Google Assistant - now hearing things

 Over at least the past couple of months, the Google Assistant experience has been getting worse - where it once only responded when something was asked of it, now it is hearing things.  Even after a notification to retrain my voice and using the lowest sensitivity setting, the Google Assistant will randomly answer to try to do things.  The latest experience was just a couple of days ago - opening my garage door, I'm not talking, nobody is around me, no television or radio is playing.  Suddenly, the Google Assistant thinks I want to open up YouTube.  It's getting ridiculous.

Moto X Pure Edition: One Year Later

I've had the Moto X Pure Edition for a year now and wanted to share my thoughts about it. My previous phone was the original Moto X, a phone I love.

The Moto X Pure Edition is fast. It is nice to get in my phone much quicker than the Moto X.

The Moto X Pure Edition is too big. It does not fit into pockets as well (though it does fit), but I've had the phone slip out too many times, one time cracking the screen which had to be repaired, as it messed up the touch interface.

The Moto X Pure Edition is randomly rebooting for me too often, has lost a paired Bluetooth device multiple times, and is not experiencing a flaw where the screen gets white lines and whites out the screen (like increasing exposure on a photo). This is related to colder temperatures - in warmer temperatures the problem disappears.

I'll try to deal with this phone one more year and hope a new phone is out then that I'll love.

The Resurrection of my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9

While cleaning up some things on my desk, I decided to try plugging in my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 for one last time before disposing it in some way, figuring that it would not work. It was a year ago that it would not turn on or show anything, even when plugged in. To my surprise, the screen lit up, eventually showing the charging battery. I booted up the tablet and saw that it was at a 1% battery level. I was thinking that maybe the battery would not hold a charge, but the battery level continues to go up and the tablet did not automatically power off when I unplugged it as a test. The date was reset to December 30, 2003 and I had to reset that and reboot before I could successfully re-connect to my Google account (I had suspended rights from the device when I thought it would not work ever again). It's gone through a lot of application updates. So for now, I guess this will be the back up device unless I decide to experiment with it - trying to install CyanogenMod, for example.

Rage of Bahamut Review

Rage of Bahamut
Reviewed by Steve Fisher on January 13, 2013.

Rage of Bahamut is a game for Android and iOS devices that works like a combination of a role-playing game and an electronic Magic: The Gathering. My experience with Magic: The Gathering was limited to a few games during college. It was interesting, but did not really grab me. I was not sure what my reaction to Rage of Bahamut would be. It turned out to be more addicting that I would have expected.

In Rage of Bahamut, you build up a deck of cards that consist of monsters, mythological figures, and the like, each with a cost of how many points it takes to use the card, an attack rating, a defense rating, and a realm (Man, God, or Demon). You create an attack deck and a defense deck, each consisting up to 5 cards, plus a leader card. Cards can be evolved a limited number of times to change form into a more powerful version of that card. Cards can also be enhanced to gain levels, which increases their attack and defense power. It is recommended to enhance cards to their highest level before evolving them. Evolving increases a card's attack and defense by 5% of the attack and defense of each card. If the cards are enhanced to the maximum level, that increases to 10%. Each card has a rarity, ranging from normal to legendary. Each day you get a free card. You can also spend real money to get a special card draw which has a chance to get a card of a high rarity. Those cards can also be gained from logging in daily or as prizes, so I would not recommend spending your money on them.

When you start the game, you choose a realm (which gives you a bonus to all cards of that realm) and assign points to stamina, attack, and defense. As you get experience, you gain levels and the ability to add friends, which gives you points to contribute to stamina, attack, and defense. Stamina affects how long you can go a quest, which consists of killing monsters that get you money (for evolving and enhancing cards), other cards, or treasures (when you collect all colors of a particular treasure, you get a special card). After you complete 5 "chapters" of quests, you face a boss monster, which uses your leader card to attack it. Attack and defense determine how many total points of cards you can have in your attack and defense decks as well as how many times you can attack monsters/players and defend from other players' attacks.

You also have the opportunity to join or start an order, which allows you to group with other players. This can be helpful if you need help getting particular treasures, particular cards as a gift or via trade (which can also be done via the Bazaar), and get prizes during special events. Donated money and treasures helps grow the order for more players to join, buy buildings to give realm cards attack/defense bonuses, and build walls during Holy Wars (an event where orders battle each other). Special positions within the order get attack and/or defense bonuses.

As there are a limited number of quests, the game would get old quickly if not for the special events. Special events usually introduce new cards and special prizes for individual and order rankings. These can range from the order vs. order Holy Wars to events where you go on special quests and fight boss monsters to collect the most of a particular collection item for a ranking, to events where you try to collect special treasures for special cards. These happen about each month and can range from a few days to a couple of weeks.

The thing I probably do not like about this game is the heavy player vs. player focus. You just lose defense points (which are regained over time, just like stamina and attack) and money if you lose. Winning battles (or losing if you attack) get you honor points, which can get you gems each week which can be traded for items to regain stamina or attack/defense points, protect treasures from attacks, special enhancement cards, or a special card draws of a particular rarity or higher.

If the idea of this game interests you, use referral code osn12222 once you complete the training quest and you'll get a special card.

You May Have an Update Available for Your Samsung Galaxy Tab

You may have an update available for your Samsung Galaxy Tab, but you may not know about it.

The Wait for Ice Cream Sandwich

Ever since hearing about the Ice Cream Sandwich release of Android, I checked to see if my wi-fi version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 would get the upgrade.  The information I found suggested that I would get the update, but when it would come out was uncertain, and the release date changed over time.  The last update suggested late August or early September, but I hadn't seen anything, so I did another search this morning to see if the date had changed.  As it turned out, Ice Cream Sandwich was finally rolling out to some people.

A Surprise Update

I did not see any notification on my Galaxy Tab about an update, figured that it might be a gradual roll-out, so decided to manually check for an update under Settings.

I was surprised to find an agreement clause for updates.  So I went through it, agreed, and was then presented with a screen to sign in with my Samsung account or register for one.  This leads me to a couple of questions:

1. Why do I need an account to get updates?
2. Why wasn't I asked to set this up when initially activating my Galaxy Tab? (Or did it not come up due to the issues I had initially activating my Galaxy Tab?)
3. Why isn't checking for updates enabled by default? This is a big concern if there is a security update.

As it turned out, this was a Honeycomb update that took me from 3.1 to 3.2.  This made me wonder why I didn't get an email notification from Samsung, considering that I already had an account with them set up and had registered the Galaxy Tab.  That install took a while, and once complete and back on my main screen, was presented with a message about an update that needed to be done by August 28 or I might not be able to use the Samsung Media Center.  Not a big deal for me, as I don't use Samsung Media Center, but went ahead and started the 300+ MB download of the update.

Ice Cream Sandwich at Last!

This big update, which took longer to download but was faster to install than the Honeycomb update, ended up being the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade!  Everything appears to have gone smoothly, but I haven't gone in to explore Ice Cream Sandwich yet and try out my downloaded apps.

So if you own a Samsung Galaxy Tab, you may want to manually check for an update in case you have the same situation that I did.  You may find a tasty ice cream treat waiting for you!

Android Foursquare App Glitch

I started receiving a message of api.foursquare.com (or something similar) when getting to the initial screen of the Android Foursquare app.  When trying to check in to a location, I would receive a message that indicated a problem with the network.  I thought there were just problems on Foursquare's end, so thought nothing of it.

It happened again today, though. Knowing that others had checked in, I figured the first thing to try would be to uninstall Foursquare then reinstall it.  After I logged back in, things were working fine again - no messages.