From a David Brooks TED talk:
- 95% of profs believe they are above-average teachers
- 96% of college students believe they have above-average social skills
- 19% of earners polled by TIME reported they were in the top 1% of earners
How’s that?
Author: Joseph Ginder (Page 15 of 22)
The definition of a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
-Winston Churchill
On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union in New York City, delivering a rather long address that made quite an impression on the listeners, propelling him into national prominence as a serious candidate for president. It is quite the speech. One section reminded me of a hot topic in American society today:
The question recurs, what will satisfy then? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of [the Republican Party], but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must he done thoroughly-done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not he tolerated–we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must he enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must he disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
You can read more about the speech at Wikipedia.
On January 9, 2013 I was 20,000 days old. I decided on day 20,282 to start my 20,000 Plus project to capture a photo a day. I hope to get to day 32,768 (at least). I have been back-filling, often with some degree of estimation as dates are inexact in my recall.
The great difference between present-day Christianity and that of which we read in these letters is that to us it is primarily a performance; to them it was a real experience. We are apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code, or at best a rule of heart and life. To these men it is quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether. They do not hesitate to describe this as Christ “living in’ them. Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men’s lives…We are…driven to accept their own explanation, which is that their little human lives had, through Christ, been linked up with the very Life of God.”
–J.B. Philips,
Letters to Young Churches, p. xiv
Today I was reminded or informed (I’m unclear whether I never knew or forgot) of Richard of Chichester’s poem:
Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ
For all the benefits Thou hast given me,
For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.
O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,
May I know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
Follow Thee more nearly.
I’m sure I first heard these lines in and remembered them from a song from a musical. Day by Day, Godspell.
For those who just want links to the pictures:
Here are the pictures from hiking up
These shots were from on top of Angel’s Landing.
These are the pictures taken on the way down.
The story is below…
A couple of years ago I was watching a documentary on national parks. On segment was on Zion National Park. I was only half paying attention. I noticed a very interesting-looking hike, backed up the DVR, and found that it was called “Angel’s Landing”. So I googled a bit, watched a video of the hike and thought, “I have to do this one!” I knew my son Sam would be interested, so I showed him. He agreed: “We have to do this.”
Then, Sam got married, got a new job, etc… Scheduling the hike was not happening. A couple of weeks ago Frances, Sam’s wife said she thought we should go somewhere for Memorial Day weekend. I thought, “That’s one weekend I want to stay home. Everything is too crowded and traffic is bad.” Then Sam dropped into my office one day and said, “Dad, Frances and I are going to Zion National Park over Memorial Day weekend. Are you coming? I am making reservations to stay somewhere.” Eventually Susie and I decided to join them. We left after
everyone got back from work on Friday evening, between 6:30 and 7 PM. Drive to Vegas and keep going… By 2:30 our time, 3:30 local time, AM, we checked into our room in St. George, Utah and zonked out, having passed one fully-engulfed semi-tractor-trailer rig (southbound) and watching another blowing tires beside us on the I-15.
Saturday we toured Zion and did minor hikes, just a few miles to the start of the Narrows and to Emerald Pools. Sunday we planned to hike to Angel’s Landing with a few thousand of our closest friends. It’s not that long, only a little over 5 miles. All uphill, or down, with the last half-mile a climbing scramble over rocks with thousand-foot drop-off’s on one or both sides. Susie decided she was sore enough from the easy hiking and bad bed. She stayed on the valley floor watching the park movie in a museum and walking gentle shady paths and
chatting with another intelligent woman who was sitting on a nice bench enjoying the view awaiting her husband who wanted to get sweaty and sunburnt.
Back to the hike… below is a link to a few shots from the hike up. They only go as far as Scout’s Landing, about 1/2 mile short of Angel’s Landing, because, well, I didn’t want to die and put my camera in my backpack for the final scramble. You can zoom in on pictures like DSC4409 and similar to see the path of little figures winding up the rock and some silly fools doing stupid stunts up on top of a pile of rock beside a sheer drop-off up on the “landing”. Here are the pictures from hiking up
The top was a gentle curved rock about 20′ wide and a few hundred feet long with a couple of trees for sparse shade. Frances wanted to join the fools standing on the pile of rock; Sam talked her into merely sitting. I stood beside the pile for my photo. When I was younger and stupider I would have stood on the pile of rock. However, I don’t think I would ever have done the Rose-on-the-bow-of-the-Titanic pose on top out over nothing that one girl did. I missed that shot with my camera. Later I heard that the girl was a dancer and claimed to have great balance so she wasn’t afraid. I thought of the gusty wind. These shots were from on top of Angel’s Landing.
I took a lot of pictures on the way down. Some show the path up the foot of the rock. It looks dramatic and was fun; however, it was an easy walk other than being all uphill. My only complaint was the trail surface. I don’t like hiking on cement. Much of the path was roughly paved up to Scout’s Landing. These are the pictures taken on the way down.
I don’t have close photos of the really interesting part of the hike – that last intense half-mile scramble up the rock. Like I said, I preferred staying alive to pictures. I wore a cheap Muvi video camera for that part and collected video footage, but significant editing is required. I have yet to do that editing. (It’s almost two hours of footage, so I expect to need about 20 hours to edit it! When will I next have 20 hours?) I did some exploring in Bing Maps, and I was able to find some interesting views of the hike.
Here’s a quite nice Bing maps view of the Angel’s Landing hike area. (Note that the map can be zoomed and the perspective altered, etc. Play with it.) In the center of the photo you should see Angel’s Landing. Above it, connected by a ridge, you see Scout’s Landing. The easy part of the hike from which I could take pictures ended at Scout’s Landing and the intense portion was across the ridge connection to Angel’s Landing. You can see the easy portion of the hike winding up from the valley floor below and to the left of Angel’s Landing. The dramatic switchback pictures were of the area in the shadow of Angel’s Landing. Then we crossed a footbridge to a long uphill walk to Walter’s Wiggles, the steeply ascending walled-in zigzag switchbacks up to Scout’s Landing. It was at Scout’s Landing that one could decide to continue on to the West rim or to Angel’s Landing. There were portable restrooms, but no water. There was ample area for resting and waiting if some members of a group decided not to continue to Angel’s Landing.
After descending and meeting up with Susie, we did a little more walking that day on the valley floor and in Springdale, and a bit of driving to see a bit more of the park. The short drive up from the river east to the tunnels and rock formations was beautiful.
We left for home on Monday about noon from St. George. We spent 3 hours going the last 12 miles to California on I-15. At least we got to see a couple of people parachute down over the freeway while wasting gas idling in the desert. Our traffic reporting on Google maps was not working; but Susie suggested a call home to Vanrith who helped us scope out the situation. The rest of the drive home once across the state line was uneventful with only a few slow-downs at the expected places. Susie spotted a Greek food place near Baker and I had a Gyro!
It turns out that for me, climbing down and walking down was the killer exertion. Those muscles (quads) were really sore on Monday and are just getting back to normal today. I resumed workouts this morning (Friday). Note to self: My workouts prepared me for walking and climbing up, but not for climbing down!
Just in case you are wondering exactly where this is, here is the Google Map for Angel’s Landing. All in all, not your average hike and I’m glad we went; neither the crowds nor the traffic managed to spoil a great weekend!
In late 2011, I gave up my Nexus One for a Samsung Galaxy S2. I wanted a Galaxy Nexus, but those were expensive at the time. So I used an upgrade on our T-Mobile plan to get a GS2 for a lot less. It was running Gingerbread, and is a great phone. It had 16gb of storage built in and 2 gb of app storage – more than enough for me. I’ve never even moved an app to the SD card. And it turns out that the camera is better than on the Galaxy Nexus and it will support SD cards. I really appreciate the extra 32gb of SD card storage for video and audio and pictures.
After a short time, I rooted the phone for Titanium Backup and other geeky control freak software that I use. Then, I installed the optional ICS upgrade when it finally came out for the GS2. It was nice… smoother operation and a bit better battery life, I thought. But there were also more freezes and restarts. Now, this might have been due to my rooting of the phone; but I was dissatisfied. So, I installed Cyanogenmod 9.0 RC2.
Installing Cyanogenmod RC2 should have been straightforward, but it was not. After some hours of despair, I eventually figured out that the ClockworkMod cache wipe was not working on the GS2. I downloaded a Darkside ROM that does a cache wipe after reading through the instructions for the Darkside install that explained the Clockwordmod deficiency. Once the cache wipe rom was installed, the Cyanogenmod rom started working. The symptom of non-operation was the Cyanogenmod blue boot-android with a pulsating heart would come up on screen and just stay there. Forever. If you face this symptom while upgrading your ROM and want more details on how I stumbled into the cure, email me.
In November 2012, Cyanogenmod 10 came out in stable release for my T-Mobile GS2. I upgraded. The upgrade to Android 4.1.2 was smooth and is fantastic; I love it. This is why I run a custom rom! If I was running stock from Samsung/T-Mobile, I might never see this upgrade.
In January, I began to have trouble with my S2 while charging. On an AC charger, it would bounce in and out of charging status and never sleep. The result was that the charging was hardly keeping up with the drain on the battery. I became difficult to keep my phone charged! This was serious. Had I been able to get a Nexus 4, I probably would have at this point. However, they were sold out. In addition, they max out at 16gb of memory with no SD card slot! This is very bad. And the camera is not as good as the S2. So now what?
Intense research showed that there was some chance this was a software problem and not a hardware issue. There is an android bug report that shows my problem is reasonably common on Samsung phone – but not considered a show-stopper! My son had this problem on his Galaxy Nexus, but it went away after a factory reset. So I tried that. It didn’t help. Eventually I installed the Jedi Jelly ROM hoping that might help. It has some fairly silly graphics on boot up, but runs quite well. In addition, it is a focus for the developer instead of being like Cyanogenmod, which is a minimal port to the T-Mobile S2. Charging began to work more reliably. However, this state has since regressed. I can charge reliably from USB, but not from an AC adapter or auto adapter.
My solution? I purchased an Anker charger that came with two additional batteries. Total $21.74! Now, I charge batteries on this charger and cycle them through the phone, rarely plugging the phone in to charge. This arrangement is actually quite a relief from constantly looking for ways to plug my phone in and keep it charged. I typically have one battery charging, carry another, and have one in the phone. I have not needed more than one battery change in a day. So my charging problem has a worked-around that is actually an improvement. (However, this make for another black mark against the Nexus 4, which does not have a removable battery. My charging problem in the Nexus 4 would be very difficult to overcome.)
I still don’t recommend the custom ROM route to people who are not prepared to tackle nasty software problems like this. It is conceivable that my charging problem is due to these custom ROMs; though I doubt it. I generally don’t recommend you update your ROM at all unless you have a reason to update it. If you do, then using the stock updates from Samsung for the T-Mobile Galaxy S2 is the standard way to go.
Note well: There are different versions of the Galaxy S2. Mine is the T-Mobile variety, T989. The ROM software for each Galaxy S2 variety differs; they are not interchangeable. Do not try to install a ROM intended for one Galaxy S2 on another. It will not work. You probably won’t damage your phone beyond repair, though.
As I wrote before… I started using Android when the G1 came out and have never looked back to my blackberry. I have T-Mobile unlimited everything service. (Actually, my data is throttled after 2gb… I mostly use wi-fi and have not seen a need to upgrade to truly unlimited data now that it is available.) It’s cheap and T-Mobile phone reps are pleasant and helpful to talk to. Neither AT&T nor Verizon can make these claims today. (When I talk to their reps on the phone, my blood pressure is up for a week.) T-Mobile service works well for me most of the time, but not on Balboa Island or other neighborhoods where mostly well-to-do people live. Evidently rich people don’t use T-Mobile, so T-Mobile coverage is often sketchy in higher-income neighborhoods. It works great where I normally hang out, though. (Note: it didn’t work so well in South Dakota, and AT&T roaming access had a low cap that I exceeded quickly. I really hated that.)
I like my Galaxy S2 a lot. However, I would strongly consider sticking with the Nexus line of phones (or tablets) when I next purchase just to always be able to get the latest Android straight from Google. My one reservation is that Google seems to not understand the need for an SD card nor for removable batteries. Bug fixes are few and far between from the vendors that distribute their own Android builds. That’s what eventually drove me to use a custom ROM again. I want the latest fixes and stability, both. Cyanogenmod has a good track record for this in the stable builds. If I got a Nexus, the path to updates would be even better. This will color my future purchases.
So, what do I run on my phone and why? Here’s the list as of November 20, 2012.
1Weather – This is a nice weather app with lots of info and pretty graphics.
Air Droid – This app lets me connect to my phone as a web server using a web browser. I can get files from it, copy files to it, install apps, and more. Very nice. However, the file browser does not handle large lists of files in one directory very well; it is far too slow.
Adobe Flash Player – Get it, unless you are short on app space. You will need FireFox or Dolphin to run it. It won’t work in the stock browser or Chrome.
Amazon Kindle – I use my phone as my kindle. The text formatting is not always good, but it works well enough to read books on my phone.
Amazon MP3 – This would be a waste for me save for the Amazon Cloud Player features. It is nice to be able to store music in the Amazon cloud and play it anywhere without using my own SD card space.
Antennas – This app lets me see where my local phone and data service antennas are located and shows signal strength.
APG – There are certain files on my phone that I don’t want others to be able to read – like files that have personal data in them that would be useful for identity theft. So, I encrypt them. This is a tool that does that. You can encrypt your entire phone file system, but I think that would be so invasive that it would be self-compromising. This allows me to pick and choose so that stuff I protect is really protected without slowing down access to other stuff.
Appstore (NOT) – I have removed all traces of apps from the Amazon app store because it is too confusing to remember what came from Amazon and what came from Google’s store and they both try to update. It seems as though Amazon attempts to take over apps that I got from Google. I don’t like this at all.
Audible – I am an audiobook junkie. You folks who say reading is not the same as listening are right. I usually do better listening, even though I love to read. Good for the gym.
Authenticator – This is a way to use the Google two-factor authentication system for many other security purposes. It is not useful unless you use stuff that supports it. My ISP supports it, and I use it.
Aviary – photo editing for android
Barcode Scanner – Don’t use it much because I shop online. But when I want it while in a store, it is great.
Beautiful Widgets and Beautiful Widgets Animation Addon – Very nice home screen information display. I use it for time and weather and nice appearance.
BeyondPod – This is the class of the podcast software for Android. If you listen to regular podcasts, get it and pay for it. I use the unlocked version.
Bible – This is the Android app from Logos. I use it almost exclusively for Bible reading. The only exception is that I have some Kindle bibles, also.
Brightness Level – I wanted easy access to setting my brightness level high for watching video at the gym. This was the nice, free control I found for that.
Bump – a way to share stuff you have on your phone; but only if the other person has Bump too.
Camera Zoom FX – This is a highly-rated camera app for Android that I am trying. So far, I like it.
CamScanner – This is a convenience app that packages up using your camera to capture images of receipts and labels and business cards and so on. It turns them into pdf and allows you to share them via email and other social media or just save them to your sd card. I use this to capture handwritten notes, nutrition info from labels, and any written material I want to save and not have to carry with me on paper.
Chrome – The Chrome web browser for Android phones. I use this almost all the time now, after recent performance improvements. The time I don’t use it is when I need flash, as when watching Amazon video. (Amazon, why not have your video app on Android? This is silly.)
Clojure – A Lisp for your phone. How cool is that?
ConnectBot – I am geeky enough to need an ssh client on my phone. If you know what that is, this is a good free version.
CPU Spy Plus Free – This helps me figure out what is happening on my phone. Most people would not need it.
Drive – Google Docs/Drive is very convenient, though imperfect. This is sometimes better than using it from the web browser; other times the web browser can display tables that the app cannot.
DropBox – A way to store and save files in the cloud.
Earth – Explore the earth using Google’s software.
Elixir 2 and various add-on modules – Excellent window into everything on your phone. High nerd appeal. I install a lot of the extra modules.
ES File Explorer – An excellent file system browser with root capability and good SMB support for network browsing.
EverNote – I am using this as my standard way to take notes and save them. I don’t like that it is not integrated into the rest of my filing system. But it is very good. Still thinking about where this goes long term. I think Google should buy them and integrate it with Google Drive.
EveryTrail – Cool software that allows you to download maps of hiking trails to carry and access from your phone.
ezPDF Reader – I want to read PDF files. This was my solution. So far, so good.
FaithLife – Another Logos app. Has some good Bible study content if you can still get it free.
Fing – a tool for exploring LAN’s
FIOS Remote – Sometimes Susie can’t find the remote. Other times she has it and I want it but am too lazy to go get it. This is the answer. I always have my phone, so I can always control the Verizon DVR, which I don’t like nearly as much as my TIVO. (But Susie likes it better.)
First Aid – Just what it says it is. A guide to, that is.
FlightTrack – Easy real-time flight tracking for all the flights that matter to you. Not free.
FX, FX Root Access – This is the best file manager for Android now. However, I have trouble getting it to access Windows network shares unless they are on Samba. For just managing your phone’s files, this is the ticket. Root access won’t be free once they exit beta-testing.
FxCamera – a camera app with various special effects. I use it occasionally.
Gmail – Indispensable once I got mad enough to abandon Outlook. And Gmail has fantastic spam filtering built in, so I can give up managing my own mail server. The phone access to my mail archives once I switched them over (no mean trick) is a “how did I ever live without this” kind of thing. I live by email and having it all available through my phone is a huge win. I recommend the two-factor authentication for Gmail and Drive, but only if you take the time to understand it in advance. Be sure and get the emergency access codes for your account if you set this up, even if you don’t know how to use them. And be sure and set up an emergency contact number for backup delivery of access codes. If you ever need them, you will be very glad to have them. Also, you should find a way to backup your gmail. I use BackUpGoo.
Go – I have removed all things Go. They were free and worked pretty well, but too invasive with too many messages trying to sell me things that require me to dismiss them. So, no Go.
Google Play Books, Movies & TV, Music – Google’s apps for purchasing media and using it.
Google Sky Map – Cool map of the sky… “Where’s Orion’s belt again? Oh, over there.”
Google Voice – Stop using your phone service’s voice mail and start using Google Voice. It will transcribe your messages and email them to you. T-mobile’s visual voice mail is problematic; I gave up on it.
GPS Share – Decide to share your location with other people of your choice. “Where are you? I’m HERE! (send location)”
Hacker’s Keyboard – You too can type like a programmer! If you ever want to run emacs or its ilk on your phone, you need this. If you never heard of emacs, then you probably don’t need this. It’s kind of a full function keyboard instead of the stripped down keyboard for texting and data entry.
History Here – An app that lets you find sites of historical interest wherever you are. Great for history nerd vacationing.
Home Switcher for Froyo – lets me change my Home app easily. Not really necessary.
iBird Yard + – Want to know what that bird is in your North American yard?
Instagram – easily share pix. Very popular, but has limitations.
KeePassDroid – This is a password keeper that supports Android and Windows and more. It provides a good way to keep track of your passwords and use different passwords for your various logins.
Logos – It’s over for OliveTree. They’re kind of lame in comparison.
Ki Keyboard – I like this keyboard. Swiftkey does not allow me to swype in url contexts – a horrible decision for Chrome. Swype is still good. I use it on my Nexus 7.
Kingsoft Office – the free version reads Office docs on your phone – but without editing.
Lookout – This is the best security software for Android last time I checked it out, which was months ago. Working well. It scans apps for safety (not something I was thinking I needed), but the nice thing is the ability to track down your phone from the web when it is lost and lock it or wipe it clear if it is in someone else’s hands who shouldn’t have it. It also does backups.
Maps – Google Maps is great. Who needs a separate GPS? This is one of the best features of a good Android phone.
Meridian – This is the best media player that I know of. I want it to remember its place in more than one item of each type, but it doesn’t. No EQ, but you can get that from Cyanogenmod. Great features and stability for people who have their own media files and want to manipulate and play them. Updated frequently.
MoboPlayer – plays the most video formats of any video player I know of.
My Account – Just how many text message have I sent this month, anyway? This lets me answer that question.
NASA – lets me access stuff from the NASA websites conveniently.
Ol File Manager – This file manager was required in order to select files in some other app. I don’t use it otherwise.
PowerAmp – a really nice audio app. I find that I use different apps for different listening or watching contexts. This allows me to resume one context while leaving another intact. Listen to audio on PowerAmp. Stop and watch video on Meridian. Then finish listening to audio on PowerAmp from where I left off without searching. This should just work in Meridian this way; but it does not. Context is lost too easily. And now that I have PowerAmp I like it! Lots of control over the sound. I purchased the full version.
QuickPic – Fast gallery replacement for viewing photos.
ROM Manager – The best ROM manager. I finally paid for the pro version that notifies me when a new cyanogenmod ROM is available. I don’t really need this a lot, but the guy deserves to be paid. Very nice software, except that clearing the cache on the Galaxy S2 for T-Mobile didn’t work when I moved to Cyanogenmod. This cost me a full day of effort to figure out and solve, which makes me grumpy.
ROM Toolbox Pro – This is a very convenient set of utilities for those who root their phones.
Sensorly – Lets me see and contribute to coverage maps from an independent source. I sometimes install this.
Series Guide – Helps me keep up with Breaking Bad and Warehouse 13.
Skype – I haven’t used Skype so much lately. My international call volume is down.
Smart Tools – Measuring tools for your phone. Very cool to play with. Useful? Hmmm. Soft of, if you don’t need precision. “It’s about 12 feet to that wall over there.” But it has a nice LED flashlight feature.
StopWatch & Timer – Just what it says it is.
Storage Analyzer – a good tool for figuring out what files are using up your memory.
Street View – Adds street view to Google maps.
Subsonic – I am such a nerd that I run a freeware subsonic server on linux to serve my entire library of audio and video. This is the client for Android. So why do I use the Amazon Cloud, you ask? Good question. Exploring. Redundancy. (You need to restart the linux server with a cron job every few hours or it will go belly up and stop responding.)
Swype – By far the best keyboard for Android. Take the short time to get used to it; you will become much faster at typing, not need a hardware keyboard, and hate having to live without it. Swype is not perfect. There are some tricks it could learn from the stock keyboard even, and certainly from SwiftKey. Even from Smart. But still the best.
Sygic – navigation software from eastern Europe. Cheaper than other offline alternatives and works OK. I prefer Google Maps and Nav when available, but they are not operable offline. Yes, I know about downloading Google maps for offline access. That’s nice, but not good enough.
SystemPanel – A very nice app backup and management tool. Somewhat redundant with Elixir. Will also do app backup.
TextWarrior – Geeky test editor. Not super fast, but works well enough for me to search files and update my text file notes.
Titanium Backup PRO – This is the way to get rid of the apps you don’t want from a rooted stock ROM from T-Mobile or whomever. It also does nice backup work, sometimes. My results have been mixed when it comes to backup. It works, but the backups are not so useful in my experience.
TivoRemote – This is the remote from my Tivo. Very nice. Not from the Tivo company; not free.
TVFoodie, TVFoodMaps – This is how you remember and find all those cool places to eat that you saw on the Food Channel. It is easier than the web.
Tweetdeck – This is the tweeting and facebook status client I’ve settled on so far. Not perfect, but better than the competition so far. I admit I have not explored other options for months. I finally removed Facebook coverage from it because it was just too much and not well-enough integrated with Facebook.
UrbanSpoon – I like to find new restaurants. This helps.
Ustream – a Ustream client. I watched the Mars Curiosity landing coverage from NASA using this, for example. And this is how you check what is going on in the LBFC sanctuary on Sunday.
Waze – social media traffic reports. Still deciding about this one.
Wifi Analyzer and Wifi Connector Library – I maintain wifi networks. I like being able to find out what is happening in wifiland around me. And so…
US Army Survival Guide
Voodoo OTA RootKeeper – If you like to unroot to run certain apps, this is a good way to do it.
YouTube – Nice youtube client.
Be still, and know that I am God
Psalm 46:10
Waiting worship begins in silence. Each worshipper comes to meet with God. As soon as the first person arrives it is time to be quiet. As you arrive, enter quietly with as little distraction and noise as possible and find a place to sit near others.
Start by praying silently. Ask God to quiet your heart and mind so that you can experience his presence. Invite him to help you empty yourself of everything and fill you with his presence. When you have offered yourself to God for this time of worship, then it is time to begin “centering downâ€. Centering down is a mental and spiritual quieting process that we do make ourselves available to God.
To center down, you simply try to stop all the streams of thought that are running through your mind. Just stop them. Seek to be released from all the concerns and responsibilities of the week and simply enjoy God’s presence. Some people find it helpful to relax and close their eyes. Some find it helpful to have a pad of paper on which to write things down that they do not wish to forget. During this time, we seek to empty ourselves and leave behind consciousness of concerns and thoughts that are not prompted by our Lord.
Some find it useful to focus attention on a particular spot or item in the room. Some people will read a passage in the Bible (such as Isaiah 40:31 below). I have seen some who knit quietly. You will find your own approach to emptying yourself in order to be filled with God. Be patient, and don’t be afraid to experiment and discuss with others what you experience. (Discussion should be after the time of worship is over).
Expectations… over time, we grow to more easily enter into God’s presence. Even so, some report that it may take them nearly an hour – most of the time of a typical meeting for worship! Sometimes we find it difficult to find a place of peace in his presence. It helps to practice in times of quiet – perhaps even while riding to work. It is a good discipline to make space for God.
When the group is together in silence experiencing the presence of God, then the meeting is said to be gathered. Times of powerful gathering can be rare; but sometimes a group can grow to have this experience often. Out of gathered worship, some may be led to speak. Other times the group is silent before God. Allow God to lead; we respond to him.
It is usually best not to come expecting either to remain silent or to speak. Instead, make yourself available to be led by God. Of course, if God leads you to prepare some thoughts before the meeting, you should obey. But keep in mind that he may or may not lead you to speak even if you prepare.
If you are led to speak, please be obedient to speak, but speak only because you are led – not just because a thought comes to mind or because the silence seems awkward. Rest on what you are thinking of saying for a time. If you speak, stand where you are and speak clearly so others may hear. One person speaks at a time. Speak simply and briefly without seeking recognition. Don’t worry about being eloquent or making a speech. Just stop when you are done. The goal is to hear from God and speak if he leads you to speak as a part of the gathered meeting. It is good to build on what others say, but it is not usually appropriate to respond verbally with disagreement or agreement. You do not need to turn to look at them or look up as is customary in a discussion (though it is OK to do so). Your focus is on God; not the speaker. Let the Lord guide you in listening to what is spoken. It is rare to speak more than once in a meeting.
What does one do if another speaks inappropriately? Expect the church elders to deal with the situation or to speak with the person privately. Pray. Know that God is able to take care of the situation. Remain with the Lord and let him guide you.
Traditionally, the meeting is over when someone designated as leader shakes hands with those around him or her. Afterwards, some may remain in prayer or thought. Others may talk quietly – but please be considerate of others around you. Sometimes people will adjourn to discuss or engage in a sort of debriefing of their experience. Encourage those who spoke words that God used in your worship. Encourage those who are learning to worship in this way, especially those who are young.
Stay with it. Worship in this way of waiting upon the Lord is a learned skill that develops and changes over time. It is a powerful, life-giving way of knowing God’s presence.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hid from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God� Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:27-31
In late 2011, I gave up my Nexus One for a Samsung Galaxy S2. I wanted a Galaxy Nexus, but those were expensive at the time. So I used an upgrade on our T-Mobile plan to get a GS2 for a lot less. It was running Gingerbread, and is a great phone. It had 16gb of storage built in and 2 gb of app storage – more than enough for me. I’ve never even moved an app to the SD card. And it turns out that the camera is better than on the Galaxy Nexus and it will support SD cards. I really appreciate the extra 32gb of SD card storage for video and audio and pictures.
After a short time, I rooted the phone for Titanium Backup and other geeky control freak software that I use. Then, I installed the optional ICS upgrade when it finally came out for the GS2. It was nice… smoother operation and a bit better battery life, I thought. But there were also more freezes and restarts. Now, this might have been due to my rooting of the phone; but I was dissatisfied. So, I installed Cyanogenmod 9.0 RC2.
Installing Cyanogenmod RC2 should have been straightforward, but it was not. After some hours of despair, I eventually figured out that the ClockworkMod cache wipe was not working on the GS2. I downloaded a Darkside ROM that does a cache wipe after reading through the instructions for the Darkside install that explained the Clockwordmod deficiency. Once the cache wipe rom was installed, the Cyanogenmod rom started working. The symptom of non-operation was the Cyanogenmod blue boot-android with a pulsating heart would come up on screen and just stay there. Forever. If you face this symptom while upgrading your ROM and want more details on how I stumbled into the cure, email me.
In November 2012, Cyanogenmod 10 came out in stable release for my T-Mobile GS2. I upgraded. The upgrade to Android 4.1.2 was smooth and is fantastic; I love it. This is why I run a custom rom! If I was running stock from Samsung/T-Mobile, I might never see this upgrade.
I still don’t recommend the custom ROM route to people who are not prepared to tackle nasty software problems. I generally don’t recommend you update your ROM at all unless you have a reason to update it. If you do, then using the stock updates from Samsung for the T-Mobile Galaxy S2 is the standard way to go.
Note: There are different versions of the Galaxy S2. Mine is the T-Mobile variety, T989. The ROM software for each Galaxy S2 variety differs; they are not interchangeable. Do not try to install a ROM intended for one Galaxy S2 on another. It will not work. You probably won’t damage your phone beyond repair, though.
As I wrote before… I started using Android when the G1 came out and have never looked back to my blackberry. I have T-Mobile unlimited everything service. (Actually, my data is throttled after 2gb… I mostly use wi-fi and have not seen a need to upgrade to truly unlimited data now that it is available.) It’s cheap and T-Mobile reps are pleasant and helpful to talk to. Neither AT&T nor Verizon can make these claims today. (When I talk to their reps on the phone, my blood pressure is up for a week.) T-Mobile service works well for me most of the time, but not on Balboa Island or other neighborhoods where mostly well-to-do people live. Evidently rich people don’t use T-Mobile, so T-Mobile coverage is often sketchy in higher-income neighborhoods. It works great where I normally hang out, though. (Note: it didn’t work so well in South Dakota, and AT&T roaming access had a low cap that I exceeded quickly. I really hated that.)
I like my Galaxy S2 a lot. However, I would strongly consider sticking with the Nexus line of phones (or tablets) when I next purchase just to always be able to get the latest Android straight from Google. Bug fixes are few and far between from the vendors that distribute their own Android builds. That’s what eventually drove me to use the custom Cyanogenmod ROM again. I want the latest fixes and stability, both. Cyanogenmod has a good track record for this in the stable builds. If I got a Nexus, the path to updates would be even better. This will color my future purchases. (As of late 2012, the Nexus 4 seems like it would be nearly ideal. Nearly. The major shortcoming is that it has 16gm max and no sd-card slot.)
So, what do I run on my phone and why? Here’s the list as of November 20, 2012.
1Weather – This is a nice weather app with lots of info and pretty graphics.
Adobe Flash Player – Get it, unless you are short on app space. This
Amazon Kindle – I use my phone as my kindle. The text formatting is not always good, but it works well enough to read books on my phone.
Amazon MP3 – This would be a waste for me save for the Amazon Cloud Player features. It is nice to be able to store music in the Amazon cloud and play it anywhere without using my own SD card space.
APG – There are certain files on my phone that I don’t want others to be able to read – like files that have personal data in them that would be useful for identity theft. So, I encrypt them. This is the tool that does that. You can also encrypt your entire phone file system, but I think that would be so invasive that it would be self-compromising. This allows me to pick and choose so that stuff I protect is really protected without slowing down access to other stuff.
AppGarden Lite – Dozens of little apps that are occasionally useful.
Appstore – The Amazon app store is installed. I’ve pretty much stopped using this for apps because it is too confusing to remember what came from Amazon’s and what came from Google’s store and they both try to update. (I use the Amazon store on my Kindle Fire.)
Audible – I am an audiobook junkie. You folks who say reading is not the same as listening are right. I usually do better listening, even though I love to read. Good for the gym.
Authenticator – This is a way to use the Google two-factor authentication system for many other security purposes. It is not useful unless you use stuff that supports it. My ISP supports it, and I use it.
Aviary – photo editing for android
Barcode Scanner – Don’t use it much because I shop online. But when I want it while in a store, it is great.
Beautiful Widgets and Beautiful Widgets Animation Addon – Very nice home screen information display. I use it for time and weather and nice appearance.
Better Terminal Emulator Pro – If you have a need for one, this one works. I rarely need one and use this one when I do.
BeyondPod – This is the class of the podcast software for Android. If you listen to regular podcasts, get it and pay for it. I use the unlocked version.
Brightness Level – I wanted easy access to setting my brightness level high for watching video at the gym. This was the nice, free control I found for that.
Bump – a way to share stuff you have on your phone; but only if the other person has Bump too.
Business Calendar Free – I liked the TouchWiz calendar a lot better than stock Cyanogenmod’s. So I downloaded this, and it is very nice. In some ways I like it even better than the TouchWiz calendar. However, it is less graceful at switching back and forth between display modes.
I no longer use Camera360 Ultimate. It took a nose dive in quality with a recent release and started freezing up. I eventually deleted it. Other cameras have image stabilization now.
CamScanner – This is a convenience app that packages up using your camera to capture images of receipts and labels and business cards and so on. It turns them into pdf and allows you to share them via email and other social media or just save them to your sd card. I find that I use this nearly every day. I use this to capture handwritten notes, nutrition info from labels, and any written material I want to save and not have to carry with me on paper.
Chrome – The Chrome web browser for Android phones. I use this less than half the time on Cyanogenmod 10. I use the standard browser, which is quite good in 4.1.2 most of the time. Xscope and Dolphin didn’t catch up on ICS soon enough and lost my mind share. I use them occasionally, but not so much any more on my GS2. On my Kindle Fire, I use Dolphin. It’s the best browser for running on the stock ROM.
City Guides Catalog – I use this to install guides to various cities that I visit. Wish there were guides for more cities.
Clojure – A Lisp for your phone. How cool is that?
Cloud Print – Hmmm. Still deciding about this one. Allows me to print to cloud printers from my phone. It’s sometimes unreliable.
ConnectBot – I am geeky enough to need an ssh client on my phone. If you know what that is, this is a good free version.
Disk Usage – What is using up all my SD card space? This is how I find out.
Dolphin Browser / Reader – I have four web browsers. Sometimes I use this one but mostly I use the stock browser and Chrome. I use Dolphin on the Kindle Fire; Silk stinks but Dolphin is fine. I use the Desktop Toggles and Compact Page Toggles plug-ins.
Drive – Google Docs/Drive is very convenient, though imperfect. This is sometimes better than using it from the web browser; other times the web browser can display tables that the app cannot.
DropBox – A way to store and save files in the cloud.
Earth – Explore the earth using Google’s software.
Elixir, Elixir 2 and various add-on modules – Excellent window into everything on your phone. High nerd appeal. I install a lot of the extra modules.
ES File Explorer – An excellent file system browser with root capability and good SMB support for network browsing.
EverNote – I am using this as my standard way to take notes and save them. I don’t like that it is not integrated into the rest of my filing system. But it is very good. Still thinking about where this goes long term. I think Google should buy them and integrate it will Google Drive.
EveryTrail – Cool software that allows you to download maps of hiking trails to carry and access from your phone.
ezPDF Reader – I want to read PDF files. This was my solution. So far, so good.
FaithLife – Another Logos app. Has some good Bible study content if you can still get it free.
Fast Burst Camera – an app for taking a series of quick pictures in succession. I don’t use it very much.
Fing – a tool for exploring LAN’s
FIOS Remote – Sometimes Susie can’t find the remote. Other times she has it and I want it but am too lazy to go get it. This is the answer. I always have my phone, so I can always control the Verizon DVR, which I don’t like nearly as much as my TIVO. (But Susie likes it better.)
First Aid – Just what it says it is. A guide to, that is.
FlightTrack – Easy real-time flight tracking for all the flights that matter to you. Not free.
FX, FX Root Access – This is the best file manager for Android now. However, I have trouble getting it to access Windows network shares unless they are on Samba. For just managing your phone’s files, this is the ticket. Root access won’t be free once they exit beta-testing.
FxCamera – a camera app with various special effects. I use it occasionally.
Gesture Search – A Google app for searching your app by drawing letters on the screen. Nice quick access, but I always forget to use it.
Gmail – Indispensable once I got mad enough to abandon Outlook. And Gmail has fantastic spam filtering built in, so I can give up managing my own mail server. The phone access to my mail archives once I switched them over (no mean trick) is a “how did I ever live without this” kind of thing. I live by email and having it all available through my phone is a huge win. I recommend the two-factor authentication for Gmail and Drive, but only if you take the time to understand it in advance. Be sure and get the emergency access codes for your account if you set this up, even if you don’t know how to use them. And be sure and set up an emergency contact number for backup delivery of access codes. If you ever need them, you will be very glad to have them.
Go Contacts EX – I like the stock TouchWiz Contacts better than Cyanogenmod’s Contacts, but other things lagged. So I upgraded Cyanogenmod with this. Nice!
Go Launcher EX – I use this instead of the default launcher, both on the stock Samsung ROM and on Cyanogenmod.
Go SMS Pro (and Simple Blue Theme) – Got it free from Amazon. Great SMS app. It includes backup of your text messages, something that often comes as a separate app.
Google Play Books, Movies & TV, Music – Google’s apps for purchasing media and using it.
Google+ – Your phone client for accessing Google+. A nice way to get your photos backed up online, if you can handle the battery drain and the data usage.
Google Sky Map – Cool map of the sky… “Where’s Orion’s belt again? Oh, over there.”
Google Voice – Stop using your phone service’s voice mail and start using Google Voice. It will transcribe your messages and email them to you. T-mobile’s visual voice mail is problematic; I gave up on it.
GPS Share – Decide to share your location with other people of your choice. “Where are you? I’m HERE! (send location)”
Hacker’s Keyboard – You too can type like a programmer! If you ever want to run emacs or its ilk on your phone, you need this. If you never heard of emacs, then you probably don’t need this. It’s kind of a full function keyboard instead of the stripped down keyboard for texting and data entry.
HDR Camera+ – Takes several pictures at different exposures and then merges the results to get one picture, so you don’t lose the darkest and lightest details. Not great, but sometimes allows you to take pictures you can’t get otherwise.
History Here – An app that lets you find sites of historical interest wherever you are. Great for history nerd vacationing.
iBird Yard + – Want to know what that bird is in your North American yard?
Instagram – easily share pix. Very popular, but has limitations.
KeePassDroid – This is a password keeper that supports Android and Windows and more. It provides a good way to keep track of your passwords and use different passwords for your various logins.
Logos – It’s over for OliveTree. They’re kind of lame in comparison.
Kingsoft Office – the free version reads Office docs on your phone – but without editing.
LauncherPro – I used to use this, but so far stick with Go Launcher EX.
Logos – Use your logos books from your phone! Very nice.
Lookout – This is the best security software for Android last time I checked it out, which was months ago. Working well. It scans apps for safety (not something I was thinking I needed), but the nice thing is the ability to track down your phone from the web when it is lost and lock it or wipe it clear if it is in someone else’s hands who shouldn’t have it. It also does backups.
Maps – Google Maps is great. Who needs a separate GPS? This is one of the best features of a good Android phone.
Meridian – This is the best media player that I know of. I want it to remember its place in more than one item of each type, but it doesn’t. No EQ, but you can get that from Cyanogenmod. Great features and stability for people who have their own media files and want to manipulate and play them. Updated frequently.
MoboPlayer – plays the most video formats of any video player I know of.
My Account – Just how many text message have I sent this month, anyway? This lets me answer that question.
MyPDF – Allows me to save web pages as PDF.
Ol File Manager – This file manager was required in order to select files in some other app. I don’t use it otherwise.
Pandora – Surely you and everyone else knows about Pandora radio? It is an ad-based internet “radio” station. You say, “Play music like this song by that artist” and it complies. You tell it how good it is doing. If you pay, you can skip unlimited times when you don’t like what it plays. If you don’t pay, skipping is limited. Occasionally useful for me. Others use it constantly.
Paper Camera – Takes pictures and applies special effects to make them cool. Well, sometimes the effects are cool. Sort of makes the picture look like a comic strip.
Pinterest – Use Pinterest through an app. Not critical. The web page works pretty well on Android too.
PowerAmp – a really nice audio app. I find that I use different apps for different listening or watching contexts. This allows me to resume one context while leaving another intact. Listen to audio on PowerAmp. Stop and watch video on Meridian. Then finish listening to audio on PowerAmp from where I left off without searching. This should just work in Meridian this way; but it does not. Context is lost too easily. And now that I have PowerAmp I like it! Lots of control over the sound. I purchased the full version.
Pudding Camera – Yet another camera that I sometimes use. Mostly I use the stock app in Cyanogenmod 10.
QuickBoot – You need to be rooted to use this. It lets you reboot your phone from an app screen.
QuickPic – Fast gallery replacement for viewing photos.
QuickSSHd – Truly a geek toy. Let’s me connect to my phone via ssh. Would you like to type linux shell commands to your phone?
ROM Manager – The best ROM manager. I finally paid for the pro version that notifies me when a new cyanogenmod ROM is available. I don’t really need this a lot, but the guy deserves to be paid. Very nice software, except that clearing the cache on the Galaxy S2 for T-Mobile didn’t work when I moved to Cyanogenmod. This cost me a full day of effort to figure out and solve, which makes me grumpy.
Samba File Sharing – This is how I access the file system on my phone over the network now. Let’s me get files from my phone and put media files to listen to or watch on my phone. Was far better than other options; but after 4.1.2 it seems to be broken. Occasionally punks out after copying many large video files to the phone, but not often. Seems to be less reliable with a tendency to take over the phone since moving to ICS.
Schemer – I don’t use this so much. It’s kind of an “I’d like to do this” list and a way to see what other people like to do.
ScoreMobile – lets me track sports teams I like
Sensorly – Lets me see and contribute to coverage maps from an independent source.
Skitch – Anotate pictures, useful with EverNote.
Skype – I haven’t used Skype so much lately. My international call volume is down.
Smart Tools – Measuring tools for your phone. Very cool to play with. Useful? Hmmm. Soft of, if you don’t need precision. “It’s about 12 feet to that wall over there.”
StopWatch & Timer – Just what it says it is.
Street View – Adds street view to Google maps.
Subsonic – I am such a nerd that I run a freeware subsonic server on linux to serve my entire library of audio and video. This is the client for Android. So why do I use the Amazon Cloud, you ask? Good question. Exploring. Redundancy. (You need to restart the linux server with a cron job every few hours or it will go belly up and stop responding.)
Swype – By far the best keyboard for Android. Take the short time to get used to it; you will become much faster at typing, not need a hardware keyboard, and hate having to live without it. Swype is not perfect. There are some tricks it could learn from the stock keyboard even, and certainly from SwiftKey. Even from Smart. But still the best.
Sygic – navigation software from eastern Europe. Cheaper than other offline alternatives and works OK. I prefer Google Maps and Nav when available, but they are not operable offline. Yes, I know about downloading Google maps for offline access. That’s nice, but not good enough.
SystemPanel – A very nice app backup and management tool. Somewhat redundant with Elixir. Will also do app backup.
TED – One way to watch TED video on your phone. Only TED stuff.
TextWarrior – Geeky test editor. Not super fast, but works well enough for me to search files and update my text file notes.
Titanium Backup PRO – This is the way to get rid of the apps you don’t want from a rooted stock ROM from T-Mobile or whomever. It also does nice backup work, sometimes. My results have been mixed when it comes to backup. It works, but the backups are not so useful in my experience.
TivoRemote – This is the remote from my Tivo. Very nice. Not from the Tivo company; not free.
TVFoodie, TVFoodMaps – This is how you remember and find all those cool places to eat that you saw on the Food Channel. It is easier than the web.
Tweetdeck – This is the tweeting and facebook status client I’ve settled on so far. Not perfect, but better than the competition so far. I admit I have not explored other options for months. I finally removed Facebook coverage from it because it was just too much and not well-enough integrated with Facebook.
UrbanSpoon – I like to find new restaurants. This helps.
Ustream – a Ustream client. I watches the Mars Curiosity landing coverage from NASA using this, for example. And this is how you check what is going on in the LBFC sanctuary on Sunday.
Vyrso – I have this new reader from Logos. I’m not sure why I want it, but I like the Logos app and decided to give it a shot. So far, I don’t use it.
Wifi Analyzer and Wifi Connector Library – I maintain wifi networks. I like being able to find out what is happening in wifiland around me. And so…
WW Mobile – My dirty little secret… Ironically, this is about the fattest app that is on my phone. This is not good engineering, but it mostly works.
XScope Pro – This is a fast Android web browser. Did I mention that I started using it on my G1? Definitely liked it better than Dolphin back then, which is also not bad. I paid for this. Now, I use the stock browser and Chrome more than anything. I use Dolphin on the Kindle Fire; Silk stinks.
YouTube – Nice youtube client.