if you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail
I have been using WordPress since about version 1.5 for the most part I am self-taught. I manage this and 2 other blogs. Two are self hosted and one is a worpress.com blog. This has come about as I read early on in the piece that a blog needs a focus. This one is primarily about what I read and some occasional holiday photos.
The other self hosted blog sentimentalaboutwood.com.au has a focus on my woodworking hobby and renovation projects. The third is an occasional rant blog superviz.blog.
Upgraded to the much hyped Android 5.02 Lollipop. So far my experience sucks. I waited patiently for the OTA version hoping that the initial bugs would be gone.
My tablet a Nexus 7 2012 with sim card capacity runs as though it is full of glue. It slows down progressively to the point where the only solution is an irritating reboot. I have deleted unused apps. Taken away the live wallpaper and so on.
I even tweeted about with the has hashtag #LollipopUpdate. Got a fairly quick response from @googlenexus. Their recommendation was to restart in safe mode. Did that and the tablet seemed to spring into life. Now I have to determine which apps are causing the hassle. I only install apps from the google play store. Haven’t noticed any warnings about compatibility with Lollipop.
Despite my rant I have managed to type all of this on the tablet whilst using a hotspot from my iPhone.
I was given a Jawbone Up in February this year mostly to monitor my steps. My job has me sitting in front of a desk the jawbone keeps track and I have been averaging over 10,000 steps each week. It also tracks sleep and has an alarm. After about six months it simply stopped working. The Jawbone website was full of helpful things to do but in the end I had contact Jawbone. They were helpful and the faulty Jawbone was swapped over where it was bought on the spot. Three months later the second Jawbone up started playing up. The problem this time was related to the outer covering which seemed to be stretching. This interfered with the button thus making switching modes very difficult. At the other end of the band the stretched cover making recharging the device almost impossible.
I went back to the place of purchase expecting another changeover. After some discussion I was offered a Fitbit Charge as a replacement. Interesting that they offer a rival brand as replacement.
So I have had to abandon all my accumulated data with Jawbone and start again with Fitbit. The battery life isn’t as good as the Jawbone. On the plus side the band syncs via bluetooth and has a displays.
Time will tell if this is better. This is really a 21st Century First World problem
I have installed the new version of Windows 8.1. The upgrade process was smooth and easy. I have an enterprise edition and updated from an ISO file. The ISO loaded from an internal hard drive so no optical drive involved. I preserved all my settings and apps; so far so good.
I did have an issue with one piece of software Pinnacle Studio 16. Being a long time user I have had previous disappointments with OS updates. However much to my delight the Pinnacle forums had a link to a solution provided by Corel the new owners of the product. That’s the only hiccup so far.
Finally a native Facebook app for Windows and again I’m quite happy with it. I use Facebook across iOS7 Android and now Win 8.1, the iOS version is the most functional and the nicest looking.
The start menu update is welcome, clearly a response to user feedback. I do like the new arrangement whereby you have to put things on the start menu rather than everything cluttering it up.. However I still use the task bar for frequently used applications. Then there is the return or the start menu. It is underwhelming reminding me of redundant air scoops on faux sports car. It is really not necessary.
Overall it is a good and welcome update. Windows 8 was OK not quite another Vista moment. I suppose the interwebs are already abuzz with Win 8.2 rumours.
Here is a bit of nostalgia Drive A on Windows A. Long time no see! I bought a USB powered floppy disk drive when I upgraded a computer years ago and
decided to leave the floppy dive in the past. It must only be the second or third time that I have used it since I abandoned floppies. Nice to see that Win 8 still has the icon for this drive.
I have just removed the CD/DVD drive from my laptop……
I have just completed some upgrades on my laptop. Nothing special in that but I have taken the optical drive out and replaced it with a hard drive. In-fact the 750 GB hard drive had been the primary drive of the laptop. This is now a data drive. The new primary drive is a Samsung SSD series 840. It’s a 250 GB drive which hosts the software on my system. The RAM has also been boosted to 8 GB. Continue reading “Samsung SSD”
I have been playing with my Google nexus 7 for about a month now. I have just discovered sliding around the keyboard without taking my finger off very much. It means that I can type faster than the old hunt and peck method.
I am very happy with android as it does most of what I can do iOS. There are some familiar apps like Facebook and twitter. However not all apps are available on both iOS and android. I say this because my experience is mostly with the apple app store I discovered the imbalance. Since i started with the Google play store I have have seen a difference in the style and number of apps. However if you can’t find the exact same app there is always something similar.
The “play store” has itself been updated to a newer and clearer format in the short time that I have been using it. Don’t much like the name but I guess that will become accustomed to it.
So far so good.
When I logged on to Google reader this morning I read a message that the service only has 3 months to live. Google say that they are retiring it because of falling use. The thing is that I really like RSS feeds as way of keeping track of websites. Currently this runs at about 80 websites. The question became what to do next…. Continue reading “Google Reader bites the dust……hallo Feedly”
I can’t help but mess with new things on computers and the web. I don’t try everything and there are some things that leave me cold. This is being written on a laptop running Windows 8, also the preview version of Office 2013, cant believe that they left the thirteen in the name. I thought that all Americans were superstitious! All this and I have just downloaded Windows Live essentials for even more excitement.
I have to say that it looks great and was a breeze to connect to my self hosted blog that almost nobody reads. The writing environment has the same look as the blog. During the set up Live Writer downloaded the theme details or that how I understand it. The spell check works well I imagine that it taps in to the dictionaries that are on the system. It wouldn’t be a blog post without a photo so I have included one! I was able to crop and fiddle with the photo from within Live Writer so that was good. I even managed a little tilt! Certainly easier than from within the WordPress dashboard.
I do like it not sure if I will abandon using the dashboard though. Seeing the post as it will look while typing is great. There is also a preview tab that gives you the writer a view of the final post. At the very least a bit of fun.
