Journalling

I used to be a prolific journaller. Then I became a haphazard journaller. I vacillated between spurts of doing well and then feeling guilty about not being able to sustain the habit.

I then thought about what would happen if I journalled like I tweeted? I would tweet several times a day and seemed to be able to sustain that habit over a number of years. What if I "tweeted" some personal stuff to a journal? One line (or a couple) a day were better than nothing I thought? And suddenly I am a regular journaller again.

There are days where it will just be one line, and others where I make a substantial entry. It is an approach that works for me.

So I tried a number of apps and mechanisms. I was using Google Doc's for a while but I have eventually settled on is Journey. Despite the fact that I am not a big fan of the word "journey" to describe the experience of life (read: it is such an abused word it has almost become meaningless) it is still a handy little app that you might want to check out for your journalling purposes.

Time for an upgrade!

So it was time to upgrade. I traded in my old Nexus 10 and 9 and then scrounged another couple of hundred bucks and here I am writing this blog post from my new Pixel C, complete with keyboard.

This is what Google should have done years ago, taken control of the design and construction of their own hardware.

It is solid, beautiful to look at and of course having total control over the hardware and software means that this thing actually sings.

I can see me leaving the laptop at home more often now.

Back to Nirvana

I've gone back to Nirvana! HQ that is. After waiting (and still am) for Zendone to move into their beta testing phase, Nirvana HQ beat them to the punch by releasing their update to the Android app.

I think the Nirvana HQ crew did the right thing by bringing the development of their apps in house. The outsourced apps were barely adequate in my humble opinion.

It misses some of the features of Zendone's system but as far as my set-up is concerned, they are bells and whistles as opposed to core functionality that I require.

What I have also noticed is that the Evernote integration was actually slowing down my workflow so I am running on Nirvana HQ at the moment.

When things settle down at work for me (probably February next year) I might check in on Zendone and compare the two offerings. Until then, don't look for me, I have found Nirvana.

Ten reasons to ditch Apple for Android

The Advertiser: 10 reasons to ditch Apple for Android. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwr66osyg

All Goals: World Football app of choice!

I love my football! I follow the national league (Melbourne City FC), the English Premier League (Tottenham Hotspur), our national team and several other teams from various leagues all over the world. The best app I have found to do all of that in a timely way is All Goals.

This sucker does push notifications for pre game stats, goals, cards, HT, FT the lot. It is actually faster on the update than the official league app for Australia. Seeing as the A-League kicked off this week, I thought it timely to let any football fans I have reading this blog know what's available.

Hope your team wins!

Nexus 9 Nightmare

What a nightmare. My Nexus 9's performance seemed to deteriorate week after week, even after updates to the point it was crashing twice a day with a terrible screeching white noise effect to boot. After three factory resets, I called Google. To their credit, they answered within ten minutes and after another ten minutes over the phone, agreed to replace the unit.

I had to take my Nexus 10 back from my four year old daughter and am surprised how stable that is in comparison. Once I get the deposit together, I'll ship her off and see what the replacement unit looks like once it's dispatched.

Android 5.1

My Nexus 5 finally received the Android 5.1 update. It seems to be running a little more smoothly these days. Although it seems to chew through the battery life a little quicker. Not sure if it is due to the fact that I leave Bluetooth on all the time these days to sync with the Fitbit my partner bought me for my birthday in February.

One thing I love about 5.1 is the very simple ability to now choose your wifi network from the slide down menu using the new drop down facility instead of having to multiple click your way through settings. A very simple but effective change.