Simo's Sagacity

I’ve been added to Google Authorship

Gary — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 05:38:40 +0000

I got an email this morning from Google saying that I have been added to Google Authorship. This means that my photo and a link to my profile can now appear next to any content in Google search results. This is mainly due to the stuff I have been writing for Android Authority. Cool!

Click here for a list of my pages currently in Google’s search index.

How to fix 921 or 403 or DF-BPA-13 error messages in Google Play / Android Market

Gary — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 06:23:13 +0000

For reasons unknown I started experiencing a 921 error while using Google Play (AKA Android Market) yesterday. I tried different reboots and removing my account from the device and re-adding it but nothing worked. Depending on how the wind was blowing I would either get error 921 or sometimes error 403. Once in a while it would turn up as error DF-BPA-13.

But I finally found the solution and it cleared up the problem completely! What you need to do is this (these instruction are for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich but the principle is the same with Android 2.x and 3.x):

Go to settings

Tap “Apps” (in left menu)
Tap “All” (last tab on top right hand side)
Scroll until you find “Google Play Store”. Tap it.
Tap “Force Stop”, tap “OK”, tap “Clear data” and if possible (but it might be disabled) tap “Clear cache”.
Tap the back button to get the list of apps again.
Scroll until you find “Google Service Framework”. Tap it.
Tap “Force Stop”, tap “OK”, tap “Clear data” and if possible (but it might be disabled) tap “Clear cache”.
Now reboot your device.

And that’s it! You may need to re-enter your Google account details but everything should be working fine!

Musings on Broadband

Gary — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:53:53 +0000

Every so often I read news stories about one telecoms provider or another increasing their broadband speeds to N million customers. Just recently I read that one company was increasing its top end speed from 100Mbps to 120Mbps. And I started to think about why would I need 100Mpbs broadband? And if I did need it, why would I need a bump to 120Mbps? First some context, my first “broadband” connection was just 64kbps (that is 0.0625 Mbps in today’s terms). I think the cable company didn’t call it broadband as it wasn’t much higher than the 56kbps modems that existed at the time, but the key was that the connection was permanently on, no more dial up!

64kbps was brilliant, surfing the web became enjoyable and large downloads became a reality (if I let them run over night). Of course at that time (this is back in 1999) there was no YouTube, no streaming of live video webcasts, no iTunes, no NetFlix. Fast forward a decade and a bit and I know have 10Mbps which is 160 times faster than what I had in ’99. Is 10Mbps useful? Yes. Downloads from iTunes would be unrealistic without at least 2Mbps and now with kids in the house there are lots of devices sharing the same connection.

But do I need 100Mbps or even 120Mbps. 100Mbps is 10 times faster than what I have now and 1600 times faster than what I had in 1999. If I buy a movie from iTunes it is normally about 1.5GB in size. My top download speed is about 1MB a second, so to download it takes 25 minutes. Downloading the latest version of Ubuntu Linux takes about 11 minutes. This is quick. If I wanted to watch a film, and it was a “on the spur of the moment” thing, I could start the download, boil the kettle, pop some corn and the film would be downloaded. If I had 100Mbps broadband then it would download in 2.5 minutes. Do I really need to download a whole 2 hour movie that quick? I think the answer is no. Recently a different broadband provider in our area tempted me to change to their service. They offered 50MBps. Did I change? No I didn’t. I like what I have, it is reliable, economical and does exactly what I need.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Quick Password Generator released for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Gary — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:16:39 +0000

Do you ever need to quickly set a password and then your mind goes blank as your try to think of an orignal one?

Are you always using the same old password but need something better?

Have you signed up for a web site that needs numbers as well as letters in the password?

If the answer is YES to any of those question you need the Quick Password Generator.

The QPG app creates five different types of password:

Memorable password (generates passwords from ordinary English words, which makes them easy to remember, but it also substitutes letters like E for 3 or O for 0 and so makes the password more secure but based on an easy to remember word).
Strong password (made from a random combination of letters and numbers).
Ultra strong password (make from a random combination of letters, numbers and symbols).
Web safe password (made from a random combination of letters, numbers and some web safe symbols which don’t include potentially confusing symbols like quotation marks).
Pin number (four random digits).

Download it from here.

Daily Bread New Heart English Bible released for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Gary — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:16:11 +0000

The BibleBase Daily Bread App is a Bible reading schedule based on a 3 year cycle including a built-in copy of the New Heart English Bible. An easy to read and understand Bible in modern English.

You can download it from here.

Joke: Learning foreign language.

Gary — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:14:58 +0000

A Swiss man, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Americans are waiting.

"Entschuldigung, koennen Sie Deutsch sprechen?" he asks. The two Americans just stare at him.

"Excusez-moi, parlez vous Fracais?" he tries. The two continue to stare.

"Parlare Italiano?" No response. "Hablan ustedes Espanol?" Still nothing.

The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted.

The first American turns to the second and says, "Y’know, maybe we should learn a foreign language." "Why?" says the other. "That guy knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good."

Just rediscovered this picture in my photo library… Romania is stunning!

Gary — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:54:54 +0000

From 2009… Romania is stunning!

SundayWorship V1.3 released

Gary — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 18:51:48 +0000

The main focus of this release has been adding support for downloading and installing additional Bibles for use with the Scripture picker. We’ve also fixed a few bugs and re-worked the multimedia picker to make it a bit easier to use.

The new version can be download from here. A new version of the getting started guide can be downloaded from here.

New features in SundayWorship 1.3

Download additional Bibles
Added support for typing non-English Bible book names
Display musical keys for songs
Drag and drop for adding content to the content pickers
Added additional keyboard shortcuts for the Projector view
Updated manual

Just used Google’s Street View to get the phone number off a placard for a hotel here in Bran

Gary — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:10:06 +0000

Here in Bran there are lots of hotels and bed & breakfasts. As a
result lots of the people we know are in the tourism business. Anyway
the parents of one of classmates of my boy run a bed and breakfast and
he wanted to go an play around at the boy’s house. We didn’t know
their number to call and see if he could go over, so I used Google’s
Street View to find their house and read their phone number off the
placard of the bed & breakfast!!!!

Sad News: Our dog “Dolly” died over the weekend… We had her for 8 years.

Gary — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:25:36 +0000

Dolly wasn’t a pedigree German Shepherd but we loved her as see was…
She will be missed.

See and download the full gallery on posterous