It’s funny how Linode did the recent storage space increase in late 2012.

For whichever reasons, in order to resize a virtual HDD in Linode even outside of this specific occurrence, the user would first have to shutdown their Linode server. As such, the increase cannot be applied to every server automatically.

As a paying end user, I somehow didn’t get any emails about this increase, even though Linode always sends the billing emails every month etc.

Basically, what it comes down to, is that they have made this increase exclusively for new users, but at the same time, any old user can also get the offer essentially for “free” and without having to bother support: simply shutdown your Linode, resize the virtual HDD through a simple web-interface, and boot up again.

But existing customers who are simply happy and don’t check the news, will continue to receive the old offer and old HDD space. Basically, a win-win for everyone, and the space increase is effectively elastic.

I think their trick in doing such an increase in the first place comes down to not actually notifying and encouraging existing customers to do the upgrade (although at the same time making it effortlessly easy to do so should one specifically look for it). So, I think it is a sales trick, but quite an honest and ethical trick nonetheless. :-)

… That is not to say that Bay Area is short on capital, fibre or metro rings; but artificial shortages and price-gouging, from electricity to land, housing and real estate to retail petrol prices, is something every Californian is very much familiar with indeed. We’ve just recently lost a http://MicroCenter.com store in Silicon Valley: their landlord decided that their rent should go up from 20$/sq.ft. (which is about the market average here), to 60$/sq.ft. (in South Bay!), and MicroCenter was the second store to say “No” to this “racketeering” landlord (reportedly Verizon Wireless was first); and it’s amazing how Californian landlords would rather have prolonged vacancies than engage in any kind of community outreach (I think landlords in such cases should be prohibited from any writing-offs of unoccupied properties after such extortions); but in the end, all such retail space is owned/managed by banks and investment firms, so you get the idea why noone cares that a good member of the community, easily an anchor for some, has had to leave, and the place is likely to remain vacant until they’d lower it just enough for someone to take the bait.

After living in a small city in the south of the east coast, and then moving to the west, I can fully characterise Californian’s real estate market as essentially a good example of factory farming gone bad: corporate landlords are akin the corporate farmers that determine through statistics the number of life chickens to stuff into a cage cell. If you stuff too many chickens into a single cage, too many of them will die, and your output will be lower. If you put too few and let them be more-or-less comfortable and not completely stuck in the cage cell, then precious space is wasted. So, you find such a number that maximises output, and you don’t care if such number results in chickens still being stuck to the side of the cage and not being able to move within the cage at all, as long as they can still eat and grow. Absolutely no difference with the corporate investment landlords in California! Except the corporate landlords are even greedier, and oftentimes raise rents way above the market just for the sake of testing the water, and secretly knowing that moving and finding a new place is not free, either. So, even though the land and real estate taxes stay the same, each year the rents usually go up by, perhaps, close to the explicit and unavoidable costs of actually having to move, due to many people choosing not to. And a rent-inflation takes place; that is, until the housing market crashes (like it did in Castro Valley, for example), and private investors/owners become willing to rent at below corporate-asking-rates, yet, unsurprisingly, such “below” rates are still way above what the mortgage on a given property is (which oftentimes was bought in a short-sale at 1/3rd the prior price anyways).

For an Android StackExchange community to answer:

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I have an HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus (Google Nexus 3), and I’m very puzzled to have had zero shutter lag taken away from me with Android 4.1 and Android 4.2 over-the-air “upgrades”. It worked fine and as expected with 4.0, but no more with nether 4.1 nor 4.2.

With 4.1, it very often took me several seconds of wrongly-timed automatic re-focusing after I press the shutter to take any kind of picture. Moreover, on such occasions, it was unclear whether or not the shutter button has registered, so, I’d often end up with several useless pictures taken milliseconds away from each other, after the initial interesting moment which I actually wanted to capture is already gone, since the useless delay for bogus after-shutter re-focusing taking place. This was definitely a regression. Moreover, even in those rare cases where it didn’t have to re-focus after pressing the shutter, there was still a noticeable lag between the button press and the picture being taken. Another related regression.

With 4.2, my initial impression is that the 4.1 regression causing bogus-after-shutter-refocusing-delay seems to be gone, however, the related regression that there is still some lag is still present in 4.2, too. In addition, now with 4.2 it always takes about exactly 3 seconds for the Camera app to be ready once opened-up from the unlock screen, and, also, if you rotate the phone, there is always an extra delay of between 1 and 2 seconds during which the viewfinder is showing an outdated static image prior to the rotation. This rotation regression is completely ridiculous, and I feel utterly stupid for even having to complain about it here! No such regressions should ever find their way into final released versions of any software! Both of these two new issues are, again, regressions, now of 4.2.

(Some more details / extended rant in a tumblr.)

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In summary, these are the 4.2 and 4.1 zero-shutter-lag regressions still present with 4.2.1:

0. Always takes at least 3 seconds to open the Camera app from the unlock screen, and that’s 3 seconds after you make the gesture to unlock into Camera!

1. Physically rotating the phone between horizontal and portrait orientations (and vice versa) makes the viewfinder freeze for at least one second every time. This regression makes no sense whatsoever, and is a complete distaste that shows lack of any kind of testing or quality assurance.

2. Once the Nexus phone is still and the Camera app is running, taking a photo is seemingly done within about half-a-second of pressing the shutter, but it’s still not as close to zero as it should be, or as fast as it was with 4.0.

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I have a few questions:

0. Why are there so many regressions in 4.1 and 4.2 for a feature that was explicitly the main anchor feature of Android 4.0 and Galaxy Nexus?

1. Does Google have no Quality Assurance testing of basic functionalities of Android at all? Or is any feedback about regressions gets /dev/null’ed for the sake of new fancy features?

2. What can I do to get the advertised zero-shutter-lag back to its proper state of actually being there? Or is 4.1 and 4.2 unofficially officially no longer zero-shutter-lag friendly? What’s the point of having an anchor feature for just one release? Bait-and-switch? Can I trade Photo Sphere for Zero Shutter Lag?

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camera default-application 4.0-ice-cream-sandwich regression

http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/36727/why-4-0-zero-shutter-lag-feature-is-no-more-with-jelly-bean-4-1-or-4-2

When I got my Galaxy Nexus / Google Nexus 3, I was very pleased that the advertised Zero Shutter Lag feature of Camera was indeed delivered with the Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”. It worked great, was really fast, and seemed truly zero shutter lag for most practical purposes from my non-systemic non-comparison testing and actual extended usage for a couple of months.

But that was only with Android 4.0 that Galaxy Nexus shipped with.

After doing the over-the-air upgrade of the phone to Android 4.1, the “zero shutter lag” was all but gone: you’re lucky if the photo will be taken the same second, sometimes the new focusing-related delay is more than 2 or 3 seconds! And you never know whether the shutter button press was registered or not when these delays are taking place, so, you end up missing the action, but then two (or three, or more) irrelevant shots are taken milliseconds apart a couple of seconds later! And that’s on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor with a whole 1GB of fast and plentiful memory! Seriously, WTF? Don’t they have a regression testing team that can stop this kind of regressions at Google Android?

With 4.2, the way you get into the camera app from the lock screen has now changed (even though technically both 4.1 and 4.2 are supposed to be the same “Jelly Bean” release). To get into the app with 4.2, you swipe the whole screen from right to left, instead of the lock button from bottom middle to the left. However, now it takes about exactly 3 seconds for the camera app to start. WTF? Another zero-shutter-lag-related regression? AGAIN? They’ve finally seemed to have fixed the 4.1 regression where zero shutter lag itself was completely gone due to a bogus re-focusing logic, but now it takes like 5 seconds to get into the app in the first place, so, the post-Android-4.0-phone is still pointless to be used as a camera!

Moreover, even once the camera app is open with 4.2, it still takes longer to take any individual picture than it was with 4.0, and although shutter lag no longer seems to exceed one second, it is still definitely far from zero, either; even though time is no longer wasted for extended re-focusing as it was with 4.1.

Also with 4.2, the interface for changing camera options is now completely ridiculous: a circle menu lets you go into sub-circle sub-menus, but pressing “back” whilst in a subcircle submenu cancels the whole menu, so, can’t see/change all settings right away, and have to go and open that original circle menu once over again afresh; also when you try changing the settings in a sub-circle sub-menu, it’s not shown what the setting is currently set at. Hello? Did someone skip UI Design 101? This whole thing is just another 4.2 regression.

Yet another annoying and ridiculous 4.2 regression in regards to Camera: when you physically rotate the phone from horizontal to vertical, or vice-versa, there is now a delay of at least one second when the are absolutely no updates to the viewfinder, and the whole app has to be rotated to accommodate the new orientation. WTF? Seriously, WTF? No, I’m serious, WTF? THIS IS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY AND UNACCEPTABLE! And the most ridiculous regression yet! I have no clue what their product managers are doing, or whether any kind of QA is in place at all whatsoever, or whether such things brought up by QA get taken seriously, but I literally have no words to describe such level of incompetence regarding such a plentiful of regressions, and especially this one. It’s completely beyond me why the old way of only rotating the buttons themselves is no longer possible with 4.2, and why any kind of rotation at all is worth between 1 and 2 seconds of viewfinder being offline!

BTW, it’s not like with the old 4.0 everything was very smooth, either: it was very cumbersome to actually see the pictures that you take, so, it’s not like 4.0 camera app was perfect.

Nonetheless, it’s amazing how an explicitly advertised feature of Android 4.0 and Galaxy Nexus (Google Nexus 3), “zero shutter lag”, just gets thrown out so quickly and stricken by just so many regression with every release ever since!

Google, when will I get my promised zero shutter lag back? Why is 4.2 and 4.1 are both so much worse than 4.0 in regards to zero shutter lag? It did work as advertised with 4.0, why did you have to introduce so many various camera-related regressions with 4.1 and 4.2?

Google, can you please take you useless Photo Sphere back, and give me the promised and usable zero shutter lag back?

Well, I’ve upgraded from 4.1 to 4.2 on my Google Nexus 3, aka Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

* Screen lock is again different. They broke the date localisation on the lock screen: shows up as “Tue, January 1” instead of “Tue, 1 January”, although in the Notification Screen, still shows correctly as “Tue, 1 January”. A regression. Also, what’s up with the hour now being bolded out? Looks so weird and ugly, seriously!

* Finally the clock app has a timer and a stop-watch functionality! An Android 4.2 addition, a brand new feature introduced in late 2012! Can you believe it? In general, it’s amazing how smart-phones are still inferior in many ways to the bar-phones that are a decade old. Just one other example: I could change the capitalisation of a word on my old bar-phone — select a word, and press the capitalisation key — but can no longer do so with an iOS or an Android smartphone! (Bluetooth regressions when switching to a smartphone is another thing many have complained about in the recent years, and it looks like many Bluetooth regressions are still to be addressed; I’m absolutely positive that all my old barphones still have better Bluetooth support than the new iOS and Android.)

* The unlock button can now unlock the phone into any direction! As if the previous unlocking didn’t have a load of false-positives when you put the phone into the pocket with it is still displaying the unlock screen (with 4.1, it would always unlock into that google search thingy right as you place it into your pocket). Now there is also no more slide-the-lock-to-the-left-for-camera motion, you have to swipe from the right side to get Camera.

* Camera app gets slower with each release! Now with 4.2, they’ve finally fixed the 4.1 regression of the lack of 4.0-advertised zero-shutter lag, but now it’s impossible to get into the camera app itself without a delay of like 5 seconds! Yes, after you slide into the camera app from the lock screen, it now takes about 3 to 5 seconds before you can actually see the camera app being ready to take any pictures! Absolutely nuts! How can people use such crappy software? Why would I need the Photo Sphere functionality if I can no longer take regular images on the spot? The new 4.2 controls are horrible, and the new 1-second-delay during rotation of the phone is hardly welcome, either. More about Camera app is here: http://tu.cnst.su/post/39507856659/android-4-0-galaxy-nexus-zero-shutter-lag-is-gone.

* Apparently, history and all open tabs within the Browser app get completely destroyed with the upgrade from 4.1 to 4.2. WTF? Can I once again point out that both 4.1 and 4.2 even have the same code name, Jelly Bean; why does there have to be data loss like this?

* Swype-like functionality now comes stock with Android 4.2! I’ve used the actual original Swype on T-Mobile myTouch 4G, and it’s a very impressive feature. After using Swype on myTouch, it was difficult to type on iPhone again! :-) So, the Gesture Typing feature in 4.2 is very-very welcome, indeed. This is one very useful thing that will be setting Google Android 4.2 apart from iOS; however, it’s still disappointing to be dealing with some many other impurities on Android.

I’m trying to find a prepaid operator with Unlimited 3.75G internet access.

I’ve just looked at http://StraightTalk.com, Terms and Conditions, Section 6, and it seems like they prohibit using StraightTalk service with non-StraightTalk handsets, and also prohibit ANY kind of audio or video streaming.

Here’s the exact quote, with emphasis changed to point out to parts relevant to this discussion.

6. STRAIGHT TALK UNLIMITED TALK, TEXT AND MOBILE WEB ACCESS PLAN INTENDED USE: Straight Talk Unlimited Talk, Text and Mobile Web Access Plans may ONLY be used with a Straight Talk handset for the following purposes: (i) Person to Person Voice Calls (ii) Text and Picture Messaging (iii) Internet browsing through the Straight Talk Mobile Web Service and (iv) Authorized Content Downloads from the Straight Talk Mobile Web Store. The Straight Talk Unlimited Plans MAY NOT be used for any other purpose. Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) continuous mobile to mobile or mobile to landline voice calls; (ii) automated text or picture messaging to another mobile device or e-mail address; (iii) uploading, downloading or streaming of audio or video programming or games; (iv) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; or (v) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services and/or redirecting television signals for viewing on laptops is prohibited. A person engaged in prohibited uses may have his/her service terminated without notice or a refund.

What’s the point of selling micro-SIM cards and a smartphone internet plan that you cannot use?

It’s obviously clear from these Terms and Conditions that after you purchase a SIM or a micro-SIM card on their web-site, it’s illegal to use it in a Google Nexus phone, or an Apple iPhone.

I’m not familiar with StraightTalk phones, I only see they do have a couple of Android 2.3 and some 2.2 phones, but provided they do have Google Play and Netflix support, it’s illegal to use both apps, too!

What gives? Anyone experienced service disconnections, at StraightTalk’s sole discretion?

This general election season, 2012-09/2012-11-06, there were 3 ads I saw in Sacramento that have been really impressive, and are worth watching on their own, even if you don’t care about the politics involved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxs09eV-Vc — “Neighbor” (by ANN, cost
$540,000, according to http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81272.html, aired just about every day back in September).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxs09eV-Vc — “Big Bird - Obama for America TV Ad” (saw only once, in October)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON53MQUBr6w — “Jose Hernandez’s Train” (mid-to-late October)

Notice that Sacramento is in the middle of several congressional districts, so, NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez was just one of the many candidates against whom attack ads were run, yet no other attack ad would stir the attention of a passer-by; frankly, Hernandez indeed has a rather poor profile for someone running for a US office (tax liens for failing to pay unemployment taxes in Texas for his wife’s Mexican restaurant, failing to vote in several important Texas elections and ballot measures/propositions; not actually living in California for quite a number of years; his twitter feed is half Spanish), but it’s still disappointing to see that he lost to Jeff Denham.

Watching the Conan O’Brian show on TBS, the one with the “I scream, you scream, you know the rest”, supposedly some episode before the Olympics.

It’s really annoying how he keeps buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket, completely randomly during the performance, out of the blue and entirely for no reason! Moreover, he is actually very bad and unnatural about doing so!

What’s more annoying, however, is the fact that his jacket is of totally wrong size, much shorter than what it’s supposed to be. The top of the two buttons is clearly nowhere near his belly-button, and the jacket is just way too short and ugly.

How not to design an app. An example based on TV.com by CBS Interactive, Inc.

* provide all videos as 240x160 @ 15fps with a horrible audio quality; why would anyone on a smartphone with a 1280x720 screen and HSPA+ need anything more than 240x160 @ 15fps?

* make sure to do video buffering without any limits on how much of such buffering is done, even if the user is on the cellular network — buffer the whole 20 minutes of a show right away as fast as you can!

* don’t bother about making sure that auto-pause and manual-play controls actually work if the user happens to navigate outside of the app, or otherwise gets interrupted. Got a pop-up message from Android? Too bad: the video is stopped, yet the play/pause button is still in the pause display as if the show is still playing (e.g. it displays as “pause” so the user can pause the show, yet the show is already paused!); pressing the pause/play button any number of times won’t let the user resume the show.

* the user decides to exit the app to fix the play/pause issue as above? Good idea@ Are we going to use the previous buffer that had dozens of upcoming minutes of this very show pre-buffered? Of course not, we, the CBS Interactive, are not the ones paying for traffic, the end-user is!

BTW, the Netflix app, being a paid service and all, is actually even more horrible (apart from the video quality). Apparently, it just freezes and stays frozen for seconds or even minutes at a time, without any visual indication that anything is going on; doesn’t let you search for stuff by an actor (completely no results when I search for Hugh Laurie, even though the web-site does provide a number of hits, since it doesn’t restrict the search to movie titles); doesn’t let you see your instant queue; has no way to see any reviews or details of any movie (just a thought: am I the only one who cares about what is the exact country (or countries) of origin of the movies or the actual language of the dialogue in the movies from the Foreign category?). Absolutely horrible. No clue who decides on their features, but catering to the crowds, with complete disrespect for actual usefulness and user experience for any remotely intelligent user of the application, is just so annoying.

Well, at least you could use Netflix web-site to get all the categories and the details about the Foreign movies, right? Nope, their web-site is built of this stupid notion of instant gratification: they, for some god-knows-why-reason, figured that people never want to see the actual details of any movie before watching it, so, by default, clicking on a title on a web-site, attempts to start the said movie, instead of bringing a detail page about the said movie. On a PC, you can get details by doing a hover with your mouse, then clicking on the details link, but that is not something that’s possible on the phone or a tablet.

Unfortunately, users don’t really seem to have that much of a choice…

I’m really pissed that Amazon has started charging sales tax in California about a week ago this September 2012 (and they went as far as charging both the state and the local sales tax, BTW), without explicitly telling anyone about it.

Why do we, the customers, have to find out about this postfactum, from the news reports? What happened to their motto, previously outlined in their FAQ, that they fight against consumers being charged sales tax on interstate internet purchases? What happened to their founder’s vision of earning consumer trust by showing both positive and negative reviews?

Has Amazon.com lost its balls?

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On another hand, it’s funny how they got away with having a warehouse in Texas (since 2006?), yet not charging any sales tax in Texas between 2006? and 2011?. They still do that in Nevada, BTW: lots of my stuff to California gets shipped from either Arizona or Nevada, yet they charge sales tax in neither Nevada nor Arizona!