2011 — 10 August: Wednesday
There's massive cognitive dissonance entailed in switching between the calm, classical diet on BBC Radio 3 and the frenetic jabbering on BBC Radio 4 at this time (07:37 or so). But I've always preferred music even though I kid myself I like to know what's going on in sunny Pakistan and similar hotspots around the globe.
Woke early from a surreal anxiety dream1 involving, inter alia, the disruption caused by a Royal visit, the need to move a quantity of overlooked books, and urban breakdown. Not hard to see where some of that came from. But the cup that soothes is already at hand and the sun is starting to shine. They've just promised "mostly dry and bright" in this part of the world. Just as well, since there's a trio of chaps intending to go walkabout in a couple of hours from now.
Two Apps?
I gave in late last night and splashed out on another minor dollop of software for the Tablet, upgrading the free "AndFTP" to the paid-for "Pro" version2 that demands its lesser brother already be installed as a pre-req. I'm rather hoping the combination will do the bizz regarding remembering folder structures and where updated files should be put back on my webserver.
Sadly, the initial honeymoon period of passionate infatuation is drawing to a close... I managed to freeze the Tablet (once only, so far) in a way that needed a forced reboot, and I really could do with slimmer fingertips for some of the touch screen selecting — how you're supposed to manage on a lesser screen (let alone read it) is a mild puzzler to this Luddite in his semi-dotage. I suspect very few Apps are written on the assumption that their users will be selecting from lists of thousands of files on a daily basis rather than flinging Angry Birds (which I continue not to install) at pigs, or whatever that game's strategy involves.
There are some interesting Android and iOS charts here.
Comedy Prom
Assuming we avoid martial law, curfews, and the imposition of urban lockdown, next Saturday's Prom looks highly promising. Tim Minchin? Sue Perkins? Bit of a no brainer.
I was browsing...
... the free PDF copy of the latest "Computer Shopper" magazine only yesterday, and noted my UK ISP Zen, while not the cheapest, still tops the charts in the ways that matter. Now, this morning, they've just told me "Superfast Fibre Optic" has arrived in my area. A fact I know from the several annoying phone calls I've had from BT already. So I took a quick poke at their speed checker, based on my phone number and postcode:
Not too shabby. But no time to investigate further — there's free fresh air and sunshine waiting for me out there, and a couple of chaps with packed lunches to meet.
Somewhat later
It's now 19:39, and I can report a most enjoyable walk around Horsebridge (though Brian did later complain to Mrs Brian that we'd forced him to climb a mountain he didn't even know existed in Hampshire). This was followed by a perfectly satisfactory session back here security patching my Win7 box, and then I took my Tablet over to Brian to give him a reasonable demo. It was interesting to see how quickly an avid Android phone user was completely at home with it.
I was also able to pass along to Len the Panasonic Freeview HD PVR I'd bought back in December 2007 (the one I promptly hacked into multi-regionality within a couple of weeks). I removed this from my A/V stack about a year ago, though actually I'd just started using it again up in the "reading room" audio system purely as a digital radio. Since I'm perfectly content to revert to my former Sony TV box for that purpose, and since Len's own Sony Freeview HD PVR has just failed on him3, and since (inexplicably) he still feels the need to be able to cut DVDs of some of the stuff he receives on his Sky box, I'm pleased to see it go to a good home, as it were. He's also borrowed an external HD case to pop the Sony unit's hard drive into as he still thinks he has some hope of rescuing material off it.
He managed to unstick the crashed head of my 1.5TB hard drive for me, but says he wouldn't trust any of his own data on it, and advises me not to, either. (I gather a toffee hammer was employed at some point.) So: another piece of hi-tech junk, it seems. Never mind. Time for another soothing cup of tea. (I had quite a few encounters with nettles earlier.)
This seems a reasonable analysis of the unreasonable behaviour in our cities. (Link.)