"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
*heh*
Talking with Son & Heir about 4 months after his switch to a graveyard shift.
“I don’t think I can ever be a daywalker again.”
*sigh* And I hadn’t even seen the signs. I guess I’ll have to remove garlic from the recipes in meals he shares with us.
Silly wabbit. Yogurt says “yogurt” on the label. Duh.
Just another Kindle Fire micro-mini update. So far: books, movies and music are the Big Deal, although I have found and installed several Android apps that are very cool, both in the Amazon app store and elsewhere.
Elsewhere? Yeh. Side loading Android apps is easy-peasy once two conditions are met: getting the things actually downloaded to the device and configuring the device to allow installation of apps obtained outside the Amazon app store. But more on that later.
The apps I’ve found so far that have tickled my fancy (in a good way–getcher mind outa the gutter! ;-)) are Opera Mobile (of course! *heh*), BubbleLevel (amazing! Using the Kindle Fire as a level. Cool!</em>) and TeamViewer. While I’ve installed other apps over the last few days, these three have seen the most use to date. Pinch & Zoom work much better in Opera Mobile–Zoom and watch the page center in on the text or graphic you pinched to zoom without needing to manually adjust as with the Silk Browser. Nice, and just one of many browsing experience enhancements.
BubbleLevel? I have found myself walking around as I watch a movie or read a book. I catch something out of the corner of my eye. “Oh, that picture’s not level.” Pop open BubbleLevel and… level the pic. *heh* Sure, I could eyeball it level (it’s a knack), but why, when “there’s an app for that”? *heh*
And TeamViewer. Fun controlling one of my other computers from the Fire. That’s all. It’s just fun. Yeh, yeh, I know I’ll find it to actually be useful at some point (TeamViewer should be on every computer on a home network, IMO, and having it on the computers of remote family is even more useful), if only for accessing files and running apps on my desktop while I’m elsewhere… Oh, yes. That will be useful.
Now, as to dislikes concerning the Kindle Fire itself.
Few, but the biggest dislike is that Amazon didn’t include a USB data cable! (!?!) OK, so Amazon’s virtually giving the device away already, but not including a data cable? That goes beyond an annoyance and enters the verge of “This ticks me off” territory. How much easier it would be to sideload Android apps by dragging and dropping them from my desktop/laptop onto the Fire as opposed to emailing them as attachments and then downloading the attachments? Lots. But no, that will have to wait on my separately-ordered data cable, since none of my other USB cables has exactly the same micro-USB termination. *sigh* And even though I can email mobi files obtained elsewhere to the Fire (an eBook format the Fire can read) and have the Fire sync them, it’s a cumbersome process… and I have at least 100 of the things (only the ones worth reading more than once) to sync in.
Data cable a must-have. Amazon not including one with the Fire is irritating.
Now, side loading on the Fire: easy-peasy, even considering the irritation of having to kludge-net with an email attachment download. Oh, what’s with the email attachment download instead of a direct (browser) download of an Android app? I dunno. Silk seems to really, really, REALLY not want to download apps, and even with Opera Mobile it proved to be easier to download the apps to be side loaded on another computer, email the APZ APK* files to myself as an attachment and then download them to the Fire from the email. Weird, but not at all difficult. From there, if one has already enabled installing apps from “unknown” (as in “unknown”=”unavailable in Amazon’s app store *sigh*) sources all it takes is invoking the APZ file and bob’s your uncle.
Another lil note: I find that I have read most of the (10) books I’ve read on the Fire so far in landscape mode. Since I generally read a line or so at a time rather than one or two (or a few) words at a time, the longer lines afforded by reading in landscape mode are a better fit for my reading style.
*APZ-APK: while I’d like to claim “APZ” as a typo, anyone with half a brain would see that as a lame excuse. It was a brain fart (or Early Oldtimers’ Disease, take your pick *heh*). AMZ files are an Amazon mp3 downloader file, so I may have conflated the two format extensions somehow.
Well, we’re off in a bit to Lovely Daughter’s for a “Boxing Day” Xmas celebration. (We’ll box things for charity in the coming “boxing week”. ;-)) I’ll leave this video I just saw for anyone who might drop by:
Back, now. Had a lovely time at Lovely Daughter’s. She and her Estimable Spouse are Good Company.
Ok, so typing on the Fire is still a bit of a PITA, but I’m able to manage short things like this. And while I got Silk working pretty well, Opera Mobile does seem more responsive, and it gives me more screen real estate for browsing. Nice.
UPDATE: Well, while I’m still getting used to the kybd, it’s juuuust workable. Opera Mobile is da bomb. Figured the tabs out. Lil different but workable. So very much slicker than the Silk browser. Now, that’s not so much a comment on the Silk browser which is about as good as, say, Chrome on the desktop. But for a mobile platform, Opera Mobile’s just been doing it longer than most and is just moire mature on the platform, I guess.
Well, we opened the door a few decades ago when we instituted my Wonder Woman’s family’s tradition of opening Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. Slippery slope and all that. I slept in today (late night, got up early after a short nap and went back to bed before 5) and lo and behold! Son&Heir was around and really eager to open presents super early. OK, so Noon passed (barely) and we were opening presents for those of us who were… present. Son&Heir liked his stuff (especially the “stocking stuffers” as my Wonder Woman knew he would when she found them). And I? How was it for me? *sigh* I had thought I had family trained to standard, the standard being, “I have what I need. Focus on other folks.”
Son&Heir apparently believes in a sort of insidious disrespect of my values that precludes any cavils from me. My Wonder Woman kinda bent the standard by giving me a Moleskine cover and display protectors for a Kindle/Kindle Fire. “OK,” methought, “I can put $$ back for a Kindle/Kindle Fire. It’s not as though it’s not on my list anyway.”
Opened Son&Heir’s present to me. Yeh, you guessed it. “Well, when we got a couple of pallets of them in at work, I just figured… ”
Sucker punched me, he did. Xmas gifts are supposed to flow one way in my mind. Oh, well. At least he knows CPR. *heh*
Thanks bubba. Good one. I’ll get you back, though. 🙂
And, apologies, sweetheart, but I may not get much more detail work done on your Christmas present today… 😉
No, I’m not posting this with the Kindle. Sensitivity and size of the keyboard on the thing is something I need to become used to before I’ll be doing much of that. But I am listening to one of the Christmas albums I have stored on my Amazon Cloud account via the Fire. Nice sound from the speakers for such a small device, but simply wonderful sound via the ear buds I’m currently using. I’ll post other comments on the device later, perhaps, as I become more familiar with it. One thing: I don’t view the WiFi-only limitation as a limitation, and given the fact that I can store an unlimited number of mp3s as well as an unlimited number of other media purchased from Amazon on my cloud drive, I don’t view the storage limitations as anything that will concern me.
OK, so the Fire’s Silk Browser appeared to completely suck at displaying web pages. Found the fix here, in case a reader here has the same issue (only half a page displaying, other half blank screen). It seems Amazon customer service knows about the issue and has a workaround ready to go… for those who will look it up. I wonder how many folks will instead just say, “This sucks” and return their device, though. Amazon needs to push a fix for this.
OK, so I was planning on connecting a lil compy connected to the living room stereo to stream Xmas mp3s from my Amazon Cloud storage. The Kindle’s easier. Connected via the headphone jack. CLICKed on Music, my library of mp3s popped up, Bob’s your uncle. Nice. Currently playing the short list of Il Volo’s Christmas songs mini-collection (Silent Night; Panis Angelicus; Christmas Medley: Jingle Bells Rock / Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow / It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year; The Christmas Song; Stille Nacht). I can definitely tell the boys have had extensive coaching in English pronunciation, though their native Italian vowels and consonants do sound through.
OK, just watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009, the Swedish version) on the device. Used ear buds after the first few minutes. Big difference. Good flick, true to the book. Even the physical settings were very close to my imaginings from the book’s descriptions. And, it was a good movie-watching experience on the Fire. Amazon may actually have found a way to get me to pop for its Prime service.
Even better: all three Stieg Larsson books have been filmed by the same folks with the same cast. Watching “…Played With Fire” now.
…and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Three movies that faithfully represented Larsson’s powerful novels. In fact, because of the format, the movies may have told the stories slightly better, in some ways, as Larsson’s narrative sometimes bogged down a tad. Oh, there were large portions that were excised–whole swaths–from each of the books, but the material that was excised just leaned the narrative down to Lizbeth Salander’s story a bit more. Well-acted, directed in such a way that the direction was almost unnoticeable. Very well-done. And by the end of the third movie, I was picking up more and more of the Swedish dialog, even noticing where the subtitles elided over material that I had caught.
A very enjoyable experience. Thanks, Son!
The kitchen redo for my Wonder Woman’s Xmas present is getting close–well, apart from repainting the kitchen cabinets… again (just done this summer, but still ;-)). Below see an almost finished “coffee shrine” replacement for the former coffee brewing nook. Needs some trim finishing out and the new surface for the cabinet, etc., isn’t fully painted yet, but most of the rest is done, and I even got the dining room painted the new wall color, first tested out on the south wall of the kitchen.
OK, so I also don’t have the plate rack installed for the dinner plates. It’ll come.
From James Taylor at Christmas
(No, I’m not using a link that credits me at Amazon. This blog’s been UNcommercialized for years, now. Strictly therapeutic. *heh*)
…as an upgrade from the intellectual prowess of Cwazy Unka Joe Biden, I think I can scare up a bag of hammers (although a sack of $h1t would be a more appropriate upgrade).
Just tryin’ to help the guy out here.
‘S’all right, Ronnie, the same kind of people hated Him, too (1; 2).
Meanwhile, idolatry strikes again as the National Christmas Tree becomes the National Obamassiah Tree. Hmmm, seems I’ve read about something similar happening in Jewish history…
Yeh, yeh, I know the decos on the National Xmas Tree aren’t all about The Zero, but no one’s been able to find one about Christ or even Christmas on the thing so far, so…