One in Seven.

On Monday, August 27th, one in seven people in the world were using Facebook.  At the same time.  One billion simultaneous users.

Regardless of your personal feelings for Facebook, that's quite an accomplishment, both from the human connection point of view and from a technical perspective.  

Source.

Best Sprint Direct2You Sweepstakes photo

This one wins the internets:

#Direct2You #Sweepstakes Great service. Everyone should do this. pic.twitter.com/2TD4hrkXcA

— Misty Richmond (@MDRichmo) September 23, 2015

Learning GIMP

Trying to use GIMP to replace Photoshop so I did a basic image, gradient and outlined text on the image for a Facebook post for Boy Scout Troop 387.  Didn't turn out terribly bad...

Updates to Will England - the Homepage

After five more years of neglect, I updated my personal web page for Will England by adding a 'viewport' for a 'responsive design' mobile friendlyness.  Why?  Well, I've dropped nearly below the fold on Google and I'm not on the home page of Bing for a name search.

And, I had a nice meeting today with Chris from iCrossing and the Kent, the SEO expert at Sprint today who mentioned again, that they use my home page as an example of SEO done right.  But I failed them.  :-)  Thanks again for the tips (and the BBQ, Chris!)

So, sometime in 2020, I should plan my next web page update!

Day off

It's nice to get a day off once in awhile. We took the whole family to church. Later we caught up on laundry, paid bills, and had an early dinner before the wife and daughter took off for softball practice.

This weekend was supposed to be a full weekend Boy Scout camp out, but we ended up going to Schlitterbahn water park for just the day. That was definitely a good idea, because everyone was exhausted and burned by the end of the day and camping after that would have been well, painful.

Google Photos Unlimited Storage, At Reduced Quality

SO, I was curious how 'reduced' the quality was going to be on the Google Photos Unlimited Storage offer.  They claim anything up to 16 megapixels is essentially unchanged.

So I posted a photo to the unlimited storage, compared it to an iPhoto export and to the original JPEG.

Google reduced the file size to 1.1 megabytes.
iPhoto Export reduced the file size to 2.2 megabytes.
The original photo was 4.4 megabytes.

All photos remained 16 megapixels in size at 72dpi.

But how does it look at 100% crop?

See for yourself - which image is original, and which came from Googles' compression?

I'm satisfied.





(spoiler: Left is Google, Center is original, right is iPhoto export)

It's raining

Seems to be raining this Fourth day of August.

My First Visit to Bartle

Back in April of 2009, I rode the Ducati out on some Missouri back roads and found a little town at the intersection of C, U and ZZ roads.  Just past there was a scout ranch.  It was early season and I figured they were closed - but I went a bit down the road and shot a photo of the Duc at the visitors center parking lot:

Bartle Summer Camp 2015

Not been blogging much - not sure what to write anymore.  I got busy.  That's it - I got busy doing summer and camp things.  So I'll write about what I was busy with.

This summer was my fourth year back to the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation - and Alec's fourth year.  Through hard work and a good scouting attitude (at least at Scouts) he was chosen to join the tribe of Mic O Say - the honor camping program at Bartle!  (Alec is on the left)

I wasn't even sure about camp this year - I'd just completed a week as Daycamp Director; Nikki had been out for 3 weeks at the Bahamas and Powederhorn training class and I was feeling a bit fragile.  And Nikki had signed me up for the Outdoor Leader / Assistant Scoutmaster classes while I was at camp.  So I had to pack for Hunter, Alec, and two sets of gear for me - one for in camp, and another for the 36 hour outdoor skills class.

To top it off I'd dropped tobacco cigarettes on July 1, switching to electronic vaporizers, so I had more stuff to concern myself with.

Packing was a cluster fuck to say the least, just jamming random crap in the bag and leaving the garage a bloody mess.  3 weeks back from camp and I still haven't put that back together.  Sleeping was optional at camp; hot and damp to begin with and I decided to go cold turkey from the prescription and liquid relaxation devices for the week of camp.  First few nights were spent awake, listening to the wild life.  Then up at 5:30 to get coffee and clean up trash that the raccoons had scattered.

But all turned out well - the OLS class was excellent, with superior leadership from Dave Allen, Chieftan in the Tribe and Nick Badgerow, the train-the-trainer wizard from the council.  He's also a hard core backpacking guy so I was able to pick his brains for tips and ideas for the upcoming Yellowstone trek.

The other students in the class were almost all first year parents.  I volunteered as patrol leader, and the other class members taught me something important - as a leader, it's not my job to do all the work, but to simply ensure it gets done.  Delegate, supervise and contribute only where needed.  They were offended when I tried to help - it implied to them that I didn't think they were able to get the job done on their own!  Excellent lesson in leadership.

After getting through OLS, I seem to have begun to relax and slept more at night.  Alec survived his two nights in the woods contemplating his obligations and completed his brave ceremony successfully. I even had some quiet time and made a new friend or two!

A good year at H. Roe Bartle.  I will be back next year as Assistant Camp Master.

Photos Test

A geek in a cube.

Same geek.  Same mirror.  Different cube.  10 years later.  Inspired by this post of October 2005.

Spring Break - Day 6 Thursday

Rainy day,  kids budget busted.  Indoor play most of the day while Nikki and I went up and bought a 2004 Nissan Frontier pickup. Old,  reliable and one owner.  Matches the van. 

Nikki and Robyn went to an Archery event with their Venture Crew, and Hunter, Mason and I took the new truck to Merrybelle's to get her trash taken out.  Then up to the pool for an hour of swimming, followed by Quick Trip donuts. 

Home,  worn out and down to bed.

A good day.

Spring Break, Day 4

Wednesday. A blur of a day.  I remember we sold Nikki's 2011 CBR for the asking price to a nice young girl from St.  Joseph, MO.  Beyond that - it's right fuzzy. I think I got the  turntable set up in the garage.  Played Pink Floyd, A Momentary Lapse of Reason as the first record on the new setup.

Hunter had friends over and rode bikes around the neighborhood. Alec had Chris over from across the street.  Mason had Lizzy over,  also from across the street.

Full,  fantastic family busy day.

Spring Break, Day 3

Today - mainly focused on maintaining hardware.  Took mom's Honda mower to the shop for the hard starting problem. Changed the oil and plug on the Toro and sharpened the blade.  Cleaning the garage - 2 boxes of stuff to moms for long term storage. Got a small bit of progress toward setting up the turntable in the garage for analog playback over the Klipsch La Scala's.

Nikki is nearly done with stripping and repainting her Trek bike! Looking great...

Loaded up the family for  ice cream -  supposed to be free cone day at Dairy Queen but the lines were too long.  Russell Stover serves Blue Bell ice cream and with the current Listeria scandal,  they aren't serving ice cream.  So  off to A&W  for root beer floats!

Kids rode bikes all day up to the school and back and up again.  They sure like bike riding...  Finally finding some freedom and empowerment.

Dominick came over tonight to visit Hunter - without parent! Rode his bike all the way up here -  nearly a mile from his house.  They watched some movie and Nikki took them back home.

Several calls on the CBR's -  mostly broke folks trying to jaw me down  but two real people who'll be over tomorrow to check out the bikes...

Speaking of bikes,  Mason,  the youngest,  made a great YouTube video about why to wear a helmet when riding a bike!  Helps him complete his Cub Scout Bicycle Pin!

Found out the times for Rich's wake and service.  Alec will get to drive up to Chicago with his great Aunt and Uncle - I'll run up on near saddlesore pace to crash the wake on  the FJR.  Good way to memorialize Rich - a solid 1k ride. 

Today was a good day.

-will england

Spring Break, Day Two

Day two.  First time in a long time I have slept past 6am. Up at the crack of 9. Coffee first then sort out the mess of bills that stacked up the past two weeks. A bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul,  and we're off to the church to help the Clinton Cub Scout Pack unload and return the Pinewood Derby track.

Back from that,  fielded some calls about a family emergency - more on that another day - and then off to take inventory on the Cub Scout Daycamp storage unit.  We have more than we'd hoped - good news there,  finally!

Back home and work to catch up on laundry.  Somewhere in there I forgot to eat.  But the kids have clean clothes and clean dishes to eat from.

30 minutes and I  pick up oldest son from his mom's,  then raise a glass to a good man taken too early.

Perhaps tomorrow I shall make time for the family, instead of focusing on the world around them that they just expect to happy magically.

- will

Spring Break, Day 1

Saturday was the first day of Spring Break.  Because of changed vacation carryover policy, I had enough time banked to take the week off.  So,  for the first day of Spring break, I got up at 5 am, drove down to Clinton, MO and helped the Cub Scout Pack there set up and run their Pinewood Derby.  First time they've ever had one!

Very neat experience - great volunteer parents and the scouts were all very well behaved.  Everyone had a great time,  you humble author included.

After? Costco run,  then nap.  Finished the evening out reading in bed with my wife beside me watching a movie on her laptop.

A good day.

Learning the Edge (The Galaxy Note Edge, that is)

The wraparound edge screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is a unique and curious design element on this phone.  I've just gotten my Note Edge and am working on learning what you use it for!  From PhoneDog.com, you can get to:

•     App settings and Shortcuts
•     Favorite Apps
•     Settings, including music controls, contacts, etc
•     Glowing edge wallpaper while the main screen is off
•     News ticker with scores, stocks etc
•     A night clock

This YouTube video illustrates a lot of the cool things you can do with the Edge screen - I'll be re-watching this as I learn more and play with the phone over the next few weeks:

Charging Up the Samsung Note Edge

The Samsung Galaxy Note Edge was one of the first phones with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset offering a ton of improvements and massive speed.  One of the nicer features for the rest of us is Quick Charge 2.0.  Quick Charge 2.0 offers communication between the phone, battery and charger brick to increase the voltage that the charger brick delivers to the phone.  Higher voltage means a faster charging rate.  Take a look at this graphic from Qualcomm illustrating a 30 minute charge:

With Quick Charge 2.0 you can get nearly a full charge in less than an hour - even 15 minutes of charging will get you several hours of usable battery out of the Note 4!

- Will England

Nexus 6 as a Phone

The Nexus 6 is known for it's fantastic software, top of the line hardware, brilliant screen and camera.  The Google integration is top of the line.  As a data device and tablet it's nearly perfect.  But how does it work as a phone?

Pretty well really.  Calls complete quickly and the voice clarity is excellent.  Handset sound is clear and loud.  The dialer is unique and offers a great view into your contacts, letting you see frequently accessed contacts and a quick and functional search. No more scrolling through hundreds of contacts!  Each contact has their profile image from connected social networks and you can text, email or call them from the dialer screen.  The search at the top of the dialer screen searches both your contacts and local places - a very nice touch for calling nearby businesses.

I have found a few quirks in the phone though - switching from headset or handset audio to speaker has a noticeable delay in raising the audio level.  The proximity sensor is just wonky - sometimes after I take the phone away from my head, the screen remains black; sometimes when I'm holding the phone against my face the screen lights back up.  Normally not an issue, because with a phone this big I'll use my bluetooth handset more than holding it against my face.  Another delay is in the ring tone for incoming calls - it starts to play the ringtone, pauses a second, then restarts the ringtone.  Another minor software bug, but it should be fixed in a future update.

An interesting new feature is 'Caller ID by Google'.  This is a feature on the Nexus that uses reverse lookup over the web when a call comes in to identify who is calling based on web records of the phone number.

The messaging app works well, opening quickly and showing nicely threaded contacts.  Occasionally, you will get a bug pop up where an SMS will be re-sent several times.  Sprint and Motorola are working on a fix for that and it should be delivered in a future software update. In the messaging app, you can touch the contact icon and get a quick overview of their contact information.

Call network quality is one of the best I've found - even in known low-signal areas I have yet to drop a call.  Super solid radio performance for phone calls.

In a nutshell?  Even with a couple bugs, it's a great phone experience!

- Will England



Disclaimer: The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PAs do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.

Nexus 6: Camera Authority

I'm a big shutterbug - I've been learning about and playing with photography since grade school, even having built my own camera obscura.  I always like to test out the cameras on the phones I use.  I take a lot of sports and action photos from the kids, lots of nature photos while I'm out hiking and riding, and the obligatory cat photos when I'm home.  Most cell phone cameras have been fair at best - poor detail, washed out colors or slow.  The Nexus is none of those.  While the camera functions are relatively basic, offering only HDR+, Photosphere and Panoramic modes, the camera itself is fantastic.

As you can see in this snapshot of my Random cat, the clarity and detail is uncanny.  Each whisker and hair is captured clearly.  At a 100% crop there's no color fringing or purple edging at the high contrast areas between the dark background and the bright sunlit cat.  The many different layers of grey and hints of yellow and brown all come through with excellent clarity.

Depth of field is interesting too - this shot was at F2.0, and you actually get some background blurring and depth of field from a small sensor cell phone camera.

Running a 1/3.06" Sony CMOS sensor at 13 megapixels, the Nexus can open up to F2.0 for excellent low-light performance.  The flash uses dual LED's on the back encased in a ring for more even lighting and better flash performance.  It even offers optical image stabilization for less shake and blur when you're shooting those low-light photos!


Disclaimer: I work for Sprint and volunteer as a Product Ambassador.  The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.

Migrating to the Google Nexus 6

As part of the Sprint Product Ambassador team, I get called to test and review different phones about every two months. As such, I'm constantly swapping devices, updating software and re-downloading my standard apps from Google Play.  Usually takes a couple hours of work each time I swap phones.

Courtesy Marques Brownlee

I was pleasantly surprised with the Nexus 6 - after activating the radios, and signing into my Google account, I found that two-factor authentication is built into Android 5 lollipop.  Two factor authentication means Google will send an SMS with a unique code to devices that you haven't used before.  This helps keep your account safe.  With Android 5 on the Nexus, this is built right into the setup procedure, eliminating waiting on an SMS and copying the code from screen to screen.

The next pleasant surprise was with my apps. Switching phones frequently, I've always checked the 'back up my settings to Google', but never found any benefit to this in the past.  With Lollipop on the Nexus, the phone prompted me to restore my apps and settings from the Google Play store!  Selecting just what I needed on this phone, I clicked through and after about 30 minutes of data intensive downloading, all my apps were re-loaded on the phone.

Google has provided a knockout piece of hardware and with the improved setup in Android 5 Lollipop, I think this is going to be a great phone and a great test run!  Stay tuned for more impressions.




Disclaimer: I work for Sprint and volunteer as a Product Ambassador.  The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee.