Android? Why Android?

It's been a long time since I've written a tech orientated blog post so I'll take this opportunity to talk about my reasons for choosing the Android platform over iOS (iPhone OS at the time) and why I wasn't swayed by offerings from the Windows Phone and Blackberry camps. If I had to summarise it in a few words? Openness, Customisation, Choice.

Why openness? Well Android is an Open Source operating system (which essentially means that anyone can see the source code for the software and can use/modify it for their needs, subject to the licence agreement) that uses the Linux kernel (which is also Open Source). This means that anybody can use Android on any device, even devices that it wasn't originally designed for (typically phones and  tablets). Examples include the Android x86 project and the Ouya games console. Apple likes to take control of its devices creating a "Walled Garden" for it's its users which mean that the users are free to use their environment as they've set it up but if they want to vary the formula a bit they've few choices. I'm no iOS developer but am told that a third party app cannot duplicate the functionality of a system app. For example the phone dialer, the contacts, the on screen touch keyboard, and for a long time this included the browser, Opera were able to get away with it as they did the processing on their servers and not on the device itself.

Android is the complete opposite. Don't like the camera app? Change it, the on screen keyboard? Change it, The phone dialer? The contacts app? The web browser? Yep change it. There are alternatives both free and paid in the Play Store (I know terrible name) for literally everything, amongst the the normal apps such as games, gps apps, social media apps etc. You can even completely change the look and feel of the device with themes and custom app launchers (yep, if your phone maker hasn't supported the latest release of android, you can change the theme and app launcher to emulate the look and feel of the new version).

Now this part is where I get really nerdy, it's not for everybody, it's not even for the vast majority. Custom Roms. Custom Roms are custom builds of the Android operating system, and it sounds exactly as it sounds, Some completely change the look of Android, an example of this is MIUI (pronounced My U I) where they've taken the Android core and totally changed the UI (or User Interface) to their custom needs, and when I say completely, I mean COMPLETELY, every graphical interaction the user has with the phone has been completely rewritten with this design in mind. It's a totally new way of interacting with the phone.

In sharp contrast to this is Cyanogen Mod which has been there since the very start with one guy "Cyanogen" who got the first phone and started messing around with the code to see what made it tick, decided he mostly liked the direction Google was going with it but decided to add in a few custom tweaks by himself. He also noticed that manufacturers weren't necessarily supplying legacy hardware with the latest versions of Android (understandable vested interest, why would consumers upgrade to newer phones if the older ones had the latest software version) so he started porting over these new software updates to older phones (provided they had the capabilities to run the new version). I've had several Android phones. While I've been using Android since 2.1 (Nexus One), my latest is the Samsung Galaxy sII (i9100), which originally came out with Android 2.3 and then 4.0.4 (first by CyanogenMod and then officially) and then finally 4.1.2 (again first by CyanogenMod and then officially) but this is where the official support seems to stop. CyanogenMod has continued on to 4.2.2 (as you can see from my screenshot below). Any phone that can run Android 4.0.4 can run 4.2.2 in terms of processing power as 4.2 is actually faster and more responsive. The problems that are plaguing the CM team are that the i9100 uses Samsung's own Exynos processor and that the drivers either have to come from Samsung or have to be reverse engineered. This problem doesn't affect the North American variants (as much) as these tend to use the Snapdragon and thus don't have to rely on Samsung to release any new drivers for OS updates.

So why the sudden resurgence in my love of the Android operating system. Well I recently got quite a scare when I tried to upgrade to the version you see above, my phone all of a sudden became sim locked and wouldn't accept my sim card. I had to get a local IT shop guy to "downgrade" my phone to the  official 4.1.2 rom with Samsung's Touchwizz UI so he could unlock them sim card (it seems all he did was use an app from the Play Store (I prefer when it was called the Android Market) to accomplish this and charged me 20 euro for the privilege. That seems to misrepresent him slightly, it seems changing to the official rom was a bit of a challenge on his part as he told me to come back the next day.

But you do not understand how much I think Google have hit the nail on the head with their Holo theme. They hired one fine gent called Matias Duarte (responsible for the design of webOS also). Samsung's Touchwizz just rubs me the wrong way by comparison. Everything is just well designed and integrated but with a futuristic minimalist almost Tron-like look. I had to, simply had to, get back to that design and integration. I suspect this is how OSX and iOS fans wax lyrical about the design of their operating systems.The difference is this was an operating system that I felt passionate about, I liked the interface elements but maybe not the aesthetics of them, it didn't really bother me that it didn't seem to get me enthused about the aesthetic design like other operating systems seem to do for their fan base. Now Android finally has reached that point with 4.0 and it's only refining it with 4.1 and 4.2. Now not only do I prefer the operating system because of it's roots in openness and customisation. I also love the aesthetics of it.

The little things that keep you entertained

Well today was quite an eventful day. It started with me going into college and logging in to Facebook on my laptop to discover that on the college group, that I'd set up for the class so people could post notes or other college related things, that there was a photo of a personal ad posted in the local free newspaper concerning a certain lecturer in the college (see above). Now I've not heard any gushing reports from my female peers in the course so I take it he doesn't register much on their PHWAH-ometer, so I suspect it was one of the guys winding him up for the laughs. Now we did have him today but not till the afternoon.

When the lecture did come around and we were sitting around during the usual 5-10 minute lull at the start of lectures we were chuckling away and passing the paper around to those who hadn't seen it. One guy even left the paper open to the relevant page up on the lecture table where the PC is. Anyway in walks the lecturer to a chorus of chuckles and he spots the paper and said “ Alright, yis have all had your fun” while semi chuckling himself. That was it pretty much, he got on with his programming lecture.

Procrastination and love life

In college lately I've been floundering of late, doing the bare minimum (and sometimes not even that) watching the weeks wash over me and not doing very much about it . It's entirely my fault and I have disillusioned myself into thinking I was doing ok or that this approach would cause me to succeed. While the continuous assessment aspect of it isn't the main chunk of the marks (the end of semester exams are) they are certainly handy marks to have in the bag that I've been neglecting. My attendance has also semi suffered, or sometimes I'll attend just for the signing in and then spend the class doing nothing more productive than chatting on facebook or browsing sites like Reddit, Engadget and Gizmodo.

Is this the approach that I wanted? Well no but it's sort of just happened and I think both my parents and my friends in college have started to notice. I'll really have to turn this around or risk repeating half my exams in August. I guess I've been disillusioning myself that I had more of a safety net than I thought or more time than I thought to turn this train to the bottom around.

On a more positive note, I've come across a pretty cute and cool girl who's over here on a working visa for a year. Is she partly responsible for the above? I suppose you could argue subconsciously she may have had an influence. Do I hold her responsible in any shape or form? Certainly not! She's one of the few positive things in my life at the moment. We've been going on "dates" on Tuesdays these past few weeks and have been chatting on facebook and texting in-between. I guess you could say she's been a distraction from my studies and if she somehow ends up reading this, it's my fault for not finding a balance between the two aspects of my life and I'll turn the academic side around if solely for my self development. I've just let it catch up on me a bit. I've really come to look forward to these "dates", she has stated that she doesn't want anything serious as she's only here for the year and mightn't even be in Dublin for the entire year. I've felt a connection between us that's more than just friends, it might be presumptuous to assume this, but I feel she's felt it too. It might end up as a "friends with benefits" arrangement or friends who don't mind fooling around with each other if they so desire.

I guess this has been a bit of a distraction from my studies if I'm perfectly honest and to continue being honest, I sort of let it be. But now that I know about it I can hopefully put measures in place to turn it around. Hopefully not to the detriment of either.

Also as a passing thought, it'd probably be best if she doesn't read this till at least much later.... haha.

Mmm, neglectful of this Blog I have been.

Well there are a few reasons for that. It's a combination of nothing really happening and me assessing if what has happened is suitable for shouting out into the dark void that the internet can be. I'll to summerise these events and my thoughts on them as best as I can.

So I went to the most recent Atheist's in the Pub which happened last thursday. Partly with the hope that Xena was there and partly because I always enjoy the social interaction and the talks that occur at these meetings. Well she was but while we got on fine I didn't get the same vibe that I got during our first interaction maybe I should have acted sooner and asked for her number and now she's kinna feeling detached and is reassessing the whole situation or maybe I misread the initial interaction and was projecting something onto her. I don't think so because I wasn't in the flirtatious mood when I set out that night as I don't tend to find girls I like when going to these meetings. Anyway I have added her on facebook and so it's not a total loss even if we end up being just friends.

I've begun my first week in the Computer Science course and while it's just the first week and everything is still up in the air I'm getting a fair Idea of what subjects I prefer over the others. The Programming module is definitely my favourite even though we've only had one lecture in it so far. I remember it from the first time around as just learning a way to tell the computer what to do and get it to do what you want. Maths strangely enough looks to be my weakest subject out of the gate and the one that I'll have to work on the most. The other subjects are: Communications, which is about essay writing, report writing, researching, proper citation and presentations, if it wasn't for Maths I'd say this would be the one I was least looking forward to. There is Computer Architecture, which as it sounds is about hardware and processors and the history of the physical aspects of the computer. This is all theory and notes mind you no hands on really. IT Fundamentals is another one, and that's about how IT interacts with companies and the business world. Programme Design is the final one but since we've not had that yet I can't say much about it. I think it's about pseudo code and thinking out the layout of your code and what you want it to do before you jump in and start coding.

I've found that my body clock has taken a bit of a whack as I'm not used to these early mornings. I find that I'm frequently tired when I get home despite the days not being particularly taxing as it's only the first week and all the lecturers are doing is giving the overview of the courses before we actually get down into anything.

In terms of social interaction with my new classmates well there's 80 of them and I've only been in 2 half arsed days (by both the students and the lecturers) but any chance I get that I'm sitting down next to someone I've not met before I always stick out my hand and introduce myself. Now I must confess I've forgotten 90% of their names within 20 mins of leaving that lecture as I'm terrible at remembering names but at least I'm making an effort to be friendly and they know that I'm a nice guy to go up and talk to, even if the most we'll see each other is if we happen to be assigned a project together. But you never know I might meet them if I join a society with them in or on one of my few and far between visit to the "college pub" (it's not strictly run by the college but it's the nearest one and students are pretty much all that go to it and so they do cheapish pints and pitcher deals).