Column : To the fanboys : Be free.
Feb 23So here’s to the fanboys.
At the end of switch week, where we gave you a series of articles on how to “move out” of the Apple walled garden and onto a more open and cross platform plain, its time for a good old fashion rant against all brand fanboys. Knightwise.com is a website whose core belief is in a cross platform technology world. We are geared towards those who do not acknowledge the word ‘OR’ when it comes to the choice between one technological solution versus the other. As a result our audience consists of smart people who centre their technological lifestyle around their own needs and believe that multiple brands, operating systems, devices and technological solutions can make up their techno-space. Thus I have the privilege of interacting with a broad scope communities spread out over a wide range of operating systems, platforms and brands. Needless to say : Not all members of those community have the same broad-minded approach to a cross platform lifestyle. To each his own I say .. but next time you encounter one of those people, you might want to steal a couple of random thoughts that I have in my head when I encounter .. the fanboys.
To those who have one option on their multiple choice shopping list. (The Mono-Choosers)
Dear Apple/Samsung/Hp/Lenovo/Linux/… enthusiast who ONLY buys one specific brand or vouches to buy/use NOTHING ELSE in the future.
First of all : I applaud you. For your loyalty, your consistency and your ability to see into the future. As I patiently hear you wax nostalgically about the first time you bought a product from brand X it reminds me of people who have just encountered a near death experience. Whatever happened at the checkout counter of that store when you purchased your first product of brand X, must have clearly overshadowed all other milestones in your life. Forget the miraculous birth of your first born on the hard shoulder of the snowed in free way, never mind the day you met the love of your life and lets not start about the day you got married. They all pale in comparison to that life changing moment where an everlasting bond was forged between you and your favourite brand. Ever since you have answered every possible technological question with a product from your favourite brand. Never mind if it would actually do what you wanted it to do or required 15 workarounds : You chose your brand for there is nothing better ! I admire your skill of doing a broad market analyses of all competing products and (seemingly at the speed of light) reach the conclusion that they all suck donkey balls in comparison to ‘your precious’. But not only am I bedazzled by your loyalty (you buy EVERYTHING product X produces whether or not you use/need it) and your ability to declare product/brand X victorious over everything else in a flash .. there is more : You appear to be a visionary who can clearly see into a fast moving industries future as you prophesize that you ” Will never need buy anything else ” then product/brand X because it is and will always be superior. I kneel down before you in pure admiration and point you towards the high spires of wall street .. for your vision of the market is the one true vision and should inspire all stockbrokers to buy all the stocks of your product X. Since your unwavering devotion in purchasing it, your assessment of its superiority and your visions of its ever ruling victory .. shall lead them all to infinite wealth.
To those who who post crap about any other operating system/brand/product aside from their own. (The Rediculators)
To those who think that a wallpaper of a Penguin peeing on a Windows logo is cool. For those of you who love to compare unfounded arguments about the vulnerability of operating system X with equally unfounded arguments about total and complete stability/security of your system of choice. To those who still feel the urge to snicker like 10 year olds when saying “Winblows” and to the others equally juvenile. I wish I could call you Trolls. Trolls troll the internet (that’s why we call them trolls) with one purpose : To piss people off for the sheer joy of it. With you it is different. Your attempts at brand/product/system propaganda remind us of our days in kindergarten where witty wordplay like ‘Knightwise – Sheitwise’ was still considered the absolute pinnacle in classroom politics. I resist the urge to ask you if you ever CONSIDERED using/investigating the ‘competition’. I am afraid you will make funny posters of me being sodomised by your favourite brands avatar.
To those who turn it into a religion. (The Flock)
I resist the urge to vomit when I hear that you have spent a whole day of your holiday overseas to visit the “store” of your favourite brand in city XYZ. I’m puzzled what you would actually DO there since you have already purchased every possible item of brand X a long time ago. Clearly a sceptical visit to the store with the intention of possibly buying or comparing a product was not on your agenda. To me it seemed like it was more of a religious experience. As you dribble enthusiastically about brand/platform X, I classify your as a “mono-chooser” (see rant above) and forgo the urge to argue. Your enthusiasm however does not end there. Mere (distorted) reality is just a stepping stone for your next enthusiastic rant about the near divinity of your products creator. History always agrees with the victors but your view on the past history of your favourite brand seems to be very very much tainted in its favour. While your face starts to flush red, your tirade seems to become that of a TV-preacher on a Sunday morning. The drops of your spittle lash out as you condemn all non-consumers of your beloved brand to digital purgatory. You scare me as you swing your devoted product around in your right hand like some kind of holy scripture. Desperate not to see you have a cardiac arrest halfway through your sermon, I raise my finger and try to point out that “It’s a store : not a church. Its a product, not a religion”‘. Your eyes narrow and I can clearly smell that fire and brimstone is upon me. The last words I can comprehend are “Blasphemy” and “Non-believer” before I escape into the digital atheism called ‘freedom of choice’.
To those who think technology is fashion. (The Cattle)
Remember the 90’s ? When you walked around in those cool buffalo shoes with the platform soles ? Yes : You looked like a total idiot and nearly broke your neck while rushing downstairs to open the front door .. but you were cool .. right ? Its good to see you have not changed and still run along happily with the herd. Now you clutch your phone/laptop/tablet from brand X to your chest not as a result of an informed decision but rather because “all the cool kids have them”. Aside from playing Flappy bird your expensive smartphone has no specific purpose aside from sending text messages. You still have your default out-of-the-box ringtones and the option to turn of keyboard sounds appears to elude you. In short : You are not in touch with the technology you own for you see it only as a fashion accessory. The 1500 dollar Facebook machine you call a laptop has not even spiked above 10% cpu usage but it DOES gets you in line with all the cool kids at Starbucks. Fashion is however fickle and pretty soon the cool crowd will move to another brand/product/platform and then the geeks will have their sweet revenge. I predict you will need to offload your overpowered machine onto craigslist and get a ridiculously low offer. I also know that you will take it : Because the followers of fashion don’t know anything about the technology they are using.. even if their life depended on it. Fools and their money must be parted.
To those who don’t have a clue. (The Clueless)
My heart bleeds as I see you browse the shelves of the local department store. Your eyes glazed over as you look upon rows and rows of boxes of all the different brands and products that make up the world of consumer technology today. You are out shopping for your first smartphone because you accidentally dropped your Nokia 3220 on the sidewalk yesterday. Construction workers are currently patching up the massive hole in said sidewalk (your Nokia is fine) and you still need to find a new smartphone. Brands, specifications, screensizes … it could have been written in Klingon for all you care. You do not have a clue.. but at least .. you have a choice.
To those with a brain.
What those who are clueless and what those who are ‘in the know’ have in common is this : You have the freedom of choice. Try to see yourself, your requirements, your personal taste and your budget as the very pinnacle of your technological existence. You are wise (or ignorant) enough to realise that you can choose anything you want to. You choose with your dollars and let brands and products fight and compete for the highest amount of value for the lowest price. You have no shame to switch back from an Android phone to a Windows Tablet. You even have been known to mix it up. To find technological solutions across different brands and platforms and integrate them in your life. You have come to the point that your terms are not dicated by brands or advertising .. you make your own choice to a a “cross platform geek” who loves to slide from brand to brand and from OS to OS. You have a choice .. and you are smart. (and that is exactly why you are reading this blog 🙂 )
Related Posts
Guestblogger week : How I “Survived” on Android : The app list.
Feb 13Its guestblogger week on Knightwise.com and today Cody Cooper , Co-host of the “Linux for the rest of us” podcast and all around nice guy, tells us how he ditched his desktop and survived on Android Only.
How I survived on Android.
Would you consider using ONLY your mobile device for a whole day? For all of your computing needs? How about a week? Or a month? With the right amount of preparation and gear most of us COULD do, but would we want to? Wouldn’t that be HARD?
Imagine this: a snow storm hits and you’re forced to stay in the town you work because all of the roads leading home are closed. For four days. That was the situation I found myself in. I realise that this is far from the worst situation that one could find themselves in, but here is how I “survived” with my trusty HTC One. The Android in my pocket.
I was lucky enough to have a sister that lived nearby that agreed to let me stay with her family during the storm. This gave me relief in the fact that when I wasn’t running a downtown business during the day I would have a place to go to at night. More importantly a place with internet access, a computer and beer.
Nowadays I’m a little more cautious about using open WiFi and just any computer for my day to day needs, my attempt to be a more responsible and careful technology user. The only machine at her house that I was available to me was her Toshiba laptop… running Windows Vista. I would post a photo of her desktop for fun, but I want you to finish this article and not pass out.
As Knightwise reads this, he says to himself, “But Cody, you’re a Linux user! Just use a Live CD or bootable USB stick to make that technology work for you!”
No optical media in the house and the only USB stick was an old Memorex 128mb… which only read as a 34mb drive! It was used for “backing up over the years”. The nearest store was stripped bare of these devices as well, because we all know that in case of a storm the very first thing you should do is run to the local store and buy up all of the storage media you can. To this day I don’t think I’ve screamed the F-word in a public place as I did that day.
So, here is a list of Android applications that helped me keep my sanity during this “rough” situation.
1) Writer
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jamesmc.writer
This is a very nice minimalist word processor that I hadn’t used before. It was a pleasure to use this app as a means of taking notes throughout the day, keeping up on my writing and creating this blogpost.
NOTE – The one extra piece of “tech” that I had in my car aside from my phone charger was an OTG cable, which allowed me hook up a full-sized keyboard to my phone.
2) Pocket
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideashower.readitlater.pro
For those of you who seem to want to bookmark everything yet find it hard to read anything you have to try Pocket. With an extension available for just about every browser (desktop and mobile) you don’t have worry about bookmarking that article, just put in your Pocket and “read it later” anywhere you want. Having all of these articles that I had saved over the past months helped pass the time and I’m very happy I had these available.
3) Firefox Mobile + HTTPS Everywhere
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/making-the-mobile-web-safer-with-https-everywhere
The safe browser plug-in HTTPS Everywhere was made available for my favorite mobile browser on the day I got stuck in the snow. Coincidence of the EFF coming to my rescue and providing me a safer browsing experience? You decide?
4) Pomodroido
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.artifix.pomodroido.free
This Pomodoro timer is essential for me to get anything done. A great way to keep you on track with tasks and make sure you take your breaks.
5) Camscanner Pro + Docusign Ink
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intsig.camscanner
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.docusign.ink
I always like get my taxes done ASAP. It was during this time that I had collected all of my financial documents to take to my tax preparer and then I got stuck in the snow. Using these two apps (and PGP encryted e-mail) I was able to digitally scan my documents and send them to my tax preparer, then sign the digital documents and send them back. Who needs a fax machine? This is the 21st century!
6) Doggcatcher
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snoggdoggler.android.applications.doggcatcher.v1_0
My mobile entertainment source for years. Many podcatchers come and go, but this one holds a special place in my heart with it’s simple and clean interface. I’ve tried all the rest, but I still go back to “DC” when I need to get caught up on my podcasts.
7) Voxer
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rebelvox.voxer
This is the one app that I can honestly say I use everyday. Think of it as a digital walkie-talkie that you can use to have a conversation througout the day with someone, or a large group of people. This app has single handedly kept me in touch with my friends around the world whether it be collaboration on projects or just to keep in touch. You can also send text and photos during Voxer chat.
8) Flappy Bird
Just kidding!
9) Aldiko
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aldiko.android
My ebook of choice. This very versatile app will read a variety of formats and provide you with a nice interface with which to navigate your digital library.
10) Archos Video
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.archos.mediacenter.videofree
This app gave me a great interface to watch video that I had saved in the cloud. Very clean interface that gets better with every release. I knew stockpiling those Hak5 episodes in my Dropbox account would pay off someday!
One would assume I would have had a camera app, or a weather app but I tend to treat the outdoors like my ex-girlfriends: Avoid contact at all cost!
In a future post I would like to share with you my new EDC Bag filled with all my tech goodies that will help me “survive” a bit longer next time as well as some other Android tools that you can use away from home.
About Cody.
Cody Cooper is a tech enthusiast, advocate for The Accessible Computing Foundation (www.theacf.co) and podcaster who co-hosts “Linux for the Rest of Us” on the Podnutz Network (www.podnutz.com) He enjoys food, beer and preparing for his childrens future with technology. Please contact him on Google+ or by sending an e-mail to cody@podnutz.com
Related Posts
Guestblogger week : Connecting your Android to the ICloud.
Feb 11It’s Guestblogger week on Knightwise.com where we have our community members give you their best hacks tips and tweaks for cross platform geeks. Today we are very happy to announce guestblogger Kevin who does a magnificent writeup on the state of Apple AND how to “slide” down from your iCloud into the land of Android WITHOUT losing any functionality. If you want to have one foot in the walled garden of Apple, but still want to bite into the Android ‘apple’ … Read on !
Kevin from Connecticut has been providing computer consulting services to residential and small business users for 15+ years. He blogs about tech at TheAcronym.com.
As Apple Slips From Perfection, Don’t Fear Trying Android : Connecting your Android to the Icloud. by Kevin from Connecticut
I’m sick of tech purists. Too often people adhere to brands or categories like they are members of an irrational cult. In a recent article Walt Mossberg referred to the Mac cult, the Windows cult, and the open source cult among others. Why don’t we just say — use the best tech you can, within your budget, that truly meets your needs or helps you reach the goal you are seeking. I belong to a MUG (Mac User Group) and have been a member for 10 years. There is a lot less Mac extremism these days than when I first started. However, in the pre-iPhone days many members loved to use a Palm Treo because Palm’s Desktop program synced so well with OS X. Once the iPhone and iPad rolled out, Mac fanatics thought they had hit the trifecta with the perfect computer, phone, and tablet.
Four years later, I think many Mac owners are freeing themselves from the bondage of feeling like they must use all Apple devices. Having primarily been a Mac users for the past 10 years (and just recently changing to Windows), using an iPhone 5c as my phone and having owned an iPad I would say that the closest Apple comes to perfection is with their tablets. When I bought my first Mac in 2004, a PowerBook 15, Mactinosh was an enthusiast brand. The Mac user base was a lot smaller. Being part of a community meant something. Macs sported some of the best tech, a blossoming OS, and were serviceable. Given recent executive hires from Yves Saint Laurent and Burberry, Apple is really shifting from being an enthusiast brand to becoming a boutique brand. RAM is not serviceable on any of the 2013 model MacBooks. The SSDs can be swapped out but do not use the industry standard, 2.5” form factor. The iMac isn’t serviceable at all and the MacPro is expensive and playing hard to get. Truth be told, the soon-to-be-gone 13 inch non-Retina MacBook Pro along with the Mac Mini are the only two models that I can passionately recommend. They represent the spirit of the Mac brand as I knew it 10 years ago. I never bought into the “Apple Tax Theory”. You can easily drop $1400 on a great Windows laptop these days. However, with Apple making its computers less serviceable, and driving out independent Mac sellers / repair shops, you may have to wait several days (even up to a week) to get your Mac repaired by them. Therefore, you really need two Macs. Enjoy your tax!
There is no shame in being a Mac user and toting an Android phone. The iPhone 5 and 5c are still only 4 inches. Clearly the sweet spot among all other phones out there is 4.7 to 5 inches. Think Moto X, HTC One, Nexus 5, Galaxy S4. People want more room to type, more width, and more height when their phone is in landscape mode. The iPhone needed a growth spurt last fall and there was no change. On an episode of the Your Mac Life Show podcast prior to the release of the iPhone 4s, Mac pundit Jim Dalrymple infamously said — “Apple could keep the iPhone the same, drop it in shit and sell it as ‘the new iPhone’ and people would still flock to it by the millions.” First of all, I think that’s really insulting to think that iPhone customers are that naive and will always be blindly loyal to Apple. Furthermore, Jim’s statement was a self-fulfilling prophecy for Apple. The iPhone 5s is essentially a retread, dipped in crap, and sold with a new name. The faecal coating on this phone is iOS up until 7.0.4, the current (non-China) version of as of the publication of this post.
Enthusiast Mac owners are clamouring for something more with their phones. They want to access the file system and a folder structure – something available with any decent Android phone. Without a doubt, the Android OS is better for people who want as many communication options at their finger tips as possible. In IOS you might be able to share from one app to 3 or 4 different apps at most. With Android, you can take a photo or a news reader article and share this to all 10 of your messaging apps, all three of your e-mail clients, and many other apps. Android does not try to restrict what you can share between apps. Just make sure that these are safe apps! However, the Mac user has an attachment to iCloud and its e-mail, contacts, and calendar offering.
You needn’t feel like you have to convert all three of these services over to Google, though you will probably want to create a Google account when you get your Android device for the purpose of downloading apps from the Play Store You don’t have to use the associated Gmail account as your primary e-mail address.
- iCloud Mail
You can set this up in the Mail or E-Mail app on your Android device. This is NOT the Gmail app. If you don’t like the stock E-Mail app on your device, please download K9 (free) in the Play Store. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9
Instructions for configuring your iCloud mail in any 3rd party client can be found here https://support.apple.com/kb/ht4864
- iCloud Contacts and Calendar
You will want to install the following apps from the Play Store
Smooth Sync for iCloud Calendar https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.caldav.icloud
Smooth Sync for iCloud Contacts https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.carddav.icloud
The developer Marten Gajda has created two virtually flawless apps and he is very responsive to users’ concerns.
Should be running an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean device, you may need to install the (free) workaround apps that he created for you.
There have been instances of apps logged into non-Google accounts losing their saved logins upon a device reboot.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.jb.workaround.icloudcalendar
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dmfs.jb.workaround.icloudcontacts
I have used Marten’s apps a Motorola Droid HD (2012), Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini, and Nexus 7 — without issues.
The Smooth Sync apps, offer incredible value at a combined cost of under $8 US, and allow Mac users to to experience the joys of Android without giving up their trusted iCloud services.
Links : You can find more of Kevin’s great work over at The Acronym Online.
—
Related Posts
Privacy Week : Surf anonymously on your phone with Hotspot Shield.
Feb 05Who do you trust ! That is of course the main question in most of the topics of this weeks “Privacy Week” on our blog. When you connect to the internet on your tablet or mobile phone, you have a choice between different networks and carriers. You can go directly via your mobile phone’s dataplan (if you have one) or connect via Wifi. In both cases “somebody” is going to connect you to your internet. For your cell connection that will be your Telco, for your Wifi connection that will be your ISP or the kind person/company who set up the wifi hotspot you are using. The question is : Do you trust them ? As we told you in our first post : Sniffing unencrypted traffic is very very easy on a network. So when it comes to those open networks in a coffee shop, you never know who is watching. So why not “tunnel” your mobile traffic too.
Hotspot Shield VPN is my FREE application of choice. It allows you to tunnel all your traffic through their VPN tunnel and lets it emerge somewhere in the US. So anyone who wants to sniff you (either your telco, your local ISP or the dingy kid in the corner with his laptop running Wireshark) won’t be able to make out what you are doing. But because you “exit” to the internet on AnchorFree’s network (they make the app) , THEY will.
Hotspot shield VPN is free and easy to use. Its not always fast and it comes with adds. Opinions about this service might be mixed, but I regularly use it when I take my IOS or Android mobile device onto an open wifi network that I do not trust. Hotspot Shield also comes with a paid plan with “Monthly and Annual subscriptions available for faster connection, better cost savings and enhanced security. All subscriptions provide unlimited VPN bandwidth and NO ADS” So you can even pay if you want to. Keep stuff safe in a simple way, but remember that every connection (no matter if its through your ISP, the hotspot or these guys) requires ‘trust’ in whoever is carrying your data.
Get Hotspotshield VPN for : ANDROID and IOS.
Related Posts
Make screencasts from your android phone with ‘Rec.’
Jan 23There is a time in your life where you have reached the highest levels of achievement in the things that really matter. Those few and feeble quirks of existence that defy who you are in this pointless thing we call life .. We are of course referring to … CANDY CRUSH . What is the point of reaching yet another level of this magnificent game that is so important you feel the need to abandon your pets, love, sweetheart … if you cannot share it with the world ? Running around with your phone , pointing at the screen and shouting ‘LOOK LOOK’ is one way to do it, but it is not the only one.
Enter “REC.” a simple screen capture application for Android (Its free) that lets you record your screen and all your moments of glory as you shatter yet another row of multi-colored diamonds. “Rec.” lets you save, download and share screencasts recorded on your Android phone .. with everyone.
Rec. is free, works with Kit Kat, but does require root privileges. Download it here.
