Ideas from Mark Stout

One of the great boons of smartphones is it brings computing and connectivity to entire populations that couldn't afford it before.  We've heard about farmers in places like Kenya and such that can track market prices of their products where they couldn't easily before. Banking and micro loans have come to populations that didn't have easy access to banking. Now through smartphones and the internet they do. After 40 years with either a laptop or a desktop computer, I don't see myself ever completely weaning myself off of a regular computer. Like those people whose first computer experiences were a smartphone, I am doing more and more with just my smartphone. In fact I'm writing this on my smartphone. No typing on a smartphone is not really conducive to large creation of documents. But I'm getting more and more adept at dictation. My Google Pixel 4A is  good at understanding what I'm saying especially if I'm in a quiet room as, I am now. I can even pu...

Four weeks before the Pixel 4a's rumored announcement date my Pixel XL OG died, as I described in my last post. I really didn't want a non-Pixel phone so I waited for the Pixel 4a announcement. Thankfully it was made on August 3rd, the rumored date. I ordered within minutes of its appearance on the Google Play Store and it arrived on 8/19.  This is an awesome phone. At $350 it has 80% of the value of $1400 dollar phones. At that 20%, are things I do not care about. This review summarizes my feelings well. And in adding apps to my new phone, I just found out Automagic has stopped development. That is sad. It was my go-to automation tool for making my own widgets and more.  So I'm biting the bullet and finally learning Tasker. I had bought it years ago, but found the learning curve steeper than I wanted to climb.  It is still steep but there are now videos and more help documents, and I've already had several "ah-ha, that's how it works" moments in the firs...

Funny how tech priorities change. In the first 30 years I lived from one PC to another. Starting with a Radio Shack Model I, then an IBM PC, then a long, long succession of PC compatibles; each faster than the last with ever increasing hard drives. The change from one PC to a new one was a sea change. Each so much faster and smoother. Now, I've been content with a laptop built in 2013. It has an i7 processor and 12 gigabytes of memory, so performance wise it is fine. I admire my foresight then to go big.  I do not game play or do high end video processing. I rarely use it as a laptop. Its hooked to two monitors and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  My sole tweak to my home setup when quarantine and working from home started in March was a docking station so I could switch easily from work laptop to personal laptop. If I covet anything, its more and larger monitors. You can't go too large, or too many. After the fever of wanting a new PC passed from a every two year event, to thre...

Every morning I wish my phone good morning.  Well, sort of.  After my shower, as I dress, I say "OK Google, good morning." It then wishes me a good day, tells me the time, temperature, weather forecast and information about my commute.  It then plays the BBS Minute newscast, and an NPR news summary. A couple months ago, the BBC came up very slow speaking. I thought it was just a case of wacky Brits. Maybe there wasn't enough news copy for a minute so they were being silly. Then NPR's came up, also slow. This has persisted through two monthly security updates and multiple restarts of the phone.  So today I'm putting in feedback to Google Assistant, and wanted this blog post to point at with more details then they might want in a feedback. I know it is 50% because this morning I recorded to Audiology on my PC the full two minutes of the BBC Minute playing through Google Assistant, and then again through Pocket Casts.  And yes, Pocket Casts is set to n...

With my new phone, I've been automating some repetitive things I need it to do.  Future blog posts will talk about settings I've made for different times of the day.  And a post I've already done talks about using Automagic to get around an Android Auto bug (feature?). My Google Pixel running Nougat has a nice flashlight feature. It can be turned on my pulling down the setting menu and touching a small icon. That's not always convenient. I was surprised there was no widget. I discovered one of the Actions in Automagic was turning on and off the flashlight. But how to do that without having two of Automagic's widgets, one for on, and another for off? Then I discovered one of Automagic's Triggers can be a change in a Global Variable. When ever the value of a Global Variable changes, a flow is begun.  And depending on the value of the variable, the path of the flow can be altered. So I created the flow shown here. A Global Variable named global_fla...

I recently purchased a Google Pixel XL 32g phone. It is by far the best phone I've owned. It is great company on my daily commute. The Android Auto app warns me of traffic, plays my podcasts for me, and lets me dictate text messages.  I've combined it with ReadItToMe so that my incoming text messages are read aloud. I noticed on my first afternoon commute though the Do Not Disturb icon was turned on on my Android watch. At the next traffic light I discovered that Do Not Disturb was on on the phone as well. A Google search at home found I was not alone in noticing/suffering this.  The Android Product Forum had mention of it. People first reported this back in November 2016, so hopefully a fix will be coming. Meanwhile, I worked out a workaround using AutoMagic . The flow below detects the launch of Android Auto and then turns off Do Not Disturb by setting the Ringer on, and turning the audio volume up. I have tested it briefly here at home, but not yet on a commu...

Google has two new phones, the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P. The chief advantage of a Nexus device is that it is first to get new operating systems. These phones come with the latest Marshmallow version of Android, announced a few months ago. When the next version of Android comes out, these phones will be first in line for them. And the upgrades come direct from Google. Other Android phones have to wait until the phone’s manufacturer releases a version of Android for the phone, and your carrier approves and transmits it out to you. Some current phones won’t get Marshmallow for months; some older phones not at all. The 5X is made by South Korea’s LG and sports a 5.2 inch display. The 6P, made by Chinese maker Huawei, sports a bigger 5.7 inch screen. Read the rest at FamilyTechOnline.com

A new Family Tech column is up. Google gave out many gifts at their recent Google IO Developers Conference.

The two new iPhone's were not the only cell phones announced in September. Read about the iPhones and the others, in the  latest Family Tech .

Had a friend ask today how kids in her high school could locate a lost or stolen smartphone.  Instead of answering by email, I decided to write it here for all. These methods will work only if your phone is turned on, and is in a place it can make contact.  If it isn't these methods can wait until the phone is visible on the cell network. iPhone On a PC, go to icloud.com Login with the phone owner's iTune username and password When this page appears, click "Find My Phone"

Shopping apps make life easier, for you and often for the retailer. Family Tech column

Technology can help us get fit, lose weight, manage what we eat, or just distract us while we exercise. Family Tech from April 11, 2013 is online.

I save this blog for my geekiest posts and haven't been doing much geeky things lately; instead concentrating on more technology for the family issues in my column. Although I have started doing a bit more geeky things in the column, with How-To support on its blog, like the recent column on consolidating a families photos from their many camera phones, to one place. However, I just worked out something geeky, and wanted to document it here for others that might search for a solution in the future. When I first bought my Galaxy S III (I'll call it the Galaxy S3 here too for searching purposes), it did not have Google Now on it.  So I started using Samsung's own S Voice. When Jelly Bean made it to the S3, Google Voice became available. However, when I click the button on my Bluetooth earpiece, it was S Voice that came up. One night I decided to sit down and solve that problem, thinking it would be relatively easy. I did find some good resources, but som...

Why I prefer Android over iPhone:  Customization.  I love to tweak any phone or PC to my own preferences.  You cannot do that so much with iPhone.  Although I understand why iPhone users may want a phone that just works well out of the box. This week's Family Tech column .

How to find a lost phone, is this week's Family Tech topic.

In part two of the series on choosing a new cellphone, I wade into the dangerous territory of what is better, the iPhone or an Android phone. This week's Family Tech column.

The last two of my annual back to school columns have posted. Software students needed was the topic on August 12th . And keeping your student's technology safe, and planning for inevitable failure was on the 19th.

A new Android OS, an exciting new Events capability for Google+ allowing for a central pool of photos everyone takes at a wedding reception and other events, and skydiving gadget freaks.  What more could you want from a business conference? This is the topic of this week's Family Tech column. Remember, all Family Tech columns are  listed on their own page .

Tablets were meant to be media consumption device, but with the right app, they are a nifty tool for document creation and editing. This week's Family Tech Column.

I have to realize that instead of just having only a computer anymore, as I did from 1979 to 2008 when I bought my first smart phone, I now have a computing ecosystem.  I use my phone, tablet and PC together.  Some are better then others for particular tasks, while each can step up and do most of the tasks of the others if need be. My Family Tech column for January 1, 2012 ( Facebook comments about column) is thoughts for the many people who received their first tablets on Christmas Day.  I promised a blog post talking about how you can use your tablet, and phone for that matter, to go beyond the basic tablet functionality of reading, watching videos and surfing the net. The same holds true for phones.  A smart phone is really just a small tablet, connected to the 3g network (while some tablets are too, mine is wifi only). Since April of 2010 I have used an iPad, since November of 2011, a Xoom Android tablet running Honeycomb. By add...