Google Play Store Error Code -506

TL;DR - Clean up all data and directories pertaining to the app you're trying to install or update. Not just from the App Info but also under /data/app and /data/data.

Background:
So, I had just installed a new ROM and tried to restore all my apps using Titanium Backup. It was routine stuff, nothing I hadn't done a thousand times before. While restoring Authy, TiBk was stuck for a long while and I didn't want to wait.

I remembered that last time TiBk was stuck while restoring an app, Installing the same app from Google Play Store while TiBk is still running seemed to have worked. So I did just that. I let TiBk run while I installed Authy from Play Store. Play Store finished installing Authy and TiBk also finished restoring Authy right after. 

Now, when I tapped on Authy, it wasn't opening up. Naturally, I tried to Wipe Data and Cache for Authy and tried installing the app again. However, Play Store started complaining that it couldn't install Authy and asked me to try again after sometime. At one point it even told me there wasn't enough space on my phone. I also tried wiping data and restoring App+Data using TiBk. Nothing seemed to work.

Solution:
On a whim, I opened up Root Explorer and deleted everything related to Authy under /data/app and /data/data folders and tried re-installing Authy from Play Store and that did it. 

One thing I did notice was this symbolic link pointing to itself in one of these directories:
/data/app/com.authy.authy-1
/data/data/com.authy.authy

I don't know how that's possible. I should have taken a screen print but I didn't. 

There you go, I hope this helps. While this worked for me, I do not guarantee it will work for everyone. YMMV. 

Report: Android Market Nearing 6 Billion Downloads; Weather Apps Are Makin’ It Rain

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Particle Self-Interaction.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2353

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Google Art Project offers gigapixel images of art classics, 'indoor' Street View of museums

You gotta check this out. http://www.googleartproject.com/

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Surveillance Backdoor Enabled Chinese Gmail Attack?

Surveillance Backdoor Enabled Chinese Gmail Attack?

via Slashdot by Soulskill on 1/24/10

Major Blud writes "CNN is running an opinion piece on their front page from security technologist Bruce Schneier, in which he suggest that 'In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.' His article is short on sources, and the common belief is that a flaw in IE was the main attack method. Has this come up elsewhere? Schneier continues, 'Whether the eavesdroppers are the good guys or the bad guys, these systems put us all at greater risk. Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in. And it's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple launching 22-inch touchscreen iMac this year?

Apple launching 22-inch touchscreen iMac this year?

via Engadget by Tim Stevens on 1/18/10

Sure, those new Core i7, 27-inch iMacs are lovely things (when they're working), but there's something missing: the sense of touch. That's coming soon, according to a report published in the Chinese Commercial Times. The new 22-inch model is said to slot in between current 21.5- and 27-inch iMacs, will use a capacitive touchscreen provided by Sintek Photronic, and unsurprisingly will be built by Quanta. Beyond that, and a supposed release before the end of the year, we know nothing -- but maybe we'll learn more at a certain press event next week?

Apple launching 22-inch touchscreen iMac this year? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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20 Things That Happen in 1 Minute

20 Things That Happen in 1 Minute

via The Best Article Every day by bspcn on 12/25/09

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Cool trivia: Mistletoe

Mistletoe

via Daily Writing Tips by Maeve Maddox on 12/17/09

Before mistletoe became an excuse to kiss people at Christmas parties, it was an important symbol in ancient Celtic religion.

Pliny the Elder describes a ceremony in which Druids climbed an oak tree to harvest mistletoe with a golden sickle. Wrote Pliny:

They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren and that it is an antidote to all poisons.

Mistletoe figures in the story of the Norse god Baldur. (Also spelled Balder and Baldr.)

Baldur was the most beloved of the Norse gods. All the gods loved him except Loki the mean-spirited troublemaker.

Baldur’s mother Freya dreamed that he died and was taken by Hel. Norsemen who died in battle were taken by the Valkyries to Valhalla. Everyone else went to Hel’s kingdom. When Freya woke she went to Hel and begged her not to take her son. Hel said that if she could persuade everything in the world not to harm Baldur, he could go on living. Freya extracted an oath from rocks, elves, giants, plants, and everything else. Every thing and every creature swore not to harm Baldur. Unfortunately, Freya neglected to speak to the mistletoe. It was so small and insignificant that she didn’t see how it could be a threat to anyone.

When it became evident that nothing would kill Baldur, the other gods made a game of throwing weapons at him. Loki found out about the unsworn mistletoe. He went to the plant and took a cutting back to Asgard. He fastened it to an arrow and gave it to Baldur’s blind brother Hoder. Loki guided Hoder’s hand and the mistletoe on the arrow pierced Baldur’s heart, killing him.

There’s more to Baldur’s story, but this is the part about the mistletoe.

If you’re in the mood for more seasonal lore, you may enjoy these DWT posts from previous years.
Dec 2008 Deck the Halls
Dec 2008 December 26
Dec 2007 Festive Words
Dec 2007 The Meaning of Christmas

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Your eBook: Click here to download the Basic English Grammar ebook.

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Mozilla Exec Urges Switch From Google To Bing

Mozilla Exec Urges Switch From Google To Bing

via Slashdot by timothy on 12/11/09

Andorin writes "Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development, has published a brief blog post in which he recommends that Firefox users move from using Google as their main search engine to Bing, citing privacy issues. Disregarding the existence of alternative search engines such as Ask and Yahoo, Dotzler asserts that Bing's privacy policy is better than Google's. Dotzler explains the recommendation with a quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google: 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time...' Ars Technica also covers the story."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Learn Italian in Thirty Minutes

Learn Italian in Thirty Minutes

via Nat Friedman by Nat Friedman on 12/5/09

For our wedding in Florence this summer, we created an Italian language learning CD for all of our guests.

Our CD is only 30 minutes. That’s all it takes to achieve fluency, right? The CD teaches you the basics of Italian, and gives an overview of Italian coffee, culture, driving regulations, and history since 1920.

And we threw in a few key phrases for attending weddings.

Anyway, it seemed a shame that our guests were the only ones to benefit from this highly concentrated language education resource, so you can listen to the CD here:

1. Introduction
2. Basic Phrases
3. Ordering in a Restaurant
4. Numbers
5. Lightning Round
6. Wedding Phrases

(Thanks to Flavio Castelli for his help with a few parts of the script.)

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Good news: Sony Reader Store to support the open EPUB format

Sony Reader Store goes 100% EPUB on Friday

via Engadget by Thomas Ricker on 12/7/09

Listen up Sony Reader owners: you've got three days to change your ways. On December 11th, the eBook Store from Sony will be renamed the Reader Store with a new URL to prove it. In addition to a new store layout, the change also extends the open EPUB format to Sony's entire inventory of eBooks. In fact, any new electronic books will only be available in EPUB which helps explain the motivation for Sony's PRS-500 trade-in program. As such, we can say goodbye to Sony's proprietary BBeB ("BroadBand eBook") format which goes the way of ATRAC (outside of Japan, anyway). Sony's also making its Reader Library 3.1 software for Mac and PC available on the same day with support for the imminent Reader Daily Edition launch and compatibility with Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard -- how timely.

Sony Reader Store goes 100% EPUB on Friday originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HipLogic sounds to me like "snaptu". Or am I wrong?

HipLogic Raises $7 Million To Bring Smartphone Intelligence to Mass Market Phones

via TechCrunch by Leena Rao on 12/2/09

Mobile application platform HipLogic has raised $7 million in Series B funding from Benchmark Capital, Stage 1 Ventures, Bay Partners, and Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures. HipLogic’s platform helps improve content discoverability and applications on both smartphone and non-smartphones.

Formerly known as Numobiq, the startup raised $4.5 million in Series A funding in 2008. Founded by three veterans from Sun Microsystems, it wants to bring sophisticated applications to the simplest cell phones by keeping all the complexity in the network. In essence, HipLogic is trying to bring the quick, easy interface of the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry to more simple, lightweight phones that are available for the mass market.

HipLogic makes existing phones ’smarter’ by allowing consumers to toggle on a more iPhone like interface complete with real-time content, social networking and apps. This is all done via a free downloadable mobile application that has yet to be launched. Behind the curtains, HipLogic’s application platform features a lightweight, JavaScript virtual machine connected to the cloud and aggregates info from network operators and the web to create mash-ups on mobile devices

HipLogic is currently being deployed through a partnership with The Carphone Warehouse, a European mobile retailer and hopes to partner with retailers and phone developers in the near future. The startup is remaining mum about the intricacies of its platform for now, but HipLogic could be on to something.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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Somali Pirate "Stock Exchange" - Should add this to my portfolio.

Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange"

via Slashdot by kdawson on 12/1/09

reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. 'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. 'I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the "company."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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UNIX is 40 and still kicking and screaming.

UNIX turns 40

via IBM developerWorks : AIX on 11/30/09

The systems world will shortly be celebrating a major anniversary milestone. UNIX is turning 40 years old! Most of us know the story of how UNIX was born, but what about why? Was it born strictly because its founders wanted to play a computer game on a different platform? And why does UNIX continue to thrive 15 years after an (in)famous Byte Magazine article that asked, "Is UNIX dead?" How has AIX (the only UNIX flavor that has increased its market share through the years) been a part of the evolution of UNIX and what are the current trends today in the UNIX arena? These are just some of the topics this article explores.

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HOW-TO: Virtualization - Fedora on Windows with Virtualbox

This post is a step-by-step guide to installing Fedora on Windows as a Virtual OS using VirtualBox. The steps involved are the same if you want to install any other Linux based OS. I have tried this with Android(desktop build), Ubuntu, OpenSuSE and Fedora. 

Before we step into this tech mumbo-jumbo; If you want to know what Virtualization is, check out my post here.

Ingredients

• VirtualBox – Virtualization software. – Get it here.
• A computer(desktop or laptop) running Windows.
• Some free space on the Hard-Drive - 8 GB is what I set aside.
• ISO file for the Fedora OS. – Get it here.

Recipe

I thought I would write out a step-by-step guide with pictures and all. But then I realized it would be cooler to post a screencast of the whole procedure. So, here it is:

If the embedded video is not clear enough, get the original here. If you didn't understand any particular thing shown on the video, please post your questions in the comments and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

And BTW, I used CamStudio to record the screencast. CamStudio is an uber-cool, Free Screen Recording Software.

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Neat tricks for fishing Pirate ships.

Air Cannon Ties Pirates In Knots

via Slashdot by kdawson on 11/29/09

Hugh Pickens writes "Numerous high-tech devices have been proposed to help ships cope with piracy on the high seas. Now a company has developed a ship-borne launching device that fires a net or coiled rope into the path of pirate vessels using compressed air with a range of up to a range of 400m. The payload net or rope, which has a parachute attached to the end, will unravel and lay out across the surface of the water so that as the pirate boat travels through the water its propeller shaft will pick up the line and become entangled. 'With the trials and testing we've done, it has taken us some 45 minutes to cut and disentangle the line from the propeller itself,' says Jonathan Delf. 'Within that time of course, the target ship is on its way and hopefully help has arrived in the form of naval forces or helicopter support.' The system can be fired up to five times off just a cylinder of air like a simple scuba tank." The video mentions that the device can also fire a payload of golf balls. The systems have recently be sold to "several large shipping companies that travel near the oil-rich Nigerian Delta, which, like the Somalian coast, is rife with piracy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Technology Behind Last.fm

The Technology Behind Last.fm

via Slashdot by kdawson on 11/29/09

CNET's Crave has up a detailed interview with Last.fm's Matthew Ogle, the company's head of Web development. Reader CNETNate notes that Last.fm has streamed 275,000 years of audio around the world. From the interview: "We stream all music directly off our servers in London. We have a cluster of streaming nodes including a bunch of powerful machines with solid-state hard drives. We have a process that runs daily which finds the hottest music and pushes those tracks on to the SSDs streamers that sit in front of our regular platter-based streaming machines. That way, if someone is listening to one of our more popular stations, the chances are really good that these songs are coming off our high-speed SSD machines. They're fast because every song is sitting in memory instead of being on a slow, spinning platter." The interview is actually on two pages but pretends it's on three.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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As a counter terror intiative Indian Government is gonna get snoopy on citizens.

India To Have Automatic Communications Monitoring

via Slashdot by timothy on 11/26/09

angry tapir writes "India plans to set up a centralized system to monitor communications on mobile phones, landlines and the Internet in the country, a minister has told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament. Indian laws allow the interception and monitoring of communications under certain conditions, including to counter terrorism. A pilot of the new Centralized Monitoring System (CMS) is to be started by June next year, subject to clearances by other government agencies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scary: Facebook Photos Lead To Cancellation of Quebec Woman's Insurance

Facebook Photos Lead To Cancellation of Quebec Woman's Insurance

via Slashdot by timothy on 11/22/09

No. 24601 writes "A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave, due to a diagnosis of depression, lost her health benefits after her insurance provider found photos of her on Facebook smiling and looking cheerful at parties and out on the beach. Besides all the obvious questions, how did the insurance company access her locked Facebook profile?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google needs a tighter reign on the Android platform

Disclaimer: I love Google as a company and I am excited about Android as a platform. 

First off, I need to give props where they are due. I'm drawing heavily from a post I saw on my twitter stream and from my own experience working on a product that went through much of what is happening to Android . The title of this post may seem to be an oxymoron. How can Google exercise greater control on a Open Source platform? Well, they can if they wanted to and it won't need to go against they unofficial motto of "Don't be Evil". 

In a short span of time, Android managed to get on a myriad devices and is serving various consumer markets. That is no mean feat. And it has been possible only because it was an Open Source platform. As much as I love Google for Open Sourcing such a beautiful OS, the current situation is not sitting well with me. But then again, I’m not an expert and Google might know better than me what they are getting into.

Here's the current Android scene as I see it. There are a bunch of devices on the market running Android and they are not essentially running the same OS. It might be the same at the core but not throughout. You want examples? How about Motorola Droid, Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X10, Barnes and Nobles' Nook, Archos 5 PMP, T-Mobile G1 and HTC Hero. Can you say they all run the same OS? I can't. They run their own version of an Open Source OS. And Google is not helping the current situation by being preferential. Yes, I'm talking about Google working closely with Motorola for Android 2.0. I understood why they did that with G1, they were just starting off an they need to market a product soon.

You might ask what’s particularly wrong with all this so, here are some questions: Can you pick an app from the Android market and have it run the same on all the devices that run Android? Can a developer make an easy choice as to which Android version he should build apps for? Can a consumer switching devices expect to find all the apps he had on his previous device? I didn’t think so. The problem is, each device manufacturer gets to make his own mind about what will run on his product and Google doesn’t have any say in it. It will be tough for Google to dictate manufacturers as to what they should run. Tough to dictate, not to influence. There’s a fine line. Developers and consumers are the key and not Google or any other company. For a platform to thrive, Developers and consumers need to be happy. That’s a tough mix though and that’s what Apple and Google are not able achieve. Developers are not happy on Apple’s platform and consumers won’t be happy on the Android platform (they are not yet unhappy).

Now that we know the problem space we can discuss a solution. In my opinion Google should work with all vendors on getting Android on their devices and should actively push updates to respective devices or at least get the vendors to do it. That’s easier said than done. The only other way out is for Google to turn into Apple and I don’t see that happening for many reasons, even if Google wanted to. 

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