Moderate yourself when giving a talk

Recently I had the chance to record a small series of video trainings for future Android developers. During the recordings I encountered the problem that I slight problems with restricting my speaking time to certain limits. Restricting the time of each lesson ist pretty important since the average time span a human can fully concentrate is also very limited. But in some lessons I just kept on speaking. I started to explain interesting but unecessary details and instead of about 12 minutes some lessons were suddenly half an hour long.
So I started searching for an app to solve my problem.. Countdown timers semmed impractical since I didn't want to stop the lesson abruptly but have the ability to see how much time has passed and if I'm over a certain warning level.

First I started using the stopwatch on my Galaxy S3. But the numbers were too small and I didn't had any optical notification. So I started writing my own app. It is a minimal timer which just shows the passed time, keeps the screen on and gives you some optical feedback if you speak too long. It is simple and elegant and as soon as I have catchy name and a logo you can get the app in the playstore.

Make your guests at home with WiFi

You probably know the situation. You have some guests over at you flat and almost everyone brings his smartphone, some bring also their tablet. So while your guests are arriving you will probably tell each of your guests your WiFi configuration at least once. If you have complex WiFi pre shared keys probably even more often. And after you changed your pre shared keys it starts all over again (the next time you have guests). 
You could simply put a sign near the entrance with the WiFi configuration. But apart from the fact that you guests will pile up in the entrance area while typing your super complex WiFi pre shared key you will also have to print a new sign everytime you change your pre shared key. But since most Android smartphones sold these days (and therefore most smartphones owned in the near future) have NFC capabilities why not simply writing you WiFi configuration on a NFC tag?

Sharing your home WiFi via NFC

rilato allows you to write any WiFi configuration stored on your device on a NFC tag. Simply select the configuration you want to share, type in your pre shared key and hold your device near a NFC tag. All necessary information is now on the tag including an identifier telling other Android devices that this configuration can be read with rilato and showing them rilatos dowload page on the Play Store. If the hand't rilato installed before they can simply download the app and read the NFC tag again to get your WiFi configuration. 
 
So you have now a small NFC tag with all necessary information to connect to your home or guest WiFi. But somehow your guests should get the message without the need to tell them one by one. Simply putting the tag on the wall would no one. Even if the tag catches the attention of your guests they probably wouldn't know what to do with it. So I came up with a small sign, which shows that you are sharing your wifi and that that NFC enabled Android smartphones can easily obtain the WiFi configuration. You can either download and print the picture on the right or you can download rilato and share the sign from there (to Google Cloud Print for example). The image is optimized for photo frames for pictures with 10cm x 15cm. I'm using this picture myself with a cheap frame from IKEA.

But of course you aren't forced to use my sign. You can design any way you want. You may also the logo of rilato. But if you are a design crack and you come up with a great desing for this sign, then feel free to contact me.

NFC and WiFi: simplicity and harmony

After I received my Nexus 7 I was very excited about the device. It's a great device and fun to use. But at least here in Germany the fun stops as soon as you leave your home. Since public WiFi is practically not available or expensive as hell your last resort is WiFi tethering with your smartphone.
Lucky enough also my smartphone is an Android device so WiFi tethering is possible and pretty easy to set up. But it still involves several steps. I have to switch tethering on, go to the settings to lookup the given SSID and password (I forget these all the time), activate WiFi on my Nexus 7, select my tethering WiFi and enter the password. And if I'm lucky and typed the password corretcly everything will connect. After a while I will then switch WiFi off on my Nexus 7 (since I don't need it any more) and go on. Often I was pretty upset about the poort battery life of my Galaxy S3, because I forgot to switch off the WiFi tethering.

Introducing rilato

To make this whole process easier and simpler to use and reduce unecessary battery drainiage on my SGS3 I created a small app called 'rilato'. You can get in the Play Store for free without any ads. 
Everything I have to do now to get tethering to work, is start rilato on my SGS3, unlock the screen of my Nexus 7 and hold both together, back to back. (Please not that you need to have rilato installed on both devices) WiFi tethering on my SGS3 will be activated automatically as will WiFi be on the Nexus 7. Also all necessary configuration is send to the Nexus 7 so I have always the correct WiFi configuration to use the tethering on my SGS3.

rilato works on all NFC enabled Android devices. Just download it from the Play Store here for free.
But that is not all rilato can do. Discover it your self or wait for the next blogpost.