Sunday, April 29, 2012

Text is the easy part

The Verge at work: sync your text everywhere, never lose an idea again | The Verge
Of the solutions mentioned, I use Simplenote and Dropbox regularly.

As highlighted in this blog post title, syncing text is relatively easy compared to syncing all kinds of information, from office documents to PDF files, and finding them using a good search function.

Am trying to use Evernote more often, especially as a quick way to save webpages. Google Docs (now incorporated into Drive) does provide a good search within PDF feature.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

HTC ChaCha - My fight against full-touchscreen phones

Long story short, I bought a 2nd hand ChaCha recently.

Initial comments
  1. Memory for installing apps is insufficient, but after 2 factory data resets and deleting some apps, I have 26MB of internal storage left 
  2. Camera is not fantastic, but high auto ISO results in less blurry shots
  3. QWERTY keyboard is great, but needs a gentle touch compared with the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro
  4. Sense UI is great. Used in conjunction with Launcher Pro, typing on the homescreen immediately starts a Google search for apps, settings, and other info. Also,  shortcuts at unlock screen mean one can quickly go to a app from the lock screen
  5. Battery life is not great, as expected from feedback seen in reviews

Monday, April 09, 2012

Bemoaning the disappearance of tactile controls in handphones

How can we get manufacturers to start making handphones with proper buttons again?

With the onslaught of touchscreen-only devices, buttons have been disappearing. Directional pads (D-pads), QWERTY keypads, dedicated function keys (e.g. camera shutter), even the most basic Home/Back/Menu and Call/End keys have gone away, to be replaced by touchscreen versions which are a pale shadow of their peers.