Author Archives: abstractviews

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Cell Phone Fines While Driving Hypocrisy

Most of us in North America are familiar with the endless hype over the danger of cell phone use in a moving vehicle, and the fines involved. Most intelligent and informed people realize that for many years now, most countries have had laws that allow police to pull you over and fine you for distracted driving. Distracted driving for any reason. Yet we have these new laws that focus on cell phone use. There is no reason for a specific law, other than perhaps to make it easier to enforce fines for a city (or municipal) cash cow.

But what about all the other distracting things people do in a car? Eating, drinking coffee, using the sound system, helping the children, getting something out of the back seat or glove box, talking to passengers, putting make-up on, brushing teeth, etc. Who hasn’t watched all these things in another car, and more. Yet no one gets pulled over for any of these.

This past Saturday morning, we are driving down Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, heading out for breakfast. And in front of us we see a Winnipeg Police car, driven by a single female police officer, and she is swerving back and forth in the lane. We pull up along side and look down into the car from the higher truck we are in. And she is busy typing on the car’s laptop while she is driving, and being the only officer in the car, I suppose she felt the need to do so while driving. Completely focused on the laptop and typing, she is looking down and to the side for long periods at a time, while driving in normal traffic.

So I will ask the obvious question, is typing and reading a laptop in a car safer than holding a cell phone in one hand? Or is typing on a laptop with one or two hands plus reading the detail on the screen safer? Not to mention the ridiculous hypocrisy of a person who’s sole job is to protect citizens, doing something far more distracting than holding a cell phone, something she likely gives fines for countless times a day.

(Example Photo)

Tricky GoDaddy Sales Tactics or Smart Business?

I had an interesting and informative experience with GoDaddy today.

GoDaddy typically will offer you the a first year free privacy service with Domains By Proxy, on new domain name registrations. Then on the second year, when you go to renew your domain name with GoDaddy, you are locked in to purchase the privacy feature at about $10, with no way to disable this privacy purchase, and no explanation.

After research I learned that you have to log into their DomainsByProxy company and cancel this feature with them. Accept that you have to log in with a different user name account than what you used with GoDaddy, BUT with the same password you use with GoDaddy. So if you didn’t save the emails you received from DomainsByProxy when they first created an account for you, and still know your user name, you will have some trouble to get that user name to log in and cancel.

Once you cancel the “Private Domain Registration” with DomainsByProxy, it does not update and cancel on GoDaddy right away, it takes time, or so I thought. I had to call GoDaddy to see why it wasn’t cancelled. I explained to the GoDaddy sales rep that I had already cancelled the privacy feature on their company known as DomainsByProxy, explained the situation, asked she why it wasn’t removed. She seemed surprised I had made it that far in the privacy cancellation, in fact she specifically asked if I had actually logged into DomainsByProxy and done so. It didn’t take her long to tell me what was wrong, in fact it was incredibly fast, yet she claimed to want to make a mental note so she could help any other customer that might have the same problem, like I was the first to experience this.

It turns out that it remains locked on those accounts if you were in the process of placing an order with those domains in the Cart. So you or GoDaddy have to empty the cart (logging out will not help) and then they supposedly won’t force the purchase of the privacy feature. But then the GoDaddy person on the phone politely insisted on helping out and doing up the order for me for convenience, claiming she added the best discount available, which ended up being $2. My purchase was well over $100. So I pointed out the best discount might be the email they last sent out for 25% off, which ended up being more than $2, and she acted all surprised and happy for me, like she had never seen such a large discount for GoDaddy before.

So is this poorly thought out by GoDaddy, or incredibly clever? How many people would give up and simply pay the $10 per domain and be done with the hassle? I think most people would not go to the trouble I did.

ownCloud 4.5 is Disappointing

Quite a while back I wrote a rant about how I don’t want to trust “cloud” services for my personal information, such as Google when it comes to the contacts info on my Android phone. I prefer to sync my contacts locally so as to keep them off Gmail Contacts. But that’s a whole other story.

Recently I came across an article on something called ownCloud, that was already on version 4.5, and was getting some notable tech press a week or 2 ago. I was pleasantly surprised to see an open source cloud product at such a high release number. I thought this might be what I’ve been waiting for! My main interest was contact management, but they bragged about calendar, files, and music syncing as well.

I’ve now spent a fair bit of time installing, testing, and trying to use ownCloud on a CentOS Linux server. Many hours in fact. And I’m quite disappointed. It does work reasonably well for doing basic file transfers back and forth from my Android phone while using their app connecting to my ownCloud server. And they have included some web based music and video players.

But when it comes to contact management, usability is terrible, and in my opinion is barely more than some random beta product. On the web side of contact management the data is displayed randomly on the screen, never in the same spot from one contact to the next, as it illogically places the fields based on the size of the data to display, large notes fields run off the screen with no way to scroll down to view them, if contact images are included you can’t delete them the contact, if note fields end in a line break you can’t delete them, no way to delete multiple contacts, and deleting all contacts means you delete the entire address book which is very time intensive. When I installed ownCloud there was supposed to be options to use a MySQL database, which I was never offered, and trying to do so manually didn’t work, so I had to settle for the default SQLite option.

I had to purchase an Android sync client called CardDAV-Sync, which works quite well. But to sync Outlook to OwnCloud was another story, I could only find one product that claims to do this, and it’s called WebDAV Collaborator, and it worked poorly for me. Luckily I didn’t buy it, and only used the evaluation version. But I found it buggy and not dependable. But at this point, and to be fair, it could be related to my many complaints about ownCloud contact management. For all I know WebDAV Collaborator could be a decent product and the sync problems mostly or all due to ownCloud.

My list of issues with the contact management in ownCloud can go on and on. For a version number of 4.5 I would expect a far better user experience. It appears to me that they have spent most of the code work on making the “Drop Box” like features and music and picture handling the priory. The glitzy trendy things that the average user will want to look at first.

If your cloud needs and interests revolve around replacing Drop Box or some product like that, this is something to possibly consider, though they haven’t worked out encryption if you want to share files with other users yet. But I will have to continue my search for a personal cloud based contact management system, cause this absolutely is not it!

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Batman rises as an aging, somewhat crippled, emotionally damaged and broke recluse. Not a typical Batman remake or sequel compared to the last few, as this one is darker in a more humanistic way, both sad and somewhat disturbing. Yet it still held my attention the entire 2 hours and 40 some minutes.

Well made and interesting in it’s dark cruelty, it’s definitely not even close to my favourite Batman movie. Probably at the very bottom of the list. Yet it’s not a bad movie at all. It’s quite a good in fact, but in my opinion, a bad Batman movie. For me this story shouldn’t even be about Batman, but simply a sad tale of an aging and depressed fallen super hero. As it doesn’t embody the nature of the Batman character, but twists it into something new. Some people will like this contrast, and some will not appreciate it, as I didn’t. I would have enjoyed this movie far more had it been about some generic super hero with these issues. For me it damages the Batman franchise. This isn’t what I want to see in a super hero movie. At least not one I have fond memories of.

But the story appears to be a set up for this Batman to retire and bring us a new younger version. So we shall see what happens next time, likely with a new director, writers and another off track storyline to switch things up.

7/10

Cosmopolis (2012)

A day in the life of a young psychologically disturbed billionaire, as he meets a wide range of people he supposedly knows while driving through New York City on his way to a hair cut.

It’s a poetic diatribe of nonsense, where all the characters talk like movie-style psycho serial killers.

Who would enjoy this movie? Perhaps dark artistic types while stoned, finding it profound while under the influence. I’d expect the rest of us would not.

Cosmopolis is a sick, strange, and disturbing waste of time, climaxing with a scene of self mutilation. It’s a David Cronenberg film, so for me, it’s not unlike other movies he’s been associated with.

2/10

The Amazing Spiderman (2012)

Another reboot of the origins of Spiderman. It’s no where as good at the version with Tobey Maguire in 2002. The special effects are well done. The action is okay. It does have some interesting alternate scenes compared to the 2002 version, but it has no heart, and lacks many things that makes a good movie. That includes the lead not having the charisma that’s needed to pull this off. He doesn’t have the right look for Peter Parker, and isn’t a good enough actor for this part. And also didn’t feel the camera work on the live scenes was good enough for a big motion picture, which causes us to loose touch with the storey.

I was somewhat disappointed. I would have preferred to see another sequel with Tobey Maguire as a slightly older Peter Parker, and showing us what Spiderman would be like more mature, wiser and perhaps as a darker character.

6/10

CyanogenMod 10 on the LG Optimus 2X

I’ve been running CyanogenMod since I purchased my LG Optimus 2X (P990) phone earlier this year. In fact I bought it specifically so I could run CyanogenMod instead of the factory installed version of Android. I wanted to take advantage of the extra CM features.

For the most part, CM7.x has done well for me. I usually run a nightly build, and put up with some small amount of stability issues and bugs, to be on the cutting edge of newness. CM7 is still based on the Android Gingerbread version with some tweaks. The Ice Cream sandwich version seems to have been jumped over for CM, I think due to LG not releasing a ICS version of the firmware for this model phone. LG finally released a Jelly Bean version (v.4.1.2) and CM started making a CM10 build for the P990.

I’ve tried 3 of the nightly builds for CM10 on my phone, and it works rather poorly, as in buggy and most noticeably incredibly slooooooow! Slow to the point that there is no way to use it on a daily basis. It will work okay for moments, and then not only be sluggish, but every key press or swipe will take several seconds each to register, up to 5 seconds at times let’s say. And it’s inconsistent, works at a reasonable speed for several moments, and then very very slow for a while, and then a moment of normal speed again. Changing the “Governor” setting to “Performance” from “OnDemand” makes no difference. From what I’ve read in various forums, other people are experiencing the same types of issues with CM10 on various phones, not just the LG P990.

Is CM10 not ready for prime-time, or am I having a rare bad experience for some unknown reason? If anyone reading this has a better experience than myself with CM10 on a LG Optimus 2X, I’d love to hear about it. Leave me a comment.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012)

Abe the Vampire Hunter, portrays Abraham Lincoln as a super human ninja like monster killer, that wields a silver tipped ax like a samurai sword. He kills vampires that can walk around in daylight so long as they wear shades and a touch of sun block. Who knew they had sun glasses and sun screen back then?! Now you know. It’s like a history lesson for U.S. patriots, all rolled up in one painful package.

He can cut down a large tree with a single swing, simply cause he gets that darn angry. No other explanation for the super power, he’s just really pissed sometimes.

There is absolutely no reason to watch this movie, not even for us vampire movie fans. Abe Vamp Hunter is a horrible, forgettable movie, far worse than I had imagined it would be.

3/10

Magic Mike (2012)

Mike is a 30 year old male stripper that takes a broke 19 year old kid into the dance club business.

The only thing that makes this movie worth watching is that there is a lot of man candy to watch. Other than that, there is nothing to brag about. Weak storey, poor acting, horrible direction, and the cinematography is the worst part. Camera work and editing is sad and amateurish. Bad camera angles, few close-ups, over use of wide angle lens, and bad lighting. Editing does not have the expected and required cut-aways to close-ups. It made me wonder if they hired someone’s cousin that happened to get a new video camera for their birthday to shoot this thing.

I had no idea there were several other well known celebrities were in this flick, all of which were used as extras in the entire shoot. And all of which are strong actors, and in my opinion better than the focused stars. It made me wonder if it was due to scene stealing jealousy, as having them a little more in front and being an actual part of the storey would have made this thing a far far better film. Even just a few close-ups and a few lines each would have made it more worthy. The actors I’m referring to are Matt Bomer from White Collar, Adam Rodriguez from CSI Miami, and Joe Manganiello from True Blood. It was obvious and felt odd to have these guys so deliberately in the background. Even a weekly TV show would have made better use of background actors.

If seeing mostly naked hot men dance is enough to watch a movie, this is a decent pick. These guys are incredibly hot. But even that could have been made more enjoyable with better camera work. And the oddest thing is Channing Tatum has appeared in dance movies where they had better cinematography, so why is it so drastically different in this one? Very disappointing. Channing is obviously on a roll, I hope he starts to make better movies in the future if he plans to continue producing.

4/10

TomTom Android App Review

TomTom recently released a GPS navigation map app for the Android platform. It’s about time. I had a TomTom GPS app and blue tooth receiver on my Palm Treo years ago. Long before anyone dreamed up Android, yet they have dragged their feet on releasing an app for a phone since (as far as I know.) I can only presume it was to protect their dedicated device market. I can’t see the GPS stand-alone devices having anywhere near the market share they once did with the free phone turn-by-turn alternatives available from Google, Apple, Nokia and others.

I purchased the $60 TomTom map app for the North America region only cause I wanted a data free way of having turn-by-turn navigation while travelling outside of Canada, or when I have no cell coverage in Canada. My cell carrier is Fido (Rogers) so I have no roaming fees inside Canada, so using Google maps here shouldn’t be an issue except when outside of cell tower coverage, which can easily happen in outlying areas of Canada, even at the lake.

The download of the app is several meg. Then downloading the North America map was 20some megs and took some time even on WiFi. So leave your phone motionless while downloading, as an interruption will mean starting over, as it does not use any smart download system that can continue if disconnected. Yes, this did happen to me walking around my house and the phone changing routers upstairs to downstairs.

Starting TomTom on Android requires some patience, as it takes a good half minute to start the app and load the map, this is on a Dual-core 1 GHz phone. This slow start was an issue back on my Palm Treo and is also the case on starting a dedicated TomTom device. No instant on for TomTom on any device I’ve used.

Features and usage are similar to the stand-a-lone TomTom’s, accept for some noticeable bugs and short comings I realized early on. Most TomTom devices have the ability to alert you when you exceed the speed limit, as does this app. It does not work for me on my device, assuming it works at all in the app. I contacted TomTom tech support and they replied with the usual call centre nonsense of uninstalling and reinstalling, or doing a factory reset of the phone. Both are incredibly ridiculous solutions for a working app. But this is the only feature that isn’t working so far, and audio like voice does work, so neither solution is what I consider intelligent. I’d like to know if this feature works for anyone else.

The other shortcoming is the lack of audio alerts when you are close to a Point of Interest (POI.) This feature is standard on all TomTom devices I’ve used and owned. I contacted TomTom tech support and the feature doesn’t exist, which is why I couldn’t find it, and their reply was that it “may” be implemented some day. Another typical call centre non-committal response.

Both tech support email complaints took several days to get answered, and both were escalated to a “supervisor”, and that’s the replies I received after escalating. My experience with TomTom tech support over the years has been similar, several days at least for a response, then some generic non-helpful (though polite) reply.

As for the general use of turn-by-turn navigation, it works as expected, and no better or worse than a regular TomTom device, short of the very disappointing lack of audio alerts for driving speed and POI’s. So far the Android app on my phone has found enough satellites to work fairly quickly, something that has always been an issue on all stand-a-lone TomTom devices I’ve used. But that will be due to the hardware being used, and not the software being better on Android than their own devices.

I’m glad I have a cellular data free means of navigation now, however I was very much looking forward to the two features that are lacking, that would have helped with locating red light cameras and staying within the speed limits. So the bottom line is that TomTom on Android is a very basic turn-by-turn navigation map with few frills, in fact fewer frills than I got on a TomTom device I purchased about 10 years ago.

Rating: 7/10

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