Google Music

Posted on 01/03/2012 by

Finally playing around with Google Music after getting into the beta way before it released.

Concept is to upload your music collection to the service then it’s available to you via app or browser anywhere. After transferring for 4 days I now have access to my 14GB collection anywhere. If I’m on my phone I have the option to stream or make available offline anything I want.

It’s much easier to maintain playlist because I know if wont’ loose it since it’s in the cloud vs tied to a pc.

Google music solved everything I hated about iTunes and Double Twist. Yet another Google product that has changed the way I do things!

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Google Listen

Posted on 07/11/2011 by

I’ve never been an Apple guy, but trying to use an old windows mobile 6.1 phone to run with and listen to podcast on was a horrible experience. A few years ago, I bought a used iPod nano 2nd gen and began using it for podcasting and Nike+ for running.

Unfortunately, about a month ago the iPod took a trip through the washer and is no more.

I had gone with Android for my last phone so I thought maybe give it a try instead of spending the ridiculous amount of money they want for a new apple device.

I came up with Google Listen.

I have to say I’ve been pretty impressed with it. I have to point out the barrier to entry is high, its probably not for someone who doesn’t know what they are doing or understands basic RSS feeds. However, I’m a developer, I live technology.

I found the search for a podcast really worthless. (I’ll be using TWIT as my example through the rest of the article.) I tried searching for TWIT – This Week in Tech and I found about everything under the sun that wasn’t it. It was in the list but if you didn’t know, you weren’t finding it.

Going to the podcast home page, I found, was the best way to get a RSS feed url.

Feed Url’s are the driving force behind Listen. When you go to a website and view the podcast feed you are looking for it to enclose the audio file (usually an mp3) in the feed.

Site links sometime setup like this:

What a feed looks like in Google reader Notice the “twit0309.mp3″ shows and can be played in reader:

Notice my use of Google Reader, the backend sync for Listen is google reader. While it doesn’t sync your play time (meaning you can’t listen on in reader and listen or switch between and keep your place) but it give you an easy way to manage and add new feeds.

However, to get that to work properly, I ended up adding one feed manually in Listen:

Once i did, I now have a new folder available on google reader I can associate podcast feeds with for Listen specific feeds.


Let’s take a peek at the dead simple interface.

My listen items is anything available to listen too.
My subscriptions shows what you subscribe too.
The other too are worthless to me.

Fresh items are waiting for download or waiting to be organized in the queue.
Queued items work like an ordering system to how your podcast will play (order: top to bottom).

Menu and settings are pretty basic, i recommend only downloading on wi-fi though.

That’s it you are now enjoying your favorite Podcast/Netcast via Listen on your Android phone!

Oh, and I use Endomondo to track my running now (for Android and iPhone), it’s uses the GPS instead of the shoe sensor!

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Star Trek Online out of game chat using XMPP with Android

Posted on 01/11/2011 by

Star Trek Online is my first Multi-Player Online game. I don’t really have time to play games anymore but with it being a Star Trek title I had to give it a try. I had to sacrifice my TV time which wasn’t so bad since most of my favorites went off the air.

With an MMO you really have to immerse yourself with the game and the players to get the full the experience, so even when I’m not playing I’m listening to podcast about the game, checking out forums, and reading the latest news from the game developers.

One of my favorite podcast about the game is STOked, and they have organized an in game fleet for the fans and with that created a chat channel so the members can talk. So here is where out of game chat comes into play. Cryptic is the company that develops the game they have made their user level chat system work via XMPP protocols! XMPP is basically an open IM (instant message) system which also includes a Multi User Chat system as well (MUC). So having that enabled from the game side it’s relatively easy to setup an XMPP IM client to log into the games chat system when you are not playing.

This is easy to setup if you have a desktop client like Pidgin. There are some really good instructions on the games forums to get it going and a prerequisite for setting up an android client.

My dilemma: I’m not on a desktop often enough to make use of the feature but I always have my phone with me so what i needed was an Android XMPP client that would work with the MUC chat so i could chat with my fleet. Easier said that done from what i found out. I tried several Android clients but none seemed to work, or when they did they didn’t work with the MUC which was mainly what i wanted. I spent several weeks, several apps, and emailed developers of the apps. Finally, there was some activity on the forums and someone had success with IMov. I had some back and forth with the user because I has already tried and moved on when i couldn’t get it to work.

So here is how to setup out of game chat on Android:

First make sure you read the instructions for activating your account on the tribble test server here. Even though it’s test server the user chat system works across the test and main shards.

The state of the Android clients are changing a lot right now so I will attempt to keep this post updated: as of 1/11/2011 I have found 2 clients that seem to work, Jabiru and iMov.

Jabiru:

Once installed from the Android Market go into the account setting and configure as follows:

All Star Trek online accounts follow this convention: “AccountName“@”CharacterName” in my case RussellThomas@Russell-KV4S so use those when i refer to them in the section below:

Jabber ID: AccountName@crypticspace.com
Password: self explanatory
Resource: i believe this is optional but i used AccountName (this should help match what shows in game for you as well)
security mode should be enabled by default but if not enable it.
that should do it as far as connecting.

once back at the main screen hit Menu>Connect
if all goes well you will see a group called friends Friends

Now for Channels (MUC chat):
hit Menu>Conference
Host: channels.crypticspace.com
Room: will be whatever the channel name is
Nick: CharacterName
Password: leave blank (in most cases)
hit join

intro to the chat window:
at the top of the screen you have a chat bubble that will be your toggle for any chats you have going on
the red x will close the chat you have active so don’t do that on channels chat or you won’t be in the channel chat anymore.
the bottom left icon is the room members this should allow you to see whose connected to the channel.

good luck and happy chatting!

iMov:

Update As of 1/14/2011 I can’t seem to get iMov to work with the chat channels but it could be an upper lower case issue so it may work for some.
Version 2.4 was the only version i could make work with the channels due to the capitalization issue. i do not have an apk for that so hopefully Jabiru will work for you.

Current Version 2.5 Install Imov from android market ( i chose the beta version but i think they both work)

The Wizard:
Server: crypticspace.com
User ID: “loginname” (same was what you use to log into the game client)
Password: self explanatory
i got a failed logon so i went into the settings and filled in the following:
Jabber/XMPP ID: loginname@crypticspace.com
Jabber/XMPP Password: self explanatory
Resource Name: display name (game handle)
Jabber/XMPP server name: crypticspace.com
Use SASL: ON
Use TLS: ON (these last two settings is why i wasn’t able to get this working on my on)

Multi User Chat (MUC) or called user channels in game.
Hit Menu>More>Conference:
(roomname)@channels.crypticspace.com
entered my @name in the handle
left password blank.
successfully chatted with my fleet!

I hope this guide helps someone else and saves them time because it took a lot of mine! :)

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Alabama vs. Penn State 2010

Posted on 09/15/2010 by

What a game! Alabama looked great! Like a No. 1 Team Saturday!

The day started out by getting on the road around 11am. Traffic got really bad at the 20/59 I-459 interchange then again when the lanes went to 2 lanes near Tuscaloosa other than that pretty good.  I met my brother and his girlfriend at Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch then we made our way to the stadium where we visited some tail gates until about 5. My brother was able to get us access to the sidelines, before the game started, and i took many photo’s and short videos. When it was time to head home i took some back roads avoiding McFarland and sat in about 30mph traffic until we got 3 lanes, then it went fine until 459, then smooth sailing all the way home!

Album Link: http://l.kv4s.com/11nkf

Video:

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University of Alabama’s South End Zone Grand Opening

Posted on 08/24/2010 by

Due to new seats my brother is getting this year he was invited to the Grand Opening of the South End Zone and luckily I was able to tag along!

Most of the event was a crowd getting to self tour around the new in zone and the facilities inside.

I took some video but unfortunately we didn’t know where the speeches were being held so once we found a spot a pillar was in the way.
Here is a quick video of some of the speeches from Rece Davis, Nick Saban, and Mal Moore:

Here is a slideshow of the pictures I was able to take at the event:
Album Link

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