The Nexus didn't last long!

I had a week or two's warning that things were not OK with the Lock button on the Nexus One, and a search on the web proved the worst.. going back a year or so, this was a known product defect. What surprised me was how soon I experienced it. Its not as though I was using the Nexus full time. The iPhone 4 was getting it's fair share of use!

So, at least one night's sleep was ruined by the mental alertness I tend to go through, thinking of the answers to the problem, ref. Pixmania's T's & C's and the numerous commentaries about difficulties people had had when trying to get repairs agreed to.

It took ages to find my way to the direct email route, but I did get a fairly swift response. Confusing to follow all of the papers and procedures which were necessary to ship the thing back to France for Control, possible repair, possible replacement with a new one, or refunding of the amount as a credit to be used on Pixmania!

One thing is for sure, that is the end of pricey purchases via Pixmania.

This also got me thinking about the Mobile phone serviceability issue in more general terms.

Mobile phone podcasters are only interested in the latest technical goodies a phone may have, not with the manufacturer's history of product quality...

I have made three Twitter updates about my problem and will follow up this case to see how long things take.

The only one left..

Had a look through the old stuff on my first blog and decided there was no point in keeping it, so it has been deleted..

This one should last a little longer :)

Couldn't wait..

I have been waiting 6 months, impatiently, for the promised update of Nexus One to Gingerbread. Then I heard Julie on PSC had a Nexus One so I twitted her to hear if she had received an OTA in the UK. She informed me that Vodafone was blocking the update, so I ran vodaphone UK nexus One gingerbread - Google Search and came across http://ossadmin.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/goodbye-vodafone-uk-nexus-one-rom Goodbye Vodafone, and there were clear instructions on which files to download from where and a long page of comments talking of success! So, I decided to go for it, and to cut a long story short, the passimg.zip installed OK and the 1st update.zip, but when the 2nd update.zip errored I decided to reboot, setup wifi connection, and immediately the OTA to 2.3.4 started.

So, now I have the US version and will get any future updates at once.

Went back to Julie and let her know. Haven't heard from her yet, but I'm sure she will say how it went if she does it.

"..but I still like pencil and paper"

Ref. the subtitle of this blog, its time to note that my regular journal entries have almost exclusively switched to use of 'Momento', an iPhone app, together with a spare bluetooth keyboard which was part of the New iMac purchase.

The latter allows easy updating of the journal, and has a simple tagging system, which makes finding some cyclic event's history in a blink, such as tablet use.

So its goodbye to pencil and paper, which is just as well, because reading old pencil journals from 1998 when I had the first heart symptoms, was very difficult for me, letalone other interested parties, e.g. the girls.

Other 'cameras'

Besides the LX5 I have been using the iPhone 4's camera, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the various snaps. I have accumulated a bunch of 'apps', but the one I use exclusively outdoors is Quickpix, as this is the only app which, with a touch on the almost invisible icon, will take a shot a second later and store the result in the Camera Roll.. couldn't be easier.

The Nexus One has a similar app, Qikcam, which also takes remarkably good shots, almost as good as the iPhone's, but nowhere need the LX5's superior quality!

Photography blog or not..

My finally decided upon Panasonic DMC-LX5 camera arrived a few days ago, and besides reading up on the most relevant sections in order to get the tiny beast working, I have been wondering whether to start a new 'open' blog about my experiences with taking up photography again in my 79th year. Haven't decide yet, so in the mean time I'll put my entries here.

I have had a few old snaps taken with unknown cameras up in the woods some years ago, recently added some iPhone 4 snaps, all for family viewing only, and have now started a couple of 'sets', joined a few 'groups' - all this on Flickr.

The LX5 takes remarkably good photos and has a host of advanced features like Auto Bracket, which enable HDR pictures to be 'developed' with the aid of a great piece of software called Photomatix that runs on the iMac in my case.

Setting Auto Bracket to +/-2 EV automatically takes 3 shots with different exposures at the push of a button. These are then merged by Photomatix and tone mapped to produced the results one wishes. In my case a picture of the stue table area taken near the top of the stairs produced a really psychedelic wide angle work of art!

See http://www.flickr.com/photos/cintra2/5767057795/in/set-72157626823316018

I'll leave it here for now, and add new experiences as they occur.

Google IO week!

Tuesday the 10th May was Android Keynote day. 

Lots of interesting stuff for developers and how they can continue to make Android the platform of the future. Honeycomb 3.1 is due out any day now, and Icecream Sandwich will be out later on in the fall. It should bring tablets and phones together on a common version. There was also an agreed movement to reduce fragmentation caused by the current Mfg and Carrier skinning... lets hope that works out, or that at least there will always be a Nexus version.

Yesterday, Wednesday was the Chrome Keynote day. Both browser (with Angry Birds) and Chrome OS. Chromebooks were announced to be available in US and 6 other countries around the world in June. I might well see if I can get one via Pixmania in late June/July :)

Otherwise, although I am tempted by aspects of both the iPad and Android tablets, particularly the Eee Transformer, I think I'll hold off a bit longer.