Updating the FaceBook application on the HTC HD2

Mar 19th

Posted by Aprazeth in Geek Stuff

One of the things I noticed on the HD2 as soon as I unpacked it, is the seemingly old version of Facebook that came installed. Mind you, I am running the latest version of the ROM from http://www.htc.com/nl/supportdownloadlist.aspx?p_id=297&act=sd&cat=2. The actual download-page for the ROM upgrade will also tell you how to confirm which version you are running of the ROM (which is easy to check via Start > Settings > System Information (or Software) and then version.) Note that the download-link is for the Dutch HD2 ROM. Please use the HTC Support site of your country to find the appropriate one for yours.

The version of Facebook Mobile that was installed was version 1.0.0.7 (from the top of my head) You can verify your version by going into Facebook, then at the home-page click Menu followed by About.

Now to upgrade to a higher version, you can use Microsoft Marketplace (which should already be installed on your phone) Simply search for Facebook and it should find it. Install it as normal of course (as a tip; be sure to set Microsoft Marketplace to store it’s files on your SD-card)

If however it doesn’t, click on Menu followed by Settings. Change the region to United States – English and click on Save. Now try the search again and it should find it just fine.

I have of course made sure that the HTC Sense UI still maintained the Facebook functionality amongst my contacts – which I find incredibly handy. It of course did – and I have since rebooted the phone (You might be asked to reboot your device as well)

So now I am running with a far more usable version of Facebook mobile on my HD2. Oddly enough the app still is in Dutch, but you can’t have your cake and eat it :-)

, , , , , ,

Update on site search using Bing

Mar 18th

Posted by Aprazeth in Geek Stuff

As I mentioned earlier, I have implemented Bing Search as the search-mechanism for this site. However, as you might notice – it doesn’t find anything yet. Oddly enough it seems that Google has already indexed my site again – and everything from that end works correctly.

In short; please be patient as I continue to try and get the Bing Search to work.

I am quite sure that some of you are wondering why I would use Bing Search as opposed to Google Search. Well, simply put – Google has more then enough of my data already. It’s time to split some of it up. Bing in itself is quite a nice engine, be it a bit picky. I’m sure we’ll get that sorted though :-)

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

PS: Don’t forget to subscribe using RSS to keep up-to-date on the news here.

, ,

HTC HD2 Day 1 conclusions

Mar 17th

Posted by Aprazeth in Geek Stuff

Well, today concludes the first day with the HTC HD2.

Overall, I am a happy consumer. However, just like with everything I have some pet peeves with it:

  • Installing Google Mobile made the device incredibly slow. Uninstalling and then rebooting the phone did not fix it. So I had to resort to the hard reset option (source: HTC HD2 Leo Hard reset – Soft reset.) Not so happy with that. I am happy with how fast I could get my stuff back (Microsoft My Phone and the Google Active Sync took care of that)
  • The screen is like a magnet for finger-smearing… ;-)
  • Although not specifically the phone that caused it; I had to setup a completely empty Windows Mobile Device Center profile (with nothing ticked) so WMDC on my PC wouldn’t keep bouncing up and down like a Jack Russel on crack every time I connected the phone.
  • I also noticed when manually setting up the Active-sync profile SMS syncing was showing. So far I haven’t found anything on this matter from Google, so I am not using it (anyone?)
  • It doesn’t use the storage-card for message/attachment storing by default.
  • I’ll admit that it’s not as big of an annoyance as I first thought it would be – but it’s in Dutch, which I am of course. But still!
, , , , , ,

Setting up a HTC HD2 to sync with Google Mail, Contacts and Calendar

Mar 16th

Posted by Aprazeth in Geek Stuff

Since I just got my HTC HD2 – which by the way is absolutely gorgeous – I had to set it up to retrieve all of my contacts, appointments and emails. All of these are hosted on Google.

Here is how to set up the HTC HD2 (which is a Windows Mobile phone) to sync with Google (for GMail, Contacts and Calendar)

Setting Up Your Windows Mobile Phone for Google Sync : Mail, Calendar & Contacts Sync – Google Mobile Help. (via: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=07d0ffdde51ec2ab&hl=en

Just plain awesome…

—– Update 18 March 2010 ——
In case the Google help page doesn’t work, is offline, or if you are just too lazy ;-)

—– Copied from Google Help page ——

To set up Google Sync on your Windows Mobile device, please follow the steps below.

Important Note: Make sure that you have backed up any Contacts and Calendars from your phone to your computer before proceeding.

Getting Started
1. Open the Active Sync application on your device’s home screen
2. Click Set up your device to sync with it.
3. Enter m.google.com as the server address.
4. Ensure that the SSL option is selected.
5. Click Next.
6. Enter your full Google Account email address as the User name.
7. Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
8. Leave the Domain field empty. If your device requires you to enter a domain name, enter google.
9. Click Next.
10. Check Contacts, Calendar, or Email, depending on which you’d like to sync. (Tasks is not supported and will lead to an error if checked.)
11. Click Finish.
12. Press the Sync softkey on the left to synchronize.

You’ve now set up Google Sync for your Windows Mobile device.

Hope this helps!

, , , , , , , , ,

Optimizing the site a bit

Mar 15th

Posted by Aprazeth in Geek Stuff

Well as some of you may notice – and some of you may not – I have changed the site a bit again. First thing you might notice is the different theme. I decided to drop the graphics-intensive theme (as fast as it was) and went with a more minimalistic theme, which should speed up the place.

I have also implemented 2 new plugins that help in saving your bandwidth (as well as mine) First off, all content is now GZIP-ed before it is sent to your browser. A conserved estimate indicates that this will decrease bandwidth-consumption by 70% or more (Source: http://ismyblogworking.com/www.majoraap.com)

The second plug-in to be installed is one that enables HTTP header 304 support. This means that the site now accurately relays to your browser (FireFox, Internet Explorer, Chrome etc.) or feed-reader (such as Google Reader) whether or not the page or feed has been altered. If it hasn’t your program will not initiate a download of the content (only the header is sent/received)

304 Not Modified
Indicates the resource has not been modified since last requested.[2] Typically, the HTTP client provides a header like the If-Modified-Since header to provide a time against which to compare. Utilizing this saves bandwidth and reprocessing on both the server and client, as only the header data must be sent and received in comparison to the entirety of the page being re-processed by the server, then resent using more bandwidth of the server and client.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_304#3xx_Redirection

With both of these in place I hope to make the place a bit faster and easier for all of you.

Apart from all of these I have also implemented a new archiving structure, so old posts might give a 404 error (in case it does, you will be automatically redirected to the front page) The new structure will make it a lot more clear what the posts is about (for example: /archives/245 versus /optimize-your-site-for-google-245) This will also help the search-engines better understand the website and index it correctly.

Speaking of which; even though I still use Google Analytics on this site, I have programmed my own (based on the one provided by Microsoft, altered by W3C HTML Tidy) Bing search box.

However Bing has not yet indexed my site correctly. Seeing as Google’s current index of my site is also broken, I really had no alternative. The WordPress default widget is not XHTML 1.1 transitional compliant – however the rest of MajorAap.com is (Source: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.majoraap.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.767)

I hope that this ‘small’ changes will help in making the site a bit more enjoyable for all of us.

Links of interest;
Microsoft / Bing
http://webmaster.bing.com – Bing’s Webmaster program. Submit your site and optimize it for Bing (and other search-engines)
http://www.microsoft.com/search/Tools/default.aspx – Microsoft Research tool to test HTTP Compression and Conditional get-requests on your site (GZIP and HTTP 304 support)

Google
http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf – A great starter on SEO tips.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools – Google’s Webmaster program. Submit your site to Google, analysis and other helpful tips.

, , , ,
« First...«23456»102030...Last »