Julie Barrett is a freelance writer and photographer based in Plano, TX.

Monday Mumblings tries to return to whatever pasees for normal around here

Fresh when it gets here from Julie Barrett
Monday, September 27, 2010


I never expected it would take me all of a week to recover from FenCon. It wasn't just the physical activity, but coming down from the mental stress of it all. We have a great team of folks who make FenCon an amazing event. However, as chair the buck stops with me. And it's a task I take seriously.

Now it's time to ramp my brain back up for real work. I'm going to try very hard to write a journal entry most weekdays - as much a writing exercise as anything else.

The desk is still mostly clean - save for a box. From a cell phone. Paul bought me a new phone for my birthday. Last week's rant was sort of tangential to this purchase, I suppose. I'll be keeping an eye on my 30-day return date. If there's no whiff of a Froyo update, I'll have to seriously consider a return.

As a matter of fact, I did take the Android phone plunge. As per last week's rant, I have a phone that was abandoned less than a year after purchase. The carrier grudgingly provided an update to Windows Mobile 6.5 months after everyone else had it (I bought the phone as an OS upgrade and was darned upset that I paid a premium for the privilege of using the same crappy software for six months.), then Microsoft went back on its promise that the phone was compatible with Window 7. Why? Because it's incompatible with their new walled garden policy. The phone's SD card is swappable, and they decided that four buttons on the front is TOO DAMN MANY.

As much as I'm not a fan of Linux as a desktop OS, I've still become enamored with Android, as it's still open. People can create applications that don't have to be approved by some arbitrary standards. The downside? Yep, there are security risks, and you have to go through 1200 apps designed to show topless pictures of women to get to the good stuff in the marketplace. The latter is particularly frustrating. However, the various Android communities are a good resource for learning which apps are useful. And I suppose once I get better at searching the Marketplace I'll find more useful apps.

And while I'm taking the time to decompress (still) this week, I may actually try my hand at Android development. I'm fairly certain that whatever I come up with will be crap. Okay, it won't be pictures of topless women. ;-) But hey, I'll be expanding my horizons, learning new things, finding new ways to bang my head against the desk!

Oh, I suppose you want to know about the phone. It's a Samsung Epic, as discussed in the aforementioned rant. It needs an update to Android 2.2 Oh, 2.1 is useful, but I'm looking forward to Flash and other support in Froyo. And oh, yes: The AMOLED display is amazing.

So it's back to laundry for me. Happy Monday...


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