Over the years and being one of the pioneer touch screen adopters, I have heard the phrase several times, "Why don't touch screens work for me?" So I began to watch people as they interacted with touch screens. The problem becomes more of an issue depending on the angle of the touch screen.
When I say touch screens, I should clarify, I am not talking about phone usage. But more rather, larger tablets and full on screens of 10" or more. The problem is quite simple. Don't drag your knuckles :) Yes, its usually that simple.
I noticed that people would point with their index digit, however the remaining 3 fingers were not tucked away, they would drag the screen ever so slightly. Thats it, I swear. If you have issues using a touch screen, pay attention to your final 3 digits. :) Even though you may not "feel" then touch the screen, they likely are firing a touch point.
Remember the two most prevalent touch screen technologies today are capasitive and optical (Lets just forget resistive :P ). Without going into details of how these work, you don't really need to "touch" the screen. You can try this. Slowly move your finger to a touch point on a screen and notice that the touch point will fire jjjjjjjjuuuuuusssssstttttt before your finger touches. :)
Your remaining 3 digits are firing touch points on the screen without your knowing and causing the issues of a touch screen not working for you. :)
24.11.11
Linux Mint 12 is Unofficially Official.
That's right boys and girls... Its hitting the Mirrors now. Although nothing is said on the Linux Mint site, they are on the mirrors. See for yourself :)
http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/linuxmint/stable/12/
http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/linuxmint/stable/12/
31.10.11
DHCPd Chatter Box!
Recently I was recovering from a major network failure after a prolonged power outage. After reviving my lifeless and crippled network, there was no successful DHCP offers. I noticed in my logs (/var/log/messages) the DHCP server was going crazy!
Unable to solve the issue, no systems getting an IP address despite the many many DHCPOFFERS, I caved, and built a new DHCP server as the weekend was ending and I just had to make this work. An hour passes and the new dhcpd server is on its feet and machines are getting address. However this new server is generating the same log hyperactivity. But its working. So I left it at that.
Here is a snippet from the /var/log/messages. (MAC Addresses and hostnames have been changed for security reasons).
Oct 31 08:17:43 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.31 (192.168.1.11) from d4:20:6d:7e:4c:e0 (Android_) via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:43 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.31 to d4:20:6d:e2:8b:e0 (Android_) via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:44 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:24:36:ae:23:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:45 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.111.175 to 00:24:36:ee:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:46 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.175 (192.168.1.11) from 00:67:36:ae:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:46 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.175 to 00:24:65:ae:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:28 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.107 from 00:1a:ee:d5:85:ed (changedname) via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:28 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.107 to 00:3d:e9:d5:85:ed (changedname) via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:57 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.200 from 00:21:70:ee:3f:81 via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:57 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.200 to 00:21:ae:46:7f:81 via eth0
...
Fast forward a few hours, now Monday morning and people arriving and I have a pocket of my network down. Not getting DHCP offers. The "pocket of systems" gave me an indication as to what may be happening... So I tried something as a last resort, and something that I should have tried first thing in retrospect.
I rebooted my network switches. It seems the power issues caused one or more to go unstable. The log settled right down, and dhcp requests and offers were all perfect. So what solved this issue was to reboot my switches!
Unable to solve the issue, no systems getting an IP address despite the many many DHCPOFFERS, I caved, and built a new DHCP server as the weekend was ending and I just had to make this work. An hour passes and the new dhcpd server is on its feet and machines are getting address. However this new server is generating the same log hyperactivity. But its working. So I left it at that.
Here is a snippet from the /var/log/messages. (MAC Addresses and hostnames have been changed for security reasons).
Oct 31 08:17:43 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.31 (192.168.1.11) from d4:20:6d:7e:4c:e0 (Android_) via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:43 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.31 to d4:20:6d:e2:8b:e0 (Android_) via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:44 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:24:36:ae:23:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:45 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.111.175 to 00:24:36:ee:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:46 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.175 (192.168.1.11) from 00:67:36:ae:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:17:46 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.175 to 00:24:65:ae:74:8b via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:28 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.107 from 00:1a:ee:d5:85:ed (changedname) via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:28 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.107 to 00:3d:e9:d5:85:ed (changedname) via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:57 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.111.200 from 00:21:70:ee:3f:81 via eth0
Oct 31 08:18:57 beardedlady dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.111.200 to 00:21:ae:46:7f:81 via eth0
...
Fast forward a few hours, now Monday morning and people arriving and I have a pocket of my network down. Not getting DHCP offers. The "pocket of systems" gave me an indication as to what may be happening... So I tried something as a last resort, and something that I should have tried first thing in retrospect.
I rebooted my network switches. It seems the power issues caused one or more to go unstable. The log settled right down, and dhcp requests and offers were all perfect. So what solved this issue was to reboot my switches!
19.10.11
Android Paradigm and Task Killers
I just wanted to add a very quick post here. This will not be long and only has one message. Task Killers on Android are not necessary! They are useful only if you want to "restart" an application. Even that you can do in the native OS, via Manage Applications in your settings. There will be a force stop under each application listed.
Android is excellent at managing applications and memory. Here is how so called task killers reduce your performance. When you have used an app and gone into others, android "suspends" the application. Therefore when you later go back to that application, it beings it to the front. Sort of like swapping. But if you kill the applications, when you start them, you will be counter intuitive in the following ways:
Android is excellent at managing applications and memory. Here is how so called task killers reduce your performance. When you have used an app and gone into others, android "suspends" the application. Therefore when you later go back to that application, it beings it to the front. Sort of like swapping. But if you kill the applications, when you start them, you will be counter intuitive in the following ways:
- Your program has restarted rather than continuing from where you left off
- Takes longer to go back to a killed app as the system has to setup the environment and load all the program files again. I cannot confirm this, but it follows to me that you would also use more battery, although small. But hey! Why waste?
- This one may sound a bit off, but hear me out. You are not working in the Android paradigm. What I mean here, is the idea is your apps are in a state where you left them. Each app works in a "compartment". When you switch to another, you just put that compartment down and use another. Thus things are more easily "at your finger tips" HA HA HA finger tips... ok. But I hope you get my point here.
What I am trying to say here is Android is awesome at memory management. By using task killers, you are counteracting part of what makes Android, well,.... Android. :P I suppose a task killer MAY be good for legacy droid devices where memory was a premium... but on any modern devices, task killers are just a problem.
Have a super-droid day!
//Ian\\
29.7.11
Apple Lion..... HA! - Updated, and Solved
Ok,
***Update, and proposed solution posted at the end of this article now***
It goes without saying here, I am not a huge apple fan. I like the hardware design of the MPB's but I got a Mac because I wanted a new job that had a large Mac base. So I figured I would get a Mac, immerse myself in it and thus prove I wanted the job enough. Well it seemed to work. But I digress...
Since I am not a fan of the OS, it would also follow that I hated the application start utility. That damn little popup window from the dock that took ages when you clicked into a folder etc... So I saw the new launcher in Lion and had to have it. Despite its iPhone feel. Well my readers and friends, I wasted $30 bucks.
Since installing Lion, no scratch that, since before the install things went very wrong! To get started, I had an installer telling my my selected (and only hard disk) was not a startup disk. No amount of disk utility repairs would fix this.... so I had to reformat the entire computer. Thank the techie gods for firewire external hard disks.
But now that I have Lion, I would akin my MacBook Pro stability to the very hated WindowsME! I should say here that I am being tame too! My god people, crash after crash, beach ball after beach ball, boot failure after boot failure. As I write this blog in haste, my MBP is sitting here trying to boot. Again a boot crash.
Yesterday I had the Finder beach balling, but because it now remembers what you had open, every time I rebooted, it would open the Finder in the bad state so i would just boot to a beach ball! SOOOOoooo frustrating!
Apple WHAT ARE YOU THINKING! for a company that prides itself on a rock solid OS, you have certainly failed! #FAIL lol People, Don't get Lion if you are thinking of it. Wait until the Microsoft philosophy hits apple, release for the date, add the band aids (aka patches) later. Wait until Apple releases their patches. If I find the time, I think I will go after Apple for my money back! For that money I could have gotten xPlane and had WAY more fun!
Take this warning if you take the plunge to the Lions.... What a fitting name, you will feed your stability to the Lions! DONT DO IT!
in this embedded video, this happens about every 2nd or 3rd boot of my Mac.
So the plot thickens! UPDATES!!
A few nights ago, I got home after a long day of work and wanted to cook something different. So I pull out my Macbook aiming to seek out a new recipe to try. Well to my shock when I entered my password, the login screen went away and came back. Ok, that was weird, no shaky login window that would normally happen when you enter an incorrect password. Oh well, I tried again. Zip zilch, nadda. The login screen went away and came back.
So I entered an incorrect password. This caused the login window to shake as if to say no. So clearly it recognized a valid vs. an invalid password. So now I am getting hungry and am crabby. I went to single user mode and reset passwords, created a new account and unlocked the root account. Rebooted and same thing. I could not even use the ROOT account!
So that was it. This was Friday night and I decided to crash the Apple store Saturday morning. So I show up at the Apple store closest to me at 8:30am when they open for repair and "genius" appointments.
When I got there I explained the situation to the guy at the door. The quintessential apple store robot said no. I need to make an appointment and whipped out his iPad to begin the process and proclaimed that the first available time they could see me would be 12pm. This is the point where the fire inside me has reached that critical mass from a slight annoyance to a full blown get the security guard ready because I am going to blow!
So I tried to be a civil human here, and explain the frustrations I am having and that it would be in their best interests here to give me a break as I have it within my ability to persuade many people for or against this "Lion" (as I point to the life sized Lion ad beside me). That I am also a sys admin in a company that has a large amount of Macs and it would be my call as to weather we used Lion or not.
On a side note here, reasoning with the Apple people robots is futile! He would not budge. So I said ok, that's fine, I pointed to the bench outside the store and said I will sit here until 12pm, boot my Mac in Linux which works perfectly and continue my blog about my experiences with Lion thus far. So I did. I started writing and took this video of the login behavior:
Well within 15 min of my doing this, I was approached by an Apple robot stating that they would see me in 30 min. This is very cult like! Don't you think? Does it remind you of a "church" based on science fiction book? **shrug**
So since they made an effort, I too made an effort and closed my Macbook and left the scene for a bit. When I came back I was put through the typical Apple store cult thing where they approach you, and ask you to have a seat in a magic stool of their choice where I am approached by somebody who seems to know all! Yep, a "Mac Genius!" HA HA HA HE HE HE HA HA HA
Anyway, after I explain all that has been happening:
He put my computer on their diagnostic program. At this point they see that I have upgraded their spawn's (my computer) hard drive with one that is not a APPLE BRANDED drive. At this point he goes into an infinite loop stating its the hard drive. Its the hard drive... NO ITS NOT THE HARD DRIVE. Not to toot my own horn, but I have been working with computer hardware for about 20 years now since MFM Hard drives and 5.25" floppy disks and I had way more experience than this hack they call a genius. One of the first things I did was check the hard drive. Also seeing as though I had a linux partition on the same drive and it worked perfectly, I would have put my life on the line that the hard disk was fine.
So I tried to reason with him and say look, I KNOW its not the hard drive and said that I know he knows about computers and deep down inside past the brain washing he knew it was not the hard drive either. But I understand that you are told to tell me this. What is the issue?
Because I was planning to roll this out at the office and my main reason for coming in was to understand what went wrong! and it really was. I simply wanted to know. After a while, he admitted to not knowing the issue. He also suggested that I reformat and remove the linux partitions. This was something I had already though about and was reluctant.
But after going this far, I figured ok, why not. Having little expectation that this would solve the issue, I wiped away my perfect linux installation.
My ATC Simulator, my android SDK, my perfect configuration.... gone... and I re-installed Lion. Well would it be any wonder that what I thought would happen, happened? Yep, now I have no Linux partition, and a failing Lion OS. Now I can login again, however every time I close the lid, the computer goes bonkers! Clicks don't register, and the system is laggy and completely unstable. I should not here that I also have 8 gig ram, so its not a memory issue...
What I am getting at here in a very wordy way is STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM LION! Mac used to be known for having a rock solid system and I expected the same fron Lion. Now it seems that it has plunged into the stability relhm of Windows ME! If you choose to do so, Good luck, and God Speed! Just please don't ask me for any help!
As a side note, please feel free to read Kishcom's stance on Apple. Andrew is a respected coworker of mine. http://kishcom.com/gnu-linux/what-i-dont-like-about-apple/
****UPDATE****
I think I figured out this behavior. OS/X Cannot handle "DOS Logical & Extended partition"
Those of you who know about drive partitioning, once you want to pass 4 partitions, you need a "Logical Partition" where more partitions live. This is a legacy throw back issue. OS/X barfs rotten chinks when you use this.
I am running with 3 partitions now, (OS/X, Linux Swap, Linux), and not my ideal setup as I like to have my root Linux in a traditional server partition scheme. But in any case, this seems to have solved the issue. NO LOGICAL PARTITIONS. In my humble opinion.... FAIL
***Update, and proposed solution posted at the end of this article now***
It goes without saying here, I am not a huge apple fan. I like the hardware design of the MPB's but I got a Mac because I wanted a new job that had a large Mac base. So I figured I would get a Mac, immerse myself in it and thus prove I wanted the job enough. Well it seemed to work. But I digress...
Since I am not a fan of the OS, it would also follow that I hated the application start utility. That damn little popup window from the dock that took ages when you clicked into a folder etc... So I saw the new launcher in Lion and had to have it. Despite its iPhone feel. Well my readers and friends, I wasted $30 bucks.
Since installing Lion, no scratch that, since before the install things went very wrong! To get started, I had an installer telling my my selected (and only hard disk) was not a startup disk. No amount of disk utility repairs would fix this.... so I had to reformat the entire computer. Thank the techie gods for firewire external hard disks.
But now that I have Lion, I would akin my MacBook Pro stability to the very hated WindowsME! I should say here that I am being tame too! My god people, crash after crash, beach ball after beach ball, boot failure after boot failure. As I write this blog in haste, my MBP is sitting here trying to boot. Again a boot crash.
Yesterday I had the Finder beach balling, but because it now remembers what you had open, every time I rebooted, it would open the Finder in the bad state so i would just boot to a beach ball! SOOOOoooo frustrating!
Apple WHAT ARE YOU THINKING! for a company that prides itself on a rock solid OS, you have certainly failed! #FAIL lol People, Don't get Lion if you are thinking of it. Wait until the Microsoft philosophy hits apple, release for the date, add the band aids (aka patches) later. Wait until Apple releases their patches. If I find the time, I think I will go after Apple for my money back! For that money I could have gotten xPlane and had WAY more fun!
Take this warning if you take the plunge to the Lions.... What a fitting name, you will feed your stability to the Lions! DONT DO IT!
in this embedded video, this happens about every 2nd or 3rd boot of my Mac.
So the plot thickens! UPDATES!!
A few nights ago, I got home after a long day of work and wanted to cook something different. So I pull out my Macbook aiming to seek out a new recipe to try. Well to my shock when I entered my password, the login screen went away and came back. Ok, that was weird, no shaky login window that would normally happen when you enter an incorrect password. Oh well, I tried again. Zip zilch, nadda. The login screen went away and came back.
So I entered an incorrect password. This caused the login window to shake as if to say no. So clearly it recognized a valid vs. an invalid password. So now I am getting hungry and am crabby. I went to single user mode and reset passwords, created a new account and unlocked the root account. Rebooted and same thing. I could not even use the ROOT account!
So that was it. This was Friday night and I decided to crash the Apple store Saturday morning. So I show up at the Apple store closest to me at 8:30am when they open for repair and "genius" appointments.
When I got there I explained the situation to the guy at the door. The quintessential apple store robot said no. I need to make an appointment and whipped out his iPad to begin the process and proclaimed that the first available time they could see me would be 12pm. This is the point where the fire inside me has reached that critical mass from a slight annoyance to a full blown get the security guard ready because I am going to blow!
So I tried to be a civil human here, and explain the frustrations I am having and that it would be in their best interests here to give me a break as I have it within my ability to persuade many people for or against this "Lion" (as I point to the life sized Lion ad beside me). That I am also a sys admin in a company that has a large amount of Macs and it would be my call as to weather we used Lion or not.
On a side note here, reasoning with the Apple people robots is futile! He would not budge. So I said ok, that's fine, I pointed to the bench outside the store and said I will sit here until 12pm, boot my Mac in Linux which works perfectly and continue my blog about my experiences with Lion thus far. So I did. I started writing and took this video of the login behavior:
Well within 15 min of my doing this, I was approached by an Apple robot stating that they would see me in 30 min. This is very cult like! Don't you think? Does it remind you of a "church" based on science fiction book? **shrug**
So since they made an effort, I too made an effort and closed my Macbook and left the scene for a bit. When I came back I was put through the typical Apple store cult thing where they approach you, and ask you to have a seat in a magic stool of their choice where I am approached by somebody who seems to know all! Yep, a "Mac Genius!" HA HA HA HE HE HE HA HA HA
Anyway, after I explain all that has been happening:
- Failure to install
- Reformat of the Mac Partition
- Constant crashing
- Re-installation again
- now the login failure
He put my computer on their diagnostic program. At this point they see that I have upgraded their spawn's (my computer) hard drive with one that is not a APPLE BRANDED drive. At this point he goes into an infinite loop stating its the hard drive. Its the hard drive... NO ITS NOT THE HARD DRIVE. Not to toot my own horn, but I have been working with computer hardware for about 20 years now since MFM Hard drives and 5.25" floppy disks and I had way more experience than this hack they call a genius. One of the first things I did was check the hard drive. Also seeing as though I had a linux partition on the same drive and it worked perfectly, I would have put my life on the line that the hard disk was fine.
So I tried to reason with him and say look, I KNOW its not the hard drive and said that I know he knows about computers and deep down inside past the brain washing he knew it was not the hard drive either. But I understand that you are told to tell me this. What is the issue?
Because I was planning to roll this out at the office and my main reason for coming in was to understand what went wrong! and it really was. I simply wanted to know. After a while, he admitted to not knowing the issue. He also suggested that I reformat and remove the linux partitions. This was something I had already though about and was reluctant.
But after going this far, I figured ok, why not. Having little expectation that this would solve the issue, I wiped away my perfect linux installation.
My ATC Simulator, my android SDK, my perfect configuration.... gone... and I re-installed Lion. Well would it be any wonder that what I thought would happen, happened? Yep, now I have no Linux partition, and a failing Lion OS. Now I can login again, however every time I close the lid, the computer goes bonkers! Clicks don't register, and the system is laggy and completely unstable. I should not here that I also have 8 gig ram, so its not a memory issue...
What I am getting at here in a very wordy way is STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM LION! Mac used to be known for having a rock solid system and I expected the same fron Lion. Now it seems that it has plunged into the stability relhm of Windows ME! If you choose to do so, Good luck, and God Speed! Just please don't ask me for any help!
As a side note, please feel free to read Kishcom's stance on Apple. Andrew is a respected coworker of mine. http://kishcom.com/gnu-linux/what-i-dont-like-about-apple/
****UPDATE****
I think I figured out this behavior. OS/X Cannot handle "DOS Logical & Extended partition"
Those of you who know about drive partitioning, once you want to pass 4 partitions, you need a "Logical Partition" where more partitions live. This is a legacy throw back issue. OS/X barfs rotten chinks when you use this.
I am running with 3 partitions now, (OS/X, Linux Swap, Linux), and not my ideal setup as I like to have my root Linux in a traditional server partition scheme. But in any case, this seems to have solved the issue. NO LOGICAL PARTITIONS. In my humble opinion.... FAIL
15.6.11
Coming Soon....Galaxy Tab
I just got me a Samsung Galaxy Tab. It sure is pretty :P I will post a review soon after I have used it for a few days.
Stay Tuned!
Cheers!
//Ian\\
Stay Tuned!
Cheers!
//Ian\\
6.4.11
Ok,
This is for people using avahi-daemon and logcheck. I had so much cruft being sent. It looked like this...
System Events
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Apr 4 17:05:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid query packet.
Apr 4 17:06:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 2 times
Apr 4 17:11:17 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid query packet.
Apr 4 17:12:21 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 2 times
Apr 4 17:13:21 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 3 times
Apr 4 17:17:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid query packet.
Apr 4 17:18:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 5 times
Apr 4 17:19:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 3 times
Apr 4 17:27:02 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid legacy unicast query packet.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Apr 4 17:05:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid query packet.
Apr 4 17:06:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 2 times
Apr 4 17:11:17 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid query packet.
Apr 4 17:12:21 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 2 times
Apr 4 17:13:21 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 3 times
Apr 4 17:17:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid query packet.
Apr 4 17:18:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 5 times
Apr 4 17:19:51 servername avahi-daemon[845]: last message repeated 3 times
Apr 4 17:27:02 servername avahi-daemon[845]: Invalid legacy unicast query packet.
.... and on and on and on....
Here is how to silence this.
Create the file avahi-daemon in /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.server/
Add the following 2 lines
\w{3} [ :0-9]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ avahi-daemon\[[0-9]+\]: Invalid query packet.$
\w{3} [ :0-9]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ avahi-daemon\[[0-9]+\]: last message repeated [[:digit:]] times$
Save and quit
chown root.logcheck /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.server/avahi-daemon
chmod u=rwx,g=r,o=r /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.server/avahi-daemon
You should be good.
Cheers!
9.1.11
Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate
So. I have updates on the mobile phone saga that is Ian. As mush as I liked my Shine plus, I was having a lingering issue where it had a “falling out” with my carriers network. At sporadic moments, my calls would drop, I could not dial out, people would phone me and they would hear a message about “Client not available”. I tried my best to work with my carrier and debug the issue. Replaced phone, SIM card, logged times and zones… nothing helped.
So 3 months later my patience was at an end. I still presently don’t know if it’s a network issue, or a problem with that run of phones. In any case, not the point of this article. After a lot of Internet searching for a phone number, a call to the Office of the President of my carrier yielded results. Lets hope I no longer have these issues…
The executive client care offered me a new phone of my choice and some credit on my account. So I am here today to tell you about the Samsung Galaxy S. This phone came with Android 2.1, which I promptly upgraded to 2.2. I have never been a proponent of on screen keyboards. I like to press buttons, what can I say. Call me a luddite if you will, but it’s lies! :)
Given this phone has a 1Ghz CPU, I figured I would not be plagued by the resistive screen, inefficient OS, choppy keyboard function I used to have on my Samsung Omnia Windows phone. So far, I am getting by, and not having any major issues with the on screen keyboard. Although I do have to say I like the “swipe”
Rather than tapping out each letter, I simply put my finger on the first letter of a word and drag it about the keyboard area. The phone figures out the rest. I took a quick look on the marketplace, and it seems as though this software is not available for download. Even paid. I suppose this is a Samsung thing. SAMSUNG, SELL THIS APP!!! I would pay up to $25 for this app personally. It’s a god send for on screen keyboards.
Ok, enough about the keyboard. Lets talk about the phone. If you have a Samsung Galaxy S (Mine is the Fascinate) I would recommend you update your OS to 2.2. There was immediate speed boosts and a pep in its step. The update took only about 25 min. In the end, I didn’t even loose any data. The worst that happened was that I lost my home screen setups. Not a big deal. Although, you should always backup your data before applying any updates. You should always backup your data, period! I should add a little beef I have here. To be able to apply the updates to this phone, I had to use the Samsung supplied software. Just when I thought we were approaching a time when we could get away with using Windows, I got sidelined. I am a primary Mac/Linux user. I actually had to dust off my windows computer to do this. Damn you Samsung! So you will need Windows to do this the “proper way”
Now with 2.2 you can move applications to the SD card, or internal SD storage, rather than polluting the OS space. Further to that, there is Flash integration within the browser. Although, I still have some issues running flash videos, I was really hoping that would go away…
On the 2.2 update you have a couple more widgets, and a “Desk” home and a “Car” home screen. But enough about Android… These things are the same in all Android 2.2 phones. Lets talk a little about the hardware.
Its big. It would not be a stretch to call this a pocket tablet. Its quite thin, however, I have big hands, and it’s a bit of a stretch for me to swipe down the notification screen. If you have little hands, then this unit may not be for you. Well, expect issues with single-handed operations. It certainly meets my criteria for a mobile device. Simply put, they are, expandable memory, and changeable battery. In this case, I will let go of my keyboard fetish! It just works. Voice quality is good. I only had one instance where I could not hear my caller, but that was on a slushy downtown street, and the caller was just quiet to begin with. I have had no complaints about callers not being able to hear me, so I will chalk that up to good :)
This phone has the guts to keep up with my most demanding moments. It is not uncommon for me to have the following active.
Grooveshark (streaming)
Email (gmail and work)
ThinkFree Office (editing a spreadsheet)
All while downloading an app….
During all of these activities, there wasn’t a moments hesitation moving between applications. It just works. If you are a camera user, this phone has no flash. This is not skin off my back, but to some, this may be an issue.
I would highly recommend a case, as I fear this device may be reminiscent of 3.5” floppies. For those geeks among us, if you drop a 3.5” floppy with the right force, and in that sweet spot, she blows apart in many pieces. :) Get a case, I fear this device will to the same.
With the silicone case, the power, and volume buttons are a chore to operate. But since its so thin, I would recommend it. You are not adding much to the device.
All in all, this is a great device. Its size flat, is made up in that its thin. If you have small hands, I suggest you spend some time in the store trying to hold it and move your fingers around the device to ensure you will not have issues with the stretch involved to touch all areas of the screen.
As usual folks, if you have any questions, comments, please just ask and I will do my best to answer! Happy New Year!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)