Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

About 2 months ago at work we switched from our Panasonic Toughbook Windows tablets to Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Android tablets. Although I didn't mean to test it, I'm surprised at how tough they actually are. Accidentally dropped it on the road and a tractor drove right over it (it was in a case but just a simple plastic back, rubber sides and thin plastic screen protector) and although it's mangled it still works. You can even see the V-shape of the tractor tyre profile in the screen.

When I looked at the state of the thing after removing it from its case to swap the SIM over to the new one, I was even more surprised it still works.
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So this past weekend I set up the balcony PV with nice Chinese micro inverter… and since that thing doesn’t communicate via wifi but on a proprietary 868 Lora something, I had to do some fiddling in order to avoid the „official“ dongle and China cloud that comes with it.
Some 15€ later, I have an ESP32, a weird 868MHz dev board, a few wires… and can actually flash an open source thingamajig straight from the browser (wtf?). It even worked and booted up straight away, but the communication didn’t work. After a bunch of reading up and checking I find out: one of the dev board pins isn’t actually connected to the chip - there’s a disconnect in the pcb somewhere. So i had to solder the bloody cable straight to the chip… which also worked out. And I got data!
Wohoo!
Anyway, the setup of 4 vertical and one near horizontal 400Wp panels seems to have got me 8.5 kWh for the day - which is wild! I would’ve expected like 2/3 of that, maybe, and not even have been mad if it’d been half! Yay to that!
Also check out my super professional junction box bodge 👌 yeahhhh
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Well, today I proved the durability of the Gigaset GX4 that ist my Work Phone.

Dropped it in a tub of fuel oil. Dried it Off and its working fine. Yay.
 
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Ah the speaker for music and ringtone is messed up, it’s reduced in volume but that seems to be it, still charges. :)
 
93Flareside said:
Ah the speaker for music and ringtone is messed up, it’s reduced in volume but that seems to be it, still charges. :)
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Set the ringer to "somewhere beyond the sea" and you can imagine it's music coming from Rapture. Impressive that it survived an oil dunking that well. I suppose maybe it won't rust now if it was ever going to.

While I remember, Windows 11 ate my desktop this morning when I booted it up. All the normal icons including Teams and my work RDP link were gone. There was a second Desktop folder in my C:\User\X\Desktop folder with nothing in. Moved them over and all was fine but that was really odd. I'll blame a Windows update.
 
I've had that happen with 10. An immediate reboot self-corrected the issue.
 
NecroJoe said:
I've had that happen with 10. An immediate reboot self-corrected the issue.
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Interesting, similar like the old XP issue where it created a temp profile but after a reboot it would be fine. Of the hundreds of W10 machines I've used though I've never seen one with this issue before. Strange.
 
From the nation that still uses fax machines on a regular basis.
 
93Flareside said:
Ah the speaker for music and ringtone is messed up, it’s reduced in volume but that seems to be it, still charges. :)
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Could be gunked up with oil, flushing with a mild solvent might help dilute the oil and get more of it out.
 
Adunaphel said:
Could be gunked up with oil, flushing with a mild solvent might help dilute the oil and get more of it out.
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Mild… like water or some sort of basic degreaser?
 
Windex comes to mind
 
You need a solvent that breaks down oil, I use kerosene for motorcycle chains because it doesn't damage paint, gaskets, o-rings, or plastic. It's been a long time since high school chemistry, but I think oils are non-polar and water is polar - that's why the two don't mix. Soap manages to do both, it will bond to polar on one side and non-polar on the other side.

To break down oils, you need a non-polar solvent - that usually means a lighter oil product - preferably one that is volatile and will flush out the gunk, then evaporate without leaving residue.
 
93Flareside said:
Well, today I proved the durability of the Gigaset GX4 that ist my Work Phone.

Dropped it in a tub of fuel oil. Dried it Off and its working fine. Yay.
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Gigaset used to be a brand for cordless phones, Siemens Gigaset. I guess they're making Android phones now. It even says Made in Germany so I guess they aren't just rebranded Chinesium.
 
I was hoping Apple would give me ANY reason to retire my Apple Watch s4 today… but nope. Not even the rumored darker color ultra… meh. I am disappoint.
 
I admit I'm not an Apple person, but I really don't get why so many people get hyped up for the next new Apple products. To me it looks like the difference between the old and new iPhone seems to get smaller and smaller with every new one coming out, but still people line up to be the first ones to own the new iPhone.
But then again, iPhone or not I don't understand most people who buy 750euro+ phones (and then only use it for calling, taking pictures, browsing the internet and social media).
 
kalf said:
To me it looks like the difference between the old and new iPhone seems to get smaller and smaller with every new one coming out
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Yup, pretty much.* I have zero desire to make the switch from my 2yo phone and, as you can see from my post above, there is currently also nothing (ok ok: very little, not enough) to lure me away from my now 5yo watch even!

* I’d argue the entire smartphone industry is guilty of that, though. Apple just seems to have a special kind of fandom…

kalf said:
iPhone or not I don't understand most people who buy 750euro+ phones (and then only use it for calling, taking pictures, browsing the internet and social media).
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I used to be in the „300€ is plenty for a phone!“ but then my thoughts changed a bit: it’s the device that I use most, by far. I’m willing to spend a premium simply for a nicer feel in my hand, or (now that I’ve experienced it) a nicer and faster display. Simply because it makes even the rather mundane uses I put the device to (and which I really don’t need all the power for) just a little bit better. But that little bit adds up, over the countless hours that I spend with the thing.

Also: who the f still does calls on their phone? 🙈🤣
 
I haven't seen the latest on the iPhone or the pricing, but up to now I've been planning to replace my 3 year old iPhone 12 Pro Max with the 15 Pro.

Reason #1 - it's out of storage space. I keep all of the photos I've ever taken with a smartphone on iCloud, along with some videos and a fair few galleries of photos taken with the DSLR. I want them with me. I pay for the 2TB, but the phone is only 256GB and right now it's at it's bursting point. I keep everything in full resolution because I'm not prepared to wait for it to download them, plus since moving to the 12 Pro Max the sync with Windows has been shit and I have to use PhotoSync.

I'll either get the 512GB or 1TB. Probably the 512GB, in the hope that the sync is sorted and with increasingly fast mobile internet I don't need everything in full-res.

Reason #2 - better camera. The camera on this phone is great but I've had flagship phones ever since I started and the reason is that if I'm carrying it around with me I want the photos to be as good as is reasonably possible, so they're decent in 10 years time. I've just been going through and updating a load of my old car thread with new image URLs (story for another time) and they hold up pretty well. The new iPhone has a better camera and since the 14 the telephoto has been made better, I often use it and I would like better photos.

Videos don't quite matter as much as we're pretty much at a 4K60 ceiling at the moment for everything, but an improvement is welcome.

Reason #3 - I want a smaller phone again. The 12 Pro Max has been fine but it falls out of my pocket in the MX-5, it's technically too big for the charging dock it sits on, it's way to easy to knock off when it's mounted in the MX-5 and it doesn't fit in the Sony head unit I bought.

I should point out that I don't care about USB-C, as mentioned in New Toys I haven't plugged a lightning cable into this thing for years.
 
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