Don't be like American Express

The wrong way to spend millions of ad dollars:  Are you familiar with Firesheep and Facebook security threats when browsing facebook without security?  If not, read about it in the international news magazine of your choice.   After firesheep hit the press shortly after the October 2010 release, Facebook quickly allowed users to switch browsing to the more secure https in Late January 2011.


Fast forward to 10 months later.  American Express is doing an international marketing push to get small businesses to do online advertising through their new ad platform branded American Express Open.  I've been tracking them since I saw their booth in January at CES, Las Vegas.  One of their ads on Facebook was targeted at small business owners.  The ad probably hit me due to the my Facebook showing "Owner at Mp3car.com" or some other keyword I have in my profile.    Amex is spending tens if not hundreds of millions on digitally marketing AMEX Open to small businesses.  Where do they drive their traffic?  To this page:

Turn your TV into art with Flickr

I was tired of semi-bare walls in my apartment and a blank TV that I rarely watch.  Currently I'm too cheap to buy art for a place I might not live in for a long time.  What's the solution?  Let's get the best of Flickr's photos streamed to my TV using my mac mini and the internet connection.  RSS will do this for you in low quality.  Use the directions below to go high def.  To get started you''ll need a TV, internet and a mac mini.  There are ways to do this with a PC, but this blog post focuses on macs.

• Use Photocastr to make a photocast for iphoto
• Click the link created in the step above opening the photocast in iphoto.
• In System preferences, Desktop & Screen Saver, select the photo-cast as a screen saver on your mac
• There are several screen saver methods.  I prefer the mosaic.  

Here are the results:

Other thoughts:

• Consider using your new photocast to also change the imagery for your desktop background. 
• Save power and have your computer and TV wake up only when you are home. 
• Eventually it would be cool to hook this up with a motion sensor so the art only "turns on" when I'm in the room, further saving power.

Why I hack my ipad/iphone

1. Never plug into your computer again.  Use Wi-fi sync to connect/sync with itunes.
2. Download cached maps and a free navigation tool called Xgps.  This is great for travel.(july 2011 update) 
3. Mywi - Turns my phone & ipad into wifi hotspots when I need them
4. Trick your apps into thinking you are on a high speed connection for better media quality using my3g.
5. No roaming during international travel (Buy a local sim card when you get there)
6. Full Force - Makes the small iphone apps go full screen on the ipad with no resolution loss.
7. SBSettings - A quick popup for controlling apps that are running and basic functions like wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, screen brightness, quick reboot, ect.  Some plugins here.
8. Longitude - Auto updates my GPS position for Google's latitude service
9. Using VOIP (Voice over Internet) I sold my house from Russia.  The call quality was actually better than using land line phones.  siphon was the app I used.
10. I spilled milk in my home button.  Now i can swipe my finger from right to left at the top of the screen to activate the home button.  I'm trying to hold out for a replacement phone until the iphone 5 update comes at the end of the summer. (july 2011 update) 

Other things you can do, that I don't with a hacked iphone/ipad:

1. Use a bluetooth keyboard / mouse using btstack
2. Do face time video conferencing over 3g using my3g
3. The Cydia store was the only place to get a Google voice iphone app.  Apple has now allowed google to post their app.

Switching twitter names @robertdwray -> @wraydo

Why?

1. I wanted something shorter for the RTs.  Character counts are precious.  @robertdwray vs wraydo  You can throw 2-3 words in there. 
2. Wraydo - Radio?  I am tech geek. 
3. Wraydo - I would like to think I am a doer
4. My last name is Wray.  My middle initial is D for Douglas.  O is for out of the box thinking.

All you squatters out there with unused twitter names... you should be ashamed.   You know who you are. Shame on twitter for not having an auto prune policy. 

The iPad's role in your car?

(originally written for and posted at mp3car.com)

 At first glance, the idea of having a 7.5" x 9.5" iPad in or around my dash doesn't sound realistic or desirable at all.   The New York Times liked the concept.  Navigadget hates it.  I hated it, but the more I think about it the more I like it.   About a year ago we did a video of how the iphone was the death of the PND and the concept here is similar.  The iPad's size and a few other details aren't perfect but many people will find a way to mount these in their car.  Why?  Love it?  Hate it?  Let's get the debate rolling on the mp3Car forums.  Some key pieces of technology and features contained in the iPad are leapfrogging features currently available in the car:

Bmorefiber

I have been spending a good bit of time on this project.  We have gotten great press coverage, support from the city and city data.    Read more at www.bmorefiber.com

Grant clarifications

UPDATE 3-7-10 - I made a website called wwww.quickexplore.org specifically for my bike project. You can track that project in detail there.

• The map tracking and elevation information will be overlaid in a corner of the screen with the trail video filling up approximately 66% of the screen. 
• The videos will be available to anyone who wants to use them at no cost.  There is almost no trail documentation so I imagine these movies will be posted at all relevant websites.  I will use social media, and e-mail communications to make relevant organizations aware of the existence of the videos.  

Baltimore Ignition Grant Planning

UPDATE 3-7-10 - I made a website called wwww.quickexplore.org specifically for my bike project. You can track that project in detail there.

What: Ignite Baltimore is offering a $1,500 grant to start a new idea.  If approved, this grant will utilize about $390 of funds from the 1st ignition grant.


Goal:  Increase usage, knowledge and appreciation of parks & trails in the Baltimore area.

Background:  Our city has invested millions on parks, but they continue to be underutilized.  Health care costs and obesity are ballooning out of control.   Our parks are a great free way to stay fit and enjoy the outdoors!


Method: 5 minute video clips of Baltimore trails

• Accelerated video of entire trail  (example below)
• Pauses to show highlights from the trail
• Map overlay to help viewer understand geography (example below)
• Help viewers understand trail difficulty through Elevation overlay
  
  
  
  
  

Stop playing facebook games. Learn how to help #haiti with no cash in 10 minutes.

This Saturday I went down to check out the Crisis Commons.  The event was a mind blowing collaboration of over 1,000 technical volunteers on three continents.   Crowd-sourced community-generated maps have become the official on the ground map resource in Haiti.  In this video, Fortiusone's CTO Andrew Turner explains how you can start helping Haiti in 10 minutes with no cash, just some of your time. Links talked about in the video are ushahidi - Haiti SMS disaster relief collaboration, Crisis Commons ,and ImapHaiti.

How you get started in less than 10 minutes: http://imaphaiti.com The event was also covered by internal media organizations such as CNN, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times,  Wired and O'Reilly Media.

Monday PM Haiti Updates

I just posted this on my friend's Haiti Blog.  I thought I would post this here as well.

Carol and Tom tried to send me several pictures today.  The mobile network has been terrible.  I have gotten no updates.  Hopefully we will have some text and pictures tomorrow.

I had a 15 minute phone call with Tom tonight.  He has been made the "chief of staff" at the hospital.   There are a lot of amazing efforts happening here in Baltimore to raise money.   Tom hopes to get a chief of technology at the hospital tomorrow to handle communications issues.

A lot of you have been asking what to do.  The answer is send money to professional disaster relieve organization.  Just flying to Haiti and saying I am here to help is not a good idea.

UPS has also shut down all shipments in and out of Haiti until further notice, so 'care packages' are not an option.

Friends in Haiti

Two great friends are on their way to Haiti to help.  Check out their blog to see what things look like on the ground and how you can help. http://www.carolandtominhaiti.com/

One week later, meter now worse off by 2 hours and 1 minute

The office of Jim Kraft (Baltimore city councilman, District 1) called the parking authority, who in turn called me.  They both insisted the problem would be fixed ASAP.  The problem is now worse.  As of December 12, 2009 2 dollars buys you negative 1 minute of parking in front of Whole Foods. The meter shows 4:42 and my phone shows 6:43.  If you bought a 2 hour pass it would expire 1 minute ago.  How much did the city spend on these meters?  A writer at the examiner also agreed with me this is ridiculous.

I sent a letter to Jim Kraft's office again.  I am not upset about this one meter, I am upset with the  disfunction of our system.

If we are trying to encourage folks to move to the city and increase the tax payer base, little things like this are terribly corrosive to that effort.

I am sure the city paid a fortune for these meters.   Can't someone enforce the warranty on these meter system purchases?  Being a computer guy, I can promise this is a very basic fix in the meter software.
The clocks should be automatically updated daily when the credit card transactions are processed.

Baltimore Parking Problems - Broken Meters

I hate to admit it, but I had to drive today. It was too cold for the bike and I had too much to carry.

Baltimore parking is terrible. Our meters made by Cale Parking systems (link) have been broken for at least a month in the Harbor East Area. I bought this 2 hour parking pass on the left at 3:31pm today. The ticket reports I bought it at 1:21pm giving me only 10 minutes to park for 2 dollars.

This is not a way for Baltimore to encourage tourism or the patronage of our local businesses.

Fox did a report on this November 5th, one month ago here(link) and the problem still hasn't been fixed. I sent this to our city councilman Jim Kraft. It will be interesting to see what happens with this.

There is also a recent interesting WBAL (11-2-09) report here(link) about the problems and city council concern with the current parking authority.

A quick review - Google Earth for the iPhone

Google LatLong: An update to Google Earth for the iPhone
I love the new POI Look ups and aggregated crowd sourced data from Zagat, Yelp, urbanspoon and others. The app is also substantially faster as google claims. Something really bothers me about how much battery this graphically intense app consumes. Only a week's worth of testing will tell how useful it will be.

CES Las Vegas

I dug up this picture from Las Vegas. One of the better shots of our mp3car demo car.

• Dual Zone Audio, Video & Internet entertainment
• 2 Intel Entertainment and Navigation computers
• Navigation, Traffic
• Internet Radio
• High Speed internet
• 6 monitors, 3 touch screens
• 5 cameras
• 1TB+ of media storage
• Front and rear seat USB ports

Intel X25 in a Macbook Pro. Trouble In Paradise - Corrupt OSX Partition.

I love my Intel x25 SSD but yesterday the darn thing stopped working. I was having some USB problems so I decided to reboot to see if that fixed the problem. Upon Reboot I just got the dreaded folder with a question mark in it. I then booted with OSX S Snow leopard CD - Disk utility sees no partitions. Now what? My backup is a month old (yeah i know) no need to say more)

I Booted with UBCD for windows (because I had one handy) and used the testdisk open source tool. this is also available for the mac which I didn't know at the time.

Rob Trimming The Jib

Here I am trimming the white, yellow, and blue jib on a downwind leg. I am the guy on the left wearing the green shirt and brown shorts. This big sail is trimmed by the rope in my hands that goes through a pulley and a winch at the stern of the boat. For the best boat speed an adjustment is made every few seconds. In heavy winds I am assisted by a winch grinder to help me pull the sail back in after it has been eased.

Thanks for the Picture Carolyn.

USVI & BVI Customs policies

Despite what the CDP.gov (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) tells you, for US citizens as of June 2009 a passport is required to go from the USVI (United State Virgin Islands) to the BVI (British Virgin Islands) and then return to the United States. After calling the CDP ahead to confirm it was ok, we planned our trip around using a certified birth certificate for exit and re-entry.

As of September 2009 there seems to be some games going on because the CDP offices in St Thomas will tell you it is fine to go to the BVI using a certified birth certificate and they even tell you to enjoy your trip. When you go to get on a ferry to the BVI, the operators won’t take you because the CDP fines ferry operators $3,000USD for taking non-passport carrying US citizens to the BVI even if they have a certified birth certificate.

Why does the CDP tell people to enjoy their trip yet fine the ferry operators? Are they afraid of retaliation or reciprocal policies from the British border patrol in the BVI?

The US CDP office in St. Thomas was very rude and even hung up on us when we asked why we were given mis information. This seems like poor policies left over from the Bush administration and 9/11 hysteria.

Why Rob leaves work early every Wednesday

Here is a picture of me trimming the Spinkaker on Wednesday night racing. Great friends and a wonderful diversion on hump day.

Motionx Not working well for short Sail Races

According to some developer forums, the Iphone refreshes apparently every 5 seconds. From reading around, it looks like the refresh rate is so bad, we can't even use the Hz measurement.

I have been testing the iphone app motionX GPS on my Wednesday night racing and comparing it to a 1Hz Garmin marine GPS. The knot meter fluctuates by 4 knots and our VMG and bearing aren't accurate either.

The average readings are accurate, but this isn't good enough to allow us to make tactical decision on a several mile long race course.

A refresh every 5 seconds might be perfect for highway driving, but this is going to be terrible for quick sequential turns.

Maybe developers can make the GPS readouts better by artificially simulating 1-10hz gps through the use of accelerometer data.