Christopher Souvey's Blog

A couple months ago, I made a 3D model of the Clock Tower in Santa Cruz and submitted it to Google Earth.  It has finally been reviewed and has been accepted into Google Earth!  If you want to see it, just search “santa cruz town clock” in Google Earth and make sure the 3D Buildings Layer is turned on. There is one strange part though, on the top roof level–the appears to be a small hole on one of the edges that looks into the untextured interior (a light blue color). I overlaid the original KMZ file on the Google Warehouse with the 3D Buildings Layer, and the problem does not occur in the original, so Google must be doing some additional form of compression on buildings added to the Google Earth layer. I’ve posted in the Google Earth Group to see if there is a fix for this, but other than that small inconsistency, it looks great!

I just released a semi-minor update to Musical with a much requested feature.  The 2-octave stacked keyboard is now mapped to the physical keyboard.  This means that the keyboard is now “multitouch” (well… you can play more that one note at once at least, although its more difficult on the keyboard than the screen).

The reason I was able to release this is because I finally gave up on Dell after they shipped me a new SSD… for my laptop… which they have (see last post) and borrowed another machine to use for developing.  I’m currently in Tahoe with a friend for a weekend of skiing (I’m posting this from my laptop tethered to my G1), and about 4 hours after we left, FedEx finally delivered my laptop.  Again, thanks Dell—a little late.  Hopefully I’ll be able to release some more updates this weekend, but it depends on how good the skiing is (it’s supposed to be pretty bad—icy and it might rain/snow).

And finally, Musical has hit 500 reviews!  It’s currently at 507 reviews (4.16/5), 33456 downloads, and 15043 installs.

Side note: Google is planning on releasing the Market in “Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, and Poland in the coming weeks”.  If anyone wants to waste 10 minutes or so, I would love to be able to translate the very limited amount of text in the app to other languages… otherwise I’ll have to either limit it to the English speaking locations or use the dreaded machine translation.

Those of you who have been keeping up with my blog know that about 3 weeks ago my Dell laptop completely died and wiped its SSD (I had backups, so nothing was lost).  Despite my pestering, Dell refused to just send me a new SSD to install myself and instead required me to send in my entire laptop.  The laptop was supposed to have been back last week.  I have received no updates at all, and their chat support hasn’t been able to do anything but assure me it will be back soon.

I finally received a package from Dell.  It was in a box smaller than my computer.  I opened it up, and there is a refurbished SSD.  No instructions, no invoice, no return label… just a small bag with an SSD.

Dell, you have just blown my mind.  You refuse to send me an SSD, then 3 weeks later, you send me one, after you have already taken my computer (making it a completely useless gesture)!  Finally, you included nothing but the SSD.  What am I supposed to do with it?  Am I supposed to install it in my laptop that I don’t have and then return the old SSD that I don’t have with the shipping label you didn’t send?

Thanks Dell… (I’m writing this to take up time as I wait in the 60 person line for chat support-I’m number 26 now)

My laptop’s SSD died a few days ago (completed wiped itself), so I’m going to be taking a break from developing Musical until Dell fixes it (I’ve arranged a repair and the box should be arriving soon). I super lucked out though and have a 100% up to date backup (I didn’t lose a single thing). I was going to try out Windows 7, so I made a full backup of my SSD to an external HD and then wiped the SSD to install Windows 7. A few hours later, the SSD was gone (and, as much as I’d like to blame it on Windows 7, I don’t think it’s possible). Since I did all of my Android development on that machine, I’m just going to wait until Dell fixes it, then restore my backup. If Dell takes an outrageous time (which is completely possible–they already mixed up my phone number with a random business customer also in Santa Cruz and tried to schedule a repair to fix a cable on my Latitude notebook… nice try Dell), I’ll have to setup one of my other laptops with the Android SDK. Whatever happens though, I will post updates here on my blog. The frustrating thing, is that I got a SSD based laptop because of my terrible HD luck (every hard drive I’ve ever had in a laptop has corrupted itself)–apparently my plan worked out great…it only lasted a few months before completely destroying everything (although it was also my first Dell laptop, having previously used IBM ThinkPads and HP consumer notebooks, so I can always blame it on Dell). Thanks Dell!

This summer I decided to teach myself SketchUp (by Google) by making a model of the town clock in Santa Cruz to add to Google Earth’s 3d buildings layer.  I went out and on a nice day and took about 80 photos from every angle and of every surface.  I went through each photo until I found the best view of each surface, then I meticulously edited it in photoshop and made perfect textures for all of them.  I started modeling and finished the entire top half.  Then I got busy…  Summer was quickly coming to an end and I had to tragically push it back into my started but never finished folder.  Now, 6 months or so since I started, Winter break provided the bit of free time I needed to finish it up.  And so, I present to the world (which doesn’t care has been waiting patiently): the Santa Cruz Clock Tower.

The model is available in the Google SketchUp 3d Warehouse by clicking here.  From there, it can be downloaded into SketchUp or viewed in Google Earth.  It’s currently in the approval process for the Google Earth 3d buildings layer, and if it gets approved, it will automatically show up in Google Earth for everyone (who has the 3d buildings turned on).

UPDATE: Google has now generated a “3D View” of the model that you can rotate with javascript on the Warehouse page.

About 3 weeks ago, I bought a T-Mobile G1 (the Android-based “GooglePhone”).  I’ve been working in my free time for the last 2 weeks on learning the Android SDK so I could write some programs for it.  The first program decided to write was a program for musicians.  Yesterday (November 15), I finally got the first feature–the metronome–in a working state.  I uploaded by application to the Android Market (same idea as the iPhone’s App Store, but until Q1, everything has to be free).  Now nearly 24 hours and 3 updates (suggested feature additions and bug fixes), my app has 2175 downloads (1638 active installs) and 110 reviews (with an average of 4/5 — there is not a single app with a 5/5, the highest so far is 4.5/5).  I’ve already received 9 emails about the application.

Not bad for the first 24 hours of my first Android app (and first Java app in a very long time)

In fact, in one day, this app has gotten more users than all my previous programming projects combined!  And its not even close to done yet!

I’ll continue to post updates on this and my (hopefully many) future apps.

Apple popularized the shiny white gadget with their iBooks, iMacs, and iPods.  Then the MacBook came out.  For $200 more, a more featured model was available in black.  This set off a revolution, as people payed more money just so they could get their laptop in black.  The iPod line soon followed this new trend, also becoming available in black in some of the higher-end models.  Then the iPhone was released with a glossy black front and metal back, and white was replaced completely in the iPod line by silver.  Around the same time, the iMac was replaced with a black and silver version too (but with a white mouse…?)  This morning, Apple announced the 3G iPhone.  This newer iPhone is available in all black (no silver), but if you buy the 16GB iPhone ($100 more), you can get it in white.  It’s amazing how quickly trends have completely reversed.  Just two years ago, white was standard and black cost more, and now black is standard and white costs more.  The circle has been completed (White -> Black -> Silver & Black -> White)!  Are you trying to set trends, keep up with them, or just confuse everyone???  Make up your mind Apple…

Jobs just announced the new iPhone at his keynote this morning: 3G, GPS, etc (but nothing exciting that wasn’t already rumored), and a new lower pricepoint – just $200 for the 8GB version.  Here’s the problem: the (older with less features) iPod Touch 8GB is $300.  This seems like a glaring mistake to me.  I realize that Apple is making tons of money every month out of the iPhone plan with AT&T, but why would anyone buy an iPod Touch for $300, when they could hacktivate an iPhone for $200, get all the new features (ex: GPS) and just not use the phone app!  I can see three possibilities for this: an oversight (seems incredibility unlikely), a devious plot to raise the number of sold iPhones (possible), or they just think that most people are too stupid to realize they can just get an iPhone, hacktivate it, and not use the phone part (most likely).  But really… where is the cheaper, GPS-enabled iPod Touch 2.0?  Is it just going to arrive silently later, so as to not overshadow the iPhone 2 launch?  We’ll just have to see…

Update: According to Engadget, Apple is no longer letting you buy an iPhone and activate it yourself.  The reason the iPhone is only $200 is because AT&T is subsidizing it.  Apple no longer has a revenue-sharing model with AT&T, and now they are making money like any other phone manufacturer.  You can’t pull the GoPhone trick any more either, as the GoPhone plan can’t be bought with an iPhone any more.  Seems like a bad move to me, seeing as a very significant percentage of iPhones were being sold to people who had no intention of ever buying an AT&T plan.  Time will tell though if people can find a loophole, but for now it seems like Apple has shut the door on this one…

Just finished up the first day at Google ‘KO’! (I’ll explain the "K" in a moment)

I woke up at 7:30, took the bus and at 8, and arrived at the Moscone Center at 8:30, only to be greeted by massive registration lines.  The lines were organized by on the first letter of your last name.  As bad as S-U was (any Smiths in the building?), I am so glad to not have a last name starting with A.  All the lines were snaking around the room, making it nearly impossible to even find the end of the line.

The introductory keynote was supposed to start at 9:30, and they ended up having to let people in without registering (until later) so they could start it on time.  The keynote talked about Google’s goals and how each of their developer projects fit into these goals.  The highlight was the Android demo (on a real device) of Google Maps Street View.  The view was controlled by a compass inside the phone, so as you moved the phone, the view changed.  Basically the effect feels like the phone’s camera is turned on, except that you are seeing somewhere else (I also got to try out something similar in the Google Earth booth later in the day – virtual reality goggles that you could use to look around the 3d buildings in Google Earth).

I started out with a presentation about the current state of web technologies (all the various strategies and Ajax libraries), which was actually extremely interesting.  Then I went to a code lab (bring your laptop and work your way through a tutorial with assistance from the developers) on Gears (offline access and browser extension) – grabbing a sandwich on the way.  Next I went to another code lab, this one on the Google Maps JavaScript API (for embedding dynamic maps into webpages).  Finally, I caught the end of a session on the future of Gears (including peripheral access, file system access, & geolocation based on gps, wifi, cell, and/or ip).

The next hour was free time to wander, mingle, and meet with the developers of various Google tools (each of which had a demonstration booth) to ask them any questions.  I couldn’t get anything out of the App Engine developers about Rails support except that the Python layer is added on top of the App Engine layer, and so they do plan to support additional languages.  I also got a Gears T-shirt (go swag! – I also got a Google IO water bottle, bag, & T-shirt, which I’ll discuss in a bit).

Then it was time for the after-party ("After Hours"), and man does Google know how to throw a party.  They apparently gutted an arcade – they had various racing games, foosball, air-hockey, and pool setup in the conference hall.  In addition, they had a bunch of Wiis setup (one of which was projecting extremely largely on the wall).  Food-wise, they had some dinner items, an ice-cream bar, and two chocolate fountains (as well as free all-you-could-drink, which I of course, unlike nearly every person there, couldn’t have).  They also had a quiet area where developers could meet and discuss their experiences with Google products.  Finally, they had a live performance by Flight of the Concord.  Yeah… Google definitely knows how to party (plus it they are obscenely wealthy, which can’t ever hurt).

So, the moment you’ve all (haha… like people read this) been waiting for.  The T-shirts they handed out after registration have a fancy design on the front made of small and large white circles on a gray background (and the staff have the same shirts but inverted).  If you take the large circles as 1s and the small circles as 0s, and convert it to ASCII (from binary), the shirt spells GoogleKO.  On one hand clever (making a seemingly random design actually mean something), but on the other hand, its wrong! (unless its was an Easter egg? KO=knock-out?).

All in all though, it was a great day, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow (day 2 of the event).

Today, while I was supposed to be studying for my AP tests, I found all sorts of ways to distract myself:  watching TV, playing Super Smash Bros Brawl (unlocked every character & map and beat every event this weekend), and making fonts.

For the first one, I wrote out the alphabet and some characters, scanned them in, vectorized them, and made a font (using FontCreator).  It took a few hours, but it actually looks kind of cool.

This year in Latin, we wrote a fable, translated it into Latin, learned blackletter calligraphy, and are currently writing and illustrating it.  I found a sheet of paper in my backpack that I had been practicing calligraphy on (copying a random Latin passage), scanned it in, cut out the best of each letter, and made it into a font.  I actually really like how this one turned out.  Oh, and before you think, “ipfum? he is in Latin right?” know that it’s called a long, medial, or descending s, is often used in place of a short s everywhere other than the end of a word in blackletter calligraphy, and happens to also appear in the United States Bill of Rights.

Finally, for the last one, I just kind of threw something together from my cursive (which as you will see, is not very attractive).  This one was tricky, because all the letters have to attach to each other, so I had to modify all of the letters after vectorization so they would fit together with all the others.

If you want to download one of these, just leave a comment stating what you want to use it for, and I’ll mail it to you (as a TrueType font).  I’m not trying to moderate them or anything (I’ll let anyone who wants one take it), I just want to know what (if anything) people want them for.