Google MyTracks

I tried out the Google GPS tracking software, MyTracks, and it worked flawlessly right out of the box.

Here is the first track.

I did the Smelly Cat Circuit, since it turned out to be an OK day today.  I stopped off at the Common Market on the way back, which is the waypoint marker.  Google's My Maps even shows the statistics, if you click on the "end" marker link.  If you check out the altitude, you can see why they call it "Uptown".  I guess before cars, people had to haul stuff up-to-town.

The best new feature that Google brings, I feel, is the ability to automatically save it to Google Docs, where it throws your stats into a spreadsheet so you can compare them.


Update:  Here's a picture from North East of the city (looking South West).  That's one of my favourite parts of this ride -- actually riding up to the city, rolling underneath the skyscrapers, and then seeing it fade into the distance.  Here is the spreadsheet.

Charlotte Radio is Awful

As I read Nsenga Burton's column about Charlotte's lack of a black music scene, I'm reminded that this city seriously lacks quality radio.

Radio is a dieing media, and in Charlotte it's practically dead.  TV is more exciting, and the internet, cellular included, is the wave of future.  But it's a shame because radio as a technology is cool.  It's fairly easy to broadcast it to a large number of people.  It's actually "analog", at a time when even TV is digital.  And don't even get me started on the HD-radio-oh-I-have-the-letters-"H"-"D"-in-my-name-so-I-must-be-better trash.  Radio IS local.  It IS part of YOUR community.

What do we have?  Commercial Corporate Crap and Christian Channels.

WFAE looks great compared to everything else on our dial, but compare them to a WBAI or a WMNF.

A couple remote college stations come in when the atmospheric conditions are right...

Can anyone tell me the frequency of ONE pirate radio station in Charlotte?

Radios are cheap.  Your car has one.  You can probably figure out how to build one yourself if you never have.  (Try to build a device that can receive and decode a cellular internet stream from scratch.)  I'm reminded of the imbeciles in Idiocracy that watered their crops with Gatorade.   Technology is great, but only if it solves problems -- not creates them.

We have this excellent technology - radio - that's being unused.  Why?  Is it because Charlotteans love to listen to the same stale music that Nsenga was referring to?  And then go out and buy junk from the advertisers so they can stay in business?

On IR Remote Codes and resurrecting a lost controller

IR, or CIR Consumer Infra-Red has been around for a long time -- used as a fancy magic controlling device. [Prefaced by inaudible high frequency tones generated by whacking a rod with a hammer?].  Now, IrDA is related technology that has allowed peripherals to beam at each other since before PDAs came with built-in cell phones.  They unite in archaic technology like my Wizard to perform the wonderfully unimportant task of changing the channel on my TV.

Never before has technology been so widespread, so easy to understand, and yet undocumented.  I guess because no one really loses their remote control.  But is it really so easy to understand?  Why does everyone seem to be fooled by the TV-B-Gone?

TV-B-Gone power cycles a list of popular TVs from a far, while most IrDA devices are meant to be used up-close.  But in my case, I don't really care.  I'm just going to use the Wizard's IrDA port to program a universal remote control.

I don't think anyone uses IrDA anymore.  They've been leaving it off of the newer smart phones, and who cares when wifi and bluetooth are so prevalent. [What, you mean your peripheral isn't connected to the internet!?]  So it's a pain to find relevant software for it.

One of the few that I was able to get running was the Novii Remote.  They charge money, but they let you borrow it for 10 days which is nice.  I installed it on a Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.

I couldn't find the IR pulse codes for my amplifier:  a Nakamichi AV-300.  I know they exist somewhere on the net, because I found them before.  Today I could not find them.  But I did find a .ccf file that included codes from a Nak AV-10 on http://www.remotecentral.com/.  From that I was able to extract the hex control codes with Prontoedit4.

Copying the hex codes to buttons on Novii Remote running on the Wizard took way too much time.  That's why I'm writing this.  And just so I don't lose them again, important codes that work on my AV-300 are as follows:



Nakamichi AV-300 Remote Codes

Power ON: Power OFF:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Mute:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Volume +:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Volume -:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00a9 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

Input Functions:
Tuner:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

VIDEO:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38

CD:
0000 006d 0022 0002 0155 00aa 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 0014 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 003f 0016 0616 0154 0055 0016 0e38



And, yes, I'm aware that I could just buy a new remote on ebay, but that doesn't sound very fun.

Crowders Mountain Ridgeline Trail from SC/NC Border to Pinnacle and onward

Dexter and I hiked the Ridgline Trail today.  It's about 17 miles out and back, so it required a bit of endurance and much of the daylight.

The day wasn't that clear, but it was still a pretty hike with vast views, amazing rock formations, and un-vandalized trails.  We started at the main park office and followed the Pinnacle trail nearly to the top where the Ridgeline trail began.  The Ridgeline was just competed last year after decades of work and was hailed as a big win for both the North and South Carolina Parks.

It runs for a little over six miles to the border, which we discovered was the petroleum pipline from Atlanta.  Exciting.  I guess that was the one that was pumping slowly 18 months ago causing sky-high gas prices.

The entire trip was about 6 hours, and I sat-tracked myself on the return.  Temps were in the 30's, but it really wasn't too bad since the wind was calm.  Dexter walked for about five miles, but decided to ride when the trail became covered with snow.

It was nice, but it left me longing for Alaskan views ;)

Crowders Mountain

I considered heading up to the Appalachian trail this morning, but reports from the National Weather Service ("TRAVEL IS EXPECTED TO BECOME VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.") encouraged me to stay closer to home.  Plus, the Volvo needs some maintenance.  So Dexter and I took off for Crowders Mountain.


He's hiked it before, as have I, but it really does offer some spectacular views.
  
The only wildlife we saw was a hawk soaring below us.  The top offered a 360° view of North and South Carolina.  Despite the clouds, I could see the city of Charlotte and beyond.


I noticed that the Ridgeline trail, the one that connects the North and South Carolina parks, has been completed since the last time I was on the trail.  I think I may hike that on my next day off as a bit of a challenge.  It's posted 210 minutes, one way, so I should start out once it gets light out. 


But it would be nice to hike around some of the white, fluffy stuff.

WinMo ROM

For a couple of weeks it seems as though my phone (an HTC Raphael stripped-down mod by at&t called the Fuze) would choose to ignore some mail pushed by google, so I thought it might be a good time to re-up the ROM.

Lately I've been preferring the ROMs put together by NRGZ28. The latest stable for Windows Mobile 6.5 (based on the 21889 Build from the OEM COM2 tree) is EnergyROM.

There's still a lot of activity on the XDA Raphael forums, but I think it'll die down a bit as more and more people get Android phones, and the like.

But anyway, the EnergyROM is running quick and smooth.  It's amazing how much better it is than the software that came installed on the thing.  It's a testament to what kind of advances can be made when software is open.  Oh wait, I guess MS isn't open.  I guess it's a testament to what kind of advances can be made when a company looks the other way as others reverse-engineer, recalibrate, and then redistribute their software.

XBOX XBMC PlayOn

We've been using the old skool XBOX as a media center with XBMC for some time now. XBMC is a great piece of software -- probably the best at what it does. I used the IDE Hot Swap Method to softmod the XBOX back when we lived in Baltimore, but only recently we've been using PlayOn to stream video from the office computer to the XBOX via ethernet.

If I told Nicole how much money we saved by not paying for cable she'd probably be momentarily pleased, but then she'd remember all of the programs that were cut short or all the time I spent fiddling with it.

Being denied The Daily Show for a week I figured is was time to reinstall a new build. Since Microsoft won't open up the system, or XDK, (even though it doesn't develop for it anymore) the only way to obtain new binaries is through illicit means and there are only a few that I know of. Right now it seems to be working great. This is what I've got:

+ T3CH XBMC 2010-01-03 SVN rev26316 from http://t3ch.yi.se/
+ PlayOn Version: 2.59.3664 from http://www.playon.tv
+ PM3HD skin as included with T3CH build

And it seems to be working quite well!

I also just tried a different build, but it couldn't display the PlayOn categories using the same skin.

The Transparency! skin can view all of the categories, but it can't play any from Hulu or CNN - which is a shame because it looks great. The older Rapier skin seems to work well, with Hulu at least, but I'll check out the new release.

One thing that I suspect may have been a problem was the extent of thumbnails that existed in the User directory of the old build. I don't know if XBMC manages these, but I didn't copy them over to the new build.

I'll have to test it out a bit more and decorate with a suitable skin.