I’ve found myself using the same applications over and over again and I find it kinda strange that my top Android application list does not resemble the lists you find by googling after top Android apps.

Before I go into the details I’d like to mention that I’m writing this post using my phone and the WordPress app.

First and foremost is Android Advanced Task Killer (free). This application is essential since Android is a multitasking platform which allows apps to run in the background, even start automatically. Having many apps running reduces battery life considerably and Android does not provide an easy soloution to this yet. You can use this app to kill all running apps at configurable intervals excluding those you specify, the ones you really need to run for longer periods of time. When I started using my phone I had approx. 40 apps running, now they are somewhere around 5.

To manage the data on my phone I use File Manager (free). This app gives you full control over your files and folders, copy, delete, rename, you name it.

The Facebook application integrates nicely with the built in contacts app, allowing you to link contacts with their fb profile, giving you access to phone numbers, profile pics, birthdays etc. Google and twitter accounts integrate similarly.

I use the SwiFTP app extensively, its basically a very simple FTP server and comes very handy when exchanging files with friends pc’s via wireless.

MortPlayer is by far the best audiobook player I’ve come across so far. Note you have to install the widgets separately.

I find Springpad very handy when taking notes or writing todos, however I can’t seem to switch entirely to Springpad from Evernote so I just use them both.

I’m using a few more which will have to wait, my phone is running out of juice!

After some trial and error I settled on using Handbrake for Mac to encode my videos because it is fast, free and simple to use. Furthermore, I came up with the following settings for Handbrake which work for my HTC Desire and are in good-enough-quality. Good-enough-quality is important because lower quality video playback is less power consuming than high quality and for obvious reasons, battery consumption is important. So here is a tradeoff between quality and battery life and depending on your preference you change the quality levels by changing the following video parameters;

1. resolution
2. frame rate
3. average bitrate

Configure Handbrake like this to start encoding your first videos:

Handbrake configuration steps

1. Click Picture Settings and select Size tab. Make sure that Anamorphic is set to None and Width and Height do not exceed 800 and 480
2. Select the Format as MP4 file
3. Select the Video Codec as MPEG-4 (FFmpeg), choose the Framerate to be same as source (or as low as 15 for large movies such as DVD rips or Blu-Ray) and uncheck the 2-pass encoding box
4. Set the Average bitrate (kbps) to 384

By default my Audio tab settings in Handbrake are:

• Audio Codec: AAC (faac) , this is in fact the required format !
• Mixdown: Stereo
• Samplerate: Auto
• Bitrate: 128

Now you know how to convert your videos the easy way, try my values first and then tweak them to your taste. Enjoy.

Now I look cool online – no ?

Two weeks ago I started work on my master thesis, Management within Lean Startups, at DTU. One of my supervisors was so kind to give me a tour of the departmental building I’ll be working most of the time, basically showing me the most important places such as the location of the coffee machine etc. The tour included the work area for master students, a big room filled with cubicles, and not being fond of cubicles I asked if there was some other place available and as it turned out there was and I settled myself in an office with an extremely comfy sofa (hello 20 minute power-naps!).

Since I started I’ve been bumping into a few people I know from different courses and they all sound surprised when I invite them into my office, usually they go:

Friend: “What did you do to deserve an office??”

Me: “Well, I just asked if they had anything more spacy”

Friend: “Hey, you also have a white-board!”

Me: “Yeah, I just asked if they had some extra white-boards available”

Friend: “Oh, grunt!” -> followed by thoughts about why they didn’t think of asking and giving me an evil-eye

Although this isn’t a very interesting story, it has a good point; Why are we so often afraid of asking?

Open up a terminal and do:

1. Download script from link above
2. $ cd /Users/me/Downloads # or whatever directory you want
3. $ /path/to/unrarer.py -h # view help before using script
4. $ /path/to/unrarer.py # execute script

The script may run for a while depending on how many and how big the rar files are, but THE benefit is that you just run the script once and it takes care of all the rar files in one go. I’m sharing this script because I find it very useful but I won’t take responsibility for what it might do to your system or files so be careful.

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Easy peasy! and everything went according to plan. I’m hosting my server at rackspacecloud.com and I must say that I’m very happy with their services. So happy in fact that I answered their customer satisfaction survey the other day, I usually don’t bother taking these surveys but I felt that these guys were doing such a great job that I decided to give them a small pat on the back.  This brings me to another story; I’m involved with a facebook app project with a few people I met at Copenhagen Startupweekend and during one of our early Skype meetings I was introducing my idea that we should host our development environment using Rackspacecloud servers and browsed to their pricing site in order to get the link so I could copy-paste it to the other guys in the call.

Now to my surprise, as I scroll down the page I noticed that Rackspacecloud was actually using one of my satisfaction survey comments as a quote on the pricing page. It makes me feel good to be able to give something back – apart from the few bucks I actually pay for their services.

Go Rackspacecloud!

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Just migrating all of my stuff from one host to another (Debian to Ubuntu), this site might not be working for the next two days or so.

I started out mastering my old time favorite Khao Phad Gai and now I present to you, Cashew-Chicken with oyster sauce! Before I go into details the “Uhm! this is so delicious! I’m going to take you with me home and chain you to my stove and you wont ever-ever leave” – test involves making each dish several times for family and friends with the aim of getting the before mentioned response.

I hope you find it tasty as well.

Cashew-Chicken with oyster sauce

Suited for 4 persons

Ingredients – Sauce

• 1 cup Brown sugar
• 4 tbsp Fish sauce
• 8 tbsp Soy sauce
• 24 tbsp oyster sauce

Ingredients

• 2 pcs Chicken breasts, diced
• 4 pcs Small green onions, chopped (boats)
• 1 pcs Large red pepper, sliced
• 5 pcs Garlic cloves, minced
• 2 pcs Small chili’s, diced
• 2-4 pcs Large chili’s, chopped in large bits (optional)
• 1 can Bamboo sticks / Mini corn
• 100 gr Cashew nuts
• 2 pinches Salt
• 2 tbsp Nut oil

Preparation

1. Prepare sauce by adding all ingredients in a pot, heat until it boils and let cool down.
2. Start preparing jasmine rice (about 400-600 gr. rice vs. that x 1.33 of water)
3. Heat cooking oil in a wok, add chicken and stir fry until half cooked.
4. Add garlic and small chili’s, cook for 30 sec until adding onions and stir fry.
5. When the onions start to soften, add peppers, large chili’s and bamboo/corn sticks , peanut oil and continue frying.
6. Finally add cashew nuts and season before adding the sauce.

• selling your idea (pitching) to the talent (other participants in the event like yourself),
• networking to connect with the talent you need to
• develop the idea to mature it from an idea -> to concept -> to product/service,
• Finally gather funding by pitching the results in front of potential investors.

The weekend didn’t start very well for me, I had been sick for a couple of days and felt like I was only getting worse. Other indicators that this weekend was to be spent at home was when I was just checking the location of the venue on Google maps, 15 minutes before I was supposed to show up, and my Macbook’s power adapter cord caught fire and stopped working for obvious reasons, how typical!

Despite the distractions I made it in time and as the first night progressed, I got to know quite a few people and eventually joined a team which was going to set out to develop a facebook app. Personally I’m not at all a fan of facebook and rarely use it but I am really intrigued by the application concept, so I said to hell with it and went for it. Late that night (friday), Pedro, Karl, Mikael, Marcia and I set off to develop a business case and a prototype of the application and after intense two days of work, fruits, coffee and little sleep we got our demo working and were ready to pitch in front of the jury (sunday evening). The teamwork was very interesting and I had lots of fun with my teammates and I feel very fortunate to have met and worked with such good people over the weekend, thanks guys!!

However, in the end our concept did not win the grand prize but wasn’t a let-down at all because I got to know many great individuals which I would be interested in working with in the future. Furthermore, my team and I decided to continue working on our concept and if you’re at all interested, although I haven’t told you what the concept is all about, you can subscribe to our mailing list here: gowalkthetalk.com – I’m not going to ruin the suspense right now :). If you’re interested in joining the next CSW event, I can tell you that the next one is planned for August/September this fall – subscribe to CSW newsletter or join on twitter via. their official homepage (above).

I’m writing about this because I missed the point Ferris is making in his book the first time around. Well at least the point which I think is the most interesting and useful and that is his “Dreamline”. It’s basically a three split short term plan, 6 or 12 months, where you are to pick a few things to:

• have
• become
• do

You then figure out the monthly costs of these things or “dreams” to calculate how much it would actually cost you to do what you dream about doing for the next few months. Ferris in fact does a better job of explaining on his website, and even better in his book. I have my 6 month dreamline hanging on the fridge and am actively pursuing each task, it’s really fun! You should try it.

Other books I’d like to recommend are;

• Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
• Your Brain at Work by David Rock

Especially Your Brain at Work as it is a really interesting read about the workings of your brain. The author David Rock does a fantastic job of explaining how your brain works by uncovering it’s limitations and by understanding the limits you’ll be able to use it much more effectively, at least it may help explain why you sometimes do some things you do. This one is definitely one of my favorites.

I remember a friend of mine, which was studying biology at the time, talking about taking a swipe of the cashiers numpad. The numpad which was originally white had become dark brown everywhere with dirt except where the cashiers fingers struck the keys. She decided not to, because she was afraid that she wouldn’t want to go there anymore after seeing the result from the swipe. I don’t blame her but it would have been very interesting to see the results! But as I said before, the food was fantastic which was all that mattered.

My absolute favourite dish was no 43 on the menu, fried rice with chicken or Khao Phad Gai, in fact Malla and I often talked about how great it was which got me started on trying to recreate this dish even though there are approximatelly 8 years since I tasted it last. Evidently time doesn’t matter because I’ve been experementing with Khao Phad Gai – Mekong style several times this past month and I believe that the receipe has been perfected!

Please try this at home and let me know what you think, especially if you’ve tasted the original! Enjoy!

Khao Phad Gai – Mekong style

Suitable for 2-4

Ingredients

• 400 g Jasime rice, steamed and cooled
• 200 g Chicken, chooped in small pieces (I prefer 400 g)
• 3-4 pcs Eggs
• 2 pcs Tomatoes, diced
• 1 pcs Carrot, 4 cm thin strips
• 1 pcs Lemon
• 3 pcs Garlic cloves, minced
• 3 pcs Onions, chooped
• 2 tbsp Fish sauce
• 6 tbsp Soya sauce
• Red chili sauce

Preparation

1. Heat cooking oil in a wok, add eggs and stir until cooked, remove from wok (I like to have my eggs in medium sized bits).
2. Heat cooking oil in a wok, add meat and stir fry until half done.
3. Add garlic, onions and carrot while stirring continuously and frying.
4. Add tomatoes and prepared eggs while stirring.
5. Add rice while stirring.
6. Season with fish, soya and red chili sauce.
7. Serve with 1/4 of a lemon on the side.