Choosing a phone

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and it's
solid, you can drop it without breaking it.
G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those.

As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you from
having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the fields, we
don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging. We
have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access to
electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your whole
operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun to
charge.

We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car chargers.
We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular outlet. I
plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive home.

For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters (to
clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't try
to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert the
power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can give
you more details on specific hardware if you are interested.

100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying 100
Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of 2800
and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data
collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month.

Neil

··· On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder wrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

Andrew,

Not sure this falls under traditional hardware but you may want to consider
some sort of cases for your phones. We are currently using "dry paks",
which are cheap-ish (~10-20 USD) and water proof. They are difficult to use
at first but after the membrane gets a worn in it becomes just fine to use
in all conditions.

Here are a few photos to illustrate what they look like.
(1)http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/h9mXXsb6oMNi-KDiZkynvdOn8JZBJKeOhX6kAQVvb9s?feat=directlink
and
(2)http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4_gRWTa3CrcVl1de2O6tJNOn8JZBJKeOhX6kAQVvb9s?feat=directlink
.

Regards,

andrew

··· On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Andrew Marder wrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
andrew azman
+1.202.258.3951

Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a
pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the
shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the
group.

14 phones http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2
7 car outlets http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/
7 netbooks http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4
7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip http://store.solio.com/Classic-i

We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This
goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.)

Thanks for the help, Andrew

··· On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick wrote: > The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and it's > solid, you can drop it without breaking it. > G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those. > As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you from > having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the fields, we > don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging. We > have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access to > electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your whole > operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun to > charge. > We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car chargers. > We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular outlet. I > plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive home. > For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters (to > clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't try > to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert the > power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can give > you more details on specific hardware if you are interested. > 100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying 100 > Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of 2800 > and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data > collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month. > Neil > > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder wrote: >> >> Dear ODK Implementers, >> >> I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey >> in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to >> hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only >> played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK >> FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic) >> >> Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on >> hand cranks? >> >> Thanks for the advice, Andrew > > > -- > ☞§※⌘✈☂ > ~Neil > >

For the ODK Aggregate, you will want to grab the latest 0.9.3 code (the
current development tip).

To restrict the access to your appspot, you'll want to modify

org.odk.aggregate.servlet.ServletUtilBase.java: verifyCredentials(...)

To test for specific users, etc.

The 0.9.3 code has support for a soon-to-be-released data downloading
function (ODK Briefcase) that can download all data in the Aggregate
instance to your hard drive as a set of binary data files and CSV files (one
CSV file for the top-level form data and one each for every repeated group
in the form).

Mitch

··· On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Andrew Azman wrote:

Andrew,

Not sure this falls under traditional hardware but you may want to consider
some sort of cases for your phones. We are currently using "dry paks",
which are cheap-ish (~10-20 USD) and water proof. They are difficult to use
at first but after the membrane gets a worn in it becomes just fine to use
in all conditions.

Here are a few photos to illustrate what they look like. (1)http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/h9mXXsb6oMNi-KDiZkynvdOn8JZBJKeOhX6kAQVvb9s?feat=directlink and
(2)http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4_gRWTa3CrcVl1de2O6tJNOn8JZBJKeOhX6kAQVvb9s?feat=directlink
.

Regards,

andrew

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Andrew Marder andrew.n.marder@gmail.comwrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
andrew azman
+1.202.258.3951

The phones look good. Let us know how it goes with that supplier. I would
like to know if they are 32A or 32B.

The car outlets look fine for your purpose. If you are going to have 7
surveyors operating independently, they will only ever be recharging one
Android at a time. Maybe one netbook as well. If you were going to charge 7
phones at the same time in the same auto, you would need the USB hub and you
would need a more powerful version of the car outlet.

The netbooks look like they have a long battery life, that is very useful.
They are also cheap and have good reviews. Is it necessary for every
surveyor to have a netbook? Are they all doing seperate synch's? How are you
unifying your data?

You might consider using the Kobo Post Processor to synchronize your data
offline and transcribe it to CSV for import into your database.

I'm a big fan of the solio, it can be used when you don't have access to
your auto charger. We use the magnesium version, but I don't think there is
anything wrong with this version (classic) except that I think the capacity
of the battery is less than the capacity of the Android's battery, so it
will not charge an Android to 100%. You will have to check the specs.

If you are buying all this stuff in advance, why buy your adapters and surge
protectors in-country? It might work out fine, but I say that anything you
can fix in advance is worth taking care of before you are faced with the
challenges of shopping in a developing nation.

Looking forward to hearing more about your project,

Neil Hendrick

··· On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Andrew Marder wrote:

Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a
pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the
shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the
group.

14 phones
http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2
7 car outlets
http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/
7 netbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4
7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip
http://store.solio.com/Classic-i

We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This
goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.)

Thanks for the help, Andrew

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick mojotexas@gmail.com wrote:

The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and
it's
solid, you can drop it without breaking it.
G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those.
As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you
from
having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the fields,
we
don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging. We
have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access to
electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your
whole
operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun to
charge.
We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car
chargers.
We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular outlet.
I
plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive
home.
For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters
(to
clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't
try
to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert
the
power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can
give
you more details on specific hardware if you are interested.
100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying
100
Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of
2800
and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data
collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month.
Neil

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder < andrew.n.marder@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

A USB hub(s) are really really nice to have!

··· On Aug 6, 2010, at 7:56 PM, Andrew Marder wrote:

Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a
pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the
shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the
group.

14 phones http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2
7 car outlets http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/
7 netbooks http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4
7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip http://store.solio.com/Classic-i

We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This
goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.)

Thanks for the help, Andrew

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick mojotexas@gmail.com wrote:

The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and it's
solid, you can drop it without breaking it.
G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those.
As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you from
having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the fields, we
don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging. We
have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access to
electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your whole
operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun to
charge.
We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car chargers.
We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular outlet. I
plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive home.
For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters (to
clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't try
to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert the
power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can give
you more details on specific hardware if you are interested.
100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying 100
Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of 2800
and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data
collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month.
Neil

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder andrew.n.marder@gmail.com wrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

Hi All,

I just wanted to find out how your various trials have gone with the
Magics etc.

There's a bunch more HTCs out now (legend, incredible, desire) and was
wondering if a favourite in terms of usability and reliability had
emerged.

Also I was wondering if anyone had tried these rugged handsets from
Trimble? http://www.sdgsystems.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:android-on-nomad&catid=15:press-releases&Itemid=50

All the best,
Kieran

··· On Aug 11, 9:01 pm, Mitchell Sundt wrote: > For the ODK Aggregate, you will want to grab the latest 0.9.3 code (the > current development tip). > > To restrict the access to your appspot, you'll want to modify > > org.odk.aggregate.servlet.ServletUtilBase.java: verifyCredentials(...) > > To test for specific users, etc. > > The 0.9.3 code has support for a soon-to-be-released data downloading > function (ODK Briefcase) that can download all data in the Aggregate > instance to your hard drive as a set of binary data files and CSV files (one > CSV file for the top-level form data and one each for every repeated group > in the form). > > Mitch > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Andrew Azman wrote: > > Andrew, > > > Not sure this falls under traditional hardware but you may want to consider > > some sort of cases for your phones. We are currently using "dry paks", > > which are cheap-ish (~10-20 USD) and water proof. They are difficult to use > > at first but after the membrane gets a worn in it becomes just fine to use > > in all conditions. > > > Here are a few photos to illustrate what they look like. (1) and > > (2) > > . > > > Regards, > > > andrew > > > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Andrew Marder wrote: > > >> Dear ODK Implementers, > > >> I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey > >> in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to > >> hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only > >> played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK > >> FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic) > > >> Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on > >> hand cranks? > > >> Thanks for the advice, Andrew > > > -- > > andrew azman > > +1.202.258.3951

From the tech specs, it looks like the phones are 32B:
http://forum.smartdeviceresource.com/index.php?topic=100.0
Do you think it's worth spending more for 32A's?

I was thinking we'd use ODK Aggregate as close to out of the box as
possible. I think the only thing we'd need to set up is restricted
access on appspot, but I'd love some warning if I'm headed down the
wrong path. I'll definitely check out the Kobo Post Processor.

It seems that Solio has discontinued the magnesium version, kind of a bummer.

I totally agree, getting everything prepped now makes sense. Anyone
have a favorite converter for type D and G outlets?

Andrew

··· On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Neil Hendrick wrote: > The phones look good. Let us know how it goes with that supplier. I would > like to know if they are 32A or 32B. > The car outlets look fine for your purpose. If you are going to have 7 > surveyors operating independently, they will only ever be recharging one > Android at a time. Maybe one netbook as well. If you were going to charge 7 > phones at the same time in the same auto, you would need the USB hub and you > would need a more powerful version of the car outlet. > The netbooks look like they have a long battery life, that is very useful. > They are also cheap and have good reviews. Is it necessary for every > surveyor to have a netbook? Are they all doing seperate synch's? How are you > unifying your data? > You might consider using the Kobo Post Processor to synchronize your data > offline and transcribe it to CSV for import into your database. > I'm a big fan of the solio, it can be used when you don't have access to > your auto charger. We use the magnesium version, but I don't think there is > anything wrong with this version (classic) except that I think the capacity > of the battery is less than the capacity of the Android's battery, so it > will not charge an Android to 100%. You will have to check the specs. > If you are buying all this stuff in advance, why buy your adapters and surge > protectors in-country? It might work out fine, but I say that anything you > can fix in advance is worth taking care of before you are faced with the > challenges of shopping in a developing nation. > Looking forward to hearing more about your project, > Neil Hendrick > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Andrew Marder wrote: >> >> Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a >> pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the >> shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the >> group. >> >> 14 phones >> http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2 >> 7 car outlets >> http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/ >> 7 netbooks >> http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4 >> 7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip >> http://store.solio.com/Classic-i >> >> We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This >> goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.) >> >> Thanks for the help, Andrew >> >> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick wrote: >> > The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and >> > it's >> > solid, you can drop it without breaking it. >> > G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those. >> > As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you >> > from >> > having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the >> > fields, we >> > don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging. >> > We >> > have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access >> > to >> > electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your >> > whole >> > operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun >> > to >> > charge. >> > We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car >> > chargers. >> > We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular >> > outlet. I >> > plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive >> > home. >> > For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters >> > (to >> > clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't >> > try >> > to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert >> > the >> > power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can >> > give >> > you more details on specific hardware if you are interested. >> > 100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying >> > 100 >> > Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of >> > 2800 >> > and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data >> > collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month. >> > Neil >> > >> > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder wrote: >> >> >> >> Dear ODK Implementers, >> >> >> >> I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey >> >> in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to >> >> hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only >> >> played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK >> >> FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic) >> >> >> >> Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on >> >> hand cranks? >> >> >> >> Thanks for the advice, Andrew >> > >> > >> > -- >> > ☞§※⌘✈☂ >> > ~Neil >> > >> > > > > > -- > ☞§※⌘✈☂ > ~Neil > >

32a has double the ram for the os which is nice if you want to
eventually run 2.2 via cyanogenmod. if you are running 1.5/1.6 i doubt
you'll notice.

as far as security, waylon just posted how to add security code to
aggregate at http://groups.google.com/group/opendatakit-implementers/browse_thread/thread/9da22e31e8e9b46a

··· On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 08:16, Andrew Marder wrote: > From the tech specs, it looks like the phones are 32B: > http://forum.smartdeviceresource.com/index.php?topic=100.0 > Do you think it's worth spending more for 32A's? > > I was thinking we'd use ODK Aggregate as close to out of the box as > possible. I think the only thing we'd need to set up is restricted > access on appspot, but I'd love some warning if I'm headed down the > wrong path. I'll definitely check out the Kobo Post Processor. > > It seems that Solio has discontinued the magnesium version, kind of a bummer. > > I totally agree, getting everything prepped now makes sense. Anyone > have a favorite converter for type D and G outlets? > > Andrew > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Neil Hendrick wrote: >> The phones look good. Let us know how it goes with that supplier. I would >> like to know if they are 32A or 32B. >> The car outlets look fine for your purpose. If you are going to have 7 >> surveyors operating independently, they will only ever be recharging one >> Android at a time. Maybe one netbook as well. If you were going to charge 7 >> phones at the same time in the same auto, you would need the USB hub and you >> would need a more powerful version of the car outlet. >> The netbooks look like they have a long battery life, that is very useful. >> They are also cheap and have good reviews. Is it necessary for every >> surveyor to have a netbook? Are they all doing seperate synch's? How are you >> unifying your data? >> You might consider using the Kobo Post Processor to synchronize your data >> offline and transcribe it to CSV for import into your database. >> I'm a big fan of the solio, it can be used when you don't have access to >> your auto charger. We use the magnesium version, but I don't think there is >> anything wrong with this version (classic) except that I think the capacity >> of the battery is less than the capacity of the Android's battery, so it >> will not charge an Android to 100%. You will have to check the specs. >> If you are buying all this stuff in advance, why buy your adapters and surge >> protectors in-country? It might work out fine, but I say that anything you >> can fix in advance is worth taking care of before you are faced with the >> challenges of shopping in a developing nation. >> Looking forward to hearing more about your project, >> Neil Hendrick >> >> On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Andrew Marder wrote: >>> >>> Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a >>> pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the >>> shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the >>> group. >>> >>> 14 phones >>> http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2 >>> 7 car outlets >>> http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/ >>> 7 netbooks >>> http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4 >>> 7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip >>> http://store.solio.com/Classic-i >>> >>> We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This >>> goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.) >>> >>> Thanks for the help, Andrew >>> >>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick wrote: >>> > The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and >>> > it's >>> > solid, you can drop it without breaking it. >>> > G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those. >>> > As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you >>> > from >>> > having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the >>> > fields, we >>> > don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging. >>> > We >>> > have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access >>> > to >>> > electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your >>> > whole >>> > operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun >>> > to >>> > charge. >>> > We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car >>> > chargers. >>> > We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular >>> > outlet. I >>> > plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive >>> > home. >>> > For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters >>> > (to >>> > clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't >>> > try >>> > to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert >>> > the >>> > power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can >>> > give >>> > you more details on specific hardware if you are interested. >>> > 100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying >>> > 100 >>> > Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of >>> > 2800 >>> > and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data >>> > collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month. >>> > Neil >>> > >>> > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder wrote: >>> >> >>> >> Dear ODK Implementers, >>> >> >>> >> I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey >>> >> in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to >>> >> hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only >>> >> played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK >>> >> FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic) >>> >> >>> >> Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on >>> >> hand cranks? >>> >> >>> >> Thanks for the advice, Andrew >>> > >>> > >>> > -- >>> > ☞§※⌘✈☂ >>> > ~Neil >>> > >>> > >> >> >> >> -- >> ☞§※⌘✈☂ >> ~Neil >> >> >

This page explains the differences between 32A vs B, and how to tell.
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=How_to_determine_if_you_have_32A_or_32B

··· On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 8:24 AM, Yaw Anokwa wrote:

32a has double the ram for the os which is nice if you want to
eventually run 2.2 via cyanogenmod. if you are running 1.5/1.6 i doubt
you'll notice.

as far as security, waylon just posted how to add security code to
aggregate at
http://groups.google.com/group/opendatakit-implementers/browse_thread/thread/9da22e31e8e9b46a

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 08:16, Andrew Marder andrew.n.marder@gmail.com wrote:

From the tech specs, it looks like the phones are 32B:
http://forum.smartdeviceresource.com/index.php?topic=100.0
Do you think it's worth spending more for 32A's?

I was thinking we'd use ODK Aggregate as close to out of the box as
possible. I think the only thing we'd need to set up is restricted
access on appspot, but I'd love some warning if I'm headed down the
wrong path. I'll definitely check out the Kobo Post Processor.

It seems that Solio has discontinued the magnesium version, kind of a
bummer.

I totally agree, getting everything prepped now makes sense. Anyone
have a favorite converter for type D and G outlets?

Andrew

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Neil Hendrick mojotexas@gmail.com wrote:

The phones look good. Let us know how it goes with that supplier. I
would
like to know if they are 32A or 32B.
The car outlets look fine for your purpose. If you are going to have 7
surveyors operating independently, they will only ever be recharging one
Android at a time. Maybe one netbook as well. If you were going to
charge 7
phones at the same time in the same auto, you would need the USB hub and
you
would need a more powerful version of the car outlet.
The netbooks look like they have a long battery life, that is very
useful.
They are also cheap and have good reviews. Is it necessary for every
surveyor to have a netbook? Are they all doing seperate synch's? How are
you
unifying your data?
You might consider using the Kobo Post Processor to synchronize your
data
offline and transcribe it to CSV for import into your database.
I'm a big fan of the solio, it can be used when you don't have access to
your auto charger. We use the magnesium version, but I don't think there
is
anything wrong with this version (classic) except that I think the
capacity
of the battery is less than the capacity of the Android's battery, so it
will not charge an Android to 100%. You will have to check the specs.
If you are buying all this stuff in advance, why buy your adapters and
surge
protectors in-country? It might work out fine, but I say that anything
you
can fix in advance is worth taking care of before you are faced with the
challenges of shopping in a developing nation.
Looking forward to hearing more about your project,
Neil Hendrick

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Andrew Marder amarder@princeton.edu wrote:

Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a
pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the
shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the
group.

14 phones

http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2

7 car outlets

http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/

7 netbooks

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4

7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip
http://store.solio.com/Classic-i

We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This
goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.)

Thanks for the help, Andrew

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick mojotexas@gmail.com wrote:

The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life
and
it's
solid, you can drop it without breaking it.
G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those.
As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop
you
from
having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the
fields, we
don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for
recharging.
We
have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have
access
to
electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your
whole
operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the
sun
to
charge.
We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car
chargers.
We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular
outlet. I
plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive
home.
For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down
converters
(to
clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables.
Don't
try
to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to
convert
the
power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can
give
you more details on specific hardware if you are interested.
100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify
buying
100
Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size
of
2800
and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of
data
collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month.
Neil

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder andrew.n.marder@gmail.com wrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a
survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested
to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the
ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

We have both 32a and b and are running cyanogen 5.0.8. Out of 20 something we ended up bricking a few of the 32a 1.2 MyTouches (with the headphone jack on top) so I would stay away from them if possible.

··· On Aug 9, 2010, at 3:24 PM, Yaw Anokwa wrote:

32a has double the ram for the os which is nice if you want to
eventually run 2.2 via cyanogenmod. if you are running 1.5/1.6 i doubt
you'll notice.

as far as security, waylon just posted how to add security code to
aggregate at http://groups.google.com/group/opendatakit-implementers/browse_thread/thread/9da22e31e8e9b46a

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 08:16, Andrew Marder andrew.n.marder@gmail.com wrote:

From the tech specs, it looks like the phones are 32B:
http://forum.smartdeviceresource.com/index.php?topic=100.0
Do you think it's worth spending more for 32A's?

I was thinking we'd use ODK Aggregate as close to out of the box as
possible. I think the only thing we'd need to set up is restricted
access on appspot, but I'd love some warning if I'm headed down the
wrong path. I'll definitely check out the Kobo Post Processor.

It seems that Solio has discontinued the magnesium version, kind of a bummer.

I totally agree, getting everything prepped now makes sense. Anyone
have a favorite converter for type D and G outlets?

Andrew

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Neil Hendrick mojotexas@gmail.com wrote:

The phones look good. Let us know how it goes with that supplier. I would
like to know if they are 32A or 32B.
The car outlets look fine for your purpose. If you are going to have 7
surveyors operating independently, they will only ever be recharging one
Android at a time. Maybe one netbook as well. If you were going to charge 7
phones at the same time in the same auto, you would need the USB hub and you
would need a more powerful version of the car outlet.
The netbooks look like they have a long battery life, that is very useful.
They are also cheap and have good reviews. Is it necessary for every
surveyor to have a netbook? Are they all doing seperate synch's? How are you
unifying your data?
You might consider using the Kobo Post Processor to synchronize your data
offline and transcribe it to CSV for import into your database.
I'm a big fan of the solio, it can be used when you don't have access to
your auto charger. We use the magnesium version, but I don't think there is
anything wrong with this version (classic) except that I think the capacity
of the battery is less than the capacity of the Android's battery, so it
will not charge an Android to 100%. You will have to check the specs.
If you are buying all this stuff in advance, why buy your adapters and surge
protectors in-country? It might work out fine, but I say that anything you
can fix in advance is worth taking care of before you are faced with the
challenges of shopping in a developing nation.
Looking forward to hearing more about your project,
Neil Hendrick

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Andrew Marder amarder@princeton.edu wrote:

Neil, thanks for the great information. Our current plan is to run a
pilot with 7 surveyors spread all over the country. Here's the
shopping list we've put together, would love to get feedback from the
group.

14 phones
http://www.integrontech.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=HTC-G2-B&click=2
7 car outlets
http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-813-0291-07-Pocket-Source-Inverter/dp/B000U0M7PG/
7 netbooks
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-NB305-N410BL-10-1-Inch-Royal-Netbook/dp/B00303G9FO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280280536&sr=8-4
7 solar batteries with HTC adapter tip
http://store.solio.com/Classic-i

We plan to procure outlet adapters and surge protectors locally. (This
goes against Neil's advice, which makes me a little worried.)

Thanks for the help, Andrew

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Neil Hendrick mojotexas@gmail.com wrote:

The Magic/MyTouch is a good field unit. It has decent battery life and
it's
solid, you can drop it without breaking it.
G1s don't have good battery life, so I would steer clear of those.
As for batteries, you can buy extra batteries, but that won't stop you
from
having to recharge. You have to focus off your recharging. In the
fields, we
don't have extra batteries, but we have a lot of stuff for recharging.
We
have Solios for when we are far out in the field and don't have access
to
electricity. You can get through several days, but you can't run your
whole
operation on solar power, the solar batteries take 10 hours in the sun
to
charge.
We travel in groups, and we drive, so a good solution has been Car
chargers.
We just get a converter so that in the truck I can have a regular
outlet. I
plug in a USB hub and I can recharge a whole team's gear on the drive
home.
For your home base, you need a whole assortment of step down converters
(to
clean your AC power), power strips, USB hubs, and charge cables. Don't
try
to get gear to match the local electric power grid, get gear to convert
the
power so that the gear you can buy in the US will work locally. I can
give
you more details on specific hardware if you are interested.
100 is a lot of surveyors, what is your sample size? To justify buying
100
Androids, I am assuming it's huge. Our last survey had a sample size of
2800
and we had 32 surveyors taking 4 surveys each per day. Every day of data
collection pulled 128 records. We finished in under a month.
Neil

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Andrew Marder andrew.n.marder@gmail.com wrote:

Dear ODK Implementers,

I need to identify the most reasonable hardware to implement a survey
in Nigeria (with about a hundred surveyors). So, I'd be interested to
hear what phones you chose and any advice you may have? (I've only
played with the HTC MyTouch and the Nexus One, but looking at the ODK
FAQ I'm leaning towards the HTC Magic)

Did you buy extra batteries? If so, what'd you get? Any thoughts on
hand cranks?

Thanks for the advice, Andrew

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil

--
☞§※⌘:airplane::open_umbrella:
~Neil