Tech
The weekly pantomime called #xfactor
Each year x-factor evokes strong emotions from those that view it and from those do not.
Some people love it for its commercialism, others hate it for the same reason. Some have crushes on the acts while others feel kinship though race, sex, age or accent. Some love the choreography others think it is shameless distraction. There are favourites and villains, costumes and scripts.
For me it’s just like watching pantomime. Something fun, not to take too seriously. To boo, to cheer. To feel part of an audience hurling emotions at celebrity caricatures.
And then there is twitter with its xfactor hashtags. A maelstrom of soundbites of love and hate, humour and outrage, things that should never be said, and others that should be said more.
It’s three hours each weekend that I’ll never get back, but as harmless childish fun to me it’s something that money cannot buy.
Android OS upgrades and 18 month mobile phone contracts
Mobile network operators increasingly try to lock thier subscribers into 18 or even 24 month contracts. Why?
Is it that in order to subsidise the cost of expensive mobile phones they need longer contracts to avoid a loss? Is it that with the increasing number of attractive offers the networks are scared of customers being poached to other networks
Regardless of the reason, when I purchase a subsidised android device and am locked to a contract for 18 months then I expect during the lifetime of contract when possible that my mobile device will be upgraded new versions of android where practical. I am purchasing a service from the mobile operator and personally I believe that software upgrades SHOULD be a key aspect of that service.
What price should one place on having the latest software, and more importantly, what long-term cost to mobile operators that do not provide such upgrades.
Facebook phone seems unlikely
It makes no sense for Facebook to create their own phone.
Design improvements for Samsung Tab v2
- I do not understand why tablets have to have almost an inch of margin padding around the screen. Get rid of that and it will fit in my pocket without making the screen smaller.
- Why only have 2 stereo speakers on one side of the unit? When held landscape for watching movies they are both on the right.
That is not stereo… it would be far better to have a speaker at each corner ( ie 4 of them ) and have the OS use the device orientation to decide which speakers to use for left and right. - On a phone that is tablet size its a shame they could not include a jack for a wired headset to use when one’s blue-tooth headset runs out of juice.
- One would think by now the usb standard bodies would come up with a standard usb connector that could be used for quick/hot dock/undock without each manufacturer inventing their own custom dock plug.
AppBrain – 3rd party desktop WEB ui for the android app market.
AppBrain is a 3rd party website / app combination that tries to enhance the android AppMarket experience.
Pros
- lets the user queue up installations / uninstalls from a great web interface
- lets you browse the market from a desktop browser with all the goodies that means, multiple tabs, proper keyboard, copy paste etc.
Cons
- still requires clicking multiple items and confirmation dialogs on device ( android 1.6 ) for each application install
- still requires manual upgrade for items ( android 1.6 )
I suspect that with 2.2 the cons might go away, but even on 1.6 this is a good improvement over using the standard device only market interface.
All the stories have been told…
…how long until all the apps have been written?
ebay – the best gadget shop in the world
Recently I had to try and recover files from a pc that had a faulty CPU/motherboard combo. Initially I was planning on opening another system and swapping the drive. But then I got to thinking wouldn’t it be great if there was a cable to connect an IDE device to a USB plug. I looked on ebay and found such a gadget existed, ordered and delivered for under £10 and all files safely recovered.