I am now an official Android fanboi. It would be impossible to hide that fact. Granted, I have yet to root my Droid 2, but I am at least ninety something out of a possible one hundred ‘big into’ this OS. Pretty pumped I waited for Snapdragon…pretty pumped I feigned the urge to get a first generation device…pretty pumped that Apple and or AT&T are not around my neck of the woods…you name it. I’m in a good place, cellularly.

+1 use of the word ‘cellularly’

Regardless, I am left with the problem of what to do with all of my passé phones.

+1 tilde

I have a stack of Verizon phones sitting around, with very little use. Zero use, in fact, unless you can count ‘looking at and laughing about how ridiculously horrid technology was two years ago’ a use, which in fact I do not. Good thing I found a site that will give you money for your mobile phone. Not just a bit, either. That is, of course, unless you are still rocking the Zach Morris phone:

and you can sit backwards in your chair...

Damn right A.C. is going to sit backwards in his chair, Preppy.

You know what is cool about SellMyMobile? Not only will they give you money for your cell, but they are saving the environment as well. My old Blackberry may not be as worth as much as the big hitters (iPhone, iPad, Nokia N8, etc.) but it will at very least stay out of a landfill. There are some toxins in that sucker…gold too, but also toxins.

Hit that bump up there to see what I’m talking about. Worth a shot, especially if you have a sweet phone that you are looking to monetize. Reduce, Reuse, Monetize. I think.

The proof is in the pudding (or in the froyo?) on this guy. Droid 2, hands down. Sorry Nexus fans.

I ran a benchmark test on my Droid 2 running Froyo. Here are the results, in slick, colorful, sideways bar graph form.

crappy pic...awesome font

Sorry for the awful picture quality…I had to log into my dual boot, in order to use Dell Webcam Central (garbage) to snap a picture of my phone. Turns out, my phone is also my camera, and I have yet to grab a screenshot app. Whatever. I’ll summarize the results.

Droid 2 with Froyo —— 1384 units
Nexus One 2.2 ——————— fewer unit than 1384
Others Played ——————– far fewer units than even 1384

Not sure what these units are, really, but the Droid 2 is clearly superior. I used an app called Quadrant, which is alleged to be quite legit.

It surprised me that the Droid X is lagging behind 2.2+ that much…it was supposed to be hotter than Hades. The Samsung Galaxy S is making a solid case for itself, sitting well above the Nexus One and HTC Desire.

As for those on the Moto Droid…hang in there. Hopefully you can manage to break your phone under warranty and get something with the Snapdragon under the hood.

****Bonus Bloggage…after I snapped the above picture and put together this post, I knuckled up on the Widowmaker pictured in the background. My knuckles indicate that I once again lost.****

This is not a chipper tale of how-to boastery. Far from it. I cartoonified the shit out of the following pics, in order to further convey the surreal darkness that was involved in this seemingly trivial task. Buckle up…it is not likely to be pleasant blog-reading.

The mission objective was simple enough: hang a heavy bag. The mission-turns-out-to-be-a-little-cooler-and-a-little-more-involved moment came when I realized there was approximately one punching bag length between the ceiling in my garage and the spot where I wanted the top of said bag. I’ll let the pictures tell the story, for the most part. My knuckles are all sorts of funked up, which is an indication of the title’s eventual success. Or aptness. Or giant fail…I’m still very confused.

Enough rambling…first thing I know, I’m standing on my Honda Trail 90, wondering how I ended up with a heavy bag (and Honda Trail 90) before I managed to end up with a goddamned ladder.

Unsafe at any Speed

When in Rome…snap a pic. It’s pretty much all about the photo-documentation at this point.

uh...

“Uh” is incredibly right. That sucker was bouncing around looking down…not so stable when my arm and or both arms were above my head. Good thing I’m limber. Huh?

My grand idea involved two threaded rings. Innocent enough looking…

oh, nice

…fucking wrong. Far from innocent, when said threaded ring is dropped into spider-central…

darkest hell

Well, I managed to knock most of those webs out of place with my trusty framing hammer. Unfortunately, I knocked them right on that stupid shiny thing I was attemping to arm-fish out of the hole between the particle board, studs, spider poop, drywall, and darkest hell.

I got the stupid thing, did the weird shudder thing with my shoulders/neck for a half-minute, and got back into gear. Survival mode at this point. Darkest-hell-been-and-back-survival mode.

Either my creeped out spider dance brought me luck, or my engineering was sound. Or both…but it worked out, against most odds.

Position 1

Position 2

It works, and there is a box of delicious OML in the frame. So I guess I’ll count that as a win???

One week into my tenure as a happy Droid user, I have some insight into what an Android user must toss on his or her unit. This is a running list, of course, but solid enough for a post. Post and a pic…

also pictured: thug dood

I’ll keep it simple at this point. Top five apps I have encountered, as far as usefulness and coolness are concerned.

1) Advanced Task Killer. No questions asked…get this app first and foremost. The battery life on these suckers is awful at best. Multitasking is great, but murder on batteries. Nuke your background crap, and nuke it often.

Nuke it from orbit, if in orbit.

2) Google Sky Map. So awesome it hurts. Bonus: your non-Android-having buddies will bow to your phone’s awesomeness.

3) Google Translate. Como se dice ‘awesome’ en Espanol? Un momento…Impresionante. Get this app, amigos.

4) Robo Defence. Awesome game; good graphics. Perfect for meetings; free version for those non-committal types.

5) Google Goggles. Take pictures of junk, see search results. This is another deal-breaker when it comes to the new tech that you can pull out on these phones. Maybe I’ll post a few result sets of this guy in action…sort of like looking into the future with this guy.

As the forewarning stated, this is far from a static list…merely a snapshot of the stuff I am currently digging with a spoon. I’ll try to keep some updates on the site, when my knowledge and tastes mature.

FWIW, get one of these bad boys. You will most surely not regret it in the least. To the max.

Since I’m really dragging my feet in regards to posting anything of substance, take a quick look at my new Aoyue soldering station.

also pictured: clutter

It works like a champ…pretty pumped that I heeded Lady Ada’s advice on this one.

I still need to post my Motor Shield assembly pics. I also really need to post some stuff about the Droid 2…which is constantly blowing my mind. Stick around…it’ll happen.

In preparation for the impending shit-storm that will consist of me, a soldering iron, and dozens of small, fragile components, I decided to see if I can actually get my Arduino to talk to a servo. Well, it turns out that the code is not the issue.

The built in servo library is pretty easy to tackle. A little bit of analogue, a little bit of digital, a little bit of shameless self promotion…

shameless plug

messy

Step one…check. I can sweep through 180 degrees. Can I solder to save my ass (and semi-valuable electrical components)…time will tell.

Also, I’m post dating this post. Happy B-Day Betsy.

Weird weather week continues…

xxtreme

One step closer…

Switch open yields a killer red LED…

stop

go

I even tossed in some 1K resistors to keep my LEDs healthy, in addition to my 100 ohm / 10000 ohm pull-down setup.

+4 resistor

I even managed to comment my code, for a bonus win:

/*
* binary red/green led setup
* by Joseph Swanson
* http://swantron.com
*/

int led1 = 11; // green LED (pin 11)
int led2 = 12; // red LED (pin 12)
int swit= 5; // switch (pin 5)
int varr; // to read pin on/off (pin 5)

void setup() {
pinMode(led1, OUTPUT); // output green
pinMode(led2, OUTPUT); // output red
pinMode(swit, INPUT); // switch input
}

void loop(){
varr = digitalRead(swit); // store swit to varr
if (varr == LOW) { // button = pressed
digitalWrite(led1, HIGH); // trigger green
digitalWrite(led2, LOW); // ground red
}
if (varr == HIGH) { // button != pressed
digitalWrite(led1, LOW); // ground green
digitalWrite(led2, HIGH); // trigger red
}
}

+1 Snippet

I’m getting closer to having this thing behave the way I intend. Stay tuned for a while longer. I’ll have a robot up and rolling in no time whatsoever.

1) Get this stuff

stuck-os

2) Put it like this

framing hammer ftw

3) Smash the crap out of the metal thing with the framing hammer, until stuck

vice grip ftw

4) Remove metal thing and ring with vice grips, awl, 2×4, and framing hammer…throw thumbs up.

clapclapclapclap

How many desk drawers do you actually utilize on a daily basis at a software development company?

***Spoiler alert…effin zero***

Extra drawer overload…what to do?

+1

It would be pretty unlikely, given my history blogging and working in the software development field, that I would not be a computer guy. Quite unlikely, and utterly false, for the record. I too am a huge fan of forensics. Kate and I have nearly worn out our old CRT TV upstairs in the bedroom watching Forensic Files on TrueTV. Can’t get enough of crime fighting science nerds. Saving the day with technology…pretty much my dream job. Combine those observations, and it is a natural assumption that I would be all about Computer Forensics, and that would also be a valid inference.

Maybe someday, I can use my mad skills to serve the purpose of expert witness in a sweet cyber crime…until then, I’ll be cranking out oddly-filtered images using the Gimp:

-1 weird investigatorobot

Remember the story from a month or so ago about the data exposure linked to printer hard drives shipped to China? Case in point…e-discovery is a huge concern currently. I’ll admit it, I had never thought twice about ‘what happens when you send a document to print’ until that hit the media. Even though the print jobs are not visible after a time on the printer itself, anyone with half a brain would think that said info could be retrieved. This is the realm of computer forensics professionals…yank that drive and get to work…all completely retrievable, until the drive is juiced and files need to be overwritten. Case in point, make no assumptions regarding what is assumed to be secure.

I stumbled upon Elluma Discovery while checking into the field a bit. They are computer forensics specialists…providing expert witnesses in e-discovery all over the place. How all over the place? The examiners in question have testified in State and Federal Courts, at arbitrations, mediations, and depositions. I’m jealous. I just use my skills to make sure lenders give credit where appropriate. If I end up in court in my current position, I have done something grossly wrong. Grossly.

Maybe Elluma is hiring…I could mix my computer skills with my firearms skills. Concealed carrying forensics tech? FOR THE WIN, SON.

Amusing Amazon order time…

Into the Ether

Arduino Ethernet shield, and a ring stretching tool. Go figure. Both respective projects will be well documented.