Ry's Blog

in the 18 hours or so Photo Mule and Photo Mule Free have been on the market, I’ve seen something interesting: half of the people that download Free don’t install it.

However, the developer dashboard doesn’t report any failed installs.

Furthermore, Flickr reports there are 1/10th the number of authenticated users as Google reports active installs.

Very strange.

It’s in the Flickr app garden. It’s in the Android Marketplace; use the QR below to find it:

I have a beta of PhotoMule posted for your perusal (APK, 300k; either open on your phone or save, sync, etc). PhotoMule syncs your photos from your phone to your flickr account; due to the fact that most handsets are taking pictures in the 2-5 meg range and free accounts have a 100 meg limit, I suggest you use a flickr pro account.

There is almost no UI; you may set it to upload your pictures private or public (default is private). This beta is time-bombed for about two weeks from now.

If you use it, please let me know. We’re interested in all feedback; we’re using reddit for support &c; feel free to jump in. Twitter here.

Like blathering about an iPhone at this juncture, I’m confused and seem to think my recent purchase of a Kindle gives me some insight into a device which has sold millions in years on the market.

That aside, I give you the bad:

• too small
• too thin
• the buttons are in the wrong places
• the screen is too slow.
• the integration to the Kindle store on the device is awful.

The good:

• the screen is crisp
• the text is in the same place every time
• the lighting doesn’t change across the page

All this adds up to much easier reading; much higher speed; and much longer sessions before eyestrain sets in. I hear that the battery life is long; I plug it in every day, so this isn’t much of an issue. I’ve described my life as moving my device farm from charging station to charging station throughout the day; at least the Kindle doesn’t require a mid-day charge.

I bought one at Verizon. Finally, an a2dp bluetooth headset that works, sounds nice, and looks OK. The touch volume slider is pretty hot, too. Only downside? $100; with the Microsoft discount, $75 plus tax.

Too bad I bought so many bluetooth earthingys before I found one that works.

I published the Boomershoot 2010 calendars in Live Calendar; I then synced them to Google Calendar (well, I added them by URL). Furthermore, I synced those to my phone. This morning I made some changes to the live calendar; I clicked on the other tab in Google, expecting to have to find some way to re-read the ics. The changes were already reflected! Amazing!

That small things like “calendars sort of work” makes me so happy fills me with dread about the future of our industry.

Once I hit refresh on my phone, the changes were there; otherwise, it would have taken 4 hours on average.

In an attempt to get my daughter’s phone to recognize the OEM charger, I updated the software on the phone using the tools on the Motorola website; she had a lock code on the phone before the upgrade. After the upgrade, her lock code and the default lock code (last four digits of the cell phone number) no longer worked; a long and fruitless call to Verizon confirmed they have no OOB way to set the code.

To spare you a long and fruitless blog entry, the code post-upgrade was 0000.

If you have one of these phones, you may have noticed the “unauthorized charger” error prevents you from charging your phone; in my daughter’s case, said charger was the OEM charger that came with the phone.

To work around this issue, put the phone in USB mass storage mode.
menu->settings & tools->tools->USB mass storage.

It should charge from any USB adapter at this point; this post is probably in violation of some hacking law.

Good backup if you’re on a GSM carrier.