Compl33t

My favourite way at the moment to quickly get light, relatively simple web applications off the Ground:

Flask is a microframework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 and good intentions.

I used it to build the GivenGain for Causes Facebook application (hosted on Heroku) in less than a week, initial learning period included. At the moment I'm using it to build a small-scale RSVP/Gift Registry/Communications app for the wedding.

The thing that makes it a joy for me to use is that you can set up a dev environment by downloading and installing Python & Flask, and testing it with the built-in development server, all within a matter of minutes, on almost any platform. The excellent documentation doesn't hurt either.

I'll still use Django (or try something like Pyramid) for bigger projects, but Flask definitely has its own special little place in my toolbox. 

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This week I finally got around to doing something I've wanted to do for ages. I migrated my photos from Flickr to Picasa using Migratr, and I deleted my last excuse for still having a Yahoo account (I migrated from Delicious to Google Bookmarks quite some time ago). So, I nuked my Yahoo account with a smile on my face. With the migration, I came across these pictures...

I had just gotten a new lens, I was on top of Table Mountain for a day, and fake-tilt-shift was the in thing at the time. Thought I'd share them again. :)

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So, when someone suggested that adding a motion sensor to a flashlight may be a nifty idea, it could easily have been just another redundant gimmick.

Maglite has gone ahead and done just that, and they've pulled it off, in my opinion:

That right there is a magnificent display of a human-machine-interface, because it's simple, and it works in a way that doesn't require much thought at all. The flashlight itself becomes a rotary switch. Genius.

It also serves as a reminder that user experience (and usability in general) - and inspiration to make things easy - isn't limited to what we see on screen.

 

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So, thanks to a combination of pure blind luck and a massive helping
of generosity, I am now an iPad user. Now, I'm an Android fanboy (I
run and write for ZADroid), so the reality distortion field that
makes your average Apple consumer tear up at the sight of anything
with a half-eaten fruit on it doesn't really apply to me.

Will I be able to give you an objective opinion on the iPad? Probably
not, but it may be more objective than what someone with a cupboard
full of empty boxes from Apple can give you. "What about the Galaxy
Tab?!" I hear you scream? Well, it's way too expensive, and in my
opinion, Android isn't quite ready yet to power a tablet. We'll see
once I get to review one. For now, though, I have an iPad, so I may
just as well use it.

I've been using the iPad for about a week now, and I must admit, it's
quite handy. Apple's hardware has always been a notch up from anything
else on the market, and the iPad is pretty solid, and pretty nice to
look at. I don't like the shiny glass screen and the fact that it is
one of the worst fingerprint magnets I've ever seen. I think that it's
too heavy. The screen is gorgeous, bright and vivid, and very
responsive. This is perfect for consuming things with bright colours,
like movies and photos, but I find that trying to read a novel tires
my eyes faster than I expected. So, I'll probably acquire a Kindle
soon for that purpose. I also think that a front-facing camera
couldn't hurt, but hey, that's planned obsolescence for you. Oh, and
the battery life is astonishing.

Software-wise, I'm at both ends of the spectrum. As someone that is
passionate about UX and user interface design, I've always appreciated
the (mostly) consistent nature of iOS. It's also the first platform
where you'll see new, sometimes brave, but intuitive, user interaction
design. So, there's that side of the coin. The keyboard is much better
than I expected it to be, too. On the other side, I find iOS clunky to
use. Way too many taps to get somewhere simple in a lot of cases, and
no hard back button, makes for a frustrating experience. Example? The
arse-backwards way of attaching photos to an email. The notification
system sucks. It has been said before, but needs repeating, because it
sucks so hard. No multitasking. Not much more I can say about that.
Sure, the update in November will add multitasking the table, but we
all know this isn't real multitasking. We'll see. iTunes for SA. I'm
sorry, but I don't feel like jumping through all those hoops that'll
get me a (T&C violating) US account. So, yes, I'm satisfied with the
content South Africans can access. No games, movies or music, but I'm
not much of a gamer, and there are ways around the other issue.

So, all in all? I like it. It has its shortcomings, but show me a
modern piece of technology that doesn't. I don't see it as essential,
and I wouldn't spend my own money on it (maybe when the third
generation arrives I may feel differently about that). That being
said, I have found a place for it. I do find myself using the iPad
instead of my netbook for quite a few things. To me, it's all about
consumption, which is something the iPad caters for exceptionally
well. When I need to do something that requires a bit more complexity
than the iPad can handle, I pick up my Android phone, or head on over
to my desktop. Does the iPad replace an existing piece of technology?
No, but it does seem to fill a niche I didn't realize existed.

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STASIS from Christian Swegal on Vimeo.

In the future, an Ex-Soldier is placed in virtual exercises to cure his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the simulations, he sees glimpses of a mysterious girl, presumably someone from his past. When a Stranger appears in his facility offering answers, the Soldier finds himself once again asked to kill, this time for her...

Starring Reshad Strik, Beau Bridges, Ernie Hudson, and Rachel Specter

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So, what have I been doing with myself? Still very happy with my day job as a developer for GivenGain. Climbing mountains. Enjoying every kilometer driven so far in the new car. Admin. You know, the usual.

I can never sit still, though. There's always something else to keep me busy. If you've been following my blog, you'll know that I'm a bit of Android fan. So I, together with Philip and Sean, have started a little blog focused on Android in South Africa. It's been hard work, and I'm sure it'll keep on being hard work, but I'm enjoying it. It feels good to be writing again. Seeing as there's only three of us, and we all work during the day, for now we're focusing on quality over quantity (striving toward both of these). We write our posts in the evening and set them to post during the day (except if there's breaking news). I'm looking forward to seeing what the site will grow up to be, and this is one project I'll be persevering with. I've "met" (if you can call sending friendly e-mails back and forth meeting) a few awesome people in the industry, and I'm also looking forward to growing these relationships. 

Head on over to ZADroid and give us some love. ;)

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I happened upon one of my dad's old photographic gizmos (an Autoknips V, if you were wondering, which I brought back with me, because it's shiny and mechanical) - which lead me to Google for it, which made me look over at the Mamiya C220 he gave to me. And then I remembered these photos. The camera has a roll of 220 in it right now, and another waiting. I should probably start using it again. The photos it produces are quite unique (especially, as you'll note with most of the attached pictures, you don't have a light meter on hand - and you have to guess the correct exposure settings).

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I've been a long time Twidroid user, ever since I tried out a G1, ages ago. I even spent the paltry US$3.99 to get the pro version. Blow for blow, Twidroid still has the best featureset, but it ain't the prettiest app out there. I've been hearing talk of Twicca for a while now, and finally decided to give it a shot. So I uninstalled Twidroid, and I've been using Twicca as my primary Twitter client for the past few days.

I absolutely love it. It's lightweight, pretty (just look at that widget!), has a clean and intuitive UI, and a rich featureset - which can be expanded with plug-ins. Best of all, it's free.
There are one or two niggles, but it's mostly language-related, and it's understandable, as the dev's native tongue isn't English. 

I'm not too sure I'll go back to Twidroid any time soon.

 

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So far I'm very happy with my new toy, a Garmin Oregon 450. It is way more precise than my phone, and the battery lasts ages. It also has a few neat tricks up its sleeve. Apart from the BirdsEye imagery (which is little more than a novelty, seeing as most of the imagery outside the US is obstructed by cloud cover), you can upload Custom Map to the unit. It's easy enough to create and export these maps with Google Earth, and could be super-helpful if you're going hiking somewhere you've never been before. 

As I create these, I'll post them right here on my blog for public consumption. You can also head over to my WikiLoc for trails, because I'll upload one after every hike.

Download my first custom map, for Jonkershoek Nature Reserve near Stellenbosch, South Africa right here (you can also view it in Google Earth, as it's simply a KMZ file).

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So, the Soccer World Cup is in full swing, and if you're visiting from abroad you may have trouble finding your way around. The folks over at ALK Technologies were nice enough to provide me with a copy of Copilot Live 8, with the South African maps, for the Android platform, to review. So if you haven't landed in good old Zud Afrika yet, you may seriously want to consider giving Copilot Live a go, because, as cool as Google Streetview is, we haven't been graced with Google Navigation over here just quite yet.

Minnaar has scooped me over at his blog (after Copilot Live got us to the Net Prophet conference safe and sound, his interest was probably piqued), so be sure to get over there and give his very thorough review a read.

I'm not going to run through all the features as Minnaar did (you can also find the list of features here - and there is a veritable smörgåsbord of features, to rival even the most complicated dedicated GPSrs out there). I've used the software on an off for the past month, so I'll give you a quick rundown on real world use, and the experience specific to the Android platform.

Now, you may recoil when you first look at the price, but keep in mind that it's a damn sight cheaper than a dedicated GPSr. There's also the added benefit of not having to carry around yet another gadget (which can be lost or stolen). 
I'm not sure whether the application runs native code, but one of the first things I noticed is that the interface can be a bit sluggish. Not unusable, though. The good news is that there's a noticeable increase in responsiveness when jumping to Android 2.1 from 1.5. I can also say that I've recently used one of the newer dedicated automotive GPSrs on the market, and the interface responsiveness of Copilot Live is pretty much on par. 

The South African mapset's coverage is very complete. Apart from myriad points of interest - you'll find anything you can think of, bar a shebeen or two ;) - even most of the backroads are present and named. Even our little gated community is fully mapped. Copilot even managed to guide me to a lesser-known wine farm, or three, without any problems. Routing is good, and recalculation is lightning-quick. The interface is relatively intuitive, but could use a little bit of work (I still haven't figured out, for example, how to stop navigation once I reach my destination). On the whole, however, I'd wholly recommend buying a copy of CoPilot Live (with whatever mapset you may need), before you even think of buying a dedicated automotive GPSr. 

You can ask anyone in the Android world, and they would say that Copilot Live beats any other navigation software out there, hands down (even Google Navigation). Apart from the very complete mapsets and massive POI database, there's the added benefit of having offline maps. Multitasking works as well as expected, and receiving a call doesn't mean that you'll have to start navigation all over again. Loading times and in-app response times are quick (most of the time, quicker than any dedicated GPSr I've worked with). Battery drain isn't worse than with any other application that uses the GPS (and you can also keep it powered up via a car charger). So yes, my experiences are consistent with the rest of the Android community. No other Android application (at the moment, anyway), comes close to the navigation experience that Copilot Live gives you.

So, my conclusion? If you have an Android phone and you're looking for a thorough, complete navigational experience...spend the money on something like Copilot Live and a mount for your phone, before you spend it on a dedicated GPSr.

 

Read more: http://www.alk.eu.com/copilot/android/

 

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I'm not too sure that everybody realizes that the implications of the changes we've been seeing in South African Internet during the last two weeks or so are a lot bigger, and much more far-reaching, than they seem to be on the surface.

Those that do realize it, are either extremely excited (as they should be), or feel very threatened right now. Let me try to explain what I mean, and why I'm saying this. I may digress a few times, but bear with me.

The two changes I'm going to address are obvious. Realistically affordable, uncapped broadband access, and the FNB/PayPal deal.

Up to this stage, bandwidth has been a precious commodity that had to be measured like a Weigh-Less member measures their food. While this wasn't a good thing for your average consumer, what it meant was that an isolated web that only stretched as far as the borders of South Africa slowly, but surely, emerged. A few people saw this, and jumped on the opportunity. So today we have a few localized clones of global web services, that have either been wildly successful, or a complete flop. This, in turn, has led to a closely-knit community of South African tech specialists. Depending on who you ask, this can be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing (but I won't voice my opinion on that here).

The lack of an easy way for small business to receive money online (if you've tried, you'd know about the whole merchant account gauntlet that had to be run) only aggravated this isolated South African web. To put it simply, it took a lot of money to get an SA based website that receives money up and running, and then the rules and regulations made it so difficult to receive money from outside of South Africa that no one really bothered.

The long and the short of it is, that up to now, unless your web-based business was so successful that you could pack it in and move abroad, you were pretty much restricted to operating within South African borders.

Now, in my humble opinion, this isn't a good thing. The internet is a global network, but we've been forced into using it as if it's a local network.

Now here's the kicker: I foresee that this is going to change, rapidly, starting right now.

Uncapped broadband means we can start using the internet as it was always intended to be used. Paradigms will shift, mindsets will change. If there's no difference to the consumer, why would they use a local, smaller, alternative over a huge, established service (let me just mention that many of the successful local services are catering for the long tail - and those that do, are doing things right, and will probably keep on being successful). Why would people that build these services now cater for a local-only audience, when suddenly it makes no difference where in the world they're hosted. Now that anyone (with an FNB account, but I'll get to that) can receive money from anywhere, why would they target a smaller audience, if they can target the whole world? Do you see where I'm going with this? Finally, the end of our isolation is in sight. South Africa is now as connected to the rest of the world as it's never been before.

If you're aren't excited, you should be. Whether you're a consumer or a producer of internet-based services, things are going to be different from now on. If you're feeling threatened, rightly so. It's adapt or die time. if you're part of the closely-knit community, now is the time to shift your focus and realize that South Africa can start making an impact on the web, internationally! Now is the time for all our talent to start shining.

Now, there will be naysayers out there. Those that say that uncapped broadband is still too expensive. Well, it's a damn sight cheaper than it was a few weeks ago, and with all the planned cables landing over the next few years, it will only get cheaper. People whining about FNB's implementation of PayPal...here, have some cheese. It doesn't matter that you have to do things from the FNB side, or that they take 1.5% your precious money. The fact of the matter is that they've overcome some major hurdles, so who the hell cares if there are one or two small niggles? You can receive money from anywhere in the world, and within seconds, have it in your South African bank account. Could you do that before yesterday? Thought not.

Yes, there are still a few problems that need to be overcome, but the changes we've seen in the last few weeks bode well for what lies in the future.

I, for one, welcome these changes, and the ripple it has set off, and I look forward to seeing what happens in the next few years.

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If you've been following the right people on Twitter, you'd know by know that a (mostly) fully working leak of Android 2.1 for the Droid Eris (with HTC's SenseUI) has been leaked. Seeing as they're basically the same phone, it's already been ported to the Hero.

I've installed Benocharm's BeHero for now, and so far I'm quite impressed. The speed is amazing. Everything that I care about works (there are issues with MMS, but it should be fixed soon, and the SuperUser app - that's already been fixed). If this ROM is any indication of what HTC's final product will be like, there's much to be excited about (especially once Paul from Modaco gets his hands on it).

For now, if you'd like to play around, the two big release can be found here, and here.

I'd recommend you do a full wipe. If you were running MCR, it would probably be best to wipe the ext partition as well.

Update: The Superuser app now works as it should, and MMS settings can be applied with a seperate app called MMSZap. My GPS not working has also been fixed. Right now, BeHero is, in my opinion, as close as you'll get to a fully functioning, production-ready 2.1 SenseUI ROM for the HTC Hero. In short: everything, and I do mean everything, works!

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So, you might have come here expecting something else entirely. You may have expected to find an enormous, comprehensive web space for me. The truth is, life changes and priorities shift.

Here are the steps I'm planning take (or have taken) concerning my online presence:

• Move my e-mail accounts on compl33t.com to Google Apps for Domains
• Move compl33t.com itself to flavors.me.
• Create two Posterous accounts, one for casual blogging (blog.compl33t.com), and one for posting stuff from my phone (onthego.compl33t.com).You're reading the first one, and the second one has existed for some time.
• Take my current Wordpress-powered site at compl33t.com offline. I'm not scrapping it, just taking it offline for now, as it has some valuable information on it concerning past projects, as well as my music. I'm still investigating a few possible solutions to hosting my projects and music.
• Use Flickr exclusively for my Photography.
• Align the look and feel of all these sources.
• Acquire one or two extra domains, just for the hell of it (this is done too: compl33t.me *chuckle*, and cornelissen.me).

There are a couple of reasons I'm doing all this. Most of all being that I don't want to waste time on maintaining two or three servers and the software on it. It's distracting and I've got better things to spend my time on. Time is actually what it all boils down to. My priorities, as mentioned, have radically changed. During the day I'd like to focus on my job one-hundred-and-ten-percent, especially now. After hours I'd like to spend with my girlfriend, outdoors, or working on a new side-project. I'll also be saving a little bit of money, as soon as I get to stop one or two hosting accounts.

So yeah, this will be my space where I'll be verbose and talk about things from now on. Sometime in the future, compl33t.com may be restored to its former glory (I am a web-developer by trade, after all), but for now it's in my best interests to have all my stuff on hosted solutions.

To the future! Pröst! ;)

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Glad to be back home after an amazing trip.

This last set is from my stay in Switzerland: A forest, some snow, some mountains, some more snow, the view from the office in Villars-Sur-Ollon, a lake, Château de Chillon, a few scenes from Montreux and its Christmas market, and a train station. 

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In this episode: Victoria Station, Google UK, Babbage, a Tunnel, Trafalgar  Square, Chinatown, a shedload of M&Ms, Borough Market, The Monument, some more history, a repurposed power station, and the South Bank.

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So, I'm doing a bit of travelling, visiting GivenGain's offices in the UK and Switzerland. The first two days consisted of running around and riding a lot of trains, but I managed to take a few snapshots.

And that's all this series will be. A few snapshots every now and then. Nobody wants to see hundreds and hundreds of holiday photos.

In this episode: A sunset over France, some construction, a famous landmark, a train, a busy street, Brasted (where our UK offices are), and some history I came across during a spot of Geocaching. 

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Will be interesting to see how wide the gap between Samsung's top and bottom range really is.

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Slow-cooked lamb shank, potatoes roasted in duck fat, and green beans.

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