All I Want for Christmas is Headache Relief

Mariah Carey is turning her song "All I Want for Christmas is You" into an animated movie with herself narrating. Because the world is crying out for it.  I know this because the local Fox morning show brought in yet another Yak Show Special Guest to tell us all about it.

Speaking of Hard Hitting News, Fox just aired their third segment on Flashy Nails with Sparkly Bits. This segment features a teaser, followed by two experts from a local nail salon applying these scandalous fake nails to the reporter's short and mangled nails. This is a breaking story that no doubt will involve international Special Reports every thirty minutes, with other networks gearing up their own coverage. When the story is beaten to death, which some will argue has already transpired, Mariah Carey will reportedly do a movie about it, with herself narrating.

• are you ready for the latest Big Controversy? A white man has been accused of Cultural Appropriation for painting a picture of a black man. I never studied sociology but this means something (aside from reaching Peak Stupidity).

A great feature of cell phones is the ability to install software and change things. For example, the standard Android keyboard and I do not get along. I installed a different one (after wading through hundreds of them, primarily concerned with emojis), with which I got on a little better. Here is where I start to blaspheme: I have a really good relationship with the keyboard on my work iDevice. While the thunder dies away, I have no idea why this is. It has tiny little keys, while I keep going larger with the Android keyboards.

Just for fun, I searched for an iDevice keyboard for Android. I installed the most popular one, which immediately started phoning home to China (I use No-Root Firewall, which tells me these things). This is what will happen to you if you install crappy software. Clue#1: subtle to hilarious English mistakes in the description. Check the privacy policy and whatever else is listed at the bottom of the software description. Also check reviews, making sure to look for English mistakes or obvious shills. Stick with popular software companies.

• In news guaranteed to amuse, The Turkish Hacking Family group claims to have access to over 300 million iCloud accounts and is threatening to remotely wipe this data unless Apple pays a ransom ($75,000 in crypto currency or $200,000 in iTunes gift cards). The deadline is April 7. Whether or not this threat is real, Apple is advising everyone to change their iCloud password and enable two-step authentication. This may or may not be the same group that is involved in The Fappening 2.0, exposing pictures of celebrities.

A Utah man was killed and his wife injured in the London Islamist terror attack. This won't go over well with the Brits but maybe it's time to arm... the police and other authorities aren't providing much cover here and ultimately it's up to a person to defend himself and his family. Something to think about..

I owe a heartfelt apology to the Swiss, who I accused of the London attack. Turns out it was a Muslim.

• I am a big fan of Android Forums. Lots of information and assistance for any android device. They just got hacked and a very small percentage of accounts lost a few bits of information - one report said it was forty. Guess who's one of the forty? Yup.

On the Stupid News File, after the obnoxious outside host kissed a camel, they ran a promo for a wedding dress show. One look at the lady in the dress said man. Yup, she's a transexual. Marrying another transexual. Hey, do what makes you happy, but the math here is staggering.  He has a full beard, meanwhile I can't grow hair on the top of my head.

• Just the other day, the Senate voted 50(R) to 48(D) to allow ISPs to sell your personal data. This is the headline but it's caught up in a different topic, namely letting regulations apply to all entities equally. Regardless, it's just your privacy. Early word is that the best way to prevent this is to use a VPN. Here's some info on how your information is collected.

If you're traveling from certain Muslim countries to the US/UK, you'll need to stow your laptop. In Serious Anti-Terrorism News, the US/UK have decided that you cannot use or carry your laptop to the US from certain countries. Authorities claim that this measure is not based on any intelligence. Well, it sure seems like a stupid measure to implement otherwise. And let's face it - it's going to be a problem regardless of where it goes boom. Security Theater.

• Two weeks after Failed Snowmageddon 2017, nobody has piled additional snow on my car. For this I am grateful. No local authorities have been involved but we have called in Cthulu to make a small statement to the (allegedly) adult miscreant neighbors.

Someone discovered a dishwasher with a web server. A web server. When it breaks or gets hacked (which it will), you have to get web server updates from a dishwasher company. What could possibly go wrong?  To be fair, this is an industrial machine for hospitals, which are fast becoming a rich target for hackers. This will not end well.

Antivirus company F-Secure released this list of most-used login/password combinations used to hack their honeypot (decoy for the purposes of collecting information) machines. Please don't use these.

• Good article on hack-proofing your smart phone. If you're lazy, you won't like this.

I'm in the middle of intensive training for this event!

HTC One - Is it the One?

I have a long history with smartphones, from the venerable Treo 180 all the way up to last year's winner, the Sensation.  Quite frankly, the Sensation was a sensation.  I'd have to spend way longer than we have today to find things with which I was not happy.  It was snappy as hell and did the job, which, for me, has a lot to do with making phone calls.

Unfortunately I am burdened with T-Mobile through work, therefore I have dropped calls and bad coverage.  This is not a fault of the phone, though.  Since the contract on the Sensation was up, everyone was getting new phones at work.  Being T-Mobile, the selection was limited and laughable.

T-Mobile has a reputation of being way behind the times with their offerings.  The only standout candidate was the HTC One, therefore it was the only choice.  T-Mobile doesn't really care what phones you want: you get what they offer, which isn't a lot, especially on the high end.

The reviews were largely positive, as checked at androidforums [they were just hacked - change your password!].  I even located a few people who had migrated from the Sensation and were happy.

The One is physically larger than the Sensation but much lighter.  I like larger but don't care about weight.  The screen is bright and sharp - it's a winner.  As snappy as the Sensation was, the One is faster.  Faster never hurts.  The speed improvement is actually more marked than the last desktop upgrade I did.

I purchased a nice case with belt clip and kickstand so I'm off to the races.  The wife agrees about the screen.  I installed Angry Birds for my nephews and Yahtzee for her, so time will tell.

I read good things about the battery, which lasted over two days on a full charge.  My total battery time will vary from yours, probably a lot, because I do quite a bit of optimizing to the system.  Android Ice Cream Sandwich allows you to go into APPLICATIONS and turn off most programs, especially the annoying crapware that comes with all phones.  It was a real joy to spend a few minutes making sure Faceyspaces, Twitter, HTC apps and Google Movies don't start up.  Email is manual only.  No live wallpaper, GPS, location or much else runs, saving quite a bit of battery for what I want my phone to be doing.  A few days back I posted something on the steps I take to save battery life and be a bit more private in my phone use - it's worth reading.


WHEN DUMPING YOUR OLD PHONE

Yeah, yeah, lefty - you're a security and privacy geek.  Why does any of this matter?

Because you don't want any identifiable information left on your phone when you give it back or away.
First make a backup, if you haven't already.  This is very important for your data, not to mention transferring it to your new phone.   Your phone has the option to back up programs to Google (I believe this is the default but please check for yourself).  What this means is that if you allow it, when you get your new phone, it will automatically install the same apps (from Play) that you had on the old one.  It will not restore the data.

Again, it will not restore the data.  This is up to you.  It will not restore any of the data, programs not installed through Play, music, or contacts not synched through Google already.

Since I am not Google's biggest fan (to be polite), I backed everything up to a computer or two.  Android Assistant allows one to back up all apps, which can be imported/reinstalled on the new phone (or just go back to Play and reinstall them).  The wonderful linux command rsync will sync the backup with the new phone and POOF, you're off.  Windows users can COPY and PASTE.

The absolute last thing you need to do is restore your old phone back to factory new (and wipe the SD card, if applicable).  Buried deep within the menus is a command to do this.  Since all phones are different, there are no generic instructions I can provide (Google is your friend).  There will also be a way to restore the phone to factory via rebooting and a key combination (Sensation uses VOLUME DOWN and POWER).  Make sure you delete (or better, wipe) the internal card(s) to completely remove all of your data.  Undeleting is easy, so keep that in mind.   You want to return the phone in factory state so that nothing of yours remains.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Since it's a little larger, it seems to sit funny on its clip but this isn't a deal breaker.  It's definitely louder than the Sensation, but the Sensation's audio sucked.  There is some audio enhancement available on the One but it only works with the internal player (not interested, thanks).  I suggest finding a nice media player and avoiding the Google ones (Google Phone Home).  I'm waiting for VLC (now in beta) to get finished, as that's what I use on all my computers, regardless of operating system.

No complaints about phone calls or clarity from anyone and it sounds fine on my end.  Haven't had a chance to check it out in the sunlight yet, as I don't get out too often :)  Sunlight is the enemy of all displays so far (not to mention my eyes in the morning).

I used to save battery life by dumping the stock HTC launcher (and Sense) and going with a light launcher, like Zeam.   Thus far, I'm not sure Zeam works properly with the One.  It tends to make screen real estate smaller by putting an option bar at the bottom.

There's a cool `app' called No Wallpaper, which you can use to make your background black.  This works perfectly for me and doesn't eat battery life like live wallpaper.  It also enhances the display.


HUH?

My only serious complaint at this point is that HTC(?) decided to get rid of the MENU key.  It seems a complete waste of space when it appears on the screen.  Either I'm missing something or this is really dunderheaded.

Also of questionable value are the decisions to make the battery non user replaceable and the internal card the only card.  The card shares space with the operating system, leaving about ten gigs of usable space, period.  There is no facility for another or external card.



I'm looking forward to more use of this phone and will provide details as I come across them.  So far it's a winner.