Teyrnon

I haven't posted much here in 2016. When the year began I figured I would be because I thought having a Chromebox connected to the TV in the living room would make it so much more convenient and by virtue of the convenience I'd spend more time here on LJ. That obviously is not what happened. In truth what the Chromebox made more convenient is watching streaming video off the 'net in the comfort of my living room on a 32" television. It's also been wonderful for general web browsing, on-line shopping, and reading my email.

Aside from being a cesspool of ignorance, falsehoods, and bigotry Facebook has demonstrated some disturbing flaws over the years. This morning I discovered what I consider a nasty security flaw but I'm sure they think it's a feature offering terrific ease of use. I recently did a full wipe of my hard disk by zeroing it. This morning I logged into the email account that I use for Facebook. I decided to have a look at my news feed there so I clicked a link from one of the dozens emails from FB waiting for me. It went directly to my account without prompting me for a login. That's right, from a completely fresh install I got into my FB account without having to enter a password. This is absolutely frightening and should not ever happen. Email is not a secure means of communication by any stretch of the imagination. Sending a link via email that let's you bypass logging into an account on any server is incredibly irresponsible. I have half a mind to just delete my FB account right now and be done with the place.

In other news I've been watching the first few seasons of Arrow on DVD. It's been interesting. I quite enjoy the show's take on the DC Comics universe. It's a much more positive and heroic version than the recent DC related movies have given us.

This week I've installed Linux Mint 18.1/64bit on the computer I use for most things. It's a definite improvement on the Mint 16 I'd been running since the summer of 2014.



I think that's enough for one post. I'll post again soon. (I hope.)

You may need a new cellular phone carrier if you frequently find yourself resorting to radio jargon and the NATO phonetic alphabet to make yourself understood.

I was going through the pockets on my travel pack and found an old WiFi signal detector. It just had some lights to indicate signal strength. I recall using it to figure out how far into the yard the wireless network extended. That worked back when there were much fewer wireless networks in the yard but nowadays with a wireless router in every house near me knowing the signal strength isn't helpful without knowing which network it's picking up.

Nowadays a cheap low end Android tablet or even an iPod Touch would probably work better as a handheld device to determine the reach of a particular wireless network.

So, what kind of tools have you had over the years that were useful at one time but aren't so useful now?

I don't know why I haven't done this before now. I guess I finally got tired of having to bank switch the remote every time I move from one room to another. For whatever reason when I was setting up the X10 modules after moving here I arranged the unit numbers such that 1-4 were reserved for the parlour, 5-6 were reserved for my mother's bedroom, 7-8 were my bedroom, 9-12 for the back living-room and library, and 13-16 for the spare bedroom. This naturally led to wide gaps of unused numbers. I now have all the lamps with X10 modules arranged in a sequence from 1-8.

This is a follow up to my post from last week. The first of two. A comment to that post posed a few questions that I felt called for answers too long to fit into a comment. I thought I'd address the technical side of things first.

When I was little I was a bit of a storyteller. I'd make up elaborate stories and tell them to anyone who'd listen. My father was encouraging of this. Certain other people weren't. When I was in the sixth grade someone suggested I start writing my stories down instead of simply telling them. I began just that. I filled several spiral notebooks with my scrawl. Most of these are lost. I think my mother threw them out when she found them.
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The mattress was picked up this morning. I didn't realize how smelly and dusty the thing was. Next week the box spring will follow and the week after that possibly the frame. Then maybe I can rearrange the remaining furniture to afford better access to the closets. There'll still be a great deal of furniture in there but without the huge bed there'll be room to move at the least. This probably should have been done about 2 years ago.

( Behind this cut there's a long rambling rumination on various smallish or handheld devices I've looked at or considered as a paper notebook/journal replacement. Don't expect it to be all that organized. It could probably use a pass or two by a copy editor but if I were going to worry about that today I'd probably never bother to post any of this stuff. )

In other news I need to lose about 5 lbs which means I need to get more exercise. That should be easy enough as far as it goes.

I guess that's all for now.

On the off chance anyone might be interested. As some may recall I made a post about considering going with something electronic to replace the latest paper notebook. I've been using hardbound blank books since the late 80s as a combination journal and notebooks. I have very nearly an entire shelf full of these that are filled with my scribblings. Unfortunately lately I've developed issues where handling paper makes me sick. It was the driving reason I started using ebooks and dedicated ebook readers about midway through the last year.

I still haven't gotten anything to use a PDA. The past month I've been considering the iPod Touch and it looks like a nice enough device. Not exactly impressed with it though. I've fiddled with one in a store recently and while it might be usable the on-screen keyboard seems rather awkward.

I'm thinking a small netbook would probably be the best thing at this point. An 8" model or something. I could even load it with a few of my favorite open source compilers and use the various utilities I've written over the years on it.

Anyone have any thoughts to add? I'm as undecided as ever.

I got a chance to visit Fry's Electronics yesterday to look at what they had. They had four models of ebook readers. Three of which were e-ink devices. They had the Sony PRS-505 and PRS-700 models, one of the Astak reader, and the ECTACO jetBook. Didn't really look at the Astak much since the display model looked damaged. The display on the PRS-700 is indeed a bit on the foggy side. I had read about that but seeing it first hand I have to really wonder what Sony was thinking. Do they really think consumers want to have a touchscreen and a backlight with the trade off of having less than crisp and clear text? I really like the PRS-505 though.

While I haven't completely taken the jetBook out of consideration. The fact that it has an LCD display rather than e-ink is a big minus but still it can be found for such a nice price if you watch the sales.

e-ink has changed a bit since the demonstrations I saw five or so years ago. The text on the 505 is clear, crisp and does indeed look like fresh black ink on paper. What I saw a few years ago had this odd yellow tint with a slightly faded newsprint look. Nice to see that isn't the case with the devices on the market. Whatever it was I saw back then I'm not even sure it's in the same lineage as what they call e-ink now. If anybody remembers that stuff, let me know. I think I saw it at some trade show or something. Can't remember.

I recently had cause to look for a pay phone. It's probably isn't much of a surprise to anyone reading this that I didn't find one. I did find a few stands where payphones may once have resided but the phones themselves were long gone. It's another reminder just how much the world has changed in my nearly 4 decades on this Earth. My teen years were in the 80s and I can remember when coin operated phones were pretty much ubiquitous. You could expect to find one, if not several, within 10 miles or so if you looked. That's no longer the case it seems. I wonder if they'll ever make a come back. With the ubiquity of cel phones these days I can't think why they ever would. Still, they were a part of the culture of a time I hold dear and I'm going to miss those days.

In related news I'm going to stop by a Sprint store, the next time I get the opportunity. I want to see about getting a spare battery for my phone. (I had one for my old phone but I forgot to ask about it when I got it.) They're handy to have.