Google – Yeri Tiete

GVC Chromebox to Vanilla Chromebox

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 21:47:44 +0200

Oh, man. Recently got my hands on an old Asus CN65. Back in the olden days at Google we were always tinkering with these devices (and they were a breeze to support). Great "parent devices" as they are really hard to destroy (aka download dodgy shit and fill them with viruses).

This post is mostly for myself, as a reminder, for the next time I need to do this.

Seems like this Chromebox was actually a GVC unit. Google has this thing where devices auto-install the Google Meet app and autoload it at boot. Officially, it's called CfM (Chrome (or ChromeOS?) For Meet). It requires a separate licence in your Google Admin to get this to work.

GVC is actually Google Video Conference. We called anything "Google Meet" simply GVC. A GVC unit, jump on a GVC, the GVC room, etc.

Anyhow, GVC units aren't all that useful and while you can cancel the Meet app from launching at boot (Ctrl, Alt, S I think), it's annoying as it requires that combo at every boot.

I remember there used to be a way to move them back into the main track (instead of the GVC track), but here my mind gets a bit fuzzy. It was a key combo and/or an internal tool that would move the serial number to the stable channel.

It also seems ChromeOS is now at 116 and in my time at Google we were somewhere between version 60 and 85. So, needless to say, things have changed.

So I tried the usual way of powerwashing/wiping the device (move it to developer mode and back again), etc. It kept asking for the corp enrolment (and I was certain the device was no longer corp enrolled). Apparently, GVC units just, by default, ask for corp enrolment now because you can't really use them without the special license anyway.

There were some hacks that didn't work for me.

Turns out this Reddit post had the answer. Basically:

get ChromeOS version 88 (or lower?),
burn it to a USB stick,
boot into recovery mode and restore it.
It'll reboot,
and then you can sign in right away with a Gmail account (as opposed to a corp (GSuite/GApps) account) and it'll boot the stable channel (running CrOS v88).

At this point, you can upgrade safely to the latest CrOS version.

It has been a few years since I last saw a ChromeOS device. Oh, the memories...

While I really tried to get the Pixelbook to replace my Mac, I never quite succeeded (even got an SSH server running in Docker to use as jump box with all my tools etc)... I missed too many of my shortcuts, habits and full-fledged terminal to make it work. I guess it was a bit like an iPad: great device, can be useful, but for anything serious I always yearned back to my Mac.

Looking at my NextDNS logs on the other hand... Damn, this device is noisy. An avalanche of requests to Google domains. Even when it's not doing much...

The Enshittification Lifecycle of SaaS

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 19:57:00 +0100

Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

[...]

This is enshittification: Surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.
Source: Kottke, via Pluralistic

Google TV recommendations

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:01:31 +0100

Google recently updated their Google TV, to include "in your face" supposedly recommendations.

I don't mind recommendations if...:

a/ they are useful (i.e. I don't see how kid shows are something I'd be interested in; and Google has no idea Ila exists, and she's at least 2-3 years too young to watch those shows anyway).

b/ the recommendations would be for apps and subscriptions I actually have. Don't recommend me something on Amazon Prime if I don't have Amazon Prime installed, nor an active subscription. Idem dito for Disney+.

Mumu is not impressed. And neither am I. Didn't even know YouTube had TV Series and I honestly couldn't care less.

Google had recommendations before but at the bottom of the app list. It was not so much in your face. Now it's all the way on top and I need to click 2x down on the remote before getting access to the apps (Netflix, Kodi, Youtube, etc).

So far the best method I found was to enable your Google TV in apps-only mode. It turns off ALL recommendations (so your home screen becomes rather bare; but at least less clicking). Note that the article doesn't mention rebooting the device; but I had to restart it to get rid of all the ~~ads~~ recommendations.

Turn on Apps only mode:

1. On a Google TV device, from the home screen, scroll to your profile.
2. Select Settings.
3. Select Accounts & Sign In.
4. Select your profile.
5. Select Apps only mode and then Continue.
7. Reboot the device

The opposite of coherent

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 21:53:12 +0200

[...]
Carrying an extra passport
In ways that are hard to explain, working for a bigger tech company is like carrying an extra passport. Everyone else has to commute to work. You get driven in an air-conditioned private bus with dedicated wifi. Work visa failed to renew? No worries, do an intra-company transfer to one of several global hubs.
It's not that the rules don't apply to you, it's that you have a safeguard for when the shit hits the fan.
And this week, that's exactly what happened. The Supreme Court of the US overturned Roe v Wade and a bunch of tech companies rushed in to reassure their employees. Yes, the law of the land just changed. But, don't worry. We will fly you out of state, we will approve relocation if you wish, we will take care of you. You will be insulated against the worst of anti-choice laws, regardless of where you live. This is a massive change in reproductive freedom for Americans, but not for you.
We're not opposed to employers taking care of their employees. We're not even upset that companies got gold stars for their employer brand in an otherwise hot talent market. But the extra passport is tricky. It has two profound impacts and whether those things are intended or not is hard to say.
An extra passport can make you feel like you have a perpetual plan B. Like whatever is going on in the world is someone else's problem to solve. That untethered, unmoored thing means you pay less attention to the fucked-up-ed-ness of San Francisco. You can always move to Miami. Or Austin. Taxes are lower there anyway. Pulled all the way through, tech people resemble locusts. We come, we eat, we leave at the first signs of blight. Even when it's blight we caused.
The other reason it's tricky is that it reduces scrutiny on the issuing body. The company paying for the air conditioned, wifi-enabled shuttle or the round trip airfare to a blue state. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. They are doing all of this to take care of you. And it'd help out a whole awful lot if you didn't ask what the public policy team has been up to for the past few years.
[...]
Incoherent answers
So here we are. Faced with this disastrous ruling. And it makes us wonder: how coherent are your organization's actions on this one? We heard about the relocation policy, what other actions are they taking? Do they line up? Or are they shielding their employees from a political reality with one hand, while they help bankroll that reality with the other? The twitterverse has been quick to call out the companies whose statements don't match their political spending. But that critique, lobbed at a brand's social account, often stops at the social media manager.
It's harder for organizations to ignore the questions that come from their own people. It's harder to ignore questions from you.
What are our company's policy/lobbying priorities right now?
Which candidates have we donated to that helped make this mess, and have we cut off that support?
How are we making our position clear, and what concrete steps are we taking to advance that position?
Those questions may produce some awkward shifting in seats. If this were about product strategy, the conversation would be all coherent actions and strong point of view. But when it comes to their role as political actors, many executives have shown that they don't have the range. So, when you ask these questions, you may get a patronizing smile, and some version of, "we can't do that. Donating across the board is how you play the game. If we want influence on the things we care about, we need to be in the room."
You deserve better answers than that. You deserve better than to have your employer tell you that criminalizing abortion is "playing the game." Some of you, when you push, will find out that your labour has been supporting an organization that helped fund what's unfolding right now. And when you discover that, you deserve better than, "we don't claim to get everything right." You deserve better than, "we're not all going to agree on everything anyway."
We don't need you to agree on everything. But, if you are one of those lucky humans who found yourself with an extra passport you didn't know you had, we're invoking Spiderman rules.
That company-issued passport affords you a set of privileges. Like the ability to flit between jurisdictions when the need arises. It also comes with an extra set of responsibilities. We need you engaged, informed, and asking tough questions at this week's all hands. Even if you're not American, or married to an American, now is a good time to get clear on how your organization is using its influence in the world. Particularly when your company's public stance and their actions don't line up.
Source: Jonathan & Melissa / rawsignalgroup

Custom CPUs

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 12:43:00 +0200

"Google developing own CPUs for Chromebook laptops".

Interesting to see that many years after Apple started creating their CPUs for the iPhone (and now laptops/desktops), so many companies are following. Google is not new to building their chips (TPU, Titan (used in security keys and as encryption module for servers/Pixel phones), and likely more), but quite new to more generalised computing CPU for phones and laptops.

And it makes sense -- a lot of the generic CPUs were too generalist and not that great at their job (and are plagued with bugs). It came with heavy power usage. Having a ML/AI chip, a GPU chip, a generalist CPU chip (or two, one focussing on high performance, and one on efficiency, like the M1), one for security/encryption (Titan/T2), etc.

Curious to see how much of a head start Apple really has, and very eager to finally see some real innovation in the CPU space (sorry AMD with Ryzen: too little, too late).

Let's see if Intel and AMD will be able to adapt and reinvent themselves and what it means for ARM (and the ARM IP issue in China), and if other architectures like MIPS are making a chance.

NextDNS + EdgeRouter + Redirecting DNS requests

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 18:14:00 +0200

Realised I haven't updated this in a long while (life happened).

Couple of weeks ago I started to play with NextDNS -- and I really recommend anyone that's something privacy minded and cares about the stuff happening on their network.

I've set up several configs (home, parents, FlatTurtle TurtleBox (the NUCs controlling the screens)) and Servers. Once it's out of beta and better supported on Unifi and Ubiquiti hardware I might deploy it to our public WiFi (well, most access points don't look like that -- but you get the point) networks too.

Looking at the logs was an eye-opener seeing what goes through your network. You can play around and block (or whitelist) certain domains.

I figured out my Devialet does an insane amount of requests to cache.radioline.fr for example. This domain has a 30s TTL. It shows that the majority of my DNS requests are actually automated pings and not in any way human traffic.

Anyhow -- I've since installed the NextDNS CLI straight on my EdgeRouter Lite acting as a caching DNS server and forwarding using DoH.

I've turned off dnsmasq (/etc/default/dnsmasq => DNSMASQ_OPTS="-p0") and have NextDNS listen to :53 directly.

Note that every EdgeOS update seems to wipe out the NextDNS installation, and requires a fresh install... Pain in the ass and doesn't seem like that's fixable.

This is my ERL NextDNS config (/etc/nextdns.conf)

hardened-privacy false
bogus-priv true
log-queries false
cache-size 10MB
cache-max-age 0s
report-client-info true
timeout 5s
listen :53
use-hosts true
setup-router false
auto-activate true
config 34xyz8
detect-captive-portals false
max-ttl 0s

The explanation of every flag is explain on their Github page and they are very responsive via issues or through their chat on my.nextdns.io.

All right -- next thing I've noticed is that my Google Home devices are not sending any DNS requests -- which means the devices use hard coded DNS servers.

I have a separate vlan (eth1.90) for Google Home (includes my Android TV, OSMC, Nest Home Hub and all other GHome and Chromecast devices). For this vlan I set up a deflector to be able to cast and ping/ssh from my "main" network/vlan to GHome vlan.

Using this guide I redirected all external DNS traffic to the ERL so I can monitor what's happening. The important part was the following:

yeri@sg-erl# show service nat rule 4053
destination {
port 53
}
inbound-interface eth1.90
inside-address {
address 10.3.34.1
port 53
}
protocol tcp_udp
type destination

This allows to "catch" all UDP and TCP connections to :53 and redirect them the ERL DNS server (10.3.34.1). The GHome devices were acting a bit weird after committing the change, but a reboot of the device fixed it.

Note that you need to set this up per vlan. If you want to catch DNS requests for your Guest or IoT vlan, you'll need to do the same.

Yard Sale: Nexus 6

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 17 Jul 2016 11:36:12 +0200

Nexus 6

Details
New device from end of September (used for one month; I’ve owned a N6 for a longer time, but due to a battery problem, Google swapped it for a brand new device; then I swapped to a Nexus 6P)
Midnight Blue edition
64Gb
4G and stuff (side note: reception & signal is a million times better than a Nexus 5)
You do of course receive the Moto TurboPower charger with it
Bought via Google Play store (comes with warranty, support, etc), original phone bought July 2015, so plenty of warranty left
No scratches or anything
Comes with Android 6
Selling because I own a Nexus 6P
Price: offer
2dehands

Includes original packaging/boxes.

Email: yeri+sale@tiete.be

Postfix delete mails from/to one address

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 17:41:34 +0100

Monit suddenly sending 18.000 e-mail? Gmail blocking your mx IP & getting all other incoming emails to your Gmail account (as it's getting forwarded to Gmail) delayed?

Have no fear...

mailq | grep monit@hawk-62e9e0.botnet.corp.flatturtle.com | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs -rn1 postsuper -d

Edit the e-mail address.

Note: mainly a reminder for myself. ;)

Nexus 5: boot loop

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 13:20:05 +0100

I had a Nexus 5 stuck in a boot loop (Android logo/animation in a loop, not actually booting).

This is what I think I've done to fix the issue. It seemed that /persist partition was corrupt. I tried a factory reset, flash new stock images, and clear cache, etc before trying the following.

Note that I managed to boot Android 4.4, but nothing else; it did throw a shit load of errors though (Google Play crashes, etc).

First of all, get ADB & Fastboot here. You'll also need an hex editor (mac).

This will unlock your phone's OEM mode; and thus potentially voiding warranty and erasing all data (!).

Edit file paths as needed, this is a copy paste of what I can still see on my terminal.

If you know your device's WiFi MAC & Bluetooth address that'll be useful for later, as apparently that gets wiped.

Boot into recovery boot by turning off your device and then holding the power + volume down button.

$ ./fastboot-mac oem unlock ... OKAY

Flash openrecovery (TWRP):

./fastboot flash recovery ../openrecovery-twrp-2.8.5.2-hammerhead.img sending 'recovery' (13918 KB)... OKAY writing 'recovery'... OKAY

Boot into recovery mode (using volume buttons) from the recovery boot. ADB should work now. This will find a bunch of errors and destroy the partition.

nazgul ~/Android $ ./adb-mac shell

~ # e2fsck /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist e2fsck 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013) Superblock has an invalid journal (inode 8). Clear? y yes *** ext3 journal has been deleted - filesystem is now ext2 only *** Superblock has_journal flag is clear, but a journal inode is present. Clear? yes /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist was not cleanly unmounted, check forced. Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes Journal inode is not in use, but contains data. Clear? yes Pass 2: Checking directory structure Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity Pass 4: Checking reference counts Pass 5: Checking group summary information Block bitmap differences: -(75--1098) Fix? yes Free blocks count wrong for group #0 (2972, counted=3996). Fix? yes Free blocks count wrong (2972, counted=3996). Fix? yes Recreate journal? yes Creating journal (1024 blocks): Done. *** journal has been re-created - filesystem is now ext3 again *** /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***** /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist: 30/1024 files (3.3% non-contiguous), 1124/4096 blocks

~ # e2fsck /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist e2fsck 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013) /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist: clean, 30/1024 files, 1124/4096 blocks

~ # make_ext4fs /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist Creating filesystem with parameters: Size: 16777216 Block size: 4096 Blocks per group: 32768 Inodes per group: 1024 Inode size: 256 Journal blocks: 1024 Label: Blocks: 4096 Block groups: 1 Reserved block group size: 7 Created filesystem with 11/1024 inodes and 1102/4096 blocks Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables: done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

So far, so good. Persist partition was corrupt and recreated.

The original howto (see below) said root (su) was needed here; however it worked without root for me (?).

Download this file (kudos to whoever made it) and unrar it. Use your hex editor to edit last 6 digits ("00 00 00") to a valid hex value, or even better, your actual MAC address if you can remember/find it.

Now upload these two (hidden) files to /sdcard/:

nazgul ~/Android $ ./adb-mac push .bdaddr /sdcard/.bdaddr 0 KB/s (6 bytes in 0.078s) nazgul ~/Android $ ./adb-mac push .macaddr /sdcard/.macaddr 1 KB/s (6 bytes in 0.004s)

And run these commands:

nazgul ~/Android $ ./adb-mac shell ~ # su /sbin/sh: su: not found ~ # cd /persist /persist # ls /persist # mkdir bluetooth wifi /persist # chown bluetooth:system ./bluetooth /persist # chmod 770 ./bluetooth /persist # ls bluetooth wifi /persist # cp /sdcard/.bdaddr /persist/bluetooth /persist # chown bluetooth:system ./bluetooth/.bdaddr /persist # chmod 660 ./bluetooth/.bdaddr /persist # chown wifi:system ./wifi /persist # chmod 770 ./wifi /persist # cp /sdcard/.macaddr /persist/wifi /persist # chown wifi:system ./wifi/.macaddr /persist # chmod 660 ./wifi/.macaddr /persist # rm /sdcard/.bdaddr /persist # rm /sdcard/.macaddr /persist # reboot

Go back into recovery boot and flash Android (I flashed 4.4 first, made sure it worked, and then flashed 6.0.1 (latest at this time); but you can probably flash latest version right away. Also unzip the zip file with all the images inside the .tar.gz -- we'll need the files later:

nazgul ~/Downloads/hammerhead-mmb29k.6 $ ./flash-all.sh sending 'bootloader' (3120 KB)... OKAY writing 'bootloader'... OKAY rebooting into bootloader... OKAY sending 'radio' (45425 KB)... OKAY writing 'radio'... OKAY rebooting into bootloader... OKAY archive does not contain 'boot.sig' archive does not contain 'recovery.sig' archive does not contain 'system.sig' -------------------------------------------- Bootloader Version...: HHZ12k Baseband Version.....: M8974A-2.0.50.2.28 Serial Number........: 0644c9920b105eb5 -------------------------------------------- checking product... OKAY checking version-bootloader... OKAY checking version-baseband... OKAY sending 'boot' (9154 KB)... OKAY writing 'boot'... OKAY sending 'recovery' (10012 KB)... OKAY writing 'recovery'... OKAY sending 'system' (1020405 KB)... OKAY writing 'system'... OKAY erasing 'userdata'... OKAY erasing 'cache'... OKAY rebooting...

Note that it won't actually boot yet, so go back into recovery boot, and flash userdata and cache (not sure why they go missing or get entirely erased):

nazgul ~/Downloads/hammerhead-mmb29k.6 $ ./fastboot flash userdata image-hammerhead-mmb29k/userdata.img sending 'userdata' (137318 KB)... OKAY writing 'userdata'... OKAY nazgul ~/Downloads/hammerhead-mmb29k.6 $ ./fastboot flash cache image-hammerhead-mmb29k/cache.img sending 'cache' (13348 KB)... OKAY writing 'cache'... OKAY

Execute a normal boot now, and wait 5 to 10 minutes.

Android should boot up normally now.

You can also OEM lock your phone again, if you wish (but a sticky bit has been set).

I've followed these forum posts.

Yard Sale: Nexus 6 & Nexus 9

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 10:49:36 +0100

For sale:

Nexus 9

Details
White edition
16Gb
No 3/4G
bought via Amazon UK, comes with UK charger, in May 2015
Comes with latest Android (6)
Pretty much as new. Barely used to be honest.
Selling because I don't see the point of owning a tablet (I've tried, a Nexus 7, and now this, but nah)
Available: yesterday :)
Price: offer

Nexus 6

Details
New device from end of September (just over a month old; I've owned a N6 for a longer time, but due to a battery problem, Google swapped it for a brand new device)
Midnight Blue edition
64Gb
4G and stuff (side note: reception & signal is a million times better than a Nexus 5)
You do of course receive the Moto TurboPower charger with it
Bought via Google Play store (comes with warranty, support, etc), original phone bought July 2015, so plenty of warranty left
No scratches or anything
Comes with Android 6
Selling because I want a Nexus 6P
Available: when I receive my Nexus 6P (2? more weeks?)
Price: offer

Both include original packaging/boxes.

Mail me at: yeri+nexus @ tiete.be

Nexus 5 LCD swap

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 19:48:19 +0100

I had two Nexus 5 with cracked LCDs.

I got these from China, including the Bezel (~$5 more expensive, and doesn’t make you have to fizzle around with a heat gun to detach the old LCD – but you’ll have to work from the backside, and remove all hardware components).

As for the LCD itself, it works well so far (touch, colours), but the finishing is of lesser quality (molding isn't the same, the black paint is a bit too light near the audio & camera holes), less to none anti static tape, LCD components don't seem to be the same, or the protection is fairly different. So quite sure this isn't an official LG LCD.

All in all changing the LCD was fairly easy and straight forward. Be careful removing the back pane (plastic), the small little feet break off easily. And as usual, be careful when removing the battery, it’s glued with two-faced tape, and you don’t want to damage it.

You do need to dismantle most of the phone, but if you pay attention it’s really easy to do. Swapping the LCD can be done in 20ish minutes while taking your time.

Nexus 6

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 16:04:18 +0200

After 10 days of Nexus 6… And it already falling out of my pocket when I got out of the car (it survived, but it’s scratched on the sides)…

All I can say is: I WANT MY NEXUS 5 BAAAAAAAAACK.

So when N5 2015 is released, I’ll have a Nexus 6 for sale!

Why did I switch?

GPS fucked
Battery fucked (recharging 2-3x per day)

Comments about the Nexus 6 plus sides:

big display & resolution is fun,
it is smooth & fast,
it does last the day,
The OLED display light up is really fun (e-ink style), but I wonder how many battery it actually drains and it's usually too short to actually check what notification came in

Downsides:

I can't type with one hand
I almost dropped my phone a bazillion times attempting to type with one hand ... My right thumb doesn't reach letter A/Q buttons
The back is curved, it's thus impossible to put the phone down on a table, and for example pulling down the notification list with only one hand (the phone starts spinning and moving)
The latex-ish build of the Nexus 5 was really really really cool. The N6 is regular hard plastic.

Holding my N5 now feels kinda cute-sy and small.

Waze not getting a GPS fix

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 10:23:06 +0200

TL;DR: recalibrate your compass.

I’ve come across an issue for the past 10 days that Waze kept losing its GPS fix. This meant:

constantly switching between 0 and 120 (or whatever) km/h
constantly zooming in & out on maps (dynamic zoom level depending on speed)
being in a field/not on the road for most of the time, or stuck to a location of many minutes ago
often & randomly losing GPS fix (ie middle of the highway without any buildings blocking the line of sight)
I could do a 45 minute trip with Waze never getting a GPS fix
not knowing road issues (accidents, traffic jams ahead, speed traps, etc)

Things I tried:

nothing changed (no new car window, didn't move my phone location in the car, etc)
not moving (ie parked car) didn't really improve the GPS fix
even left my phone with Waze on in the car for 30 minutes parked (got a fix, but later that evening when driving home it started to lose its GPS fix again)
clear Waze cache
uninstall Waze completely
GPS Essentials showed a fix with 3 or more GPS satellites when Waze couldn't get a fix
I was about to find a way to reset my GPS and/or clear its cache (???)

PS: I have had this issue in the past (I believe with the same phone, a Nexus 5), but it went away after several days.

What I did notice, however, is that in Google Maps the arrow (clicking the pin point button twice or something) was pretty much showing the opposite direction of how the car was moving (thus driving backwards at ~120km/h). This made me think, as I know the GPSes in smartphones are quite cheap and aren’t always on (to save battery – my phone is always being charged in the car though) and the phone uses the accelerometer and other sensors to “guess” current path (or rather, path changes, ie taking a turn or slowing down/accelerating).

I then recalibrate my compass using this method with the free app GPS Essentials (compass tab). I noticed two things

my compass was showing south as north
calibrating it in my room (no known magnets here) gave a mixed result (it sometimes pointed north, and sometimes stopped doing so)
moving around gave me a better calibration (more accurately pointing north)
question? Is the compass chip fucked? broken? cheap ass crap?

Trying now again driving around with Waze:

Waze almost instantly has a GPS fix
Waze doesn't lose its GPS fix most of the time but ...
Waze still occasionally loses its fix (but regain it after a second or two, three)

So it's not always a GPS issue, but rather an issue with one of the other sensors (what here seems to be the compass).

Edit: the problem comes back after ~1 day. Compass often stuck and doesn’t really point north. Ever. Calibrating sometimes helps, but it ends to get stuck again after a while. Nexus 5 chipset issue? Google Navigation works (way) better (it doesn’t remain at the same location for ~10 minutes), but it’s not very precise either (always lagging behind a a street or cross road or something). Perhaps Google Navigation is better at using GSM localisation and doesn’t use the compass to figure out so much?

Edit 2: It works “fairly ok” if I calibrate my compass just before driving. It still loses its fix a few times, but all in all it was acceptable.

I’ve seen in tools like GPS Status that north always points to the bottom right (“south east”) unless it finds a GPS fix. When it’s stuck “finding GPS location” my compass is entirely off and Waze is seeking a fix. When it has a GPS location Waze is fine.

Note that while it cannot find a GPS location, it does have a fix with 3+ GPS satellites.

So I’m not sure if it’s a compass issue, or a GPS issue, and what the definite difference is between both (a smartphone compass not being a magnetic compass if I understand correctly).

Mobile: It Changes Everything

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 10:14:20 +0200

(Source)

Location history heatmap

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 08 May 2015 10:03:59 +0200

Toy of the day. Data since the beginning of time (4-5 years ago), with Latitude. Some places (like Venice, Shanghai) seem to be missing.

Belgium:

Flanders (small point radius):

Antwerp:

Antwerp with smaller point radius:

Brussels (small radius):

World (medium sized radius):

It seems to have some points of when I didn’t have internet (ie Macau, but also China & HK) – but notably less. My transits in India (New Delhi & Mombai) and Russia are vaguely noticeable. Didn’t have internet there either.

South China & Hong Kong:

My hood in Beijing, clearly I have stood often right outside Mix at Beijings Workers Stadium… ;) And A-Hotel, my home. :D

Seems to mainly include points when my phone had internet connection or if Google Maps (Navigation) or Waze was turned on. Other places in China (when I didn’t have roaming) are quite scarce.

NYC (+ JFK & EWR) seem to be quite scarce as well (limited roaming & WiFi):

Gmail (& Google Apps) & IPv6

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:02:56 +0200

It seems that Google’s anti spam measurement for IPv6 is basically checking if the IP has a reverse DNS. If not, reject the e-mail:

This is the mail system at host rootspirit.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The mail system

: host
gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[2a00:1450:4013:c01::1b] said: 550-5.7.1
[2001:1af8:3100:a00a:21::1010 12] Our system has detected that
550-5.7.1 this message is likely unsolicited mail. To reduce the amount
of spam 550-5.7.1 sent to Gmail, this message has been blocked.
Please visit 550-5.7.1 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188131 for 550 5.7.1 more information. df5si15766518wjb.42 - gsmtp (in reply to end of DATA command)

There is no difference if the mail is a one word e-mail or a wall of text that crits over 9000.

The easiest way to bypass this silly check is to set up a rDNS (reverse DNS or PTR) for all your IPv6 addresses on the mail server. If you do not have this set, Google will flag all your mails over IPv6 as spam.

If you run dig -x you can find out if it’s set (answer section, after “IN PTR”):

# dig -x 2001:1af8:3100:a00a:21::1010

; < <>> DiG 9.8.4-rpz2+rl005.12-P1 < <>> -x 2001:1af8:3100:a00a:21::1010
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 30041
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;0.1.0.1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.2.0.0.a.0.0.a.0.0.1.3.8.f.a.1.1.0.0.2.ip6.arpa. IN PTR

;; ANSWER SECTION:
0.1.0.1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.2.0.0.a.0.0.a.0.0.1.3.8.f.a.1.1.0.0.2.ip6.arpa. 21599	IN PTR mail.rootspirit.com.

Here is a work around if you cannot set rDNS. This still allows Google to send mail to you, using IPv6. The downside is that you’ll have to do this for ALL Google Apps domains you send e-mail to. Good luck.

Yard Sale: Nexus 7 3G (1st gen)

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 13:33:13 +0200

More sales…

This time a Nexus 7 (with 3G). This is the first generation, but still running the latest version of Android (Kitkat, 4.4.2 – and rumoured to get the 4.4.3 update soon). It’s the 32Gb version (~27.5Gb of usable space). This device was bought in the US of A, as the 3G version was (or is) not for sale in Europe.

I’m selling it because I don’t have enough use cases for a tablet. It’s great on a plane, it’s great on a train… But I don’t fly as often anymore, and I certainly never take the train. And in many cases I just use my laptop instead (I’m too much of a power user for a tablet, I’m afraid).

Battery is still perfect, the device is still fast (as long as you don't encrypt internal storage). The tablet itself is in very good condition. Just a very minor scratch on the display, that you'll never notice unless I point it out. ;)

Contact: yeri+nexus@tiete.be

Price: to be discussed

4.4.x & Nexus 7 (2012/v1)

Yeri Tiete — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 09:47:46 +0100

New Android, once more a laggy device. Thank you Google.

My Nexus 7 (1st generation, 2012 model, with 3G) is encrypted, so I guess that might also slow everything further down.

Three things I did to solve the lagginess:

Wipe cache (howto),
Clear space (I had some movies left on it, deleted a few big files and it seemed to instantly pay off),
For some odd reason turning off WiFi optimalisation (advanced settings of WiFi) seemed to have the biggest impact on speed.

Edit (2/2/2014): Lagginess came back pretty quickly. I tried an entire reset/wipe and re-encrypted the storage. That didn't really help.

I’ve now done a complete wipe again, but have not encrypted the storage (and removed more useless apps). And it is noticeably less laggy.

Edit (8/2/2014): It’s actually very smooth again, I can run and use the tablet in a decent way. Encryption on Nexus 7 (v1) is a no go.

Google DC

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 12:07:19 +0200

Nexus 4 red light of death (2)

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 18:35:05 +0200

To continue my story, I replaced the battery with a new, and what appears to be a genuine LG battery (if not, then those Chinese are getting good at it).

It worked and booted, but the battery got drained in ~8 hours (100% to 0%). And it felt a tiny bit warm on the cover, just above the battery (battery area was normal). Especially in my pocket it would get quite warm.

At 0% it wouldn’t turn off though (but it did anyway after about half an hour of being at 0%).

I was hoping that entirely draining the battery a few times would fix whatever it was, but after the 2nd drain, the red light of death popped up again, and I haven’t been able to boot since.

I’ll attempt to RMA it (I don’t know if they’ll notice I swapped the battery, as that would kind of void my warranty… Well done, LG, well done).

Should probably clean the display before taking a picture next time. ;)

Edit:

I've read on XDA-Developers this might be a product error. My girlfriend also has a Nexus 4 (about 3 months old, mine was 5 months), and that one hasn't caused any problems (although, it seems less smooth, and the battery is drained quicker, than mine).

I'd generally suggest, if you have a red light of death (and it's not flashing) to just RMA it. Not sure if I'll ever see my N4 again. :(

Nexus 4: Red light of death

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 11:48:09 +0200

On Thursday night I used my Nexus 4 as GPS (as I always do – it’s my main navigation device, so Google, please bring back a usable navigation app pretty plx!) to drive from Brussels to Antwerp (~40 minutes).

I had about 60% of battery left when I turned on the GPS. I tend to recharge my battery every night. It’s times like these I usually just use the GPS without using the car charger. I don’t mind my phone being at 10 or 20% when I arrive home, late at night, as it will be charged overnight anyway.

Almost home, the notification of 14% battery left popped up; I dismissed it as I had 10 more minutes to go. About 5 minutes after that, my phone suddenly switched off. Like, just, suddenly black. No shutdown or anything. It caught my attention, but I left it at that.

Finally home, I quickly unpacked some stuff, checks some mails, etc, and about an hour later I headed to bed.

That’s when I took my phone and plugged it into the charger and a red led popped up. I had never seen this one before.

From there on, I was unable to turn on my phone (my entirely drained Nexus 7 has the same behaviour, it requires being plugged in for 10ish minutes before booting up). I decided to let it charge 10 minutes. Nothing. Hitting power button didn’t change a thing.

As my Roomba seemed to have had a fight with the charger cables under the bed, I thought it might have half ripped the cable or something, so I tried a USB cable and a PC: same. Another charge: same.

Fair enough, I left it charging for the right. Waking up (yes, these things kind of keep me awake – or rather, wake me up) several times during the night, I tried turning it on… but alas. And still a constant red light turned on.

I just had the latest 4.3 bis update (the 7 or 9 Mb update) like 24 or 48 hours before. And I don’t think I had rebooted the device since. Was this causing it?

I started Googling, got in touch with my Amazon.de seller (as it’s ridiculously expensive in Belgium, and I think when I got it, it wasn’t officially for sale here yet) and bought Skype credit (yep, didn’t have a backup phone) to call Google Play support.

Amazon told me to try to do it via Google, or it will take a “very long time” to RMA it.

Google told me to do it via Amazon as it wasn’t bought via the Play store (and send me a troubleshooter to try to “get it out of deep sleep” – but that didn’t work).

I tried several steps, including the hard reset (volume up + power for 60 seconds), but nothing helped.

As it was still under warranty, I didn’t want to really mess up too much, but I couldn’t imagine having to miss this device for another day, let alone weeks…

Drove to my parents to get a backup phone, and there we opened the device (with those odd you-are-not-supposed-to-open-this screws) and, as one post stated on XDA-dev, to unplug the battery.

The multimeter showed 0 volt on the battery (but the connector was so small we weren’t sure it quite touched the copper.

However, reconnected the battery cable and inserted the USB charger… And the screen lit up, a charging icon popped up, and no red light of death. Yay.

Let it charge for ~3 hours (the battery felt warm, but not sure if it was anomalous) and so far so good. We’ll see tomorrow whether it drains faster than usual.

Some people pointed out a product issue, either causing the battery to overdrain (which is bad) or to be too strict on it (and refusing to recharge when it’s quite safe to do so). But the battery itself could also be dying.

I have a phone mount on my dashboard, and during the summer, in full sunlight, using my GPS, and the phone being black, I noticed the back side got quite … hot… So did this cause any permanent damage?

EDIT:

After being fully charged, I noticed a drop of about ~10% per 60 minutes. Which seemed a lot. I let it discharge overnight, and when I woke up it was indeed entirely dead again.

Attempting to recharged caused the red light of death again. Unplugging the battery (for 5 minutes) didn’t solve the problem anymore. It seems like it’s really dead.

We managed to read the voltage with a multimeter, stating 3,15V (instead of 3.8). Unsure whether it’s the battery or the charger of the phone… Unplugging the battery and attempting to charge also causes a red light of death.

I’ll get a new battery on Monday, and do my best to swap it (apparently they glued in the battery… sigh).

EDIT 2:

This.

Busy month (June/beginning July)

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 03:22:20 +0200

Another Latitude update:

<3 Latitude.

Google store

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:57:23 +0100

(Source)

Random reboots of Galaxy Nexus

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 04:56:08 +0100

Since I moved to Antwerp, in a high building apparently made out of the thickest steel they could find (> My wifi signal barely passes the internal walls, and I’m pretty much unable to make a decent cell phone call) my Galaxy Nexus has been behaving oddly.

It started during the night of the press conf when I was catching up on my mails when I got home of a whiskey tasting evening/“apps for whiskey” event.

It suddenly rebooted (the screen lit on showing the usual boot animation (“X”)). I didn’t pay attention.

A couple of minutes (twenty ish) later again.

Odd… I did a reboot myself (hold power button, turn off, turn on).

After booting up for about 30 seconds, it rebooted again… Annoyed but busy with other stuff I didn’t pay that much attention.

This time I unplugged the battery, hoping that would help anything, and tried again.

By the way, this is all on a stock Android 4.2.1.

After booting, I had to refill my pincode each time (so it was not one of those infamous reboots where it saves its session/state/whatever… The cache-thing-whatever was cleared). I first thought some mail over IMAP was causing this (as I was directly thinking of my previous mail issue). But I made sure that I read all my mails and deleted what wasn’t relevant on my Macbook Pro and Nexus 7. It should sync.

Then my attention got caught by the WiFi. While it was connected pretty instantly, it took a long time to change the icon from its grey “I-am-unable-to-access-the-internet” to the usual blue color. Either way after about one or two minutes into Android itself, it rebooted again. Irritating.

So I was starting to think about odd kernel panics or memory problems.

The furthest I got after that was unlocking (pattern) my display, and it would reboot… Not even making it to the settings pane.

After that, it would just loop-reboot. At first I would still see the lock screen popping up, then only the Android boot animation. And after a while it would just loop the Google name and flick black for a second, and (presumably) start over.

No matter what I did (pull battery, try without battery, get closer to the wifi, recharge battery, connect it to my mac, …) it kept on doing that. I decided to head to bed and left my GN off by removing the battery. But 8 hours of rest didn’t really help my phone. The next morning it was still behaving the same.

I saw no other option that going into the boot menu (holding power button + volume down and up) and doing a factory reset. Wiping all my data (well, mainly just my settings (I am lazy), and I don’t have any fancy apps, but it did delete all my pictures which I hadn’t copied to my mac in a long while).

After the data wipe/recovery, I started reinstalling my apps, reconfiguring, and restoring my text messages backup (best app: SMS Backup+) and everything was pretty much okay. No hardware issue, no more reboots…

Note: those with a laggy Galaxy Nexus, this helped me to improve speeds; but a total wipe brought my GN back to about 90% of it’s 4.1 speed (no scientific proof for that though ;)).

Anyway… All was fine until Thursday night. It suddenly started to reboot again, and random. With intervals of, well, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes 10. I didn’t get to the reboot-loop yet. Turning off wifi or turning off data didn’t seem to help. I tried airplane mode, but I had to make phone calls/text, so I didn’t wait until/whether it rebooted. I tried getting closer to the wifi hotspot, change rooms (yea, whatever) and none of that helped. It kept rebooting during the night (I reentered the pin code twice when I woke up that night). And it kept doing that in the morning…

And as I stayed a couple of days at my parent’s house for Christmas (where everything was fine), I was starting to think my new apartment/steel-tower was bugged (or the Proximus cell tower in the neighborhood).

At this point I was panicking. Looking for options to buy a Nexus 4 and Googling about this (and well, apparently I’m not the only one having this problem). Random reports pointing to random apps, lock screen, GPS, etc.

I noticed for some reason Latitude stopped reporting my location (I hate when it does that for no apparent reason… Already happened 4-5 times the past 2 years) for this device, turned it back on and since then my device hasn’t rebooted yet…

Haunted shit for sure. Google please fix your crap.

To be continued…

Edit: about 24 hours later it rebooted again. When I attempted to insert my pincode it rebooted again. After that I managed to get past the lock screen. I received Whatsapp messages, Twitter crashed, and it started to update apps. After that it (2-3 minutes after booting) it rebooted again.

Android 4.1 IMAP + stock mail bug

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 01:24:02 +0100

On 4.1 (yes, I’m lagging behind with my blog posts) something rather funky happened. And it took my 7 days to notice.

My phone was running hotter and battery life was suddenly crappier than usual. But not really paying attention, until my cell provider (Proximus) texted me I was over my data consumption limit…

As it was the beginning of the month, so that was unusual. I checked data usage in settings, and noticed ~7Gb of traffic by mail app over WiFi and ~3Gb over mobile data.

The day after I noticed the unusual usage (and as I reached 4Gb traffic) Proximus cut off my data connection around 14h00 (leaving me stranded in the middle of Brussels, unable to use my GPS)…After phoning them I got my access back though.

Not sure where to look (some attachment problem? some fucked mail?) I cleared my inbox, and removed all mails from the folder that IMAP syncs on the Android… Still it was downloading continuously. I started to try to debug the IMAP servers, to see what commands my client was sending, but not finding anything interesting there, I started to wonder what to do…

Then I tried something I really didn’t want to try (yea, now that I think of it, I probably should’ve tried that first, and well, something to do with hating to change settings; and it took me 3 days or something before I tried this): I deleted the first of my 2 IMAP accounts, checked back after ~10 minutes to see if data consumption increased, and no, it hadn’t.

Yay. So now I knew the problem was one of the 2 accounts. I restored my mail account (and to my amazement it actually wasn’t that much settings I had to put back) and kept checking on the data. It didn’t increase anymore.

Soooo, oddly enough that solved the issue (remove and readd the IMAP account).

No idea what happened there.

My bill is 145ish euro’s because of this by the way.

Laggy Android 4.2 on Galaxy Nexus? Kill Currents!

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:54:13 +0100

I updated to 4.2. Then I wanted a new phone.

4.2.1 came. It solved 5% of the lagginess.

However, it was still unbearably slow. With 4.1 I had an amazing phone, 4.2 made me want to shoot it.

But after 4ish weeks I found something out… Go to Settings and then Sync, click the Google account(s). Disable Google Currents syncing.

Enjoy. You might want to reboot to be sure, but for me this brought my phone back. It’s not perfect, it’s still a bit slowish, but it’s a lot better!

Latitude in 30 days views

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 13:27:58 +0200

Latitude rocks (although it contains some errors here & there).

Country	Latest visit
Belgium	August 2012
United Kingdom	July 2012
Czech Republic	July 2012
Luxembourg	May 2012
Italy	May 2012
Netherlands	March 2012
France	March 2012
Germany	January 2012
United States	January 2012
Finland	October 2011
Hong Kong	October 2011
China	October 2011
Russia	May 2011

Use Google.com instead of .be in Chrome

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 13:56:09 +0200

Why?

Google.be lags on new features
no +1 in .be
no social integration
no instant search
probably a million other experiments that run on .com but not on .be
The black-bar is entirely different on .be, don't know why
Better G+ integration, not that I would ever use it
.be lagged on https as well, and I'm a https fan.

How?

In Chrome: surf to settings > Manage search engines.

Then either delete the default one:

{google:baseURL}search?{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}
{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:instantFieldTrialGroupParameter}
sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s

Or just add a random website from the list below, and rename it to “Google”, “Google.com” and add this in the last column:

https://www.google.com/search?{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}
{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}
{google:instantFieldTrialGroupParameter}sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s

When copy pasting, make sure it becomes one line (e.g. no new lines).

And be sure to make it https and www.google.com (not http://google.com for example), this will increase speed significantly.

Greatly increase Chrome performance

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:23:38 +0200

Using experiments.

My Chrome version: 19.0.1084.52 (mac)

Surf to: chrome://flags/

I enabled following flags, and so far it’s still working great:

Threaded compositing Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
GPU Accelerated SVG and CSS Filters Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
HTTP Pipelining Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
Built-in Asynchronous DNS Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS

Pipelining requires a somewhat more decent internet connection (as in, don't use it while on EDGE on the train).

There are a bunch of other cool experiments to play with, and be sure to check it out after every major Chrome update.

Google+

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:53:39 +0200

Feature request: Circles plugin

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:29:06 +0200

A plugin, for Wordpress and the likes, to display only content to certain circles.

Depending on your current logged in Google profile, looks up whether you’re in one of my approved circles, and depending on the result shows the content.

Idem dito for Flickr, Facebook (lololol), LinkedIn, …

Xoom

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:39:48 +0200

I recently bought a Xoom, WiFi version.

This will be my short review about this Xoom.

First of all, this is a Xoom made solely for Google employees. It has the Google logo on it, and a green back side. As far as I know there is no public way to get the device with these colors,

View on Flickr →

Android

I received it the day Android 3.2 got released. First thing I did was upgrade from 3.0.1 to 3.1 and then to 3.2.

While Android is a pretty neat OS, it sure isn’t bug free. For example, turning Bluetooth on made my Xoom restart. I also wasn’t able to sync my Gmail account on that Xoom. Depending on the service, it gave different errors. In settings it basically said “unable to connect, try again later”, Latitude said “login failed”, Gmail was endlessly syncing, etc. I tried different WiFi hotspots, without success. As this is an US version and for Google employees I was afraid it would be locked to either US Gmail users or @google.com accounts… However, after a real reboot (and not a restart due to software upgrades) I all of a sudden managed to log in, and everything started syncing. Yay. Perhaps some odd DNS problem? No clue, but it’s working now!

Oh, and as it’s an US version. This means I have a US adapter, but also that updates are directly pushed by Google, and not by Motorola. Thus, latest Android at all times. :) (The EU Xoom is still on 3.0.x)

Buttons

There are only 3 ‘dedicated’/static buttons; power, volume up and volume down.

To compare, Nexus S has power, vol up and down, and the 4 buttons at the bottom, back, settings, search and home.

Which, so far, hasn’t really bothered me. The power button is at the back, easy to click on with your index finger, unless it’s lying down on the table or the tablet is mounted somewhere. The volume buttons are located on the left side but are pretty hard to push. Everything else is through the touch display, and works just fine.

Power

It’s recharging fast. Really fast. I believe I went from 11% battery to 90% in about 2 hours. But the fast recharge comes at a price… You can’t recharge it using the USB connector.

The USB connector is only used to transfer files (something I haven’t figured out how to do yet; apparently I am unable to mount the SDcard, like with my Nexus S). So you’re unable to recharge it “on the go” with for example a USB battery pack, or the USB connector from a car.

I’m using that battery pack to recharge my Nexus S by the way, as the battery dies way too quickly on that phone.

The power plug connector itself is also quite… Thin… And it doesn’t go in all the way. Seems quite breakable.

WiFi version

Do I want a 3G version? Maybe. I can use my Nexus S to tether, and that works just fine (as long as the battery aint dead ;)). But I was also playing with the idea to use that Xoom as GPS device in my car. Which would be easier if it directly had an internet connection. But that would also mean I would have to pay for an additional internet subscription.

Keyboard

The keyboard layout (azerty) in slightly different from the Nexus S (alternative character button for example, is located elsewhere; “-” and “.” are inverted, getting a “?” requires more clicks, etc). Makes it harder to hit the right button and will require to get used to it… Again. Shame though. Wish they had roughly the same layout as on a phone.

It also supposed to support Swype, but I haven’t tested that yet.

Weight

I don’t really have another tablet to compare it with. I “stole” an iPad 1 from work a few months ago for a couple of days, and I guess it’s roughly the same weight. So yes, it’s annoying to hold in your hands while lying down. It’s simply too heavy. Perhaps a Kindle would be better for this, but a Kindle somehow seems too .. “simple” and doesn’t have all the features/possibilities I’d want.

I also now carry one device too much. I have a phone, which I need with me at all times. But now, a Macbook Pro (with 5ish hours of battery, a real keyboard, all apps I want) or a tablet (longer battery, fake keyboard and limited apps…). I guess I’ll have to force myself to lock my Macbook up and not use it for a whole week, and see if I miss it at the end, or if I manage just fine with the Xoom.

Apps

The Google Market lacks tablet apps. Just like at the launch of the iPad, most of my apps are phone optimised apps, but stretched to fill the tablet’s screen. This includes certain Google apps (like Google Plus). But the apps designed for tablet (maps, latitude, mail, etc) are really neatly done.

But yes, please, Facebook, Twitter, IM+, Shazam … make a tablet app already !

I love mail, it’s simple and well done. And this time IMAP actually works. Clicking get load more messages actually gets new messages (on my Nexus that rarely fetches new mails). It also automatically downloads new messages correctly (on my Nexus mails sometimes only appear in my mail app one hour after I actually received the mail), and sent and deleted mails are correctly stored on the IMAP server (unlike on the Nexus, it’s stored in a local folder, you can’t sync. So I have thousands of mails stuck on my phone. Unable to access them from my Mac, for example).

However, it still doesn’t support IMAP’s IDLE protocol though.

Labs is a cool feature in some of the Google apps. You can enable certain “beta” features in certain apps. For example, the browser, which is a Chrome-like browser, capable of tabbed browsing, can be changed through labs to a full screen browser, controlled through certain finger gestures. Pwetty cool!

View on Flickr →

Speed

It's a dual core running at 1Ghz. And 1024Mb ram or something. Yet flash is pretty slow sometimes. Other stuff sometimes hangs a bit as well. Generally it's fast enough, but I wish it was a tiny bit faster... ;)

For example, transferring a big file (1,57Gb) from my Mac to my tablet while playing music (through Google Music) made the music stutter and my screen was unresponsive.

It also doesn’t really play MKVs. I see an image, though it’s distorted and hanging every few seconds. And I’m not getting any sound through. I’m guessing other movie types might work.

Well… Hard to tell for now. Will have to wait and see.

I was a bit scared of the futuristic UI it came shipped with. Some odd modern font, pretty spacy. But I must say I quickly got accustomed to it, and I think the futuristic look is pretty cool now.

Cam

Pretty basic cam. Quality is... average. But I haven't seen a device that beats the Nokia N8 yet. Especially in dark places.

End

As always I’m very critical. So far I’m happy with the device, but it could’ve been better. Whether I’ll keep using it? It all depends if it manages to find space in my workflow.

As stated above, having a phone, a tablet, a Macbook Pro and a work laptop just… Is too much (I already gave up on my desktop 6ish months ago – have barely turned it on since). I have been playing a lot with the idea to step away from Mac (Lion seems … crappy, and Apple is becoming the new super vilain), but will a corporate Linux laptop (with certain policies) and a tablet make up for the loss of my own Macbook? No idea… Time will show I guess. And I bet I’d enjoy it way more when the apps actually have a “tablet mode”.

All pics are here.

Introverts

Yeri Tiete — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:13:17 +0200

For my introverts:

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.

This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

Myth #2 – Introverts are shy.

Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.

Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.

On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.

Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for Introverts.

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.

Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.

Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.

Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.

Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.

A world without Introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers. That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an Extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.) Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.

Source.

Yes, I have moved

Yeri Tiete — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 23:58:32 +0200

Data roaming

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 18 May 2011 07:50:26 +0200

I bricked my Nexus S yesterday, while trying to root it (with an howto for an old Android version). As usual I was trying to do too much stuff with too little time (as I had to catch my plane later that evening).

I had to root it to get OpenVPN, ssh tunnel, or system wide proxies up and running. Things I needed to by-pass the Great Firewall in China on my mobile.

However, when landing in Beijing, and connecting to Twitter, Facebook, and all that other shizzle on my “backup” Nexus S; I noticed all sites were working just fine. Just a tad slow…

I was amazed. As if someone turned off the Great Firewall… ;)

But apparently, when checking what public IP my phone had, it was a Belgian IP address. So basically it seems when roaming, all traffic is rerouted from, say, China Mobile to Proximus (through a VPN?), and routed to the internet, in my case, from Belgium. Which is pretty cool here in China. Means I can access everything as if I were in Belgium.

Anyway, something I didn’t know. Learned something new today. ;)

Chromebook

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 11 May 2011 23:35:22 +0200

Damn, Google is starting to make nifty movies about their products. Actually got me excited. Even though I know it'll be nothing for me -.-

Google Latitude

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:12:29 +0200

Pretty cool. Scary, I'll admit. Giving Google (and whoever else) the power to, well, track you. But nevertheless, pretty cool to see where I have been in 3 days time.
Finally an app that automatically checks you in (don't think other apps a la 4SQ and Gowala do that ? At least, Brightkite, when I used it, didn't do that on iPhone). Now geoloc is becoming useful. I no longer need to take my phone out. My phone is doing it for me.

However, Google, please give the ability to users to add places, and don’t just make us able to check in at businesses. I’m a bit annoyed to check in at my neighbour’s, or at another company in my office.

Oh, and fix automatically check-in feature, it doesn’t work. And loc:on status message while you’re at it! ;)

Theme, blog, and stuff

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:12:45 +0100

As you noticed… Or perhaps didn’t notice, I’ve started using a new, simplistic theme a couple of days ago.

Kinda thought it might be too simplistic (I’ve hidden the sidebar, there’s no search or archive, etc), but I started to, you know, get attached to it.

So it’s here to stay, for a year or something. I guess.

I’ve also noticed that the long load times on my blog were WP_Buzz’s fault. Nice plugin, but 15 to 45 seconds of load time per uncached page wasn’t really worth it. Hope it can be fixed.

I’ve always thought it was One that wasn’t keeping up with the SQL queries, and as refreshing the page always fixed my problem, I thought it just was bad luck and/or my dodgy connection. Until I saw WordPress was doing half a minute for about 90ish SQL queries… Per page.

But on the other hand, seems like changing from One to vm1 was useful after all:

Anyway, to search on this blog use Google or, if you have Chrome, type in blog.tuinslak and add your search query. Kinda rocks feature!

Been on posting spree lately. Not all post quite as useful, but hey. Let’s see how long I keep up! ;)

Maxim of the Day: #nogov

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:16:18 +0100

Asking your gov to build the future is like asking Google to build the next Social Network. They just can't. #begov #nogov

(Xavier Damman - Source)

iRail matching Google Ads by NMBS

Yeri Tiete — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:48:35 +0200

Google

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:25:20 +0200

Source.

Google

Yeri Tiete — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:48:58 +0100

Google watches Lost

Yeri Tiete — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:17:44 +0100

Damn You Google !

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:38:39 +0100

I need it now! :(

iRail maps

Yeri Tiete — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:32:06 +0200

When submitting information on the B-rail site, you get some kind of “map info” with the train station.

Now, when submitting the same information through the iRail website, the same link was added to the results. Yet, these links were broken/unavailable, because the session with the NMBS/SNCB site was no longer valid.

I have now replaced these links with Google Maps links. They are not only displaying the station’s location, but also the directions (by car, that is. I guess Google won’t be adding “train directions” anywhere soon) to eachother.

This will open the native Maps app on the iPhone.

Special thanks to alastair for helping out on this one.

ChromeOS

Yeri Tiete — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:24:56 +0200

I laughed.

Blog stats

Yeri Tiete — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:25:41 +0200

Well, seems like Firefox is the most popular browser visiting this site. And on 2nd place.. Safari?! Who on earth uses Safari? Oh, but I guess mobile device, such as the iPhone & Symbian use webkit/Safari-like browser.

Well, let’s see if Google Chrome gets in that list. If only they’d release it for other OS’es too… :( Seems like good ol’ Windows isn’t that popular anymore.