More Good and Bad

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In no particular order-

It took a while to find an Android app that would just tell me how far I have walked. I don't want to plan a route - my route this summer is wherever there is shade. I don't want steps, or calories burned, or how fast I'm going. I don't need a map of where I've been. Map My Walk is the best I have found and it has a 5x what I want, but pretty simple to just start a walk, and it notifies me every quarter mile (adjustable), which is handy. You can't buy it - subscription only.

KROGER has quit stocking whole wheat spaghetti. BAD. They still have, for now, whole wheat thin spaghetti.

Gestures - I have railed against gestures as an input method on phones before. But I was hit with it recently. I was testing one of my Android apps on a virtual phone with Android defaulted to gesture navigation. I needed the app list but could not find it. I gave up my search and asked Perplexity.ai. The answer - swipe up on the home screen. What? How was I supposed to know that? It seems to me that gestures are a lot like invisible icons. I hate icons, but with a (visible) icon, even if I can't decode the meaning, at least I know some function is a touch away. But a gesture?

Philips Norelco One Blade electric razor - excellent. It's like an electric hair clipper or hedge trimmer, except the head is only about 1+1/4 by a 1/2 inch. And it has a surface that lets you drag it across your skin smoothly. It doesn't shave as close as fancy razors. But it doesn't leave long hairs that don't get under the foil. And it doesn't pull hairs. No pain. Doesn't irritate skin.

I hate sock that squeeze my feet. Many years ago, I found Gildan size 12-15 gray crew socks. Much better than other socks although they still squeezed a bit. I don't know why, but the black ones were much tighter. I never tried white. But they quit making them. Inexplicably, the low cut versions of these socks were no looser that their regular socks. I tried other large size socks - they were longer but not any looser. Searching Amazon recently to see if Gildan had started making the 12-15 gray crew socks again, I found these - Extra Wide Comfort Fit Socks. There are other brands that appear similar, but the Extra Wide brand has a much higher cotton content. They are expensive, about $10/pair. The medium size socks are loose on my feet. Fantastic. As with all socks that I wear, I cut the calf part off to just above my ankle.

Brooks Adrenaline 24 (running) shoe tongue loops - finally a shoe company has addressed the problem of shoe tongues falling to the side. A small string loop on each side of the tongue. The shoe string goes through the loop and holds the tongue up and reasonably centered. A significant advancement in shoe technology!

Amazon Kindle - it appears that they have fixed the page number line display (see Software Bugs post). It took about nine months.

Lubuntu 24.04 and Android 15

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Ubuntu (Linux) 24.04 - I was informed that 20.04 long term support was ending shortly. Time to update - skip 22.04, go to 24.04.

You can't skip 22.04 - update to 22.04 then then update to 24.04. The update to 22.04 went well.

The update to 24.04 failed miserably. Linux installs work great - until they don't work - then you are screwed. I resorted to installing from a 24.04 ISO disk image install. At this point I decided to switch to Lubuntu. This is just Ubuntu with the LXQt GUI. Then I went through a day of torture trying to figure out why I could install, but not boot to my disk.

I finally realized that my disk was partitioned as MBR (Master Boot Record) for booting directly and the install wanted GPT (GUID Partition Table) for booting to UEFI which, I think, lets you boot to a USB drive without choosing it in the computer BIOS. But changing the partition type wipes the disk, which I was avoiding. But I need to have a working computer so I did it. I still couldn't get this working. So back to MBR and I figured out how to make it bootable. Too late to save my disk. With my disk wiped, I had to install a bunch of software and of course restore my personal files. That went reasonably well, except that when I backed up the disk before the update, I didn't think to backup hidden directories. My SSH certificate that let me log on to my web page was gone. Fortunately I had put that directory on my laptop.

So, finally up and running. But some of the software that I need wasn't working. These are the down level programs that I had to get to make v24.04 work as well as 20.04

Okular has replaced Evince (also know as Document Viewer). Okular produces absolute garbage prints of PDFs to my PostScript printer. Evince still works well.

A new EasyABC (music editing app) runs on Python 3 (Yay!). But it has again been disabled by Python changes. I had to get down level Python 3.9.

Newer versions of abcm2ps (this formats ABC format tunes into sheet music) do not produce correctly scaled sheet music. There is a replacement program written in JavaScript using abcm2ps as a starting point. But if the latest amcm2ps doesn't work right, why would I spend the time to switch. I got down level abcm2ps 8.14.6. Back in business.

Ghostview, a GUI interface to GhostScript (PostScript emulator) is obsolete. But it still works. But you need down level GhostScript 9.52. I'm not sure why they needed to update Ghostscript - Postscript hasn't changed in many years (to my knowledge).

I could rag on Linux for depending on libraries downloaded independently from applications. But even worse is new programs that don't work as well as the old programs that they are replacing. Okular PDF prints to my Postscript printer are just plain wrong. Abcm2ps was updated and lost scaling functions that I was using. Ghostview (GUI for Ghostscript) supports has been dropped and it does not work with new versions of Ghostscript.

Of course this is common on Windows and Android. I have no experience with Apple.

I wrote a Windows/Wine version of my text editor in 2007. I have fixed a few bugs and added a bit of function over the years but no other changes. I still use it for almost all of my text editing, under Wine in Linux, 18 years later.

Android 15

While Linux makes it hard to keep using old software, Android makes it impossible to use anything more than a few years old. How? By changing the API (application programming interface), redacting old API function, and constantly changing the requirements to be listed in the app store.

Android 15 on a Samsung S23 - Good Lock / Lockstar ruined - app widgets are no longer allowed on the AOD (always on display). I recently modified my clock app to display (optionally) only time zone and next alarm. I used this with Lockstar to display it on the AOD. This fixed one of my major issues with Samsung's Android. No more. Back up to Android 14? Only by resetting the phone and losing the entire setup and data on it.

For Android Firefox and I Heart Radio I have block notifications set. But they both manage to display annoying notifications.

If I turn the phone off, the display blanks and then displays the AOD. What's that for? Apparently, I often turned off the phone and then checked the time. Now I turn off the phone and have to wait for it to display the time.

New battery recharge modes: charges to 100% then stop until it's down to 95%; stops charging at 80% while you are asleep and switches to 100%/95% mode while you are awake; stops charging at 80% (or 85%, 90%, 95%). Why not charge to 80% then stop until it's down to 75% and similarly for 85%, 90%, 95%? This is important because I will often take my charged phone off the wireless charging stand, use it for a short time and put it back on the stand. Wouldn't it be better to not charge until it has dropped significantly? I don't know.

So what's new and improved in Android 15? The status line battery display is easier read. I use Nova Launcher, not One UI, so nothing there. I can't find anything else.

Why Didn't I Do This Long Ago?

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Many times in my life, after doing some really useful task or acquiring a very useful device, I have realized how useful it is and think - why didn't I do/get this long ago?

Scripts to do repetitive tasks. After typing command lines over and over and using clumsy GUIs for my current 3D print project, I finally spent a half hour writing a script (OpenSCAD and Prusa Slicer both have command line interfaces). Having completed it, render and generate printer control code is one short command line. Faster, easier, less frustrating.

While I was thinking about the above script, I asked Perplexity.ai if I could set up a key to type in today's date. Yes - it took 5 minutes to do. Now when I want a date stamp on a file name I just use F10 instead of typing the date.

I recently did a house cleaning, and I wanted to get the limescale off of my faucets. I used a chemical calcium/lime/rust remover on my kitchen faucet, then realized - I just bathed my drinking water faucet in toxic chemicals. I've done this before and spent a lot of time running water before drinking. But this time I checked on Amazon and found new complete faucet aerators (including shell) for about $2 each. These installed easily, dramatically improved the flow due to the unclogged aerators, and of course look great.

My bread maker is another example. Just measure out the ingredients, let the bread maker turn it all into bread, and slice it. What's so great here is that I control the ingredients - for me whole wheat flour, olive oil, salt, yeast, gluten. And if you try this, you will soon learn the root of the idiom "the greatest thing since sliced bread".

Battery vacuum cleaner, string trimmer, leaf blower, drill, Dremel tool. It is so much easier to pick up a tool and use it instead of choosing a suitable electical outlet and perhaps extension cord, and working around the cord while doing the job.

Exchange Traded Funds started to compete with mutual funds around 2000, long after I had been investing via mutual funds. They have huge advantages over mutual funds - delayed capital gains taxes, mid day trading and tracking, low expense ratios. Why did I wait until retiring, 2016, to investigate and start using ETFs?

Gewa Strato violin case - light and space efficient. Mine is wearing out after many years. But it's been discontinued. I can't find anything similar on the market. Why didn't a get a spare?

After reading about how tea bags release microplastics into tea, I found everything that I needed to make tea from loose leaves. Specifically an infuser (stainless steel) and some loose leaf tea. I tastes about the same as using tea bags, but no plastics. This time I'm ahead of the curve!

Sundries

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Ally bank alerts - Ally Bank quit sending deposit and withdrawal alerts to me. After two weeks, I switched to US Bank. I received an email recently that claims that this is fixed. Three months. I'm not going to test this.

Restaurant background music - do Italians really like jarring horn blasts in their music? Who decided that droning/unchanging drum tracks enhance music (at a Thai restaurant, but clearly American music). Why must it all be so loud? And why do restaurants need any background music?

Samsung S25 features - I bought a Samsung S23 (smartphone) in June 2023. Upgraded from an S22 solely because reviews said that the S23 fingerprint reader is much better. True - it was worth the $800 (?) price. I later found that Samsung Goodlock/Lockstar (free software) allowed me to put the time zone and next alarm on the always on display. I finally had a decent phone, but too big, nasty screen reflections, and heavy. The S24 did not address any of these issues. Pass. The S25 Ultra has this new feature - Gorilla Armor 2 - "the Industry’s First Anti-Reflective Glass Ceramic For Mobile Devices". Enhanced durability - fine, but I do not have a single scratch on my S23 with no screen cover. Anti-reflective surface - this is, apparently, a wave cancellation layer (or multiple layers) made with a very hard (ceramic?) material. 75% reflective light cancellation. This is worth $800. But it is NOT on the S25, only the S25 Ultra, which is BIG. New AI function, new colors, more speed? Pass.

Folded lists - folded lists are a handy way to put a long list in a short place. On Google's blog top page, by default, the list is folded by year and month. You can't see titles until you click on a year and a month. Sigh. A scrolling list is far superior. You can switch to a long list, but it only shows dates, not titles. The date of publication is more important than the title of the post? After living with this for years, I made a web page of all the titles as a list, and repeated the investing blogs (the most popular posts) at the top. www.blog.ravitz.us . This is so much easier for finding specific posts.

Calendars - after maybe 45 years of wall calendars with a nice picture for each month, I can't find anything interesting and new. For 2025 - Peanuts, the comic strip from long ago. I like Snoopy.

My phone calendar (Google calendar via Calengoo app) has a significant defect. It has all the national holidays, but no religious holidays. Mardi Gras - I need to know when restaurants have a Cajun special. Saint Patrick's Day - restaurant specials again. Easter, Halloween - look at all the associated candy. Whether you believe in the roots of these holidays or not, they are important in our culture and I want them on my phone calendar.

(2025-02-02) I found everything that I wanted under "Holidays in United States" "Other observances", except Mardi Gras. And I found Mardi Gras under "Global religious holidays" "Christian holidays", but that is along with many other holidays that I can't unselect.

Software Bugs

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For about six months and through several updates, Android Kindle does not correctly display the bottom status line on my phone. It is displayed so that only the top 1/4 of the line is visible. This line gives the page number - important information. Amazon does not care.

Time to see how the other ebook readers are doing. Google - there is no page number line and it won't display the current time. Google seems to think that app screen area is all important. Not for me. I want the phone status line with the time and the navigation bar (the buttons) - ALWAYS.

Nook (Barnes and Noble's ebook reader) - WOW. I can see the Android status line and navigation bar (optional), and the Nook status line. And I can set the paper color - not just choose from a few bad choices. With the navigation bar always displayed, exiting to the home screen is just a button push away. Startup, even if nothing is changed is delayed by about four seconds, with a big refresh symbol in the middle of the screen. You can read the rest of the screen but you can't do anything else. Annoying. Not nearly as annoying as Kindle's issues. I have switched.

Ally Bank, email and text alerts for deposits and withdrawals don't work. It's been almost a month since I opened a support ticket. They won't give me any status on a fix - just "we are working on it". It worked a month ago - compare the two code levels and fix it. I gave up. Now trying US Bank. Things seem to be good but switching twelve automatic deposits and withdrawals is not fun. Most banks with branches offer very low interest rates on savings accounts. US Bank is 4%, same as Ally. And there is a branch near me so that I can get $50 bills instead of the $20 bill that ATMs hand out.

For about six months and through several updates, Google Maps will not adjust the volume after the trip is started. I suspect that you can adjust it while Maps is telling you something, but by the time I've found the volume button on my phone, the message has finished. I just found this workaround. Press the "you" icon (your little photo or initial), then "Settings", then "Navigation settings", then "Play test sound". While the test sound is playing, use the volume buttons to set the default volume. It works! I still can't adjust while driving, but I can get a reasonable volume each time without having to remember to adjust before starting the route. How about naming this option "Set default volume" so people know what it does?

Next day - Maps reset its default volume. I can't hear it. I can't adjust it while driving.

What is wrong with our corporate cultures that this is acceptable? Why do the users accept it? They have been convinced that software bugs are inevitable. But how have they been convinced that the bugs don't need to be fixed.

Perplexity.AI

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Perplexity.AI is an AI based internet search engine. I hesitate to refer to this as artificial intelligence, so I will stick with AI.

Perplexity reads your input, question or request, does a search for the answer, interprets the the web pages that it finds, and gives you an answer along with links to the information sources, and often gives additional information and explanations. Free and without advertising, but I wouldn't expect that to last long.

It sometimes misinterprets my question and sometimes misinterprets the information sources. And there is no guarantee that the information sources are factual.

I used Perplexity to help with modifying my Android apps after Google required that they be updated to use level 34 of the software development kit. This involved working with Java, Javascript, XML screen layouts, and Android Studio software. I hadn't used these tools in about a year and I had forgotten many details. Java and Javascript are similar enough but different enough to cause major confusion. Android XML screen layouts are major sources of confusion. And Android Studio has a nightmare of menu choices and many parts that needed updating separately without clear pathways. Perplexity handled these problems very nicely, giving instructions and code samples.

In addition, I wanted to improve some aspects of my code. For example, I knew that regular expression searches would speed some code, but writing the correct regular expression is not always easy. And it's better to be correct than fast. Perplexity helped quite a bit, but it often required multiple efforts to make it understand what I needed. (SQL queries present a similar situation but I have not tried Perplexity there.)

Even better, finding the right way to integrate Android native touch screen control on top of a Webview HTML/Javascript screen was made easy. The first two suggestions failed, but the third worked well. The result was dramatically improved touch response.

And when I asked how I could speed up my code, several suggestions helped, including turning on hardware acceleration and Java compression.

Another important aspect of Perplexity is that it looks at a variety of web pages to obtain an answer. This saves me a lot of time searching through garbage web pages to find an answer. If I can't verify an answer, I will likely need to do my own filtering of the pages. And it gives me pages to look at. But if I can easily verify an answer, try it out and see if it works, WONDERFUL. Or YES - that's the word or person that I couldn't remember.

And another - sometimes you have to explain to Perplexity why it is wrong. If you have a good argument, it will apologize and give a new answer. For example, once it misinterpreted a web page that gave the weight of a violin bridge, assuming that it was the weight of the fingerboard. After I explained this, it corrected itself. But I asked if that new information was added to its knowledge base, the answer was no. Things learned when talking to me are not distributed outside of our conversation. Perhaps this is necessary to prevent people from spreading false information.

I just now had Perplexity write an htaccess script to redirect my web page urls so that a subdirectory would automatically redirect to the equivalent subdomain - www.ravitz.us/dance/*.* redirects to www.dance.ravitz.us/*.* . Looks like a correct script. Inmotion hosting doesn't recognize it. I don't think this is Perplexity's fault.

Overall - I like it. I don't know how much I would pay for it, but while it's free, I expect I will keep using it. Especially for verifiable answers, it is great.

Bread Maker

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Bread makers have been on the market for 35 years. But I haven't been concerned about the nutritional value of the bread that I consume until recently. So I'm way late - read on if you are in the same boat.

Having found no bread for sale that satisfies my new diet (minimal white bread, pasta, and rice), I decided to get a bread making machine. I chose a Hamilton Beach 2 pound model, largely because the cleanable parts are dishwasher safe. A bread slicer and knife are very useful. For choosing a bread slicer - the loaves are about 5 inches wide on my machine. That looks pretty standard from what I have seen. Watch out - the long serrated knife is dangerous when being cleaned.

First try - I printed a recipe for a two pound loaf, then decided to modify it on the fly to one pound. By the time I had (correctly) measured out half the flour and water, I forgot what I was doing and used the printed numbers for salt, yeast, olive oil. Sigh. It turned out okay, considering my missteps.

Second try - this time 1.5 pounds, a carefully reworked recipe, followed correctly. Except after starting the machine, I realized that the kneading paddle was still in the dishwasher. Fortunately it had been trying to knead for just a few seconds. I paused the machine, used a spatula to move the flour mix to the side, leaving mostly water over the kneading shaft. The paddle slid on easily. The carefully layered bread mix was a mess. But the bread turned out pretty good.

Third try - just minor adjustments now

    install kneading paddle
    1 1/4 cups warm water + 3 TABLEspoons for the chia seeds = 1 7/16 cup
    2 TABLEspoons olive oil (22 cal/slice)
    3 cups whole wheat flour (153 cal/slice)
    1 teaspoon vital wheat gluten (not sure that this is needed)
    3 TABLEspoons chia seeds (27 cal/slice)
    1 1/4 teaspoon salt
    1 1/4 teaspoon bread machine yeast

Having read about how nutritious chia seeds are, I've been looking for a good way to get them into my diet. This works well.

I cook the bread, let it cool, slice it, put it in a zipper freezer bag, and freeze it. It keeps for a long time and thaws quickly.

Whole wheat flour plus chia seeds. No added sugar. Just a little oil and salt. Tastes pretty good, especially as toast. The above 1.5 pound recipe yields 11 slices, 212 calories each. That's about twice as much as typical packaged bread. This bread is pretty dense, probably best to use just one slice and make an open faced sandwich.

The machine is easy to use and easy to clean. The kitchen is easy to clean - a little spilled flour from ingredient preparation and bread crumbs from slicing.

SUCCESS!

One of my favorite, hopefully healthy meals -

    toast a piece of the above bread
    add a slice of cheddar or Swiss cheese while the toast is hot
    fry a couple of eggs (I break the yoke and cook it solid) and put on top
    eat it with an avocado

Some kettle cooked potato chips taste good too. NOT healthy.

And fresh iced tea, no sweetener. No lemon for me.

Recipes

I have been using perplexity.ai (that's the web address) to find recipes (and my note about bread maker history). This is an AI search engine that finds and reports answers and gives links to where it found the information. (I am not suggesting that it is intelligent, but the industry and news media seem to think that it is.) It is only correct if the links are correct. And it will sometimes misinterpret the information on the links. But still it is useful.

"show me bread a machine recipe for 100% whole wheat bread, 1.5 pound loaf". This returns

    1 1/4 cups warm milk
    3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
    3 cups whole wheat flour
    1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
    1 1/4 teaspoons salt
    1 1/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast

and some additional instructions.

"show me a bread machine recipe for 100% whole wheat bread, no sweeteners, with chia seeds, 1.5 pound loaf". This returns

    1 1/4 cups warm water
    2 tablespoons vegetable oil
    3 cups whole wheat flour
    2 tablespoons chia seeds
    1 1/2 teaspoons salt
    2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

"show me a bread machine recipe for mostly whole wheat bread, no sweeteners, with chia seeds, 1.5 pound loaf". This returns

    1 1/4 cups water (110°F/45°C)
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
    3/4 cup bread flour
    2 tablespoons chia seeds
    1 1/2 teaspoons salt
    2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

Probably a nice texture improvement, but I'm happy with 100% whole wheat.