Ads in Notification Bar in Android

I recently started to get some ads in the notification bar on my Nexus One.   It turns out it was from an app I don't remember installing called Gtalk Updater and that it was using a framework called Airpush.   I didn't like them one bit.  In addition to just being annoying by pushing to the notification bar, they also caused my phone to vibrate.

Luckily someone has created an App called Airpush Detector which will find apps that are causing this update and take you to the uninstall screen for them.

If you are noticing ads in your notification bar on your Android phone, you may want to check this app out.

Exercise Increase

For the last couple of weeks I have been focusing on tracking my calories, in and out.  Much of it has been with the help of a great app my wife found called Calorie Counter on the Android.    Calorie counter links to fatsecret.com which has a database of foods and exercise that you can enter in to keep track of your progress.  A great feature of the app on my G1 is that I can scan a barcode and more likely than not, the food is in the database already.  This makes it very easy to keep track of during the day.   Although I have been trying to eat balanced with not too much of anything, I am not trying a low carb diet at this point.  Just trying to keep the calories I am eating less than the calories my body is comsuming.  You can see my progress at the fatsecret site.  

Yesterday after walking my three miles in the morning (at about 3 mph). I was feeling pretty good and decided that today I would try to move up to jogging.  Although I was able to run/jog down the street, I felt a lot impact on my legs and on my body in general.  I decided that I would just try to increase the speed I was walking until I could lose more wieght and try to run again.   So I completed 2 miles this morning in just over 30 minutes and could definately feel some muscle pain/soreness in my calves shins.  So I will try to work on that speed for the next while until I feel pretty comfortable doing that for one hour or more.  

Rooted G1 For the Win

I rooted my G1 this weekend after being convinced by an article on Lifehacker.  I think it was a good decision.  I installed the latest Cyanogen Mod, which was just released this weekend.  I really like the new camera, the power widget and most of all the snappyness of the phone now.   Cyanogen says it uses more battery than the standard ROM, but honestly I feel like I was spending so much time waiting for the phone to respond to what I wanted it to do, I suspect that the real trade off in time is very little.

The thing that took the longest was backing up my 8GB SD card.  I also found the MyBackup app to be very handy in quickly getting all of my apps and shortcuts back quickly. (Although I did have to set each one back up... ).   DoggCatcher has a very handy back up capability but a non-obvious way of restoring.    I was able to short circuit the way described in the FAQ by using taskiller to kill the doggcatcher task and then the Lynda File Manager to delete the done.txt.

MotoRokr T505 + T-Mobile G1 = meh

I recently purchased a Motorola MOTOROKR T505 to enable bluetooth in my car (Honda Civic Hybrid).  I previously used a connector for my phone that let me connect power and a headphone jack to the car.  The audio went to an auxillary jack that was built  in to the car.

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Podcatching with Android

One of the things I love best about my T-Mobile G1 and Android is the application called DoggCatcher.  Doggcatcher is a podcatcher which means that it is able to subscibe to podcasts.   Podcasts are like radio shows but on the internet.  They can be about anything that anyone wants to put up.  In fact, some of the podcasts I listen to ARE radio shows.  Doggcatcher lets me set up podcasts in such a way that they basically are my own personal radio station... with Tivo.

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