Well, I found out why the new apps I've added to my android phone don't show up on the screen. It seem that when you put an app in a folder, it still counts as an icon on the main screen. So if you add an app it won't display even though the screen is empty of other apps... the OS thinks the screen i s full. Very strange. I got an app that gives me more home screens, so that problem should be gone. If this behavior is documented in the User's Guide, I missed it.

On a non-related note, my 2007 Honda Civic is incredibly noisy. The amount of road noise on some surfaces (mainly chip seal roads) is incredible. My 1997 Volvo was virtually silent, and I miss it.

I've ordered the under-hood nose/heat pad that the more expensive Civics have as standard. We'll see if that makes any difference. I also have some stuff I bought at Home Depot that can be used inside door panels and other areas to absorb/dampen noise. I may have to wait for the weather to warm up a bit before I try to install it.

It took a while, but I've finally got my new phone working pretty much as I want it. The only thing that really still bugs me is that Android phones, at least the ones from Virgin Mobile, come with a severely limited amount of memory. It's hard to put very many apps on them without running out of memory and causing the thing to stop getting emails, etc. It's pitiful. VM puts a number of apps on it that I don't want or need, and they cannot be removed, making the lack of memory even more onerous. The iPhone doesn't have this problem (I wish I could afford one).

The Android OS is OK. Nothing to write home about. It does the job, but it's not very elegant. Some of the apps I've bought don't show up on the home page and I don't have a clue as to why this is. I've had to go in and use an app to put them into folders so they will show up there and I can use them. Annoying.

I could leave the iPod touch at home most of the time if the same apps were available for the Android OS. The three I miss the most are Maltin's Movie Guide, Geosphere, and MotionX GPS.

New Phone

I bought a new phone last week, after using my current cell phone for 7-8 years. I went with an Android phone, since iPhones are way to expensive (both to buy and to get a data plan for). After fiddling with the new phone for a few days, I am constantly running into low memory problems with the thing. It just doesn't come with enough main memory to make it a replacement for my iPod touch. I like the Android OS, but there are many older apps that won't let you move them to an SD card, and they hog main memory and seriously reduce the functionality of the device.

I was hoping to use the phone to replace my iPod touch for on-the-go use where I need connectivity, but that just isn't going to happen with the memory problems that I'm having. It's a nice phone though. Far better than my previous "dumb" phone. Everything I wanted to do on the old one required me to step through multiple menus to get to the function I wanted. I always had to get out the manual to even get to the list of numbers I had programmed into it. And the buttons were tiny. So was the screen. Even as a phone, I like the new one better.

The past six months have been pretty good, health-wise. I'm recovered from the surgery, and I ride my bike 2-3 times a week. I started out getting winded and sore muscles at less than a mile of riding, and now I'm up to about 15 miles without much problem. I ride a cross country mountain bike, not a road bike, so that 15 miles is probably the equivalent of 35-30 road miles. I don't ride on city streets, there are too many people out there who drive like I do. :-)

I've found that the same sort of prejudices occur within the biking community as in other groups, except maybe a tad more extreme. If you don't spend a lot of money on a bike, then you aren't taken seriously. I have yet to find much difference between the Walmart bike I have and other, more expensive bikes, such as my Specialized Camber. I've looked, and there is no verifiable information on the net that would suggest that expensive bikes last longer than inexpensive ones, or that they are faster, more comfortable, or handle better.

About the only conclusion I could draw at the moment is that the people who buy less expensive bikes may be not as "into" biking, and thus don't keep the bikes maintained as well, or that they tend to lose interest after a while because of family, etc.

Yesterday I updated my IOS things to IOS 5 (the ones I could, I have some old stuff). I haven't decided if it's really worth it yet. It was a hassle doing the upgrade, the servers at Apple were hammered, and it took a while to get things done. The process timed out several times. But it all got done.

I thought Apple would do better at explaining how to do things, but the procedure for getting wireless sync from iThings to iTunes on a computer was obscure, and it was a "learn by trying everything" process. It finally works, but there are some misleading statements in various places. Much like other companies, they just don't give you enough information on what's going on for you to make an educated guess and how to proceed when something happens that's not expected.

This whole iCloud business continues to leave me mystified. I converted my MobileMe account over to it, since I'd have to do that anyway in a few months when MM goes away. I'm still not sure what the interaction between iCloud and the iTunes store is (if any). Again, they don't tell you enough for you to figure out what's going on.

My contacts seemed to have transferred OK, but I'm confused about what's going on with the Calendar. The iCloud and MM calendars ended up with different things in them. I just don't think Apple has put enough thought into explaining what is going on.

It finally rained today, after months of no rain. I'd almost forgotten what rain and thunder was like. Too bad it will be absorbed in the ground by nightfall. I can only hope it will help the dirt trails at Walnut Creek Park, they've been getting pretty unpleasant to ride on because of the large chunks coming loose. I'll gladly give up several days of riding to get a better surface. It's all too easy to have a wheel skid and the bike go out from under you with all that loose stuff out there.

More chances of rain tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Bike rides

I went out yesterday and rode 15 miles on my trail bike (bicycle). That's a full 50% further than my previous longest distance. The temps are finally dropping enough so that it's still fairly nice by noon... only about 80F. The route I took was the entire length of the Brushy Creek Trail. I started in the middle and rode to both ends, figuring that I could bail out easier by parking at the middle.

The trail is mixed concrete pavement, crushed granite, dirt, and some sandy sections. I really don't like the sand, but the rest is pretty nice. There is shade for a lot of the distance. It's a pretty popular path for the area, so it was moderately busy, but everyone is very pleasant and co-exists nicely. I'll likely hit this one three or four times a month. It's about a twenty minute drive from my house.

A whimper, not a bang

I waited six months to get a new iPod Touch so I could get the latest model (mine is two generations behind). Turns out the "new" iPod Touch has the same model number as the "old" one, so it's the same hardware with the new software. I think I'll be waiting a while longer, the am era in the current model is not very good, to be charitable about it.

This was the least exiting Apple announcement even in quite some time. There's just nothing there I'm very interested in. The recent Amazon product announcement last week was much more interesting.

Of course, this is of academic interest only, as I can't afford to buy any of these gadgets at the moment.

I feel like I've taken the step into the unknown recently. I've gotten both a Facebook and Twitter account. Not for the social aspects, particularly, but because I can automatically send my location information to both of them when I'm out bicycling around the various parks or geocaching. This leads me to a (possibly false) sense of security/safety that I didn't have before. I had some initial problems with the MiFi card (which I've had for a year or so), but I hope they've now been fixed after several calls to the provider.

In the past, I could never think of a reason why I would use either of those services, but the new capability changed that.

I went bicycle riding in one of the local parks a few days ago. It's a trail called a"singletrack", because it's mainly a single track through the trees, very narrow, with trees close in on the sides. It's quit possible to hit or clip a tree with only a moments distraction. There are plenty of scars on the trees to demonstrate this. Here's a bit of stream-of-consciousness dialogue from my last ride:

Yesterday morning I went for a ride on the singletrack path in my favorite city park, lots of trees on each side, you have to pay attention, very twisty trail. I'm normally thinking about what direction I'll dive off the trail into the trees if someone zooms up from the opposite direction (I don't have a history of dismounting gracefully in panic stops). That morning, my thoughts went something like this:

Oh, boy, there were a lot of cars with bike racks in the parking lot... maybe I should keep ringing the bell on the handlebars... nope, keep your hands on the bars, you wobble around enough as it is... this is nice, another half-hour and it will be too hot... whoa, nearly caught the handlebar end on that one... what's that in the middle of the path ahead... can’t quite make it out... it's a squirrel, why is he staring at me like that, get out of the way... GET OUT OF THE WAY... oh, great, now he's trying to outrun me down the twisty trail about two feet in front of me... I go right, he goes right... I go left, he goes left... I think he's toying with me... he looks back, I'm not sure if he is really trying to get away or checking to make sure he hasn't lost me... I'm beginning to suspect this wasn't an accidental meeting... wow, he sure can corner better than I can... he's got the whole forest to play in, why pick here and now... he dives right off the path... aaiieee, there's that nasty root drop, anchors out, pay attention... I come to a stop and swear I hear high-pitched squeaky laughing from back there.. maybe more than one.

Initiation rite? Maybe. For all I know, they even have a secret handshake. But if see a squirrel on this path next time I'm riding, I'm not slowing down.

Back after a while

It's been around two years since the last entry. Obviously no one is reading this, as there are no comments. In the interim, I've taken up mountain biking and had a car totaled (not my fault).

I go riding in Walnut Creek Park, a five minute drive from my house. I don't ride on the city streets, too much car traffic. Also, no shade.

I hiked this park for a few weeks and then decided to get a bike. I'm 68 and needed to do something for a higher level of exercise to recover from surgery, and this seemed to fit the bill. I find I like it a lot and will continue now that I'm recovered.

This park is interesting. It has 12 miles of trails, and the majority of the bike trails (the twisty parts with lots of shade) were constructed by a local mountain bike club, if I have my facts right. The city wanted some trails, and the biking community stepped up and designed and built the trails themselves, under the nominal supervision of the park staff. Two or three times a year, the club members get together and spend a day or so doing maintenance... drainage, trash removal, etc.

A fun place to ride.

Gecaching

I took up geocaching in January. Partly to get some exercise, I've been hanging around the house way too much since I retired. I bought an inexpensive DPS receiver and got some locations from geocaching.com, and I was on my way! There are dozens of greenbelt parks around Austin, and near as I can tell, all them have one or more caches in them. So far I’ve been lucky and haven’t run into any snakes or other nasty creatures while bushwhacking. I've found 256 caches since the first week in January, which pales in comparison to the 16,000+ that have been found by one of our local women cachers.

I'll probably taper off a bit during the summer months, since I'll only go out early in them morning.

My iPod quit working last week so I got a new one. I'm now on my third one in six years. Now I'm wondering if they have a lifetime of about 3 years. My first one died of a broken FireWire socket after three years, the second of a hard drive failure after three years.

I don't listen to music a lot on the iPod, it's mainly for the 6 or 7 podcasts I routinely follow. So it's not a case of missing the music. Still, I guess it wasn't all that bad, I bought it as a refurb from the Apple store, and it gets used a lot, both while I'm driving and when I'm walking various places around the city.

It's replacement is a nice shiny iPod Nano. I calculated the thing could hold pretty close to a month's worth of podcasts if I got a bit behind. It's nice not having to worry about a hard drive going out. The Nano is wonderfully small and light, and has a much improved interface over the 3rd gen iPod I had before.

I use an iPod because of the tight integration with the iTunes store (although I haven't purchased many things from the actual store). I can set iTunes u to automatically download the podcasts I'm interested in and auto load onto the iPod when I plug it in once in a while. I’m not aware of any other MP3 player that can do this so easily.

The Kindle

I've had my Kindle for about 3 hours now. First impression: It pretty much lives up to the hype. It seems to be exactly what I need for reading. It's legible, light, and can download books from Amazon in 1-2 minutes via wireless (no extra charge for the wireless connection). I bought the entire Sherlock Holmes collection for something like $3.50. You can get all of Shakespeare's works for around $4.50. Same for all of Mark Twain's works. New best-seller hardcover can be purchased and downloaded for $9.99, about a third of the hardcover price from a bookstore.

This thing holds 200 books (with an option for increasing memory with an SD card). And all of them are searchable. And bookmarkable. And it has a built-in dictionary. And web browser. And it can display Google maps of your location (not tried yet).

What's not to like? Well, it's $360, but I calculate the payback is around 2 years for me. And I don't have to worry about paper dust from old books making me sneeze.

I downloaded around 90 books from Project Gutenberg and the like, all in Kindle format. I think it's a winner. It may not make sense for many, but I think it does for me.

UPS strikes again

I ordered a Kindle from Amazon yesterday. Within a few minutes of pickup from the ship point, UPS and Amazon were both insisting that the device had been delivered 18 months ago to a city 150 miles away. Turns out the UPS tracking numbers are re-used, although it's not clear if it's UPS or the shipper that is at the root of the problem.

I called UPS and got someone who wasn't surprised (and not concerned, either) and checked and said the package was on schedule. If they could tell this, why couldn't their web service?

Very strange.

More later.

The Death of Profanity

There has been a trend for years for more and more profanity to enter casual conversation. When I was a teenager, I remember hearing profanity only very occasionally. When you did hear it, it caught your attention. Profanity is almost used as punctuation and an all-around adjective these days. My question is: what do we now use as profanity? What do we use as an emphasis? I suspect that profanity has ceased to be very useful any more in its traditional sense. It no longer serves as an indicator of strong emotion or a disturbance.

Pity.

Who Thought This Was A Good Idea? Part 1

The USA channel is showing the Indiana Jones movies consecutively this weekend, in preperation for the release of the 4th IJ movie. Who thought it was a good idea to show them in reverse chronological order? Maybe I'm the only one bothered by this. Of course, with a DVR I can watch them in any order I want, but still....

This seems to happen a lot with movie and TV series. The stations just show them in any old order. It's not like the information isn't there to do it right.

I remember an instance where the BBC was re-showing the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries. One of the continuing characters was revealed to be a murderer in the last episode. Guess what episode they showed among the first several aired that time. Yep.

Amazon's Kindle

Electronic books may finally have arrived. I've been looking at Amazon's Kindle reader, and there is much to like. The included wireless downloading function may be the most important part of the equation.

The price is a bit steep. At $400, it’s the early adopters who are getting this thing. Jerry Pournelle (the science fiction writer) says he loves his.

I like electronic books readers a lot, in principle. Electronic readers will solve the problem of books going out of print. I have many books that I would like to read again, but they are so old that they can't be handled very much without doing damage. The paper in some instances is brown with age, and the paper dust sets off a moderately severe allergic reaction. The ereader fixes all that.

I'll be interested in actually getting one of these things when two conditions are met: 1) the price drops, and 2) the availability of older titles is plentiful.

I'll be watching to see if Amazon can do better than Sony did.

Thomas Humphrey dies

I just heard that Thomas Humphrey died Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 59. Tom was one of the leading innovators in classical guitar construction. His Millennium model was a significant step in guitar design, and it was adopted by a number of well-known players.

New York Times article.

Guitar Foundation of America article.

Infocom Lost Data Found

I found a story on a hard drive that has recently been found that was used at Infocom back in the mid-1980s as a network storage system. It contained many memos and several game files of a never-published game that was a sequel to their best-selling Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The web site is Infocom Lost Drive.

I still remember the Infocom games with great fondness. They were the best. I still have the boxed sets of all the games packed up somewhere around here. Despite having no graphics until very late in the company's history, they were head and shoulders above most games even today. A real pleasure to play.

More on Infocom at this site.