Xoom follow up report (security)

Posted by Greybeard on Jan 3rd, 2012 in Technology and Music | 0 comments

First off,  I -did- recover in time for New Years Eve.   I was  a bit tired,  but a good time was had.

Next up the “ongoing adventures of the Xoom”,  (my wife’s new android tablet).   Her favorite game was called “Words with Friends”,  I say “was” because it no longer runs on the Xoom.  After  a few hours of research,  I found out that Zynga,  the maker of the game,  no longer supports Android O.S.’s beyond version 2.6 .    Since we’re running the latest O.S.  version 3.2,   it’s likely that that’s part of the cause of the problem.

You see,  Zynga,  is an Apple vendor,  and their versions of their games that run on Android,  are ports of the apple products.  (and evidently not very good ports).  It’s odd that the game ran well on her Xoom for the first month or so that she had it,  then suddenly will not even start up without throwing a “Forced Close” error.   It’s not so odd,  that this issue started right after an automatic update of the game.

I can understand why Zynga would decide not to support a device in the future,  but not why they would push out an update that would kill existing/working games on those devices?

Anyway,  I found her a new wordgame to play “Word Feud Free”.  It seems to work fine, across many platforms including all Android O.S.’s.

Up til now I haven’t spent a lot of time on the Xoom,  but I did have my email on it and had the Xoom sync’ing my email.  I found it pretty convenient,  but as I learned while researching the game problems,  convenience at a very high cost.    The thing that really set off flags is;   After the game was installed,  but not running,  it was still accessing my email.   When using the Xoom for unrelated functions,  a window would pop up stating that “Words with Friends” has experienced a “Forced Close”.  To me indicating that it’s doing something hidden,  when ever it’s installed on the machine.

Well this really got me going,  so I started monitoring my firewall  and router logs.   It seems that most, if not all of the games  on her Xoom operate much the same way.   And many have access to her email account,  FULL access!   Current Bottom Line:  I’ve scoured the Xoom of my personal email accounts,  and we don’t use the Xoom for any financial transactions,  nor enter any private info on it.  (new nickname for the Xoom = Chatty Cathy)

With various Anti-Virus and security company’s announcing that the hot new targets for hackers  are phones and tablets,  I’m a little worried about those who do their banking on their phone or tablet.

Who’d a thunk , a “LORD”

Posted by Greybeard on Dec 15th, 2011 in Technology and Music | 0 comments

I just completed the online game Lord of Ultima.

I am officially a Lord of Ultima.   It’s been a long haul,  and my carpel tunnel,  from the years of network administration,  has really kicked up.   If not for that,  I suppose I could continue on and get a second or third “title”.    Alot of the people I played with have done that.  But as they say,  ”Descretion  is the better part of Valor”.

I really want to thank a great group of people,  ”The Ninth Leagion”,  for letting me tag along.   It was a great new experience for this old gamer,  (mainly a first person shooter kind of guy).

Anyway,  if your interested in a free web strategy, MMO, game,   L.O.U.  is great fun,  but very time consuming.   I might even be able to give you a few nice cities and some gold,  if you act soon.

P.S.  The river ice is GONE!

First Ice! Dec. 10th.

Posted by Greybeard on Dec 10th, 2011 in News and weather, Technology and Music | 0 comments

Ok,  I woke up this morning with the river frozen completely over,  hard enough that a good sized rock doesn’t break through when thrown from 30 ft or so.   That qualifies as “First Ice”.   Low temp  last night was 20 and the high today was 28.    I was eight days off,  I guessed Dec. 18th.     Unless it get’s a lot thicker,  I’m expecting we’ll lose it again later this week,  they’re forecasting 40 to 50 degree days.

With cold weather well on the way,  I’ve been working on keeping my many 12volt batteries up to snuff over the winter.   To help with this,  I recently purchase a new battery maintainer from Northern Tool.

It looks like this.     And so far I’m pretty impressed with it.  It charges normally,  at 2, 4 or 8 amps,  or maintains and desulfates the battery.   They claim that Sulfation is the main cause of batteries going bad.    I did the recommended test on 4 batteries so far.   Which involves using a normal charger to fully charge the battery,  then let it sit for 12 hours off charge,  and finally test it with a  voltage meter for voltage output.   If it doesn’t show 12.3 volts,   it’s unchargable.

So far all of mine have tested at over 12.3 volts,  and I’ve been running them one week at a time on maintain/desulferate,  then stacking them on a bench.    When I get though all of the batteries,  7 of them (hopefully all will test good),   I can hook all 7 of them up to the new charger on maintain/desulferate,  and forget about them until spring.

Beats the heck of of going out  to the garage once a month in freezing weaather and hooking up batteries to charge for a day.

The cool thing about it,  is it’s all automatic.   The last battery I put on,   intially showed “deeply discharged” on the machines light panel.   Four hours later the panel said it was charging normally,  and the next morning it was on maintain/desulfate.   Cool !   Plus it’s waterproof,  maintians up to eight batteries simultaneously,  and has a 5 year warranty

Xoom followup

Posted by Greybeard on Dec 6th, 2011 in Technology and Music | 0 comments

I guess my wife like’s her new Xoom tablet.     From what little time I can get ahold of it,  I pretty much like it too.   It’s fast, stable,  and does just about everything I’d ever want a tablet to do,  and then some.   I’m not impressed with the security on it,   but I’ve tried to impress her with that thought.   “Don’t type anything on the Xoom,  that you wouldn’t stand in a crowded mall,  and yell for all to hear” With a addendum,  that it never goes away!! (anything you yell in the mall,  will be repeated over and over for near eternity)

There are a few issues with the Android OS that bug me,   but I’m so ingrained in PC stuff,  that any other unfamiliar OS,  tends to get on my nerves.   All in all,  I think it’s pretty impressive that a computer luddite,  can pick one up and be pretty much fully operational in a week or so,  -With just a little bit of help-.

My recommendations for a tablet computer,,,,,   get something mainstream,   Apple,  Android, etc,   and be sure to try them out first to be sure the way it works is compatible with the way you work.  It’s way more than a phone,  but not quite a full computer.  I don’t use a cell phone,  though I have in the past,   but I believe that a lot of people would get nearly just as much usefulness from an internet enabled phone, (provided they can handle the extra costs).  Our Xoom runs on WiFi,  and that was already in the house,  so there were no added connectivity charges.  (And I control the security on it)   The tablet is a lot quicker to access that a computer,  and therefore get’s used more often throughout the day.

Overall,  I guess I’d give the Motorola Xoom tablet,  about 4.5 stars out of 5,  knocking off half a star for the price we paid, (though that seems to be changing)

Finally, a live XOOM!

Posted by Greybeard on Sep 19th, 2011 in Technology and Music | 0 comments

The cord adapter for the Xoom finally arrived.  I plugged it in and in a couple of hours it had a full charge.   I’d like to do a full review,,  but there’s still a bit of a learning curve for something that someone tried so hard to make foolproof.  :-(

I’m not exactly a keyboard and text kind of guy,   but I am pretty attached to my keyboard and full administrative rights.   The Xoom is more than 50% for my wife,  who is a bit of a ludite,  and she is spending the majority of the time on it.   Often asking me questions about how to do this or that,  and of course,  I can’t see her screen,  and wouldn’t be familiar with it if I could see it.   I’m a little nervous about all the automatic sync’ing it does,  and the way it seems to wants to stay logged in to every site you go to,   but it is fun to play with.

I’ll do more of a review once I get a better feel for it.