National Step Challenge Can it be Completed?

I joined and faithfully completed National Step Challenge season 4.  I continue to join Season 5. Season 5 added 2 more tiers to MVPA in Season 5 when I started the season, I was thrown back to Season 4 MVPA tier 5. So my Season 5 cannot start huh? Am I a completer then?

On calculating the time needed to complete 6 tiers of MVPA, I was surprised that it requires 187 days (40 points a day maximum). The challenge period is 189 days. To start MVPA challenge  I am supposed to complete the steps challenge tier 2. Minus the bonus, It takes at least 37.5 days to complete tier 2 of the step challenge. Adding it to 187 days, it is impossible to complete.

Now that I am thrown back to Season 4, I need another 75 days. It is equivalent to I cannot be a completer in season 5. I decided to quit completely. It is a challenge with a set period so it should start and stop within the period. HPB make it so difficult to complete. I wonder why.

By the way, in Season 4, HPB actually recommends 150 minutes per week for MVPA. That is 5 days of 30 minutes MVPA. Which translate to 200 points. Therefore, to complete the 6 tiers (7500 points), you need 37.5 weeks which is 262.5 days. Another puzzling figure. Absolutely mission impossible.

中国五千年跳不出去的九大定律

拜读了题目文章后 （刊在《历史开讲了》），觉得那是人类的问题不是中国独特问题。这问题是在于权力与控制。如果中国是真正民主制度就可大大减少定律问题。下面是我的见解。

1.象牙筷定律

这是人类贪婪的特性。没有限制的话就会造成恶性循环。如果不是民主制度话就无法限制这恶性循环。

2.兔死狗烹定律

这是人类独裁问题。当没有敌人的时候就会内斗。没有法律的话就会造成此现象。没有民主的话就权力至上无法无天。

3. 包围定律

这也是人类独裁问题。因为没有民主就成绝对包围。

4.敌戒定律

生存法律。有了民主才会有”敌人“。敌对政党时常会盯着你。那你会时时提防被攻击。

5.朋党定律

朋党不是问题。那个社会没有朋党？ 不受控制的朋党才是大问题。民主制度才能有些控制。

6. 黄宗义定律

独裁主义以上制下。最下层的老百姓跟本无能力反抗。如果是民主制的话就不是大问题。

7.五世而斩定律

这也是独裁主义才会有的。庸才会被推为首领。民主制是民选。无能的话跟本上不了台。

8. 权大欺主定律

人类通病。权大就不受控制特别是掌握握军权的。民主制度也无法。这就看其他军人会不会反抗。人民也可以反抗不过只手对不了枪杆。

9. 皮毛定律

也是独裁问题。 语言自由是民主制才有的。只有霸权社会才控制语言自由。

总而言之，有真正的民主制度才会防止这九大定律的重复。当然民主制度也有其弊病。

Evaluation of Careeach HR

The Careeach HR is a free tracker provided by Health Promotion Board. The following is a comparison with Garmin Forerunner 935. The comparison is one way. That is to say only compare what Careeach HR has to Forerunner similar functionality only. It is unfair to compare with all the available features of Forerunner 935.

1. Steps - Steps are fundamental feature however it is noted that Careeach HR always track about 10% less compared to Garmin even the steps setting are the same. Garmin seems to show slightly more steps than usual.

2. Heart Rate - Careeach heart rate measurements are very unstable. It can go above 150 while Forerunner shows a modest sub 90. The measurement can simply drops well below 80 while exercising and can drop out of continuous measure mode unexpectedly. Its auto mode is most unreliable. I always turn on continuous mode while exercising. Garmin shows a bit less accurate in auto mode but function well in continuous mode. I can use Garmin to control the heart beat rate but not Careeach. The latter heart beat goes up and down too much and too quickly. Careeach calculates max heart rate according to age. It will buzz user to slow down if the heart rate goes beyond heavy range. Garmin does not buzz user and its range is fixed percentage.

3. Display of the Careeach tracker is always off but can be activated by hand or a twist of the hand but often have to make very large angle swing of arm in order to activate it. Garmin does not have this feature as its display is always on. Both tracker will switch over to clock mode if it not in continuous measure mode. Garmin heart rate display will switch to clock mode after a while but it will stay if it is displayed in sports tracking mode.

4. Upload of data is a hassle. At times the HPB App has to be turned off and on a few times to make it update. Sometimes, the whole hand phone has to be rebooted to get it to work. Garmin update to HPB is via its apps. Although two steps are required but the updates are usually reliable.

5. Charging of Careeach is via USB but the display can some times go straight into full by just plugging in the tracker. The full charge display can stay till it run suddenly out of juice thus lost valuable data. Turning off and on the tracker does not help. Garmin charging can be a bit of problem due to contact issues but never have wrong display issue.

6. Careeach states that its tracker is splash proof. However, one tracker died after going though a light drizzle. Had to replace it. Garmin is water proof up to 50 meters.

7. Battery life of Careeach is way too low to be compared to Garmin. But it can last at least 10 hour of continuous heart beat tracking mode. It could last 2 days or more on normal mode.

8. Careeach will buzz user if they stay static for too long. I am not sure Garmin has it.

For a free device, Careeach HR could be used for tracking steps. Heart rate is at best good for indicator only. Just don't exercise in the rain or use quick charger to charge it.

What's wrong with New Woodlands Bus Interchange

The Interchange was opened 15th March 2016. It even have a preview on March 12 with minister and all trying out the facilities.

The first feature is buggy service. Since the interchange is in a long U shape with the embarking and disembarking bay separated different sides of the U shape, it helps those who have walking difficulties to make the transition.

There are two or three handicap rams to help those on wheel chairs and pram to avoid the two flights of steps up to the MRT and shopping center.

There are seats allocated to just those in need of chairs along the embarking bay like the priority seats in trains and busses.

There are tactile tiles to help the blind navigate around.

It looked just perfect for every one. Except one thing. There isn't a single escalator or lift to bring those pregnant, sick, on walking sticks or simply tired to get out of the interchange. Singaporeans are aging rapidly. Won't it be included when designing a bus interchange? I heard ministers keep saying about aging and then when it happens, there are just not sufficient planning for these people. Like most plannings, it just cater to the structure it is building and does not provide connectivity to other structures.

It is true that the handicap rams can help but it is a good 50 meters length. If those people have difficulty walking on flat ground, it will be much more difficult to go on a slope.

The tactiles is a help to the blind and it leads blinds to the handicap rams. Do they think that blind cannot walk on stairs? There is no tactiles leading to the stairs. Neither is there any "tac tiles" leading to toilets.

I had to mention that MRT also never provide "tac tiles" that leads to the Bus Interchange. Should LTA also consider this connectivity issue when planning the new interchange?

I posted a comment on the Transportation Minister's Facebook post on the new interchange. It seems that he missed the comment totally just like the buggy driver who missed an old lady that could not mount the platform and has been walking dangerously along the road in the bay today.

On 15th Sept 2016, noticed the information display has this info.

Have noticed that there are two area under construction for the past few weeks already but there is no information available. From the size and location, I guessed that LTA is building lifts. With the information, it is confirmed that there will be lifts built. Its better late than never.

Cygnus Mystery

This post is copied from my FB post of the same name in Dec 2012. Corrected a number of typo. This is the reason why I switched back to Blogger.

Watched a video about "Ancient Alien - The Cygnus Mystery". The story evolves around the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation. It quotes from various ancient sites that either refer to the star Deneb or the symbol of a swan.

I have no problem with the individual artifacts that is used. Only problem is that they are strung together to form the story. 

Cygnus constellation is first mentioned by Ptolemy (Babylonian era). It is probably a copy of an earlier reference. Chinese constellation related to Deneb is 女宿 and Denebe is one of the star made popular by the story "cowboy and the weaver girl" (牛郎织女). Egyptian, Indian and Chinese each use the swan as celestial beings that is related to life and death.

Each of the exhibit by itself is existing ancient reference. However, by stringing them together to highlight "Cygnus Mystery", the author is trying to say that they are actually the same mystery. That I could not agree.

Deneb is one of the brightest star visible (19th). It is not surprising that people all over the world has a reference to it. The swan is a graceful animal and it is not surprising that it is used as a reference to life and death. However, using the Babylonian reference to the starts as Cygnus to say that they are related is too far fetched. You just can't pull two facts together just because there are common terms between them. Cygnus is just a name to describe a certain group of stars so that people can easily find it. It has no direct relation to the swan in Indian, Chinese and Egyptian celestial object reference. The video itself does not indicate any link between the star constellation in relation to all the celestial object reference besides a modern reference to the pyramids location and Cygnus constellation (a book written by Andrew Collins).

I must say that this is one common issue with people's conception. They simply set their mind to a conclusion then pulled information from unrelated realm to support their theory. Is this the scientific way? I doubt so. People like me does not have scientific qualifications. Even by using common sense, it failed to convince me, how would that be possible to convince people with better qualifications?

In Darwin Evolution Theory, by pulling together various bones and skulls together, modern archaeologists are trying to prove that man evolved from Apes. I won't deny that "evolution" exists. I am only skeptical about the way it is done. Unless scientists could prove beyond doubt the link (the so called evolution) between different species like bears and whales (Darwin's withdrawn theory). I would say that it is just a hypothesis not a theory.

New Google Map

Just got approval to access the new Google Map interface. It was a white washed map. Most of the features are gone. Just left the map/satellite view, location search and direction. Even the Street View is gone.

I was eager to try the cycling direction. Unfortunately, it is not available for Singapore yet.

I must admit that the 3D building view is a bit difficult to see. I still prefer the old 2D view.

There is a new feature. "Explore" shows you some pictures of the area and when you point to it, the location is shown in the map. For tourists, it may be good. For locals, it may not be so useful. Luckily it is default minimized.

The "traffic" feature is nice. It must be a real time indicator otherwise it is useless. Not sure how the refresh is done.

The "transit" feature is not much of a use. It is just a MRT map overlaid onto the background and highlighted.

The "direction" feature is a refreshing one. It showed all the routes available on the map. You could set it to "avoid toll" and "avoid highway". I just tried one from East Johor Bahru (Masai) to Bukit Panjang. Well, the route actually suggest I go all the way west to Second link instead of the much shorter Causeway link. Maybe the traffic condition is taken into consideration. Walking and cycling direction is still not available yet (in SG I guess).

The new map interface has become my default maps view. There is an option to go back to the classic view (the old Google map).

I now realize that Map Engine Lite and the new map are splinters of the old one. The former is re-engineered to make route plotting much easier (and less flexible) to use. Only Geeks like me would want to use the former while most people only uses the latter.

Geotagging a photo in Picasa Web

When taking a picture, it will be good to have its location remembered. The term used for this location storage is called Geotagging. More and more cameras now come with geotagging feature. Naturally, Android and iOS both include it as a standard.

Obviously, some privacy advocates will never want to turn the feature on. But, if you are on a tour, it will be good to geotag your photo especially when the location is not a famous spot.

The problem is that some times we do forget that geotag featured is turned off. When we return and process the photo, we are unable to show to our readers the location of the picture. My previous blog did talk about how to manually insert the geotag. This blog will tell you an even easier way.

Picasa Web is a place where you can store your pictures on line. The pictures were stored in albums. When you open an album, you will see a small map that show a number of markers. When you view individual photo, the map will actually show the location where the picture is taken.

Obviously, if you have not previously geotag your picture, you can't see the location information.  There will be a "add location" link next to the picture. However, it is only useful if you know the location name of the place. For those unknown location name places, it is practically useless.

Now, if you are viewing the album, there is a link called "view map". If you are viewing the picture itself there is also a link called "view album map". Clicking either of the link will show you a map with picture icons inside the map. Obviously, if you have not geotag your pictures, there will be few or none available.

I am not sure if you can access to the map when none of your pictures have geotag. Usually, I have at least one picture with geotag as I usually remember half way through that I have not turned on geotagging.

If you can access to the map, there is a button at the top left hand corner called "Edit map".  Clicking it will show the same map plus all the pictures in the album shown on the left. If you picture already have geotag information, it will show with a marker on the bottom right hand corner on the picture.

You can drag and drop any picture on the left into the map and it will help you to geotag the picture. To be more accurate in the location, I would suggest you go to the highest resolution in the map.

When you have finished your editing. Make sure you click "Done" on the top left hand corner of the page. It will bring you back to "view album map" page. You can then see the picture icons in the map where you have edited it.

One important note about the size of the pictures you upload. If you did not join Google+ your free upload is 800px on the biggest side. If you join Google+ it will be 2048px. Google allows 15GB of storage space (as at 2013). If you upload your pictures at the original size, it will count towards the size otherwise it will be free. So if you limit the size of your picture, you can have virtually unlimited uploads.

Unfortunately, Picasa Web may be on the way out. Google now automatically redirects you to Google+ whenever you try to view the picture. According to bloggers, this is a sign that Picasa Web is on the way out. I will really miss this nice feature plus the map view if Picasa Web is made obsolete.

Are you coerced to buy new over hyped computer products?

When we buy digital camera or handphone with camera, we always go for high megapix one. However, is that all necessary? How many of you will print a 2592x1944 (5MP) picture real sized all the time? Put it another way, how many of you would print a picture more than 5R [2100x1500] at 300dpi (equivalent to 3MP [2048x1536])? More crude question is "how many of you actually prints the picture you took with a digital camera?"

If you are not one of those rare people who dons professional or specialist skills, then what is the use of having a high MP camera? Of course, some may argue that if there is an occasion that requires higher MP pictures then they can't do it. True! You happened to be one of those camera geeks. The majority of the people don't.

Now, lets talk about the cost of having a high MP camera. It takes about 1MB to store a 5MP picture. If you only have a 4GB memory, you can take 4000 pictures. That's is a lot of pictures for one trip. No problem while you are on a trip. The real problem is posting it online. Facebook, Flickr generally automatically shrinks it for you. Picasa allows you to post real size pictures. But if you want it free then you can only post 1000 pictures (5MP). Beyond that, you have to pay. In order to get it free you will need to post 800 pixels or less. That is actually below 1MP.

You can have your own web sites to store/show the pictures. True. The cost is that you need to pay every month for the storage. How many of you actually have a personal web site?

I am sure you normally want to view the pictures on your computer or tv. HDTV 1080i can display 1920x1080 pixels. That is only less than 3MP size. What is the use of 5MP then?

I once saw and ads about Canon printer. It can print a picture with a sequence of actions with the same background. Nice huh? How often do you do such a print? Rare right. Would you buy one just for this rare feature?

Smart phones. A phone that can use to surf net, take pictures, make calls, send sms/mms, navigate via GPS etc. Very nice feature. You need to pay for the phone call, sms/mms and Internet separately. Many people don't mind paying. Many others could not even afford the phone bills alone. Cuba as surveyed in 2011 has only 12% mobile phone in use compared to its 11 million people. Erricson reported in 2011 that 65% of world population had mobile subscriptions. Looking at the other end - there are 35% who never have a mobile phone not to mention smart phones. In USA and Singapore the smart phone penetration rate is only 50%. and 54% respectively. To those who never have smart phone, NFC, 3G, 4G, ICS, iPhone5 is nothing. They don't really need them.

Windows OS. It almost monopolized the market. XP, Vista, Wn7,Win8, looks like it keeps on having new things - or is it. Would you be surprised to know that Microsoft even advice user to turn off Vista Sidebar? I used 3 out of the 4 OS listed. I turned all new features off so that it works like an XP. Why? It is useless to me. Would you rather concentrate on using the applications than worry about how it looks in the background?

3G vs 4G. What is the difference? It is just an improvement of the Internet speed. For those who find that they cannot live without internet on mobiles, maybe this will be good. For general users, it is just something nice to have. Just wait till you go to a place where there is no network access or when you go overseas then you tell me whether it is good. Singtel "bridged dataRoam Unlimited" cost $20 a day.

It feels good to get a new device. When your warranty expires, it costs you a bomb to repair it. I had a HTC phone which breaks down after one and a half year. It is estimated that it costs hundred plus to repair it. A new subsidized one costs around the same price. For all you know, local hanphone workshop don't even want to repair my hand phone. So, the policy is use and discard. You just need to keep paying. Those of you who have plenty of money to spare will not feel the pinch. Those who had not, will think thrice of getting a new device. "If it is not broken why fix it"?

Maps.google.com distance in Metric

It is very irritating to see imperial distance measure system every time you check the distance in Google Maps. There seems to be no way to set locale.

Actually there is. Just switch to Google Maps in a country that uses Metric system. For example I use maps.google.com.sg instead of maps.google.com.

Displaying routes and Markers in Google Earth

I used Google Maps to define routes and Markers. Only problem with it is that the Markers and routes are related. Upon creating hundreds of Markers and routes, Google Map start to truncate the list and make it into two page. This caused discontinuation of my Markers in relation to the routes. There is no way to show all the data at once.

One way out is to use Google Earth (not the browser version) to display. However, I noticed that there is a bug. Some of the routes have remarks. If you move the mouse over it, it will change to an arrow and you can click to view the comments. The bug caused some of the routes to stop showing the remarks.

The solution is to convert the KML to KMZ. I go to gpsvisualizer.com to do the conversion. Upon opening it in Google Earth. Everything worked just fine.

One guy suggested to do it in Google map itself. Just copy the KML address in the Google Map page. Open a new google map then paste the link into the search. Perform the search then copy the link address by clicking the link icon. Paste this in a new tab then book mark the page. It sure feel stupid just to view my own creation in this way but it worked. The whole list will appear in one page.

It is mighty weird that by posting the link in Facebook, the link will fail unless you convert it into a short URL. The conversion facility is in the link window itself. Just check it and you get the short URL.

Since I am an advocate for one touch easy access, it is deemed very low efficiency for me to create the link through the various steps every time I want to share a map., Thus, I created a custom map to do that. gmaps.js programmer provided this excellent library to create custom maps with various features.

What I did is simply remove the unnecessary elements from the html and modified the style to show the map full page plus replacing the sample KML link with the KML link of my map. I don't even have to post it on line to test the html. It is much slower to display the map. But it sure kills the boredom of generating the link to the map. I could even put all my maps in a selection list and share all the maps in one single map selecting page.

Microsoft Mouse left click sluggish

I bought a M$ mouse for my win7 laptop. It often failed the left click action when I tried to move the mouse fast and click on link. If I slowed down to a halt then click on the link, it worked fine.

A simple way to correct that sluggishness is to go to Control Panel, Mouse,  pointer options, motion and set "enhanced pointer precision" to "checked".

Posting Links in FaceBook

When posting links in FB, it is usual for users to just post the link in "Update Status". You will find an excerpt of the page you linked appearing below your message area. After posting it, you will find two links. One is the link you post another is the excerpt. It is actually a repeat of the link. 

Do you know that after the link excerpt appears, you can actually delete the link that you just pasted. You can then type your own message or just leave it blank. It will look nicer this way.

Handphone camera view turns black on Landscape mode

You might not be aware about this fact. If you happened to have HTC Desire and wears polarized sunglasses, whenever you turn the handphone side ways, your screen will start to dim then turn black at the horizontal position.

The issue is that the HTC Desire screen is partially polarized too. Actually, the screen does not turn totally black. If you are at a dark place and points your camera towards a bright area, you can still see a bit of the display.

To take good Landscape pictures with your HTC desire, never wears polarized glasses.

After reading more on polarized screen in Android, It seems like all LCD screens are polarized. AMOLED screens are spared this problem.

Win 7 Closed popup window not repainted properly

Go to "My Computer", right click and choose "properties","Advanced System Settings", "Performance", choose anything other than "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer". I choose "Custom" and get rid of items that start with "Animate..." and "Fade..." plus some of the "Show shadow.." (all these are nice but unnecessary effects).

Plotting a route using MapOmeter

It has similar feature as Google Maps except it can view OSM maps too. Its "follow road" feature, while plotting the point, is excellent although it sometimes have the same problem as Google Maps like certain part of the screen turn blue as you plot along the way.




What I like the most is its ability to export the route to GPX whereas Google Maps only export to KML. This is surely a plus as I use OsmAnd (for navigation) which only imports GPX. Also the exported route follows the road exactly as plotted using "follow road" method. This means I could plot quickly and accurately the entire route (on road only).

ViewRanger

I am speaking on the point view of a sports tracking user not for this particular app. It just happened to have almost all the features that is required for a proper sports tracking. Therefore, I take this app as the reference.

Tracking sports activity is basic for all sports tracker. It keeps a log of your activity. How well and how accurate the tracking actually depends on the GPS that you have. At times it is accurate while it really foul up at other times. It once reported that I traveled at 600Kph on my bicycle. However basic it is, VR(ViewRanger) has it. Only problem is that the button appears on the map itself. It is easy to touch it by accident. It has no pause but it will prompt you to continue, start new or cancel. It does have auto pause and has a few threshold settings.

Maps is useful if you need to know where you are along the way. Those who have unlimited mobile data plan have no problem showing the maps during tracking. However, if the place is really out of range then you will simply get a blank background. Thus, it is vital that up-to-date offline maps are available. VR have both online, cache and offline maps.

Cached maps are dangerous as it will be automatically erased. Offline map is the preferred choice. This especially critical if you have a number of tracks at different part of the world. You could always go online to download but people without mobile data plans have to pre-load the map before commencing their journey. Therefore, offline map is the best choice. VR even have update feature for the downloaded maps. This means you need not define the map area every time you need an updated map.

Routes are vital if you need to travel through unknown areas or the route has too many twists and turns. Sometimes you need to move through a number of waypoints in a particular order. Routes will allow you to do that. Showing the route on maps is available on some sports trackers.

"Follow route" is one feature that is very useful. It is like navigation. You just follow along the pre-planned route and it worked like a charm. A good navigation app will automatically points to the next waypoint as you go along the route. Some even show you the new plotted route to the nearest waypoint if you went out of the way. VR does not replot the route to the nearest waypoint. It only plot a straight line from your current location to the nearest waypoint. That is one point I am not so happy about. However, if you are off road, no sports tracker will be able to give you any guide any way.

Direction idiots like me have problem reading the map. I am always confused as to which direction I am heading or moving. Good navigation program will provide you a heading direction indicator. It will show the rough direction where your device is pointing at. This will allow you to align your route to your heading direction. This is a feature that is very useful. VR does not have heading direction indicator. It does have a movement direction indicator. When you move, it will show the direction of your movement. Although this is not the best choice, it does help to align user back to the route. You will simply do trial and error by moving and realign yourself.

Voice navigation is a plus for map navigation especially if you don't have time to look at the device. So far none of the sports-tracker have voice synthesized navigation. VR does not have it too. Normally, I would use OsmAnd for voice navigation. It has offline maps too but is not for sports tracking use.

Social media linkage is one optional features which many user likes. VR does allow you to update your activity to Facebook and Twitter.

View routes/tracks published by other is also one feature that may prove useful. Instead of plotting my own route, you could use other's route for my own activity. Viewing the tracks done by others also allow us to gauge ourselves as to how fit we were compared to others (possibly of same age). VR does not show tracks done by others. It does show published routes by others. I personally find that routes are better than tracks as individual have repeated tracks that may not be useful as a route. Like other trackers, VR did allow users to convert tracks to routes.

VR does not automatically centers the map to the GPS location. If you turn off the screen and back on later, the GPS location may go off the map. Just tap the "lock GPS" button will solve the problem.

Also, the screen time out feature of Android will keep turning off your screen. VR does not have "keep awake" feature yet. To solve this problem, you just have to install a "keep awake" app so that could easily turn off/on "keep awake".

Don't even think of importing tracks into VR. Many sports tracker allow you to import tracks. This is one thing which I don't like about VR. I have only one activity, why do I need two devices to record it? You can only import routes in GPX format.

VR site allows you to import GPX as routes. Some route creating web output is not compatible with it. GeoPlanner, MapOmeter generated routes are not possible to import. VR have its own route creating facility but it has only straight line. No "follow road" plotting possible.

One last reminder. Please be aware that VR does a lot of calculations plotting your track on map and navigation (if you turn "follow route" on). Your battery will drain extra fast.

How to use ViewRanger on Android to follow a track offline

The first thing you need to do is to ensure that your GPS is set to on. Download the app from Google Play. It will then prompt you to register yourself on my.viewranger.com.

Zoom out by touching the "-" button so that it showed at least the local area of your interest. Wait patiently as it start to locate itself and download the map into cache. Do this at home where you have your home wifi turned on and your phone connected to it otherwise ensure that you have unlimited data plan as the cache is preset to 100MB.

Touch the map area. A top bar and a bottom bar will appear. Touch the right most bottom bar icon that looked like a list. Select "Create Saved map". Select "street" regardless of whether it is selected already. You can now touch the map and select the areas. Press the "+" or "-" icon to zoom in and out. When you are sure all the area you needed is selected, click "download". It may take a long time to download depending on the area you selected. If I am not wrong, there is a maximum limit to the size of the area. Wait till download is completed.

Touch the screen and choose "list" button again. This time choose "offline". Touch the screen again and cliick on the "map" icon and select "organizer". Choose "Maps", "online maps", "openstreetmap" (unless you choose another map while creating your map), "my saved maps". Select the map that you saved and click "view". You are now on offline mode.

Next go to my.viewranger.com and create your track or download a track (you may need to pay to download a track). After creating and saving the track, go hack to your Android and click on "menu","options","settings","synchronize", Go back to "organizer", "Routes" and  click on the "down arrow" icon. Click "follow route" and you can start follow the route.

If your position is not at the route, there will be a black line from your location to the nearest waypoint. Just follow the direction. You may need to move around a bit to see where you are heading as it does not show your heading direction unlike other navigation program. However it does have movement direction indicator. Heading direction shows you the direction you (your handphone) are facing whereas movement direction show the direction you are moving. The former is better as you don't have to move to know where you are heading to.

If you have unlimited data plan and your route is always within the range, don't bother to use the offline method. This note is for people who don't have mobile data plan or the route is out of mobile data range.

IF you want to track your performance then there is a "rec" button at the bottom right side of the map. Click on it and you can track your performance. Make sure you don't touch the button again while navigating.

Insert Exif into existing picture

If you have pictures that is already taken but does not have EXIF (geotag) information? Well, there is a windows program that will allow you to insert the geotag information. The program is called GeoSetter. You can just locate from the map (Google Maps or OSM) the exact location (that is if you know) and the information will be inserted into the picture itself (only for GIF). Multiple selection is possible. 

You will need a free account from geonames.org if you want to insert the location name. I think it is not necessary to have it (its not very accurate anyway). Just ignore the warning and the geotag (long and lat) will be inserted.

Update latest OSM in OSMAnd

OSM data can be outdated in OSMAnd. Rather than wait for OSMAnd to post its update. You could download the data yourself to get the latest copy of the area concerned.

The first thing you need is OsmAndMapCreator from OsmAnd itself. Next, you need to download the daily update from geofabrik.de/osm. Singapore map is included in "Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei" map. Download and unzip the osm file and use the MapCreator to convert to obf file. Upload the obf file into Android \osmand directory. 

OsmAnd will automatically choose the map if your location is within the map area.

Vlan Tag

Read from Blogger (mili liew) that you don't really have to use 2wire 5012NV for your Singtel NGBN.

There is a blog that details how you can use your own switch to connect to the Optical hub.

The suggested switch used is a "managed switch that support vlan tagging". Vlan tagging is actually a protocol IEEE 802.1Q. The switch must be able to support this tagging.

Tag used as belows.

vlan 10 - Internet

vlan 20 - MIO TV

vlan 30 - VOIP

vlan 40 - Management

I don't quite know what vlan 40 is used for.