — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:43:42 +0000

Over the past few months I’ve been jotting down configuration notes in preparation for my next Media Center build using Windows Vista Home Premium. I thought I’d help the community by putting them onto this blog and turning them into a ‘step by step’ guide to setting up Media Center for Australian enthusiasts. I hope to cover topics such as hardware, codecs, tweaking default settings and automating backups/defrags.

Android Developer Challange 2

scottelane — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:58:59 +0000

I’m considering going in the android developer challenge 2. There is a some big prize money available ($5 million) and I will enjoy having a go at developing for a new platform. I’m thinking of creating a news/video/audio podcast download client, but I don’t think the idea is creative enough to take out the prize…

Development On Hold

scottelane — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:44:39 +0000

I’m putting my MCE development on hold until I upgrade to Vista and have a Vista PC to do my development on. It’s just too annoying not being able to actively debug my work without creating an installer, sending it over to my media center PC, disrupting anyone using the media center, etc.

Just an update on the video inbox application; it worked out great and I added it to Google Code recently. The MCE 2005 UI doesn’t look the best and I’m going to hold off on it until I upgrade to Vista. I might even cease efforts on it if Yougle ends up being a decent plugin. I just checked it out and it has very similar functionality to what my add-in has, albeit with a slightly different focus.

More Ideas

scottelane — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:43:48 +0000

I’ve worked out some ways to make the idea more user friendly:

Overlay the video thumbnail with an indicator that says whether the video is not downloaded (red), currently downloading (yellow) or downloaded (green or gone).
Put a dummy video (or shortcut to a dummy video) that will explain the status of the video if the user plays it. This will be a ‘downloading’ progress bar with a message and an image representing the source of the video (if possible).
Create wvx playlists for each YouTube playlist and allow the user to download the entire playlist.

I’d like to make the downloader a MCE download app but unfortunately this would kill all downloads if MCE is closed – not good. The MCE recycler I’m using would also disrupt the downloads. Looks like I’ll have to use an external app or service.