TECHNOLOGY: Wish I could create a manifest of applications

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

https://www.howtogeek.com/778951/why-you-should-get-rid-of-unused-android-apps/ Android
 Android Phones & Tablets
Why You Should Get Rid of Unused Android Apps
JOE FEDEWA
JAN 17, 2022, 8:00 AM EST | 3 MIN READ

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Clean Phone, Clear Head

Lastly, cleaning up your phone is a good way to eliminate distractions. A more focused phone experience can make it much more pleasant to use.

We tend to treat email spam and unwanted phone notifications the same way. Rather than spend an extra minute or two unsubscribing, we waste even more time being distracted and deleting them. Don’t let apps you’re not using make your phone more annoying.

Take a few minutes to scroll through your app list and evaluate which apps you’re actually using. Don’t hesitate to delete unused apps. After all, you can just install them once more if you end up needing them again. Your phone will thank you.

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Now if there was some easy way to create a “manifest” so that apps could be easily tracked.

Same problem exists on IOS!

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Will the developers please consider old people using their stuff?

Monday, December 27, 2021

I, as with many other people, act as “tech support” for our older friends and relatives.

Will the developers please consider this when they push products to the marketplace.

I like tech products to have a “supervisory mode” that his all the “dangerous” functions from the old, and young, users.

Just like enterprises do to their employees with varying degrees of success.

Phones, chromebooks, and computers are my current hot buttons, but as more devices like TVs and streaming sticks become “configurable”, they have the same problem with “fat fingers”.

Argh!

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HARDWARE: iX1500 is neat recommended product based on the added support for external cloud services

Thursday, December 16, 2021

I have had the scanner for awhile.  While good, the cloud implementation to Fujitsu cloud was lame and timed out quickly.

After a complete reinstall after something melted down software-wise, I needed their tech support to walk me through the the process. 

Updated to all the latest “stuff”, I found that the device now supports external cloud services like dropbox, Evernote, etc etc!

So now a scan to the cloud goes right into the appropriate cloud vendor.

This displaces ADOBE’s scan on the iPhone, that wants a monthly subscription.

So all in all a good “update”.

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TECHNOLOGY: APPLE and GOOGLE with suck at tagging photos

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

I like to phot everything that passes through my hands.  ID cards, letters, people, etc. etc.

From time to time I need to find the “needle in a haystack”.  Unfortunately, I can’t “tag” photos to indicate what they are and why they’d be important.

Argh!

I have to create “albums” and “folders” and what not that some developer thinks is “kool”.

Argh!

Why not tags like Twitter and Facebook?  Why reinvent the wheel?  Like labels in Gmail but not in photos.

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Shouldn’t we have universal distress alarms

Monday, November 15, 2021

https://www.cnet.com/news/missing-teen-girl-rescued-after-using-hand-signal-learned-on-tiktok/#ftag=CAD590a51e

The Women’s Funding Network created the sign as a lifeline for those trapped at home with abusers during the pandemic.

# – # – # – # – #

Like keystones on a computer or a pin sequence at an ATM.

For an ATM pin, I’d suggest 9111 being that duress alarm.

Tellers have such a button, but why not have it as keystrokes on their keyboard?

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APPLICATION: Address Book — anyone have a good solution?

Sunday, November 14, 2021

I’m really tired of struggling with various address books  — IOS, OSX, Android, Google.  Does anyone have an evernote template that could be the universal address book.  I remember an old Windoze app “Little Black Book” that just allowed one to print out specialize address books for different purposes.  For example, I used to print various ones for older relatives that only had “their” items of interest.  Now, it just seems to be a virtually impossible to print something that would look like an address book without a lot of manual effort.  Any suggestions?

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TECHNOLOGY: Apple frustrates the “right to repair”

Monday, November 8, 2021

https://www.reviewgeek.com/102499/apple-prevents-iphone-13-screen-repairs-in-what-ifixit-calls-an-unprecedented-lockdown/\

Apple’s Attempt to Prevent iPhone 13 Repairs Hurts Customers and Professionals
ANDREW HEINZMAN NOV 5, 2021, 3:26 PM EDT 

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When our friends at iFixit did their first iPhone 13 teardown, they called the device “a new low” for repairability. Apple took unprecedented steps to prevent “unauthorized” iPhone 13 repairs—particularly screen replacements, which (by design) break the phone’s Face ID functionality.

Screen replacements are by far the most common phone repair procedure. They’re also fairly cheap and easy to perform, so as you can imagine, they’re the bread and butter of small repair shops. But unless Apple gives you permission to perform an iPhone 13 screen or battery swap, you will end up with broken features or a non-working phone.

And I’m not exaggerating when I say that you need Apple’s “permission” to repair the iPhone 13. Its components are serialized—meaning that parts like the display and Face ID camera can identify each other using unique serial numbers. To make one of these serialized components work with a donor part, an authorized Apple technician needs to sync each part with Apple’s cloud network and request approval from the corporation.

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It seems apparent that Apple wants to control its “customers” like sheep to be shorn.

As much as I am a little L libertarian, we are stuck with the current system until “We, The Sheeple” stand up and say “NO!”.

‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: [screaming at the top of his lungs] “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!” — the character Howard Beale played by Peter Finch in the movie Network (1976)

So, I hope the anti-monopoly folks take notice of this.

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TECHNOLOGY: YSK When apps have both a web presence and phone client, try both.

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Recently, on both CLASSDOJO and SHUTTERFLY, I was trying to upload a photo.

In CLASDOJO, the web site would only accept a live photo. (MY workaround was to take a photo of my phone. Argh!). In SHUTTERFLY, I was trying to upload a photo from my laptop and couldn’t get it it.

After calling in and wasting time, I found out that if I used the IOS or ANDROID client, I could easily do what I wanted. In my “after action” review, a habit I got in the military, I could NOT find anything in their “help” sections that would let me avoid the phone call.

In the future, I’ll try different versions of the same offering on the off-chance that some developer was too lazy to make all the versions functional equivalent. Argh!

I’m putting this YSK on my blog so I’ll remember to follow my own advice.

FWIW YMMV

WHY YSK: I wasted a lot of my time and that of two support organizations because their sites were not intuitive and, I never thought that their IOS / ANDROID apps would be that different. DOn’t make my mistake and ASS-U-ME that everything is identical. It MAY not be.

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TECHNOLOGY: GOOGLE is one interconnected mess

Thursday, October 28, 2021

Accidentally deleted my Google Pay account and now Google FI and Google One are all screwed up.  My pixel 5a is a unable to be used as a phone.

Argh!

Been on the phone with support for two hours today and 90 minutes yesterday.

Wonder if I can return the phone and start over?

Argh!

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HARDWARE: Apple spits in the face of “right to repair”!

Friday, October 1, 2021

https://www.reviewgeek.com/98982/ifixit-calls-the-iphone-13-a-new-low-for-repairability/

iFixit Calls the iPhone 13 “a New Low” for Repairability
ANDREW HEINZMAN @andrew_andrew__
SEP 27, 2021, 5:48 PM EDT | 1 min read

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As Right to Repair legislation garners support from both sides of the political aisle, Apple is doubling down on its anti-consumer practices. A now-complete teardown from iFixit shows that the iPhone 13 reaches “a new low” for repairability, as it’s effectively impossible to repair at home without losing key features like Face ID.

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Way to lock in the consumer.

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