TV update

Sony doesn't rush with updates, this is Android 7 to 8.

They have also changed their custom GUI. The 'Discover' button on the wheel which used to do not a lot now tries to do everything. Sometimes it uses the Satellite Box channel guide, sometimes the TV guide. However, there is no need to use it that I can see.

It hadn't occurred to me to try before, but my Bluetooth keyboard pairs up fine with the TV. No more awkward onscreen text entry! The Back button on the TV is actually ESC, I guessed that, and on the keyboard that is fn+SQUARE, the bottom left and top left keys, which is weird.

New TV

Santa gave me a new TV this year, a Sony Bravia KD55XE9005
It's pretty, but let's quibble!

The control system is labyrinthine. The most used bits are in an "Action Menu", the rest is buried at the bottom of the Android Home page that has the Netflix/Amazon pay us $$$ links I don't use.

The best advice for Video settings is to leave them alone unless there is an obvious problem - and I've not noticed any.

The computer's graphics card is willing to display 2160p but with my present three screen setup (!!) runs hotter if it does, more so with games. EVE would be unplayable anyway due to tiny text, a known problem.
Setting up the computer for HDR has to be done at both ends to work properly. Windows 10 will tell you if everything will work.

The previous TV couldn't cope with 1080p, no problem with this one. 4K is presently only broadcast by subscription. There is plenty of it on YouTube, including some wildlife and travel channels.

The Humax Satbox and Sony disk player link in OK. The TV comes with an "IR Blaster" that ingeniously attaches to devices and replaces their remote controls to some extent. I have it attached to the Satellite box so the TV's programme guide can operate it.


Mirroring from tablet to big screen is easy - one button.
Tablet remote control app? Fine!

The sad demise of Daisy

My very old Email address daisy.freeserve.co.uk will be no more in a few weeks. My ISP has decided to no longer provide a mail server.
So, since I already have a Google address Google it is.

Android fun

The new phone came with standard Android, so I've so far added
Google Maps
Prime Dice, for polyhedral dice rolling during roleplaying games
Greenify, a battery saver. It does just one thing, puts apps into hibernation when the screen is dark.
SyncMe, for transferring photos to the computer
Flashlight

And yes, I had malware already despite only downloading from the Google Store. A screen asking to install 'Facebook Patch 4' was popping up after boots - and I don't have Facebook installed.
[added] Two anti-virus apps found nothing but the third - AVG - said to disable a preinstalled Google looking file and that worked.

Smarter Phone

My old phone was not dumb, just old and its memory was limited. I don't use my mobile much, it's for emergencies not nattering, so this time something cheap.
Haweel H1
A Chinese Android device. It comes with everything except the expensive bits - no 4G, no hi-res screen.
No it isn't a standard SIM slot as the spec says, it's a mini. No problem, I had a spare SIM card. Which means... new mobile number and wandering through the EE website to get it registered.
The battery had clear tape stuck over its contacts that has to be removed and that's the thing the manual doesn't tell you. Fortunately Amazon does.
It came with a Europlug, but I have spare UK adaptors.
For the rest see the link page which has good reviews.

Android lollipop

My Sony tablet is at the back of the queue now for updates, but Android 5.0 arrived unexpectedly last night. Could I stay awake (I was in bed already) to install it? Of course!
OK it took maybe a half hour and that was mostly checking apps (>300 of them?).

Lollipop is a 'back to basics' version, gone is the 3D look which looked nice on a tablet but maybe phone users were not so enthused by it. The App icons are bigger with a row at the bottom staying on screen whilst the rest scroll. The update went back to default so I had to spend a happy time this morning putting my favorites back and removing Google things. Folders are now easier to edit.
There is now just one drop down menu, Google put the Settings button as one of the permanent ones so I'll leave it there.
The running Apps button now displays as a window cascade, not sure about this but it does have a 'Clear All' button now.
Sony as usual haven't tweaked Android much. The Camera menus have changed (again!). A new App 'TV SideView' integrates the Remote Control with a TV Guide, though I have an App for that already.

Oops! SychMe my excellent folder App lost its settings as well... but rebuilt successfully.

Another boring committee meeting!

Monthly Moot in Winterfell: Her Bunnyness Miss Eilidh, Beware Hax the CEO of Haxworks a Cosplay costume store and a faun with a waffle.

TVR - Humax HDR1010

Since I last checked Freesat have put some effort into improving their service in areas where News Corp's bigger budget for Sky can't stomp all over them, such as technology. The latest range of satellite boxes is the result.
This one has "Freetime" a front end for the various TV players that gives seamless access to past programmes via the Internet. Back space on the TV guide and any programmes from the past week that are available are shown.
The HDMI connection is now handshaking properly and outputting Dolby sound. The picture is flawless, software having caught up with the BBC's sneaky tweaking of their signal that messed up HD for many users.
HD channels are now up to 11 on Freesat.
 One neat trick is that the hard disk makes a temporary recording the current program so if you get interrupted you can press Record and it has the whole thing.

The box can play media off the computer, something that Windows 7 blocks by default and then hides permission setting in a nest of menus:
Control Panel - Homegroup - Choose homegroup and sharing options - Show devices on All Networks - Allow All.
Windows Media Player can now be used to set up which folders are accessible to the TVR, which hides them in the 'Humax - Media Share' menu.

Tablet!

Sony Xperia Tablet Z

The new toy! The Tablet Z is a 10" Android, I have the Wi-fi only version. There are plenty of reviews published ranging from 'good' to 'excellent', this is just a personal impression.

Yes, it's pretty: awesome black, thinner and lighter than an iPad, easy to hold one handed. I bought the Sony docking cradle with it, recharge is slow - overnight is recommended. It will recharge while switched off. There are plenty of cases on Amazon for it, I got this one, a bargain at £10.

It is uniquely for a Tablet waterproof as in "drop in a bucket for half an hour", or in my case "coffee spill alert!" On the minus side, that means the ports are sealed by fiddly plastic bits that I hope Sony have tested for durability. The cradle uses contact points to connect. The glass front is a finger grease trap, but this doesn't interfere with vision. The screen has slightly larger pixels than the iPad but not so much as to be noticeable.

The manual... no manual, just a minimal start up guide. Wifi connected easily to my router, and the Support App links to online help pages.

I've never used Android before, this implementation is the reviews say fairly standard. I soon discovered how to delete the free crap and load up some goodies. It comes with 16GB of memory of which I presently have 9GB free.

Apps synchronised easily with their desktop PC counterparts.

Google Maps said it needed a permission switched on to use GPS and that took a while to find:

Settings/Personal/Location services/ON and GPS on

and

Settings/Accounts/Google/Location Settings/ON

Once activated however, fine. I now know where I am if I step into the garden.

I've only caused the OS to get confused once, losing the Wifi connection, and a reboot cured that.

A built in universal IR remote was easy to set up. It does its best to be quick to use, and for simple changes it is.

Apps?

Skype. "Better picture" my first video contact reported, "sound keeps fading though." The microphone is on the top edge, I assume a compromise for the front and back cameras, so tilting affects it. Sony have promised a control with the next update.

Lumiya, a gallant attempt at a Second Life Android Viewer, is a dancing bear. It took several minutes for Ori to work out where she was standing! For checking messages, fine.

Office Suite Pro is an Office substitute.

The Google keyboard is for me simpler than the supplied SonyXperia offering. I tried a Bluetooth keyboard but it keeps disconnecting the WiFi.

SynchMe is a simple folder synchroniser.

Farmville is eating the Internet

The xkcd webcomic has a new edition out of its Map of Online Communities. Go take a look (the map enlarges if you click on it).

What the map does well is to place otherwise unconnected Internet communities into perspective. For example, political bloggers who suppose the wired world reads their every flame may be chastened to find the map needs an enlarged inset to show them. In some regions one group dominates - Warcraft on MMO island, Skype in messaging, and Facebook as the biggest nation.

My (second) life as a film extra

A fortnight ago my Second Life avatar was an extra in a pub scene being shot for a PBS programme that aired last night, online now at Digital Nation.
The programme was wide ranging, the Second Life segment had Philip Linden (creator of SL) showing off both his offices and then switched to a surreal shot of presenter Douglas Rushkoff wandering the corridors of an empty IBM office complex. The staff worked from home now and held meetings in SL, saving Big Blue $1 million last year in travel costs.

Home Networking

Just because I possibly could, I tried networking the old and new machines via the two sockets on the router.
Vista recognised Win7 right away, and after some fiddling with permissions I found out how to add folders. Win7 however... it turned out the firewall I had on Vista was blocking access. There were passwords involved in this, but just like on TV shows guessing only took a few seconds.
Win7 has a new networking for dummies system called Homegroups, but that only recognises other Win7 machines.

Google is watching you

I wrote a satirical comment to a Youtube video yesterday with a :-) at the end to indicate humor and got the usual humorless replies such as "let me guess not a real person just a part of the scientology PR machine". Guessing is not necessary however - Google is your friend! My name is almost unique on the Internet, and a Search on it produced this (snipped for brevity):

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,480 for "hartley patterson". (0.14 seconds)
Search Results

1. User:Hartley Patterson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. News From Bree A Tolkien interview, a medieval spreadsheet, a secondary universe and some enturbulating entheta.
3. Hartley Patterson Directory of critical information about Scientology.
4. Protest Activity in the UK
5. Picket Report, Hartley Patterson
6. User:Hartley Patterson - Wikinews, the free news source
7. User talk:Hartley Patterson - Wikinews, the free news source
8. 1972 - A Year in Diplomacy by Hartley Patterson
9. ZoomInfo Open People Directory > Patterson, Hartley
10.Patterson, Hartley | Patterson, Hazel | People Directory | Facebook

Only (9) appears to be spam, the others catch a selection of my Internet interests. but 2,480 of them? Oh no, I've just added the 2,481st! Must get out more...

Picket

This Orange Multi Media Message was sent wirefree from an Orange MMS phone.

Blogged from the pub! Back home, here's another - Gingernut modelling an XL Clambake shirt.




Reports elsewhere, but it was an uneventful event.

Hello world

...or blog anyway.
Having acquired a camera/phone/txt/USB/blog/Email thing, I spend a happy weekend persuading it to do so, acquiring another pageful of passwords, secret codes and stuff along the way.

Facebook cleverly cross referenced my mobile number which it knew with the number of the phone that was calling it and linked up without needing confirmation. Clever but spooky as it didn't tell me it could do this.

Blogger wouldn't reply though. It seems Orange affix the international code when messaging abroad and then won't accept incoming messages using that code, which is dumb. I had to Email Blogger for help, which they quickly provided.

PC Interface OK, except that it wants to Synchronize with programs I don't use. Oh well, at least deleting messages is a lot easier on a PC monitor than on a phone screen.

Networking

"You should be on Facebook", The Guardian said.

So after an hour wrestling with yet another bloggy interface I am, but no you can't see it unless you too have a Facebook page and we are friends. That's how networking works. You can see the Photo Album bit of it though, with some annotated picket pictures.
In a narcissistic piece of programming you can also get your blog to copy onto Facebook automatically, so this note entry will shortly be appearing there.

You can also check your Address Book to see who is already on Facebook. To my surprise, some people were...