Installing Google Play on an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 4 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets are excellent value but they run their own version of Android (Fire OS). Fire OS doesn’t include Google’s app store (Google Play) and the Amazon store has fewer apps.

This is not the first time I’ve blogged on this topic but both Android and the Fire OS have moved on considerably, so I thought it was time for an update.

Over the years, I’ve had a few Kindles: first I bought one of the eInk devices; then I bought a Fire HD in 2016, and another in 2018 because my first one was lacking in memory. Then, after an accident with a water glass by my bedside, my 7th generation (2018) Fire HD was fried (I don’t think it was water damage – I think an electrical surge damaged it) and I needed to replace it. Luckily, it was close to “Amazon Prime Day” and so my 2020 Kindle Fire HD was not too big a hit on the wallet…

That means that, every couple of years, I’ve needed to go back around the loop of installing Google Play on my Kindle. On this most recent occasion, I was pleased to find that the process is just as simple as last time. It just needed me to download and install four APK files, making sure they were from a reliable source and in the right order.

Some good advice

The advice I followed this time was from Corbin Davenport (@corbindavenport)’s Android Police article. As I write this, I’ve found it was updated a few days ago to help with any Christmas 2020 purchases. You can find the details at The ultimate guide for installing the Google Play Store on Amazon Fire tablets.

For my 10th generation Kindle Fire HD 8, I needed:

  • Google Account Manager 7.1.2 (com.google.gsf.login).
  • Google Services Framework v9-4832352 (com.google.android.gsf).
  • Google Play Services (64-it ARM,nodpi, Android 9.0+) (com.google.android.gms).
  • Google Play Store (universal, nodpi) (com.android.vending).

To find which generation of tablet you have, either check on the device (in Settings, Device Options, About Fire Tablet) or in your Amazon account (Manage Your Content and Devices). Then, use the Android Police article I mentioned above to download the appropriate APK files.

That sounds a bit technical…

If it all sounds a bit “geek”, yes, it is. But all you are really doing is installing some Android modules that Amazon does not provide. The installation process is simple, as long as you:

  1. Are familiar with downloading files on an Android device and know how to find them.
  2. Have removed any SD card that may be installed (to make sure the apps go onto internal storage).
  3. Have allowed the installation of apps from unknown sources, for the Silk browser – which you will use to download the APK files.
  4. Install in the order listed above (files ending login, gsf, gsm, vending) and install them all before opening any of them.

Once you’re done and have restarted the device, you should see the familiar Play store icon and will be ready to install your favourite Android apps.

The end result

My Kindle is now fully loaded with a stack of Android apps. I use:

  • All the British TV on-demand apps (BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5).
  • HDHomeRun for live TV streaming.
  • Spotify, YouTube, Plex, Sonos, VLC for most of my music and video needs.
  • TV Guide.
  • Some smart home stuff (like Philips Hue and, of course, Amazon Alexa).
  • Microsoft Office Apps and the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client.
  • Google Chrome (and Microsoft Edge) because the Amazon Silk browser is pretty poor – I only used it to download the APKs to install Google Play!
A selection of Android apps and the Google Play Store on an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet

Some of these apps are available from the Kindle store but I generally install from Google Play to get the latest versions and to simplify update management.

Invalid/missing request nonce when connecting WordPress to Google Photos

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 4 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I’ve wanted to make my blog posts more visual for a while but selecting good stock images takes time. Creating them takes even more time!

Anyway, I decided to include an image from Pixabay (with credit) in yesterday’s post as well as in the one that I’ve scheduled for after my return to work in January.

I could quickly fill up my web space with images and I didn’t really want to expand my WordPress database with images either (they are currently hosted in a folder structure) but there is an option in WordPress to include media stored in Google Photos.

Unfortunately, my attempts to authorise access were met with a message about an “invalid/missing request nonce” (whatever that is). I tried another computer, in case the problem was related to cookies, or to restrictions on my work PC, but that was no help.

Then I tried another route…

Logging into wordpress.com (even though my blog is self-hosted with wordpress.org) and managing the marketing connections gave me an alternative interface to authorise WordPress with Google Photos. That then jumped into life:

WordPress.com Marketing and Integrations page, showing succesful connection to Google Photos.

After this, I could easily insert images from Google Photos into my blog posts.

And seriously, whoever decided that WordPress has something called a “nonce” should look it up in colloquial English…

Featured image by Kevin Phillips from Pixabay.

What does it mean to work flexibly?

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 4 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

2020 has brought many things – not all of them welcome – but for many office workers one of the more significant changes has been the acceptance of working from home.

Of course, there are many jobs that can’t be carried out remotely but, for a lot of people, the increased flexibility that comes with home working is a benefit. For others, it may be less welcome – for example those who do not have a regular place to work from, or who share a house with family who are also competing for the same resources. That means that offices continue to have a role but we’re not quite sure what that is yet. One thing does seem certain: it will continue to evolve over the coming months.

Outputs, not inputs

I’ve been fortunate to have worked from home for some of the time for many years. I’ve been contractually based from home since 2005 but even before then I tried to work from home when I could. What I’ve seen in 2020 is organisations where managers previously wouldn’t allow their teams to work from home being forced to accept change. Very quickly. A culture of “presenteeism” was often rife and sometimes still is. Some organisations have transferred poor office-based culture to a poor online culture but others have embraced the change.

Moving to remote work means providing flexibility. That certainly means flexibility in where work takes place, but it may also mean flexibility in when the work happens.

My own work is contractually 30 hours over a 4 day working week. In reality, it’s not based on hours, it’s based on outputs – and I put in what is needed in order to deliver what is expected of me. That will almost always take more hours – and sometimes there’s a fine balance. Sometimes, I have to say “enough”. I’ve learned that modern work is never “done”, just that priorities change over time. And, as a manager, I have to look for the signs in my own team’s workload and be ready to reassign work or adjust priorities if someone is overloaded whilst a colleague has gaps.

Crucially, I don’t need my team to be in front of me to manage them.

“Working hours”

Similarly, many of us no longer need to be tied to the “9 to 5”. Some roles may require staffing at particular times but, for many office workers, meetings can be scheduled within a set of core hours. For organisations that work across time zones, that challenge of following the sun has been there for a while. Avoiding the temptation to work extended days over multiple time zones can be difficult – but, conversely, working in bursts over an extended period may work for you.

I’m mostly UK-based and nominally work on UK time. For many years, I’ve had an unwritten rule that I don’t arrange meetings first- or last-thing in the day, or over lunch. If that means that all of my meetings are between 09:30 and 12:00 or between 14:00 and 16:30, that’s fine. A solid day meetings is not good. Especially when they are all online!

Before 09:30 people with chlldren may be on the school run. Those with other dependents may have other responsibilities. Everyone is entitled to a lunch break. At the end of the day there may be other commitments, or maybe another meeting is just not going to get the best out of people who have already been in back-to-back Microsoft Teams calls.

Often, I’ll return to work in the evening to catch up on things. That’s not to say I expect others to. I actually have a disclaimer on my email which says:

“My working hours may not be your working hours.  Please do not feel any pressure to reply outside of your normal work schedule. Also, please note that I do not normally work on Fridays. Another member of the risual team will be happy to assist in my absence.”

It’s about setting expectations. In a previous role, I wrote about my email SLA but people shouldn’t feel pressured to respond immediately to email. As a former manager once told me:

“Email is an asynchronous communication mechanism over an unreliable transport.”

[Mark Locke, Fujitsu, approx 2010]

When working across time zones, that’s particularly important but we should also be empowered to work when it works for us.

For me, I’m not great at getting up in the morning. I often get into flow in the late afternoon and work into the evening.

So, whilst I’m sure messages like this one in Microsoft Outlook from My Analytics are well-intentioned, I don’t find them helpful because they are based on the concept of “working hours”. Yes, I could delay send, but what if that person likes to start their day early?

My Anaytics prompt in Microsoft Outlook to consider delaying an email until working hours.

On the basis that email should not be time-sensitive (use a chat-based medium for that – maybe even a phone), it shouldn’t matter when it’s sent, or received. The workplace culture needs to evolve to prevent the “I sent you an email” response from being acceptable. “Ah, thank you. I haven’t seen that yet but I’ll make sure I watch out for it and respond at an appropriate moment.”.

Time to adjust our expectations?

So, in a world of increased flexibility, with colleagues working at a time and place that works for them, we all need to adjust our expectations. I suggest thinking not about when a message is sent but instead about whether email is actually the right medium. And, as for whether we need a meeting or not… that’s a whole blog post in itself…

Featured image by congerdesign from Pixabay.

Investigating my not-so-superfast broadband

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 4 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I’m constantly frustrated by my broadband speeds. They are not bad, but not as good as they should be either, especially not when marketed as “superfast broadband”. And the real-world speeds seemed to drop about 10% when I switched ISPs from PlusNet to Vodafone a couple of years ago. I think I’m out of contract now, so it’s a good opportunity to take a look at what is possible.

For reference, I’m on a Vodafone Superfast 1 business broadband package, which should give up to 38Mbps, with a claimed average of 35Mbps and 73% of customers able to achieve those speeds:

Vodafone's estimated broadband speed for my phone line.

In the real world, I get around 22Mbps down and 7Mbps up, according to various speed checkers. The most I’ve ever seen on a speed test is around 25-26Mbps, with my previous ISP.

Step 1: Check basic broadband availability.

The Kitz Broadband Checker helps here, using BT Wholesale and SamKnows data to check what is available for a given phone number/postcode. There are basic details of the local telephone exchange and there is a rough indicator of how far away it is. It may be 618m as the crow flies, but I can tell you it’s more like 1500m by road/cable (assuming it follows the route I would expect around the local streets and doesn’t run along the alleyway behind my house). I don’t understand all of the acronyms and abbreviations but it seems to me that the site doesn’t (yet) understand whether Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) is available, or just Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) and earlier broadband options.

Step 2: A few more details from BT Wholesale

The BT Wholesale Broadband Checker was my next port of call. This tells me all sorts of things about my line, like that: I should be able to get around 42.5Mbps down (instead of my 22) – which is probably where the real-world claimed up to 38Mbps comes from; that FTTP is available (along with several other products); and that my current FTTC cabinet is Cabinet 10. I’ve spotted this cabinet on my walks around town and so I know it’s not particularly close to home – probably around 1000m by road, though it could be as little as 350m if the cable runs through the alleyway I mentioned earlier.

BT Broadband Availability Checker results for my phone line

Step 3: Check the modem stats

I stopped using my ISP-provided modem a couple of years ago and switched to a DrayTek Vigor 130 modem (since discontinued by the manufacturer) with a Ubiquiti AmpliFi router.

Logging on to the router’s web interface told me that I was syncing at around 27Mbps down and 7 up and on VDSL Profile 17A with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) around 6:

DrayTek Vigor 130 modem online status

That fits with my real-world performance in speed tests of around 22Mbps. Digging a little deeper via a telnet session gave me a whole load of stats:

> adsl status
  ---------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A/B/C) -----------
   Running Mode            :      17A       State                : SHOWTIME
   DS Actual Rate          : 27400000 bps   US Actual Rate       :  7265000 bps
   DS Attainable Rate      : 28950732 bps   US Attainable Rate   :  7265000 bps
   DS Path Mode            :        Fast    US Path Mode         :        Fast
   DS Interleave Depth     :        1       US Interleave Depth  :        1
   NE Current Attenuation  :       25 dB    Cur SNR Margin       :        7  dB
   DS actual PSD           :     4. 3 dB    US actual PSD        :    11. 7  dB
   NE CRC Count            :      935       FE CRC Count         :    13805
   NE ES Count             :      261       FE  ES Count         :     7519
   Xdsl Reset Times        :        0       Xdsl Link  Times     :        7
   ITU Version[0]          : fe004452       ITU Version[1]       : 41590000
   VDSL Firmware Version   : 05-07-06-0D-01-07   [with Vectoring support]
   Power Management Mode   : DSL_G997_PMS_L0
   Test Mode               : DISABLE
  -------------------------------- ATU-C Info ---------------------------------
   Far Current Attenuation :       28 dB    Far SNR Margin       :        6  dB
   CO ITU Version[0]       : b5004244       CO ITU Version[1]    : 434da4a1
   DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR    : < BDCM >

Comparing that sync speed of 27.4Mpbs with the BT Wholesale test in step 2, and my connection is running as quickly as it ever has (though I’m not sure what period the BT Wholesale test ran over for its maximum observed speed).

(It also tells me that my cabinet has a Broadcom chipset, so it’s most likely to contain Huawei equipment).

So, why is my “Superfast broadband” not so… superfast?

So, I have lots of metrics, what’s the analysis?

  1. Possibly: my connection. Several years ago (pre-broadband) we had a second phone line put in the house (since disconnected) and I seem to recall that some jiggery-pokery was required at the exchange to accommodate that, possibly even running two phone numbers over one copper connection. I thought that might explain why I get about half the theoretical maximum bandwidth (and my neighbour three doors down gets the whole lot).
  2. Possibly: internal wiring on-premises. My modem is connected directly to a line into the house but it’s not the BT master socket – it’s connected by some other external route that I don’t understand. I’ve tried moving previous modem/routers to connect directly to the master socket and it’s not made any noticeable difference to sync speeds.
  3. Most likely: physics. Whilst researching this post, I found information about FTTC speed vs. distance from the cabinet (repeated on various forums). At 1km from the cabinet, the most I will get, even on a 17A (80Mbps) profile, is 28Mpbs and I’m syncing at around 27 (this table at ThinkBroadband suggests even lower). So what about my neighbour who gets 38? Maybe he’s just lucky, or perhaps his line takes a different route around town…

Assuming my analysis is correct, this is probably about as good as it gets, without an FTTP upgrade. And, as the service is cheap (around £28/month including a home phone calling package and with no line rental), we might just stay put for now – after all my Teams calls work in the day and my Netflix and YouTube work in the evening/at the weekend!

SamKnows?

As a little addendum (and there is nothing in this for me), if you’re trying to work out what’s going on with your broadband, I’d recommend checking out SamKnows. I have one of their “white boxes” on my network and have had for several years (ever since the late Jack Schofield pointed me in their direction). In exchange for some real-world performance monitoring, which is aggregated to assess ISPs, I get reliable stats on the state of my connection.

SamKnows stats for my connection