Archive for the ‘tech’ Category

Social TV

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

At the BBC hackday “Mashed” earlier this year, I went to a talk explaining how to write applications that can be delivered to televisions through Freeview set-top boxes. For our CurrentCost-themed hack, we reused (that is to say, shamelessly stole!) some code from a colleague to get CurrentCost notifications onto a TV channel. The idea was that it’d be a ‘press the red button’ kind of thing where you could have results of CurrentCost challenges from you and your friends pop up as text overlaid onto the bottom of the screen while you watch TV.

I loved this idea, and it’s been bouncing around at the back of my head since. There is a lot of social network data on the web that I think would be well suited to notifications via a TV. Rather than needing to have a separate computer on, or send stuff to mobile phones, or use stand-alone ambient type devices like Nabaztags or Chumbys, why not have stuff popping up while you watch TV?

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Thinking about Home Camp

Monday, November 17th, 2008

This is a quick post to spread the word about Home Camp to anyone who follows my blog but doesn’t follow Chris Dalby (aka @yellowpark).

I’ve posted a lot about CurrentCost since I got the meter back in May, but in the past few months it seems like lots of people are giving it a try – I’m seeing more tweets and blog posts about the potential of CurrentCost, and I’m getting more and more emails about my Python CurrentCost app.

So I’m really looking forward to Home Camp – Chris’ idea for a CurrentCost-themed unconference, and a chance to discuss and try ideas relating to monitoring our energy use.

Although it’s CurrentCost-inspired, it wont be limited to CurrentCost or even only electricity monitoring. For example, I’ve prepared a short presentation on monitoring home gas usage in a CurrentCost-type way, which I hope will get some ideas going. And I’ve started thinking about how we could monitor personal car petrol usage – probably my most expensive energy bill!

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Android

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

As a true early-adopting mobile geek, I was one of the people in my local T-Mobile store last week on the launch day for the new Android phone, the G1.

I’ve had a few days to play with it now, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on it so far.

If you want a considered review which discusses specific features, it’s worth checking out Engadget, Ars Technica, or CNET. Rather than duplicate proper reviews like that, I thought I’d share a less coherent post of my feelings about the device. 🙂

In short, I don’t regret buying it. I like it. But I’m not sure I’d recommend it.

I’ll try and explain why…

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Bye-bye USB syncing, Hello cloud syncing!

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

I’ve mentioned a few times before that I use a personal wiki-based notetaking app to keep myself organised.

In GTD-speak, I use it to store project information, track my actions, store reference info, and lots more. Everything I’m working on will have a set of wiki pages where I’ve written up what I’ve done so far, linked in to my other work and where it fits in with my goals.

So it’s useful to have it with me even when I’m not at my desk. I’ve got the wiki app installed on my ThinkPad and three of my mobiles (HTC Advantage, HTC Universal, and the Treo Pro).

The problem is keeping them all in sync.

The old way

cables, cables, cablesThe wiki stores the pages as normal text files. So I have a copy of all of these text files on each device.

Using a freeware app called MobSync, I can sync a directory of files on my desktop with a directory on the mobile.

If I want to use the Treo Pro, I need to make sure I get an up-to-date copy of the files on there first by booting up my PC, connecting them by USB cable, and running the sync app.

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Use CurrentCost to see how your electricity usage compares with others

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

first beta of a web services based CurrentCost appI’ve played with ways that CurrentCost users could compare their usage with their friends for a while.

But now I want to see how it will cope with a bigger group of users.

Want to join in? I’ve started writing some instructions – please do give it a try!

Find out how here.

Update: I figure that if I’m asking for people to help me, then it’s only fair that I give something back. So I’ve made available the Python source that reads and parses CurrentCost updates.

Making your own font

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

hosted on Photobucket

It was my wife’s birthday last week. As a part of the birthday present that our three year old, Grace, made for her, I made a font based on Grace’s handwriting.

This isn’t terribly technical, or even new. But I thought it was cute. 🙂

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Comparing your CurrentCost data with others

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

a Python CurrentCost appBetween holidays, meetings, work and other stuff, I put CurrentCost stuff to one side for a few weeks.

I’m back now, and thought I’d share my plans for the app. If nothing else, I figure it’s useful for me to refresh my memory and plan my next step!

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Palm Treo Pro

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

I’ve had a Treo Pro for a couple of weeks now so I thought I’d write a post about what I think of it.

If you’re the sort who likes to skip to the end of stories, let me save you a little time. I’m loving it. It’s awesome.

I’ll try and explain why in this post.

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