The app’s design is wonderfully minimalist and a little quirky, but it’s missing a couple of features I think are essential. Primarily, there’s no history of sent randos and where they landed. The app displays this info in notifications, but who really ever reads those? I’ve emailed the Rando team, and they indicated they’re working on adding a new feature that fixes this.

But even in its current form, Rando is worth checking out. Install it, send out some Randos and see whether the incoming images – that someone took just for you – make it worth your while.

Now that Samsung has unveiled their Galaxy S4, all candidates for “Top Android Handset” are now out in the open. It’s up to us consumers to decide which, if any, we’re going to get. I’m going to be really unfair to Sony and LG, and discard their efforts straight away. I’ve never been a Sony fan, and I haven’t played with an LG phone since the “Viewty”, which was terrible in every way. I think the real fight is between the current champion Samsung, and the most audacious challenger, HTC.

Round 2?

Last year, HTC’s One X was my favorite, but Samsung’s S3 clearly won in terms of sales. This time around, I think it’s interesting to see that the two successors are more polarized. HTC has clearly focused on improving the design of the One, and refining the most important phone features. Samsung on the other hand seems to have promised bonuses to its product designers for every novel feature they could come up with. And then they put every single one of those ideas into the phone. Both are lightning-fast smartphones with excellent screens, but other than that they could not be more different.

Features or gimmicks?

I can’t be sure until I try the S4, but I have a feeling that things like eye control are going to be fun for about 5 minutes. They may impress your friends for another five, but beyond that I can’t see myself using any of it. Once that happens, the S4 is basically an ugly, plastic phone (don’t let the press shots fool you, the faux chrome on my Note 2 is really tacky).

For me, the HTC wins

You can probably tell that I much prefer the HTC One. I love how they’re trying to address real issues, like low-light camera performance, instead of non-existent problems like finger-free scrolling and gestures. Android is based around touch control, and imho what it needs most at this point is a sexy, well-made flagship phone to lure in iPhone users.

Your choice?

But at the same time I’m curious how other Android users feel about this. Are features the most important thing in new devices? Do design and aesthetics matter? Which is your favorite new phone?

Yesterday, HTC announced their new flagship phone, simply called the “One”. Not to be confused with last year’s One X(+), One S and One V models. In what looks like an Apple-like move, HTC now has one high end smartphone, available in two colors and with either 32 or 64 gigabytes of storage. I really hope that there won’t be a “One+”, a “One Mini” or a “One Ace II”. Simple is better, and from the looks of it, the new One is the new optimum in smartphone design.

The ideal phone

If you look at the evolution of smartphones, it appears that they’re converging towards an ideal set of dimensions. They’re getting flatter, and the screens are getting bigger. Many people think the new wave of 5.5 and 6 inch screens are too big, so perhaps the One’s 4.7 inch is the sweet spot. Screen bezels are getting thinner, and it seems that the end goal is a phone that’s paper-thin, with nothing but screen on the front and an excellent camera on the back. And the best effort so far seems to be the One.

A 4 megapixel camera?

There’s been a lot of talk about the One’s camera being “only” a 4 megapixel one. I think it’s a bold move by HTC to not simply put more pixels into the camera’s sensor, but instead focus on image quality. Smartphone camera optics have never been good enough to produce sharp 8 megapixel images. With the notable exception of Nokia’s PureView 808, higher density sensors do not help image quality. More pixels means smaller pixels, which in turn means that less light is captured by each pixels. This translates into poor low-light images, and huge files with millions of blurry pixels.

HTC put big pixels on the One’s image sensor, and added a fast f/2.0 lense. I haven’t seen any test images, but I’m fully expecting the results to be excellent. Kudos to HTC for taking the high road here, and trying to educate buyers instead of simply running the megapixel race. I for one prefer decent indoor snapshot and sharp 4 megapixel files to blurry 8MP ones.

Android, skins and updates

The only thing that slightly worries me about the One is that it’s running a new version of HTC’s Sense skin on top of Android 4.1.2. Okay, that’s actually two things. Sense used to be pretty bad on the HTC Desire, but from what I hear has gotten much better since. I’m not a fan of Android skins, but I’m willing to give HTC the benefit of the doubt here. And since you’re basically getting some sort of skin with any non-Nexus phone, there’s no competitive disadvantage.

Historically, HTC does not have the best track record when it comes to keeping their phones up-to-date. The One not launching with the latest Android 4.2.2 is not a good sign. But considering that this is going to be their one major smartphone, I assume they’ll step up their game? If Samsung can keep most of their rediculously broad Galaxy product range up-to-date, HTC should be able to do this for their one phone, right?

I want One!

The first hands-on reports indicate the the One is a thing of real beauty in real life. Its build quality appears to be on par with the iPhone 5, and that’s perhaps the most important thing about yesterday’s launch. Samsung may have been very successful in the Android market, none of their products really make my mouth water. The Galaxy SIII has excellent specifications, but it’s still an ugly, plastic phone. I think the One is the best looking smartphone out there, bar none.

Personally, I’d love to see the One succeed. It would be very healthy in terms of competition if HTC’s market share would somewhat recover, and the One might win over some iPhone fans too. And with a pretty exterior and top notch innards, why wouldn’t it?

The launcher bar in Unity is always positioned on the left side of the screen. You can choose to have it “autohide”, set its sensitivity, its icon size, but not it’s position on the screen. And Canonical has made it very clear that they’re not willing to reconsider this. Here’s why I think they should.

The problem

This is my typical setup. Screen A is my laptop, screen B is a nice 1080P IPS display I use when I’m at home. At most of my clients, the setup is similar, they usually provide me with a monitor when I work at their location. Ubuntu lets you choose which screen(s) should show the launcher, and the image above represents the default.

The blue bars are the launcher bars, which I’ve set to “autohide”. The fundamental problem is that with both launchers active, the one on B is in the middle of my workspace. With “autohide”, I have to go to the the edge of the screen with my mouse in order for the bar to show. This saves screen real-estate, and is my personal preference.

Normally in multi-monitor setups, moving the mouse to the left on screen B, would make the pointer go to screen A seamlessly. But in order for the launcher on B to show, the screen’s edge becomes “sticky”. This makes the mouse bump against the screen’s edge, unless I move it quickly enough to not get caught. It’s like the mouse pointer gets caught in a spider web, and it’s the worst UI thing I’ve seem in years.

A bad and unnecessary compromise

If I disable the launcher on screen B, I have to travel a long distance to get to the one on A. This is what I currently use, and it’s not very convenient. Sure, there’s other ways to launch apps in Unity, and all sorts of shortcuts. But why create a wonderful launcher (and it is), if you’re going to make it hard to get to?

The logical, easy solution

The only way to be able to conveniently work with launchers on both screens, and not have them be in the way is to put them at the bottom. Or the top for that matter. As long as they’re not vertical. I believe this should be an option in Unity. This way, the launcher on each screen is easy to get to, no need for “sticky” side-edges, no mouse pointer speed bumps. It makes so much sense in fact, that most other OSes already do it this way. I’m not saying Canonical should copy this from windows, but in this case, being different comes at a high cost.

The question that tech media and stock analysts should be asking is, ‘How long before Android and Google’s partners give up the chase?‘

Huh, what?

Personally, I can think of nothing worse to happen to the tech industry than what Mac360 is suggesting here. And not because Apple would come out on top. I’m admittedly not a fan, but things would be just as bad if every single smartphone out there ran Android.

Monopoly vs. innovation and open standards

Just look at what happened in desktop PC market, or the so-called “browser war”. Windows, with its 95% market share, has shown very little progress over the last decades. And Internet Explorer’s all-but-monopoly from ten years ago still casts a dark shadow on web development. Monopolies are not a good thing. Monopolies kill innovation. And they also make it feasible to create platform-specific implementations as opposed to using open standards.

The reason I really want Microsoft’s Windows Phone effort and Blackberry’s new BB10 operating system to do well is because I care deeply for the web. The web is going mobile, and the very last thing we need is for one platform to dominate that arena. We really don’t want the mobile web to just target one browser, with some content locked to one app in one app store. We want a free and open web, built on standards, that can be used on any device.

Turf war

It’s important to realize that this is a turf war that isn’t about selling phones. It’s about gaining control of the mobile internet. It’s a clash of ecosystems that sell hardware, software, services and content. And I think that the net is better off with four strong camps instead of just two.

Note that this is “Cumulus”, without the “WP-”. It’s a new version of the movie, that uses a different, more generic XML format, and supports new things like unicode and device fonts. It’s not a WordPress plugin. If you’re looking to revive WP-Cumulus or incorporate the effect into other projects, it’s the ideal start. It’s the best incarnation of the effect, and I invite you to write stuff around it.

https://github.com/roytanck/cumulus

Flipboard

This isn’t really a new app, but it took a while for it to become available on Android, and it only very recently gained tablet support. Since then, Flipboard has become my favority news reader. It’s similar to Google Currents and Feedly, in that it aggregates news items and presents them in an easy to read format.

I used to install things like the Engadget app and the The Verge one, but nowadays I just read everything through Flipboard. It’s sleek, easy to operate, and is free.

Falcon Pro

I’ve had a blog post in draft for years about how great Tweetdeck for Android is. When I moved to Android it was the best Twitter client available on any platform. It had the most elegant user interface design I’d ever seen. But since then, it’s been abandoned (although Tweakdeck is still around), and better options have emerged.

Falcon Pro is my new top favorite. It’s not a free app, but if you’re at all serious about Twitter as a platform, paying a dollar for this is a great investment. Falcon Pro reminds me of Tweetdeck, but with better typography, a better search interface, and most importantly, proper tablet support. Highly recommended.

Any.DO

If you’re looking for a to-do list app that’s beautifully designed, lets you enter things through speech recognition, and integrates with the desktop version of Chrome, this is the app to get. When Any.DO first came out it made headlines because it proved that Android apps could be stunningly beautiful. I’ve tried dozens of to-do list solutions, and so far, this is the only one I’ve found myself actually using.

Wifi Analyzer

People often forget that picking the right channel can considerably boost your Wifi’s range. On the desktop, I love an application called “Inssider”, that shows a graph of the channels, so you can see which ones your neighbors are using. Wifi Analyzer does the same thing on your phone, so you can walk around with it, and determine the best channel for every corner of your house.

Fing

Fing isn’t actually a new discovery for me. I’ve had it on my phone for a while. But it’s been recently that I found out just how much help it can be when you’re troubleshooting network problems. I was called in when my father-in-law’s computer wouldn’t go online, and Fing was instrumental in determining the cause.

Fing shows you all the clients on the LAN, lets you ping them, run DNS lookups and traceroutes. It’s great for discovering what IP your network printer is using, and whether devices are connected at all. All without even getting your laptop out.

Suggestions?

These have been my current favorite Android apps. But with the Play store being the treasure trove that it is, I’m sure I’ve missed many great apps. So please feel free share your favorites in the comments.

• All three were rather unassuming sites, obviously not very high-traffic.
• All three had multiple banner positions filled through “Ad Agency X”.
• All three domains were also owned by Agency X.

This got me thinking. Why would an ad agency own a series of sites, running their own ads? So of course, I dug deeper.

• All three sites were WordPress, and had my WP-Cumulus plugin running.
• Cumulus has a “noflash” link to my blog, which is “hidden”, and is usually very rarely clicked.
• On all three sites, this link was being clicked tens of thousands of times a day.
• All of these requests were not logged by my Analytics program.
• All requests were for the homepage only, no CSS, javascript or even images.

In my opinion, this is where things got really suspicious. Not only was Agency X apparently running a number of low-quality blog with their own ads on them, there seemed to be a hell of a lot of clicking going on on those blogs. And not by normal users, because they’d need the images and the javascript to properly see the page.

I can’t possibly tell what exactly is going on here, but I imagine it’s something like this:

• Agency X sells ad space on their network of publishers.
• Clients pay either per impression or click, so Agency X stand to gain from large numbers of page impressions or ad clicks.
• Agency X puts the ads on sites they control.
• Agency X lets loose a script that randomly “clicks” links on said sites.
• Agency X charges their customers for these bogus clicks and impressions.

Unfortunately, they seem to have missed the links to my site, or didn’t fine-tune the script to skip those. So I now have server logs that show 150,000 requests a day to my homepage from these three referring domains. Sites that would never get that much traffic themselves, let along that many click-throughs. All I need to figure out now is what I’m going to do with this info. Suggestions? I’m not really in a position to prove any of this, nor am I one of the potential victims. Still, I’d like to do something…

It’s been almost two weeks since Samsung sent me a Note 2 to try. I’ve used it as my primary phone since it arrived, and I thought I’d do a quick post about my experiences. In short, owning a 5.5 inch phone is a little like owning a really big car. It’s very comfortable and luxurious when you’re using it, but it’s somewhat impracticle when you’re looking for a place to park.

Size is relative

The Note 2 is often refered to as “the biggest mobile phone on the market today”. But it’s not. It’s probably the biggest non-ruggedized consumer level smartphone. Satellite phones are usually bigger, and so are rugged outdoor ones. In terms of volume, the Note 2 is probably smaller than most early Nokias. Remember those Communicator ones. Those were huge. In comparison, this is a slender, elegant phone.

The Note 2 is only slightly bigger than the S3 and the HTC One X, and it makes good use of the extra room. It’s got the fastest processor of any Android phone, the most memory, the highest capacity battery (two full days, easily) and a gorgeous HD display that’s prefect for browsing and watching video. In my opinion, it’s the best phone out there to view things on. And to create things.

Be creative

The Note series’ most innovative feature is the S Pen. Using a stylus may seem like something from the Windows Mobile era, but that’s not what the S-Pen is about. The phone is as finger-friendly as any phone out there. The Stylus just adds precision. It lets you create detailed sketches, where other phones make you finger-paint. Together with the large screen real estate, it makes this phone a plausible tool for creating things.

I’m not sold on handwriting recognition as a tool for text entry (although it works remarkably well). The S Pen is great for writing little notes, drawing and image manipulation. The software that Samsung provides with the S Pen is a little obtrusive (it auto-launches when you pull out the stylus), but I like the overall idea.

Pocketability

Surprisingly, the Note 2 actually does fit in the (front) pockets of most of my jeans. At least while I’m standing/walking. I broke my old phone, a much smaller 3.7 inch one, by keeping it in my pocket while sitting down. I’m going to avoid doing that with the Note. My coat, work bag, and even my car have perfect pockets to put the phone in. I may feel differently in summer, when the weather calls for just t-shirts and jeans, but so far the Note has been easy to take with me.

A keeper

I got this phone at precisely the right time. I was in the market for a new high-end smartphone. Something like the Nexus 4, the One X or the Samsung’s own S3. In all honesty, I think I would have dismissed the Note 2 as being too big. Now, after two week of using it, I don’t think it is. It all depends on what you look for in a phone. If you need one that’ll just slip into any pocket, the Note’s not for you. If your phone is your mobile office, or even your “art department on the go”, 5.5 inches is perfect.

It’s been well over a year since I last blogged about WP-Cumulus. In the mean time, there have been all sorts of developments. I’ve been in serious talks with a potential buyer. That didn’t work out. I’ve tried, a number of times, to do a rewrite. That didn’t work out either. But most importantly, I gradually lost interest. Which is why I’ve decided I’ll no longer dedicate any time to Cumulus.

Flash

There are a number of reasons why I feel it no longer makes sense to work on WP-Cumulus. One of the most important things is that Flash is now essentially a dying technology. It’s not on iOS, no longer developed for Android, and dead in the water on many other platforms. Also, tag clouds in general seem be less popular now. Other reasons are more personal, but they all boil down to time. Supporting and developing a popular plugin takes lots of time. Time I’m no longer able to spend on this project.

Great run

It’s been a great run though. 770,000 downloads from wordpress.org, big companies like MEXX, Coop and Sennheiser using Cumulus on their websites, numerous ports to other platforms. Cumulus was my first real open source project, and it’s been an eye-opener. It’s made me fall in love with the concept of free software, and has been an excellent learning experience. But most of the web has since moved on, and so should I.

Up for grabs

As of right now, I no longer recommend you use WP-Cumulus. It still works on the latest version of WordPress, but it’s likely to fail in the near future. It uses old, deprecated APIs and hasn’t been thoroughly tested in a long time. Should anyone be interested in picking up where I left off, please feel free to contact me. I’ll help any way I can. There’s code I can share and thoughts I can offer.