Disqus - Latest Comments for stark23x

Re: Eero Drops 3-Pack to $399 Permanently to Better Compete on Price ($100 Off)

JimK — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 22:00:53 -0000

Just replied to someone else on this. tl;dr: I effing love my Amplifi system.

Re: Eero Drops 3-Pack to $399 Permanently to Better Compete on Price ($100 Off)

JimK — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 21:59:52 -0000

I'm pretty tech inclined, but I opted for the Amplifi HD system for my house because 1) the price is very competitive and 2) you get the main unit and two extenders that just plug in to any outlet. All three pieces, at a cost many of the other systems were charging for just the main router and a single satellite.

You can get the whole thing up and running in minutes. But, if you are comfortable tweaking, it can be tweaked. I love the damn thing, and with the right internet connection, it's so fast. In fact, since I never upgraded my ethernet drops, my wifi is faster than my wired network now.

Re: Galaxy S8 Hype: These Samsung AMOLED Display Videos Might Give Us a Taste of the Near Future

JimK — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 14:33:55 -0000

Umm...I can turn off app shortcuts being on the curved edge of the screen and inadvertently activating? How, exactly, would I do that?

What I ended up doing was using Nova to add spaces to the dock and leaving them empty, as well as never having any icons near the edge. The curved edges are pretty...pretty useless.

Re: Galaxy S8 Hype: These Samsung AMOLED Display Videos Might Give Us a Taste of the Near Future

JimK — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 13:24:40 -0000

All I wanted in life was an S7 Edge. So I got one. And now all I wish in life was that I had gotten the flat S7. I've never seen a benefit from the slightly larger battery, and I have literally never used any of the Edge features. I thought I would. But I don't. I am, however, constantly annoyed by the inadvertent triggering of shortcuts or the dock if it's wrapped to the edge of the Edge.

*sigh* the grass is always greener...

Re: DEAL: Most of Anker’s Best Quick Charge Products Have Big Discounts at Amazon

JimK — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:14:25 -0000

I just returned the Anker fast wireless charging puck yesterday. It works, but with a single coil, and such a small target area, it's REALLY frustrating to use. Your phone has to be perfectly aligned for charging to start. That having been said, it did work, and fast charge. It's just super annoying to use.

Re: #TBT: Bugless Beast, the One and Only

JimK — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 20:42:19 -0000

My OG Droid still works and is running Bugless. :)

Re: Question of the Day: Why Don’t You Buy Nexus Phones?

JimK — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 19:42:28 -0000

Camera and screen. It's that simple.

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 20:47:31 -0000

I always found it to be overly complicated and not...I guess the word I'm looking for is granular? I much prefer the IFTTT way of doing things. Plus, I hated that it had to live on my phone. I was trying to eliminate the phone as a control device. And I didn't like the way it worked in the Alexa app.

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 16:59:33 -0000

While I agree there is a huge risk of Google dropping it, you're wrong about the "need." No one needs anything Google makes for the most part. We need access to a web browser and the search engine...but even then, others exist. We don't *need* anything this company does. We *want* it. We find ways to make cool stuff useful. My Echo has made automating every light, thermostat and even my door locks incredibly easy. Before the Echo I had 5 apps or worse, Yonomi. Now I just say what I want to happen out loud and a pleasant woman says "ok" and then makes it happen. So far, anything the Echo can't do, IFTTT has provided a way. It's all incredibly useful to me.

If Google can get there with Home...then people will find it useful.

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 16:55:03 -0000

You are making the case AGAINST getting in bed with this to me. The fact that you think people will need to buy google-branded stuff to get HA working is a bad thing, IMHO. Google abandons products. What am I supposed to do if they decide to compete in Home Automation, I buy in, and then they decide "screw it, there's no money in this?" I'm left holding hardware that, in all likelyhood, will be useless.

My larger point is, and remains, I will need to see Google commit to this, and for an extended period of time. This feels like Google TV all over again.

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 16:52:08 -0000

I can see that. I don't really use streaming music at home like, ever, so they'd get no data from me there.

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 16:01:30 -0000

That would certainly be cool, but widespread adoption of this thing is gonna rely on integrating it with a lot of existing products, and Home Automation is a big, big deal in this space. And you can't monetize it. Google has shown over and over that they lose interest and shelve projects that they can't tie in to AdWords. This makes me INCREDIBLY reticent to get involved with it. Hell, I'm already nervous about what they will do to Nest in a year or two if they can't turn it around, profitability-wise. I sunk a bunch of money into thermostats and Protects right as Google took over. Right now the future isn't looking stable...I'd be very wary of trying to re-do my HA setup with Google. At least I know Bezos is a lunatic who will never admit failure and keep the Echo system running forever just to prove a point.

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 15:50:55 -0000

OK. Because integrating the APIs of the dozens of HA systems that already exist won't require any middleman servers at Google to get them to talk to the Home setup. Nope. Everything will work by magic!

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 15:49:20 -0000

Surely you realize that this system will require some specialized servers, yes?

Re: Google Home is Official, Powered by Google Assistant, Available Later This Year

JimK — Wed, 18 May 2016 15:46:52 -0000

LOL. And when Google loses interest in a year because you can't monetize "OK Google, turn on my living room lights?" then what? WHen they announce they are shutting down the servers that power the system, then what?

Google has a proven track record of leaving users holding a lot of promises and not much else. It'll be years before I would trust swapping my HA system to a Google-powered system

Re: Verizon Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge Get Updates With Various “Improvements”

JimK — Fri, 06 May 2016 13:36:19 -0000

Optimizing apps now!

Re: Verizon Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge Get Updates With Various “Improvements”

JimK — Fri, 06 May 2016 11:11:05 -0000

Anyone actually *get* this update yet?

Re: The Motorola Keylink is Back.

JimK — Tue, 05 May 2015 22:25:46 -0000

My Keylink story: The battery died after 3 months. While I was driving. On the highway. I could not stop and pull over to get it off my keyring, pull it apart and remove the old battery. SO IT BEEPED FOR THE NEXT TEN MILES INTERMITTENTLY UNTIL I WAS READY TO CLAW MY EARS OUT WITH MY BARE HANDS.

I love it, but the battery life is truly terrible.

Re: Samsung Shows Off Impressive Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge Camera Features

JimK — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 19:36:37 -0000

S5 right now, either the stock camera or A Better Camera.

Re: Samsung Shows Off Impressive Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge Camera Features

JimK — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 11:33:37 -0000

I've been hearing for ever now that these cameras were going to be better in low light. And they have never improved. Well, the file size gets bigger, so I got that going for me.

Just once I'd like to see a test image of people in a dark bar with no flash. 80% of my phone camera use is trying to get something usable from gatherings in dark bars and theaters. If it was truly better I'd jump on an S6 in a heartbeat.

Re: Amazon Prime Instant Video FINALLY Comes to Android After All These Years

JimK — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 10:34:43 -0000

Doesn't work for me. Samsung Note Tab 10.1 2014, Amazon app is loaded, I side-loaded the apk, it installs and takes me to a screen telling me to install the Amazon app. I already have it. I hit continue, it open a web page, I choose the tablet app, it opens the one I already have. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Great job, Amazon. This is why we Netflix.

Re: Skully AR-1 Android Motorcycle Helmet Blows Past Funding Goal, Could be the Future

JimK — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:52:58 -0000

Have you never spent three hours in a shop trying helmet after helmet only to finally pick a high-end Arai or AGV or Shoei , get it home and find that the wind noise is unbearable and the helmet slaps your head around because of bad aerodynamics? And you can't see your gauges without moving your whole head down because the chin bar is so ridiculously large? One of my bikes has the gauges on the tank.

I think I've done that "get the expensive helmet home only to return it" thing at least twice, and quite literally every rider I know has a similar story about something that went wrong with an expensive (read: north of $400 up to over a grand!) helmet. I currently own 9 helmets collected over the years, seven of them before I found my modular full face I love (Nolan N44) and a shorty I can live with.

As for the safety factors...Consumer Reports regularly tests these things and releases charts. Cost is *never* the determining factor for which ones end up being the safest. It happens. Companies release crap that costs a fortune all the time.

Re: Skully AR-1 Android Motorcycle Helmet Blows Past Funding Goal, Could be the Future

JimK — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:43:53 -0000

Thanks for that! Nice to see more detail on the helmet, even if it was an early prototype.

Re: Skully AR-1 Android Motorcycle Helmet Blows Past Funding Goal, Could be the Future

JimK — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 11:16:01 -0000

I was into this from the get-go. Tried to get in the beta. Didn't.

The problem here is no one knows jack about the *helmet*. It's all about the tech. But a poor helmet, one that fits poorly, or has bad wind characteristics, etc...or worse, a poor field of vision...can really ruin your ride.

No one is talking about the helmet this incredibly expensive tech is jammed into. I've seen no review helmets out in the world. Why? They're taking pre-orders but they don't have a final production helmet to slap on one of the motorcycle journalists? They don't want a cover story on Cycle World or Motorcyclist?

Something tells me the tech is buggy and the helmet isn't great. And I want to see DOT/Snell crash reports. No way am I dropping that kind of money on a maybe. I paid less for my '93 XJ600 and that's a whole motorcycle.

Re: Deal: SanDisk Micro SD Cards Up to 76% Off at Amazon, 64GB for $36.95

JimK — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 17:21:32 -0000

Keith if your tablet is rooted, you can use one of these apps to enable SD access. They both work equally well.

https://play.google.com/sto...