Odds & Ends

Well,  Happy Valley has been without internet service again this weekend,  giving me a chance to catch up with odds and ends---there is no ability nowadays to help people with computers when Internet isn't working.

So no TV online to watch or radio or voice dictation to text or even regulation of my thermostat,   It will be a bit darker around here tonight with some lights not turned on which are inaccessible unless turned on by Alexa.

This posting is being done using a hotspot,  of course.   

I also bought an older big Kindle Fire 8.9 device a while ago which connects not only to Wi-Fi but directly to AT&T.    It is old tech and cost  just $68, but works beautifully under these circumstances. It is a bit slow but very capable, and quite light to hold.    Great for music and reading and browsing.

I have completed consolidating my music and books library into a single huge file but I have changed my mind about how to implement it.

On the Kindle 8.9 there is enough memory to hold a small library of books and music and it is easy to download and remove stuff as needed.

Two micro SD cards failed and I learned that some items just will not go on an SD card,  such as Google Books, so I will be avoiding them for storage in the future.

Instead,  I have everything archived on a SanDisk Wi-Fi stick accessible storage device which can be accessed from any other device.      It's a cheap solution, too: $35.

So I will now be keeping only a selected library on my internal device space end downloading ahead of time those items I will need when away from Wi-Fi.    That is a simple solution.

I also already had my library on two Windows phones with SD cards  which were bought cheap as the Window phone was phasing out.     There is no official Amazon music library accessible app for Windows phones,  but there is something unofficial called Prime Music.

It seems ironic that the Windows phone dropped almost out of sight even though it was an outstanding product at an outstanding price,  while Windows 10 itself is full of trouble but is widely accepted.     There is no accounting for taste.