mini tech rant: am I there yet?

I'm typing this from my ASUS Transformer 10" tablet with Windows and detachable keyboard. It's been sidelined for about a year as technology marched on.  In fact here's my note from October 2014 about it (tablet rant #2). Why was that?

The easy answer is that I've been busy as usual, as caregiver to my wife.  The correct answer however is that I updated to Win 10 for free - and the wireless subsystem promptly failed. The Broadcomm wireless b/g/n SDIO drivers that want to update for the new system just don't work - seek these terms online and wince as you count the rants from unhappy users. Mostly I see ASUS users since I'm searching for them, but I've seen many HP users commenting on it as well.

Last week I found a site where a user pointed to the old but working drivers. I unZipped the file and copied the two .bin files that were reported in the Win10 driver popup, and now the tablet is online again after Nineteen Months.  Red flags will fly in the system as the auto-update politely clobbers the functioning drivers with new/bad ones; I expect this to begin soon.  I have the two .bin files on my desktop, ready to drag to the \drivers folder as needed. Silly, but at last it's effective.

The 10" tablet runs Office 10 and all modern browsers as well as a few apps. For variety it's nothing like my Android 8" store apps but I tend to grab and overuse games - so perhaps this is my better choice in the long run! It is a bit awkward to use as I'm used to Android with phones and tablets, but nothing I cannot manage - and the 10 hour battery life will be nice.

seeking a missing mind (+ tech rants)

As I began to pack up the now-sold K-s1 camera this weekend, I felt it was going to be an easy process.  When the camera arrived I deliberately removed the camera and battery, and nothing else.  I had a charger and a spare battery from the K-r already available, and I hadn't read a Pentax manual in years.  How convenient to keep everything in its place where it would be easy to find, or re-pack!

.. and then, apparently, I blacked out.

So I pulled down the as-new K-S1 box, opened it and - it's pretty much empty.  No charger, no manual, not even the strap.  Why would this be?!?  Looking back on it I strongly suspect that the manual was packed with other tech gear for the Oregon Star Party.  So I toured the big garage, the travel trailer, and every known box with astronomy or photo gear I could find.  I even went to the other garage to look in the computer section, just in case.  Nothing, neither clue nor trail.  Inside the house I opened every camera bag, every sports bag, every suitcase - again, no sign at all.  The fact that we didn't make the star-party trip (for the sixth straight year) did not help, as everything sat in boxes for a while before being emptied; I don't even recall what I had packed my camera gear into (box, bag or camera pack) so the trail was old, and cold.  Even if the original Pentax charger was packed to come along (unlikely) and the manual added for light daytime reading: why is the strap missing?  Also curious is the missing Pentax original battery; all I have now is two generic ones.  I'm frustrated beyond words, and even gestures aren't helping.

And I shall barely mention the Android tablet, now missing for two weeks (cheap replacement coming), the 3-month-old Windows tabputer that suddenly cannot do WiFi, or the fact that Android phones that had such strong signals in the house now cannot reliably make a call from anywhere on our property!
Tech sucks.

So out the door goes my spare batteries, my best charger - and out the window go a few more brain cells which I won't even miss.  The K-s2 just got a bit more expensive since much of that will need replacing at some point.  Drat.

mind flash!  I suspect the K-s1 charger went out with the K-r that I sold last month!
this would not explain the strap or owners guide though..


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10/12 update
While my mind went blank on camera gear, other tech items have also been quite decisively frustrating in the recent two weeks.

Tablet #1: I've been using an ASUS 7HD for a year or two with fine success.  Until recently of course, when it began to reboot or lock up quite frequently.  That's too bad as for the most part I really like the little thing for the basics: web, e-reading, quick updates to small spreadsheets and e-mail.  Given all its hiccups I wiped and restored it, then set about re-adding most of the apps.  For a week or two it was happy, then for two weeks or so it was rebooting again.  And now, for the past 10 days it is AWOL.  I know it was going out to the car to provide data for something, but it's not in the car, or the house, or anywhere I can think of.  Sure it's vanished for a day or two before but this is frustrating..

Tablet #2: While the 7" screen of tablet #1 has been nice, there were times it wasn't quite nice enough.  I bought an early model ASUS TransformerBook on clearance in town and I wanted to see how it would do as replacement for both tablet and laptop .  It came with Windows 8.1 which I bumped up to Win 10, and added Office 2010 to it - and the thing performs just fine. 
Well, it did for a while.
First off it's too big as a tablet.  The back is too smooth to hold easily, and covers for the T100 model are almost impossible to find.  Once snapped on to its keyboard it's a viable option, but definitely not a clean exchange for the 7HD.
And now it's dead too.  Not literally, just the WiFi part - so indeed pretty much literally.  It wavered a time or two but rebooting would bring the connection back up.. but those days passed about the same time the 7HD disappeared.  
Clearly a tech dark cloud has descended on our household (more on that later).

Cell phones #1-4: We are now both running iPhone 4s bodies.  My wife really likes the concept but has not done much executing, so that's a clear victory.  For myself though I prefer the Android ways of doing things.  Yes I'm up to iOS 9.0.x on my copy and it does fine, but some features just bug me since I know how easy they are on the 'droids.  So over the past two weeks I've been popping between my 4s, the 4.5" Android I had bought (and liked) for myself, and even the 5" galaxy-clone that I'd picked up for my wife before we had the iTalk.
That should have resulted in two happy people, not in lock-step with our phones but each doing what they like a phone to do best.  Only mine doesn't actually make calls any more.  That's odd since our Androids had a very good signal a year ago when we moved here, and before the iInvasion I could make a call from any room but one or two.  Now they are all flaky, even the porch outside gives me no clear signal.  Yes, that tech cloud again - somehow wreaking havoc with cell signals and WiFi tablet signals.  Bizarre.

And so here's our status:

• Two iPhone 4s are in action: for now I surrender on this front!

• I'll be calling ASUS about the Transformer soon, to see what can be done there.  In the end though,

  

  from tabletmonkeys site - cool name!

  neither is quite the answer I had quite hoped for.  Like Goldilocks I have ordered the 'just right' middle option: a new/other Lenovo 8" Android tablet.  My mind apparently is more compatible with Android than Win 10 or iOS 9, and the extra bit of real estate will help with reading, the size of my virtual keyboard and general visiblilty - while still keeping battery life pretty high.  I still like ASUS products but one reboots and one broke down, so trying another company isn't a bad idea.  Furthermore ASUS now has their ZEN UI that is obviously amazing - another layer of stuff atop Android may not be me-compatible though so I shall just say no.  I had considered (even ordered) a lower-spec bargain but these are old enough to be a low price with decent screen and chipset, so it will arrive in a few days to try out.

As always, WSS about how this turns out.  Hopefully I'll like my porridge, bed and 8-inch tablet!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10/14 update

Yet another bizarre turn or two in my tech world! 

• On Tuesday while dropping by my mailbox I encountered no mail - but my 7" tablet was resting atop the box in a large ziploc bag.  I know of no one in my neighborhood that knew this to be mine - but somehow it has returned.  However, it refuses to power up and removing the gel cover revealed plenty of water.  Something tells me it sat outside during our recent ¼-inch rainstorm.  It's been missing for over a week, so a heavy dew-fall or two would have done similar damage.  So the tablet is visible, but dead: long live the next tablet!  

•  Closely related topic: USPS site says the 8" tablet arrives Thursday, but eBay says Monday - so I expect it will arrive neither day, and probably Saturday.*  Why have online ship estimates been getting worse recently?  It's been a while since a package reached me 'on time', but the disagreement is four USPS work days!  Yet another reason to wonder why I spend so much time at the computer pretending that I will learn something useful.

• And now the iPhone is being stubborn about making calls in our home, just like the recent Androids!  the 4s is also more annoying when a call fails, beeping thrice loudly in my headset. It seems pretty clear that a cell tower has moved, or several trees have grown just enough to be troublesome.  And so I return to the 4.5" Android with all its little eccentricities that I prefer over Apple's little eccentricities..

* Wonder of wonders - the USPS site was correct, and the 8" tablet is Out For Delivery.  Impressive 1-day flight from Florida to Portland, guess they weren't served drinks!

And then, this -

Clearly this ongoing chat about tech could happen to anyone, and a daily update on tech woes isn't my plan for this place.  I am therfore crushing the last three posts into one to avoid cluttering the blog with such talk.

Cameras are up next - honest!

tech difficulties

How many screens does one family need?

We've been messing with phones a lot recently, but they are not the only stand-alone screens around here.  My Asus HD 7" is beginning to show some age as it needs to reboot a lot.  I wiped its memory and it was happy for a while, but reboots are coming back.  I picked up a bargain Transformer 10" detachable-kbd Windows tablet (now running Win 10) but it's challenging to use as a tablet; its back is quite slick & needs some grippiness if it wishes to be the HD7 replacement.  For some reason T100 gel covers are nonexistent so it's either go with strips of electrical tape or a get a near-fit case plus an Xacto knife to make the buttons align with the openings!  Bizarre. *

clockwise: 5" and 4.5" Droids 4.4.2, iPhone 4s, HD7 tablet, T100 WinX tablet (keyboard not shown)

And oh yes, the phones.  My wife decided an iPhone would be her best option and I figured I'd help her out by joining her, so two quite new Android 4.4 models (top two in this image) were swapped out for iPhone 4s - mine black with minimal memory, hers white and with enough to replace her iPod Classic.  After about a month I feel I've learned a few things about Apple, Android and myself.

No denying that Apple has the phone game down, even with these older bodies.  I've heard that newer ones are faster and smarter, but the hardbody 4s is one solid chunk of telephone.  It pretty much does what I need - except play music, ironically.  I've had no end of trouble getting that part working!   While I had heard the Apple camera was a fine one that killed the compact market by itself, I find it just as poor as the Droids I have owned; apparently the camera stories began with the model 5?

On the other hand, group chat is effortless with my siblings now, and most Google items are politely tucked into the iOS system (we're both on 8.4-something).  No massive complaints operationally.
And yet...

My many forms of electronic gear had solidified around the micro-USB connector.  Tablets, phones, even my K-s1 dSLR used the same cable.  (No mourning the passing of micro-D camera cables here!)  The mUSB are ubiquitous and we own a car charger for it.  Suddenly the wide (pre-Lightning) Apple port  is required in several places to keep phones charging.  And they need that a lot; perhaps iOS9 fixes that, but the 4.5" Droid I had acquired definitely did better there (the 5" Droids are daily chargers like the 4s).  We have two i-cradles which are nice for almost drop-and-go charging - but of course my new protective case would be too thick to allow the cradle to accommodate it.  Silly me, thinking it was up to others to keep things simple.

I also miss widgets.  The iPhone is two clicks away from most data sources,  but I can power up the Android and have weather, phone status and a few other status reports all on one screen.  I grew accustomed to that and I miss it.
So...

for now I'm planning to return to the smaller Android and see what I think.  Maybe in a week it will drive me a different kind of crazy, we'll see.

* Later: I found a 2-piece shell that owners suggest does improve the grip.  I shall just use the tablet cover & leave the keyboard as is, since some owners say it interferes with full screen tilt..