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  • How to perform a master reset of the T-Mobile G2 Touch

    Now that I’ve upgraded to a new phone, it’s time to reset and sell on my G2 Touch (aka HTC Hero).

    However, working out how to perform a master reset (aka hard or factory reset) was harder than I thought it would be. There are all sorts of workarounds involving pressing combinations of keys but I couldn’t get any of these to work. In the end, I found a specific G2 Touch support page on the HTC site that told me how to do it.

    Before I continue I should point out that a master reset restores the original factory settings and may erase all downloaded content, including ringtones, images, programs, and contacts stored in the internal memory. It does not erase data stored on the SIM card or memory card. A master reset will erase all your data and require you to sign in again and go through the set-up screens.

    1. From the Home screen, press the Menu key.
    2. Touch Settings.
    3. Touch and slide the menu upward.
    4. Touch Privacy.
    5. Touch Back up my data & settings.
    6. Verify that the Back up my data & settings check box is selected.
    7. Press the Back button.
    8. Touch Factory data reset.
    9. Touch Reset phone.
    10. Touch Erase everything.

    Now, if anybody would like to buy my HTC (very good condition), let me know!

  • Mobile phone screen protectors

    With many phones using Gorilla Glass you’d think they’d be no need for screen protector – thin layers of plastic that are stuck over the screen of your mobile phone. Sadly, they are as even the toughest of glass can be scratched by a rogue set of car keys in your pocket.

    When I bought my Galaxy S2 I wanted to protect that screen – I’d used a screen protector on my HTC Hero and it had worked well. I’d bought the official HTC version, which cost about £5 for 2. I’d never needed the 2nd as the 1st went on so well – nearly 18 months later the original is still in place perfectly (but now has a scratch on it – that could have been the screen!).

    An “official” Samsung version, though, will set you back £10 for just one. If you apply it wrong, it could be an expensive mistake. Others are available, some more expensive, but users seem to complain about “rainbow” effects across the screen.

    Instead, I went to eBay and bought the cheapst I could – they cost me a couple of pounds for 6. And it was a good idea to get so many 2, as I managed to get a good fit on the 3rd attempt. However, at that price you can afford to go through all 6 in one go if you need to.

    I’d done the same when I bought a Samsung Tocco Lite for my daughter – cheap eBay versions. In fact I too also go through a number before I get the fit 100% right. But the end result always seemed good and, well, they do their job. And it’s the same for my Samsung versions. They’re not as light to the touch as the original glass at first, but over time a build up of grease within the plastic improves this.

    Certainly when it comes to value for money they’re worth it.

  • 21 free Amazon Kindle software

    My mum already has one and I know my wife won’t mind one either. The Amazon Kindle is a rather remarkable device – it’s superb for reading books at a really good price.

    I love the idea of eInk and I think those people who think iPads are just as good have obviously not used one for any measure of time. When it comes to reading an eBook nothing beats eInk, and the Kindle is the best eInk reader.

    Anyway, enough of the sell. Downloading commercial books is the easy bit.

    What if you have want to do something different – say, put your own document onto it? How about getting free books onto it? Well, here’s my collection of the best free software around…

    briss

    An open source project, to create some cross-platform software that will quickly and easily crop PDFs. Why would you want to do that? Say, it’s a Word document converted to PDF – chances are it’s surrounded by a thick white border. Use briss to remove this before putting on the Kindle and it’s 100% easier to read!

    K2pdfopt

    If all that seems far too manual, there’s K2pdfopt which converts a PDF to images, optimises it for the Kindle and then puts it back to a PDF again.

    PDF Split and Merge

    This is one of those pieces of software that does exactly what it says it does – use it to modify PDFs by editing out sections or merging some together. Again it’s open source.

    kindlebility

    Not software this time but a “bookmarklet” – add their provided link to your favourites and the next time you’re reading an article and wish to read it on your Kindle, click the bookmark and it will send it to your Kindle via your Kindle email.

    Hamster eBook Converter

    A piece of software that will converts any eBook format to work on your Kindle.

    calibr

    After all that, how about something which does everything? Manage, organise and convert eBooks? calibre does just that.

    eLibrary

    An open source project still in its early stages, eLibrary will catalogue and organise your eBooks. It may be early days but the software looks very promising!

    Duokan

    Duokan is something different – a replacement OS for your Kindle. But it sits aside the existing Kindle OS rather than replacing it. It has a number of features that makes PDF viewing better and is particularly recommended for comic reading.

    The original is in Chinese but an English language version has been released. You can read more about it here including further links.

    Mobipocket eBook Creator

    And when you get bored of what’s available, why not create your own eBook? Mobipocket produce free home and publisher eBook creator.

    PrimoPDF

    If you create your eBook in PDF format then you’ll have maximum exposure as it can be just as easily read on PCs and Macs. PrimoPDF is one of the leading free PDF creators.

    Clippings Converter

    Kindle users will know that there’s a way to clip portions of the book they are reading for future reference. These clippings get saved in “myclippings.txt” in the documents folder of the Kindle. Clippings Converter is a simple tool that converts these chunks of saved text into Word, Excel or PDF files for better organisation and other use.

    Kindle Reader

    A standalone piece of PC software, provided by Amazon, Kindle Reader allows you to read your eBooks away from Kindle device. Unlike the Cloud Reader, you can use this to read books offline.

    Wordcycler

    If you use Instapaper to save web pages for reading later then you may find Wordcycler of use. Sitting in your system tray it will automatically send Instapaper items to your Kindle when it’s connected via USB.

    Auto Kindle eBook Converter

    A simple piece of software, Auto Kindle eBook Converter converts PDF, Lit, and HTML files to a Kindle-friendly .MOBI format.

    SENDtoREADER

    Another useful JavaScript bookmarklet SENDtoREADER will send any web page that you’re viewing to your Kindle via WIFI.

    Kindle It

    In a similar vein to SENDtoREADER, Kindle It will also send web pages to your Kindle but this time it’s a Firefox and Chrome browser extension.

    Greader2Kindle

    Greader2Mindle converts your unread Google Reader items to .MOBI and then emails them to your Kindle via WIFI.

    PDFMasher

    PDFMasher assists in converting a multi-page PDF into a single flow document.

    PaperCrop

    PaperCrop converts PDF documents, such as articles and academic papers, into a PDF (or image sequence) so that it can be read on a small screen.

    KDK Emulator

    Still in progress, KDK Emulator is a Kindle emulator for the PC.

    Alissa’s MobiHandler

    A small program, MobiHandler adds the ability for Windows Explorer to handle .azw/.mobi/.prc files better; cover images are shown as thumbnails, and you can see the book titles and authors on the list of files. You can also see the Properties of the books.

    And finally…

    When you buy PDF eBooks from certain online retailers (for example, WH Smith) they are advertised as “PDF” – but they aren’t really. You get a download of an ACSM file, which you have to open through Adobe Digital Editions to download your eBook. Once it’s downloaded, it’s locked into Digital Editions, and there is no compatibility with the Kindle.

    John O’Nolan has had exactly this problem and has worked out how to resolve it using a piece of software known as ePUBee.

  • Todays BBC/Sky F1 news

    In a quick break from the tech for a moment, I just wanted to comment on today’s news about the UK TV rights to the Formula One.

    For those unaware, the BBC and Sky Sports will broadcast Formula 1 in the UK between 2012 and 2018. All of this has happened before the BBC’s contract expires after the 2013 season.

    From next year Sky Sports will show every race, qualifying session and practice live and BBC Sport will broadcast half the races live, as well as the qualifying and practice sessions from those races.

    Now, I’m not a sporty person and I don’t watch it either, but I don’t mind watching F1 and there’s something particularly nice and watching a live race in its entirety on a Sunday. To hear that I’ll now only be able to enjoy half is annoying. I’m not a Sky subscriber and, if I was, I certainly wouldn’t be able to justify a monthly extra subscription to the Sports channel just for the sake of every other F1 race.

    I think it was summed up nicely by this joke from SniffPetrol…

    Make the next GP feel like it’s on Sky by throwing £30 away and then turning your TV off every 10 minutes.

    And, more seriously, they also took the opportunity to produce some interesting statistics, for all those who are saying that the BBC had to do this to save money…

    Alleged cost of F1 rights per year: £45m. Alleged cost of moving BBC depts (including Sport) to Salford: £900m

    Approximate cost of F1 rights per year: £45m. Approximate cost of BBC3 per year: £115m. Re-runs of Two Pints Of Lager all round!

  • Using Google Analytics data to show popular posts

    Using Google Analytics data to show popular posts

    Google Analytics Dashboard is an excellent plugin for showing site analytics on your WordPress dashboard.

    However, it also has an open API built-in allowing anybody to access statistics from their own code. As a result I’ve created a new of small functions for my own site. To get these to work, ensure you have Google Analytics Dashboard installed, active and you’ve authenticated yourself using the OAuth method!

    The most useful is the one I use in the sidebar to display the most popular posts. I was using specific plugins which track visits independently. However, I found these to inconsistent and unreliable.

    This isn’t the version I use, as I’ve had to make specific modifications to only display posts and to tidy up the page titles. However, this is the same base code just with my very specific changes removed.

    function latest_posts_list( $days, $showposts, $cache_hours ) {

   $cache_key = 'ga_posts_' . $days . $showposts;
  $output = get_transient( $cache_key );

  if ( !$output ) {

     $output = '';

    if ( $days == 0 ) {
       $start = '2006-09-01';
     } else {
         $start = date( 'Y-m-d', ( time() - ( 60 * 60 * 24 * $days ) ) );
     }
    $end = date( 'Y-m-d' );
    $thispost = 1;

     $login = new GADWidgetData( get_option( 'gad_auth_token' ), get_option( 'gad_account_id' ) );
    $ga = new GALib( 'oauth', NULL, $login -> oauth_token, $login -> oauth_secret, $login -> account_id );
      $pages = $ga -> pages_for_date_period( $start, $end );

    foreach( $pages as $page ) {
       $url = $page[ 'value' ];
         $title = $page[ 'children' ][ 'value' ];
         $output .= '<li><a href="' . $url . '" rel="nofollow">' . $title . '</a&gtl';
        if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) { $output .= ' (' . $page[ 'children' ][ 'children' ][ 'ga:pageviews' ] . ' views)'; }
        $output .= '</li>';
        $thispost ++;
       if ( $thispost > $showposts ) break;
     }
    set_transient( $cache_key, $output, 3600 * $cache_hours );
 }
 echo $output;
}

    Add this code to functions.php and then edit the line $start = '2006-09-01'; to reflect the date on which your blog statistics started. Then call latest_posts_list  with 3 parameters, all of which are required…

    1. The number of days across which to gather statistics. If you specify 0 then it will be for all time.
    2. The number of posts to display in the list.
    3. The number of hours to cache the results.

    A sidebar example, with checks for function availability, would be…

    <?php if ( function_exists( 'latest_posts_list' ) ) : ?>
    <li>
        <h2>Recent Popular Posts</h2>
        <ul>
            <?php latest_posts_list( 30, 5, 24 ); ?>
        </ul>
    </li>
<?php endif; ?>

    This will display the 5 most popular posts within the last 30 days and will update this list every 24 hours.

    Two further functions that I use elsewhere add live statistics data to a posts content. The code can also be added to your functions.php file…

    function ga_visits_shortcode( $paras = '', $content = '' ) {

 extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'days' => '' ), $paras ) );
  if ( $days == '') { $days = 30; }
   $start_date = date( 'Y-m-d', ( time() - ( 60 * 60 * 24 * $days ) ) );
   $end_date = date( 'Y-m-d' );

 $login = new GADWidgetData( get_option( 'gad_auth_token' ), get_option('gad_account_id') );
   $ga = new GALib( 'oauth', NULL, $login -> oauth_token, $login -> oauth_secret, $login -> account_id );
   $visit_data = $ga -> total_visits_for_date_period( $start_date, $end_date );
 return number_format( $visit_data[ 'value' ] );
}
add_shortcode( 'ga_visits', 'ga_visits_shortcode' );

function ga_pageviews_shortcode( $paras = '', $content = '' ) {

 extract( shortcode_atts( array( 'days' =>'' ), $paras ) );
   if ( $days == '') { $days = 30; }
   $start_date = date( 'Y-m-d', ( time() - ( 60 * 60 * 24 * $days ) ) );
   $end_date = date( 'Y-m-d' );

 $login = new GADWidgetData( get_option( 'gad_auth_token' ), get_option( 'gad_account_id' ) );
 $ga = new GALib( 'oauth', NULL, $login -> oauth_token, $login -> oauth_secret, $login -> account_id );
   $visit_data = $ga -> total_pageviews_for_date_period( $start_date, $end_date );
 return number_format( $visit_data[ 'value' ] );
}
add_shortcode( 'ga_pageviews', 'ga_pageviews_shortcode' );

    Now, all you have to do is call either shortcodes – [ga_visits] or [ga_pageviews] to output the number of visitors of pageviews that your site has had. Useful for promoting your site. There is one parameter, days, which allows you specify the time range this is for. If you don’t specify this parameter then 30 is assumed.