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From iPhone to Android
I had an iPhone 3G for about a year, and recently I made up my mind to get a Samsung Galaxy running Android instead of upgrading to the iPhone 4. I’ve had my phone for a little over a week now, and here are my initial thoughts. First though, a couple of disclaimers:
- I’m not a smartphone power user: I use it for e-mail, web browsing, Twitter and games mostly. I am thinking of trying to develop for either or both platforms, but I don’t currently.
- I never updated my iPhone to iOS 4, so my comparisons are all on the previous version of the OS.
- While I’m certainly not an Apple hater (I did love my iPhone!) I’m also not Apple’s biggest fan, and have been known to be a little biased against them.
Now that that’s out of the way, I like my Samsung Galaxy. It took me a little while to get used to the new way of doing things, but not really very long at all.
Pros
- There is a status menu you can pull down from the top of the screen that includes turning wi-fi and Bluetooth on and off, so it’s easy and convenient to control them if you need to conserve the battery. It’s also easier to put into airplane mode.
- I like having multiple buttons at the bottom of the screen, not just the home button. The menu button works a little like a context menu, which is nice, and the back button makes for very convenient navigation.
- The multitasking is great – if you hold the home button, it brings up the last 6 applications you’ve used, and you can choose to switch to one – kind of like alt-tabbing on a computer. Very convenient.
- This is totally un-scientific, but the web browser feels faster than my old iPhone did. (This might not be true for an iPhone 4.)
- Physically it’s very pretty and has a very nice screen. The resolution isn’t as good as the new iPhones, but the screen is bigger, and I like it.
- You can purchase a memory card for it – so I didn’t have to decide right of the bat which size phone to get; if I run out of space on it, I can buy more, and if it turns out it’s enough, I don’t have to shell out anything extra.
- I like the fact that, in your list of favorite contacts, you can swipe left to send a text or right to make a call. It’s a minor thing, but kind of nifty.
- I love love LOVE the way they handle notifying you about wi-fi: if there’s a network available that you haven’t chosen to connect to, they pop up a little wi-fi icon at the top with a question mark by it. Easy to notice, but it doesn’t interrupt you. So unlike the iPhone, there’s no need to choose between never being notified about new networks and being constantly interrupted when you’re driving through a neighborhood every time you pass a new network.
Cons:
- Physical flaw: the sleep/wake up button (which is on the top of the iPhone) is located on the right side of the Galaxy, directly opposite the volume rocker. This means that it’s very easy to accidentally hit the volume rocker if you’re intending to put the phone to sleep. This is especially annoying if the phone is on vibrate, because hitting the volume rocker “up” when it’s in vibrate takes it out of vibrate.
- Major software bug (which I believe is Samsung’s fault, not Android): if you import your contacts from Gmail, you can’t assign a personalized ringtone to any of them. You can only assign individual ringtones to contacts you create on your phone.
- Speaking of ringtones, the ones that come with the phone suck. There are practically no good ones.
- There are very, very few cases for it. This phone really needs a case (I dropped it face down in gravel practically the first day I had it, and nicked the screen), but the only good-looking cases I could find online don’t ship for 1-3 months, and the AT&T stores are often sold out of their version. I managed to get one of the AT&T cases today, and I do like it, even if it was a bit on the spendy side.
- The camera just isn’t as nice – both user interface and picture quality.
- It doesn’t have Facetime, which is part of why C was devastated when I decided not to get an iPhone. He wants video chat with me!
- No visual voice mail. I do miss that.
Some other observations:
- I haven’t made a decision on the app store yet. I really miss TweetDeck for the iPhone, and I really can’t find any good Twitter applications to replace it. Then again, I easily found a better (and cheaper!) replacement for the app I use for Trimet Transit Tracker (for bus arrival times.) And my all-time favorite game, Drop7, is available for both. With the iPhone, I didn’t bother to look for too many apps – my husband or other iPhone users I knew would tell me about good ones. Now I’m on my own.
- The default e-mail application doesn’t work that well, but I downloaded K9 Mail and it works great.
- Battery life seems to be about equal on both.
- I get better reception on this phone, but I don’t think that’s because it’s better than the new iPhones, I think it’s because my old iPhone was old and getting kind of crappy.
Over all, I like this phone. I’d say that its UI is slightly nicer than Apple, but the fact that it’s not as popular as the iPhone makes it harder to find accessories. I think I could have been happy with either purchase, but I certainly don’t regret choosing this one. And it just makes me feel good in general to be supporting a more open platform. So if you’re thinking of switching, I’d say go ahead.
Camping
C and I just spent slightly over a week camping up the Oregon coast, and we’ve been back from almost a week. Not hardcore camping – we spent a couple of nights at hotels and did some good (and some bad) campgrounds. We drove down to Crescent City, CA after I got off of work last Thursday the 15th, and made our way up to Astoria on Friday the 23rd. Here’s a few thoughts on the trip:
- Mill Creek campground in the Redwoods is a gem of a campground. Private sites, not too busy, on a nice little creek – everything you could ask for. Tugman State Park great only if your idea of good camping is pitching your tent in the middle of a loud, busy subdivision in some crowded suburb. The Florence ranger station has great information about where you can go for dispersed camping – we spent a couple of very quiet, private nights at Mt. Popocatepetl.
- We had beautiful weather for the whole trip. However, wind is very tiring. There were many beaches where everything was absolutely perfect except for the fact that you can’t hear each other talk over the wind.
- I am terrified of heights. I still managed to do some pretty cool little side trips like climbing out to one of the Natural Bridges and up the Astoria Column, but they freaked me out more than I like to admit.
- David Sedaris makes for good listening on long car trips.
- Smores made with chocolate in place of the graham crackers aren’t a good idea. Too rich, too sugary.
- We lost a camera toward the beginning of the trip. It made us both very sad. I guess it’s better that it happened towards the beginning, because it means we lost fewer pictures. We spent the rest of the trip using our phones to take pictures, and managed not to lose our phones.
- The Oregon Coast is beautiful!
iPhone
C just got his new iPhone yesterday, and it’s very pretty. I originally signed up to be on the list to get one, too. However, the first thing that happened was that I waited a couple of weeks got the e-mail saying it was in, but after ~40 minutes in the Apple Store it turns out that the employee who put me on the list put me down for an iPhone 3Gs, not 4, so I ended up on the back of the list. Now I keep hearing negative stuff about the iPhone. Plus a new Android phone is coming out for AT&T, and I’ve been saying for months that I’d like to get an Android phone, but there aren’t any good ones from AT&T – now that’s changed, according to the reviews I’ve read.
So for the next week or two, I’ll observer C’s iPhone and see how he likes it. I’ll play with it (when he lets me) and see how I like it. Then I’ll go into an AT&T store and try out the Android phone. And maybe soon I’ll be an Android user instead of an iPhone user.
Random Futurama quotes
We have been back to watching Futurama every night as we go to sleep, after briefly switching to The Simpsons. Using a very conservative estimate, we have watched each and every one of the original 72 episodes approximately 15 times. 20 isn’t an unreasonable estimate, or 30 for C (since he takes a while to go to sleep and thus watches more episodes per night than I do.)
For no real reason, I decided to share two of my favorite quotes that have stuck out to me recently:
From “Fry and the Slurm Factory”, episode 13 of season 1, a parody of Willy Wonka:
The Professor: Who are those horrible orange men?
Glermo: Why, those are the Grunka-Lunkas! They work here in the Slurm factory.
The Professor: Tell them I hate them!
From “Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV”, episode 6 of season 4, during a clip from All My Circuits, a robot soap opera (and should be read in very dramatic voices):
Monique: Calculon! But I thought you were…
Calculon: Egyptian?!
The last line of each of these are new favorites of mine to throw into everyday conversation.
Health insurance: now it’s personal
I’ve heard the news stories on NPR about how ridiculous the private health care system is when it comes to insurance and billings. I’ve heard about how much time and money is spent just on getting billing figured out – teams of people at the doctors’ offices figuring out different billing codes to different insurances; more teams at the insurance companies to figure out different bills from different providers.
It never really meant a lot to me personally, because I’d been on Kaiser Permanente all my life – a private HMO. I was born at a Kaiser hospital, and was with Kaiser through my parents until I graduated from college. Then I got a job and stayed with Kaiser through my employer. You don’t worry about billing when you’re with Kaiser, because the doctors, billing and insurance are all part of the same entity. But at the end of last summer, I got married and switched jobs – so I needed to get health insurance through my husband’s job, which doesn’t provide Kaiser as an option. Instead, I’m now on CIGNA.
I needed to find a doctor fairly soon, since I could no longer get my birth control shots through Kaiser. So I went to the CIGNA website, found a recommended provider – a doctor at OHSU – and signed up for the standard introductory appointment. I had the appointment in January, and everything went fine. She gave me a prescription for Depo, got me an appointment at the office for my next shot, and everything was fine. Take note here that CIGNA recommended this doctors office as a partner on their site.
Fast forward to April, when I get my next Depo shot. I’ll just briefly mention that even though I had an appointment – the very first appointment of the day, so there was no one before me – they were still running 45 minutes late, so I had to wait 45 minutes to spend about 90 seconds in a room getting a shot.
Fast forward again to a couple of weeks ago. I get a bill from CIGNA saying that they won’t pay the $117 for the shot because I haven’t met my deductible yet. I also get a bill from OHSU saying the CIGNA hasn’t paid the $221 for the vist. So I call CIGNA, and ask why they’re saying I have to pay $117 for a Depo shot, instead of the $20 co-pay that it should be. They say that OHSU billed it incorrectly. So I call OHSU, and (after getting hung up on once) they say no, the billed it correctly, and I should have CIGNA call them. So I call CIGNA back, give them the number and they call OHSU. Then they tell me that OHSU refuses to change the billing, CIGNA refuses to pay for it, so I’m just out of luck.
At this point I give the phone to my husband, because he is very good at being aggressive in these situations – but in a constructive way, not in an “I’m really angry and going to shout at you” sort of way. He spends a while on the phone with CIGNA, without much luck, then spends another while on the phone with OHSU. The current state of things is that OHSU is going to try to work something out – but I still have no idea whether we are going to be expected to pay $221, $117 or the actual $20 deductible that our plan says a Depo shot should be.
Two of the most routine office visits possible, with a doctor that is a preferred provider for my insurance, and already I’ve spent more time working on straightening out payment than I ever did in 26 years with Kaiser. And the issue isn’t even resolved yet! So now this whole health insurance issue is personal to me. This system does not work. If this is how the private health insurance system works in what should be ideal circumstances, things are very, very broken.
In the mean time, I’m going to Planned Parenthood for my next Depo shot. They will charge me less than $221 (or $117, for that matter.) And the instant one of us gets a job that offers Kaiser as part of the benefits, we’re switching back.
Graduation thoughts
I turned my last assignment and had my last final yesterday. Overall, I’d say my finals went better than I thought they would.
With the academic year over, graduation stuff is everywhere. (Congratulations to Candice, who just finished her masters, and my brother, who graduated from PCC in Architectural Drafting!) So I thought I’d look into what sort of commencement options there will be for me when I graduate in December. As it turns out, not many. If I want to walk, I would have to do it either this August or next June. I don’t really want to walk 4 months early or 6 months late, so I guess I won’t be participating.
It’s too bad, really. I didn’t attend my undergraduate graduation, even though I could have. I kind of wanted to attend this one, though – especially if they had a smaller departmental graduation ceremony. I have worked a lot harder for this degree, since I was working a lot more hours and the classes were a lot more challenging – and I have a life outside of school in a way that I didn’t in undergrad. (You know, getting married…stuff like that…) This time it feels like a Big Deal, in the way that last time didn’t. And C really wanted to get to blow an air horn when they called my name.
The moral of the story is that I will have a really big graduation party, and I will guilt everyone into coming. You HAVE to come, because it’s the only celebration I get! <puppy eyes>
Home stretch
I’ve got a week left until I’m done with finals for this term. It’s going to be really tough – I expect all of the finals to be very challenging, plus I have a project due on next Thursday as well. I always have a really hard time motivating myself to study for finals – there’s no concrete deliverable I have to complete, I just have to “know the material”, so it’s easy to just put it off.
After finals I’m going to take a couple of days off, and then this summer I’ll be working both of my current jobs – 20 hours per week each, which adds up to full time. I am seriously excited to be working only 40 hours per week. Of course, even though I spend far more than 40 hours per week on school or work currently, it’s a bit more spread out, so I’ll have to remind myself how to do 8 hours of work per day all together.
And SUPPOSEDLY my husband will be unemployed this summer. Tuesday was originally supposed to be his last day, but his unemployment has been extended until July 1st. You’d think I’d be happy about this, but I just want him done with the job. I want him barefoot and in the kitchen, making my dinner, where he belongs. :) Seriously, though, this job has been far too stressful to be worth continuing, and we’re all ready for him to have a break to recharge and relax. I’m really hoping his employment doesn’t get extended any longer than July.
Anyway, assuming he does get laid off, between the two of us we’ll have gone from working 120 or so hours per week (in April and May) to only 40 hours. It will be soooo nice.
From above
Yesterday, as my birthday present to C, we went to a park with C’s son and had a family photo shoot. As we were walking over to the photographer, I felt something hit my head. As it turns out, I had been pooped upon. Some bird shat on my hair and sweater and purse. Luckily, it was on the back side of me, not the front, so we won’t have pictures featuring bird poo. Good times.
Weddings
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about how horrible, stressful, and generally “not worth it” big weddings are. (And by “big” I mean more than 10 people attending.) We had a big, fairly traditional wedding, and I thought it went fantastically. So I feel like sharing some of what made it work.
- First and foremost, people need to be laid back. I wasn’t a bridezilla, C wasn’t a groomzilla, and our parents were generally pretty easy to deal with and supportive – not demanding. Of course, you can’t pick how your parents or soon-to-be-in-laws will act, but the two of you can make a conscious decision not to worry about every little detail.
- Include your fiance/e in the planning as much as they want to be included! (Traditionally it’s the bride who wants to plan and the groom who doesn’t want to and/or gets shut out – but it could be the other way around, or it could be a same sex couple, so I won’t be specific.) However, don’t assume that “I don’t care what kind of soup we serve” means “I don’t love you”.
- Treat your wedding party well. This means not making your bridesmaids/groomsmen spend several hundred dollars on clothes they’ll never wear again, demand extremely expensive bachelor/ette parties and wedding showers, etc. And if your parents are paying, don’t demand more from them than they’re willing to spend.
- Compromise. This means bride & groom compromise with each other, the couple compromises with each of their parents, etc.
- Delegate/ask for help. I got TONS and TONS of offers for help, all very genuine, from tons of people. So don’t try to do everything yourself, or just you and your mom. Spread the work, and in doing so spend some quality with friends and family.
- Make lists. Lots of lists. Start making them months beforehand if possible, and every time you think of something, add it to the appropriate list. “Things to bring the night before”, “Things that need to get done after we leave”, “Honeymoon packing list”, “Who will take what home for us after the reception”, “Wedding party/important contact cell phone numbers”…the longer in advance you start thinking about it, the less likely you are to forget something – and the less stressed you will be on the day of the wedding.
- Don’t be railroaded into doing something you really don’t want to do, or not doing something you really want to do. But if there’s a big conflict, think carefully about whether this is a big enough issue to you refuse to compromise on.
Some things from our wedding that I think were good examples:
- I put my mom and grandmother in charge of decorations. They are good at that sort of thing, had the time to work on it, and enjoyed doing it. And I didn’t have to worry about it at all.
- C and I settled on certain individual items that each of us really cared about, and we didn’t interfere with each other in those items, other than to give opinions when asked.
- If you can afford it, pay for some or all of your groomsmen/bridesmaids’ clothing. We did, and it fostered good will all around.
- When we went to the florist, I gave her my general ideas – colors, specific flower ideas, and some general shapes that I liked. Then I said, “Do whatever you think is pretty.” I didn’t check in again after that – and the flowers turned out just fine. Well, C didn’t like the boutonnieres, but when he saw what they looked like, he didn’t stress about it – he just went with it.
- If there was something neither of us cared about but had to make SOME kind of decision about, we often copied what my parents did at their wedding. That’s where we got the song that my dad walked me down the aisle to, the cake cutter, etc.
- When presented with a last minute request that I didn’t want to accommodate (adding an extra person, changing something we’d already decided on, etc.) I found that things went better if I waited a few hours or a day before answering. My immediate response might be to get angry at last minute changes – but usually after an hour or so I realized that it doesn’t matter, so if it makes someone else happy, go ahead and do it.
- We had pizza for our rehearsal dinner in C’s mom’s backyard. That was SO much better than going to a fancy, expensive restaurant.
- C wrote most of the ceremony, and I wrote most of the vows, but we consulted each other on everything, so they were very personal to us.
Of course, it’s not like there was no stress involved. But over all, I have warm fuzzy feelings about planning the wedding, and of course, about the wedding itself. Everything went right, we had a wonderful time, and I can’t look at the pictures without smiling.
So you see, it is possible to have a big wedding and still have fun!
Math joke
Two math professors are sitting in a pub. “Isn’t it disgusting”, the first one complains, “how little the general public knows about mathematics?” “Well”, his colleague replies, “you’re perhaps a bit too pessimistic.” “I don’t think so”, the first one replies. “And anyhow, I have to go to the washroom now.” He goes off, and the other professor decides to use this opportunity to play a prank on his colleague. He makes a sign to the pretty, blonde waitress to come over. “When my friend comes back, I’ll wave you over to our table, and I’ll ask you a question. I would like you to answer: x to the third over three. Can you do that?” “Sure.” The girl giggles and repeats several times: “x to the third over three, x to the third over three, x to the third over three…” When the first professor comes back from the washroom, his colleague says: “I still think, you’re way too pessimistic. I’m sure the waitress knows a lot more about mathematics than you imagine.” He makes her come over and asks her: “Can you tell us what the integral of x squared is?” She replies: “x to the third over three.” The other professor’s mouth drops wide open, and his colleague grins smugly when the waitress adds: “…plus C.”
That’s from this site. Some of the jokes are funny, some not so much, but they’re worth a read.
