I use a music application on my phone called

Equalizer+, and one of the quirks of it is that if you play a new song, it tends to follow that song with the last playlist, album, or artist played before it. So I've been stuck for awhile on four songs, or more accurately, two versions of each of two different songs, and if I play one, it plays all. The songs are 'The Ballad of Accounting' (both the version by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, and the one by Battlefield Band, and 'Paint it, Black', the original by the Rolling Stones and and the cover by Ciara). They're two very different songs, but they both touch my emotions very strongly. The lyrics to the first are:

The Ballad of Accounting [Words and Music by Ewan MacColl]

In the morning we built the city
In the afternoon walked through its streets
Evening saw us leaving
We wandered through our days as if they would never end
All of us imagined we had endless time to spend
We hardly saw the crossroads
And small attention gave
To landmarks on the journey from the cradle to the grave,
cradle to the grave, cradle to the grave

Did you learn to dream in the morning?
Abandon dreams in the afternoon?
Wait without hope in the evening?
Did you stand there in the traces and let them feed you lies?
Did you trail along behind them wearing blinkers on your eyes?
Did you kiss the foot that kicked you?
Did you thank them for their scorn?
Did you ask for their forgiveness for the act of being born,
act of being born, act of being born?

Did you alter the face of the city?
Did you make any change in the world you found?
Or did you observe all the warnings?
Did you read the trespass notices, did you keep off the grass?
Did you shuffle off the pavement just to let your betters pass?
Did you learn to keep your mouth shut,
Were you seen and never heard?
Did you learn to be obedient and jump to at a word,
jump to at a word, jump to at a word?

Did you ever demand any answers?
The who, the what or the reason why?
Did you ever question the setup?
Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best?
Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest?
Did you settle for the shoddy?
Did you think it right
To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight,
never make a fight, never make a fight?

What did you learn in the morning?
How much did you know in the afternoon?
Were you content in the evening?
Did they teach you how to question when you were at the school?
Did the factory help you grow, were you the maker or the tool?
Did the place where you were living
Enrich your life and then
Did you reach some understanding of all your fellow men,
all your fellow men, all your fellow men?

Everyone knows 'Paint It, Black', right? The Rolling Stones made it famous, and there's a great video on YouTube where they've got footage from the VietNam War, and I've always associated that song with the era. But Ciara made an interesting version, and her cover appeared on the soundtrack of The Last Witch Hunter, the Vin Diesel movie we watched yesterday. I had gotten the song through the library some time ago, when I was looking for the Rolling Stones' version (I wound up buying a collection of their songs, as it wasn't available through Freegal. (If you're not familiar with Freegal, check and see if your library subscribes. With a valid library card, you can download three songs a week, for free, to keep)). Anyway, I'll include it here, as you may not have heard it:

Paint It, Black [originally done by The Rolling Stones]

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby, it just happens every day

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door I must have it painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors any more, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Hmm, hmm, hmm, ...

I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black

Yeah!

I think they're both powerful songs. The first really makes you question how you're living your life, whether you're living enough to be something other than a sheep. The second touches on depression, darkness, loss--very powerful emotions. And for whatever reason, every time I play anything else on my phone, it always seems to spit these out, too, so apparently I should be paying attention. :) [One other odd quirk to the program is that since my phone updated to Android Marshmallow, all the pictures suddenly got switched about. The individual songs are correctly paired with their covers, but not in the listing of playlists, albums, or artists. Weird. Hopefully that will sort out eventually.]

I think

I slept a grand total of one and a half hours last night, even though I went to bed at 10:30 pm. I couldn't breathe well at all, and I started coughing up stuff every time I laid down. I tried sleeping propped up. That didn't help. I changed CPAP masques and that did, a bit. But generally it was a miserable night, and I seriously considered going to the emergency room, but I figured I wasn't dizzy or starting to turn blue, so I was getting enough air. I considered the fact that I could have a cold, but it didn't feel like one at all. I don't feel sick, or have that feeling one gets with a virus. Everything is in my chest, which is tight, I'm wheezing and coughing, and I just feel like I can't get my breath, like something's standing on my chest, and I'm coughing up whitish gunk (which, at least, isn't green or ye;low). My nose has had a little congestion, but really nothing beyond my normal allergies. Today it cleared up for awhile starting about 9 am, but then worsened later in the afternoon and into the evening, especially when I was driving around doing errands with YKWIA after work. He urged me to call our doctor tomorrow and make an appointment. He has experience with asthma and has had some medical training and even worked in a hospital for years caring for patients, so I should listen to him when he says this is not normal. I'll call tomorrow.

Also today, T-Mobile released the Android Marshmallow 6.01 update for the Samsung Galaxy S5, and so I updated my operating system. For some reason my Day and Night Live wallpaper isn't showing up in Daydream mode anymore [their notes on their Google Play storefront state that Marshmallow is not yet supported for this, so hopefully it will be soon]. It was the one application I had that had special Daydream features. Some applications no longer have their normal icons, all of them ones that are partly on the SD card, instead showing just a little Android. I see applications are listed in internal and external storage,but not how to switch them like I could on Lollipop. [update: I figured that out later, and if you move the application back to internal storage, the icon pops back up]. On the other hand, things are much faster, even though I now have used 13 GB of 16 GB of my internal storage. Actually, even while updating, it specifically said it was optimising 320 applications. :) I don't have that many downloaded, though, so some are preloaded. And is it silly that while the update happened, I was amused by the little Android figure with its antennae twitching back and forth?

I'm listening to a Duran Duran station on Pandora.  I am breathing a little better with the CPAP on and the air conditioning running. I hope this clears up soon!

[2 am update: sorry for the previous errors, which are now hopefully taken care of. There are certain hazards to blogging on your phone quickly (I never learned to type quickly on a virtual keyboard, but rather learned to swipe along the more sophisticated Android keyboards, and so I can go pretty quickly, but sometimes autocorrect is not my friend). Proofreading while you're not really feeling your best is not conducive to good writing, either. Okay, I've had some water and done something that required being up in the middle of the night for someone. Now it's time to go back to bed. At least I was able to sleep for about two hours before I woke up in a coughing fit.]

Whew!!!!

Just put a security update on my phone and it optimized no less than 300 apps at the end.  300? Is that excessive, do you think?  I'm glad I have expandable storage on the Samsung Galaxy S5. (The lack of that was a major reason I didn't upgrade to the S6 this past year.)

But wait...I freaked out for a moment, as it was telling me that the apps on The SD card didn't exist and it was displaying their icons in grey, but the phone restarted and now everything appears to be back and working. Yay!!!

Hmmm....

Many Android Devices Still Vulnerable To 'Stagefright' Flaw Despite Patch From Google

Google issued an update for Android to address Stagefright—a major security vulnerability in the mobile OS—but researchers now claim the “fix” can be bypassed and the vulnerability can still be exploited.

Oops.

Google called it the biggest software update the world has ever seen. Stagefright is a vulnerability in Android that allows an attacker to take over the mobile device with a single text message. It affects all Android devices—a billion or so around the world—so it’s a huge deal.

Downloading

An update to my phone that fixes,  among other things,  the Stagefright bug.  I'm hoping it will also fix some lagging issues I've had in Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Thank you, T-mobile. Wish me luck!

PS: I fell asleep while it was updating, and two hours later awoke with the phone on my chest (no, it didn't take that long to update!) The lagging is gone, and the bug fixes apparently helped. Yay!

Have you seen this?

It's a simple way to find an Android phone. :) While the ability to find a phone has been available using Android Device Manager for awhile, this is a way to just Google 'find my phone' in the search box and then ring your phone if you want, with a couple of stipulations. You have to have the latest Google application on your phone (mine updated today, for example), must be logged into the same Google account while searching. Pressing the ring option will ring the phone at full volume for quite some time until you can find it, if it's in your house. Cool, hmm? Of course the iPhone has its own ways to do this, as described in the article. I checked the process with mine and it was accurate within 62 feet. It gave options to ring, lock, and erase the phone.

How to use Google to find your lost Android phone

Yay!!!

T-Mobile Galaxy S5 lands Lollipop to lead this week's Android device update roundup

My phone is running faster. I'm happy.

Success!!!

After a co-worker and her family dropped me off at home from work, I managed to get the car cleaned off further, and got it out of the space! I went ahead and headed to Kroger, filled up the car, which was on empty, and then stopped in the store for a few groceries. My street still hasn't been touched, but I handled it pretty well. I almost got stuck again trying to get into the spot next to the one I left, managed to get back out, circled around, and found a spot without any snow and parked there.

Once I got in and put the groceries away, I changed clothes, lit a candle, and updated my computer while I made a couple of breakfast sandwiches. (Yeah, I know, it's breakfast for dinner). And while I ate, I updated my phone, which downloaded Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and is just now finishing up. So I'll have a new operating system to play with, and since I was on Jelly Bean 4.4.2 and never got the 4.4.4 update, I'm happy. We'll see if I have any issues with 5.0. Right now it's optimising the application (apparently I have 445 applications on my phone. I really should take some off, huh?)

Now that the car is free, I plan on giving blood either tomorrow afternoon or Saturday, depending on the wintry mix/rain we're supposed to get this weekend. I'm O+, so while I'm not quite a universal donor, I'm close, and the blood and platelet stock has been hit by cancelled blood drives and the inability for donors to get out and about. I called this morning to check and see if it had been long enough since I donated, and it had. They wanted to go ahead and schedule an appointment, but I didn't know about the car. So, I'll try to drop by as soon as I can. The main office is open till 6 pm tomorrow, but is on the other side of town from me. There's one closer, and I'll check tomorrow to see if the hours are the same. If so, I can make it there after work.

The cold is just crazy. It was -8 today, -22 air temperature a couple of counties over, breaking records. Our high was 7 degrees. Tonight we're supposed to be about -15--not wind chill, mind you, that was in the negative 20s and 30s today. I'm so glad the car started, especially without any gas in it, and I hope the battery holds for tomorrow, too.

Okay, I'm going to go see what I can figure out about my phone's new OS. I'm updating Google Play services now. Some of the settings have changed, so I may need to tweak it a bit. Good night, although I may write some more later.

3 am

Still awake.  I have been downloading free applications from Amazon. Time to stop and set my clock(s) to wake up in five hours.  Ouch!

Woo-hoo (assuming they keep to schedule)

Android 4.3 schedule for Galaxy S 4, S 4 Active, S III, and Note 2 leaks

Mine is 11/25/13 (Samsung Galaxy S III on T-Mobile). I'm interested to see what the new update to Android 4.3 means for my phone. I'm running 4.1.2, I think--they skipped 4.2 entirely. And Android 4.4 will be out soon (aka as 'Kit Kat'), so in the coming months it might make it to the S III, too, I'm hoping. My phone is not the newest model, but it's a pretty decent piece of technology, and still has a lot of life left in it. :)

:)

Okay, when they announced that Android 4.4 would be known as 'KitKat', my first thought was, how did they manage the trademarks? I wasn't the only one:

Google™ Strikes Bizarre Licensing Deal With Nestlé® To Name Next Android™ Kit Kat®

Well, apparently they did in a deal where no money actually changed hands but Google and Nestlé partnered in a fun way. I found this amusing:

Just spent an hour and a half on the phone with a friend

and even though it's late I'm not particularly sleepy. We had a good talk, a real heart to heart one that I enjoyed immensely. We may try to get together for lunch tomorrow if his schedule works out.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank T-Mobile for pushing an over-the-air update for the Samsung Galaxy S3 to Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 (I had been on 4.1.1). Now I can have two applications open at the same time, can take bursts of pictures with the camera, and generally it's running much faster. I hope we make it up to 4.2 soon!

Okay, I'm going to try to go on to bed. Good night.

I really must share something with you that is neat and works!

Answer Line: How to print from Android

One usually doesn't associate printing with phones or tablets, in large part because once you have a portable device, you have less need for paper. But it still occasionally comes in handy.

You can print directly from an Android device with the right Wi-Fi or Bluetooth printer. However, as I don't like to give advice that involves spending large sums of money, I'm going to tell you how to do it with whatever printer you already own. The only expenses will be paper and ink.

There is one caveat: The print job has to go through a computer that can already use that printer. If your PC isn't on when you tell your phone or tablet to print a document or photo, the actual printing won't happen until you next boot the computer.

I tried this. I went through Google's cloud printing service, downloading the recommended application onto my phone and tablet and then configuring the settings within the Google Chrome browser. And, indeed, I was able to print from my phone by 'sharing' a picture to that application. Nifty. The printer in question is not wireless, and the phone in question was on my 4G network, not wi-fi, so I could have printed a page from anywhere and then had it ready when I got home. For example, I could take a picture of something when out and about and send it to the printer.

Can someone explain

why the new Facebook update for Android does not include the 'share' feature like it's supposed to for either my tablet (which runs Ice Cream Sandwich) or my phone (which runs Gingerbread)? I have an e-mail in to the folks at Facebook, but it's the weekend, so I don't expect an instant reply. Surely I'm not the only one affected? I'm excited about the new feature, but it doesn't seem to work for me. Thanks!

PS Okay, weird, after being opened and closed and re-opened several times, the 'share' popped up on some posts in my newsfeed on my phone. Still working on the tablet to see if I somehow shake it into cooperation.

A little bit of iPhone fun

Thanks to David Reid for sharing:



Oh, and just in case you didn't get the Samsung Galaxy S III ad before the video, it's actually quite entertaining in and of itself:



What can I say, I don't have a Samsung GS III, but I am an Android kind of girl when it comes to operating system.

Okay, I'm home from the game, had a good time, and I've had the weekly debriefing with the game master. It's time to go to bed. Good night.

I love the Internet

One thing I couldn't figure out on Ice Cream Sandwich was removal of individual notifications...in the previous version you tapped one side of the notice. Now you slide it, easy enough, but I didn't find that out without searching. Also, I couldn't quite figure out Rory McIlroy's accent (what can I say, I was switching over to news and golf was wrapping up, and the accent intrigued me; I don't care for golf and had never heard of him before). Turns out he's from Northern Ireland. My, the power we have due to Google and Wikipedia and their instant information. And if a ever lose them they'll have to bring back those librarians who learned to find info in the pre-Internet age (or those of us who learned both) to save the wealth of human knowledge.

Heading for bed

Yesterday I spent all day at a friend's house working on his to-do list and then came home and watched the series 7 premiere of Doctor Who, which was great fun. Another great thing was my tablet had an update pushed to it by T-Mobile, so now it's running Android operating system Ice Cream Sandwich rather than Honeycomb. Most of the changes have been cosmetic, but it's fun to play with. So far, everything seems to work on the higher version.

Today I slept in for a Sunday, getting up at 6:30. I cleaned house to prepare for the game. Then Brenda came and we did the big grocery run, which wasn't giant this time. Then we played the game for about 6 hours, till 11 pm, doing a lot of investigation, which means I can't wait till the last minute to do notes next time, because it takes longer to transcribe investigation vs. action.

Tomorrow I have no firm plans. If Animal House is open, I'll take in my aquarium hood and see if they can get it going. Fortunately I got a new bus pass today, although tomorrow the buses are running on a Sunday schedule, which is pretty limited. I'm glad I don't still work in retail where you're expected to work on holidays, often at hours later than the bus runs. Otherwise I'll do some stuff around the house, I think. But my plan is to turn off all alarms and just wake up naturally, maybe do some yoga, and go from there. :)

Alright, I'm tired; it's time to head on to bed. If you celebrate the holiday, may it be a good one. Hope your weekend went fine if it's now over and done with. Good night.

I have a new gadget

It's the Targus AKB33US Bluetooth keyboard.  I'm using it to type this entry on my tablet.  This is actually quite a nice little keyboard. You just have to remember that the backspace is in the upper right corner and is smaller than the delete key, which is right under it. Some people have complained about that, but really it's not hard to adjust.

So far it's staying connected with no problem.  The first time you connect, you turn the Bluetooth on your device on, turn on the keyboard, press the connectivity button, and it 'discovers' the keyboard.  You type in the numbers indicated on the screen, and then you're connected.  After that, the device remembers the keyboard and you don't have to type in the numbers.  Or at least that's how it works with an Android device.

The on/off switch is on the bottom of the keyboard and therefore it might be harder to remember to turn off the keyboard when finished.  The keyboard takes two 'AAA' batteries. The ones that came with mine were Toys R' Us brand, which I thought funny. :)

What the keyboard didn't come with was any sort of guide, but I had already found that on the Targus website before I ordered, when I was trying to find out if it was compatible with my device.  According to Targus, it is compatible with any Android device running Android OS version  2.3.  It is also compatible with the iPad and several other types of tablets as well, so it's not just for Android tablets.

The feel to the tablet is pretty decent; it's easy to type on, and isn't too sensitive or not enough.  I highly recommend it. And at $35 from Amazon (as opposed to the $60 I found elsewhere), it's much less than getting a laptop I do not really need.

Supposedly you can type from up to 30 feet away. I'm not sure why you would want to, but it's nice that it doesn't have to be right at the device to do anything.

It would have been nice to have some sort of case for it; fortunately I have something it will fit in.  Some keyboards come with a stand for the tablet; this one doesn't, but then my cover for my tablet stands, so I didn't need one.  So I'm pretty happy with my purchase.

If you have an Android phone or tablet

You may have noticed a 'Google Play' icon rolling out onto your device over the next few days, along with a notice asking you to agree to its terms and conditions. Google Play replaces the Android Market, Google Books, and Google Music, integrating them into one store, much like iTunes. For more information, there's this:

Google Play Replaces Google Music, Books & Android Market, Adds YouTube and Google+ Tie Ins

It's a smart move. Let's see how it works.

Two out of three isn't bad

Well, I got the microSD card and my medications in the mail today. The shoes are scheduled to be delivered at the hospital tomorrow. I haven't decided whether I'll go over and pick them up or wait until Monday.

So now I have all my medicine, including some (mercifully small pills of) vitamin D, which I was apparently low on. The pharmacy also sent some more test strips, yay! And it all fit in my mailbox, so no trouble with the delivery.

When I ordered the SD card, the only complaint people had mentioned was not getting the USB reader and adapter with it, so when I saw the envelope they sent it in, at first I thought that had happened. But everything was there. The SD cards, especially microSD, are, of course, tiny, and the adapter is the size of a normal card. The USB reader, though, was about the size of the first joint of my little finger, and that threw me off. But it's nice to have them; they were essentially free when you compared their price for all three vs. a microSD card alone.

I got the tablet out of its case, took off the little cover that allows access to the SIM card and microSD slot, and put it in with no trouble, and the tablet recognises it. I also figured out how to move my music that I'd had on the internal storage over and the music player recognises it. But I then discovered that Honeycomb, unlike its predecessor Froyo, does not save internal storage by moving applications to the SD card. There's no option, and according to some, no need. Granted, I have 16 GB of internal storage, so I don't think it will be a problem any time soon, especially since my documents, pictures, music, etc. can all go on the SD card. But I had no idea until I Googled it, like so much of Android stuff. The manual is basically not collected together so much as available on forums as questions come up, as near as I can tell. On the other hand, I haven't had any question about Android that's come up I couldn't find the answer for.

The one thing that couldn't find documents on the SD card was Adobe Reader, which expected them in internal memory, so I moved my bus schedules back. I may just not have figured out how to point it to the SD card--it accesses the one in my phone with no problem. But it's not really an issue.

Anyway, I now have lots of space to play with. I also want to hook the tablet up to the computer and see if it recognises the SD card as a disk. Okay, I'm going to play with tech for a bit. Hope you had a good week. I'm so glad it's Friday. I'll write later.