Moto G

December 21, 2013
USB Connector
At first I thought they had included a proprietary USB connector, but I was pleasantly surprised when I found that it was the same as our Nexus 7 and Galaxy Player.  That means if I forget a plug at work on in other room we can still use a plug from another device.

Screen Size in Landscape
One concern I had when looking at this phone was the 4.5 inch screen one of the problems I had with my previous device was it's 4 inch screen.  When typing in Google Drive documents in landscape I would get maybe one line of text, so I had no context for where I was typing.  The 4.5 inch screen gave me four maybe five lines.  That was much much better.

Although, as I was trying to write this blog post I used the Moto G for some of it.  As I turned it sideways all I could see was the Blogger utility bar and it wouldn't let me scroll up to the text entry part of the page, but that is likely due to the Blogger website or the browser on the phone and not the phone itself.

Shape and Thickness
Most smart phones I had seen people I knew with were square and bulky.  The was not much thicker than my Ipod 2nd generation and Galaxy Player.  For the most part it was rounded.  My daughter's Ipod Touch 5th generation was more block style (square) than the Moto G.

Technical Support
The Motorola tech support for the Moto G was somewhat lacking, as I described in other post.  http://youdeserverecognition.blogspot.com/2013/12/motorola-moto-g-technical-support.html

Perhaps it will get better as the Moto G has been out longer, since it was just barely released.

Camera
When I first got it I thought the Camera is fast.  When I took one picture it appeared it was immediately ready to take another.  When I used it at Christmas with a lot more photo use and quick kids it seemed much slower.

The zoom is very easy, once you understand it is not pinch and stretch. Just swipe up to zoom in and down to zoom out. It is a little tricky to zoom just a little. The last device I had with a camera was much more complicated to try to zoom while holding the frame. With the Moto G I just swipe and tap to take the picture.

The design of the back of the phone is designed in such a way to somewhat protect the camera face from being scratched. It is slightly inset and the body is slightly curved. The inset keeps it from contacting surfaces somewhat. The curve also lifts it further off surfaces.

Speaker
The Moto G only has one speaker, but it is louder than other devices I have with two speakers. It is not great for music, but my use is mostly voice only and not music.  It would be nice to have a speaker that had solid quality, but the Moto G is the best I have had so far and for my use volume is more important than quality.

Battery Life
I am getting about one and a half to two days on the battery when using it was audio, emails, and texting.  Only an occasional phone call.


Update Feb 1, 2014
Unsettling Behavior
I went to bed last night and the battery was at more than half.  When I woke up this morning, I went to turn the screen on and all I got was the little notification light blinking three times at me.  I tried the power button and the volume buttons, but just kept getting the blinking light.  I thought it was frozen up, so I was looking for one of those tiny pin hole reset buttons.

I finally decided to get out my charger and see if it behaved differently when plugged in.  When I plugged it in the screen came on and showed me a battery indicator of 0%.

I have been really happy with this device, but have run into a few really flaky things, like this, that concern me.

I have pulled it out of my pocket before and found that it shut itself off.

I'm a little worried at a time when I am really counting on it being there for me that it will not function.

If I go to pick someone up at the airport and they are anticipating calling my cell phone to tell me when they are on the ground and where there are when I get there, an cell phone that stops functioning without warning could make for a stressful end of a flight.

Motorola Purchased by Google/Motorola Purchased by Lenovo
I heard the other day that Google was considering selling Motorola to Lenovo.  Google just purchased Motorola for a lot of money not long ago.  The number that I have heard that they are considering selling to Lenovo for is a fraction of what they paid.

Google was likely just buying the patents, but it is unsettling to have purchased a Motorola product and to see the company being bought and sold in quick succession.  It can't make the employees feel secure about their jobs, which could impact quality and service.

One of the reasons I went with the Moto G, in addition to its lower price for a name brand product, was because of their affiliation with Google.  I have a perception of quality standards from Google that i assumed would be required of Motorola as well.  I also assumed that I would get updates more quickly, being owned by Google.  Being owned by someone else makes me wonder if updates will be slowed like with other manufacturers.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Player that I purchased a year and a half a go.  It came with Gingerbread and has never been updated to something more current.  I believe they still sell this device and it still comes with Gingerbread.

Before Google purchased Motorola I had a perception of Motorola that they were a typical low to mid range phone manufacturer.  With the Moto line and being affiliated with Google my perception was starting to change.  I hope I do not regret having purchased a Motorola product.

USB Storage on PC
We found shortly after getting the phones that my wife's phone would not connect as USB storage device.  If we switched it into camera storage mode it would work fine, but that only exposed a limited set of directories to the PC.  Motorola support could not get it working.  It finally fixed itself when the phone updated to Kit Kat.

The strange thing was that mine was also on Jelly Bean and worked fine.

Volume Went Soft
One day I was listening to an audio book on my phone and the volume was very low.  I had been listening to the book the day before and it was much louder.  I tried the volume buttons on the phone and it was at 100%.  I went into settings to make sure that the volume buttons were increasing the right volumes and they were all at 100%

I then noticed later in the day that it was very difficult to hear on a phone call.  A little while later the volume came back to normal on its own.

Volume Controls
I am having trouble getting use to having different adjustments for different volumes.  I like it in theory, but with only one set of volume buttons it is often not convenient.

I will go to start some music or an audio book and in an effort not to blast out those around me I try to decrease the volume.  The volume buttons control the phone volume because not audio is playing yet.  I end up having to drill into settings to change the volume for music and such.

While I agree that the phone volume is the one you often need to get to most quickly, there has got to be a way to make music volumes more convenient.

Update 3-9-2014
Slippery
The phone it more slippery than I initially thought.  I find that the shape and texture of the phone makes it often try to flip sideways out of my hand.

Battery
Frequently I find the battery lasting a rely short time, but the battery length is inconsistent.

Sometimes Buggy
Recently I am finding my Moto G to have flakey hardware. Most recently I am finding the camera often gives an error when an app tries to use it and I have to reboot to get it to work.

Update 3-26-2014
Battery
The major battery problem seems to have gone away with an update from Skype and Google.  For the moment the battery life is even better than what it was before the huge decline.  I am getting two days or more of casual use out of the battery.  I hope it stays consistent this time.

Durability
Although the Moto G is a bit slippery in the hand, it did see to hold up well when it slipped out of my hand and hit the pavement.  The two corners that hit are scratched up pretty good, but the phone functionality seems unaffected.  Might have been a different story had it landed on its face.  Hoping someone finds a good way to build a phone to make the screen more durable, since it is a huge, vulnerable surface.

Update 5-7-2014
Last night I was transferring audio books and talks to my Moto G.  After a while the transfers stopped progressing.  I canceled them and tried to get my phone to respond and it would not.  I disconnected the data/charging cable and eventually got a white screen with a green circle in the middle.  The circle had the Motorola logo in the middle of it.  The white screen had the word Android in black stylized text at the bottom.

I contacted Motorola.  The good news was that it was about 8:00 at night and customer support was available.  The bad new was that they only seemed to have a script to work from and quickly just offered to send me a new one.

It stinks to be without my phone for 3-5 days and to lose photos I haven't gotten off yet and other files I have on there, but it will be nice if they actually get it here quickly and with no hassle do this exchange.

The email I receive specifically said to not return the charging/data cable.  It will be nice to have an extra cable around.

I was not impressed with the knowledge of the customer support person I worked with initially, but a no hassle return could make up for it, especially if this phone somehow miraculously makes it here before the weekend.

My overall impression of the Moto G so far is that it is buggy.  My wife and I have had weird things with our Moto Gs all the way through this process.  When they work we love them, but often there are things that give us a bad experience with the Moto G.  Unfortunately quality issues seem to be rampant these days in most products we buy.  Quality seems to be the first thing to go to increase stock holder returns.

My hope is that they will have worked some of the kinks out in the manufacturing and design of the Moto G after many have been sold and they will have adjusted the newer ones.  My fear is that they set up the manufacturing process once and I will get the exact same thing I have now.

Walmart T-Mobile Family Plan

There was a $35 activation fee that I don't think was advertised as well as their month cost for the service.  That is something people should be aware of with this service.  It did not deter me from getting it, but it was something that surprised me and irritated me while we were signing up.

The coverage can be a bit spotty.  Going from Chicago, IL to South Bend, IN, which is a well populated area, we had disruptions of phone and text service.

Incoming texts didn't work right away,even though service switched almost instantly. We had to contact customer service and they had no answer for us, but in a few hours it started working.

Brick Oven

I went to Brick Oven for the first time today.  I wasn't impressed with the menu.

Waitress only kept half the drinks full.  She seemed to mostly give up on the table after food started coming to the table.

A coworker said that their root beer was great.  It did taste good, but I was assuming it would've had a head on it since it was their signature thing.

I got the Market Room Buffet, which includes the soup and salad buffets.  I wish I had gotten a sandwich and the salad bar.  The pasta part of the buffet, which was the extra onto the soup and salad when getting Market Room, was confusing.  It wasn't an open pasta bar.  You had to go put in an order and wait a few minutes.  They had you pick two servings of pasta or vegetable.  They had a bunch of different types of pasta and a broccoli or mixed vegetable it.  I didn't get the vegetables, so not sure exactly what it was.

After they heated up my pasta in some warm water they gave me a couple of pieces of sausage and a piece of garlic bread straight out of a brick oven.  I then took my bowl over to the soup bar where they had soup and also pasta sauces.

The soups were not exciting to me and I like a good soup.  I got the clam chowder and the chunks of clam and such were really small and not many of them.  I realize it is soup, but I prefer a more robust chowder.

The salad bar had several items on their, but the selection of dressings was limited.

A couple of people in my group got ten inch pizzas and they looked good and filling, but I think they were eleven dollars.  Seemed a little expensive.

A couple of people in the group got sandwiches and they came with a cookie and a bag of vending machine chips.  Seemed very chintzy for a sit down restaurant.  I guess it makes them more flexible for their take out customers.  Seems like the sit down experience should be better.

One member of our group customized his sandwich to swap mushrooms for jalapenos.  The down side was that they did not switch them as he asked.  The good news was that they offered to either redo it or give him jalapenos on the side or some other way he would choose to make it right.

It was a unique experience and nice atmosphere, but not a place I would choose to go, especially if I am paying.

Flickr

While the 1 terabyte of storage is phenomenal, the software is some painful that it is near to unusable.  The software is not intuitive, so it is difficult to learn how to use.  Once you do get the feel for a little of the functionality, it is so slow.  Trying to select a bunch of files for upload the desktop uploader tool takes forever.  I tried using the one online and never could get it to stop spinning the loading screen.

Additionally, Flickr does not appear to have provided true management tools.  It is difficult to upload, download, organize, and view all of my photos.

I'm sure they are fearful that many people might actually use the full terabyte of storage, but if they make it painful to use then no one will use it at all.  It won't just make them use the storage at a slower rate, it will just frustrate them and people will give up.

I've been trying for weeks to up load my photos and have gotten some up there.  Then I tried to show my wife and daughter how to access them.  It was horribly painful to figure out how to expose it to them and only them and then to explain to them the hoops they need to jump through to get to them.

Rackspace Backup Problems

I wanted to document the issues that a company I worked for has had with Rackspace.

When we were given the sales pitch by Rackspace, they said that they guaranteed 1 hour turn around on restoring data from backups.  Perhaps that guarantee didn't include someone monitoring for a problem with the backups and fixing it.  We got a notification the day after we changed the name of our server that our database server was down.  My coworker and I had been in the database all day long and had no issues.  We sent back to them and said we were noticing no issues, but for them to please research and let us know why they thought it was down.  A week and a half went by and we had a data issue caused by user error that was so extensive that we needed a restore of the database.  We contacted Rackspace and they told us they could not do a restore for us, because the backup hadn't run since the beginning of the month, which was when we did the name change.  Within a relatively short time they were able to tell us it was due to the name change on the server.  We told them a week and a half previous to find out why they were reporting the server as down and they never got back to us.  It took us having a disaster that needed those backups to motivate them to move.  Unfortunately at that time it was too late to be proactive and it could've cost our business big time.

We never made the connection to it being due to the server name changing, since we were told when we signed up with Rackspace that we definitely could change the name of the server to make it work for our needs.  We changed the name since the huge name with letters, numbers, and dots was cumbersome to work with.  When we did the name change we were doing other changes on the server and felt the name change was easy and minor.

We had all sorts of support issues with Go Daddy, so we switched to what was touted as an enterprise solution, Rackspace.  The enterprise level solution cost us a thousand dollars each month more than Go Daddy and we still almost lost all of our data and we'd only been live with Rackspace for a few weeks.

The company has invested too much in the move to Rackspace to not give them another chance, but this was  completely unexpected for the reputation Rackspace has and the amount of money they are being paid.

Zoo Tycoon 2/Amazon/A Little Boutique

It is nice to have something positive to post.  It was a bad experience that ended well.

We purchased a computer game for my son as a gift from A Little Boutique in the Amazon Marketplace..  The game was Zoo Tycoon 2 made by Microsoft.

The game arrived and my son and I tried to install it.  It got through disk two and asked for disk three.  We inserted disk three and clicked ok.  It asked us again to insert disk three.  No matter what we did it would not recognize disk three.

I contacted Amazon and told them about the defective disk.  They gave me a link to print with a mailing label and return slip.  I printed them and returned it.

A few days later I got an email stated that they had refunded me just over two dollars.  They said they deducted the following:
        Return Shipping Fee Refund Deduction: ($4.98)
        Restocking Fee Refund Deduction: ($7.95)
leaving me with just over two dollars refunded.

I contacted Amazon and I asked them why there would be a restocking fee on a defective item.  They told me it was a mistake and refunded the entire purchase.

I was very concerned that having purchased online would make it impossible to get a full refund or an exchange.  This was barely more hassle than returning it to a brick and mortar store.  It was actually a positive for shopping online.

Around the same time I got a message asking me to review the purchase.  I gave a neutral rating to the seller, A Little Boutique.  I meant for it to go on the product, Zoo Tycoon 2.  In the comments I talked of the problems with disk three and that Amazon had made it right, but that I couldn't give the transaction five stars, since we were sent a defective product.  That defective product was not the fault of A Little Boutique, since it came in a sealed package from Microsoft, but it did leave a potential dark cloud on A Little Boutique and on Amazon.

A while after I left the neutral review I was contacted by A Little Boutique.  Their representative apologized that we had received one of the bad copies of Zoo Tycoon.  She stated that there is a known issue with some of the disk 3s.  She stated that Microsoft offers a free replacement disk.  If you end up with one of these defective disks you should look into contacting Microsoft and getting a replacement disk.  My hope is that they would ship it to you for free.  I also hope Microsoft will come up with a way get people that buy this program the replacement disk without the customer having to hunt it down.

The representative from A Little Boutique said that she noticed I lived within driving distance of their headquarters and she would like to bring a replacement copy replacement copy of the program to me.  I live about an hour from them.  This was very generous.

She looked and found that she was mistaken and there were no copies of the game left at their facility.  She immediately ordered a copy from another vendor and put my address as the delivery address.

This level of service is well beyond what we expect these days.

Android Database and GMail

This is more on my experience with my Galaxy Player with Android Gingerbread.

I started getting warnings that a database was getting full on the device.  I looked and I have plenty of storage left when I look at various settings.  Finally at one point I stopped receiving chats through Google Talk and email through Google Gmail.  The weird thing was that the device seemed to know I was receiving emails, but wouldn't show them in the app.  It would say new email in Gmail and would open Gmail when I would click on the notification, but it would not show me any current messages.

It didn't occur to me that they were related, since the message stopped coming up.  I also had just installed a new power manager Juice Defender.  I was running along with the previous power manager I was using, Advanced Task Killer.  I assumed that one or both of these were the problem or their interaction together, since I had seen settings in Juice Defender talking about disabling WIFI and other stuff.  The thing was that no other program was having problems getting notifications and WIFI was showing on and connected.

I uninstalled Juice Defender and Advanced Task Killer and it did not fix the problem.  I was just about to uninstall Gmail and Talk when I noticed a setting on the screen where I would uninstall that said clear all messages.  At that point I remembered the full database message.  I figured that it would redownload the last 30 days of messages after I dumped the cache and I was going to blow away the app and start fresh anyway, so I figured there was no harm and in reality less harm than starting over.

I cleared the emails and loaded the Gmail app.  BAM!  Empty inbox.  Then a few moments later recent messages showed up.

I am still uncertain as to what I filled up when the device showed plenty of space, but for now I am back in business.

Not sure if this is a Gingerbread problem, but I really want Jelly Bean, especially after using it on my wife's Nexus 7.

Galaxy Player 4 with Gingerbread vs Ipod Touch 2 with IOS 4

I recently purchases a Galaxy Player 4.  Previous to that I was using an Ipod 2nd Generation.  Since the Ipod 2 is many generations of Ipod old I am anticipating a leap forward with a Galaxy Player.


This is my first Android device, so I don't know if the problems I have with it and the things I like are Android items, Gingerbread specific items, or Galaxy Player items.  I also don't know if it is because my use case for the player for is wrong for what it is designed.  I am mostly using it as a PDA and an app device, with the media player features as secondary at best.  Perhaps the Galaxy Player is not designed for that.  The Ipod seemed to do PDA, apps, and media (music and video) pretty well.

I really want to get off the Apple platform to stop paying more for my devices and to have more competition in the market place to make all devices better.  Additionally, I am going to have to change connectors to get a new Ipod anyway, so might as well get a new device and new connector.  The connector on the Galaxy Player is at least a somewhat standard connector.

I'm having trouble getting use to the power button being on the side.  Not sure it is just because I am use to it being on top on the Ipod, but when I try to turn it on with one hand it feels like I am going to drop it.  It appears to be too easily activated when bumped.  It also often gets bumped and activates the screen when just trying to adjust the volume.  This happens not because I hit the wrong side of the device, which happens, but because it is hard to push the volume button without bumping the power.

Power plug and head phone jack on top.  I got use to them being on the bottom on the Ipod 2.  Not sure how I feel about them being on top.

Pros

• Note App
  I'm note sure if my issues with the out of the box note taking application are a learning curve or if it is just worse.  The one on my Ipod is very straightforward.  I turn it on an it is like a pad of paper.  I just start typing and it also saves as I type.
• Google Services Native.
  I was not able to run Drive and Chat at all on Ipod 2.  Although, after being excited to get an Android device for this reason, it turns out that Drive doesn't work as well as I had hoped.  I desire a more desktop like experience.
• Cameras
  The Ipod 2 has no cameras.  The Galaxy Player 4 has a front and rear camera.
• Removable Battery.
• Microphone
  The Ipod 2 had no microphone.
• Memory Expansion Slot.
  I was concerned that if I bought an expansion card that I would lose the 8GB of internal memory, but I read something from someone online that said that they got 40GB after adding the max 32GB card.  Ipod 2 and other models after it are limited to what they came with.
  Ipods come with as much as 64GB, but the 64GB models are very expensive.  Buying the 8GB Galaxay Player and a 32GB card would be much less than a 32GB Ipod.
• GPS
  The Ipod 2 had no GPS.  Now I can use more accurrate location data and perhaps GPS navigation.  Unfortunately it seems to not function very well if there is not Wifi available.
• Longer Battery Life
  But still too short.  Best estimate is about 4 hours of continuous use.
• Stereo Speakers
• Somewhat Standard USB Connector.
  It will be less expensive to buy or more likely that other devices I have will have a connector that they can share.
• Screen Clarity
  Screen is much clearer than my Ipod 2.
• Access to the File System
  Android gives me access to the file system on the device and on my computer without having to go through some special program like Itunes.
• Charging Time
  Initially the Galaxy Player charges fairly quickly, like the Ipod 2.  I wish the life of the battery between charges was longer.
• Multi Tasking
  Chat and Skype can be running both give me notifications.  On the Ipod 2 when I close most programs I can not receive notifications from those programs.
• FM Radio
  There are times when an FM radio is still handy, especially with a wifi only device.
  
  I can listen to local news and traffic.  I can listen to music if I don't have music loaded on the device or if I just want some variety.
  
  I have not tried yet, but I a nice feature of the FM radio would be the ability to record.
  
  The only issue with the FM radio so far is that it does not receive digital stations.
• Auto Correct
  After I switched to SwiftKey 3 and tweaked the settings I was able to get it to stop incorrectly automatically filling in what it thought I was typing.
  
  It now is very useful.  It attempts to guess the next word I want based on the context and based upon my writing style that I think it learns as it goes.  Even after I finish the previous word it tries to guess what I might type next.  It gives three options and usually does pretty well and if not, it does well with in a few keystrokes.

Cons

• Auto Correct
  Initially auto correct was awful on the Galaxy Player.  It seemed to always try to finish my sentence with a period before I am done and auto corrects words I don't want auto corrected.  The Ipod had some issues with auto correct as well, but not as severe as what I am experiencing with the Galaxy Player.  I am not sure if I got use to it and found a way to maintain my rhythm or if it is just better.  I seem to fumble a lot with the Galaxy Player and it seems hard to quickly undo what the player did for me and keep typing.This appears to either be a problem with the default keyboard or the settings of the SwiftKey 3.
  
  
  
• Lack of Short Cuts to Manage Music Player When Not Logged In.
  Galaxy Player has no shortcut to manage the music player when playing, but not logged in.  The Ipod allows you to bring up the pause button just by double clicking the circle button.  It also allows navigating to the next and previous track by the same means.  It even mostly works with Pandora.
  
  On the Ipod the pause button needs to be separated a little more from the navigate buttons, since I often hit the navigate button when trying to pause.  Even with that it is still a nice feature.
• Have to Hit OK After Pin.
  I have to hit OK after typing my pin to unlock the Galaxy Player.  On the Ipod it unlocks after the fourth character is entered, since it knows the pin is exactly 4 long.  No more.  No Less.
  
  Not really sure if this is a con or not, but it does trip me up every time, since I am use to it the other way.  On the Ipod frequently I mess up the pin, but it quickly tells me it is wrong, or I already feel I have messed it up, and I type it again.  No OK necessary.
• Notifications When Screen Is Off
  When the device display is off and a notification happens I hear a noise, but when I turn on the screen I have no idea which program has something to notify me about.
  
  On the Ipod, most notification show on the screen without even unlocking the Ipod.  Email makes a distinct noise.  On the Galaxy Player email makes the same notification noise as everything else.
  
  When a calendar item alerts, all I hear is the noise.  Nothing on the screen telling me it is a calendar item.
  
  Some notifications are in the pull down, but I have not seen calendar items and chat notifications there.  That list is also ordered with the newest items on the bottom, so I have to scroll to see the most recent messages.
  
  Having the messages pop up when not logged in is possibly a security violation and yet very useful.  Even if it did not pop up while logged out, having it pop up as soon as I logged in would make it easier to find what potentially needs my attention.

• Memory Expansion Slot Limited to 32GB.
• GPS Drains the Battery
• Screen Drains the Battery
  Have to run on dim brightness
• Battery Life
  Even with turning off GPS and turning down brightness, the battery life isn't much better than the Ipod 2.
• Screen Size
• Screen pretty much the same width, but taller.  I was hoping for a bigger screen all around.  Still need to determine if taller is better.  Ipod 2 has similar problem.
• Landscape
  Neither handle landscape typing well. End up with just a little space at the top to view document.
  
  Portrait typing is difficult because the keys are too small in portrait.  The Galaxy Player seems to handle landscape even worse than the Ipod 2.

• Back Button
  Back button closes keyboard?  That's not intuitive.  The back button in general is not intuitive.  Of course neither was the circle on Ipod.
• Light Up Buttons
  They are only used when the screen is on anyway, so why not just get rid of them and make the screen bigger and just put that functionality on the screen.

• Weather
  The Ipod 2 comes with a weather app.  It is a light, basic app.
  
  The Samsung Galaxy Player has weather apps that can be downloaded for free, but that takes searching and installing.  It was handy to have it there from the start and then download other apps if I needed more functionality.
  
  I initially chose the Weather Channel weather app.  Afer word I notice my battery life going way down.  I looked at the usage and it was using as much as the display on full brightness.

• Wifi
  I have noticed a couple of bumps connecting to a couple of networks. They start to connect and then give an error and then a while later they connect.  Networks that were fine on the Ipod 2.
  The g/n Wifi makes it faster, but the range is just as poor as with the Ipod 2.  I always got much worse range with my Ipod 2 than with my laptop.

• Music Player Does Save Position
  The music player on the Galaxy Player does not save the last position in the track I was listening to after a while.  For that matter it doesn't even remember the track I was on.  The Ipod 2 also had the problem with the position in the track after some amount of time or after being removed from memory, but at least it would remember what track I was on.

Update 10 Jan 2013

• Battery Life RevisitedThe battery is all over the place with this thing.  I will tweak things and it will be somewhat acceptable battery life and then it will start draining the battery over night.
• No Upgrade Option
  After searching I found there is an app call Keis and you have to set your device into Keis mode to use it.  Keis is a Samsung thing.  It is kind of like Itunes, in that it lets you manage the device and install updates if the manufacturer has them available.
  I installed everything, only to find they do not have an Android up grade for the Galaxy Player.
  I contacted Samsung and they confirmed that Gingerbread was the most recent version they have made available for that device.  When I asked them about plans to allow an update to something more current they said they did not know, but keep checking their web site.

Covert Affairs

This show has several good attributes, but several things that are holding it back.  Below are a couple pros and cons.

Pros

• Auggie
  There is something about the blind super agent.

Cons

• Untouchable
  Much like with 24, the main character, Annie, continually breaking the rules and coming out unscathed and at times with honors is wearing thin.
• Short Season and Long Off Season
  This season, season 3, we got 13 episodes that wrapped up by the end of November and then will not return for the next season until next summer.
  
  While I do enjoy that USA Network and other networks do their season so they run over the summer, instead of the traditional taking the summer off and having a big fall event to bring stuff back, the long break makes it hard to remember to go back to the show.  It also makes it difficult to remember what was happening when it does finally come back on.
  
  I believe my wife missed all of season 2 because she had no desire for the show after forgetting everything that was happening in Season 1.  I am not sure how we got back into it, but she has watched season 3, but has the same concerns that she will give up on it and not return for season 4 because it will be too stressful to not remember what was going on and too time consuming to watch episodes from season 3 again to refresh herself.

Overpriced Midas

I have had some weird electrical trouble with my van over the last year.  Finally it started to have trouble starting.  It would fail and then after trying several times it would start.  That behavior started to become more regular, so I took it into the local Midas.

Midas looked at it and found it was a bad starter.  They said that the total would be over $280.  Over $200 of that was the starter itself.  I had seen starters for between $65 and $100, so I asked them if I bought my own if they would install it for me.  They said sure.  I told them I would look around get back to them.

I went to a parts place near Midas and found the part I needed for under a hundred dollars.  I told the guy at the counter that I was having Midas install it and he told me that Midas usually buys parts from them and then marks them up.

I took the part over to Midas and they informed me that they charged more for labor when one brings in their own parts.  He said the labor was going to be $75 previously, but now it was $89.99.  That irritated me.  It doesn't take any more effort to install it and I did the leg work to get it and bring it in.

At this Midas location they are very cordial, but they are just too expensive.

I have two old vans and my daughter is driving and will likely need a used vehicle.  All of these will need some level of maintenance on a regular basis and I have no talent in doing it myself, so all of those repairs will be taken to a mechanic.  I will be taking no further repairs to Midas.

I will likely find a parts house that has a garage, so I pay the same price for parts as if I was doing the repair myself.  The business will still earn money on the parts and the labor and I won't have to pay the addition markup.

Applebee's 2 For $20

My wife and I went to Applebee's for her birthday.  We decided to try the 2 For $20 menu.  When we got there we found they also had a 2 For $24 menu.  We decided to stick with the 2 For $20 menu.

The premise of this deal is that it comes with a choice of five appetizers and two entrees from a list of 7 entrees all for $20.

We purchased the Crunchy Onion Rings.  They lived up to their name.  They were very crunchy.  I am still trying to figure out if I liked them better or worse than other onion rings I have had.

One good thing we noticed was that when biting into the rings the onion stayed in place.  Other onion rings we have eaten almost always had issues with the onion sliding around in the ring and frequently the onion either pulling out of the ring or the ring falling off of the onion.  Perhaps this was due to the crunchy nature of these rings.  The way the breading was bound to itself perhaps also bound it more firmly to the onion.  It could've also been because these onion rings were less greasy that others we have had.

One thing that displeased me about this appetizer was that the dipping sauce that came with them.  It was BBQ sauce.  I'm not sure that any BBQ sauce would be what I would've chosen for onion rings, but this stuff exceptionally bad.  It was dark, smokey BBQ sauce.

My wife had the Chicken Tenders Basket.  For an extra two dollars she could have upgraded to a platter which we were told would give more pieces of chicken, more french fries, and coleslaw.

I had the 7 ounce house sirloin.  The steak was good.  I chose to take a double order of french fries rather than some other form of potato or a mixed vegetable side.

1999 Dodge Grand Caravan vs 2003 Chevy Venture

We have had a 1999 Dodge Grand Caravan for many years. We did not buy it new, but it has served us for many years.


A couple of years ago we bought a 2003 Chevy Venture.


The Grand Caravan handles like a car. The Venture handles like a big truck.


Both vans have the option for 8 passenger seating. The Caravan came with a three seat bench in the third row and a two passenger bench in the second row. The two seats sit on the same width track, so they are interchangeable. We ended up getting a second three seat bench to increase the seating capacity to 8.


The Venture has a three seat bench in the third row and three single seats in the middle row. We generally have it with the middle of the three removed to have room for a cooler or whatever, unless we need eight seats. If we left in the middle seat we could fold it down and it has a couple of cup holders molded into its back that are accessible when it the fold down position. The single seats and then bench fit into different type tracks, so they are not interchangeable.


Both vans have power rear quarter windows. The Caravan has independent controls for each window. The Venture has one control for both windows. It is sometimes useful to be able to open one window if one child is hot and the other doesn't want the noise.


The Caravan's controls for the rear quarter windows are on the driver's door and is very handy for keeping your eyes on the road while opening or closing the windows. The Venture's controls are on a panel in a middle panel in the ceiling above the rear view mirror. You have to look up at the panel to open the windows, since all the other switches feel the same and the window switch is right next to an identical switch for the power sliding side door. The Caravan's switch is different from the other window switches and in a unique configuration.


The Venture has a power door, which can be handy, but an extra point of failure if anything went wrong. The Caravan has no power door.


The Venture keys come with a security chip in them. It prevents the van from starting if the chip is not present or functional. I tried to get a key made at Home Depot and they said they could not because of the chip and I would have to go to the dealer. All I needed was an emergency key to keep in my wallet to unlock the door if I lock my key in the van, but they would not. I went to the dealer thinking, as with anything at the dealer, it would cost 3 or 4 times more than at a hardware store or whatever. I went to the desk at the dealer and they said that the key would be $41. Home Depot charges between $1.50 and $2. I told the guy at the counter that he had to be joking and I would skip it. I don't need the security feature and there is no way to disable it. I am being charged a premium for a feature I do not want or need. My keys are wearing down and at some point I will have to pay for a new key. Why couldn't I just give him my chip from my existing key and let him create a new one and put that chip in it. I could then use the old key as the spare.

Update 11 Sep 2012
Venture fails me again
I was sitting idling with the radio on, waiting for my wife. After about twenty minutes I hear weird noises. I look up and the low battery and low fuel warnings are blinking alternating. I go to start the van and nothing happens.

I called a friend for a jump. While I waited I opened the hood and found no battery. I looked around and found what looked like a positive terminal coming out of the fuse block, which was sitting where battery should be. I could not find the negative terminal.

My friend successfully jumped it, even thought it took us some messing to get it to take a charge.

Yesterday I went to find a battery. Walmart usually installs for free, but it appeared they didn't carry that battery. I went over to Sam's club and they had it, but would not install it.

I went to Pep Boys and found that their cheapest battery was about 20 dollars more than at Sam's. Their charge to install a battery on a normal vehicle is 16 dollars. Because of the battery bring buried it was 40 to get it installed.

The final cost for this mess was about 160 dollars, just for a battery.

Update 2 Oct 2012
This post is kind of digressing into a rant about Pep Boys.  When it rained a week or so after having the battery replaced my wife turned on the wipers while driving down the road and a bunch of parts of the van flew out from under the wipers.  It appears as though Pep Boys didn't put the van back together and left parts laying under the wipers.

I figured since I paid for the install, rather than getting it free at Walmart or Sam's Clue, and paid more for the battery itself too, then I assumed I was getting a professional job.

Open Top Trash Can In Fast Food Restaurants

There are things that I am seeing more and more of that I think I am really liking.  Increasingly I am seeing trash cans in fast food restaurants that have openings at the top with no lids.  Usually you have to put a heavy flap out of the way that everyone's dirty hand have touched and probably the remains of their food.  It has always been disgusting to me.

The ones with holes on top are kind of like a counter, so they are easy to get your trash into and it is easy to clean off.

Trash cans are often the last thing you experience at a fast food place.  Making a good final experience for your customers, I think, is a great idea.

With an open whole there is no juggling the tray to try to get it in the trash door without touching the grimy door.  With the trash can with a door, I end up spending way too long in front of a filthy trash can.  The open whole trash can allows me to walk by it quickly, drop my trash, and be gone.  I'm wanting to leave and it does not hold me up from doing that.  I just had a meal and I don't want to feel like heaving it up while fighting with a smelly trash heap.

The Hunger Games

I was very much uninterested in The Hunger Games.  My daughter had read the book, The Hunger Games, and did not like it.  The premise of the children killing children seemed, to me, like a bad idea.

The movie ended up being somewhat interesting and it was over two hours long, which usually makes for decent time to develop characters and plot.  The movie was not long because it was developing characters and plot.  It was long because it was slow.  Everything seemed to have a pause between it.  The scenes.  The dialog.

Things that could've and shouldn't been developed with that extra time were not.  They ended up not explaining bits and pieces that would've made the movie make more sense.  It was as if they assumed that everyone that was watching the movie had read the book and would already know the things they were leaving out.

From talking to my daughter I learned that if you had read the book you would be frustrated because they scrambled the plot and characters in places.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Over the last few years my daughter and I have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation.  We finally have attacked it aggressively and are into season 6.  I thought at that point it might be a good point to introduce her to Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

After a few episodes of Deep Space 9 we got to talking about other Star Trek Series.  I mentioned that Star Trek: Enterprise starred Scott Bakula.  I watched all the seasons of Quantum Leap with my kids, so she was interested.

How could this show go wrong?  It is about the early days of the United Federation of Planets.  It stars Scott Bakula.  The filming quality is higher than most of the other Star Trek series.  This should've been a smashing success and yet it was a fizzle.

Right out of the gate they introduce a species we have never seen in any of the later series or movies called the Sulibon.  That leaves a bit of a continuity hole.  They also start in the first episode with time travel.  Time travel is either done really well and entertaining or terribly poorly.  It is much too risky in a series like this and indeed it was done poorly.

Bringing in time travel into a series that is supposed to be the basis for all of the existing Star Trek series seems like a bad idea and it appears that it was.  Perhaps if they had established the series first maybe they could've incorporated a story line with some time travel.

Samsung Refrigerator Model: RF263AEBP/XAA

I was told there were no issues with my model of Samsung refrigerator when it started making noises.  I turned it off for a little while to see if it just needed reset and the noise went away.  It then returned a month or so later.

Since that time I have seen several posts about this model and similar models of Samsung refrigerators and this same problem and having to entirely melt the ice one a year.


A year after we first got it we had the same problem.  They sent a repair man out, who took it apart and spent an hour with a hair dryer melting the ice.  The ice had even frozen so much that it plugged the drain hole, which made the problem worse.  It froze the hole, even though there was a heating element there to attempt to keep it clear.


The repair guy tried to guess what was causing it to do that and said that maybe it was getting too much sun, since it was a black fridge, making it run more than normal.

A year after he deiced it, maybe less, it started making noise again.  I called them up and I ask for a refund this time.  After talking to the guy at Lowe's about how bad Samsung fridge's had been at one time and him saying that he has started selling them again, I went ahead and got the same model, figuring time had passed and maybe they got the bugs out.

I had some extra money left, due to changes in prices since I bought it the first time, so I used that money to buy the 4 year extended warantee with a little extra money of my own.  Due to the refund/exchange and the warantee Lowe's couldn't figure out how to make it work and ended up giving me the warrantee for free.

Within a few months the change filter light came on and wouldn't reset and the ice maker stopped working.  They came out and replaced the ice maker, but the change filter light is still on.

The Avengers (2012)

My son and I went with some friends to see The Avengers last weekend.  I thought it had potential and had heard good things about it, but I still didn't have high hopes that they would develop the characters and it would just be explosions.

Some have pointed out that they had the previous movies to develop the characters, so there wasn't a big need for that.  Any time a character shows up in a movie, I feel like they should have some development.  Even more so when they were only just introduced in one movie.

There was a lot of unbelievability in what the presented, but they road the edge to where when I was beginning to say, "Not possible" they drew me back in and I ended up with, "That was awesome!"


It was great that the kept Captain America as a man from the 40s, a man of ethics and faith.  Not only did it make for a fantastic character, but also the juxtaposition with Tony Stark's playboy persona.


We got the idea that Tony Stark was a self absorbed womanizer without there having to be a bunch of bedroom scenes.  Yeah, there was a lot of stuff with Stark that was too edgy for me, but for the most part they communicated the character without having to get crude.


I did not have high hopes for the characters of Black Widow and Hawkeye, since there were just "ordinary" people.


The opening scene with Black Widow was awesome.  The surprise of it and comedy of it.  The build up as the viewer is trying to figure out what in the world is going on as much as the bad guy is.  Some of my surprise may have been because I forgot that she had been introduced as an intense weapon in Iron Man 2.  But even if I had remembered that Iron Man 2 did not play up that she was a manipulator as well as a superb fighter.


I was not thrilled with Hawkeye, but I think the positive things I can say about him was that I was not more disappointed with the character than I was when I went into it.  I even slightly enjoy some of the scenes with him in it.  I didn't like the mind control to the bad side through half the movie.  I didn't really like that for any of the people, even the one that weren't supposed to be "super".


My biggest complaints about Hulk in The Hulk movies was that he was just too big.  They either made him more realistically sized in this one or they just presented him well enough that I didn't have a chance to focus on it.  He still has to be one of the characters that violates the laws of physics the most, but again, it was presented well enough to mostly get me over it.


I'm just not buying that a being with that much mass of muscle is going to have much of a vertical leap.  I not buying that he is jumping through the air and a plane flying into him does change his trajectory.


I still think Loki is a weenie villain, but he was more tolerable in The Avengers than he was in Thor.


On the subject of Loki and Thor, I don't get the Demigod thing.  I had a friend say that the way they rendered their home world, Asgard, in a way that it looked like it was pulled right off the page of the comic book.  While I respect staying true to the source material, I hated the scenes on Asgard.




I would now like to compare The Avenger to the Transformers movies.

The Avengers was a great movie and they kept it clean for the most part.  The Transformers was full of foul language and vulgarity...and the movie stunk.

Both had huge explosions.

The Avengers developed the characters pretty well, even after having them all have movies of their own to develop them.  Transformers did next to no character development.

Transformers likely had a larger fan base than The Avengers because there had been cartoons on TV and such.  The Avengers characters were probably somewhat know due to their exposure on TV and lunch boxes, but as a team not well known and yet people are loving the movie.

Teen Wolf (2011)

I found the other day that the second season of Teen Wolf had started. While I still like the basic story, I think it is falling apart.

Most every woman and girl, even an older lady, is always in a mini skirt. It is a shallow script that relies on eye candy. On the same subject, the teenage sexual intimacy is a distraction to the plot.

I don't remember how the last season of Teen Wolf was, but so far this season the homosexual innuendos are frequent, unnecessary, and awkward.

The lizards are lame. I was following the werewolves and it was working when it stayed on plot.

Derek's character keeps flip flopping. It was great when he was trying to find out who killed his family and get answers about himself. Seeking for power as an alpha ruined it.

I am hoping Teen Wolf gets better, but some of these turns I fear are irreversible.

Tower Heist

I saw that this movie Tower Heist was on DVD and I started to look at the cast (Ben Sitller, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Judd Hirsch, Téa Leoni, and so on) and I was pretty excited.  I was also a little hesitant, since even though there is a ton of movies where Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller give an awesome clean performance, there is also a ton of movies where Eddie and Ben are non stop vulgar.  They don't appear to know how to give a performance outside of a kids movie without dropping to limited profane vocabulary.

In spite of the solid cast and what appeared to be a potentially decent premise they blew it.  Sentence after sentence if peppered with profanity.  Even if it is not morally wrong to be vulgar, it is weak script writing to spread profanity so thickly.  It got in the way of the story.

After 15 or 20 minutes into the movie I finally shut it off.  It was very disappointing, since I really had high hopes for this movie.

Heaven Is Waiting/Midway to Heaven

My wife read the book Midway to Heaven.  I started to read it with her after she was finished.  We liked the book.  She saw that there was a movie based on it called Heaven Is Waiting.  We rented it from Redbox.

First of all I'm confused.  Why the change of name?  Even IMDB.com is confused.  I went to look up the movie by the title of Heaven is Waiting and it did not find the movie based on Midway to Heaven.  When I typed in the name Midway to Heaven it showed me a box cover of the movie we watched that was titled Heaven is Waiting, but the box cover they showed on IMDB's site was Midway to Heaven.

All of the IMDB confusion aside.  The movie is still about the town Midway that is supposed to be beautiful and peaceful.  At the beginning of the movie they even introduce the town and say that the name of the town is rumored to be Midway because it is midway to Heaven.  The name change makes no sense, but this is just the tip of the ice burg.

The movie stripped out all the LDS references, even though it is still based in Utah.  The book is filled with LDS references and that is some of what makes the book unique and interesting.  Of course being LDS myself, I may enjoy and understand those references more than someone who is not LDS.

It not only removed the LDS references, but replaced them with protestant references.  It appears that they wanted to broaden the audience, but apparently they didn't want to broaden it too far.  They seem to be assuming that most people won't find the LDS scenes entertaining or won't understand them, but making the character protestant makes it to where everyone understands them better?

The one that stands out is the scene where he is speaking to a protestant preacher at the gas station and the protestant preacher is quizzing him about why he impersonated him to a college to ask about the guy his daughter is dating.  In the book he was called into his bishop's office and asked about his calling the boyfriend's bishop in another town to ask about him.  Not only is the scene more intense because someone called him in to talk about it, but this he could potentially lose his church membership over doing something like that on top of the fact that the person he was impersonating could press charges.  The preacher getting on him about it did have the option for legal matters, but there was no extra potential penalty for him.  Yes, I see there is awkwardness is anyone finding that out and maybe more so if it is your preacher, but it still seems a much lighter scene that with a bishop.

Additionally, after covering the issue of the impersonation the bishop talks with him about how he is doing.  How he is handling his wife's death and how he is handling his daughter growing up.  The preacher pretty much just laid out that he knew what he had done and Ned quickly disengaged the conversation.

Another LDS thing they removed that really had nothing to do with the church, other than location was the scene at temple square where he stalks a couple that looks like his daughter and then she catches him stalking.

I say they removed the scene only because they changed it so badly that it was not the same scene.  They changed from a beautiful scene at Christmas time with the lights on temple Square and the peacefulness of it to a bar.

They changed from him suspenseful stalking this young couple and having his daughter walk up behind him to barging into the bar like a raving lunatic shouting for his daughter and offending everyone around him.  This ties into my point earlier of the movie making Ned look crazy, rather than just in mourning.

The movie was too short.  Part of the issue with the movie being too short falls back to them cutting the movie apart to conceivably make it more palatable for non LDS people.  But even with chopping out the LDS stuff this movie could have been a lot better by just taking some more time to develop the plot.  Even though the book was a somewhat short novel, it still takes time.

Several of the scenes seemed really rushed.  To the point that if one hadn't read the book it would be hard to understand.  I think the scene in the kitchen was like that, but that scene had many of the problems I have previously discusses.  It made Ned look mean and the boyfriend look easily agitated and not infinitely patient like the boyfriend in the book.

They cut out several other things that were substantive points of the book.

They took out the golfing scenes with the boyfriend and the father.  They took out the running scenes with the boyfriend and the father.  As previously stated, the character of boyfriend was not near as "perfect" as in the book.  The father was much less passive aggressive in the movie and more directly confrontational.  The boyfriend was less forgiving and less giving the father the benefit of the doubt and more confrontational.  They kept putting the dad in situations where he would get caught talking to the dead wife.  I didn't get the feeling in the book that he was having a psychological break, but that he was just having a lot of trouble letting go.

I didn't get the impression from the book that Carol, the girl that was pursuing him, presented herself as if she knew she was pretty and could manipulate Ned with it.  I may be remembering wrong, but I seem to recall that the primary  weapon the women used on him was casseroles and the prospect that he would have to make contact with them again to return their dishes.

There were also less women presented as chasing.  They mentioned briefly that they had been, but part of taking a book and making it a movie is to visualize things that were just in words in the book.

The movie had potential just by being based on a good book, but it also had potential by what I could see of what was presented.  It appeared that there were talented people involved in the movie, but the length of the movie and the slashing parts of the book left it flat.