Google Maps on the ADP1

The most recent Google Maps update never worked for me on my ADP1 running 1.6 - it always gave me "Package not signed correctly". After some googling, I found this did the trick - in essence, one has to remove any trace of the installed google maps, and manually uninstall the apk using adb. I then re-downloaded google maps from the market, and it worked. Hurrah.

Christmas

Writing this from the food court at ATL, awaiting my connection to LAX.

Due to the actions of a certain moron there were "extra security measures" in place at Dublin Airport - a pat-down and a baggage search at the gate before we were allowed to board. Thankfully the no electronics or getting up in last hour rule appears to have been rescinded.

Ironically, there were separate boarding queues for men and women (so as to line up with the male and female screeners) - this struck me as something the average Islamic extremist would approve of. Good times.

As for the actual Christmas holiday, it was an enjoyable one.

Highlights:

• Samantha meeting the folks and friends.
• Catching up with said folks and friends.
  
• Showing Samantha around the Irish countryside.
• Christmas dinner with Samantha and the folks.
• Newgrange attempt 1. Roads were so iced up the shuttle bus from the visitors' centre to the Newgrange site wasn't running. Nearly got stuck in the car park, took to the top of 3rd gear in the Toledo to get up a verry icy hill at the car park exit. Ended up giving a lift to some ILUG people who were stranded in nearby Donore village. Good times.
• Birthday dinner with the folks and Samantha in Bellinter House
  
• Newgrange attempt 2. Weather greatly improved, was lucky with the timing, there were only 2 other people in our session, Samantha got some good photos.
• Galway. Stayed at the Glenlo Abbey hotel. I was distinctly underwhelmed. Upon arrival we were informed the heating in the Pulman restaurant was broke, and hence closed. The internet connection remained broken for the entire evening. The room itself was rather chronically underheated (even for a hairy Irishman), and the breakfast service was decidedly bad - took a good 15 minutes from being seated to someone coming to take my order, and that was only because Samantha caught the eye of a waitress. For the money, I wouldn't return to the Glenlo Abbey.
• New Years with Samantha, Sharon and Alan, had a low-key dinner and drinks at the excellent Eastern Seaboard.

The parents gave me the loan of (and insured me on) my old Seat Toledo, which made getting around and showing Samantha the country a lot easier. Much appreciated.

I should be back in LAX around 9:30pm local time - by that point I'll have been awake around 22 hours, so with a good night's sleep I should take up reasonably adjusted back to PST tomorrow. I better, as I'm back to work in Treyarch monday morning :)

Harry

My nephew Harry was born yesterday, to my sister Miriam and her husband Lawrence. All reports point to a healthy mother and child, which is a tremendous relief. The nephew was born in Saudi Arabia, has an Irish mother, an English father, an Irish uncle living in the US, Irish grandparents (at least on his mother's side of the family), and an Irish aunt and uncle living in Ireland. I'm sure he'll have quite the multi-cultural upbringing.

So: I'm now Uncle Ewan, and my parents are now Granny and Grandad Oughton.

Good times.

In other news, it's Thanksgiving here, which means I get to have a 4-day weekend. God bless America. We're having some of Samantha's friends over for dinner and drinks, I'm really liking having my own place.

My draw shoulder has finally loosened up, so I'm going back to archery training soon. I've been reading Inside the Archer back and forth, coupled with what Jeep has been showing me I think I have the beginnings of a stable shot. Taking it nice and slow.

Work continues apace; writing some interesting stuff. Can't even begin to elaborate on it.

I bought an extended battery for my ADP1 off Dealextreme; for $12 (yes, twelve US Dollars) I've doubled the battery capacity of my phone, and it'll now do three days between charges, at the expense of considerably increased thickness.

Speaking of the adp1, I finally got a public alpha of TargetScheme out the door. Feedback so far has been positive; I'm working on adding in some needed features and stabilising it before putting it up on the Android Market.

Time goes by, tables turn

I need to blog more. I used to blog at regular intervals, but life has been busier, and frankly, I just can't bring myself to use Twitter.

I've been playing Borderlands. The depth and range of weaponry in the game keeps me playing. The storyline is pretty decent too. I'm usually quite averse to RPGs, but the first person shooter aspect in Borderlands makes it a lot more appealing. I'm glad to see they've patched the matchmaking tech in the game, it was a bit.. rough to begin with.

I bought a box of Coors Light in Costco at the weekend. It's actually not too bad, but I'm going back to Stella next time I'm beer buying.

Samantha reliably informs me it's 44 days until we arrive in Dublin for Christmas. Samantha will be in Ireland for the first time (in addition to meeting my family / friends etc.), so that should prove interesting.

Modern Warfare 2 is almost upon us. I will of course play it through out of professional interest. It's using Steam for distribution; first time in a long time the most secure SKU for any game has been the PC - usually it's the first to appear on various torrent trackers.

I've finally given up on the Heretic technique, and have joined the ranks of BEST shooters here in California. My friend Jeep coaches the USC archery team, and he recently completed his level 3 course with the man himself, Ki Sik Lee. He gave me some insight into the BEST method I had been unable to glean from the books. I dutifully gave it a go, and was able to get into much better line than previously. Still feels a little unnatural, but so far the results are promising.

Tomorrow (Thursday) marks the two year anniversary of my start at Treyarch. Time flies. I've shipped two games in that time, consulted for 6 weeks on a third, and generally made a reasonable niche for myself. I can't blog about what my job currently entails, but it should prove to be quite the challenge.

Command and Conquer: The First Decade

So I picked up C&C: The First Decade at Best Buy the other day, and got around to installing it on my Windows 7 box last night. I proceed to fire up Red Alert 2, but it bombed out telling it can't init the string manager. I let it run as an admin, and up it comes, the excellent invasion of the US intro and the cheesy acting really bringing it all back. I then find that once battle control went online, all my units died instantly and the mission failed. After some googling, it appears this is because the Red Alert 2 exe thinks it's been (amatuerishly) cracked. I put the exe in Win2000 compatibility mode, and all is well. Good times. As a games developer, I have no great love of pirates either, but whoever at Westwood decided on this "feature", clearly leaning on some undocumented / not well supported part of the Windows API, this was a really bad idea. How many First Decade sales is this 10 year old crappy piracy check going to cost you?

Back to the hack

As you can see from the Google Latitude badge on the right, I am indeed back in Los Angeles. Flew in yesterday evening, Samantha picked me up at LAX. Had steak at The Galley in Santa Monica - oddly, I think I've gotten used to smaller portions in Vancouver, I managed to finish my usual 11oz fillet mignon, but barely got halfway through the fries and onion rings. It felt pretty heavy too - going to try some lighter sides next time, and perhaps (shock horror) a smaller steak.

Got myself a T-Mobile 3G sim (on contract) today. They use the same frequencies as my ADP1 - no more dealing with Rogers EDGE. Hurrah.

I'm rather happy to be back. Samantha picked an excellent apartment, close to work, large, decent aircon, hardwood floors, gated parking etc. She makes me very happy.

One of the two cats (Cleo) has taken a liking to me, but the other one (Stalin) avoids me most of the time. Oh well. First time living with cats. It's proving interesting.

My experiences trying to setup an xe.com FX account

So, I've been living pretty cheap up here in the frozen wastelands of the north, and have been saving as hard as I can. The up-shot of all this is I have more cash than the 10 grand limit customs allows you when entering the US. Go me.


So, I go through the hoop-jumping of setting up an xe.com/fx account:

• Send them a recent bank statement
• Take a long lunch, and walk up to a public notary to get a notarized copy of passport
• Sit through a phone interview

Then, I get the same automated email again, asking either to turn up at their North Vancouver office, or submit a notarized copy of my passport / drivers license.

I ring them up, explain that yes, right now I am a Canadian resident, despite having an Irish accent. I explain that my company has moved me around quite a bit, and no I haven't been a resident for the last 2 years.

The lady on the other end wants me to go to their office in North Van to submit to what I can only presume would be a vigorous cavity search. Given I'd already spent 25cad and half an afternoon getting the notarized passport copy, I was in no mood to undertake a 10km round-trip, either by public transport or taxi, either in terms of money or time spent.

So, xe.com have declined to do business with me, missing out on getting their percentage of the $bignum I'm moving to the states.


Fail.