someone who's doing some things
Yeah, you know, just your regular geeking out with stuff.
I still have a number of old devices which are for the most part doing nothing whatsoever. So I started to wonder what I could do with them. Especially my Dell Axim x51. It’s a nice device, but I really don’t use it for music anymore, nor do I really use it for anything. It seems a shame to just sell it off as I’m sure I’d regret it. I’d like it to have a reasonable use for it.
So I’m going to have a nose around and see if there’s a way to get some more life out of it.
I remembered that I still have an old Android G1 knocking around. So I thought I’d upgrade it and see how useful it could be, perhaps using it with Tasker and PAW Server. It’s going to take a little while to get it all up and running though as this old G1 is on Android 1.5.
One thing that is quite interesting though is the ability to connect a G1 to an Arduino, with a little messing about of course. I might just give that a go.
I got MixPad (Palm OS MIDI player / mixer) onto my 3G a few days ago, but I only got some MIDI files loaded today. The results? Excellent. MixPad used the KriKit audio engine and played files back just fine.
Well I took the plunge and bought StyleTap for my 3G. I think it works pretty well so far, although I think I’d rather have StyleTap for Android at the moment, but never mind.
Getting AxisPad running on it was great. AxisPad was one of the last Palm OS music apps to appear, and I still really like it. I think I have all the miniMusic apps running on the 3G now, which is good. I still couldn’t get Bhajis on there, but perhaps I’ll have more luck next time I try.
Einstein running on Android. So far I haven’t been able to do much with it as it’s so slow, but I’ll keep at it and see how I get on with it.
So today is my last day of using the StyleTap trial. I knew that I’d have to get the last bit of testing done today to see if I could use iziBasic and ViziBasic on the emulator. The short answer? You can. In fact, in some ways they work better, especially in terms of being able to zoom the screen, which is very handy when you’re not using a stylus.
So I ran a ‘generate code and compile’, from Vizibasic, and that worked fine, and a compile from iziBasic and that worked too. All systems go then. Looks like I’ll be buying StyleTap after all!
I’ve been messing around with Tasker for a few days now, and I have to say that it is one very good reason to move completely to Android. Tasker is so flexible and modular that it can do pretty much anything in terms of automating an Android device.
If there was a Tasker like app for iOS it would be a massive seller, but of course it doesn’t fit with the whole sandbox approach from Apple. Big big shame.
I found myself seriously considering a move to Android away from the iPhone on my next contract renewal, and if Apple don’t pull something stupendous out of the bag with the iPhone 5 I might just do it.
I’ll post some of my Tasker automations soon too, then you’ll see what I mean.
I only discovered today that there’s a relatively stable port of Einstein the Newton emulator, available for Android 2.2, so I’m going to try and get it running on my newly rooted San Francisco which could be very cool indeed!
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.
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.
I am Ashley Elsdon 