Author: robert

rain rain rain

I can’t believe the weekend was an almost total washout, except for Saturday afternoon.  Spent those few ours switching out the struts and coil springs on my car.  But of course I ran into problems.  Had to run back and forth to AutoZone and PepBoys for parts I needed.  Not to mention needing to get the hole bored out on the new strut mount so the Koni strut would fit.  Well I hope to get the rest of the car done this week, I’m really going to need it for this Friday for Jesse’s bachelor party, should be tons of fun!

Can’t wait to finish my car, I hope the ride will be alot smoother.  Installing Koni yellow externally adjustable struts along with B&G Sport Springs.  I’ll have an update after I’m done.


Goodbye blogger…. hello WordPress!!!

After trying to publish a short blog last night and googling for answers as to why I couldn’t, I decided to leave blogger and use WordPress.

After much trial and errors, I finally have it working the way I like, but more on that later. gotta run!


Android 1.5 Cupcake update on the way

Android 1.5 Cupcake is released. Multiple G1 users are reporting that they are getting updates. Can’t wait to get mine. Stay tuned..


I’ve had my T-Mobile G1 for close to 4 months now, and I have to say that the device works fairly well. Considering that this is a first gen Android device, it has performed fairly well. At first I thought that the lack of a virtual keyboard was a step backward, but it really wasn’t. An actual keyboard just seems to make sense to me, especially if you write a lot of e-mails through out the day. Using a virtual keyboard is good for sending SMS messages, tweets or short e-mails, but the thought of using it to write medium to long e-mails might be bothersome to me. This doesn’t mean that the G1 keyboard is perfect, the keys are a bit to small, and a little to flat. It’s nearly flush with the backplane, and can cause you to mistype easily. But I think its much better than a virtual keyboard. One other annoyance is the “chin” part of the phone. Well, not really annoyance, it’s just that if you’re listening to music via the miniUSB port, the connector gets in the way and it makes it very uncomfortable to type.

The Android Market has some decent apps in there. The ones that I have are:

  • The Weather Channel
  • twidroid
  • Last.fm – Personal
  • ShopSavvy
  • Save MMS
  • AK Notepad
  • Shazam
  • Linda File Manager
  • MySpace Mobile
  • Visa Mobile
  • Scrobble Droid
  • WifiScan
  • Speedtest
  • Video Player
  • WikiMobile Encyclopedia


All these IMHO are great apps, however, being a Windows Mobile convert I would think that a File Manager and Video Player would be something that came already with the Android OS. But I remember reading a month or 2 back that this was by design because Google wanted the open source community to write them.

Navigation through the phone is pretty easy, you use a combination of the hardware buttons and touch to move around, which is pretty intuitive, given that the buttons are intuitively labeled with a back arrow and “home” key to bring you back to the home screen.

A couple of gripes and wishes:

  • More memory. It would definitely help, I defintely notice a slow down when the phone get close to 1000 SMS messages.
  • MiniUSB port relocated to the top of the phone or to the bottom of the keypad. Or get rid of this port and add a 3.5mm audiojack so we can get our choice of headphones.
  • did i mention more memory?

Well those are my thoughts. Feel free to comment here on on twitter:

http://twitter.com/robnapiza


Brownie hacking away

-Sent via T-Mobile G1


its been a long time since i did this, but something happened this evening that i thought is worth mentioning. its kind of a long read, so sit back and relax.

earlier this evening, i saw the best and worst of people. it was truly a sad and hopeful moment for humanity. on the Q46 bus line in queens, there was women that was acting very strange. rather she was behaving in a way that was disturbing. at first she was slouched over across two seats while trying to say something, but it was highly unintelligible, and every now and then you could hear her say help. sadly on my part i was watched as her condition worsened. in a packed bus with standing room only, one guy asked if she was ok, the woman replied back “get away from me” and pushed him away. up front i see the bus driver looking through the rear view mirror, but because of all the people, he couldn’t see much. i then went up to him said that there’s a women in the back who is either drunk, sick, or drugged out. he stopped the bus to get a closer look. while he was doing that, the bus emptied out while a woman was complaining why he was emptying the bus instead of throwing out the ill woman. i mean, how uncompassionate and selfish can you get. while that was going on i tried to flag down a squad car, but she just drove past me while talking on the cell phone.

very sad for the NYPD, “New York’s Finest”.

i then called 911 to get the paramedics to the scene. while waiting for them to arrive, an FDNY fire truck came by, so me and the other guy who first checked to see if she was ok, flagged them down, and got them to look at her. not even 5 minutes FDNY paramedics were on the scene and took her off the bus into the ambulance. so this was kind of a bittersweet ending to a long week. i got to see the best in people who wanted to help others in need, and i saw people who just don’t care about others and only care for themselves. i’m a bit disappointed in myself that i didn’t try to help out when i first noticed it, but then again at least i didn’t leave the bus like everyone else did.


Breakfast

Breakfast at iHop in Jacksonville after a night of drinking at Sandy’s.


New pictures

New pictures are up in my picture gallery check it out.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile


Walkway from CV Starr @ Hofstra looking towards California Ave.


Brownie lounging


Bitnami