My New Kindle Fiyah!!
Posted by johntindale in electronics, Kindle Fire, old computers, technology, wireless on April 8, 2012
I stayed with relatives in Florida last week, and they were gracious in opening their home to us. We spent a few days on the beach, took the kids to see the princess castle, and overall had a pretty nice time.
One thing I didn’t expect was that I’d get a chance to play with, and be impressed by their Kindle Fire
Shane also got me interested in Plex and e-juice, but those are two different topics for future posts.
Anyway, I ordered my Kindle on our last day in Florida, so that it would be waiting for me when we got home. It came in it’s own custom Amazon box, and two quick bonuses- it was completely charged, and came with my Amazon Prime account already set up- so my Amazon cloud music, apps, books etc. I’ve already had on my droidx were set up on the Kindle as soon as I turned it on. Both a pleasant (and slightly creepy) surprise.
The Android portion is somewhat limited, many apps simply look like bigger versions of the same on my ‘droid, no shocker there- but the real impressive thing is the way it handles media. Books are very cool. I’ve been either reading them via the Kindle app on my ‘droid, or in paper form.
I downloaded The Hunger Games (free borrow w/ Prime account) and the screen is surprisingly crisp. Not quite e-ink, but close enough. I’ve read about 30% of the book in one day and don’t notice any eye strain, or problems. At 14.6 ounces, it starts to feel a little heavy after holding it for a while, but I think I can get used to it.
Netflix and Plex stream seamlessly, and I’ve also watched videos from the G4TV and Revision3 apps. So far I haven’t noticed any flicker, pixelation, or skipping- I’d like to think that maybe FIOS has a little to do with it as well.
Audio is pretty cool too. This morning I hooked it up to some cheap speakers in my room while I unpacked my stuff and played a little Patsy Cline from my cloud player. Again, no skips or problems with the audio signal, and even when it isn’t hooked to speakers, the sound quality from the two small speakers on the bottom is pretty good.
I guess a couple things that would have made it cooler would be a built-in camera, and more apps that take advantage of the screen size, but overall I’m pretty impressed.
My netbook is starting to show it’s age, so maybe together, my droidx (also aging) and my new Kindle Fiyah! can keep me in the tech without having to buy another rig for another year.
Coming up, plex and media management in the Tindale Home.
Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Associate, items purchased via these links will result in a small payment to yours truly.
I work out
Posted by johntindale in workout on March 21, 2012
My new postion this year came with a new desk, and since I’m not working in the field, and I love to eat- I immediately started to notice some weight gain. At my heaviest, I weighed myself, and I was pushing 250. The last couple weeks, I haven’t been doing anything drastic, but I have been cutting back on the big lunches and snacks, and I have also started WORKING OUT!
My company gave me a membership to the local gym (we’re in the same industrial park) and I have gradually started to try to work it into my schedule to go work out.
This morning I did 1.5 miles on the treadmill, and 2.5 miles on the bike. I also did some stretching and walking, and a few reps on the horrible machines, but the one major thing I’m noticing is that I’m seriously out of shape! I notice there is a Karate/ Kickboxing class at the gym, maybe I’ll try it once I build a little stamina and shed a few pounds.
Yesterday I had a zone bar in the morning for breakfast, a banana at 10:00am, and a tuna wrap for lunch. (along with the three cups of black coffee) so by the time I got to dinner I was famished! Mel and I went to Charm City Run in Clarksville, MD where we were custom fitted for some running shoes. I walked out with some white/ blue WGS and Mel is waiting for a half size to get transferred over before she pulls the trigger. Needless to say I was scraping my plate at dinner at El Azteca after we finished up in the store.
The girls in the shoe store were really nice- they watched us walk, let us walk around on the sidewalk outside, asked us what our goals were, etc. The funny thing was, our salesperson kept referencing her Dad when talking to me about shoe comfort, types of socks to wear, etc. i wear boots to work- so does her dad, I worry about my feet sweating- so does her dad. I guess I reminded her of her father…
So for reporting purposes, let’s just say my baseline is that I weigh 250 lbs, my heart rate was 140 when riding the bike, and it takes me about 15 minutes to walk/ jog a mile on the treadmill. I’m trying to cut back on the junk food, and eat healthier meals. Let’s see how it goes.
>Blog Move
Posted by johntindale in Uncategorized on March 18, 2012
>I’ve done it. I moved my blog to WordPress at johntindale.com. All of my posts and all comments have been moved from here. I’ll wait a while before I go back and delete posts from Blogger, to make sure I work the bugs out.
>A comfortable place
Posted by johntindale in chiller, HVAC, jobs, mechanical, trades, vrv, work on February 1, 2012
>last year when I was having a tough time in m career, I posted this blog post about some co-workers at the time who were being decidedly competitive with me on the job.
Its funny how much things can change in a year’s time. I’m working in a completely different environment now. I have finally found a place where I don’t feel like I have to know everything. I don;t feel like I have someone chomping at the bit to prove me wrong. As a matter of fact, I’ve been experiencing a bit of the opposite effect. I feel like I can actually admit that there are people better than me.
The thing about this trade is that even within the HVAC business, there are specialties. At one time, you were just an HVAC guy, and you could reasonably be expected to work on anything and everything in the field. These days, like many other industries, HVAC techs are getting to the point where they can’t know everything in the field. There are rooftop guys, and chiller guys, and data center guys… and now VRV (variable refrigerant volume) specialists, and start-up techs- there are so many technologies out there that it would be impossible to know everything.
So, I’m finding that at this company, these guys have become comfortable with sharing knowledge with each other, and admitting they don’t know everything- and i have to admit that it’s kinda nice. We have a design engineer in the office so I don’t feel like I’m up against the wall for system layout and design. We have a guy who is really good on refrigeration and knows “vapor-compression” really well. We have a guy who knows controls well, and a couple of rooftop guys, who I’ll admit know more about Trane rooftops than I do.
I have always been a “whole industry” kind of guy, so I never really focused on any one particular brand or type of system- and I’m finding that as I get older, my patience for learning new stuff is waning, so I’m probably never going to be a “specialist” on any one particular aspect of this business. I have a state master license, I know my stuff, and for once I’m starting to feel like I’m good with what I know, and I have some guys I can call if I run into something which I’m not familiar.
>xbox update
Posted by johntindale in gaming, repairs, xbox, xbox360 on December 31, 2011
>So, the short version of the story is that I’ve given up on a fix, and I’m putting the broken boxes on ebay. We bought a refurb at Best Buy for $199 with a two year warranty.
I’m also selling a few other things, take a look!
Maybe we can get one of these later this year…
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