first up is the tunebug vibe: it’s a tiny, portable sound system that uses other surfaces to transmit sound. in other words, it turns almost anything -- from an empty cigarette packet to your fridge -- into a speaker.
i didn’t expect it at first, but tunebug actually creates beautiful sound which is rich in both treble and bass.

i’ve tested it with …pretty much every potential resonance body in my apartment, and outside, and it has lived up to its promises.

tunebug vibe comes in a chrome finish, is compatible with every digital device that features a 3.5 mm headphone jack (such as the htc desire, htc hero, many other smartphones, and pretty much every mp3-player), and plays music for 5 hours before you need to recharge.

it’s not only a cool gadget, but also a piece of applied basic physics in pure form: you probably know the changing shapes that sand grains form on a flat surface, depending on the excitation frequency.
the same principle is at work when you try different sizes of boxes/surfaces and get slightly different acoustical results. the size of the box, and the position of tunebug on the box, pretty much acts as your equalizer.

i’m really fond of this product!

i found the tunebug vibe over at StyleMyPhone, who offer a wide range of iphone and smartphone accessories.

related posts:

1. android data roaming issue with mobile virtual network operators (htc desire, droid and others)
2. how to disable automatic capitalization on htc desire, htc hero

if you’ve tried to use your brand new android smartphone (e.g. the htc desire, motorola droid, …) with a SIM card of one of the really cheap mobile providers, you may have noticed that no data connection is established even if you’ve entered the correct credentials.
instead, (if anything) there is a notification popup that says:

You have lost data connectivity because you left your home network with data roaming turned off.

in the US, this problem occurs with a total of 48 individual mobile network providers.
in the UK, there’s a total of 19 MVNO, including virgin mobile, asda mobile and tesco mobile.

in order to get data connectivity on your android phone, all you have to do is activate data roaming. when you place the little check mark next to “data roaming”, a popup notification will warn you against potentially high extra costs. this only applies to international data roaming, so as long as you have a data plan with your own provider, you can ignore this.
however, as soon as you’re getting close to the border, or when going abroad, you run the risk of actual international data roaming, and this is still ridiculously expensive.

there’s a very handy app for that scenario: real roaming alert by xendroid usually just runs quietly in the background and doesn’t use any notable resources – except when your phone logs into a foreign country’s network. in that case, depending on your settings, RRA can either warn you (with sound, vibration and/or status LED) or activate flight mode, thus preventing any unwanted data transfer before you can disable data roaming. (automatic deactivation/activation of data roaming is currently not possible because of safety restrictions in android – it is after all a potentially pricey check mark in your settings.)

important note: ideally, the app should always run in the background, so you’ll need an exception rule in the task manager or task killer of your choice.
i’ve successfully tested the app on multiple occasions – it does what it promises to do.

by the way, there has been word from google that a native solution is in the works:

I want you all to know that you have been heard. I can’t promise when a change will be made or when it would be available but I am looking into it.

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2. how to disable automatic capitalization on htc desire, htc hero
3. the best android apps (according to me): productivity

if you have any thoughts/questions/suggestions, please let me know in the comments.

today’s category: productivity

astrid task/todo list (free)
is your own private octopedal secretary who will remind you of things to do, lists your TODOs according to importance and deadlines, and keeps track of the time you’ve spent.
she also adds nice little things to your reminders (“how about a little snack afterwards?”). astrid also syncs with remember the milk, if you’re into that.

note: astrid was recently updated to version 3, which – in my opinion – sucks. many options that i really liked about it (such as keeping track of how much time you’ve spent on a task) were removed.
luckily, version 2.14.3 (the version in my screenshots) is still available here: http://bit.ly/oldastrid. get it while you can.

easy note (free)
is a beautifully designed alternative to the standard android notes app (which, apparently, is missing alltogether in android 2.x?). it features fully customizable notes and folders, checklists, password protected folders, handwritten notes, and backs up your data in google docs.

paperdroid (free, pro version for 2,95 €)
paperdroid is perfect for all the situations when you have 5 minutes of dwell time (when waiting in line, sitting in a bus etc.). it’s an android app for the read it later service, which lets you note down internet pages to – well – read them later. paperdroid automatically syncs with your readitlater-list and downloads the pages for offline use.
this way, you always have that article that you’ve been putting off, right at hand.

handycalc (free)
if you need a little more than just 10 digits and 4 operators, handycalc offers LOTS of maths for free, inlcuding formulas with multiple variables, graphs, unit and currency conversion, …

alarmed alarm clock (free lite-version, full-version for 1 £)
i added this app to “productivity” because i have a hard time getting up in the mornings, which keeps me from being productive. what makes “alarmed” special, is that you can specify a number of equations and anagrams to be solved before the alarm turns off. it also includes increasing ring volume, music playlists and more.

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2. android: lösung zum daten-roaming problem mit billigprovidern (bob, tele.ring, yesss, debitel, mobilcom, …)
3. how to disable automatic capitalization on htc desire, htc hero

• go to this article on xda-developers.com and download the version that fits your phone (“high res version” for the desire, “low res for android 1.5″ for the hero)
• unzip the package. if you downloaded the file to your computer, transfer the .apk to your phone’s sd card.
• use your favourite android file manager to install. (i’m assuming you can also install through htc sync).
• you’re NOT done yet.
• open up the settings, language & keyboard, and allow “HTC_IME mod”.
• in a text input field (email, notes, sms, wherever), long press the field and choose “select input method”, there choose “HTC_IME mod”.
• if you now go to the keyboard settings (from your keyboard, or via settings), scroll down to the section “Mods by jonasl@xda”. “text input” will lead you to the long-sought option: “disable capitalization”.

this modified input method also adds a bunch of other options, such as: custom top level domains for the “.com” key (long press), a smiley key instead of “hide keyboard”, as well as speech-to-text (android 2.1 only).
you do not need root rights to install.

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here’s a quick way to solve this little (yet annoying) problem:

• install the unfocus extension from mozilla’s official add-on library
• create a new shortcut somewhere in your start menu, e.g. in programs / mozilla firefox
• point the shortcut to
  "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -unfocus
  be sure to copy the entire line, including quotation marks and the “-unfocus” part.
• if necessary, modify the file path to adjust to your firefox installation. in the german version of windows, the correct path is most likely
  "C:\Programme\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -unfocus
• now, right click that start menu shortcut, select properties (“eigenschaften” in german), and set a keyboard shortcut (“tastenkombination”).
  i’m using [ctrl]+[shift]+[alt]+[e], but you can use anything as long as it doesn’t interfere with standard shortcuts such as [ctrl]+[x], [ctrl]+[r] etc.
• you’re done.
  in some cases, you may have to press the shortcut combination twice in order to regain focus.

related posts:

1. how to disable automatic capitalization on htc desire, htc hero

the problem:
i have a horizontal main menu at the top of a website, and a vertical sub menu in the left column.
in setup, you can use “special.value = x” to make the menu start from page id x. not setting the special.value will make the submenu relative, listing only the pages below the current one.
the effect of this is that on a main menu page, you will see the entire sub menu just as it was supposed to be, but on a subpage (level 2), you will only see the subpages of that level 2 subpage, loosing the rest of the “entire” submenu.

for illustration, here’s the relevant section of my backend page-tree:

the solution:
using “special.value.data = leveluid:1″ instead of “special.value = x” will return the pid of the level 1 parent page of whatever page you’re currently on. this way, you’ll always have the entire submenu.

the result:

for the typoscript setup code, please scroll down.
 

das ganze auf deutsch:
eine typo3-website hat ein horizontales hauptmenü ganz oben und ein vertikales untermenü/submenü in der linken spalte.
damit das submenü immer nur die unterseiten des aktuellen hauptmenü-punktes zeigt, habe ich die “special.value = x”, die eine fixe page ID “x” als ausgangspunkt für das menü verwendet, vermieden.
leider geht dadurch aber das level 2 submenü verloren, wenn eine level 2 submenü-seite aufgerufen wird, und nur die level 3 seiten werden noch aufgelistet.

stattdessen hilft “special.value.data = leveluid:1″ – damit kann man im setup die id der hauptmenü-seite automatisch von jeder beliebigen unterseite aus auslesen und als ausgangspunkt fürs submenü setzen. das ergebnis ist, dass immer das ganze submenü angezeigt wird, egal auf welchem submenü-level man sich gerade befindet.
den verwendeten typoscript code findet ihr im anschluss.

typoscript setup:

## MENU BEGIN
lib.mainMenu = HMENU
lib.mainMenu {
special = directory
special.value = 1
entryLevel = 0
}
lib.mainMenu.1 = TMENU
lib.mainMenu.1.NO {
allWrap = <div class="menuitem">|   | </div>| |
}
## MENU END
##SubMENU BEGIN
lib.subMenu = COA
lib.subMenu.2 = HMENU
lib.subMenu.2 {
special = directory
#special.value = 8
special.value.data = leveluid:1
entryLevel = 1
expAll = 1
1 = TMENU
1 {
expAll = 1
NO.allWrap = <div class="submenuitem">|</div>| |
CUR = 1
CUR.allWrap = <div class="submenuitem actsubmenu">|</div> | |
CUR.doNotLinkIt = 1
wrap = <div id="submenu" class="submenu"><div class="leftboxheader">Subpages</div> | </div>
}
2 = TMENU
2 {
expAll = 1
NO.allWrap = <div class="submenuitem2">|</div>| |
CUR = 1
CUR.allWrap = <div class="submenuitem2 actsubmenu">|</div> | |
CUR.doNotLinkIt = 1
}
3 = TMENU
3 {
expAll = 1
NO.allWrap = <div class="submenuitem3">|</div>| |
CUR = 1
CUR.allWrap = <div class="submenuitem3 actsubmenu">|</div> | |
CUR.doNotLinkIt = 1
}
}
##SubMENU END

usually, copyright notices are placed in the bottom right corner of a photo, so you’ll get a problem if you’re working with different image sizes – i.e. landscape and portrait orientation.
the top corner will always be at 0/0 pixels, but the position of the bottom right corner is variable.

i’ve been searching for a solution to this for a very long time, and eventually settled with two separate photoshop actions – one for standard 640×480 (landscape), and one for 480×640 (portrait) photos. everything else had to be modified manually.

then, cemal ekin posted a very valuable comment on alex king’s blog, which lets me do exactly what i want:

As I understand it, you have a text layer and you would like to position it on the lower right corner of the image offset by a given number of pixels from the bottom and the right edges. You can even have the standard text in a separate file if you like.
This process can be automated via an action too. Here it goes:

1. Make sure you have a background layer, if you don’t, create a blank layer anywhere then from the menu “Layers/New Background from this layer” options create a background layer.

2. Put your text anywhere on the stack, even bring it from a separate file and drag it on to your image that you want to stamp

3. Select the background and the text layers only (click on the BG layer to target it, then Ctrl-click on the gray area of the text layer)

4. Go to “Layer/Align/Bottom” and then “Layer/Align/Right”; now the text is touching the edges

5. Target the text layer only by clicking on the layer icon

6. Make sure that you have the “Pick tool” (press V to do that)

7. Using the up and left arrow keys move the text a set number of pixels from the bottom and the right edges

All the steps allow easy action creation, if you are careful, you can SLOWLY repeat the steps after you explore it once or twice while the action recording is turned on.

Enjoy,
Cemal

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