Sunday 18 September 2011

Iceland-Denmark-Melbourne-Sydney-SanFrancisco-LakeTahoe-Sydney

I know I've been incommunicado for ages, and loads has been happening that I really should be telling my nearest and dearest about (yes, I'm talking specifically to you Mother, Dad, Elisabeth and Tönchen). I'm writing this on the train, so I should be able to get a few words down.

So, as everyone knows I went to Iceland again in May, and came home at the end of July to start my new job in Sydney. While in Iceland I did work for the linguistic crew over there at the University of Iceland, different to what I was doing before (which was a postdoc), but in the same place and with the same people. Basically I was transferring some Icelandic and Faroese data from pieces of paper in boxes and hidden on computers in Iceland only to a more communal, online space that all the linguists in Scandinavia are contributing to, and it needed to be tidied up and sorted through a bit first. I didn't have time to get it all done while over there, but I just this weekend finished off the last things I needed to do :D I haven't finished with all of my academic work yet, but at least that job is complete now.

While in Iceland I also danced - tangó and salsa rueda (as lead) as usual, but also learnt more bachata. I lived with Beggi, and we went on hikes and rode our bikes and danced and cooked dinners together, all very domestic and nice.

I came back to Australia at the end of July, via a few days in Denmark with my friends Anne and Steen out at their country home on Langeland. I went straight to Melbourne, spending a couple of days talking to Luce and packing a car load of stuff to bring to Sydney. I spent two days driving up, leaving Friday evening, stopping after four hours and camping in a truck stop by the side of the road. There was frost overnight, but my trusty tent and Norwegian winter doona kept me toasty :)

I arrived in Sydney, getting horribly lost once I entered the suburbs - sometimes you have to turn right from the left lane and sometimes you have to turn left from the right lane, and whenever I missed my turnoff like this, there would be several kilometres of divided road... I drove over bridges and along by the waterfront and made all kinds of detours to get to the place I now live at in Eastwood.

I started work at Appen on the first of August, Beggi arrived on the Friday of that week, and we've been living with Hui Ling, who I've known for many years now. My work is really interesting and the people are great, so that is making my days pass very quickly.

At the end of August, Beggi, Brent and I headed over to San Francisco (left Sydney at 9am Sunday morning, arrived at SF at 10am!) and then Lake Tahoe for Dan and Kellea's wedding. We used airbnb.com to find a place to stay for the first few nights, and stayed with a lovely woman in San Rafael, about half an hour's drive north of SF. We took the ferry past Alcatraz into SF, saw the Golden Gate Bridge in seven different kinds of fog, went to the Castro, rode a trolley car, went up Lombard St and had lunch at Boudin's at Fisherman's Wharf. We had lunch on another day in the Muir Woods among the Coastal Redwoods. Photos forthcoming!

Then we drove to Nevada City and splashed about in the river with the family, then headed to Kellea's sister's farm to pick fresh vegetables and flowers for the wedding, then drove out to Lake Tahoe. There were several days of getting to know the family, playing on the jetski (Brent drove madly enough to turf the two of us off, then I threw me and Beggi off), kayaks (depending on whose interpretation you use, I either won or came second in the kayak competition. Brent won his heat, but chose a different, 'faster' kayak for his semi-final, which he couldn't get a purchase on and was subsequently a no-started in that race!), and paddle-boats, lazing about the back-yard, going for runs up the hills/ski-area behind our motel and going for a drive around the lake. Brent and Dan went to the casino (gambling is legal in Nevada, which was only a couple of miles up the road - Lake Tahoe has foreshore in both California and Nevada), and Beggi and I did a little bit of dancing. The wedding was well populated, it was good to have several days to get to know Dan's new family, and there was karaoke in the night-time. Hannah arrived from London for the weekend too, so we had a few of the crew on board supporting Dan :)

Finally we drove back to SF via Palo Alto. All the Americans thought we were crazy and wouldn't have time to catch our flight, but we had our GPS on our phone, I had downloaded the free MapDroyd for California, and, with stops at cafes to use the wifi and Google Maps, we muddled our way through. We found Google, and wandered around there for a bit, updating our Facebook statuses on the Google Guest Wifi using our Android phones. We also tried, and after three attempts, found a sports shoe shop that was having a sale. We spent about $150, buying 3 pairs of shoes and lots of socks, laughing all the way to the bank with the exchange rate finally the way we want it :D

We made it home on Thursday, I went back to work on Friday. That weekend I finished a journal I was editing, sending it off and ticking one more academic thing off my list. I still have a couple of papers to complete - the next one on my list is to translate a short paper into Icelandic. Having Beggi around should make that slightly easier... I hope!

Sydney is very big, I'm finding it slightly intimidating. It's probably okay if you grew up here, but there are so many things to learn about the place - where to find the best food, the best route to get to work, etc. I'm riding my bike to work each day, exactly 14 kms, I just discovered. This takes me from just under an hour on Mondays to just over an hour on Fridays and rainy days, from when I leave to when I'm showered, changed and at my desk. It's been nice to discover that Sydney drivers are nowhere near as rabid about bikes on the road as I thought they were. I do stick to quiet roads and the bike path beside Epping Road as much as I can, but I am happy to report that they have been nearly 100% courteous, giving me my space, not cutting me off, and allowing me to be there. I feel like they're not quite sure what to do with me, so I'm very pleased to learn that they seem patient. I think the 40km/hr speed limits in the mornings really help too, people are not as rushed as they would be if they thought they could be driving much faster if I wasn't on the road too.

I'm looking forward to the weather warming up, it feels like it's been forever since it's been hot. The BoM threatened us with 30 degrees today, but if it got there at all it was only momentary, and it sat closer to 20 all afternoon. Bah! I want summer!

That's all for now, sorry for massive time between updates and this huge update. Sydney is treating me well, Brent will be coming up for his birthday on Wednesday, so the cousins and at least one aunty are getting together for the occasion. We're looking at coming to Melbourne for Christmas, not to mention the Prom for Australia Day week, so we'll see people soon!

Monday 1 August 2011

Starting new job in Sydney

Well, my first day at my new job in Sydney went swimmingly. I feel like I met a billion people and spent the day just chatting. Read a little bit about how the company works and how linux works. I'm going to be working in the Lexicons group, or the TransLex group, which might be the same thing. I'll be starting working on languages I know nothing about, but that rather excites me - it's time for me to learn something other than Germanic languages for a change!

I'm already sick of the travel - to get to work this morning, I walked to Eastwood train station (the suburb I live in), took 21 mins, just like Google said! Took exactly 9 mins to wait in line and buy my train ticket cos I had a few questions to ask, which meant that I arrived on the platform exactly as the doors to my train were closing. Oh well, that's why I aimed at the earlier train, right?! Waited 14 mins for the next train to Epping, got off there and was wondering where to go for my connecting train to Chatswood, when the very helpful voiceover said, "For trains to Chatswood, take the escalator down to platform 5." Seriously, it was like the voice of God, reading my mind and answering my question perfectly!

Had to wait 9 mins at Epping for my train, and when it arrived, I got a seat, and 15 mins (not 18 mins as advertised) later we emerged from the new tunnel in Chatswood. It took a few wild guesses and hopeful sign reading to get out of the labyrinth that is the Chatswood train station/bus interchange/mall, but I successfully navigated to my building and made it into the office at 8:58, perfect timing for a 9am start :)

As soon as I can get my bike tyre pumped up I'll be riding directly to Epping station I think, since it'll cut out at least 9 mins of waiting around, and it's not that far, give me a bit of exercise and allow me to get home earlier too, I think. I also think I'll need to work out a good route to ride to work, since that is seriously on the cards too - I have a spot for my bike right by my desk, cos I'm right at the end of the row of desks up against the wall and window, looking out to the coast I believe (but all I see is high-rise buildings, trees and smog), and there's a shower on our floor that no-one uses before work, but apparently gets full after lunchtime soccer, which I have been roped into already. Training on Thursday, grand final on Monday. I tried to tell them that I'm an ex-basketballer, ie I have learnt to use my hands and not my feet to connect with balls, but no-one seemed put off by this in the slightest. Oh, and I've been enlisted in the choir, too, which will rehearse at Friday lunchtimes I think. I did warn them that I'm more enthusiastic than talented, but again, no-one seemed put off by this.

Chatted with Brent all lunchtime, seems like everyone I know is job-hunting or starting new work - Ási just started in Akureyri and Linda is trying to work up there too. Like I said - practically everyone I know is job-hunting or starting new work at the moment. Hey wow, I'm finally doing what everyone else is doing - I'm in fashion for once!

Everyone I spoke with today seemed really nice, and even through all of the politeness (so many 'welcome aboard's and 'nice to meet you's today!) I felt like I genuinely liked about half of them, rather than just a couple seeming to have personalities in there somewhere. My supervisor seems very motherly and really really lovely, and I think she'll take good care of me.

Apparently there are drinks on Thursday evening, I can't remember if they're in my honour or not. The head of something or other told me I could drink as much as I could hold, so I think it might be. I hope they serve chocolate non-dairy milkshakes!!

Got home at about 6:15pm, so a 10.5 hour day for my first day at work. Worked 8 hours, but only need to work 7.5 hours a day. Learnt how to log my hours, looks like it will be easy to be a bit flexible with times (I promise to be as unflexible as possible in the beginning!). Made a yummy beef stroganoff for dinner, the recipe from the Women's Weekly basic cookbook. It had lemon juice in it, which provided a super yummy tang, I highly recommend it. I need to work on cooking the meat though - it wasn't as tender as it should have been. Maybe I didn't sear it quickly enough, or let it simmer on low for long enough - anyone know anything about this?

I know this is no longer about me in Iceland, but I'm the Icelandic representative at work now, so I'm still Iced T :p

Thursday 21 July 2011

Going home again

Okay, that's it, there's getting to be an almost-completely-dark nighttime here now, I've had enough! It's no longer summer when it's neither hot nor light - I'm going back to Australia! Seeing as how my new job starts in 10 days, it's probably just about time, too :) Bye, Iceland, once again.

PS, finished watching the Harry Potter movies tonight (number 7 this afternoon). They were fun to watch, apparently they work as movies separately from the books, but the last movie in particular reminded me of how much interesting detail about wands and so on was in the book, quite different from the movies. 19 years later in the movie was fun, the kid playing Albus Severus was cute as, and solemn, just like he was meant to be :)

Friday 24 June 2011

Midnight run 2011, Miðnæturhlaupið

Hahaaaa! I won third place in the Midnight Run last night, and WON the 19-39 year old age group, with a time of 22:17 for 5 kms. I spent the first three k thinking, "Oh God, I started too fast!", then rested a little for most of the fourth k, then just let my legs stride out for the whole downhill final k, passing lots of people. The last 80m or so are on the driveway to the Laugardalslaug/Laugardals swimming pool, and one guy I passed swore and muttered, "No way!" I said, "C' mon, let's finish it!", and we sprinted flat out towards and across the finish line, giving each other a high five at the end. He turned out to be from my running group, so that was extra cool that we finished together :) [Edit: I have found the official results, here they are below. No pic yet :p ]

overview of winners
5km overall times, men and women
5km overall times, women
5km times per age group

Monday 28 February 2011

VIM in Eclipse

Okay, so this blog is morphing (for the time being) into a log of my dramas and achievements in Android developing. Today I added a VIM wrapper to Eclipse, to allow VIM-like editing in the text editor in Eclipse. It's a little button that you can toggle on and off (also accessible under the Edit menu). You can get it from http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/update-site/stable/
*like* :)

Sunday 27 February 2011

Hello World!!

Yep, I have arrived in the Android "programming" world!! Click on the title of this blog to download my first Android app :)

Saturday 26 February 2011

Flashing Samsung Galaxy S to 2.2.1

Okay, this will be very boring for most people, but I bought a new android phone (Samsung Galaxy S), which I love, and here's how I went about flashing it from 2.1 Eclair to 2.2.1 Froyo, from the point-of-view of someone who feels tough typing things in VIM :p

1.

I firstly followed instructions on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=785201 to fix the 3-button combo to be able to enter download and recovery modes. This is crucial, cos while you can enter download mode using software, if the phone hangs, you need another way to get the hell out of there!!

## copied from that forum:
Preparations: Make sure you have the drivers installed (i.e Kies is recognizing the phone), adb [android development something] available and "USB Debugging" turned on in "Settings -> Applications -> Development" menu. Type *#0228# in the dialer and check Voltage value (without USB plugged in) is at least 3800(mV).

1. Unplug the phone from the computer (if connected)
2. Kill all Kies related software (tray agent, etc)
3. Start Odin3 v1.3 Downloader
4. Plug in the phone to the computer
5. Start a new command prompt and navigate to the folder / drive where adb is located.
If you haven't downloaded adb yet, get it here.
6. Type "adb reboot download" to the command prompt and press enter.
7. Move to Odin3 v1.3 downloader and select the "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5" as PDA file. Make sure "Phone Bootloader Update" is ticked and re-partition is unticked. Do not select any other files but "Aries_P-SBL.tar.md5".
8. Press "Start" button to launch the update process. It will take around three seconds to complete. After the update phone will reboot automatically.

Download the fix: GT-I9000_P-SBL_RCVDL_FIX_ODIN.7z
##

That all worked a dream, was very exciting to see the yellow men-at-work triangle appear finally on the volumedown-home-power hold combo! :)


2.
Then I used the JPO_JPO_U_JPP.tar file on second flashing, in order to update OS to froyo (2.2). I followed instructions on http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/install-android-2-2-froyo-galaxy-s/ but not completely - I actually only flashed the PDA (ie the Os), not the PHONE (ie wireless chipset) nor the CSC (customer specific customisation), because I read on some forums that these would probably work with each other, and I was scared of messing with my phone and wifi etc which all seemed to be working perfectly. But this was a very bad idea, it turns out, don't do this! Instead, just follow all of these instructions, cos they work :) (ie, do follow step 2 instructions properly, else you'll land in the quagmire of step 3 like I did, which was NOT fun).

##
How to Install/Upgrade To Android 2.2 Froyo on Samsung Galaxy S: Instructions

1. Remove the battery, SIM card and MicroSD card from your phone and reinsert the battery.
2. Hold down the Home + Volume Down buttons and press the Power On button.
3. You should now see a download screen
4. Open Odin 3 v1.0
5. Click on the PIT button and load the “s1_odin_20100512.pit” file
6. Click on the PDA button and load the “I9000XXJP2-REV03-PDA-CL464213.tar” inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
7. Click on the PHONE button and load the “MODEM_I9000XXJP2.tar”inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
8. Click on the CSC button and load the “GT-I9000-CSC-MULTI-OXAJP2.tar”inside the I9000XXJP2 RAR file.
9. Click on the “Re-Partition” checkbox
10. Connect your Galaxy S to your PC with the USB cable and set USB Debugging On (System > Applications > Development > USB Debugging.)
11. Click on the Start button in Odin and your Galaxy S will be upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo.
##

Not happy Jan! It seems that I do need to do it all - I thought my phone and GPS settings etc wouldn't be stuffed with if I didn't flash PHONE, but it's all gone to shit :( Lots of processes don't run, everything takes aaaages to respond, and I managed to make a single phone call to Luce only - it was pretty stressful. I actually put my sim back in belle, in case toby took days to recover.

Not happy at the mo! And it looks like I'm dl'ing I9000XXJPU.rar again, which I thought was the 2.2.1 kernel. Hmm...

3.
Faffed about a bit, got cocky thinking I could just reflash with the 512 pit or something, dunno really what I did. But whatever it was, it did NOT work! I managed to get stuck on 'Downloading... Do not turn off Target!!!' screen for bloody ages, closed Odin, and was still stuck. Freaked out a bit, did some restarts, then got stuck on a phone - ! - computer little icon. Reconnected to jason, but no cigar. Started to freak out, people with this problem on forums were being advised to send the phone back to Samsung - nei!! But then someone said 'no problem, just do the volumedown-home-power combo anyway, and lo and behold, it worked!


4.
So now I have just flashed following instructions on http://www.pathikshah.com/blog/install-android-2-2-froyo-galaxy-s/ this time using all of the files to flash the PDA, the PHONE and the CSC. Toby is playing Samsung music to me as I type this! :D Odin is giving me the green 'pass' light :) Just reinserted sim and sd card again. Toby wasn't impressed with how I did it, and asked me to remove the battery to insert the sim. I removed the battery, and waited for a bit. Then long-pressed the power button again and toby rebooted.

And oooh! New background picture - wow, where the hell is that, Venice? And SOOOO responsive!! WOW! Let's hope this is the new toby, and those few hours of unpleasantness will have been worth it! Yes, I love the world! :D

5.
Yes, so in the midst of all the celebrations, I thought I'd see if I could use MiniDiary again. Couldn't seem to find the backup using MyFiles on toby, but when I usb'ed in to jason, I found it as a .gz file (easier to see on the bigger screen - hahaha, jason has a bigger screen than another device!!!). So I knew it was there, but toby had 'no program to open the file'. It *finally* clicked that I needed to restore the MD stuff with Titanium Backup, ie the program that made the backup in the first place. No worries, except TB needs su access, and flashing to 2.2.1 unrooted toby. I'd been reading that 2.2 was hard to root, but those messages are a few months old. Finally found SuperOneClick, that supposedly works with all kinds of phones, cos it's based on the ADB rather than some other thingy. Anyhow, people reported successful roots with it, so I gave it a burl. Had to do a bit of USB debugging/undebugging/debugging, which meant I had to unplug toby from jason and reconnect them several times, but it worked! Well, I thought it did, until I went to open TB and it couldn't get root access! D'oh! But then I remembered that I hadn't restarted toby, so I did that, and ta-daa :) Opened TB, restored MD files (it deleted the entry I made today, but that's fine), and I'm good to go :D

I AM all-powerful, I AM superuser! >:)

5a. So, must-have apps, once the phone is rooted: Titanium Backup, AdFree Android, ShootMe for screenshots >:) , Universal Password Manager,

Other apps I think I like: Skype, facebook (while the hell not?!), Note Everything, OI Shopping for lists, Multiling keyboard and Icelandic language pack, SlideIT demo keyboard and Norwegian language pack, BOM weather from the guy at monash.

6. NEXT: þarf að færa swype fyrir norsku á toby - passa á að ég sé búin að gera það rétt!

Monday 7 February 2011

melbourne

Yep, it's been quite a while. Did a lot of dancing and travelling in Iceland, and am now back in Melbourne. Have a massive backlog of photos from May 2010 onwards still to process, but am in the process of finding a job, so may not have oodles of time to do this too rapidly. Am enjoying the warmth of summer again, although one does run rather more slowly in the heat than in the cool air of Reykavík!