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Google Maps Navigation for UK and Ireland

So now turn-by-turn navigation is now supported on Android outside the US for UK and Ireland - and yes it works in the Republic. So I was interested to try it out. For some reason I couldn't get it on the Marketplace - could be an Acer Liquid build thing. So I found package on Android Freeware and manually installed it.

I wanted to try it out immediately, but I cycle to work, rather than drive, so I came up with a plan. I'd connect a set of headphones to the phone and I could at least check out the voice navigation while I cycled, you know "turn left in 200 meters" that sort of thing.

Now there was just one problem: I like to listen to music when I cycle. I know, not terribly sensible, but a lot of fun. Could I do both? Thanks to Android's multi-tasking I was able listen to some sounds with the occational navigation voice-over giving me directions. Sick!

That's right 1 meeelyon servers - mwahahahahaha

Google's Insane Number of Servers Visualized - Servers - Gizmodo

Why you should avoid Mozy

I've been using Mozy for months. I've really liked - nice and easy to use. That is, until my laptop's drive died - blitzing the OS. No problem, it's all backed up on Mozy... well no. So laptop fixed, time for a backup. Here's where the rub is.

While Mozy has a nice (if pretty slow) client for doiing backups. Restores are a completely different animal. With restores where your computer has crashed, you have only 2 options:

• Web Restore - This is where they generate some files containing your data. The files are split into around 500Mb chunks. For 40Gb of data I had stored, that's 80 files. Which you have to download manually. That's right manually - and they aren't faster to download than they were to upload. So for some reason you have a client to upload your files, but you have to download manually. This is completely shit and for this reason alone it's worth chucking Mozy.
  
• DVD Restore - for about $80 I can get a set of DVD's containing my data. Well if I lived in the US I could. Not available internationally.
  

OK 80 files to download in 7 days. But it takes about 60 minutes to download one file - that's right. 60 minutes. So if I sit continually downloading, not sleeping I can just about get this finished in 3.5 days. That's without sleep and I better get it done in 7 days - cos that's when the files expire and I have to do the whole process again.

OK - so I have no choice - I need my data, but just in case I was tempted to stay with Mozy (and look forward to future days of downloading should my laptop ever decide to die again), you should be aware, that after spending days to get your own data back, it's not like you can just restore the data and your back where you were before the crash. No, no, no - you have go through the whole backup procedure again. That's right, weeks of uploading - just to get back to where you were - because Mozy in their wisdom, forces you to remove your old computer in order to do a restore. It is completely insane.

Use something else.

Android Update

Received and OTA update notification for Acer Liquid.
This is a download link which downloads a Win Acer install tool.

The instructions forget to mention one important point. You need to switch on USB debugging on your Android phone before connecting the USB cable - otherwise it will not work.

Slick new Irish comparison site

One of the problems of being a small country is that the domestic market is small and consequently native commercial internet properties are actually a bit thin on the ground. Imagine life if Amazon or Play didn't serve the Irish market from the UK. This situation is especially true in comparison shopping. While over in the UK we have moneysupermaket.com, gocompare.com, comparethemarket and confused.com to name just a few - comparing financial products and pretty much anything else is quick and easy.

What's the situation in Ireland? Well 123.ie used to offer comparisons but now seems to be pretty much a broker for Travellers Insurance under the hood. Which is a shame - I've used 123.ie a couple of times. UChoose.ie initially launched with a site that was like a bad-parody of early ninety's web pages complete with typos on the homepage. Then the Irish times bought a small stake and at least it got a facelift, but is still sucked and now unfortunately it's being wound up. Compareireland.ie just looks like an fugly directory service leaving all the legwork up to you.

I stumbled onto bonkers.ie. The site has de rigeur "beta" sticker on it and a twitter feed. So far it offers comparisons for financial products and energy. Insurance (household, etc) in the next month or so. The site is pretty impressive - I tried comparing a couple of savings products (a couple years ago it would have been mortgages - but that's the recession for you). It's slick.

2.1 for Acer Liquid

The Acer Liquid e has been announced which is basically the Acer Liquid with an updated OS from Android 1.6 (Donut) to 2.1 (Eclair) and should be out this month. Attempting to call this a new phone by giving it an "e" moniker just leaves everyone confused. The blogs/techfeed react by saying this is the same phone, just with an updated OS. What could have been a positive "Acer updates the Liquid to 2.1 goodness making a great phone even better" gets at best a "huh? Liquid e, eh?". Meanwhile the early adopters that have helped to make the Liquid such a grassroots success are left scratching their heads - does this mean their existing Liquids are getting an update to 2.1 or not? Presumably unless Acer really wants to generate some bad reaction an update will be coming.

HTC by contrast have been very good about letting people knowing where they stand. Pre-announcing ROM updates. They've generated a lot of goodwill from users and remember HTC fluffed the original release of the HTC Hero, the ROM was slow leading to initial reviews claiming the handset was "laggy". They quickly released an updated ROM that fixed the problem and will even support 2.1 on the Hero.

So Acer why so silent, how about some clarity.

Meanwhile if you really can't wait for the Android 2.1 love there's always.....

acer-liquid-community-rom-bugtracker - Project Hosting on Google Code