Something Random

[MaxBurn]

Right you pretty much can't use it as a business model but frankly all I want to do is use it to unload stuff I don't want any more but still holds significant value so them taking about 25% of the value still nets me 75% more cash than just giving it away or dumping it. It's to the point now where I can't even do that any more, selling my iphone netted me about nine unique bidders and about six of them were new accounts and/or under 10 feedback. These aren't legitimate account, almost certainly scammers buying things with stolen credit cards. Only three of the bidders were in the us, that was a mistake to open it up world wide.

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p4340.l2565&rt=nc&item=150875590232

I have bought and sold some expensive things on ebay and it's just a shame to see it turn to crap. I don't want to use craigslist either, mainly because I don't want to meet the people on craigslist. Lately my best transactions have just been posting things on forums.

 

[Mercutio]

I've been trying to sell some of the Set top media center stuff I have sitting around. I can't find anyone trustworthy to sell it to.
Part of my problem is that I'm part of the Chicago metro area, which stretches all the way to Wisconsin. I had someone from Craigslist offer me $30 for a device I wanted $200 for, and then tell me that I'd have to drive nearly three hours to meet him if I wanted cash out of the deal.

My other favorite is the guy that showed up two and a half hours late to buy $50 worth of toner cartridges. Because that was totally worth my time.

 

[MaxBurn]

I tried out freecycle for a bit to unload some DVD players and VCRs and that opened up my eyes to the sort of people I don't want to be involved with. I thought things would be OK with no money involved but still was risky. There is clearly a need for this sort of thing. I wonder what it takes to be an amazon seller?

 

[Chewy509]

Re: ebay. I know a lot of people here is Aus, leaving eBay for other local services, due to fees, scams and people that you don't want to deal with. IIRC, most are switching to either TradingPost or GumTree especially if they don't want to deal with the auction model of selling.

 

[MaxBurn]

Odd use of a double domain suffix at tradingpost, maybe hoping to expand?

 

[MaxBurn]

On the other hand maybe it's just my trying to sell the number one stolen phone on the market that attracts this sort of people. Just sold my Nexus for $25 more than I bought it for, seller paid within minutes of winning and had 278 100% positive feedback.

 

[Handruin]

On the other hand maybe it's just my trying to sell the number one stolen phone on the market that attracts this sort of people. Just sold my Nexus for $25 more than I bought it for, seller paid within minutes of winning and had 278 100% positive feedback.

Didn't you just buy the Nexus? Why did you sell it already?

 

[CougTek]

Isn't that obvious? To make 25$ of course. Shhsshh! Some people have no sense for money.

 

[MaxBurn]

The nexus was for me a trial of what android is and where it is heading. I did look at the resale value of the nexus and saw that it was basically a no risk trial, so why not? If the thing had an sd slot it would have been almost perfect. So now I have a note and ics is ok but not nearly as good as jb.

Now my thoughts are that basicaly I don't get along with oled screens at all because of the crappy white levels which is ironic because I have a friend that hates lcd because of the bad black levels that I used to tease him about a bit. I can live with it though.

The big screen on the note is a solid meh, I could take it or leave it. Frankly 95% of the apps don't take advantage of it even with text set to very small.

I hope this thing gets 4.1 soon, the built in browser is far better. Right now I am typing this in notepad because the built in browser, dolphin and chrome all seem incapable of allowing me to simply edit text on the full site. I didn't notice that problem on the nexus and any of the iphones I had.

 

[MaxBurn]

For me the perfect phone would be a iPhone with a 4.5" ish standard aspect screen or a android device with jellybean and a 4.5" 720p LCD screen or better with minimum 40gb of memory and no crappy skin.

I have come to recognize only one of these will ever exist.

 

[time]

Your browser problem is a bit surprising. I'm typing this in desktop view on the standard 4.0 browser.
Any clues as ti how to reproduce it?

 

[time]

And this is from the desktop view in Chrome, also under Android 4.04. And now edited in mobile view. What am I missing?

 

[LunarMist]

For me the perfect phone would be a iPhone with a 4.5" ish standard aspect screen or a android device with jellybean and a 4.5" 720p LCD screen or better with minimum 40gb of memory and no crappy skin.

I have come to recognize only one of these will ever exist.

Throw in a removable battery and SD slot. Then it might be interesting.

 

[MaxBurn]

Throw in a removable battery and SD slot. Then it might be interesting.

Not bad things to have but for me not a must. SD only necessary when the phone doesn't have enough memory IMO and very few android phones seem to come with 64gb. If the battery can't make it through a day that would be an issue too but they do so not a problem.

Your browser problem is a bit surprising. I'm typing this in desktop view on the standard 4.0 browser.
Any clues as ti how to reproduce it?

It really was astonishing. Portrait mode using dolphin or native browser typing in the quick reply box on the desktop site. Type a long line so that it goes off the screen and the screen scrolls to the right, so far so good. But as soon as you try to place the cursor on text to edit the screen jumps all the way to the left at the start of the line. Can you see this video?

Chrome seems to work fine and I didn't notice this on the native browser in 4.1.

http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh157/scottjalbert/items/?action=view&current=Edit.mp4

The whole reason I have the other browsers is because of the native browser picture link behavior. If there is a picture with a click link, sometimes I want to view that picture in a new tab and sometimes I want to open the link in a new tab. For some reason it didn't show one of those options when I wanted it and one of the other browsers did. Again I don't remember this problem in 4.1 jellybean. IMO the jellybean native browser is orders of magnitude better than ICS.

 

[LunarMist]

Oh my. I suppose this should be in the mobiles thread.

 

[time]

Now my thoughts are that basicaly I don't get along with oled screens at all because of the crappy white levels which is ironic because I have a friend that hates lcd because of the bad black levels that I used to tease him about a bit. I can live with it though.

The Nexus has the dimmest OLED screen I've ever seen, even allowing for an overly-aggressive auto-brightness configuration. If you disable auto on the Note, it should be plenty bright enough - if you bear in mind that effective contrast is ultimately what defines limits on readability.

The big screen on the note is a solid meh, I could take it or leave it. Frankly 95% of the apps don't take advantage of it even with text set to very small.

This was one of the things that stopped me buying the Note. The extra width (800 pixels vs 720) didn't help at all with web pages because they tend to be organized in columns that fit into 720 pixels. Still an advantage when reading documents that don't reflow, though. I miss the easier to read bigger pixels, but I wanted a single device that I could slip into my pocket and take everywhere - IMO the Note works best with a belt clip.

I hope this thing gets 4.1 soon, the built in browser is far better. Right now I am typing this in notepad because the built in browser, dolphin and chrome all seem incapable of allowing me to simply edit text on the full site. I didn't notice that problem on the nexus and any of the iphones I had.

Well this is what confused me. Now that you've said that Chrome works okay, I'm no longer confused. AFAIK, Dolphin is based on the standard browser, so it doesn't surprise me that it has inherited a bug.

 

[time]

Portrait mode using dolphin or native browser typing in the quick reply box on the desktop site. Type a long line so that it goes off the screen and the screen scrolls to the right, so far so good. But as soon as you try to place the cursor on text to edit the screen jumps all the way to the left at the start of the line.

I did notice this, but it didn't stop me editing the text. When you tap anywhere in the active field, it scrolls to the start. But this doesn't affect the edit cursor, which can be moved left and right with impunity, and it doesn't stop you scrolling outside the input field or just scrolling back to where you were. Still a bug, obviously, but I don't really care because I normally use Chrome instead - I've never liked the standard Android browsers.

IMO the jellybean native browser is orders of magnitude better than ICS.

I've told you a million times: don't exaggerate.

 

[MaxBurn]

Oh my. I suppose this should be in the mobiles thread.

Yeah, append to the android thread? Sorry.

The extra width (800 pixels vs 720) didn't help at all with web pages because they tend to be organized in columns that fit into 720 pixels. Still an advantage when reading documents that don't reflow, though. I miss the easier to read bigger pixels, but I wanted a single device that I could slip into my pocket and take everywhere - IMO the Note works best with a belt clip.

I thought that the bigger screen helped mainly on web pages and email. Annoying that you can't zoom out on email beyond 100%, If I could zoom out to say 75% or 50% that would be so nice. Can do that on iPhone.

I did notice this, but it didn't stop me editing the text. When you tap anywhere in the active field, it scrolls to the start. But this doesn't affect the edit cursor, which can be moved left and right with impunity, and it doesn't stop you scrolling outside the input field or just scrolling back to where you were. Still a bug, obviously, but I don't really care because I normally use Chrome instead - I've never liked the standard Android browsers.

I am simply unable to tap and drag the cursor to fine position it, it will scroll left as soon as you grab the cursor positioning arrow. If you don't get it right the first tap you have to tap/scroll/tap/scroll/tap/scroll until you do tap in the EXACT right place. Also if you select some text and use the two handles as soon as you hold one of the handles it zooms left and selects a big group of text.

Worse once you grab one of the two handles and drag it to the edge of the screen to tell it you want to go further it won't scroll for you, you can go to the edge and no further.

Broken in android. Works fine on iOS 3.22 to current 5.1 that I experienced.

I've told you a million times: don't exaggerate.

Wish I hadn't sent the nexus out already, I fairly certain it did not have that scroll behavior but I can't check now. That text editing and the way it handles links and pictures in new tabs was a pretty huge thing to me. I was unable to use Safari on iOS until they sorted out the tap/hold and open in new tab behavior.

Web browser and email apps are the most important thing on a smart phone far as I am concerned.

 

[MaxBurn]

Oh, last thing that totally annoys me on android is the pinch to zoom doesn't center on where you are pinching to zoom. It centers it until you release your fingers and then it repositions the screen relative to top left so whatever you zoomed into is now likely off the screen. Re-frigging-tarded, works more like a gesture instead of pinch to zoom. This one likely a patent type thing I'm guessing, but in some apps it works fine. Others not so much. Maybe just K9 mail?

 

[Mercutio]

MaxBurn, have you experimented at all with different text input systems on Android? I like Swype and timwhit is fond of SwiftKey. You may find that one of the alternatives is better for your editing needs.

 

[time]

Annoying that you can't zoom out on email beyond 100%, If I could zoom out to say 75% or 50% that would be so nice. Can do that on iPhone.

Hmmm, that could actually make sense on a 5.3" screen, as opposed to the teeny iPhone screen.

I am simply unable to tap and drag the cursor to fine position it, it will scroll left as soon as you grab the cursor positioning arrow.

I think this is your main problem right here. Tomorrow, I'll check if that's a bug with Android 4.03, or with the Note's version of it (Ddrueding?).

Also if you select some text and use the two handles as soon as you hold one of the handles it zooms left and selects a big group of text.

Not here. As I said, I think everything stems from the first problem.

Worse once you grab one of the two handles and drag it to the edge of the screen to tell it you want to go further it won't scroll for you, you can go to the edge and no further.

Ditto. Doesn't really affect me though, because I can just scroll the screen, then move the handle - see first problem.

Oh, last thing that totally annoys me on android is the pinch to zoom doesn't center on where you are pinching to zoom.

I think that probably is just K9 (and Kaiten unfortunately). I suspect it's because the app is trying to reflow the zoomed text (or that's the impression I got anyway). Hadn't noticed before you pointed it out, because pinch to zoom works flawlessly with images, which is where I would notice it.

 

[timwhit]

MaxBurn, have you experimented at all with different text input systems on Android? I like Swype and timwhit is fond of SwiftKey. You may find that one of the alternatives is better for your editing needs.

I can't even use an Android device without SwiftKey.

 

[Mercutio]

I'll use whatever I'm given, but I like the layout of Swype best, even when I have to hunt-and-peck because I'm entering a lot of funny characters. Which is often, unfortunately.

Credit to time as well. I absolutely did not realize how god-awful the OEM mail clients for Android were until I had to deal with with the Samsung and Motorola "Email" programs that are supplied for non-google services. HTC's isn't bad at all (HTC's extensions in general are a lot of useful and functional than everyone else's). Motorola's is a barely-functional abortion. Anyway, I've been moving people to K9 which does seem to help a lot.

 

[ddrueding]

Haven't picked up a Note yet, still loving the SIII...and these problems don't happen.

 

[MaxBurn]

I think this is your main problem right here. Tomorrow, I'll check if that's a bug with Android 4.03, or with the Note's version of it (Ddrueding?).

Not here. As I said, I think everything stems from the first problem.

My note is on 4.0.4 stock. I think you are right.

I think that probably is just K9 (and Kaiten unfortunately). I suspect it's because the app is trying to reflow the zoomed text (or that's the impression I got anyway). Hadn't noticed before you pointed it out, because pinch to zoom works flawlessly with images, which is where I would notice it.

I was wrong I thought it was in other apps too but I can't find one other that does it. Annoying but nice that it is a contained error.

I can't even use an Android device without SwiftKey.

I have a mandatory blackberry and I learned to portrait mode thumb type on that, it came surprisingly naturally to me for some weird reason. So I did that on the iphone and now the android and the thumb type keyboard on the ipad. I can type quick enough so that the android key buzzer can't keep up sometimes.

Haven't picked up a Note yet, still loving the SIII...and these problems don't happen.

They very well could be limited to this device. Maybe I can blame it on this version of touchwiz.

Now that I know I don't like OLED so much I glanced around and noticed this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Xperia_acro_S
Several on ebay now but no real good reviews.
By far the coolest part of android is the variety in handsets.

 

[MaxBurn]

Dawn that was fast, I bet the appeals come in with record time as well.

 

[LunarMist]

What is so appealing, the display?

 

[sdbardwick]

I think MaxBurn is referring to the Apple vs. Samsung verdict.

 

[LunarMist]

What verdicts?

 

[sdbardwick]

This one.

 

[LunarMist]

Does not sound good. I suppose the phones will be more expensive.

 

[MaxBurn]

US Census again, I can't believe this.

 

[LunarMist]

Interesting. We only have that every ten years here, so I won't be doing that again.

 

[ddrueding]

Indeed. Apple was tired of having the Apple tax only apply to people who actually bought Apple products. They have now found a way to tax everyone in the industry.

 

[mubs]

Lunar, you must work for the CIA; you're the master of obfuscation. All along thoughht you lived in S. CA, now you say "over here" as though you don;t live in the U.S.

 

[time]

I think that was just a lunarism. He's saying with the disease that he has, there's no chance of him being around in another 10 years.

I for one will miss him badly. But I assume he doesn't want to be treated differently because of his mortality. After my experience a year ago, I realize I could drop dead tomorrow. Or I might make it to the next census, or even the one after that if the doctors are completely wrong.

C'est la vie. Cheers.

 

[mubs]

I don't think Lunar meant what you're saying. Note that maxburn is in the U.S. as well, so it is odd that Lunar acts like he's not in the USA.

Well, there's more to it all than doctors. My f-i-l was suddenly diagnosed with stomach cancer, had major surgery to remove the tumor and most of the stomach as well. He's 80, but in otherwise good health; no diabetes, no hypertension, no cholesterol, not even cataracts in the eyes. He opted to skip chemo and try an alternative - ayurvedic treatment from a guy with an awesome track record. We'll see how it goes.

 

[LunarMist]

Lunar, you must work for the CIA; you're the master of obfuscation. All along thoughht you lived in S. CA, now you say "over here" as though you don;t live in the U.S.

Hardly. I mean that in most states the census is every ten years. I don't live in NH, so I have no idea why they have a census in 2012.

 

[mubs]

Hmmm. I thought it was the Federal Govt., not the State Govt. that did undertook the census.

 

[MaxBurn]

I got selected to participate in some sort of an extended evaluation. I did the mail in questionioneer last year and they followed that up with a 20 minute interview in my home, and they followed that up with four months of harassing calls. It was around the second month that I told this is enough and they could stop calling me now but they didn't. I thought the whole thing was over but apparently not and they want to do the whole thing again this year. Blocking the guys phone number in Google voice was passive aggressive, but I hope he got the message when I closed the door in his face this time. If you search U.S. Census Bureau harassment you get some interesting results but most of those people didn't answer anything at all. I answered them more than enough in my opinion and I want it to end.