Since this ridiculous July has dragged me away from the obsession of mastering new technology to the land of the lotus eaters (I.e. the local beer gardens) I feel I should round off with a summary of my progress to date.
OK; what we have here is a 58-year old sci-fi geek with an education in possibilities but a grounding in reality. For example: There is no AI. There is no honest government or trade union. Fusion power is still 25 years away. Women love to talk. And I've been drunk for a month! So. What have I discovered?
The tablet is clever! As is the smartphone (1 billion otherwise intelligent humans manically texting while they cross a busy street or drive heavy machinery can't be wrong!). No denying this. But I really, really do not like phones. So what do I get out of this?
In order of fun:
Music: Things I have discovered -- Organise your ill-gotten music library's metadata on your PC first of all with mp3tag (esp. all the artist, album & album artist fields); download the MixZing app to your tablet (the Nexus comes with its own music app but it's crap and you can't get rid of it); upload around 60 albums; then lie in bed attached to a cheap pair of headphones with the Nexus propped up beside you so you can play with each of the 10 graphic equaliser sliders until your latest David Bowie album Is-Just-About-Right!
Reading: I like the Moon+ Reader app. I've uploaded enough sci-fi novels for a two month boring stay on a desert island with a dearth of hula-hula girls. For good measure, I also uploaded around 3 dozen comics/graphic novels. OK for a good length holiday lacking in any other distractions, methinks. What's clever about this app is the quick ability to change font size and brightness with a swipe of one side of the screen (just gotta remember what drunken grope does what on what part of the screen!). The only downside is the tablet is not a great eReader in the bright outdoors. There is a tendency to get a reflection of a big bright red nose rather than the crisp white text of, say, a Kindle book. The Moon+ Reader does have a "Theme" gimmick to improve an outdoor picture though. What is cool is the offline and online link to ColorDict, a dictionary/Wikipedia/spellchecker app. Just press on a word or term you are reading and up pops more than you'll ever want to know about it. So far, including the music, the books, and the other add-on programmes (sorry, "apps"), I've taken up around a half of the Nexus' (admittedly) limited 32 Gb capacity.
Films and TV: Tricky, this one. From my research, a single mp4 film takes up over 2 Gb of space, so not much room for a video library on a 32Gb hard drive, especially with all the other stuff on there. Again, the (non-deletable) Android movie app that comes with the machine is crap (just like iPad, they are only designed to part you from your money at the online store!). I use MX Player which handled a test feature film and two ancient (B&W) episodes of Fireball XL5 with ease. Have to try some more media in the coming weeks.
Admin: A boring subject unless you are OCD about your hard drive capacity. I use File Manager HD to organise all my tablet's files and folders. Works a charm. I also use Clean Master to get rid of all the crap that accretes in each of the app's caches (it frees up around half a Gb a time). Finally, I downloaded Kingston Office which handles all my Microsoft Office .doc documents and .xls spreadsheets uploaded from my PC. I'm currently drafting blog posts, creating a shopping list and checking my sci-fi recommended reading spreadsheet using it.
Other apps: Just started to play with all the other stuff. Google Sky Map seems to know where I am in the world and what each of those funny lights in the sky are. Google Translate seems to be able to translate 70 languages into 70 other languages. So far I can get the tablet to talk to me in Vietnamese but not Thai. Probably needs more work. Oh yes, and my on-board camera seems to be able to take fairly decent snapshots. The Poetic case-cum-tablet prop protects the machine and I'll get Linda to sew together a gay shoulder bag for transport.
So That's about it. From Confused of Totton to Adept of Suburbia. All in about a month. Next month I'm taking the Nexus 10 on its first holiday to Texas for four weeks. But for that I'll start a fresh blog.
Farewell.
Admin: A boring subject unless you are OCD about your hard drive capacity. I use File Manager HD to organise all my tablet's files and folders. Works a charm. I also use Clean Master to get rid of all the crap that accretes in each of the app's caches (it frees up around half a Gb a time). Finally, I downloaded Kingston Office which handles all my Microsoft Office .doc documents and .xls spreadsheets uploaded from my PC. I'm currently drafting blog posts, creating a shopping list and checking my sci-fi recommended reading spreadsheet using it.
Other apps: Just started to play with all the other stuff. Google Sky Map seems to know where I am in the world and what each of those funny lights in the sky are. Google Translate seems to be able to translate 70 languages into 70 other languages. So far I can get the tablet to talk to me in Vietnamese but not Thai. Probably needs more work. Oh yes, and my on-board camera seems to be able to take fairly decent snapshots. The Poetic case-cum-tablet prop protects the machine and I'll get Linda to sew together a gay shoulder bag for transport.
So That's about it. From Confused of Totton to Adept of Suburbia. All in about a month. Next month I'm taking the Nexus 10 on its first holiday to Texas for four weeks. But for that I'll start a fresh blog.
Farewell.
1 comment:
So when you grace Texas with your OCD will you be giving them a master class on the Nexus 10, or will you be promoting it as the best thing since The Star ship Enterprise..
Maybe you could upload the the film The Mouse on the Moon for the flight,as for the gay shoulder bag NICE!!!
As for Lobsang he is a famous Tibetan cycle mechanic.
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