The new iPad Pro: an update

I’ve been using the iPad Pro now for about a week and so far so good.  Some things have become easier and some things need a few work around but for the most part, I am up and running and happy.

What’s Working Well?

Over the past week I have figured out the right mix of applications verses web sites. In some cases the iPad application works better and in others, the web application is the way to go.  Over the past week I have become more productive because I am no longer playing games like Civ5 which used to be a big time sink for me.  I understand that there is a version that runs on the iPad but I have no interest in getting it.

I have been watching YouTube videos and using Udemy to kick start my Spanish learning again.  I have been blogging more and generally I feel more productive

What’s Not Working?

Some web sites have problems with the mobile browser, no matter what browser I decide to use.  I currently have three installed on the iPad; Firefox for all my work stuff, Edge for my stuff and I also have Documents by Readdle that I use for occasional web sites. 

I have found Documents to be an excellent application and intend to use it for most of my file management needs. Edge is my go to for browsing and I am making more use of Pocket now, which also works well here.

I did get myself a Bluetooth mouse and I use it quite a lot but the accuracy of the mouse is not that great and sometimes I find myself ditching the mouse in favor of the pencil.  I’m not sure if the problem here is the mouse (probably) or the iPad mouse driver.

I have used the iPad with 4G modems and I have found that the USB drivers can get a little unstable after a while if you keep plugging things into the USB port - I have three modems and sometimes when testing, the third modem won’t work.  Reboot the iPad and the third modem works just fine.  Not a big deal as I doubt I will be on 4G that often.

The Overall Experience

I am still getting used to the gestures and keyboard shortcuts. My hands are developing muscle memory where the smaller keyboard is concerned which has given me back some of my accuracy in typing. I have paired my headphones (Sennheiser PXC550) with the iPad and the sound is great.  I am also pleased with the battery life.  I haven’t used it a full day yet, but I use it for decent chinks of time and so far, no power emergencies. 

The magic keyboard and Pencil combo is also working out and I find myself using the pencil a lot of navigating around rather than using my finger.  I just find the Pencil to be more comfortable.  I have even become comfortable using the magic keyboard and iPad combo on my lap while sitting on the sofa watching tv.

All in all, I have become quite impressed with this device and of course the one thing I haven’t mentioned is the screen. It is outstanding. I will update this again in a month or two, just to see if anything changed.

Boox Poke2

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was thinking of getting an e-reader and I eventually decided on the Onyx Boox Poke2.   I did play with a Kindle for a while, but while the screen is nice, I did not like the flicker when animating page turning or moving from one screen to another.  I took a chance on the Poke2, and ordered this with some reticence as it was to be shipped from China and I had no idea if this thing was a scam or not.

On paper, its looks like a great spec with decent screen resolution, an octal core processor and decent memory specs.  it has WiFi and Bluetooth so I can use it to stream Spotify as well as read books.  With the Android store, it appears that I can also install OneNote (my favored note taking app), pocket and even a browser, should I ever need one.

When it arrived, all the way from China, it was well packaged and intact.

Setting Up

I opened up the box and got the e-reader out.  The first thing I did was turn it on and let it do a firmware update.  The next step is to enable the Android store.  Now even though this is an android machine, it needs to be registered with Google to enable the Google apps store.  How to enable the Android store ....

1. Go to Settings > Application > Enable Google Play.
2. After enabling Google Play tap where it says GSF ID.
3. Sign in to your Google account.
4. Reboot for good measure and then install apps!

The device does have its own App Store but it is worth getting the Google store enabled. I downloaded Kindle and Spotify, logged into my accounts and was up and running in no time.

My Poke2 came with a cover. It sticks on with a couple of strips of double sided tape.  I am not a fan of this as its kinda permanent, but the good news is that the cover works well, albeit a little on the rough side.   I would have preferred a better method of fixing the cover but it is better than nothing.

Eventually I downloaded some apps and got started reading books, which was the whole idea of this exercise.

User Experience

The device is simple to use but there are a myriad of settings to play with. For instance you can specify the level of smoothness of the animations. Very smooth requires more processing power and thus reduces the time between charges. The power usage gets a little tricky for instance; I was frustrated that the device took so long to boot up from being switches off and every time I closed the cover, the device would switch off.  Once I figured out that I could tell it not to switch off when the cover was closed and just to sleep, the device would instantly be on when I opened the cover.  That is much better and battery life has not really been impacted.

But of course the most important factor is this; what is it like to read with. I tend to read at night so I have the backlit LEDs on and set to a warm yellow color (you do have control over this) and for me it is very pleasant to use.

There are some downsides however in that some of the menus don’t seem to have translated in English very well or at all, but for the most part, it works.

Conclusion

This device works well, and I prefer it to the kindle. So far the battery life seems to be good and since the day it arrived, I have not had to charge it.  For what I want it appears to be the right size and does not cause me eye strain when reading late at night.  So far I am happy with it, despite some of its flaws and I hope that over time and few firmware updates, the flaws will be gone.  One can hope.

iPad Pro and Amazon Workspaces

Another way to get a full desktop from the iPad Pro is to use a desktop service.  In this case I am using Amazon Workspace as my DaaS.  As in the previous posts, this is simply because I have an account with Amazon, so for me, it makes sense.  There are other DaaS services out there so maybe one of those will work for you. 

This is one of the simpler services to set up requiring nothing complicated at all.  Once you have your amazon account either go to https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/home or log into your AWS account and a link to Workspace can be found under End user Computing. 

To get started, hit that big blue button.

After filling in the credentials for the user of this machine, sit back and let Amazon build it for you.  In my case, I used the economy free tier machine.

The machine will take a while to spin up.  Amazon say 20 minutes and it was probably about that.  In my case, that was ok as I am in no hurry.  In fact I had lunch while I was waiting and so by the time I got back, my PC had gone into a stopped state.  Amazon does this to limit CPU time on their servers I would guess. 

Anyway, I received my Workspace email that provides the activation code. Once that was correctly entered along with my credentials, I was able to use the Amazon Workspace application to log into my DaaS PC. 

One thing that should be mentioned is that it can take some time to wake up the PC if it has gone into its sleep mode.  Amazon say it can take as long as 20 minutes and this is an issue if you need the workspace now. 

With that said, I suspect I would only need it a couple of times every month, so a long start up time is unlikely to be an issue. 

The PC is basic and needs to have software installed, and in order to do so, it needs internet access.  This needs to be configured.  

And here is it with all three browsers installed:

iPad pro and AWS EC2

The object of the exercise here is to run an EC2 server from an Ipad.  Why? Because sometimes you just need a desktop (Like for editing your bookmarks - that sounds crazy when you say it out loud!)

The first thing you need is an amazon account with AWS access.  I think I got mine because I am a Prime customer but frankly I have no idea.  I suspect you can go ahead and sign up for one without any prerequisites.

Now I was going to write a whole post about how to go about getting your instance to work when configuring from the iPad Pro, but there is a big problem.  The iOS won’t allow you to download the .PEM file for the key pair.  So I did some google searching and here is a great step by step that takes you through the process from start to finish including a work around for the key pair issue.

Unfortunately this did not seem to work for me, and I guess that post must be a few years old now. 

Of course, the other way to solve the problem is to use a desk or laptop to actually create the instance, but that rather defeats the object.  Do not be fooled by the fact that there is an AWS application in the App Store - it is only a dashboard and has no capability to create and launch new instances.

So I ended up getting the AWS server running using my work laptop. I feel a little defeated about that.  However once I got the instance configured using the laptop, I was able to run up my AWS application on the iPad, see my account, my billing and the server that I had configured. 

Using the ACTIONs button I was able to start the server.  It is also possible to log into the AWS console with a browser if you prefer (and I do), and here you can see my server instance running:

Now I need to log into it.

From the desktop or laptop, create a text file with the .PEM info in it. Make sure you can access it from the iPad. Next, click connect in the AWS console and insert the .pem file info into the window and get the password.

Now using your RDP application (I am using Mocha RDP) use the URL, login and password to log into the server

Remember to allow the use of a bluetooth keyboard if you are using one. it took me a while to find that setting. Now I appear to be logged into my AWS EC2 server, I have Chrome and Edge installed so now I can edit my bookmarks.

There are my browsers.  Victory is mine! 

(Just remember to turn off your EC2 instance to you will get a surprise bill!)

The iPad And DaaS

The major flaw in the idea of using a tablet as a primary computing device instead of a desktop or laptop, is that some software requires the use of a desk or laptop machine - my escapades with browsers being one of them because, you can only really edit bookmarks on a desk/laptop machine. 

So how do we tablet users resolve this issue?  I really don't want to have a desktop machine hanging around just in case I need to edit some bookmarks. As it happens there are a number of solutions, depending on how much you want to spend. 

• Physical machine 
• Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
• Cloud instance

Physical Machine
I guess, if you really felt so inclined, you could have an old desktop or laptop machine at home and connect to it with RDP so that you don't need a server. The issue I have with this is that as a minimalist. I don't want old hardware kicking around and I guess, eventually it will need to be replaced.  It might be a good short term solution but long term, I think it has its issues.

Desktop as a Service
DaaS is a good solution especially if you are a coder, or someone who works with a PC all the time. DaaS is not expensive; my quick searching shows costs of ~$15 - $40 per month per desktop. The issue with some of these services is that they require a minimum number of users, however there are some like Amazon Work Spaces that don't.  In fact, AWS has a free tier and iPad connectivity.  Definitely worth looking at.

With Amazon specifically; if you can't get the free tier, the cost of a basic windows machine is:

Given a few hours work very year, that runs to ~$100. Might still be a little spendy.

Cloud Instance
What about spinning up a cloud server?  I'm not an expert on cloud providers but I have spent some time playing AWS, so I know there is a free tier that might work.  Spinning up an EC2 instance of Windows server 2016 might be all that is needed to get the job done.  

Apparently the EC2 free tier is only for 12 months, but again there is no real cost to this, except a few cents per hour.  Once you have completed the work you needed to do on a desktop, go ahead and stop (NOT terminate) the server and you are good until you need it again. 

In my next blog post, I will go ahead and test both the Amazon Work Spaces and running an EC2 server as a way to have a desktop with an iPad.

Of Bookmarks and Browsers

 As I navigate my way through the myriad of apps that are available for the iPad, they seem to fall into several categories:

• Great apps
• Ok Apps
• IPhone Apps
• Really Crappy apps

Great apps include the new Microsoft todo or OneNote, or perhaps some of my finance applications (Fidelity, Chase etc.).  The OK apps include the gmail app and others like that but the last two categories are essentially the same with apps like Meetup, Doordash and Drizly which are really just phone apps and such are awful on the iPad, or some apps like the Reddit app that I had. Works fine on the iPhone but is terrible on the iPad.

So one of the things I have done to resolve this situation is to use the web apps. Lets take Gmail as an example. It’s app is ok, but the web app has a lot more capability in what to show and how to show it. This suites me better so I use the web app. The only downside I can see is that I don’t get notification of new email.  Here is the thing about that - I don’t care.  No one uses email any more to chat with me, its all Slack, Telegram, Signal and WhatsApp. 

Email has become an infrastructure service.  Your various accounts are tied to it, and it is a great way to receive spam, but other than that, it really serves no purpose.  The only time I care about email is if I am working on an account and I get a verification email.  Most of the emails I receive that I care about are handled through automation.

So because I use the web apps, I want to have a simple and clean bookmarks manager that works with my browser.  The mobile browsers tend to limited in what they can do compared to their PC versions, but surely they can handle your bookmarks? Apparently they can’t:

Edge - I can sync my desktop browser bookmarks but I cannot modify them in the mobile browser.  This is ok for short term use if I have a PC that I will continue to use, but to move away from a PC and only use  the iPad this is not going to work.

Safari - Safari has no ability to modify the bookmarks at all. Overall I think it’s shitty browser.  I guess if I came from an Apple environment, it might have the ability to sync bookmarks with a desktop/laptop, but I don’t so there is that.

Chrome - The ipad version of Chrome only allows the use of the mobile bookmarks folder so I can’t even see my chrome bookmarks. There is also no way to edit the bookmarks so that’s not a solution unless you use a companion PC. This is not viable long term.

Opera - The only option for the iPad is the Opera Touch version and this doesn’t even have bookmarks, Yeah, that’s going to be a solid no from me.  I can’t remember shit and spent too much time putting my bookmarks together to compensate. There is no way I can go without them.

Firefox - I use Firefox for my work so I have the sync on and Firefox installed so that if I ever need to, I can get to work resources from my home machine.  It doesn’t happen often but it does happen.  With that said, it does not have the ability to display its bookmarks bar, or edit its bookmarks properly.

So those are the major browsers, but what about the iPad/mobile specific browsers?

Dolphin - crashed on install: hahahahaha no.

Maxthon 5 - No way to import bookmarks so that’s a no too.

Web Browser - turned out to be a phone browser so that is not going to work.

OK, so if the browsers themselves don’t have much (or any) bookmarks capabilities, then perhaps I should look at bookmark managers.  I checked the App Store for bookmark managers and they are for the most part really shitty,  No I don’t want to just manage twitter bookmarks, or have a graphical interface, or even worse, have the damn manager ‘suggest’ new bookmarks for me. NO! I just want a configurable list of bookmarks, maybe with some folders. Nothing more that that, and the ability to import my existing bookmarks. 

Why is that so hard to find? I guess I need to find an alternative solution.

IPad Pro basic File handling

One of my peeves where tablets are concerned is file handling.  It’s just like the old days of the early (and I do mean early) PC software, where the files you created were located with the application that created them.  This is not a viable way to handle files and PC users and software developers soon figured this out.

Sadly one cannot say the same for tablet applications.  They seem to dump their files in all sorts of random locations without the user knowing where they are.  Or at least they used to.  So my next test is to do some basic file movements.  

In my previous post I took some screen shots of speed tests.  Now I want to offload them to a USB memory stick.  Should be simple right?

This is the memory stick in question.  I know a lot of folks are asking why?  The answer is just because ok?  It’s a test.  So first lets plug this thing in and see if the iPad even recognizes it:

And the answer to that question is yes.  And now we come to our first hurdle - the pictures cannot be found in the file manager.  But if I try Documents by Readdle, I can see them but only in the My Files.

So I guess, unlike a desktop machine, the trick here is to get the right file manager based on what you need to do.  Files does not work for me but Documents does.  Perhaps I need to try some other file managers.

Once I had figured out that I have to use the right file manager, then I could try to move / copy the files from pictures to the USB drive.  This is where my lack of experience with these things becomes obvious, as it took me a few minutes of clicking buttons and menus to figure out where the USB drive was.

In the end, I found it under Share > Save to Files > the USB drive (in this case called untitled).

It’s odd, I can see the USB drive in Files, but I can’t move pictures to it.  Now that I have moved some data to the USB drive, I can see that data in Files.  I guess I need to make sure I have the right file manager, although to be frank, I can’t remember the last time I ever used a USB drive.

All this would be a lot easier of course if I moved the files to the cloud drives rather than a USB drive, but it was an interesting exercise and shows that I need to do some more thinking about how I use the machine. 

My 4G iPad Pro

I was playing with the iPad again Saturday morning. When I ordered it, I also ordered the USB-C to USB-A adapter.  I had no purpose in ordering it but figured it might come in handy.

My day job (and side gig) is network engineering.  I am the senior network engineer for a multinational company, and I run our core network as well a couple of data centers.  I keep a lab at home where I test things - all sorts of things and ideas.  As a part of my lab kit, I have three USB 4G dongles kicking around and so I figured that given that there is a 4G version of the iPad Pro, the iOS must have the drivers for 4G built in.  I also made the assumption that the internal 4G module is likely to be USB, so there is a solid chance the USB 4G modules I have will work with the iPad.

To test this, I turned off the WiFi and plugged one of the modules in.  I have three modules:

• Verizon    Pantech UML295
• AT&T    ZTE Velocity
• Sprint    Franklin U772

With the WiFi off, we can see the Ethernet option became available.

Verizon

From plugging in the Verizon modem, to connectivity took maybe 30 seconds (I didn’t time it) and the result was this:

The iPad recognized the modem and we have connectivity.

The download speed is not that great the upload is good. This is usable if the WiFi at home goes out. The best provider in my area right now is Verizon so I am happy that this one works!

AT&T

Frankly I was not expecting much from AT&T as this is not a great area for them.  Plugging in the modem to connectivity took about 30 seconds again, but the modem was recognized.

AT&T brings home the bacon on this one.  I was surprised but that is not bad performance for an older 4G modem of this type and quite usable.

Sprint

So it looks as though my Sprint modem has been turned off.  This happens occasionally as the company I work for has a policy that says if you have not used a modem in a certain time window, the modem gets shut off.  The good news is that the modem was recognized though:

... but because the service is shut off, I could not connect to anything or perform the speed test.

The last test was tethering with my phone. I have a legacy Verizon unlimited plan.  I have unlimited hotspot data but it is capped at 600kb/s!  It is usable, and I have used it many times, as a lot of the applications I use when tethered tend to be low bandwidth.  Here is the speed test showing the appalling capped tethered speeds!

That looks pretty close to 600kb/s in each direction!

The conclusion here is that the iPad has drivers for USB 4G modems, and they work. These are older model modems but I suspect many of the newer modems will also work,  In a pinch, I have connectivity if the WiFi fails without having to tether to the phone and its crappy plan.  Yes I know, I need to change the plan.  I wonder what other drivers the iOS firmware holds!

My New iPad Pro

 So it has finally arrived.  My new 12.9” 128GB 2020 model iPad Pro.  And I love it.  This post is going to cover the thought process behind getting the iPad to replace a desktop and my first impressions, as well as the process of getting the device set up for me and what I do.

I am replacing an HP i3 based desktop. It is not a power house of a desktop, just a basic machine.  I purchased it as a refurbished machine from Amazon for about $300 and I think I referenced it in one of my earlier posts.

Use Case

First let me say that I do not generate content. I am not interested in processing video as so many of the other reviewers seem to be. I don’t process audio and I am not any sort of artist so I won’t be creating art with the iPad.  What I am is an engineer.  I have a laptop provided by my employer so what I do with my personal machine is some basic engineering, research, email, communications, streaming music and watching the occasional video, and the usual run of the mill sort of stuff that most people do. For the most part, nothing complicated really.

I decided to replace my old desktop with the iPad rather than a laptop for two reasons - I really hate using a laptop on my lap. Yeah I know that sounds silly but I do. Laptops for me just don’t work. The second reason is that I like the form factor of a tablet, especially the larger tablets. The long skinny ones are not that useful (I used to have a 7” Asus which was just all wrong).

I did have one of the original Apple iPads many years back and after a short period, I got rid of it because the one thing it could not do was file management. One thing I do a lot of is file management.  For me, a project is likely to consist of multiple file types. On completion of a project, those files which usually sit in their own folder, get zipped up and archived. This was impossible to do with the original iOS.  However, we are several generations on from that and I figured I would give it another try.

The desktop

The HP machine spec is:

Processor: Intel Quad Core i3-4160T @ 3.2 GHz, 4th Generation High Performance Processor.

8GB DDR4 Ram / 256 GB Solid State Drive (SSD).

Intel HD 530 Graphics, Wireless WIFI, VGA, Display Port, VGA, Type C Port, 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, RJ-45.

Windows 10 Professional (64 Bit). Comes With KeyBoard & Mouse

I added a BlueTooth USB dongle and a wireless keyboard and mouse, and it drives a wide screen monitor. I have run a number of processor intensive applications on there and its been fine (GNS3, packet tracer etc)

The iPad Pro

I chose the basic but largest iPad Pro because there is no substitute for screen real estate, and I also decided that while I don’t necessarily need the processing power, it never hurts.  The basic specs for the iPad are as follows:

OS: iPadOS 13.6

CPU: A12Z Bionic.

Storage: 128GB

Display: 12.9 inches (2732 x 2048 pixels) 120Hz.

Wireless: Wi-Fi 6

I did not go for the 4G version although thinking about it, that might have been a good idea but I will come to that later.  I have reduced the storage that I need (from 256GB to 128GB) as I have most of my files in either GDrive or Dropbox, so the real difference comes down to processor performance and RAM.  While it isn’t referenced in the basic specs, the iPad has I believe 6GB of ram vs the 8GB in the i3 machine, and the only comparison I could find for the processor was here: I3 vs A12Z processor comparison

While we are comparing apples to oranges here, we can see from the comparison of the processors, that the A12Z is way better than the old i3 and this should surprise no one.  As for the other iPad/tablet capabilities like cameras, yeah I don’t care. 

The major differences

I purchased the iPad Pro with the Gen2 Apple Pencil and the new magic keyboard.  I know I said I don’t like laptops but I am currently using this at my table with a separate bluetooth mouse (I also hate track pads).  I did use it last night on my lap with the magic keyboard and it was ok.  On a table top its great. It’s a nice small form factor, very portable but mostly easy to use. I am using it to write this article with and I am having to get used to the keyboard as it is significantly smaller than my usual full sized keyboard, but it does work.  I will likely get a full sized Bluetooth keyboard later on.

I am using a cheap and nasty Bluetooth mouse and the fact that the iPad supports mice is great. What I find awkward at the moment is the scrolling.  That might be the mouse but it feels all wrong.  That is just a case of getting used to it though.

I am having a hard time with no control-C, V or X shortcuts.  Having to use the mouse right click is sort of shitty, and no control-Z for undo is also shitty.  I am sure there must be an iOS work around for this but I have only been on this for a couple of hours now and have yet to find them.

Other minor issues include no delete button (the keyboard delete is actually a backspace) and no escape button.  Once again, I am sure there are work arounds for this but I haven’t found them yet.

Applications, software and services.

The first thing I should mention is that I am not really a gamer.  I have a steam account with CIV5 and that’s it.  I don’t think Steam runs on the iPad so that’s that then.  No gaming for me, and honestly I am ok with that.  I have edge installed although I guess I could have used Safari, but I was using edge on the desktop and so its synced.  No problems with bringing over my bookmarks etc.

I have an iPhone SE (2020 - replaced the original iPhone SE which was ok but getting a little long in the tooth).  As soon as I entered my Apple credentials, all of my applications from the phone started to appear.  That’s ok, but there are a stack that I only need on the phone (scooter rental apps, and stuff like that) so those were deleted. Any apps that were not iPad compatible were also deleted.

A lot of that apps have been deleted over the past few hours as I figured out that using the web version via the browser is a better idea.  For instance, I have Blog Touch for making blogger posts, but frankly using Edge and logging into the blogger account is a much better solution.  Gmail is the same, as is Calendar. 

The other major apps that I have installed are Documents by Readdle, Good notes, Lucid Chart, Microsoft To Do (used to be Wunderlist) and One Note.  I also have OneDrive, GDrive and Dropbox set up.  So far so good.

So far I like the iPad Pro. I haven’t had time to do any serious project work yet, but it appears that I have the basics down.  I am happy with email, WhatsApp, signal etc, as well as calendar and web surfing. The big deal here is the mouse support, for someone like me who just does not get on with trackpads, the mouse is what makes this possible.

Now I need to find a good plain text editor and figure out how to use the file management in a way that works for me and the iPad environment

The results are in

I have been working hard on the digital minimalism. I have mentioned in other posts that over time I have removed myself from social media and have reduced my digital footprint considerably.  This has had some interesting results.

To put this into numbers, I have:

• reduced my data storage requirements from 540GB down to 145GB
• eliminated ~5500 MP3 files and built new playlists in Spotify
• eliminated ~ 10 online accounts
• unsubscribed to about a dozen emails
• deleted >1000 archived emails from Gmail
  

This has reduced the amount of time I spend just fucking about on the internet. I am back to spending my time more intentionally. I hope to continue this trend when I get my new iPad pro.

I have also added some automation and integrations to Slack and Gmail, which has resulted in me spending less time in my inbox, getting less spam (I have been unsubscribing like a demon) and where possible, I have moved email alerts to text alerts.

I like text alerts because they are easier to see, and easier to deal with; because most of the alerts I get, I just need to read then delete. Text alerts also tend not to be ads, which is something I am now seeing a lot less of. 

With regards to Slack, I am now essentially using my personal channel as a sort of feed, with RSS feeds, and some alert emails being pushed there, and my saved items is looking a little like a to do list, which makes me happy. I need to learn more about Slack as I know it has a lot more capability than I currently use. Perhaps some of that capability can be used to make life even easier.  I will at some point write some posts about how I use Slack and what you can do with it other than simple IM.

And as a side note, now that I am spending less time on social media and in my email, I am reading more and writing blog/journal posts, so I am already being more productive with my time.

Gadgets

I love gadgets. I am always looking for the next best gadget. Just recently I was thinking about what do with my old iPhone, and that got me thinking. What if i could have a small handheld tablet, maybe with a 3.5" screen that I could use as a general purpose tool?

What would I do with such a beast?

First I would make it Android so that I can load different applications, and I would make it look something like this:

This is a random cheap MP3 player from Amazon and I think it is pretty cool looking. It has a 3.5 inch touch screen with overall dimensions of 3.5 x 1.5 x 0.2 so it is pretty small. It is a good hand held size.

It is not Android which is why I don't own one right now, but it has Bluetooth, an MP3 player and a number of other functions - no WiFi though!

A few years ago I took a trip to the UK and while I was there I picked up a cheap pre-paid phone and plan.  The phone was a Huawei Ascend Y540 I think. It had a small screen and a little dual core processor. It was cheap and I loved it. Why did I love it?

I loved it for its simplicity. It could run a calendar, Spotify, some MP3 files (back when I still had some) maps, and a calendar, and occasionally make some calls or send texts. Really it just did what I needed it to do and no more.

Likewise, this MP3 player is much the same but I can see the case for needing a little customization which is why I like the idea of something like this with Android OS on board, but frankly it does most of what I want: Voice recorder / Calendar / Calculator  / Clock and some basic file management. I would like to add a basic camera for stills and video, wifi so that I can stream with Spotify and maybe send and receive texts.

So this brings me back to the small form factor cell phone (which is why I have the iPhone SE - its the smallest decent performing cell phone out there.)  For me though, as much as I like the iPhone SE, it is still too large and needs to be smaller - more like the Hauwei y540 and similar, but with the iPhone's performance.

I can wish I suppose but for me, its not about the screen size. Most of what I do does not require a large screen, but I would trade screen size for a compact form factor in a heart beat.

The never-ending e-reader question

Now that I have replaced my desktop computer with an iPad Pro, and I have my new iPhone SE, I have one last piece of the digital puzzle to solve. If I am to get serious about getting back into reading, the iPad will be too big and the phone too small for serious reading. So I need an E-reader.

The question now becomes what sort of e-reader do I need?  There is a shortlist of features that I am looking for:

• Android based - I need it to be open so that I am not limited to a single ecosystem (looking at you Amazon Kindle)
• Flicker Free - having owned e-readers before, I found the flicker when turning pages to be really annoying after a while
• Great Battery life - in a post COVID world, I doubt I will be traveling that much but light with good battery life will be great to have when I do travel.

The first and most obvious answer is a Kindle, but there is a catch.  They are closed systems, and I really hate the flicker when turning pages.  So that seals the deal for wanting Android.  But what else is there that I could use?  Lets think about this, what options do I have?

• Android E-reader 
• 6-7" phone
• 7-8" tablet

Lets consider each option in detail:

Android E-Reader

I am looking for something pocket sized, so in the 6-8 inch range.  This appears to be the sweet spot for readers although there are a few 10" out there now that look nice, but I think I want the smaller size.   In terms of Android readers there appear to be two types; those that take notes and those that are just plain readers. I think I want a plain reader as I have the iPad Pro for taking notes. 

Phone (6-7")

This is an option that occurred to me; what about an older phone.  There are a ton of 1-2 generation old phones out there of 6-7" size.  Although the battery life is no where near as good and you don't get the e-ink screen, there is a lot more in the way of flexibility.  The cost might be high but that is a trade for flexibility perhaps?

Tablet (7-8")

The first and most obvious choice here is the iPad mini.  I am fully in the Apple eco-system at this point, so why not?  But there are plenty of other options in terms of cheap Android tablets with varying capabilities.  Some of these can be had for less than $100 which makes them attractive.

After some digging around, I think I can eliminate the cell phone option.  If I had a spare phone around the 6" size I would use it as a reader but the screen format is wrong I think, as is the battery life. Its a good option, but just not the option for me at the moment.

With regards to the tablets we have a similar issue with battery life, but the screens are a little better for reading.  In terms of the lower end tablets (<$100) they tend to be a little crappy.  I could probably make do but I am not sure I want to.  This leaves the more expensive options like the Samsung Tabs or the iPad mini.  If I go for a tablet then it is likely to be the Apple, just for consistency.

The E-reader options are interesting though - with notes or without?  The devices are similar but cost considerably more for the note taking option, so I think I am going to look at just the e-reader and ignore the note options.

There are a few android e-readers out there; Likebook (who don't seem to have a website) Boox, Kobo and a few off brand devices.  It may short sighted of me but I think I am going to reject Likebook for not having a web site, and the off brand devices for being off brand.  The Kobo devices get poor reviews, so I think that leaves me with Boox.

So the choice seems to be the Poke2 or the Kon-Tiki.  You can't really get these through Amazon, but I did end up purchasing the Poke2 from their web store. Lets see if it arrives!

(and I still might get an iPad mini, we will have to see!)

What to do with an old iPhone?

I recently upgraded from an old iPhone SE to a new iPhone SE. This means I have a spare iPhone SE. What to do with it?

There are a number of options that can be considered:

Backup Phone

Keep it in a drawer and use it if the new phone fails.

Turn it into an iPod touch?

Put it into airplane mode, and load it with media apps like Spotify and use it as a media server and streaming device. Add a phone stand, power brick and charging cable. 

Give it away / sell it /recycle it

self explanatory. I can probably sell this on Craigslist for a few bucks - looks like ~$100 as it is unlocked and capable of both GSM and CDMA (so all major carriers in the USA).

Video/still Camera

I like this idea but I live in a 4th floor apartment in a controlled access apartment building, so I am unlikely to want a security camera

Apple TV Remote

I already have one of these.

Make it a game console

I am not a gamer so not to bothered to do this. 

Portable storage device 

Essentially a wireless network drive. My old iPhone SE is I think a 64GB model so by today's standard it is a small drive.  All of my data is in the cloud anyway.

Smart home controller

Mount the phone on the wall and have the smart home apps available. Not really necessary as I use my own phone for this already

It looks like my best option is to sell the phone so I am throwing it up on CL and I will see if it sells. It is in nice condition so here is to hoping!

Edit to add: Sold it before I even published this post.

Slacking off and social media

A couple of weeks ago, I deleted my Facebook account.

Last year I deleted my Twitter account.

Over the past few years (at least three) I have eliminated a lot of online footprint.

I've never had Instagram, Snap Chat, Tic-Tok or other social media platforms. I really have no interest in them as the only thing I want to do is talk to my family and friends, and as an techy introvert, I only have a few friends. Don't get me wrong here, I have a lot of co workers and acquaintances, but I am very clear that while I am friendly to them, we are not friends (with a few exceptions).

So how do I keep in touch?

My primary communications channel is Slack. I have a Slack community comprising family and friends. We have channels for chatting about anything from knitting (Best Wife Ever™) to memes, music videos and a private channel for discussing retirement strategy and progress.

Does this mean I am totally off Social Media?

Pretty much yes. The only account I have is a Reddit account that I use for entertainment and some technical sub Reddits, and the wife and I run a small FIRE blog, and I run this blog, although I hardly count this as social media.

So what else do I use?

As with any diverse group of people, we all have different ways of staying in touch. My mother loves to video call me on Whatsapp. I also have friends who use Whatsapp as well. Other friends prefer Telegram or Signal, both of which I have on my phone. I also have Google Meet and Apple Facetime (I am an iPhone user) and Zoom for video conferencing although that is a rare occurrence with me. Most of the time though, I am using Slack.

What is so great about Slack?

Slack has a number of features that make it attractive to small and large groups.

• No Ads: Slack is an ad free application

• Invite Only: While there are public channels that you can join for the most part, Slack work spaces are invitation only so you get to control who is in your Slack space

• Private channels; your Slack space has open channels where all the members of your space can chat. I have a couple of channels like that but you can also have private channels within your Slack space where you control who is allowed in those specific channels. I have one for a few folks where we discuss money, investments and early retirement.

• App integration: there is a whole slew of apps that integrate into Slack as well as the application itself being compatible with services like IFTTT. I use IFTTT to provide a daily weather forecast in mt general chat channel, and RSS feeds into other channels. I also have Gmail integration, allowing me to push emails to Slack if I need to.
  

I guess I should mention that I also have a cell phone and very occasionally I make calls with it. Generally it is a platform for running these communication apps as well as a select few other apps; mostly financial apps for tracking investments etc.

I used to text a lot but since Slack, my texting has gone down a lot. Texting was always a pain in the arse, as I could not text from the desktop, but with Slack I can. Nowadays, text seems to be for alerts and two factor authentication, and that's ok. I like it for alerts much more than I like email for alerts.

So what are my next steps?

I am considering eliminating eliminating Reddit as this is also a time sink. That might allow me to focus on the two blogs a little more than I am . I really should be pushing a blog post every month or so on the FIRE blog and at the moment I am not even writing drafts.

Fake edit to add; I do actually have an Instagram account. World best wife™ likes to spin her own yarn and then knit with it. She then likes to take pics of her work to post on Ravelry. She often asks me to model her knitting so we created a spoof modeling Instagram for these pics. We aren't serious about that, its more of a joke really.  I really don't count it as serious social media.

I think I need to consider how to minimize some of this.

Do I need a Kindle?

In my rush away from social media and frivolous online consumption, I find there is a gap that needs to be filled. Back when I was a younger man, I used to read. In fact I was a voracious reader, but something happened and the reading trailed off to be replaced with ... well what ever it was I have been doing. Television and fluff from the internets I suppose. 

So now that I have gained all of this time back, I want to start reading again. I love to read. But reading on my phone is not really a nice experience, and reading on the iPad pro, while it can be done, I just think that is not what I got the iPad for. You can see where this is going.

So the question is now what device do I use to read with? There are a couple of questions that come to mind when considering this:

• Do I want to be able to use the library system
• Do I want to buy all of my books on Amazon
• What about side loading documents 
• Which online source is best for books?

And really I think the choice in part comes down to using an e-reader of some type or a full on tablet. Both types of device have their advantages and disadvantages but which one should I choose? Lets look at our options here:

Do I want to be able to use the library system

I never go to the library but I used to as a kid. Is it worth getting a library card and getting into the library again?  If I want to do this, then Libby is the application that allows this.  Libby allows the borrowing of books from libraries all over the world, and can push these books to the kindle if you are a kindle user but only in the USA.  Seems like this would be a good idea as libraries are cheap and I am not sure I really want to buy every book I read.

Do I want to buy all of my books on Amazon
Why limit yourself to just Amazon,. I know they have a huge array of books of all types but given that I am not usually mainstream, is that what I want? There are quite a few other sources for books, such as Apple, Google and Scribd.

What about side loading documents 
I have a considerable library of technical PDF files as well as some (cough pirated cough) epub books. I would like to side load these into the reader and with some readers, this may be difficult or even impossible.  I do know that with the Kindle, I have an email address that I can use to email myself books that can then be loaded into the kindle. Not sure how that will work.

Best Wife Ever™ gave me her Kindle to test with last night and I have to admit that it is nice to read with but I am not in love with the screen when navigating around. The flashing and redraw speed is horrible, as are the adverts, so I think on that basis alone, what I need is a proper tablet. So much for digital minimalism. But on the other hand, the battery life in general for E-readers is phenomenal and that is also a consideration. Not sure when I am ever going to need that much battery life but you never know.

After doing some more research online I think I will wait. I am leaning towards getting a tablet and as I seem to have joined the Apple ecosystem, that will likely be an iPad mini. However there are color e-readers coming out later this year and perhaps these will not have the same drawbacks that the current batch of readers have. Its a shame we can't get a color E-Ink display with an Android operating system, allowing people to use both Libby, kindle and all the other e-reader apps out there.

More Email Wrangling

In my previous posts (Human centric internet and The-Scourge of Email) I talked about how email is a time sink that has almost no return on the time invested at this point. Email has morphed from a communications tool to an infrastructure service. We can't eliminate email because most online accounts are tied to it but there seems little other use for it. 

In order to reduce the time I spend dealing with email I have implemented some rules to automate the handling of email.

Auto Labeling and Archiving

I have emails that are notifications from accounts that have a financial component, like my toll pass, 401K etc. Because these are just notifications but I do want to keep them for a while, I can auto label and archive these. This is probably 50% of what I have been manualy doing in my email, but haven't really noticed.

Tagging Important Emails

I currently have two email addresses, both handled by Gmail. One is a legacy email address that is tied to some of my older online accounts. Rather than spend an afternoon going over each account individually to figure out which email addresses are being used, I have created a tag that I can use to identify these accounts. At a future date I can address these accounts and move them to a new address.

Tagging and Forwarding Emails

I have some online bills that I get emails for, most notably our monthly utility bill.  Instead of trying to remember to forward this to Best Wife Ever™ who does the bills, I have Gmail tag the email and then forward it to my wife's email account. Now I don't have to remember.

IFTTT

I have also set up an IFTTT account that can pass information from other services directly to Slack. This means I can ignore notification emails in Gmail, and have notification delivered directly to Slack. This still needs some work, but its heading in the right direction.

I should note that I have slack open on my desktop most of the time. This means any alerts that come to me are likely to be seen in slack first, before anywhere else. I have my own Slack space with a small community of family and friends. If you don't use Slack for this you should take a look at it.

Whittling down Comcast

In my quest for cheaper internet, we have looked at 4G alternatives to Comcast (More 4G LTE and can I replace my wired internet), but now lets look at Comcast itself and see what we can do.

According to speed testing, we have about 325Mb/s down and 5-10Mb/s up:

Checking our Comcast account, we have the following:

performance plus internet    $70

Speed increase Blast pro     $30

Router Rental                $14

The plan we are on is a 275Mb/s plan so the speed tests indicate that we are getting a considerable amount of bandwidth above that. Also, we have had our plan for long enough that we are now month to month, so I would like to keep that. I don't like being locked into a plan as things change and we must change with it.

So what can we do to keep performance and cost reduce this?

According to the Comcast web site, which is atrocious for finding out anything, we have the folling available to us on a month to month basis:

PERFORMANCE STARTER+    25Mb/s    $50
PERFORMANCE SELECT     100Mb/s    $55
PERFORMANCE PRO+       200Mb/s    $70

I would be inclined to go for the Performance Select plan. At 100Mb/s for two people, we will have enough bandwidth. I suspect we can keep our current router, so in all we shouldn't really notice a performance hit. My only concern is the upload speed which becomes important when video calling and moving files to the cloud.

Comcast don't really talk about the upload speed, their marketing is focused on the download speed, but i did manage to find this:

Its not a great screen grab but it shows the upload speeds for the various plans, and the performance select comes in at around 5Mb/s. Our current plan is at 10Mb/s, so we will see a slow down in uploads, but as long as we are not doing a lot of cloud moves, we should be ok.

That will bring the cost down from $114 to about $70, or $65 if we go with the performance started but that only has 3Mb/s upload. I think I would rather stick with 5Mb/s than the three.

Next, I have to run this past Best Wife Ever™ to see what she says.

Edit to add: Best Wife Ever™ said do it, so we now have the performance select plan @$55/mth plus router for a grand total of $70 instead of $114 - a savings of $44!

More 4G LTE and can I replace my wired internet?

I would really like to eliminate the wired (Xfinity / Comcast) internet. That will save me somewhere about $113/mth. Using the 4G LTE plan that I am already paying for seems like a good idea right? The issue is the hotspot capability.

So, I know from monitoring my internet usage while working from home, that I use about 0.5 to 0.75GB per day. Over a 30 day period (because I do personal stuff on my computer as well) that adds up to about 23GB and I also use about 25GB of data on my phone over a 30 day period, so I am looking at a data usage per month of about 50GB total.

This month, I also moved a lot of cloud files from Dropbox to Google Drive. This is not something that happens often but did cause me to use almost 1TB of data! Hopefully I won't have to do that again, but if I do perhaps I can use a cloud management service rather than download and then upload.

Now I know how much data I need. How many devices am I using?  The great news is that I am planning on ditching my desktop PC and moving to an iPad pro. The only other devices I have are my work laptop and my phone. I use my phone mostly on Wifi when I am home, which is currently all of the time because we are still in quarantine.

So using my phone as a hotspot for my iPad and work computer is feasible.  Currently my service is with Verizon, and I have the Go Unlimited plan which is one of their legacy plans.  I would need to upgrade to a new 4G LTE plan and they have several to choose from.

Currently, the Go Unlimited plan that I have is $50 per month, so these new plans are about the same price. (there are other secondary differences between the plans which factor in but here we are just talking about data).

The next question is; what about Worlds Best Wife™? She also works from home and has a plethora of devices (phone, iPads, apple watch, work phone etc. although some of her devices have their own plans.)  Could she also change her plan and hotspot instead of using the cable connection? Well it is likely that she could, however she feels a little hesitant to move off the cable connection. Her experience with 4G is not the same as mine.

The last consideration is how much data we use when watching TV. We use Netflix, Amazon and HBO mostly. According to Netflix, streaming HD content consumes about 3GB per hour.  If we watch 3 hours of tv per day, 5 days per week, with another 10 hours per weekend (we like to binge watch stuff and we love movies) that adds up to about 100GB of data. That is a lot for a Hotspot!

So I would say we are looking at a total usage of about 200GB of data between the two of us and the streaming! With two get more plans, we add about $10 to the phone bill and remove the cable bill, so a net saving of about $100 per month. The risk here is the hotspot data rate dropping to unacceptable levels after the 60GB limit is reached (30GB + 30GB).

I feel like I need to do some testing. Of course the alternate course of action is to look at the Comcast plan and see what we can do about cost reducing that, but that will be a whole other post.

4G Internet

In our apartment we have Xfinity internet. We only have internet, having no use for cable TV or landlines. Our bill just went up by about $35 per month because the 'offer period' was over. Ouch.

So how can we cost reduce our internet usage? We both work from home and I don't see that changing anytime soon. We also have a lot of stuff in the cloud, and this means constant download and upload, and we use streaming services. 

With Xfinity we have a 1.2TB cap on our data and this month (because I was moving a lot of cloud files about) we are getting close to that cap. In terms of speed, we get 325Mb/s download but only ~10Mb/s upload. The download speed is ok but that upload number is piss poor.

Just for shits and giggles, I did a speed test on my Verizon 4G connection from my phone, and managed to get ~25Mb/s down and almost 15Mb/s upload (it varied in back to back tests). Download isn't as fast but the upload speed is good.

So what about using 4G only for internet? I work in IT and we have a number of remote offices that use 4G as their primary connection, so I know it can be done. In addition I have a number of 4G modems at home that I use for testing purposes. When I am not testing, I use these modems from time to time to keep the accounts active. (if we don't use a wireless device for more than a month, it gets flagged as unused and can be disconnected)

Well, about 5 minutes of internet searching and I find that the cell companies don't much like that idea. If I tether my devices to my phone, my unlimited data plan drops the data rate to 600kb/s. That is about as useful as two left legs. I guess I can do some basic web surfing but no streaming and moving files around is going to be a real pain at that speed.

Given that I am with Verizon right now and have a legacy plan (Go Unlimited) I thought I would take a look at their web site and see what they are offering now and maybe chat with their customer service people. That's about 3 hours of my life I will never get back.

Eliminating Xfinity would save us maybe $115 per month, but at what cost if we have to run at 600kb/s or if we have a much lower data cap.

I will update once I find out.

Human Centric Internet

This is a follow on thought from the previous post: 

So there I was eating a bowl of chicken fried rice and it hit me. My email is not a communications system as was originally intended over 30 years ago. Back then I would give my email address to anyone who wanted it because I had an email address and most people didn't, We were the internet elite, with our email address having selves.

No, email is not for that sort of person to person communication any more. Rather it is for infrastructure purposes: alerts and notifications, authentication and other 'operational' types of communication. 

Shouldn't communication be more 'human centric' than that. My proposal is that the address book is the primary application. This is where your people are. And how we choose to communicate is down to a plug in and personal preference. 

Email, twitter, Facebook, and all the text and IM applications out there should plug into the address book. With the addition of some flexibility and some automation, perhaps even AI, we can reduce the noise, and make communications almost independent of the communications medium. Because after all it is the people that are important, not the technology or other 'clever' gimmicks.

Now how do I make that happen?