Just some fleeting thoughts . . .
PorchCam. I hope you’ve been enjoying the new Wambooli PorchCam 2.0. I have. The software/hardware isn’t exactly what I want yet, but I’ve had fun spying on people manipulating the camera.
There is a monitor for the camera right next to me. Occasionally I look over and see someone turning the PorchCam around to look at the front door or up in the air or at the wall or something. It’s kind of cool.
Eventually I’d like to get a nice “real” color camera, or at least a software update from Foscam to activate the dumb IR cut-off filter. Still, it’s nifty that the camera works at night.
Sorting Your Android Contacts. It’s weird, but I got two questions yesterday (Tuesday) on how to sort the Contact list for the Droid X. I thought that topic was covered in the book, but I blew it. It’s not.
(It’s odd that I didn’t cover sorting contacts, because it was a question I had for Google a long time ago.)
Anyway, there are two ways to sort your contacts. The first is the sort order, which is either last name or first name. The second is how contacts are listed, whether it’s last name first or first name first.
To sort your contacts, open the Contact list and press the Menu soft button. Choose Display Options, then Sort List By. Choose First Name or Last Name to sort the list accordingly.
To select how contacts are displayed, open the Contact list and press the Menu soft button. Choose Display Options, then View Contact Names As. Choose First Name First or Last Name First.
After changing the sort order, touch the Save button to lock in your selections.
Google Swallows Motorola. Recently, Google has made an offer to buy Motorola’s phone hardware division. If approved, Google would make both the operating system (Android) and devices on which Android runs, which would put it on a par with Apple as far as phone technology is concerned.
My thought is that Google didn’t buy Motorola for its hardware. I think that they bought Motorola for its patents. My guess is that they’ll use the patents or simply own them to avoid future lawsuits. I don’t believe they really want the hardware, so they’ll either spin off that division or sell it in pieces.
If Google does opt to keep the hardware division, then you may see manufacturers like Samsung and LG go to Windows Mobile as their device operating system instead of Android. I don’t see that as a good thing; Google is a software company and I hope that they stay that way.
