J. Carlos Navea – loconet

I just wanted to give everyone the heads up that lget 1.0.1 for Firefox 3.6 can be downloaded from Mozilla’s official addons website.

Before this rant^H^H^H^Hblog entry, I would like to say that I have been an Open Source supporter for a very long time and I am committed to using/developing for the Android platform. I truly believe that consumers, and the mobile industry in general, can benefit greatly from this model. Having said that, it is not always so rosy.

One thing you have to give credit to Apple is consistency. Consistency in the way they design their products, and in the way they control the customer experience. At times this control is the source of much criticism from people (including myself) who prefer to use and develop technology under an open environment. However, this centralized mandate of how the technology is to be used does have its benefits. One of these benefits is the way software updates arrives to the customers’ devices.

In the age of the iPhone, the PS3, the Wii, etc.; we, as consumers, have become accustomed to manufacturers or software authors providing us with software upgrades without major hassle through our network-capable hardware. We have taken the complexity and costs associated with those upgrades for granted. Naturally, this arrangement becomes more complex the more members are involved in the product’s “eco-system” and, even more complex, when that product runs under different hardware configurations or in the case of mobiles, it is carried by different services. This is the case of Android, where unlike Apple’s iPhone, it runs under a plethora of hardware configurations and is serviced by many carriers. In this setup, each manufacturer and carrier has the choice of distributing their own version of Android to meet their needs and those of their customers. It all seems like a beautiful eco-system where; developers, manufacturers, and carriers are customizing while sharing technology for The Greater Good ™. As I have recently learned, this is true until someone needs to upgrade the software and support that new upgraded version. Who exactly should be providing the upgrades to users and do all the work associated with an upgrade? Should Google? Should the manufacturer? Should the carrier? Should the user do it himself? It seems to me some of these questions were not answered fully before Android was haled as the healer for all mobile industry pains. Or if they were answered, someone is not pulling their weight.

In order to illustrate this point, let’s look at a recent development in Canada, where HTC and Rogers Wireless have officially decided not to upgrade their customers’ HTC Android devices (I’d be curious to know what will happen to the LG Eve). One of HTC’s argument is that 1.5 is stable enough and  “delivers a terrific user experience”.  The HTC Magic and Dream were released in June of 2009 in Canada running version 1.5 of the Android OS. Since then, 1.6 and 2.0 have been released, with 2.1 being rumored to be out on devices soon. When we consider that the number of applications that support 1.6+ will only increase and that popular application such as Google’s own Google Goggles, and Google Navigation will only work on recent releases of the OS, it is easy see how many Canadian users are now considering their devices obsolete. Some such as my self might be inclined enough to root the device and install the update ourselves, but not only does it require time, it also has the potential of voiding the device’s warranty. How about going to a different carrier? Not likely given the 3-year contracts we are chained to. It is naive to think that the majority of users will go that route, never mind the fact that Android’s model was supposed to make the need for hacks like that unnecessary. Not many are happy.

Why is HTC releasing phones that can’t be upgraded? Why is Rogers selling them? The exact reasons as to why HTC/Rogers decided to go against the norm in this context and not provide software upgrades, are cloudy at the moment and is very important to note that information on the subject is very fragmented (PR on both ends are working extra time).  On one hand, Rogers blames HTC for not wanting to provide upgrades for non-”Google Experience”-Android phones (ie. Rogers’ HTC Magic, HTC Dream, etc). On the other hand, HTC blames Rogers for not asking for the update. Customers looking into the issue are still not sure who is telling the truth or what is accurate. It has become quite the hot potato game between HTC and Rogers. Regardless of the reasons, the harmonious open eco-system proposed by the Open Handset Alliance, where “Each member of the Open Handset Alliance [where HTC is one of them] is strongly committed to greater openness in the mobile ecosystem” is not only harmed by the lack of software upgrades itself but also by the lack of accurate open information.

There isn’t conclusive information as to the reason of the Rogers/HTC debacle yet so we can only stipulate and wait. My guess is that due to carriers being allowed to customize ROM installed on the devices they sell, it makes it much harder (ie. costly) to test, deploy and support any major upgrades. Is that respect then, is the Android model too open for its own good? Or is the problem that it isn’t open enough? Would it help users know about the intricacies of the support and development agreements between carriers and manufacturers in order to make better purchasing decisions? Do we need openness beyond the source code in the way of disclosure of agreements between carriers and manufactures in hopes of shining a light on these will keep them honest? Listen, if you decided to customize the ROM to include your “<Insert-Carrier-Name-Here> Homepage” icon, I think you should be footing the bill for upgrades to support your customers. I would like to know who to blame, that information should be open no? I’m probably dreaming. I can’t help to think that it could very well be that the mobile industry is just not mature enough for this form of cooperation when it comes to technology development. I can’t help to think that they still can’t see beyond their quarterly profits….but that’s just my opinion.

As I looked at this entangled mess these past few days, I became suspiciously intrigued by the familiarity of it all. I realized that in a way, Android’s model is not entirely new. That same similar model somewhat works in other areas of technology development. If we look at how Linux distributions work in the desktop/servers world, we see a similar approach. Similar to the Android project, where code updates are centralized, kernel updates are done and approved by one central cluster of people and organizations. Also similarly, organizations such as Canonical, RedHat, and Novell then take those updates and push them onto their customized Linux versions in the form of Linux distributions. Users then choose one of the many Linux distributions according to their specific needs. The key part here is that, at all points, all players of the Linux desktop eco-system take responsibility in doing their part in order to accomplish the success of the product. It is worth noting that I say it “somewhat” works because it never comes out perfect – I still have to deal with proprietary driver issues, fun with back-ports, bugs bouncing back and forth between projects, etc., but the model does work for the most part. In the Android world however, some parties are still immature enough to pass the buck in who should get the work done. At this time, the problem in the model being followed by Android appears to be the two uncooperative nodes that exist on the line going from the Android project to the costumer. These two nodes being the manufacturer and the carrier. One could argue the two models have different economic needs, and therefore different incentives for getting the work done (and footing the bill) exist, but regardless of those aspects, wouldn’t the long-term health of the eco-system benefit all parties in the long run? Wouldn’t all parties want to make sure that the eco-system remains strong and growing to benefit from it economically in the long-term? I’m not sure some organizations see it that way.

It is still very early to tell if Android’s model will succeed or not. It definitely sounds great on paper to me, and it has made some great progress in general but the drama going on in Canada with Rogers and HTC has definitely splashed a little sense of reality on my enthusiastic view. I *really* *really* *really* hope for the sake of the project that one of the players; be it Google, or the Open Headset Alliance, are taking note of this, hopefully small, obstacle and have started to correct the errors.

By the way, whatever happened to paid apps in Android’s Market place for Canadians? .. I guess that’s a whole other mess.

Update 1: RogersMary has posted an update on the android forums letting people know that Rogers and HTC are working towards resolving this issue. I’m still confused as to how an upgrade road-map was not planned when the “Revolution” started.

You know computers run your life when you are sending a message to a friend and catch yourself adding a space between the last word of the sentence and the period. No, it wasn’t a mistake or simple ignorance on how to use a period properly. Somewhere in my head, I feared that sooner or later, having a period immediately following the last word might confuse a parser somewhere .

You should be able to upgrade to lget for Firefox 3.5 from the Mozilla’s official addon’s website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/435

Changes in this release:

• Use of new SQLite storage API for history
• Compatible with Firefox 3.5
• New download window now closes itself after a new download is initiated
• Some code cleanup
• Several minor bug fixes

UPDATE: For those looking for the Firefox 3.6 update, please see this comment.

Several people have asked me why I’m so excited about Android. They don’t believe it can ever rival iPhone’s success. “It is too little too late”. In part they are correct, Apple has done a tremendous job in putting the iPhone in the hands of consumers. Its sleek design, excellent usability, and “hype” have won the mind of just about anyone that uses a mobile device now days. However, they are not looking at what Android promises deep enough. It is not just about the cut and dry technical merits. It is the potential for greater availability of applications and choice of hardware where I believe Android will come out on top. I have been playing with the Android SDK (on Linux, with Eclipse, no NDAs, no payments, no applications) for a few days and from what I have seen, I believe that developers will shift momentum Android’s way. Apple has made that mistake before. “Developers! Developers! Developers!…”; Crazy delivery but very true words.

When we look at how things are turning out in the mobile world, one can’t help to be reminded of the PC vs Macs battle of the 80s and the Internet vs AOL/Prodigy/Compuserve of the 90s. We all know how those conflicting approaches turned out.

This piece from Professional Android Application Development explains very well what I see.

What Will Drive Android Adoption?

Android is targeted primarily at developers, with Google and the OHA betting that the way to deliver better mobile software to consumers is by making it easier for developers to write it themselves. As a development platform, Android is powerful and intuitive, letting developers who have never programmed for mobile devices create useful applications quickly and easily. It’s easy to see how innovative Android applications could create demand for the devices necessary to run them, particularly if developers write applications for Android because they can’t write them for other platforms.

Open access to the nuts and bolts of the underlying system is what’s always driven software development and platform adoption. The Internet’s inherent openness and neutrality have seen it become the platform for a multi-billion-dollar industry within 10 years of its inception. Before that, it was open systems like Linux and the powerful APIs provided as part of the Windows operating system that enabled the explosion in personal computers and the movement of computer programming from the arcane to the mainstream.

This openness and power ensure that anyone with the inclination can bring a vision to life at minimal cost. So far, that’s not been the case for mobile phones, and that’s why there are so few good mobile phone applications and fewer still available for free.

Corporations will also be attracted to Android for the level of control it offers. By using a popular enter prise programming language in Java, no licensing fees, and offering the level of access and control users demand, Android offers an excellent enterprise platform.

Now that school is done for a bit, I took sometime for some time off to apply some much needed updates to this site.  First, I have moved the site to a VPS on linode.  I’m very happy with their service so far. Having the freedom to do with the OS as you wish is a very important feature for me.  It also means greater responsibility but that is part of the fun right?.  Second, I have upgraded to the latest wordpress (2.7) – the update tool on its own its worth the work!

So yes, don’t be surprise if things are a bit off now and then. If there are any problems let me know.

Instead of working on my Artificial Intelligence assignment I spent some time last night playing with Gnome-Do (Crazy Delicious!).

For those of you not familiar with Gnome-Do, it’s a very nifty way of accessing commonly used files, actions, tasks, etc in your system. It’s a bit hard to explain with words so check out the screencast. Many of you will recognize its functionality to be very similar to GNOME Launch Box,  Quicksilver for the Mac, or launchy for Windows. Gnome-Do of course runs on Linux and it is written in C# using Mono.

The plugin architecture is decently documented, and because it is open source, it is very easy to dive into the code and learn how things are setup to get you quickly going with plugin development.

So, after some researching and hacking around, I came up with “ManLookUp”. It is a is a very simple Gnome-Do plugin that allows to quickly search for man pages installed in your system. One can either type the command: “Man lookup” “View Manual Page” “Read Manual”-> hit Tab  to get a list of pages + description of the entry or search for a man page entry directly. Selecting one of the entries brings up the man page entry on a terminal window. Selected text as well as Application Items indexed by Do itself are also supported. I hope this plugin is helpful for others as well.

Monodevelop project, release/debug binary, and of course, sources can be downloaded from:

http://www.loconet.ca/files/ManLookUp-1.0.tar.gz

Screenshot:

Development site: https://code.launchpad.net/~loconet/do-plugins/ManLookUp

Consumers might be able to get something positive out of the recent outcry over the arguably pricey 3G IPhone plans offered by Rogers. The massive attention this issue is gaining online is prompting Canadians to question the way Rogers is conducting business, something which I have personally questioned for a while. This new found interest by consumers to inform themselves about competitors and unmask what some might label as monopolistic price gouging behavior, can only help the country’s economy in the long run and secure technological progress for the future. With that spirit then let’s compare another service Rogers offers: The Home Phone.

For those not familiar with it, Roger’s Home Phone service provides residential customers with a land-line phone connection much like that of offerings from Bell, Primus, etc. The service started as two offerings: Classic landline over telephone lines, and VoIP. As of June 2008, Rogers will only be offering the VoIP option (forcing existing classical land-line consumers to switch or cancel) so let’s compare their product with other similar VoIP services: Vonage and Primus.

Since I want to keep this simple while looking at the most features available, let’s compare their high-end options for Unlimited North America calling.

Rogers

How much: $41.95 + $5.95 (System access fee – yes, that mysterious fee again) = $47.9.
Features: Free 4-6 out of 15 available ($4.00 for each additional feature).
Long distance North America: Unlimited North America (+$19.95).
Free Europe calling: None – must add as different package ($24.95).

Total: 47.9 + 19.95 + 911 fees ($0.19) Hearing Impaired Assistance (HIA) fees ($0.22) + taxes = ~$77.13

Vonage

How much: $39.99
Features: All 21 features included.
Long distance North America: Free unlimited calling.
Free Europe calling: Free unlimited calling to: Italy, France, Spain, UK and Ireland.

Total: 39.99 + taxes = $45.19

Primus

How much: $49.95
Features: All 10 features included.
Long distance North America: Free unlimited calling.
Free Europe calling: None.

Total: 49.95 + 911 Fee ($0.40) + taxes = $56.90

I realize there are many VoIP options out there, some more expensive and some cheaper than these but I just wanted to compare Roger’s offering with two of the other popular options. Additionally, I have not taken into account individual international calling rates, which in fact would support my point even further as Roger’s rates are gernally a few cents higher per minute throughout the list of countries.

In conclusion then, much like the IPhone 3G plans, Rogers is not only positioning their service at a higher price but they are offering less for higher prices! Sadly there are a lot of people blindly buying into this. Thankfully for consumers who inform themselves, Rogers is NOT the only available option for VoIP and, at least for now, we are able to choose freely from one of the competitors. Unfortunately for IPhone fans in Canada, Rogers seems to be the only option for now. Not a good idea to have let Rogers buy out the only other GSM competitor huh?

Assumptions: Taxes are for Ontario (5% GST + 8% PST for telecomunication goods), one time setup fees not taken into account. Intangibles such as customer support quality not taken into account – I personally believe Rogers would lose big on this item.

I just uploaded lget 0.4.1 to the official Mozilla Add-ons website. It should work with the latest Firefox 3.0 final. You should be able to download it from the Mozilla Add-ons page within the next few hours after Mozilla reviews the package. If you are in a rush, you can grab it directly from here.

McDonald’s menu style Internet offerings in the future? Here is an interesting (and scary) update:

I have been following the ongoing news regarding Bell Canada’s decision to throttle their reseller’s traffic. To those arriving late, Bell Canada owns the lines used by third party ISPs such as TekSavvy and recently decided to throttle bandwidth usage on those lines much like they throttle traffic from their own internet customers. Bell cites “fine print” in their Fair Usage Policy which, according to the company, allows them to do this if they see “excessive” use of their network. Why don’t they upgrade their infrastructure with the capital from all those record profits instead of giving us the story that someone is downloading too many movies. Oh, that’s right, it wouldn’t be profit anymore. Everyone can clearly see that the true reason Bell decided to throttle ISPs such as TekSavvy was to stop the move of costumers away from Bell services to more quality service where you get what you paid for, that is, the bandwidth you were promised.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago. Bell Canada is now is now lobbying to scrap mandated access by competitors to its network. That is, they want to get rid of a whole chunk of their competition all together. It would ultimately leave us with Rogers and Bell to choose from for Internet access. It is easy to see how this would translate into very bad news for consumers and economical progress in Ontario, and Canada as a whole. Without competition, the “free” market simply does not work. Consumers will not be able to vote with their wallets and the monopoly that is Bell and Rogers will dictate how things play out from then on.

If they can get away with this how can we determine where this will stop? Say good bye to VoIP. VoIP must run through your ISPs network, and if that ISP is Bell or Rogers (i.e. direct competitors to VoIP providers) who is to say they will not choke out the competition in the same manner they are planning to do it with internet wholesalers? Who is to say they will not consider things such as the upcoming high quality Youtube streams as “abusive” use of their network? Afterall, Youtube competes in one way or another with Bell’s and Roger’s TV service. Will we get to the point where internet service is tiered and chopped into nicely designed marketing-approved McDonald’s menu style offerings where I have to pay extra if I want to use SSH or attach large attachments to my e-mail? Will I have to pay extra if I want to use gmail instead of Sympatico’s own web mail? Would you like FTP traffic with that order?

As a software developer, avid internet user, and consumer, the potential for a future as described above scares the living crap out of me. The majority of people see the issue of Netneutrality as something that matters only to geeks. Sadly, what they don’t realize is that this wonderful progress the Internet has brought to the world is largely due to the existence of that openness, of that “neutrality” of the service. The ability for my neighbor to listen to online radio stations or play online games while I surf the web or e-mail clients without our service providers “deciding” for us what form of usage is more “valuable” is what keeps this wonderful progress going. Bell Canada’s move to eliminate competition this way introduces a slippery slope that will see this progress come to a halt.

I am not a fan of the government stepping into citizens’ lives and setting unnecessary and damaging market roadblocks, however, when one considers that the free market cannot work under this conditions, I think it is time for the Canadian government to step in and put an end to this. To many, the Internet has become a utility with importance almost as high as that of the telephone system, gas, water, and electricity. Considering that Bell’s infrastructure was largely paid by tax payers dollars, I think it is time we decide how we use those lines and for Bell to stay off OUR Internet!.