Rant: Google Has Ruined Google Photos On The Desktop

 It's not often I complain about free services, but Google Photos used to be good, other than the occasional glitch it was very useful. That is until very recently when Google made the web app more like the mobile app, including making the image Aspect tool more like the Android app, which is mildly annoying to use with a mouse. And with every single image I have to choose the aspect ratio, otherwise it stays on Free! It used to stick to whichever aspect was used last. 

Oh and putting every quick edit tool behind a Google One paywall is annoying too, particularly when those same tools are available in the mobile app for nothing. The Enhance button usually makes photos far too cool by lowering the Warmth level for some silly reason.

But no, that is not the most egregious change. No, that prize goes to the removal of Copy and Paste between images. You used to be able to edit one image to how you wanted it, CTRL+C the changes, then move left or right, without clicking Done, to the next image and then CTRL+V those image settings. I could get through dozens of images in no time at all with this method, with maybe a slight alteration to the settings throughout. But no, now you cannot move to the next image without clicking Save. So that's one hurdle to productivity, and you cannot copy and paste, so that slows me down even more! Just why were these removed? Does Google even use their own software? This is just the worst change to Google Photos I have ever encountered! And they still have not fixed odl bugs like after archiving an image, the web app refuses to move to the direction of the next image, so i have to go back out to all images and in again. I shall now continue editing today's photos, which will take about 4 times longer than it did before!  

/Rant endeth. 

Update 14/10/2023:

Copy and paste of edits is back, but you still can't move form image to image without exiting edit mode.

Reviving A 13 Year Old Toshiba Equium A200 Laptop With Linux Mint

I hate to see older tech being thrown out and was recently offered a Toshina Equium A200 laptop. My mum has owned it for over 10 years. Spec wise it has a 1.73Ghz Pentium processor and maxes at 2GB of RAM. As a daily driver this was getting very long in the tooth but my mum hung on to it until it really did struggle.

I know it very well. I have had it many times to clean up and speed it up a bit, until it just got too much. However, my mum is a Windows user and this machine really was couldn't cope anymore.

So when I was offered it, I immediately thought of wiping it and installing a version of Linux on it. The beauty of Linux is it runs a lot smoother than Windows and with the many distros and desktop environments you can tailor it to you hardware.

My first hurdle was this only has a 32bit processor which means it won't run the latest versions of Mint – as they require 64 bit - and that also means Google Chrome is out of the picture as it also requires 64 bit. Chromium is OK, but it suffers from a lot of plugin issues. However Firefox still seems to be working with a lot less tweaking.

So I plumped for Linux Mint 19.3 and being a low end machine I decided to go for the XFCE edition as it uses less resources.

I booted to the live version via a USB stick and set the installer going. Installation was quick even though this machine has a standard hard drive, which must be over 10 years old.

Installation was complete and all hardware was detected and automatically set up. Compared to Windows (which really struggled) Mint XFCE was very smooth and I was very surprised just how well this ancient machine handled.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't going to win any speed awards, but with the right OS on it you can extend the life of it.

It will primarily be used as a home learning machine for doing school work at home, along side watching Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube. It just about copes with this although full screen video really pushes it. Steam – which my son was hoping it would run – requires a 64-bit processor so that is a definite no no.

Time will tell whether this can cope with being a daily driver under Linux, but so far it is managing far better than I thought it would. Google Classrooms and Google Meet seem to run, but it is clear that it is pushing its hardware limits.

Switching from its original hard drive to an SSD made a huge improvement, but this only affects loading speeds and the operating system. It will only make minor improvements to hardware performance.

This is a 13 year old laptop with limited hardware. The 32-bit CPU and 2GB RAM ceiling really are its main limitations because it stops modern OSes running fully and the RAM is quite low by today's standards.

On the whole I have been impressed how this machine can run with a choice of lightweight Linux and a few tweaks. It has certainly given this struggling machine a last lease of life, but for how long I don't know. 

My son is using it daily and I am sure there will be things it cannot cope with, but for now it is handling his home learning work well and given the current COVID19 situation here in the UK where he is doing school work at home that is more important.

I do plan to replace it with something slightly more modern. After all, my Dell Latitude E5410 is only a few years newer but having a 64 bit processor and maxing at 8GB RAM makes a massive difference, running the latest Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition at amazing speeds.

Once again Linux saves the day.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

From Google Pixel 3a to Google Pixel 4a

 Well, having had my Pixel 3a since late November I was all set for not upgrading for a long time, but I thought wrong, thanks to a free gift from the very kind folks at Google, I now have a beautiful new Pixel 4a in "just Black". It arrived in a nice welcome pack with a weird tasting mocktail, some spicy biscuits and some nice sugar coated sweets... The standard phone box is inside, which contains the usual USB C cable, adaptor and charger. 

After swapping my SIM over, I did try to do a settings transfer by USB cable but couldn't get it to work, so I opted for the over-WiFi method which worked perfectly. The 4a is even smaller than my 3a, and the front is nearly all screen, with a punch hole selfie camera. I've not had that on any of my previous phones. Here's both side by side (photos taken with my Pixel XL, which feels chunky in comparison to both!).  The 4a is only available in black and there's no XL version, although there will be a 5G version to be released at some point.

Although externally smaller than the 3a, the Pixel 4a has a slightly larger screen (5.8" instead of 5.6") thanks to the punch hole camera, and nearly the same resolution. The cameras are almost the same (except a slightly wider aperture - f1.7 in the 4a instead of f1.8) but the 4a gains the dual exposure controls and Live HDR+ photography features from the Pixel 4. Internally, the 4a has a bit faster CPU and a slightly bigger battery (3,140mAh instead of 3000mAh) and again supports 18W fast charging. The 4a has 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB and twice the storage at 128GB, which is great for me since I do take a lot of photos and videos. It still has the fingerprint sensor in the same place on the back, which I prefer to face unlock, or having it on the front. My finger easily find the sensor when picking it up. 

One hardware change is the removal of the Active Edge, which I never used anyway and had disabled. But the best thing is the Pixel 4a still has a headphone jack, as although I often use Bluetooth headphones, I still like having a headphone jack as backup and so I can plug my phone directly into my amp. 

I found a cheap flip case on Amazon because I really don't like taking my phone out naked, particularly on my walks. It's the usual faux-leather affair, but I like that it doesn't have that annoying flap that my 3a case has, and it stays firmly shut with a decent magnet. Also it doesn't get in the way of the camera like the 3a case did.

Cameras

Photo quality is pretty much the same as on my 3a, just as great. I've not played with the dual exposure controls yet but the Google AI blog explains how those and Live HDR+ work. With Live HDR+, you get to see a more accurate view of what the finished photo will look like in the preview image. Video quality seems to be exactly the same as the 3a as far as I have noticed.

Night Sight is impressive as ever.

When I first saw punch hole cameras on phones I thought they would be annoying but generally I don't notice it's there, as long as images and videos aren't fullscreened over it, which they generally don't unless in ultra wide resolution.

Issues?

So far I have found no problems with the 4a, and thankfully it does not have the slight GPS issue I had with the 3a when i got it. One thing I'm still getting used to on the 4a is navigation on the Home screen is gestures-only so to switch apps you have to swipe up from the bottom, hold, then tap the app you want. To go Back anywhere, swipe left from the right edge of the screen. You can also quickly swipe between apps by swiping the white bar at the bottom left or right. I can't see anyway to disable it and I don't really want to change Launchers, eventually it'll be stored in muscle memory.

Battery Life

With its slightly larger battery  (3,140mAh instead of 3000mAh), the 4a has so far given me a few more hours of battery, likely offset slightly by the newer/faster CPU. The screenshot below was on a mixed usage day, went for a walk, took plenty of photos, used GPS/Google Maps, browsed the net in the evening a lot. Since I have had it, the 4a has often had 30 or more percent left of battery before going to sleep.

Android 11

Just four days after getting my new Pixel 4a, and as I was preparing to finish this review, Android 11 was released both to it and my 3a.

 

I straight away noticed a couple of new features. The first thing I noticed in the update are app suggestions are added if you have an empty spot on the bottom row of your Home screen, not really keen on that so i haven't left a space. 

Media controls have been tweaked...

There's a whole bunch of new features and tweaks - too many to go into them all here, including a new power menu, native screen recorder and improved permissions, so I've left a link at the bottom of this article.  

 Conclusion

Overall, the Pixel 4a feels snappier than my old 3a, thanks to that extra RAM and faster CPU, and with twice as much storage I don't have to worry about filling it up too quickly. Just like the 3a, the Pixel 4a is a great mid-range phone, everything works near perfectly. It is buttery smooth, has a great camera, very good screen, and all day battery life. It's absolutely a worthy successor to the 3a, with a better screen to body ratio, bigger battery, larger screen, faster CPU and twice the storage on the base model. I intend to keep my 4a until it stops working, with my 3a as backup, unless Google decide to send me a newer device again...

- You can buy the flip case here on Amazon.

- Wired has a thorough overview of new features and tweaks in Android 11.

- Here's what I thought of the Pixel 3a when I upgraded from my Pixel XL.

You can find me on Twitter and Instagram 

Nexus 5: No Longer Available from Google Play But Still A Great Phone

Image from Google Play

Well, after such utter frustration with my Samsung Galaxy S3, I decided to sell it, and trade in my Moto G (1013) too for something better. The S3 was often rebooting itself because of overheating and I was getting tired of Cyanogenmod. I just wanted an affordable, powerful and decent stock or near stock phone. The Moto G was a good stop-gap phone for me, and I loved Lollipop on it, but it was really lacking in the camera department. I considered a first gen Moto X but I heard it had quite a few problems and many have not received Lollipop yet. Some have also complained about the camera and a decent camera was on my list of essential requirements. I also considered an LG G2 but although it has a decent camera, I don't consider it close enough to stock and I did not want the inconvenience of rooting and ROM'ing straight away. In the end I decided the best route was to buy a Nexus 5 as it's totally stock, fairly decent spec, including a decent enough camera, easily available and affordable secondhand.

How things have changed: My LG Optimus 2X alongside my Nexus 5

I bought a secondhand 16GB black Nexus 5 a couple of days ago and so far I am very happy with it. It has a beautiful 1080p screen, nice rubberised back that keeps the phone from sliding around and of course it feels super quick compared to the S3. I did have a slight wireless issue at first but I solved it by enabling Airplane mode, shutting down then starting up again, and has been fine ever since. The only other thing I'm having to get used to is quite excessive battery usage, (compared to the Moto G) which hopefully should be fixed when it receives the 5.1 Lollipop update. It currently runs 5.01. Admittedly I did kind of hammer the battery on the first day of using it, with setting up and testing things out. I really like Lollipop's look, overall feel and notifications and I won't ROM this phone until it no longer receives updates and maybe not even for awhile after that.

 


The only other minor criticism is the back is coming away very slightly from the phone, but it does not bother me much. I find the size of the phone is just right for me, it's large enough to comfortably browse the web and watch youTube on but not too large to be unwieldy. I can see why some might find the Nexus 6 to be a bit too much of a handful, it's a shame the N5 is now no longer available from Google Play. The Nexus 5 also seems durable enough to me that I do not want to ruin the design or feel with a bulky case. I would like to get a QI wireless charger for it, so if anyone has any recommendations, please leave them in the comments.

So overall so far, I am very pleased with my Nexus 5, even with a few minor niggles, it is still the best phone I have had so far. I'm looking forward to testing it further and doing some Photospheres with it, since I haven't been able to do those for awhile, as the Moto G lacked a gyro and Google Camera always crashed on CM11 on the S3. The Nexus 5 is still a great phone and is now an affordable secondhand purchase.

 

Google Chromecast Unboxing and Review.

I recently picked up a Chromecast, they have not been out for very long here in the UK and I couldn't wait to get hold of one! Following is an unboxing and initial impressions of the device.

What's in the box?

Once the seal is broken there's a internal section (shown above) that slides out and opens up showing the device on top, with Getting Started instructions to the left on the lid.

Underneath is the charger, Micro USB lead and handy HDMI extender lead.

Simple Setup

The Chromecast is very simple to setup. Plug the HDMI end into your TV or Amp (with or without the HDMI extender). plug the supplied USB cable in the other end, and charger into the wall.

Once the device is all plumbed in, switch your TV to the correct HDMI input and follow the setup instructions onscreen. Everything is controlled from the Chromecast app on your Android or iOS device, or from Chrome browser. Everything should go well as long as you make sure both the device and controlling device are connected to the same router (for places that have wireless APs).

When idle the device shows some pretty wallpapers that change every few minutes.

Chromecast app on Nexus 7

Paused YouTube video

Then it's just a case of choosing what to send to your Chromecast. Out the box you can send YouTube videos and play music from the Google Play Music app, and send entire Chrome tabs from your computer, which is very handy!

Tech Thoughts on the big screen!

There are a growing number of little apps that allow you to do even more with the Chromecast. Localcast is one handy little app that allows you to cast media from your tablet, mobile, or web browser and has some other neat tricks. Also BBC iPlayer apparently works out the box though I have yet to try it.

The app and media server Plex is also very handy. I already had Plex setup on an Ubuntu Server PC and the Plex Android app has a cast button to cast content to the Chromecast, so photos, videos and music can be cast from a server upstairs down to TV in the living room.

Plex app and Air "Sexy Boy" streamed to the TV using the Chromecast

Chromecast is great for quickly showing someone a slideshow on a bigger screen, or a few YouTube videos, or for throwing a Chrome tab up on a TV like using a TV as a second monitor. With a growing number of Chromecast apps appearing it should be even more useful and I am still experimenting with more apps.

I found the setup pretty easy, as long as you have a decent network speed, and have not got a complicated amp/HDMI switch setup. It works best plugged directly into the TV if possible. It's certainly a lot less hassle then the Roku device (that I am about to return to the shop, more about that in another blogpost soon!)  The Chromecast works very well and I think it is great value for money and dare I say it, I love the Chromecast!

Update: Roku 'review' here.

8 Useful Google Chrome/Chromium Extensions (for Firefox fans)

When Google Chrome first came out, I found it much too basic, too lacking in features, however it has since grown much more useful since lots of extensions have been available. I'm using Chromium (the source code of which filters down to Chrome) on my old Compaq N400C (850Mhz/256MB RAM) laptop. I've recently upgraded the hard drive (from a 4200RPM 30GB to a faster 5400RPM 40GB drive) and did a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.0.4 LTS. Having found the Gnome desktop to be a little sluggish, I've installed the Lubuntu (LXDE) desktop, which comes with Chromium. Lubuntu looks great and works at a reasonable speed. I still use Firefox sometimes, but Chromium is lighter on resources and not as basic as Midori. I've been searching for extensions similar to my Firefox add-ons and have found these so far:

Adblock

An essential extension! Though not quite as good as AdblockPlus in Firefox, this is the next best thing for wacker-moling those pesky ads.

Flashblock

Again, it's not quite as good as the Firefox equivalent, but good enough to prevent my old laptop from grinding to a halt under flash web elements.

Chromed Bird

On my desktop I love using Gwibber for keeping up with my Twitter (and Facebook) feed. However it's a little too resource hungry for my ageing laptop, so this is a good substitute. For Firefox, the equivalent add-on is Echofon.

Xmarks

I've been using this in Firefox for awhile, so I'm glad to have it in Chrome/Chromium, the only feature it lacks compared with the Firefox version is it lacks password sync. Syncing open tabs is a fairly new and useful feature.

Chromisious (aka Delicious Bookmarks)

Another useful bookmarking addon. I've been using in Firefox addon equivalent for a while.

Tampermonkey

For those who need their Greasemonkey scripts this extension gives "a little bit more Greasemonkey compatibility"

Addthis

This extension/add-on is for sharing URLs to social networking sites, automatically creating a short URL, and is available for Chrome/Chromium and Firefox.

StumbleUpon

One of my favourite ways to while the hours away when bored!

Update: Google Chrome has just reached the landmark stable version