One of the important parameters of a digital camera is the pixel depth, which determines the
dynamic range of the sensor. Fifteen years ago I
wrote “I gather that my Olympus [E-510] has only 10 bit pixels”.
Is that correct? Today I went searching and came up with a blank. The best specs page I
could find is this page, but it, too, is too polite to say. Why are people not interested? It has
much more of a bearing on the image quality than the number of pixels.
Callum Gibson read my article on how to save an SMS. He has a simpler method: Google messages. That way you don't need Microsoft,
just a web browser.
OK, sounds interesting. Off to take a look, but instead of https://messages.google.com/ I was redirected to https://www.android.com/google-messages/. Funny, says Callum, “it works for
me”. Still, the page is clearly related, full of advertisements and content unrelated to
what I'm looking for, like “With Google Messages, you can customize your experience, ensure
private conversations, and enjoy the latest AI features.”. Dammit, all I want to do is to
save an SMS with its metadata, like you can do with any sane MUA with a single click!
First, of course, I have to install Google Messages on my phone. Good news: it's compatible
with all my “devices” (which in this context I think means “phones”). OK, install. I was
given a single line choice of which “device”:
Damn, that's my old phone, the one I just use for experiments. Ah, but single line windows
are modern. Click and you get:
Sometimes I despair. OK, click on the second one, and receive the information that the app
will soon be installed. Wait a while. Nothing. While I was looking, discovered this
comment about the app:
December 30, 2019
I still don't know what good this app is, but I can never find answers to the noises that
are bugging me.
And that was what I wrote on the following day. Further investigation shows that it was already installed on
the phone, and it's the standard messages app that I use. Why didn't Google say so?
They're supposed to keep track.
So: what next? I couldn't find anything to tell me what to do. Finally, though, found my
way through the maze. You have to be logged in to Google to even get the correct link!
And that told me the way through the maze of menus on my phone: click on the image of
myself (currently) at top right and select Device pairing, which tells me to go to
https://messages.google.com/web. And there I get a QR Code and instructions:
Problem: there is no QR code scanner on the phone:
I couldn't find a way to use the code. But I did have the option of signing in, and
suddenly that worked,
And the results? It looks surprisingly like Microsoft's PhoneLink. But it does have the
advantage that I don't have to fire up a Microsoft machine to access it.
So, next step: save the messages. Why would you want to do that?, says Callum. But yes,
you can back them up—to Google
Drive, the storage medium that has caused me so much pain in the past. And doubtless
the format would be unwieldy.
And at the end, I also understood the comment I made five years ago: the thing keeps dinging at me, the noise it makes when a notification
arrives. But all I find is information that my phone is linked to a web browser.
So what's wrong here? Clearly the ability to save messages to Google Drive could be useful
to some people. But why can't I save them on the current machine? Once again other people
are making decisions for me, not the ones I want. It would be so simple just to save the
messages, metadata and all, but modern web and mobile phone software seems to ignore the
obvious and want to run before it can walk.
So, a comparison of the methods:
|
|
Microsoft PhoneLink |
|
Google Messages |
| 1 |
|
Start Microsoft “PhoneLink” and display the message. |
|
Pair phone with https://messages.google.com/web |
| 2 |
|
Select text. |
|
Go to https://messages.google.com/web and display message |
| 3 |
|
Copy to clipboard with c-c. |
|
Select text. |
| 4 |
|
Mark text in xclipboard on the host machine. |
|
Mark text in xclipboard. |
| 5 |
|
Save! |
|
Save! |
|
So yes, it could be easier if it weren't for the fact that I have to explicitly pair and
unpair. But the noise it keeps making means that I have to unpair when I'm not using it.
Why can't they have a button to turn the noise off?
In passing, Callum mentioned another app, SMG Backup and Restore. It still just copies to
Google Drive.
The bubble in my eye is gradually getting smaller, not as fast as I had hoped. This
evening, though, I had two after the evening eyedrops! One was the normal bubble, and the
other one was a tiny bubble about 5% of the size of the main one. It hung around for an
hour or two before disappearing again.
How did that happen? My guess is that one of the floaters kept it from joining the main
bubble.
I should have called Aussie Broadband yesterday about the routing problems that I discovered on Sunday. But I dreaded the encounter, so I put
it off.
But it had to be done, and today I called up and was connected relatively quickly to Ashika,
who of course didn't understand. What kind of router do I have installed? She could only
see one IP address. I tried to explain, and she decided to escalate to “level 2” after only
3 minutes. And after a total of 5 minutes, the call was done: she would send me an email,
to which I should reply with the problem details.
That's actually quite reasonable, and quite a difference from recent encounters. But how do
I explain in a manner that will get the problem involved? Ask an expert.
That had the rather interesting side effect that he contacted people he knew at Aussie, and
within 18 minutes they had fixed the problem (stuff left behind after a configuration
upgrade). Score 1 for friends.
I had hoped that the bubble in my eye would be gone by now, but no such luck. It's getting
smaller, and on a couple of occasions I got a smaller one that then went away again. But by
evening it was still not gone.
