Monday, October 27, 2014

Issues for a first time user, using the Flame phone in the Netherlands

While I attended the T-Dose event, one guy approached me, who had bought the Flame device. He had some issues with the phone.

First, he tried to update the device to Firefox OS 2.1, but he got stuck in the boot loader. We managed to update the base image to 1.80 and then we updated the phone to Firefox OS 2.1.

Then, we advised him to use English in the setup process, because with the Dutch lanaguage the virtual keyboard doesn't work currently.

After going through the First Time User Wizard, he noticed how the time was off a couple of hours and the date with a couple of days. Apparently, this is bug 1032101 and bug 1048154.

Even though his phone's date was only a few days off, this caused somehow the Marketplace app to not load at all. He would only get a blank page, wit a "x" in there. It took us a while to find out that the wrong time and date was the cause of that issue. There is bug 1077628 that seems to handle about this.

T-Dose event in Eindhoven

Last Saturday and Sunday, I went to the T-Dose event, manning a booth with my good friend Tim Maks van den Broek.

I met a lot of of smart and interesting people:
  • Someone with an NFC chip in his hand! I was able to import his contact details into my FirefoxOS phone by keeping it close to his hand. Very funny to see, but it also felt weird.
  • Bram Moolenaar (VIM author! Note to self, never complain about software in front of people you don't know)
  • Some crazy enthusiastic people about Perl and more specifically, Perl 6. They even brought a camel! (ok, not a live one)


Often asked questions during the event

Where can I phone with FirefoxOS? What price? 
The only phone that you can buy online in the Netherlands, that is getting the latest updates, is the Flame device. You can order it on everbuying.com. More information on Mozilla Developer Network. Because the phone will be shipped outside of the EU, import duties will be charged, which are probably somewhere around €40.
Can I put Firefox OS on my Android device?
On MDN, there are a couple of devices mentioned, but I wouldn't know how well that works.
Is there a backup tool to backup on your desktop computer?
As far as I know, there is no backup software on the desktop computer, that would be able to make a backup of your Firefox OS phone. I know there is a command line tool from Taiwan QA that allows you to backup  and restore your profile.
Does Whatsapp work on it?
There is no official Whatsapp, but there is an app called ConnectA2, that allows you to connect with your Whatsapp contacts. I haven't used it, but Tim Maks told me it works reasonably well.


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Broken adapter cable

Oops, I didn't mean to put this in my main blog (the previous post either). I keep another blog, where I have shorter notes about commands I use and some handy tricks and websites.
They aren't really meant for general consumption.

 But anyway, since I managed to post this image anyway, I might as well tell you what's going on with my macbook chargers.
It looks really broken at the base and not only it looks broken, but it is nearly broken, because when in some positions, the charger won't charge anymore.

I guess I should just buy a new one or is this why tape is invented for?

Monday, October 20, 2014

Requirements file for virtualenv for python ui tests

ManifestDestiny==0.6
blessings==1.5.1
boto==2.32.1
certifi==14.05.14
gaiatest==0.28
httplib2==0.9
lightblue==0.4
manifestparser==0.6
marionette-client==0.8.3
marionette-transport==0.3
mozcrash==0.13
mozdevice==0.40
mozfile==1.1
mozhttpd==0.7
mozinfo==0.7
mozlog==2.6
moznetwork==0.24
mozprocess==0.21
mozprofile==0.22
mozrunner==6.2
moztest==0.7
mozversion==0.6
oauth2==1.5.211
plivo==0.9.6
requests==2.4.0
treeherder-client==1.0
wsgiref==0.1.2