cellio: (avatar)
Monica ([personal profile] cellio) wrote2012-09-23 04:26 pm
Entry tags:

tablet

I'm typing this from my new Android tablet -- an ASUS Transformer with keyboard dock. It's quite spiffy! (And a well-timed gift, as I was still cogitating over my dead iBook.)

It works well as a tablet -- nice display, the apps work the way I expect, and it didn't take too long to figure out some of the interface quirks (which may be real or may be signs that I've used an iPad). The on-screen keyboard is "fat"; I don't know how else to describe it, but it works (and, not surprisingly, with better accuracy than my phone). The hardware keyboard is of course smaller than a conventional one, so currently I'm making lots of typos but I'm touch-typing. The keys are closer together than I'm used to and it feels like I'm hitting them harder than I'm used to, particularly the keys toward the edges (that are less likely to be struck "straight on"). I'm still faster with the hardware keyboard than the on-screen one, though, and it doesn't take up half the screen. So, bottom line, when I want to do extensive typing I can slip it into the dock, and otherwise its a nice 10" tablet.

Please feel free to tell me about all your favorite Android apps. I have an Android phone so I know a few, but tablets and phones are different.

Good news: somebody has ported emacs to Android and it's in the store (free). Bad news: it seg-faults for me on start. It's a known problem but the suggested work-around didn't for me. I've contacted the author.

The dock provides a USB port and there's a file-browser app. This is very promising.

How in the world do I get the Google+ web site to let me use the regular, not mobile, site? I know there's an app but I don't like it; the web site is just fine with the real-estate available on a tablet. But when I try to use it it forces me into the mobile version, which isn't as good. (Not as bad as the app, but not as good as it could be.)

The previous paragraph might describe a specific symptom of a more-general problem. General solutions also welcome. :-) (Stack Exchange, by way of contrast, uses the mobile site on my phone but the regular one on the tablet, so it's not as simple as checking for mobile devices.)

There are two browsers pre-installed, "browser" and Chrome. I wonder why. I wonder what "browser" is.

LJ oddity: I'm typing this using the (regular) web site, not an app, and when typing this text is a smaller variable-width font. When focus is elsewhere (like when I typed the tags), it changes to a larger fixed-width font (Courier, I assume). I want that all the time! (This is the HTML editor, not the rich-text one.)

I'm not very good at finger-based cursor placement yet. I wonder what typos Ive introduced while editing. :-)

More to come as I use it more, I'm sure.

[identity profile] alienor.livejournal.com 2012-09-24 02:09 pm (UTC)(link)
- (Phone:) grocery list. I've tested out a couple different apps for this but they want to organize my list for me. My paper list is ordered by sequence in the store; I want to preserve that concept. Ideally it will also store common items so I can just indicate "need more X" instead of typing it in again.

We use Cozi for this. It has a calendar and a bunch of other features, but we only use the shopping lists.

The information is sync'ed across multiple devices and multiple people, so I can enter a few groceries on my desktop at work and N can load it on his phone to pick up on his way home.

You can set up multiple shopping lists (say, one for grocery and one for home improvement).

I'm pretty sure that you can drag and drop to reorder stuff on the list, at least on the website (I don't enter data on the phone because I get annoyed at finger typing).

It does save stuff you've typed in before, ish. If you've typed in "Eggs" previously, then when you start to type it'll show you entries that started with E, then EG, etc. You can select your item as soon as you see it appear.

There's a free (paid for by ads) version, and a paid (ad free) version available.