dryfly.ca started as a website for sharing one of my DIY projects, a stitch and glue kayak. Since then I've added several more projects including a skin-on-frame kayak, cedar strip canoe, kayak paddles, canoe paddles, building a spey rod, and an antenna for receiving OTA HDTV. I also occasionally ramble on about politics, technology, bike racing, product reviews and last but not least, our kids.
Click on the Photo Gallery to lots of my pictures in their full glory, including family, friends, boat building, travels, etc.
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Archive for Technology
August 26, 2011 at 2:14 pm · Filed under Technology
Yesterday I had a pretty good night of viewing with my 6″ newtonian telescope. I managed to see many galaxies including M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy), M101, M106, M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) and a cool look at the pair of M81 and M82. The Ring Nebula (M57) wasn’t very clear but the Dumbbell Nebula (M27) was decent. M13, the fantastic globular cluster in Hercules was easy to find in the NW, and I think the highlight of the night was the double cluster NGC869 and NGC884.
from http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/000524.html
This was no doubt the most productive night of viewing I’ve had, with the reason being that I’ve gotten good at using my Telrad finder. Prior to this I used star hopping, which is difficult in light pollution areas, as well as using a “push-to” system. Push-to is a play on words with go-to. Go-to systems are electronic finder systems where a person keys in the desired coordinates of where they want to look, and the go-to moves the telescope there. With the push-to, I have a compass on the mount base and a protractor on the scope itself. I then look up the azimuth/altitude coordinates of what I want to see, and adjust the telescope accordingly. It works pretty good, but relies on real-time input of object coordinates and the mount base needs to be absolutely level.
Tonight I should have a good view of Jupiter from my back deck at around midnight, so I think I will check that out. I wonder what moons I will see?
August 6, 2011 at 1:06 pm · Filed under Technology
I have been borrowing a new Samsung Focus Windows 7 phone for a couple of weeks and thought I would give some thoughts on the device. Overall I would say that the phone is quite impressive. It has the largest screen on a phone that I’ve used. Combined with its extremely thin body, the Focus is not only visually appealing but it is also comfortable to carry and hold.
As for the OS, Windows has made great strides from their previous mobile offerings. W7 seems very stable, and it has a nice UI which makes it fast and easy to operate. I liked having the large icons on the home screen, as it is obvious to me that most smartphone users typically use a small number of apps for the majority of time. It was easy to jump to other screens to access all of the installed apps.
Speaking of apps, the Windows offerings seem okay. Most of the usual suspects are present, including facebook, twitter, maps, and whatever else floats your boat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the significance of having the largest selection of apps is one of the greatest marketing charades and red herrings that I’ve ever seen. I continually ask people what apps they use the most, and it almost always turns out to be the various social network apps (which are readily available on ALL OS’s), internet browsing and messaging services. Yet we all download apps that we forget about or never use. For what it’s worth, I like how Windows approaches the handling of apps and how different settings are reached through horizontal scrolling. The interface allows for a nice graphical layout with nice big fonts and a consistent and sensible navigation scheme.
With the Focus, it is becoming apparent to me that maybe the single biggest attraction to a smartphone is a nice big, bright screen. If you get that right, then you then just have to get your marketing right. Speaker and mic quality don’t seem to matter, and the Focus sits somewhere between a Blackberry and iPhone in this regard (iPhone being the worse of the three). Battery life is probably about the same as any other 4″ screen with similar processing power. I really liked how well the OS integrated with Google’s mail, contacts and calendar. It worked extremely well. Another nice bonus is that the phone can also sync up with msn/live accounts and access mesh files along with Skydrive documents.
Overall I would say that the Focus is a big winner. The hardware is great, the UI experience is very nice, and the integration with google and Microsoft services are useful. I’m not a mobile device expert, pundit or researcher, but I see no reason why the Windows platform will not eclipse Android offerings for the same reason that the iPhone does: they both offer a comprehensive line-up of devices and services based around established home computing operating systems. Microsoft has a polished and slick mobile OS that works with their existing computer ecosystem. I think Windows 8 will be even more interesting as Microsoft moves forward with embedding mobile affordances into their desktop systems.
June 11, 2011 at 5:39 pm · Filed under Technology
About a month ago I started a new term for my masters program. With a big load of reading required from week 1, I decided it was time to try the Playbook again. My desire to “get out from behind the computer” was very compelling at this time. I was already impressed with the Playbook, but I wasn’t sure of its purpose. Within a week of owning it again though, I clearly saw its usefulness for me.
I’m traveling to a clinic every 2nd day, spending time on public transportation. Having the playbook with me has allowed me to read through a high amount of literature for my masters course, and this has saved me a lot of time. As a mobile device, it’s been great. The small size of the Playbook means that I can actually put it in my jacket pocket. This compares to another person I saw reading from an iPad while on Skytrain. Once he got to his stop, he had to pack the iPad away in a small shoulder bag. I suppose other people may choose to carry an iPad in their hand though. The smart UI of the Playbook continues to impress, and is being validated by Apple’s decision to incorporate RIM’s border swipe into their new IOS5.
I’ve also started to take my Playbook to school and use it to present material on the lcd projector. Its small size and weight make it preferable for carrying to school compared to my laptop computer. The screen resolution continues to impress me (1024×600 vs the iPad2 1024×768), and battery life is very good: it lasts all day and I imagine it easily exceeds 8hrs (I’ve never timed it).
As well, I’ve used the Playbook with Adobe Connect for my masters course. Video, sound and mic work great and didn’t present any problems.
I guess the Playbook still struggles in the App department and I continue to be baffled by people’s fascination with apps. While I have installed more apps recently, I almost always use the same 4 or 6. In talking with other tablet owners it seems that this is very common. I think the Playbook currently fails as being a gaming device or platform because of game app availability, so if gaming is your thing you probably want to look elsewhere. It would be interesting to see what tablet users use their tablet for, in percentage of use. I imagine the breakdown goes something like this, from highest use to lowest: web browsing, gaming, social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogging), eReading, email, other app.
I haven’t had any OS crashes, although I have had to restart the browser a couple of times. Other than that, hardware and software reliability has been excellent for me.
For those thinking about getting a tablet, the Playbook offers an excellent alternative to the iPad 2. Each person would have to weigh the importance of size, screen quality, UI and app availability in their purchasing decision. If I was a mildly demanding computer user wanting to replace a desktop, the iPad 2 may be a very compelling laptop alternative. The Playbook may be more interesting for mobile computing or eBook reading, because of its smaller size and better screen. I think the browsing experience is arguably superior to the iPad due to the inclusion of Flash. The expected Java update will heighten this advantage. In either case, I still think the app availability is completely overstated. Again, other than gaming, I think the Playbook offers a very competitive device.
April 24, 2011 at 10:10 am · Filed under Technology
Last week I bought RIM’s new Playbook tablet to see how it runs and if it is something that I could find useful. For those interested, the answers are “excellent” and “no.”
I opted for the 16gb version, my thinking being that I’m usually not prone to wanting large amounts of data being carried around. As well, the need for holding many small files is waning with the growth of cloud computing and services such as Dropbox. The price for this device is $499 and I think it came to about $550 after HST.
I must admit that my expectations for this device were not great. A day before I was joking with friends that “you know you have a failed launch when you aren’t asking if they bought one, but instead you ask them if theirs works.” There are reports of people having problems with the Blackberry Bridge, which would be a bad thing for PB owners. You see, RIM hasn’t yet developed an email client for the PB. Instead, they are relying on PB owners to connect to their blackberry phones in order to receive emails, contacts and calendars. I’m not sure if the Bridge only works with BB devices.
When I got home I unboxed the PB and plugged it in to give it some charge. I had to go out for a while, so I’m not sure if the device came with a charge or not. A couple of hours later I returned and fired up the PB. The first thing it did was find a new OS update. 250mb and 5 minutes later I had the latest software, fast and easy – sweet. I had a quick look with the device Read the rest of this entry »
January 25, 2011 at 5:07 pm · Filed under Education, Technology
If you’re like me and interested in using math notation in Moodle, I believe you have 2 options. The first option is to use the TeX filter that is in Moodle. This is a LaTeX type editor. To enable, go to site administration -> plugins -> filters
TeX in Moodle: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Using_TeX_Notation
And more notation info: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Using_TeX_Notation_2
The big problem with TeX in my mind is that it is a bit awkward to use. However, if the range of notation that you want is narrow, you can quickly learn how to input what you need.
I think the better option is to use ASCIIMathML because it is easier to use, is more intuitive and also looks better. However, one of the big problems with ASCIIMathML is that it only works with Firefox. No other browsers are able to display its notation without other plugins. There are two workarounds for this. First, you can demand that users use Firefox. Secondly, you can use a version of ASCIIMathML that has a “fallback.” How the fallback works is if the browser does not display the ASCIIMathML correctly, it automatically switches to displaying LaTex images.
First let’s start with the ASCIIMathML. You can find a bit of information about it here, including a link to download: http://docs.moodle.org/en/ASCIIMathML
I found this thread on the Moodle forums to be very helpful:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=153697
For my examples below you have to include a javascript file inside your Moodle installation. I am assuming that you are putting the ASCIIMathML.js file in the folder:
http://www.yourdomain.com/moodle/lib/asciimath/
Adjust this url with your own domain.
To get asciimath working in Moodle 2.0, go to site administration -> Appearance -> Additional HTML
In the “Within HEAD” section, paste the text:
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://yourdomain.com/moodle/lib/asciimath/ASCIIMathML.js”></script>
What this does is ensures that the ASCIIMathML javascript is inserted into the head of every html page.
If you don’t have Moodle 2.0, you have to find your config.php file for your theme and insert the text there. For example, if you are using the theme FormFactor, go to the file: http://yourdomain.com/moodle/theme/formfactor/config.php
Open the config.php file in an appropriate editor (I use Codelobster) and somewhere between
<head> and </head> insert the line:
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://yourdomain.com/moodle/theme/formfactor/lib/asciimath/ASCIIMathML.js”></script>
In firefox you should now be able to use ASCIIMathML notation. I had an additional problem and had to edit my asciimathml.js file. Somewhere around line 50 in this file I had to change
var avoidinnerHTML = false;
to
var avoidinnerHTML = true;
Okay, now that it’s working you can try a fallback version. I used ASCIIMathMLwFallback2.js from http://dlippman.imathas.com/asciimathtex/AMT.html
I edited the same “avoidinnerHTML” in the .js file, uploaded it to the same /lib/asciimath folder, and edited the “Within HEAD” section to use the new javascript file name. I now have ASCIIMathML working on all browsers. More info on fallback can be found at this Moodle forum link: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=134706
January 15, 2011 at 11:18 pm · Filed under Just Stuff, Technology
A couple of weeks ago I bought a Patriot Box Office media player. It was a pretty sweet deal too, only costing $60 after a mail-in rebate. Since getting it the amount of music that I’ve listened to has, like, quaddriggled. For those of you that don’t know what a quaddriggle is, let me tell you something: it’s a lot. I have the PBO hooked up to my Bryston in the living room, and I’m mostly streaming flac files from my NAS. Flac is lossless, so theoretically it is the same as CD quality. While I can’t say that the delivery method is perfect in terms of sound quality, the two most important parts are the amp and speakers, and I’m doing pretty good in that regard. The nice thing is that I can now quickly flip through my music collection and pull up anything within seconds. That is entirely different from the old setup where I had to pull out a CD, put it in the CD player and press play. That whole rigamaroll took, uhh… seconds. But more of ‘em. Yeah, more.
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