tech – Page 5 – Moby Files: Blog

Games

People are losing their shit over the Pokemon game! OHMEGURD! Seriously.

Most seem to be in two camps. One camp is in love with the game and going happily insane playing. The other camp is overly grumpy that a game has overtaken all their social media platforms. The latter seem to imply that being adult means not liking games. Whatevs. Overlooking the random sheer stupidity of people not paying attention, gaming is fun and more power to them. I’ve never been a Pokemon fan, but loving many video games I support my fellow nerds.

And if you seriously think deriding someone for playing a game makes you somehow more of an adult, well bless your heart is all I have to say to you.

And speaking of games, I’ve finally put down Destiny for two seconds. I’m replaying Darksiders II (The definitive edition) on XOne. The game is a bit buggy for the Xone version but I seem to be getting into it more. I don’t remember why but I hated the 2nd one when it first came out. I think it was some of the odd or flawed game mechanics. Anyway, I reordered it thru GameFly and I’m having much more fun with it this time. My queue was sitting for so long I’m sure GameFly thought I must have died. hehehe I think we had the same 3 games out for almost 6 months. ^[1]Hint, we weren’t playing them, they were sitting on the coffee table gathering dust Well, I also had the new Ratchet & Clank that distracted me for awhile too. I finished it a couple times. Not a fan of the hoverboard racing but loved the rest of the game.

And speaking of Destiny, the last DLC for this disc comes out soon. I’m eagerly awaiting it.

Till then, game on nerds!

References[+]

References
↑1	Hint, we weren’t playing them, they were sitting on the coffee table gathering dust

Games

I was all set to ramble on about Destiny the game eating up on my attention in gaming until I came home last night to a surprise from Shawn. He got me the new Ratchet & Clank! I didn’t even know it was out yet! What can I say? He gets me!

R&C is one of my all time favorite games. So far the new one is a mixture of new content and homages to the original story line. It’s quite funny and enjoyable to play. It doesn’t seem overly difficult but it could just be I’ve steadily been playing Destiny so my skills are still ‘up’. I had to force myself to go to bed last night otherwise,I’d still be playing it. heehee

I’m sure you are just dying to know my game habits. Yes, I’m still playing Destiny. I stopped for awhile but it pulled me back in. I’ve exhausted all the content but for some reason I still enjoy the Strikes , the POE ^[1]Prison of Elders and even the occasional side mission. There is one more DLC ^[2]Downloadable Content due out this year before Game 2 drops in 2017. Game 2 is expected to be a whole new group of planets with all new content. I switched back to the XOne for most of my game play. (I have it on both consoles, don’t ask! lol) Many of my buds play are on PS4 but I just seem to enjoy the XOne version better.

The new Gears of War is out very soon. I played the beta, which was focused on multi-player. The graphics were stellar as always. Then there is the new version of Doom finally being released after what feels like an eternity of promises. Again, the beta focused exclusively on the multi-player. It’s getting really frustrating that many of my favorite games are all shifting away from single player or campaign modes to multi-player. I get it, there is more money in multi-player but don’t forget the players that made you famous in the first place. Many of the top developers are practically falling all over each other to churn out the multi-player versions of their respective games. They end up being the same story with different graphics. Ugh. Don’t get me wrong, I like multi-player games, but I don’t play for ego or competition. I play for fun and don’t mind a little competition. I think Destiny holds my attention so much because it captures the best of both.

Anyway, Ratchet & clank is calling my name so gotta go. . .

References[+]

References
↑1	Prison of Elders
↑2	Downloadable Content

Groups

I’m trying to find more gay social groups to interact with related to working out and fitness. I use an app called Jefit, which I love. ^[1]Even if it is a little buggy lately It offers online forums and an in-app feed but seem rarely used. BB.com has the BodySpace app, which also has online forums and again sparsely used. *le sigh* Anyone else out there use forums or online fitness groups? Help a brotha out?! So far, Instagram seems to be the best inspiration for me. Sadly, it isn’t really built for 2-way social interaction or groups. That and everyone in fitness there is trying to make money or get "famous". Ugh. Don’t even get me started on some of the bogus ‘fitness brograms’ for sale. Anyyyyyway…..

I’ve jumped from 206 to 214 lbs since I started hitting the gym again. I assume that is muscle since I’ve been hitting the weights and cardio consistently. This is the heaviest I’ve ever been (I think). I got chunky once in my early 20’s and was in a size 35 jean. Yup, size 35! lol I was still under 200 lbs as I had very little muscle then. But I digress, I might have gotten a little heavier after the break up with he who shall not be named but I don’t think I did. Anyway, I could always eat better but I’m doing ok in that dept. I work on eating healthy foods all week by doing meal prep. Shawn and I tend to splurge on weekends; however, my splurges are often richer quality food vs really fatty food. I try not to focus on my scale weight right now as I’m losing and gaining.

I giggled out loud the other day because I was doing arms and I really did feel swole, as the popular hashtag goes. I’m sure anyone watching would have thought I was the most narcissistic bitch ever! And speaking of, I need to sit down and take all my body measurements again so I can create new goals. I’ve incorporated all the muscles I’ve neglected for years ie my legs. lol I’ve always neglected my legs and while they aren’t scrawny, I clearly need to bring them in line with my upper torso. (I’ve said it before but this time I’ve actually built them into a routine and am sticking with it!)

In a related tangent, my buddy Charles has been hitting the gym after several bouts of medical issues. He is an older fella and has really gotten into fitness. I’m always happy when he sends me is new personal bests! Keep it up Charles!

So back to my original rant, anyone know some good fitness groups or apps?

References[+]

References
↑1	Even if it is a little buggy lately

Aria

The title sounds like a whimsical name doesn’t it? "Aria" is the brand name for Fitbit’s new weight scale. I mentioned a while back that Shawn and I have really gotten into using our Fitbits. Shawn decided to buy Fitbit’s new , code named Aria, to help track our fitness and health. It was a little more than you’d spend on a regular scale but overall not terribly expensive. I actually got a little excited at the prospect because 1) I’m a geek, and 2) I usually have to weigh myself at the gym. It would have been nice to track my weight progress via the app. I say ‘would have’ because It was an absolute flop. The device was simple in design and aesthetically pleasing; however, getting it to work properly was such a struggle we finally gave up and are sending it back. Talk about product fail!

Shawn actually felt like his view on the company as a whole was tarnished, which is why I bring it up today. He asked me if I felt like the whole line of products was cheap because of our experience w/such a shoddy scale. I didn’t necessarily feel the same but it did get me to thinking. How often does a first time experience tarnish a brand’s view or image? I’d imagine quite a lot. For myself, I’m more irritated than anything. We really like Fitbit as a whole and to experience so much frustration over a simple product was disappointing.

Part of me falls back on the adage, "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it." And to keep things in perspective, this is a first world problem. No one really needs a scale that connects to an app. We’ve gotten by since the invention of the scale with the non-connected versions just fine. Yes, the convenience is nice but therein lies the problem. If you are bringing a product that deals solely in convenience to market, you really need to make sure it doesn’t overshadow the most important aspect, convenience! We wasted nearly 45 mins trying to get it to work properly. Forty five minutes!

I don’t feel my view of the company has declined, but I doubt I’d ever rush out and buy any of their new products again. I’d still recommend Fitbit bands but I’d obviously steer clear of the scale.

Settings

I’m gonna geek out a bit today. If you’re an Android user like me and have upgraded to Marshmallow, you really should take some time to tweak your app permissions. With the 6.0 release, you now have the ability to turn on/off individual permissions by app. This has been one of my biggest frustrations with Android. Many apps are great and do wonderful things, but frankly they often do not need all the permissions they ask for at installation. Like, at all! And the down side of some apps having too many permissions is they eat away at your battery life. I’m definitely in the heavy user category and while I get good battery life on my Moto X, eliminating apps that waste the battery make it that much better. Of course, the developer might feel different but as an end user, I should have some say in that. Thanks to Google, now I do.

In the past, it was all or nothing. If you really wanted an app, your only choice was to install it with all the permissions intact. If you were on a rooted device, you had options, but most people never root their phones for a variety of good reasons. Your left with deploying a task manager which basically acts on your behalf routinely killing annoyingly persistent apps in the background. An effective, albeit cumbersome fix. If you’re a power user like me and often need to really wring every ounce of juice out of single charge, being able to throttle juice hungry apps is a welcome change.

And if you’re already lost, any app you install needs permissions to access parts of the OS or hardware on your device. When you download the app, you get a list of the permissions it wants prior to installation. This is necessary in an open OS like Android. Obviously, a selfie app like Snapchat would need access to your camera to function properly. You would grant it permission at installation to access your camera. However, it also has access to my phone dialer, which it absolutely does not need. The unfortunate problem is many developers abuse this function or get over-zealous. You also have apps from 3rd party sites that use this to gain access to your device to perform nefarious things, like take pictures, send text messages, or make phone calls, etc w/o your permission.

With Marshmallow, you can now tweak the permissions once you’ve installed an app. For example, the Facebook app is notorious for being a battery hog. It constantly does pings, location checks, etc. Now you can change some of the settings to prevent it from being a hog. FB Messenger is another particularly annoying system abuser. It is by far my most hated app. I personally will never give FB my contacts or let it run my phone/texts so I disabled these. I also disabled access to location so it isn’t constantly pinging my location. All of this uses my cell connection eating up battery life. I’ve noticed a 15% jump just from tweaking this two very annoying apps.

To be clear, the apps are still requesting the data or access; however, the OS sends it null (generic or empty)) data to keep the app running properly. This negates any drain on the hardware and is a brilliant work around to a growing problem w/app developers. It effectively puts them on notice to keep it simple or face being checked by Google.

You don’t need to be an expert but you do need a basic understanding of what you’re doing. Like I said, if you kill an app’s access to a function it needs, it won’t work or perform properly. The good news here is if you break it, you can fix it by re-enabling the permission in the app! Not every app will need tweaked. If your goal is better battery life, check out your usage stats to see which apps are the most egregious. Go into your apps manager in the settings, scroll to the offensive app, tap it, then tap permissions and disable the ones you don’t want it abusing. Done!

Busted!

OHMERGERD! It’s busted!

As you can see I had an unfortunate mishap with my phone. Arrrgh. Ironically, I had yet to get a single scratch, ding, or dent on it up until the fateful drop yesterday. I knocked it off the top of the Zipcar while unloading Costco. More astutely, I did a mad grab finger flip 3 or 4 times before it flipped, flew, and fell on the concrete cracking the screen and busting the camera as well.

Motorola appears to offer a warranty repair, which means I pay to have it fixed. They are shipping me a temporary replacement in the meantime. I finally find a phone I am happy with and I go and break it. *grumble grumble*

I guess it is good I didn’t sell the G4. I was gonna tough it out but the screen was barely usable. I had to connect it to Bluetooth keyboard just so I could clean off a few things. Points to Tmo for making the process to activate my old SIM super easy and quick It took literally just a few minutes.

Sadly, I find myself still hating the G4. ^[1]Please remind me to never ever buy a LG phone again. I had such a negative reaction when it came on I was a bit surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever been so annoyed by an Android variant before. The OEM version is just annoying. The only nice thing about the whole thing is the sense tap. Going back to it is such a contrast to the Moto X PE. The pure Android experience has spoiled me once again it seems.

Pray for my baby to be returned fast.

References[+]

References
↑1	Please remind me to never ever buy a LG phone again.

Moto

I recently purchased the mid-range Moto X Pure Edition and I’m absolutely loving it so far. I know your shocked that I got a ‘non-premium phone‘ but it is true. I’ve been so frustrated with this years premium offerings I didn’t really have a choice. **If you don’t want the long drawn out version, you can skip to the last 3 paragraphs.**

It all started with my upgrade from the S3 to the S4. I loved the S4. The battery was immensely better along with a faster chip, better screen, and all around it was a decent phone. Life was good. Then Tmo comes along with their Jump! plan. And while not a necessity, I tend to like the emerging tech phones. I’m a geek, its in my blood. I’m definitely in the ‘heavy user‘ category and require a phone with a strong battery. Since few ever meet both requirements, it made it easier to change devices often. Said freedom might have been a slight downside as you read on.

After more than 6 months I made the ‘jump’ to the S5 and was sorely disappointed. ^[1]I seem to remember an unfortunate incident with my S4 and the back tire of my motorcycle necessitating an upgrade anyway The battery life went down and not much else improved. Sure on paper it had a nicer screen but in reality it looked and felt the same. Plus, Sammy in their greed started diverging away from traditional Android for their home-brewed version, Tizen or some shit. It sucked. But I was able to root it and get rid of a lot of the bloat. I stuck out my 6 months but was chomping at the bit to switch. I’d heard rave reviews about the HTC M8 and gave it a whirl. I didn’t even last the full 14 days before returning it. Beautiful phone, great camera but dreadful battery life. I gladly forked over the restock fee to get rid of it.

I heme’d and hawed until I settled on the Sony Z3. For all my bitching about Sony’s lousy customer support, the Z3 was an absolute dream. I wasn’t a fan of the square edges but it was excellent. I could use it all day and it still had battery when I plugged it in to go to bed. It has become the benchmark for battery on all my future phones. Sadly, after unfortunate drop from a vehicle while in LA, I was forced to jump again. It is no secret I’m hard on my toys and luckily enough, I was 1 day over my 6 months. Jump! lolol The Z4 was still a distant release candidate and had virtually no real upgrades other than the name and knowing Tmo was ditching any future OS upgrades for the Z3, I switched back to Sammy and the S6.

As you probably know the S6 was getting high marks for finally being a beautiful phone. And it’s true. It is a beautiful phone. Imagine my total surprise to see the battery life went down even more. I’d say it was on par with the S3, which was dreadful. I could barely muster 4 hours of heavy use out of it. An absolute failure IMO for any smartphone today with a premium label. I think I’ve given up on the S-line. Needless to say, I didn’t even last the full 14 days again.

Against my nagging instincts, I jumped to the Lg G4. Something told me not to get it but I couldn’t remember anything specific so I got it. It had a noticeably better battery life right off the bat. And by ‘noticeably’, I meant I went from awful to mediocre. But having exhausted all my jumps, I resigned myself to stick it out. It was not to be though. I quickly grew to hate the damn thing. The device overall worked fine; however it was ugly and annoying. Lots of little things just bugged the ever lasting shit out of me and I couldn’t stick it out 6 full months. (Oh the first world drama, right?)

At the annoyance of my bank account, I broke away from going thru Tmo and got the Moto X Pure Edition direct from Motorola. I had misgivings after witnessing Lenovo brutalize IBM’s laptop business after taking it over. I was concerned they’d do the same to Motorola. Surprisingly, my fears were once again unfounded. I love the X Pure. It may not be a premium handset but it sure acts like one. True to their statement, it came with almost pure Android. You’d think it was a Nexus device if you didn’t know better. There is very little bloat, and I mean very little! If you’ve ever gone from a Nexus to an OEM version or vice versa, you understand the description here. No fancy launcher, no gimmicky overlays *cough – touchwhiz*. Just Android. That also means only a small handful of apps running in the background constantly zapping your battery.

Since you aren’t going thru a carrier, you get a little extra say in small aesthetics when ordering online. Normally, I scoff at such things but I have to admit, I like my personal twist of colors. You can choose colors for the back plate, the back insert, and two little front accents meant to protect the screen from scratching when you lay it face down. The battery is not up to par with the Z3 but it performs quite well under moderate to heavy use. I’m pleased and can live with it. If you use an idle throttle app, like Juice Defender, you’ll probably get way more battery as the cell radio seems to run a lot unnecessarily. It doesn’t offer wireless charging, but it really does charge super fast! Almost 50% in just under 15 minutes. The camera is pretty good and definitely the fastest focus I’ve experienced on a phone. Low light photos are slightly above decent but not awesome. Beyond that, it is a solid camera, front and back. NFC, Bluetooth, and Wireless all work fine.

It’s funny because I caught myself smiling as I took it out of the box. Setting it up was super simple and all my annoyances with the G4 melted away. I absolutely love the Moto X Pure.

References[+]

References
↑1	I seem to remember an unfortunate incident with my S4 and the back tire of my motorcycle necessitating an upgrade anyway

Follow

I got into a rather odd conversation with a casual friend on social media the other day. Apparently, he was ‘disappointed’, as he put it, that I had yet to accept his friend request on ‘site C’. He follows me already on Site A, B & D, but somehow my not accepting him on site C was somehow an imaginary slight. In the end, he seems to have “unfollowed” me on said sites. I’m devastated. /sarcasm

I’ll be honest here, I don’t get this sort of behavior. Even if you are a good friend I know in person, I may not follow you on every site that we might mutually be on. I use different social outlets in different ways. Sometimes our interests may overlap enough that I follow someone on multiple sites. Sometimes they don’t and I won’t. That is pretty much the end of my reasoning. The implication I got was that he felt since we were ‘friends’ I had an obligation to follow him? It seems a bit odd to me to base a ‘friendship’ on whether we follow each other online everywhere.

Now this particular person and I have never met in person. Granted, that wouldn’t be an immediate reason either way. I ~~stalk~~ follow several people I’ve never met daily. Heehee But, I also don’t feel any obligation to follow people I know on every site I’m on. Actually, if I know you in real life, I feel like I’m obligated even less.

Is this a thing? Is there something that has developed as some bizarre unwritten rule? I’ll be breaking it if it is but I’m just checking.

*
And on a related tangent but not the same person, if you block me ^[1]and we know each other in the biblical sense because we have differences in political views, be sure to block me again when you get kicked off of Facebook and create a new profile whining about getting kicked off for posting nudie pics. It saves us both the awkwardness of being recommended in the “People who may now” section…

References[+]

References
↑1	and we know each other in the biblical sense

Moved

You didn’t even notice it but I switched my domain manager and web host recently. Actually, I switched last month. After my rant about my old host, I got several emails asking why I was still with them. I started asking myself the same question. They weren’t bad, we just weren’t a good fit.

I guess after my 1 and 1 disaster, I had extremely low expectations. hehehe After some searching, I settled on InMotion. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am with the switch. As happy as I was to be away from 1 and 1, I’m that much happier to have a host I feel is a really good fit. First, they deal a lot with WordPress, so can answer many related questions w/o delay. They also offered a discount on my first year of service so ended up cheaper than my previous host. After the first year, they’ll be pretty much the same price. They also offer 24/7 tech support by phone, web chat, an email. They transferred all my existing data, blog included, for free. I was a bit shocked when I read that part. They even transferred existing emails. ^[1]I always use IMAP instead of POP3 so had plenty of emails on the server. I’ve never had a host do that! I had a tiny snafu with an internal domain configuration and they fixed it on the spot when I called.

Speaking of domains, I decided to have Google manage my actual domains. I transferred all but one from Tucows and the process was pretty easy. The Google domain management tool is pretty easy. They even offer email forwarding for domain only accounts. Email for a domain usually requires a host to physically store it. Google apparently allows you to create forwarders for no extra charge.

So, I’m all settled with the new host and so far extremely happy.

References[+]

References
↑1	I always use IMAP instead of POP3 so had plenty of emails on the server.

Destiny

I’m totally hooked on this game. Ugh! It has been over a year and I still play

it at least once a week. Bungie’s goal was to create a game that would be a francize for up to 10 years. I think they might have succeeded. The game is continually updated every 3-6 months with new DLC (downloadable content) to expand its maps. It also incorporates online play, alone or with others.

I’ve always been a gamer who plays for fun. While I am competitive, I prefer to do so with fun in mind. I have never been someone who focused solely on winning. The developers have managed to capture aspects of both types of game play, competitive and fun, to reach a very broad range of players. If you are a competitive player, you have to reach a certain level thru the campaigns, but once you do you can be as competitive as you like. There are whole segments that deal solely with competing. You can play in a group of friends against the game or against other players. If you’re like me and you enjoy campaign modes, there is plenty to keep you busy.

I judge my games by 1) if I finish it, 2) how many times I finish or continue to play it. The game by its nature is designed to never end. Well, not anytime soon anyway. hahaha New content expands the breadth of the game all while tying into what you already know. I have to say the developers did a good job of building a game that will indeed last for a decade.

If you’re reading this and are a more hardcore gamer, you’re probably familiar with much of the drama that has unfolded in social media and Bungie’s own forums. Frankly, I find it a bit childish and counter-productive. First and foremost, developers rarely give the level of interaction and feedback to players that Bungie has with this game. Maybe they’ve given too much because many have taken to acting all butt-hurt and entitled because the game didn’t live up to some of the promises put forward before the game was released. One, the game wasn’t designed solely for the hardcore player. It was designed to appeal to all manner of players. Two, if the game was such a disappointment, don’t play it.

Anyhoo, I’m still addicted to it. It has captured my attention like no game before it. Even more than the original Prototype and the Dead Space series. I eagerly await the next set of expansions.