More Technology Woes, With a Happy Ending

After nearly a month of computer and technology woes at Greenlee Gazette, Greenlee Graphics (my home business) and at my work-a-day job as well, you'd think I'd get to breathe a little sigh of relief, and get back to ordinary life, no more dabbling in "new" electronic doohickies and whatnot, right?

But I'm destined to always have to be upgrading and then problem solving, it would seem. The problem was straightforward: my 2007 flat-panel Toshiba HDTV/DVD combo player died. It's my office TV, and it gets a lot of use, not just because I'm at my computer too often, but because The Other Half is so often to bed so early, for work. I get stuck in my office frequently. But solving the problem isn't quite so easily solved as you would think.



It's beginning to look a bit like Mission Control in here! Now, to add another video card to the computer, and
run another cable to the TV, and. . . .

I wanted the DVD built in, because that's the way I've been doing things for my last two (yes, I've had two previous flat-panel TVs, can you believe time flies that fast?) set-ups, and was thinking small. I did the research, narrowed my search down to an RCA 24" model at Fry's. I should mention that I was replacing a 19" set that had an enormous bezel on it, so a 24" takes up about the same space. Anyway, the RCA was the best pick out of a small pool  of options, and it was $169.99 on Fry's website. So, I decided to go get one on Sunday.

Not recommended:
RCA LED24C45RQD 24"
Just trust me.

Surprise, surprise, they had plenty of them, but they were $219.99. Up $50 overnight! But it was really all they had to choose from, so I bought it. I assembled it, plugged it in, and. . .I was underwhelmed to say the least. The screen was clearly pixelated, especially up close, and the sound was atrocious. I mean, so bad that it was a real deal-breaker. I tried plugging in some USB speakers that came with my computer, and it was an improvement, but only barely. It had to go back, or I would have been very disappointed. Too bad I packed it up, and forgot the three screws to the base, and that The Other Half had to drive them to the store for me while I waited! Anyway. . .

Recommended:
Insignia NS-24E400NA14
Sure, just a store brand, but good!

After taking the RCA back to Fry's, I headed to Best Buy, a place that feels oddly out-of-time. I'm wondering how much time they have left, just a gut feeling. But they had a 24" HDTV/DVD combo, by their in-house brand, Insignia. It looked good. It sounded good. And it was $189.99. Cool, I'll take it! And then the salesman dude sold me the wrong set. And here I thought the $139.99 price was an unexpected Labor Day discount*. I'd already been rung up, and would have had to wait in line at customer service, and said to myself, screw it. I put it in the car, drove down to Sam's Club, and bought a Samsung Blu-Ray wifi player for $79.99.


Also a good buy: Samsung Blu-ray Player
BD-FM57C

Long story short (I know, too late), I'm now setup with blu-ray on a really nice 24" set in my office. Though I don't need Netflix or YouTube on my TV (I have a second monitor on my computer) in my office, I now can. The sound is good, the picture is great (Family Guy was alarmingly clear and bright), and the player is small enough that it's not a problem. The best part: I came in about $9 less than the crappy RCA cost me!

On to the next problem!

* As it turns out, it was a Labor Day sale, $40 off to be specific, so it was a good day indeed.
 

Galaxy S4 Update, One Month In

There are some cons. . .

So, after lusting for a new phone for months, (torn between the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4), I've now had it for a month. Am I digging it? Is it just "my phone," rather than "my new phone," now that I'm used to it? Is it a hit or a flop?

Well, so far--mostly--it's a hit. The primary "con" I saw with the Galaxy as opposed to the One before I bought it was the design. The One has a sleek aluminum body, and the S4 has a thin plastic, snap-on back cover. I opted for the S4 anyway, because of its removable battery, and an expandable memory via micro-SD chip. But as it turns out, the design of the S4 didn't bother me. All of my phones have been primarily plastic, and it's never bugged me before. And, I keep it in a soft vinyl protective case anyway, so I rarely see much of the phone's chassis.

The other con was the fact that the One has some amped up front-facing speakers, and the S4 just has a tinny speaker on the back. This is rarely an issue, though I have to say, my protective case can muffle the little speaker when it sits on my desk. The little bump-out on the phone's back doesn't extend past the case, so keep that in mind, or prop your phone on one end to lift it off your desk. Other cons were discovered after purchase. One of them is the actual storage space available for apps. The phone is advertised as 16GB, but half of that is taken by the pre-loaded software. And even though you can pop a 64GB chip in there (maybe even 128?), you can't put apps on the chip (at least not with this version of Android). It's fine for me, since you can put all of your music, pictures and videos on the chip, and I don't have huge apps downloaded.

And there are pros!

Beyond that, I can tell you that the phone gets hot, rather randomly. Not enough to burn you, but enough to be a bit uncomfortable. Most of the time it's fine, and then you'll play a quick Words with Friends game, and wow! Hot! Other times you can mess with it for an hour and it's fine. So, I don't know. Another thing is the built-in pedometer, which only kind of works. I carry my phone at work and on my walks, and errands, and in any given day I might walk seven miles with my phone. And sometimes, it registers that. Other days, I'll go for a four-mile walk, and it registers 1.5 miles. I don't know if I'm walking with more of a stomp some days or what, but there you go. It might be helpful if their app included a GPS tracker that actually clocked miles rather than just steps.

And if it sounds like I'm complaining a lot, I should state that I really do like this phone. The screen is bright, clear and large. In the bright Las Vegas sun, you wouldn't want to watch a movie, but the screen is legible for advancing music tracks or other brief tasks. The sound through headphones is great, and adjustable to your hearing ability (with a one-time setup). Everything about tweaking settings I have found to be more intuitive, and easy. Setting up bluetooth has been a snap on each device I've tried. I've had success with pretty much everything I've tried to do.

My favorite find on the phone is the Google Search Bar, which I know, is not exclusive to the Galaxy S4. I've seen people use Apple's Siri, and I've personally used the Android Siri clone Iris. But I've never seen anything like this. Press the microphone and say just about anything, and up it pops. I haven't had it "mishear" a word yet. I've used voice commands on earlier phones to much more mixed results. I found it to be a seldom-used novelty. On this phone, it's just too cool to forget about. No more picking the app, typing a phrase, poking around. It's just, "show me a picture of Portia de Rossi," and up it pops! It answers direct questions well, like "what is the distance from earth to the moon," but doesn't engage you in conversation like Iris and Siri. I'm cool with that, I have Iris installed if I need to show of parlor tricks. Google Search Bar is much more useful. Needs a cuter name though.

And that's pretty much where we are now. I'll tip you off to something cool I discovered that goes great with smart phones though. We were always having to run through the house to answer our cell phones, and I always thought it was a step back to the days before we could have extensions in every room. I actually said out loud, "Somebody needs to invent a house phone that links up with your cell phone." I thought it would be impractical, because most households have at least two cell phones, plus the house phones. How would that even work?

Panasonic Link2Cell (so cool!)

Then, I remembered having seen phone sets at Sam's Club and Costco. Packages of 3, 4 or 5 identical handsets. So, I looked 'em up. And I'm not sure if all brands of them do this, but the Panasonic Link2Cell series hooks to one of your house phone jacks, and lets you put extensions wherever you want them (just a power cord). It synchs up with up to two cell phones and your land line (if you have one)! I replaced all of our mismatched handsets, set it up in the space of a half hour, and now we can answer any of our phones in any room without the mad phone hunt! The only sacrifices are that your cell phones need to be in range of the base unit (in our 1560 sq. ft. house, they always are), and answering a cell call on an extension takes a couple of extra seconds to connect. Other than that, it's the coolest invention since bluetooth.

Since Panasonic and Samsung don't pay me to review their items, I'm not linking to either of them. But take out your Android or iPhone, press either the Google Search Bar or Siri microphone, and say, "Panasonic Link2Cell," and find out all about them. Thanks for reading, I hope I've been helpful.