Phone Storage Woes, Maybe

August 12, 2016March 14, 2017 / DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

Read this article and then come back.

Nougat something or other, I don’t remember the article title.

Sorry… I used to be a teacher. Here, let me summarise for you:

Google is making Android updates go faster. This means less interruptions for updates. It also means more storage space is used on your phone.

“This will use more space on your phone’s internal storage.”

So, my thought? If phone manufacturers, and software developers are going to use more of our storage space, then I think they need to give us more storage space. Like, make a 64gb Nougat phone similarly priced as a 32gb Marshmallow phone. It’s not our fault the Android OS takes up so much space. Don’t tell me it’s a 32gb phone but the OS takes up half the storage space!

This has always irked me. But seeing as hard drives are generally cheap, it’s never been that big of a deal for me. Especially now with my 3TB hard drive!

The real problem with an OS taking up so much space comes into play mostly just with phones and tablets. SSD’s are still pretty expensive, so manufacturers put the smallest chips possible in their phones. The phones with more storage cost more primarily because of the storage increase. And this is a problem for two reasons:

One

Look at Apple. They have a 16gb iPhone… iOS literally takes up almost half of the storage space. It’s fairly similar for Android and Windows, but neither are so big as to render half of your storage unavailable to you. Until now. That is. Android will soon be so big (it’s going to have 2 system partitions) that a 16gb or even a 32gb storage chip will be left with only enough room for a few apps, some songs, and maybe 1 downloaded map (I’m not the only one who pre-downloads maps, right?). Bigger OS, less space for your stuff… on your phone.

Two

They’ve been playing this game for a while. There’s the technical aspect of system software needing storage space so of course it’s going to take up space on your SSD which means you won’t really have the amount of storage it says on the box because thats just how it works. But there’s also the side each one of these companies is exploiting. “The new and improved iDroid Phone, with 128gb of storage!” Only, you find out the OS, system files, recovery partitions, and backup storage takes up half of that so you only have 64gb of storage space available to you. You notice that you don’t have the amount of space you thought you were going to get and you complain. “C’mon! Every idiot knows the system files takes up storage space! Get with the program grandma!”

Three

Wait… I said there were only two. Oh well: THREE! another problem with all of this is that the industry doesn’t think of it as a problem. Microsoft got in deep water one year when a new Version of Windows was set to take up 10gb of hard drive space. With a 3TB hard drive, that’s not a problem. But with the 80-120gb hard drives of the time being normal (but quickly jumping to 320gb and beyond on newer PCs) 10gb of storage space lost to the system files was huge. Especially when mp3’s, video games, and other software quickly ate up storage. Microsoft made the next version “lighter” and has since kept the required system space as small as possible, for fear of backlash. Yet, Android is proposing a system that will take up more space on your phone. The benefit? You don’t have to wait 15 minutes for the phone to update. You know, because Android users don’t ever sleep, so the phone can’t update overnight or anything… It’s just strange that people don’t know, or they don’t seem to care about how much space Android takes up and how companies like Google just play off the ignorance of their customers. “That 16gb phone run out of space? You should upgrade to the newest phone with 64gb of storage. That’ll be $299.99. C’mon, it’s only 200 bucks. You can swing that every six months, right? 😉

My plan has always been one that is very simple. I think what phone manufactress should do is put two SSD’s into their phones. One just big enough for the OS, system files, recovery partition, and maybe a little extra space for updates. Then the other SSD would be just for my stuff. A whole 64gb chip just for my apps, music, games, pictures, videos, and whatever else I want to put on my phone. We can already move many apps to an SD card shoved into our phone. And I can’t believe that having two “drives” in a phone would be any more difficult than doing it on a desktop. You’d just have to write the software to take advantage of the setup.

Ok. Rant over. I think that was a rant. It started out as a comment to the above article. But the app wouldn’t let me post the comment for some reason. So, WordPress to the rescue!

-Diggs out

Dear Internet Explorer Team

January 20, 2015 / DiggsMcGee / 1 Comment

Dear People Responsible for Internet Explorer,

You suck. You have no idea how much I have tried to incorporate IE into my daily routine. You have no idea how hard I have worked to convince people that IE is actually a good web browser. You have no idea how much I want to use IE. And most importantly, you have no idea how many times IE has let me down.

I understand that some devs choose a platform and stick with it. They will pick something like the Blink engine Chrome uses, dig into Chrome and Google APIs, and incorporate other snippits and code bases that all work well together. Then, all their web apps, web pages, and other documents will be coded as such. But for the love of Pete! Why does everyone support Chrome, and only Microsoft supports IE?

I’ve run into at least 4 websites that just don’t like IE in the past week alone. These aren’t super apps or technical previews either. These are simple websites, on which something as mundane as a text field is completely useless. I click in the text field but nothing happens. I type in the text field and instead of typing in the text field, either nothing happens or the web page has a seizure. Sometimes links don’t act properly, with menus and navigations structures fluctuating or simply not working.

The thing that irks me the most is how EVERY ONE OF THESE WEBSITES WORK JUST FINE IN GOOGLE CHROME! So what the hell are you doing, Microsoft? Why does IE suck so much? If IE is based on the same web standards as every other web browser out there, why does yours suck the most? IE is on the most computers in the world! Of course, it has sucked so bad in the past most of the people with a Windows computer has replaced it with something else…

Sincerely,

Every IE user who has had to switch to another browser for at least a handful of websites

P.S. – I really do love IE. Why can’t it just fricken work?!?

I Love Windows Phone. I Hate Having Windows Phone.

September 1, 2013September 1, 2013 / DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

For all the great achievements made by Microsoft in the form of Windows Phone, there is one area where they have failed me.

I have a couple of devices. There’s my Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone, an HTC Aria Android, a Samsung Galaxy Captivate, and a couple of devices from work I am testing. The only reason I like the iDevice is because I can let it sit for a week and it’s battery has barely drained. Why this isn’t true of the other devices I don’t know. If I turn off their radios they’ll give me a week, but they’re not very useful. It really makes me mad, too, because I do not like Apple products in general. The other reason I enjoy Apple devices is the large number of apps available. The Android devices get pretty good treatment on the app side. But the devices are hit and miss, especially with battery life.

And then there’s Windows Phone (specifically WP7)… I love Windows Phone (for the most part) and I love my Nokia Lumia, but I am saddened by the lousy app selection for Windows Phone; at least for the nearly defunct WP7. Everyone puts their app on iOS, and most people also put their app on Android. But no one bothers with putting apps on Windows Phone or even Windows 8 for that matter. This just doesn’t make any sense to me. With WP8 and Windows 8, a developer can build 1 app and with a little tinkering have it run on cell phones, tablets, and desktop computers. The reach would be 3 fold of Android (technically) and twice as big as on iOS. And in the case of Instagram and YouTube, they go out of their way to stop other people from building apps for their services on the Windows platform. Yet, they don’t release one of their own.

So, I’m on an Android device and just loving the apps, the selection of apps, the way a lot of the apps work, and the ability of the apps to talk to each other and share data.

So, I’m on an iDevice and enjoying the experience in some of the apps versus the ones I can find for Android. This makes me really mad. Especially when you look at the Windows 8 OneNote app versus the iOS OneNote app, and then compare it to the crappy, obviously-made-for-a-phone Android OneNote app

Then, I look at the Facebook Beta app for Windows Phone and my faith in the brand is restored. I realize that all my grief is based on my outdated WP7 device, and remember just how better the WP8 devices are. I take a step back to judge the situation more clearly and I see that hardly any of the apps and services I can find on iOS and Android are things I need. I slap myself for falling into the iSheep crowd of the glitz and glam and “wow an app that does THAT!” I wake up to the realization that my phone is natively what I need, and the websites of the other services will suffice, since I am always at a computer anyway. My desire for a new Android phone is not a desire for function, it is a desire for popularity.

So, I guess I’m fine with my Nokia. But Microsoft better get on the ball and attract more developers with better apps really soon. If I even think I see an iceberg in Windows Phone’s path, I’ll jump ship faster than you can say “global warming.”

Windows Phone 8 and the Coming Apocalypse

June 20, 2012 / DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

I just bought the Nokia Lumia 900, a Windows Phone running version 7.5 of the Microsoft mobile OS; affectionately called Mango. Today I learned Apollo, that’s the code name for Windows Phone version 8, will not be installed on my phone. No matter how much I want it, I won’t get an update to WP8. I will however get an upgrade to WP 7.8. What does this mean? It means I will get some visual enhancements as well as a few new features, but nowhere near the functionality of a Windows Phone 8 device. And let me tell you: I… am… furious…ly… annoyed by the idiots who keep acting like this is a big deal.

Let me enlighten you:

Every time Apple put out an update to iOS, the older models have NEVER received all the features of the newest device. NEVER! iPhone 4S gets Siri. Siri is not a hardware upgrade for the 4S. It is basically a piece of software, or app if you will, which adds a new type of functionality. Why couldn’t all the iPhone models get Siri? If they all got Siri, Apple wouldn’t have an impressive reason for people to buy the 4S. Do I smell marketing? That’s all it was. Even still, not too many people were upset about it. Even the all-powerful Woz stated that the Siri software was much better before Apple purchased it. But still, nobody cares. Even if you just bought the iPhone 4S and all of a sudden Apple shows off the iPhone 5 with all these features and functionality upgrades you wouldn’t get because you only have the iPhone 4S and there’s nothing you can do but take the phone back and buy the new one when it comes out NOBODY would care!

Why do people care when Microsoft does it?

In this article, a man writes an e-mail to Nokia’s Stephen Elop and AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega threatening to drop AT&T, Nokia, and Microsoft from his life. Why? Because his new Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone will not get an update to WP8. Instead, as I said before, the Lumia will get the 7.8 update. Oh, poor, poor me with my Nokia Lumia 900 with no upgrade path to WP8. Damn you Microsoft and Nokia. Damn you all to hell!

NOT!

You want to know the difference between Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.8? Here it is: hardware. That’s really it. Right now Microsoft has very strict device specs for the Window Phone 7 family. Manufacturers must keep to these or they don’t get the license for Windows Phone 7. The same holds true for Windows Phone 8. The new Windows Phone 8 devices will have different hardware specs, and as such they have the software to utilize the new hardware features. If you have a Windows Phone 7 device you wouldn’t be able to use any of those features anyway, so why would you want that software on your phone? And what exactly does this guy expect? Is Nokia supposed to take his phone, install an NFC chip, a couple or processor cores, and an SD card slot, and then give it back with that functionality? As if! Apple didn’t take people’s old iPhones and install a Retina display in them. If you wanted a Retina display, Siri, or any of the other upgrades on the newer iPhone 4S then you had to buy the newer iPhone 4S.That’s just the way it is. And that’s always going to be the way it is.

When I bought my first Android phone from AT&T, the HTC Aria, I was annoyed by the news of MUCH better phones being announced for the very near future. The HTC Evo 4G, the Motorola Droid X, etc, etc. Was I mad, livid even, to the point of yelling out in frustration at the drizzling sky while the camera backs away, spinning to show my grief and confusion about “why, oh why is this happening to me”? No. That’s what happens. You buy a car, and a better car comes out. You buy the best computer and it’s outdated in a week. You finally shell out for that awesome phone everyone is talking about and your favorite fruits release a new one. Welcome to the universe of technology! Companies make new, better devices all the time. OR would you prefer: Welcome to the world of business! Companies put out new devices to make more money all the time.

Either way, that’s how it works. You save your money, finally buy the item you always wanted, and something better comes out. The other option would be to save your money and wait. If the newer device comes out you hold off and save a little more money so you can buy the new one. But if you save and wait and save and wait you’ll never make that purchase and never get anything. You’re always going to risk ending up with an outdated device especially when making a technological purchase.

So, get over it Luke! They are giving you most of the upgrades with Windows Phone 7.8. But since your Lumia 900 doesn’t have a bigger screen, or an NFC chip, a multiple core processor, or an expansion slot for an SD card you won’t get those updates. What good would they be to you anyway? Think about it before you get so damn upset.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone.*

A phone I won’t be giving up any time soon.

*this post was not really sent from my Windows Phone… although that would have made this more compelling, I already wrote the article before thinking about it. Oh well.

Microsft Don’t Need to Steal

November 5, 2011 / DiggsMcGee / Leave a comment

I just love it when people start talking about how Microsoft stole everything from Apple. It helps me find all the idiotic fools in the world. I call them fools because they obviously don’t know the meaning of the word “stole” nor do they understand how innovation works.

To steal something is to take it without asking, and most often calling it your own. Stealing is breaking the law. If Microsoft really stole everything from Apple then they are breaking the law. All Apple has to do is charge them with theft and take them to court. If they did indeed steal from Apple, a judge or jury of peers would find Microsoft guilty and they would all go to jail.

However, this has not happened. I can’t recall one story about a person from Microsoft stealing anything from Apple and getting arrested, fined, jailed, or convicted of theft. Most people believe Microsoft stole Windows from Apple, when in fact Apple stole the windowed GUI from Xerox. Yet, still no one was arrested…

And that brings us to the nature of innovation. Invention is creating something new. Most often, invention involves making something which solves a problem. This is usually a new type of device, however, it can consist of parts of other devices. Innovation is taking something which has already been invented and changing it, altering it, or using it in new ways. Nowadays, big busisnesses don’t do too much inventing. The majority of R&D money goes towards innovating. There is still plenty of inventioning going on. It’s just not as important as it used to. Most of the big machines and types of electronics have already been invented. Now, we’re trying to make things less expensive, make machines more energy efficient, and make electronics more powerful.

Actually, there are three things these fools don’t understand. The third thing: businesses have money. I’m not talking about how that rich guy whose kid plays soccer with your kid buys treats and equipment for the team and takes everyone out for pizza after every game. I’m talking about real money. Enough money for Microsoft to say, “hey, Apple already has this patented. So, Let’s pay them to use the patent and then we will be able to mess with and innovate news things. We’ll just keep paying for the patent because we have lots of money. No prob!”

And that’s really what’s going on. Apple doesn’t have to license patents. They do it to make money. If they don’t want Microsoft to have a patent of theirs, they don’t have to license it to them. Microsoft doesn’t just go around stealing ideas and products. They buy ideas and products, pay licensing fees for patents, and purchase companies. As a matter of fact, Apple does the same thing. So does Google, 3M, and to some extent the US government.

Bottom line, if Microsoft was “stealing” everything from Apple, they would be taking legal action against Microsoft. Even if Microsoft began using Apple patents without asking, they could just throw the money Apple’s way and continue their research uninterrupted. Because they have that much money. So, Apple-lovers, stop you’re whining. Apple is letting Microsoft have the ideas. The Mother-Company is selling off it’s ideas directly to the company you accuse of stealing them.

Adult Under Construction

Learning to be the light.

google