I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Category: Tech

Technology. We all use it, we all love it. We all hate it.

Android success and failure

Posted by on in Tech

I’ve spent some time today trying to get this Android device rooted and then updated to 2.2 so it can be a bit more useful. I was about to post that everything had gone really well when it started playing up so I rebooted it. It then got stuck in what seems like a loop where it just displays the Android logo then displays it again, and never gets any further.

So I completely reinstalled the ROM for 2.2 and it seems to be working ok now. I’ll be checking it again regularly tomorrow to see how it gets on, but hopefully it’ll hold up and prove to be a useful device.

Android progress

Posted by on in Tech

Well, having lost the use of my iPad for now I thought I’d try and get my 1 year old Android device running again. A couple of days ago it looked like this device had failed completely, but this morning it seemed like it was working ok, at least for now anyway. It installed loads of updates, and I seem to have access to get to the apps on it now too, which is great for testing on the 3G with Android 2.3 installed.

Getting into ‘if this then that’

Posted by on in Stuff, Tech

If you don’t know ‘if this then that’ then you should. It’s an amazing way to automate services on the internet.  For example, you might want certain items matching a specific search criteria from an RSS feed to always end up in your ReadItLater items. No problem. You can automate that using ITTT (if this then that) and it will check the feed every 15 minutes and drop items straight into RIL for you.

ITTT can connect to a whole host of services that are brilliant when put together. I’m only just starting to get into it at the moment, but I can see it being really useful. You can try it out here.

Messing about with Oramics

Posted by on in Exhibitions, History, Mobile Applications, Sounds, Tech

Having seen the Oramics exhibition again I thought I’d spend some time with the Oramics app again as I haven’t used it in ages. I think that the first time I used it I didn’t really get the hang of it, but playing with it this morning I really enjoyed it. I think I might record some pieces from it too.

StyleTap successes and failures

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

8 days left of my trial period on StyleTap. Some things are working well, some not. I’ve had troubles getting some files into StyleTap has been problematic, or impossible in some cases. There appears to be some kind of maximum file size for getting files in which I haven’t worked out a way around as yet, and I’ve only got 7 days left to do it.

Also I’m still having problems with user names, as it seems that this is kind of important in getting some older apps to work. Still, more apps to load and more things to try out.

One useful bit of information I found was a list of apps which specifically work with StyleTap.

And the Android dies …

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

I’ve been trying to retrieve Android .APK application files from my old Android phone to try and install them into the Android 2.3 OS version living on my 3G. I should have guessed that today would be the day that this old (well about 1 year old) Android phone would choose to fail. That makes perfect sense.

So I’ve ordered a new Android phone for two reasons. Firstly so I can try out some of the stuff I’ve been meaning to using Android, and secondly to get some of these files into the hacked 3G to see what happens and if they’ll even run.

Another visit to the Oramics Exhibition

Posted by on in Exhibitions, Listening, Tech

I got to make another visit to the Science Museum to see the Oramics exhibition, which has grown considerably now. I love some of the new exhibits like the Fairlight and the WASP synth, and of course the ATARI 520 ST.

I must try and find Daphne Oram’s book soon. I hope to get to see the exhibition again before it closes, and I hope they add a few more bits and pieces too. Hope you like the pictures.

Early tests of StyleTap on 3G

Posted by on in Tech

After I’d gone through the somewhat laborious process of getting apps on the StyleTap emulator I finally got to fire up SoundPad from miniMusic. Now the notes on StyleTap say quite clearly that apps that access native hardware for sound will not work, so my hopes for music applications running inside StyleTap weren’t high. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that both SoundPad (above), and NotePad worked fine and were, at least initially, usable.

The other thing that I was reminded of on the Palm OS was that you have to have your user name set up correctly or registration codes won’t work, which is very annoying. However, what is more annoying is that StyleTap will only allow you to change the user name once in every 24 hours.

I’ve still got 10 days of my trial left, and if I can get this to be a reasonable device to work with for Palm OS apps then I might even buy the licence.

Testing StyleTap on the 3G again

Posted by on in Tech

It was around this time last year that I was experimenting with running various things on my iPhone 3G. Mainly I was trying out Android from the iDroid project, and I’ve been doing that again, but I’m also having a go with StyleTap the Palm OS emulator for jailbroken iPhones. Whilst I’m not holding out too much hope for it to be useful for any old music apps on the Palm, it may have some use elsewhere in the Palm OS universe.

Anyway, I don’t have long to see if it’s useful as I’ve only got 10 days left of the trial period to go before I have to get a licence.

Another lovely find

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

It’s only a small thing. A serial to MIDI adapter made by miniMusic for connecting Palm devices to MIDI. I’d almost forgotten I had this, then it turned up yesterday. How wonderful