If you do follow me on Twitter, you will remember about a week ago I said I was going to work on some 3,000-plus ADSL modems. Yep, no typo here: I had this unpleasant task to update the firmware and pre-configure a large consignment of ADSL modems — a little over 3,000 units — for one local ADSL service provider. This was to make these boxes work with both their ATM and IP DSLAMS.
How I got myself into this big holly mess is another story altogether — that will, hopefully, be told in the not too distant future.
But I’m glad the work is done. It took exactly 8 days — within which time I never stepped out of my bedroom-turned-workshop, and never had more then 10 hours of sleep (total). Of course I got great help from my little friends Christopher Bennett and Remy Edmundson, and I’m really grateful for their help.
Now that this torture is over, it’s about time I moved on: go out there into the streets of Accra, find a cute little girl who can think, marry, have a whole lot of kids, and live happily thereafter.
I’m so full of life now, thanks to a brand new love I’ve found. I now have a spanky yanky pretty little brand new girl in my life: pretty and prim — but not too slim; with heavenly eyes — and just the right size; very smart … and she just can’t ever be bothered by any of those silly things I do.
She’s from the city of Appleland, the tribe of MacBooks. Vital stats: white, Intel breed 2.2GHz processor, 1G RAM, 120GB storage… and all the usual excellente goodies of the Apple MacBook tribe. But I’ve not been able to find a cool enough name for her yet. So why don’t you suggest a name for my new Apple MacBook?
Imagine you’re at the biggest consumer electronics show in the world to demo the next fancy gadget from your company. In the previous night you tested and retested and retested some more… just to be sure everything works ok.
And then just when you start your demo, the TV/LCD screen goes dark. Grrrr. After fidgeting around with buttons, somehow the screen comes back! But you’re not really sure what just happened. You continue your demo…. and moments later, the screen goes off again. And on and off and on and off, with almost rehearsed consistency.
Well, that’s exactly what the kids at Gizmodo, the popular gadget blog, did during the recently ended CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Armed with the TV-B-Gone kit from The Maker Store, these guys just went crazy and kept turning off one screen after another… even during presentations and demos.
And their reason? Just for the fun of it!. Watch a video from their website here.
Below is the TV-B-Gone kit they used. This is a high-power, open source kit version of the popular TV-B-Gone invented by Mitch Altman. If you want to play with this yourself, you can buy the unassembled kit for less than 30 bucks from The Maker Store, and assemble it yourself.
There’s never been a greater need for those devices we carry around to be location-aware. Location information not only helps us determine where we are, but location-aware mobile services also use this information to make mobile mapping and search faster and more convenient.
But the most common source of location information to date, which is GPS technology, is only supported on some of the bleeding edge mobile devices. In fact, fewer than 15 percent of the mobile phones to be sold in 2007 are expected to support GPS.
Now Google to the rescue! The latest update to Google Maps for mobile comes with a new technology they’re calling My Location, which enables users who don’t have GPS-enabled mobile phones to get location information.
But even for those gadgeteers with GPS-enabled devices, the My Location technology actually complements the GPS technology they already have, as it delivers a location estimate faster than GPS, provides coverage inside buildings (where GPS signals can be unreliable), and doesn’t drain phone batteries as quickly as GPS.
How Does It Work?
The video embeded below shows the simple magic Google uses to determine your location. In a nutshell, the My Location technology takes information broadcast from cellphone operators’ towers (Cell IDs) and sifts it through Google’s triangulation algorithms to approximate a user’s current location on the map.
But is it accurate? That’s the question. Now I don’t live in the US or any other country where Google has any siginificant geo-data, and I can only speculate from the technology angle.
Triangulation uses the Signal TOA (time of arrival), to estimate distances. In environments such as the inner city, with lots of structures, the signal bounces off here and there, which causes multipath effect, and this degrades accuracy - significantly.
In open areas free from reflected signal paths, TOA systems can be as accurate as GPS, depending on how the system is architected.
But, if your phone doesn’t have GPS, this service is surely better than nothing. Go download Google Maps for mobile with My Location, here »» www.google.com/mobile/gmm/index.html.
All I wanted to do was import my registered Webinars from the On24.com online events platform into Google Calendar.
But no matter how hard I tried, Google Calendar kept shying away from these iCal calendars that Outlook gladly accepts. Hmmm.
So I decided to do what any mentally retarded ape would do: add one calendar– any calendar at all– that Google deems valid, export it, and then find out what’s under the hood.
I searched the public calendars for “Ghana”, and look what fresh apple I found: Apple User Group Ghana! From their website:
People who use Apple technologies have joined together in user groups all around the world. Hundreds of groups offer members the chance to become friends with other Mac users, get questions answered, and have a lot of fun. Groups are for everyone from first-time computer users to experts — from every profession, background, and age. Want technology to do more for you?
So check us out to see what you think. You can get help and offer help, you can make new friends and contacts, and you’ll have fun. If you’ve got a Mac, you’ll want to join the Apple User Group Ghana (AUGG).
The group meets on the first Tuesday of every month, and membership is open to… who would have guessed… users of Apple products. Remember it’s Apple Users, not just Mac users. So even if you own an iPod, they’ll welcome you.
And no, this post was NOT written on a Mac. I don’t have a computer of my own now. But when I do, it’s sure going to be a MacBook Pro!
