Pomodoro technique using RicRac Stopwatch

As a software developer I have been looking at possible ways to increase productivity, recently I have spent a couple of days looking at the time management technique called Pomodoro. The basic process is to do increments of work which last for 25 minutes and then have a 5 minute break these are called pomodoros, then after 4 pomodoros you take a longer break of about 20 minutes. 

To do this I downloaded the RicRac Stopwatch, installed it and made a second copy by coping the directory, this then gave me 2 copies which I could have 2 different settings for, the first with a 25 minute countdown and the second with a 5 minute countdown. RicRac stopwatch worked well doing this, the issues I had was with the technique itself, my main criticism of the technique is that I work in an open plan office, and people constantly interrupt, which breaks the increments. For this technique to work I think I would need to be in a quite office or work from home.   

Nexus 4 battery problem

The other day my Google Nexus 4 phone had a battery charging problem. I put the phone on charge with 43% remaining and after a few hours maybe up to 5 the charge was only up to 45%. Taking it off charge and looking at the usage it dropped back down to 44% within a minute. I thought I was in trouble and there was a physical problem with the battery. The solution was to completely turn off the phone and switch it back on, then it started charging fine and I've had no problems since. The only thing I can think of that could have caused a problem is either the number of apps running or a specific app that causes a problem, will keep an eye on it.

The Nexus is not great when it comes to keeping its battery power and I have to charge mine on a daily basis. Here are some tips on improving the charge of the battery.

• Switch the NFC and Bluetooth off when you don't need it.
• Turn off App syncing when you don't need the App to be synced.
• I've chosen a dark background to try to reduce brightness.
• Apps that have the option to change the background colour I've set to black.
• Check the battery usage and see what areas could be improved.

Google Nexus 4 pros and cons

I recently purchased a new Google Nexus 4 phone, I had previously owned iPhones and even though I am a great fan of the iPhone, I decided to try something different and the price of the Nexus is £300 ($465) cheaper than the iPhone 5 costing just £250 compared with £550 for an iPhone. My first impression of the device was it was well built with curved glass edges, the speaker at the back is positioned in a funny place, the camera lens and flash are where you would expect them. There is no physical home button like the iPhone, but the home button is part of the display, which is actually better and I expect Apple will do something similar with the next iPhone..

The power supply for charging is via a micro USB, which is not as nice as the iPhone 5, but is more standard. I have found that the charge like the iPhone does not last that long and need to charge the phone almost everyday.

The Nexus 4 uses the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system, which runs very fast thanks to the quad core snapdragon CPU, and the 2GB of RAM, twice that of the iPhone 5.

The dimensions of the phone are 68.7 x 133.9 x 9.1mm making it larger and thicker than the iPhone and it feels slightly heavier, it has a 4.7 inch screen which fits very close to the edge of the device.

The main camera is 8 mega pixel which works OK, but some of the photos I have taken the result is a bit saturated and the contrast is not that good, it does however have HDR and panoramic options which do work well. There is also a 1.3 mega pixel front facing camera, which currently I have only used to unlock the phone with the great option of face recognition for unlocking.

Here are what I consider the Pros and Cons of the Nexus 4:

Pros

• Price is amazing and what you get for the money cannot be beaten.
• Well made phone which feels nice to use, I have already dropped it from about 5 ft and it survived fine.
• Elegant design with the glass edges curving and the edges having more grip.
• Very fast.
• Latest version of Android.

Cons

• Using headphones the max volume is still a bit to low, solution was to download so free software to boost the output.
• Battery life is short like other smart phones.
• No expandable memory.
• Copy and paste does not work as well as the iPhone.
• Not as intuitive to use as the iPhone.  

In conclusion I am very happy with the phone and at the price is an excellent product.

Canon Pancake Lens Review

A couple of months ago I got a Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM Lens also know as a pancake lens due to its dimensions. It is a small lens which it designed for use as a video lens because of its silent motor (STM meaning stepping motor). The quality of the lens is good with the connection area being metal, instead of plastic on cheap lenses. It has a 40mm focus length which works well in both in-door and out-door situations. When videoing even though the lens it meant to be silent there is a slight noise.

The lens is very thin like a pancake and because of the dimension it easily fits into the camera bag. This is not a professional photographers review of the lens, but after using it for a couple of months I have found it a very useful lens, not just for taking video, but it produces some great photos which are clear and sharp. Because of the size and price, which is less than £200 it is a great little lens to own and would recommend it.

HTML5 Links

Below are some great HTML5 links I have found

Apples HTML5 page with links to some decent demos
http://www.apple.com/html5/

Mozilla developer network links to loads of HTML5 demos
https://demos.mozilla.org/en-US/

Googles HTML5 demo web site
http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Loads of information and resources on HTML5
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/

Microsofts Internet Explorer demo page with some demos of HTML5
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Examples of HTML5 features including some great resources
http://beta.theexpressiveweb.com/

Google search results error with AVG

While using Google search in the Chrome browser I received the following error message:
TypeError: Object #<Text> has no method 'getBoundingClientRect'

Clicking OK removed the message and allowed me to continue as normal, then I received the error message again a few moments later. I managed to find that the error would occur when moving the mouse cursor over particular adverts on the right hand side of the search results, I then realised that these adverts had an AVG related icon on the left of the title which when you hover over an AVG dialog would appear regarding the safety ratings. To fix the error I turned off the AVG safe search option in the 'Google Extensions' options.

Most popular browsers

I have just been looking at the stats for this blog and I was surprised to see which browser was the most popular. Here are the stats for the top 5.

1. Firefox 34%
2. Internet Explorer 24%
3. Chrome 16%
4. Safari 16%
5. Opera 3%

The reason why I was surprised is that years ago I used Firefox because it was a great alternative to IE, since then I found that IE caught up and then Chrome was released which I now consider the best browser for the Windows OS. I also used Opera for a short time and was impressed with some of the features included with the browser. The reason why I liked Chrome over IE, Firefox and Opera is that it runs really fast. I can see that Firefox users dislike IE and will eventually move over to Chrome and Chrome and Safari will become the top browsers.

LG OLED Super thin TV

LG have released the next generation of TVs with a 55 inch screen that is only 0.16 inch thick!!! OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode and is more efficient than existing LED/LCD TVs, but currently the new TV will cost over £6000 ($10,000), however it is predicted that costs will drop like previous technology and will become affordable by 2015. OLED is currently used in other devices with smaller screens like the Sony PS Vita. I imagine Samsung will release a similar model in the next few weeks.