Post-Christmas present, Lenovo Chromebook N20p with touch

I have had my eye, and ears via podcasts, on Chromebooks, and at last with a price of only NOK 2.2K I ordered a Lenovo N20p 11.6" touch screen device.

It arrived, surprisingly, on the 2nd of January, and took no time to set up as the Gmail account finds everything you have previously set up on Chrome.

On the 2nd I tried out various apps I mainly use, and today I tried more advanced apps like Chrome Remote Desktop, which allowed me to control the iMac and change iTunes, there being no Remote for iTunes app, which is my essential app on various other Android devices.

Evernote on the web is not very attractive, so I can only hope Evernote stop adding features I have no use for, and get down to making the web UI useable.

Otherwise, I was happy to find Chromecast worked well with YouTube (which also has a crap UI).

That's it for now. I'll be back later when my experience is a few weeks old..

Pre-Christmas presents

I actually pre-ordered a Nexus 6, but this was an almighty delivery screw up by Google/Motorola that I changed my mind, and bought an LG G3 with one of those fun QuickCircle covers.

The latter wakes with a gentle double tap, to show a gorgeous watch, which is replaced by 5 icons on sliding to the left or right. The most useful one of these is the yellow notification icon, which shows each new notification as you slide left.

The second most useful icon starts the camera, which has an excellent auto focus, and will take a photo on saying "KIMchee". "LG" doesn't work as reliably.. photo quality is excellent.

A third icon is a third party app giving access to a bunch more icons, like calculator, messages, call log, music, torch, etc.

QuickCircle was a big deciding factor in my purchase, while the old 1/3" sensor was a negative factor in my decision to drop the Nexus 6. Sony has announced a new Exmor R IMX147LQT sensor with 1/2.3" size.

Steve Litchfield made a YouTube video about the LG G3, which he described as almost perfect. Needless to say, I agree. Lollipop should arrive soon, though 4.4.2 is perfectly OK, and LG 'stuff' is no problem.

Windows 10 Tech Preview

Thought I would have a go at this when I heard about the opportunity on Windows Weekly, knowing I could learn something under way.

If all went well I would have learnt nothing, but it didn't. I made the flash drive, but I just couldn't get it to work. After a lot of time spent looking for the answer, I wrote a post on the relevant Windows forum, and went on to try another PC, my old T91MT.

This installed with none of the Samsung's problems,  and,  though the screen resolution is lower than the prerequisites, everything else worked much faster than Windows 7..

This success led me back to the Samsung, where a couple of lucky Google searches pointed me at the Rufus flash drive builder. First efforts with this failed to install as well, but another lucky search led me to producing another Rufus build,  this time in FAT32 format. Lord knows why, but that allowed me to complete a custom install, which got rid of all the Samsung rubbish, which was so difficult to remove in 8.1.

From there it was all plain sailing :-)

Once I was happy with the status, I carried out a new Macrium Backup, very fast now! I also looked into Recovery, making Bootable flash drives  for both PCs, and custom Recovery folders with the help of reagentc and recimage.  (See Evernote)

This used up all the old flash drives, so I ordered a couple of new ones, which might arrive today.

Stereo Update

My back is getting over carrying the Subwoofer, and then the Onkyo Receiver home from the local 'Post in a Shop', up the steep hill to my house. The back pain came a day or two later, and I'm just getting over it..

Of course, deciding to refurnish the 'stua' to suit the stereo system didn't help any, as I have a hell of a lot of books, and boy are they heavy!

I've moved the bookcases and shelves to their end sites, but there are still large 'movers boxes' of books waiting to take their new places on the shelves.

Moving the bookcases and a few pictures uncovered some pretty resistant dust stains that had to be washed as well as possible where they had become exposed.

So, the end wall of my stua now has three book shelves, where the TV takes centre place on top of a now unused Soundbar. On its left is the Onkyo NR-535 Receiver, and to its right is the Pioneer Blu-ray player BDP-450. All in rather uninspiring black boxes.. oh yes, and I have an Airport Express providing audio from iTunes to the PC Input. Hardly any visible wires these days with HDMI cables between the devices, and a short Optical from TV to the Receiver :)

The basic 2.1 sound is surprisingly good! Those old Sony SS A-705s are remarkable. Mind you they cost a bit back there when the kids were young.

Only snags/Cons; the Blu-ray Remote (like many) is hopeless. It was ages before I pressed something and suddenly saw SACD video.. come to think of it, they might have an Android app, though I don't feel like spending more on a Pioneer Wifi option. Why couldn't they have built it in like Onkyo do?

BUT, I'm damned happy with the result, and can recommend both the Onkyo and Pioneer devices to anyone reading this.

The Onkyo NR535 plays well

I nearly killed myself carrying the Jamo SUB 260 up the steep hill home, and a day or two later I made the same trip with the Onkyo NR535, which was a few kilos lighter, but my back was beginning to react.

Putting the system together physically was no problem. The same Sony SS-A701's 45-20000 Hz. Unfortunately there was no -3dB or whatever indication on the sheet I had. So things ended up being more manual than I thought it would be, considering the advanced nature of the Onkyo!

The Jamo SUB 260 caused more trouble than it should. Some text to go with the installation diagrams might have helped.

I did a lot of surfing for help on the latter, and was surprised to find little, though that little led me to manual adjustments via Setup which fixed the problem :)

"If it is a negative figure then turn the gain on the sub down a bit and rerun the auto setup. This will mean the amp will send a stronger signal to the sub which should help it to wake up."

The problem?

The SUB worked OK for 20 minutes with the On/off switch in Auto On. You couldn't turn the auto aspect off ! The Automatic Speaker Setup using a microphone at the listening spot did its work, but came up with two errors; it found the SUB to be 33 cm beyond the Front Left instead of 50 cm nearer the listener. Not sure what that contributed to ref the 2nd more important error. It set the SUB level at -5dB. This wasn't enough low frequency umph to trigger the SUB back on after its 20 minute time out even though the SUB was working somewhat right up to the Off point.

So I manually adjusted the subwoofer level in Hardware settings until the SUB reacted at ca +11dB, and then I backed off a touch to +10. Might be able to drop that a touch more after some days experience.

It has been working fine now for an hour or so, banging out Art Blakey drums, and Count Basie big band stuff. Not my favourites, but good test pieces :)

That's it for now. My middle back is still uncomfortable..

My Sony Stereo system has given up the ghost

After many years of excellent service it has retired to the cellar room, and I've ordered a reasonable replacement, an Onkyo NR535 5.2 Receiver, together with a Jamo SUB 260 Woofer.

The Sony SS-A701 Front speakers are still going strong, with 45 Hz to 20 KHz response :)

I spent a couple of hours searching for the latter's specifications without luck, but eventually found them inside the old Stereo manual, which I nearly threw out. There was a single sheet which I'll copy here in case it'll help someone else locate them some time in the future..

I'll continue in a few days time with a mini review of my experience setting the new system up.

Where have you been Fraser?

I''m afraid 2013 was spent mostly with visits to the Drammen Eye Clinic, where I had cataracts fixed in both eyes, trips to a skin specialist in Asker concerning an itchy spot on my back, which she operated on. The biopsy showed more needed to be removed, so next it was a trip to Bærum Sykehuset Clinic, first for a check by the surgeon who would operate, then for quite a deep operation on the same area of my back to remove everything.

Once that was done, I was able to start a treatment for the results of too much sun in Singapore back in the 1950s, and later in Qatar during the early 60s. The treatment was horrific, turning my forehead into something you didn't want to look at! It took a month, and left me with clear baby skin on my forehead :)

The repeat trips to Drammen concerning my right eye, proved to be a Lamellar Macular Hole, and unfortunately could not be fixed, unless some major issue crops up. I can't complain though, as my colour vision is phenomenal, and with 20/20 cheapo glasses I can read really clearly close up :)

Otherwise, 2013 was the return of my interest in photography, triggered by Susan purchasing a new Nikon D7100. I had done quite a bit of reading about the various alternatives, and decided in the end to go Micro Four Thirds, by buying another Panasonic Lumix, the GX7. Then in quick succession I came across another Lumix, a demo LZ200 Superzoom going for a song at Komplett.no.

Both of these gave me lots of opportunity to add new neuron circuitry..

Later, I came across another bargain, this time for 5K, an Olympus OM-D E-M5 with a good Kit lens. This camera has a fantastic Optical Image Stabilization system, which operates over 5-axes or directions, and takes super photographs.

Of course, all told the above cost a bit, though much less and lighter than typical Canon DSLR gear.

More about this anon :)

PS The next episode will be about my purchase of a Samsung TV (another bargain) in order to try Google's Chromecast.