Dave's Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

For several months I’ve had a server with a monitor, keyboard and mouse  plus a wireless router cluttering the back side of the livingroom in my home and decided to migrate this stuff into a room that’s at the far end of the house (“far” end meaning “further away from where my computer is, aka the cave).  So the only thing left in the living room was a cable modem which now connects to a 25 foot long Ethernet cable that leads to the router in the next room.

The drawback I knew I’d probably run into with this is the good chance that my wireless network connection would nearly be crippled.  I don’t have a big house, but I was going to be adding a couple more walls in between my computer and the router.

Now, I don’t go around talking too much about playing video games, but lately I’ve been on a streak of Left 4 Dead 2 because my best friend Jordan asked me to get it so we could play together online.  Games like that demand the best of connections that you can muster, and adding another gap of lag between myself and those game servers got me worried.  I haven’t yet tried to do multiplay since the move, but did notice that my wifi said that my signal was now “Very Low”.

So I pulled out my new Nexus One cell phone with Android Linux on it and fired on an app I got from the market for free called Wifi Analyser.  It kind of looks like this:

Above is just an example image I found with Google. What this program will show you is a line graph that displays the radio frequency usage of nearby wireless networks.  You see, wireless networks are kind of like walkie-talkies.  If some kid in your neighborhood is using the same radio frequency as you, your signals will obviously overlap and interfere with each other.  This app is made to quickly show you what frequency ranges are the most used in your immediate vicinity.  In my case I had quite a lot of overlap.  So I logged into my router, changed the wireless channel from 6 to 11 and that made a world of difference.  Windows says my signal is “Very good” now.

If you don’t know how to log into your router a good website to consult about this is portforward.com.  This site is intended to be used as an interactive guide that shows you how to login to your router and change your port forwarding configuration.  So the only part you need to pay attention to is the first half that shows you how to access your routers configuration settings.  The last half can be tossed aside.  Router configuration is a lot like browsing a website that has different check boxes, fly-outs and text fields for you to manage.  Just click around until you find something that says “wireless” and look for a setting that pertains to the radio channel it’s using.  The default for most routers these days is 6, or sometimes “auto”.  If it’s auto, you can at least experiment with it to see if based on your observations there is a frequency range that is more open and less cluttered than one it’s currently using.  And if it doesn’t seem to help your performance any, the change can be reversed.

This is what you get when you combine a portable video projector, a camera and a cell phone that has access to the Internet and the ability to process visual information for you.  Simply amazing!  Click on the video below to see a demonstration.

As cool as this technology is, I have to say that I think it’s already up against some stiff competition from smart phones like the Google Phone and the iPhone.  For instance, the video shows a demo of evaluating different kinds of paper towels for the user so they can pick out the one that is the most environmentally friendly.  A somewhat similar application that already exists on the Google Phone (and others before it in Japan) is a program that allows you to use the built-in camera to scan the products UPC barcode, which would then give you an instant price check for that product at local stores and even through online merchants.

It would take little effort to expand the capabilities of the above smart phone application to allow for sorting of the search results to be prioritized for other criteria besides price.

The key feature that the projector/camera technology does have that you can’t easily do with a cell phone is the ability to project visual data onto any surface and interact with it in 3D space via hand gestures.  While there are a lot of unique uses for this, a drawback of this is that you are required to have a usable surface in front of you in the first place, and I think (for now) the LCD screen of a smart phone has the upper hand in that department.  For instance, you could be walking down a street at high noon and look at a building (like some sort of historical landmark) but not have a usable surface to project meta-data on to (although I suppose something could be read to you through an ear piece).  On a cell phone, the screen is much more visible in nearly any lighting and given further software development, all kinds of information could be overlayed onto a camera captured video stream as seen below:

The end goal in both of these technologies is pretty strait forward:  Overlay relevant information on top of the real world.  And between these two technologies, I have to say that I think smart phones still have the upper hand… for now. Even though smart phones don’t have the freedom of using hand gestures to operate your phone, it could be argued that multi-touch screens are comparable (for things like zooming on maps, photos, etc.).

What I think the real knockout advantage of a cell phone (besides the fact that an LCD screen works as a better display surface than most real life objects) is the fact that information is presented to you in a more private, personal fashion.  If you were to have personal information projected out, anybody nearby could eavesdrop on whatever is being shown to you.  For example, you wouldn’t want your online bank statement to be projected on to a wall when you’re surrounded by strangers at an airport.  It’s more personal to have such things confined to a smalls screen that you have more control over.  Then again, the idea is to use a cell phone as the core processor of the system, so in the event you have to look something personal up that you don’t want projected, you would just take your phone out of your pocket and do whatever it is that you need to do.

A bold prediction is made at the very end of the first video:  That we will one day have the ability to augment digital information on reality through some kind of brain implant.  While such a wild technology is still a long ways away, it will likely occur within a couple decades time and the development of this is only the first of several steps towards a technology we once thought to be impossible.

Edit:  Flurrymail announced on May 31, 2009 that they were ending their support for their J2ME application and will cease allowing users to access their personal email after June 5th.  I’ve not yet discovered a comparable replacement for it, so if you know of one please comments on this post or send me an email.  Thanks!

Not so long ago I wrote a post called Make your dumb cell phone smart with J2ME which showed most of you (depending on the type of phone you have) how to download Java Mobile applications and install them on your phone.  One of the applications I gave a thumbs-up to was called Movamail, which allowed you to check and compose your IMAP/SMTP/POP3 email from your cell phone.  About 3 days ago I noticed that no matter how many times I tried, Movamail would fail to connect to my email address.  I later discovered that their entire website is now dead.  So it would appear that Movamail forgot to pay their electricity bill.

I did some looking around for a replacement app and I’ve found one that I feel very comfortable with and have confidence it will not go under in the same manner that Movamail did.  It’s called Flurrymail.

I found the Flurrymail applications on www.getjar.com, where you’ll find a ton of J2ME mobile applications (most of them are junk but there are a few gems out there).  Flurrymail had received a lot of positive comments, most of which said it was easy to use.  So if you’d like to download it click here.

Now when I first set this thing up it asked me to signup with Flurrymail’s website.  No big deal.  But I will tell you that it’s much easier to do all of this at their website, www.flurrymail.com, instead of through your cell phone.  After I filled out their little signup form, I had trouble logging in.  I was getting a “Either your username or password is incorrect” error messages, and even after I confirmed my username and password with their “I forgot my password” link, it still wouldn’t let me it.  I was about to post a complaint on their support forums, but while waiting for activation from a moderator, I tried to sign in to my new account again a few hours later and it worked.  All I had to do at that point was add my email account to my new Flurry account.  The cool thing about this is that you can add multiple email accounts to your flurry mail so that it’s possible to check multiple in-boxes from your cell phone at the same time.  Not just IMAP/SMTP/POP3 accounts, but also many mainstream web-based email providers like Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, .mac and AOL.

Setting up my email from their website proved to be easier than I had anticipated.  All I had to do to configure my IMAP email was enter my server name, username and password and it automatically setup the SMTP settings for sending mail.  It literally took about 30 seconds.  This app rocks the socks off Movamail in speed and reliability.  Movamail would often take a few connection reattempts in order for it to work, but Flurry is very quick and works every time I check my Inbox.  Win!

EDIT:  On roughly December 1, 2008, Movamail (mentioned below) apparently went out of business/offline.  It is still worth while to browse applications on getjar.com.

I’ve been using T-Mobile for about the last two years now.  The last phone I had was a Motorola V360.  My current phone is a K1, otherwise known as a KRZR (see below).  Now, the chances that you have either of these two phones are slim.  However, the odds that your cell phone supports J2ME (Java Micro Edition) applications are pretty good.  If you’ve ever gone to play a game on your phone and have been shown the “Powered By Java” splash screen, then you can be pretty sure your phone is running J2ME.

For quite a long time, I’ve relied on needing a PC nearby to be able to browse the Internet, or more importantly, check my business e-mail.  About two weeks ago I started searching around for a possible way of checking my e-mail from my phone, and hopefully be able to write messages too.  I would have paid money just to get an app like this on my phone.  Fortunately, I stumbled across a FREE app called MovaMail (below) which allows me to check my IMAP/SMTP account.  And while I was searching, I came across Opera Mini (above).  I found these apps (and hundreds of others) at GetJar.com.  Both of these apps are free and the only other requirement is that your phone has Internet access.  It is recommended that you sign up and pay the extra 5 or 6 dollars a month for the Unlimited MobileWeb Service (or equivelent from your own cellular provider).

Okay, let’s get these apps installed!

The first step is to visit GetJar.com and browse through their massive collection of applications that you can download from their site.  The file extention of these apps is *.jar, although there are sometimes *.jad files.  I am not sure what the difference between these two file types are, but I’ve leaned more towards using *.jar files.  If one doesn’t work for you, try the other and cross your fingers.

For example purposes, visit this link to view GetJar’s download page for the Opera Mini web browser application.  Click on the link they have shown for the jar file, and then save it to your computer in a easy to access location (like your Desktop).

The next step is to set your phone’s USB mode to “Memory Card” if it’s not already set to that, and then plug it in.  This will cause your phone to mount as an external storage device with it’s own drive letter.  Typically this is intended to be used for transfering pictures, videos and audio/ringtones to and from your phone.  But we’re going to do something more…

NOTE TO WINDOWS USERS: The contents of your phones’ memory card include several hidden files and folders, so that when you initially plug your phone in, you will only see the “Mobile” folder, and within it, three other folders (Pictures, Video and Audio).  In order to get all of the files to display, click (at the top of your file browser) Tools>Folder Options.  Then click on the View tab.  You should see the following:

You will want to make sure that “Show hidden files and folders” is selected AND UNCHECK “Hide protected operating system files” (as shown above).  This will make all of the files and folders on your cell phone visible.  Just be careful not to delete anything by accident (or you might “brick” your phone).

So now we can see everything.  Here’s what the contents look like:

The folder we will want to focus on is the “kjava” folder.  Double-click on it to open it up.  Inside there will likely be a lot of other files and a few folders.  No need to explore it, simply leave the folder open and find the Jar file you just downloaded.  Copy and paste (or drag and drop, which ever you prefer) the jar file you downloaded into this folder.  Once the file is finished copying, you’ll have to unmount/remove your phone by doing the following:

Once you’ve unmounted the phone, you can disconnect the USB cable.  Now, open your phone and go to the “Fun & Apps” section, where you would normally go to play a video game.  When you get here, you’ll see the regular list of apps you are already familiar with.  There is a shortcut at the bottom of this menu that says “[Install New]“.  Click on this, and you’ll see the name of the app (the jar file) that you just copied from your computer to your phone.  Select it from the list.  You may get a message that says, “This app is not signed.  Install anyway?”  Select Yes.

Once it’s finished installing, you’ll be asked if you would like to run it.  Feel free to try out your new Opera Mini web browser right away if you’d like.  While using Opera Mini (or any other application that requests Internet access) you will likely see a message saying “Use data network?”, with a URL shown, and the options:  “Yes, Always Ask.”  “No, Ask Later.”  and “No, Never Grant Access.”  This is effectively your phones firewall and java security settings just making sure that the application you’re using is supposed to be allowed access to the web.

There are a ton of apps (and games) available on GetJar.com that you can download, install and experiment with on your own time using the same installation procedure described above.  Though you should be warned that some apps do not work with all phones.

If you’re technically savvy, you might want to visit modmymoto.com.  Here you’ll find several forums pertaining to many different types of cellphones and discover other neat hacks you can do to your phone.  Just keep in mind that you should be very careful when attempting to modify the software your cell phone runs on.  As mentioned before, it can be easy to accidentally brick your phone.

Have fun!