Android Blues

Oh, Bad manners for a newcomer.

If you had really been following the forum, you would know the answer.

Since you are new, when this happens, just back up one step in your browser, cut and paste your intellectual jewel into a new reply window.

Now lighten up and go back to watching the moon.

It's not our forum, we don't make the rules or pay admission here.

Tried that, it doesn't work on an Android phone. That little popup menu in CR4's editor (and one I almost never use) pretty much short-circuits my mobile's copy and paste facility.

And no, I am not a newcomer. I originally joined CR4 as 'europium' in 2006. I didn't have good manners then and I don't pretend to now. Let's just say my manners are on par with many others' here, and I've been on this forum long enough to know this intimately..

Thanks for your input all the same.

I remember you.

Well, Andriod users have to compensate for their shortcomings somehow. Type fast and edit.

I'd like to find a way to flame:

FAMOUS- BLACKMAGIC SPECIALIST babaJI+91-9660544700
Any ideas there?

Yes, and I remember you. I rather liked you, as I recall. Even called you 'grumpy' once. You denied it of course.

Grumpy, hell. I'm downright mean. I take after me mother.

I thought you had redeeming qualities, too.

Redeeming qualities? Are you kidding?

Oh please don't tell me Shyam is off on a new venture...

I suspect that post was machine-generated and any reply would be pointless.

Here awhile back CR4 was being inundated by 'new members' - all machine generated. Each username was comprised of two words, most having nothing to do with each other and all obviously machine-generated at random.

I wrote an Excel macro to periodically visit CR4's Members Page and logged the new members. At one point new members were signing-up at a rate of over 1200/day. I passed this info on to Mizuti who, evidently, instituted that Capsha thingie wot verifies your Humanity (fat chance in my case, lol).

I suspect Ali Baba or whatever it is, is just more cleverness on the part of spammers.

Lets answer bluntly that your choice of participating (with an Android phone!?) is wrong. Given that you want to participated you need to use the same technology everyone else does.

I can see that this might mean a loss of Android users to this forum, but I am not entirely sure this is what I am or IHS is concerned about. Maybe IHS/Globalspec is missing out on the trend, maybe they miss the technology train. So all the old charts here learned how to adjust. You can as well or you miss out on what is going on.

I am pretty sure some even master the Android phone postings!

Some might not miss your comments a single bit .

I talked to some IHS guys recently and they are vaguely aware of Globalspec.

I wish I knew if this LOVE boy is using Android for his posts.

(Any post containing LOVE should be banned!)

Her ya go! Bluntly spoken!

Learn how to use Android and succeed!

Believe me, I'd rather be posting from a real computer as my aim on this dinky 'keyboard' is iffy at best. Regrettably, I have little other choice at the moment (long, boring story). So, for the time being, it's Android or nothing. I am at a very remote location. (Not the Moon, Lyn. Worse than that).

I feel your pain.

Android's interaction with CR4's site is only part of the problem. The greater problem is one of connectivity. Most of the time I have no Internet connection at all, not even with a 65 dB booster (together with a 13 dB-gain Yagi).

To illustrate:

In order to send a simple, text-only email, I must first put the mobile in Airplane Mode (all radio circuits off), then take it out of A.M. and wait - often 3-5 minutes - for the 3G icon to show.

At that point I have ten seconds to press Send, or repeat the process all over again Why it works this way is a question best asked of cell-phone experts.

What this does tell me is that the network CAN establish a decent connection, but that most of the time it WON'T establish one - unless I go through this procedure which I stumbled on by accident. It's not a technical shortcoming, evidently, but an operational one, network-wise.

This post took twenty minutes to send.

Any experts care to shed some light on this?

"In order to send a simple, text-only email, I must first put the mobile in Airplane Mode (all radio circuits off), then take it out of A.M. and wait - often 3-5 minutes - for the 3G icon to show."

Switching Airplane Mode off and then on resets the network connection. The phone normally then connects to the strongest signal.

This works for all smartphones including that other one ........ iSomething-or-other

How remote can it get if you still have your facebook, skype whatever running on thes Android! You'll never lose contact to civilisation. I applaud your choice of socialising here on CR4. Where else would you get LOVE and (hopefully this post is not going to be banned) cunning replys to your long posts that you cant send?

Cant you cut short on the story and still send? We'll take it in increments. Start a blog and look if this is any better when going into lengthy subjects.

Come back from Europe and join the real world again!

What are you talking about with this LOVE bit, Ideasmith? That link Lyn provided? Please explain.

Oh, just one idiot spamming the site since a few weeks with plenty posts about LOVE.

Its really annoying since it takes Admin very long to wake up and get rid of these posts. Just look at the Home from Globalspec and you'll see.

This idiot gets banned every day and comes back with a different ID and probably e-mail adress to upload tons of posts that get deleted every day.

If admin starts banning LOVE in the OP section they would get rid of 90% of this sort of scam.

I'll go home when I want!

I think the posts would be better written, and have fewer spelling mistakes, if the spam was being generated automatically.

I hope posts containing the word "love" aren't filtered out, given my new sig. line.

I think the spam itself was written by a human and the machine merely posts it without regard to content, but I suspect the rest is automated. By divorcing content from delivery various spammers can use the same script to puke their warez.

Great sig, btw. If only it were practised (sigh).

Good point.

I sympathize re. your difficulties with Android - it's damn' near impossible to post a reply to a pm with correct formatting (I try to use it when away from a PC).

And welcome back.

Thanks. It's good to be back. Blame Yuval and Masu.

All those damn posts have the same telephone number in the subject line so they should be really easy to filter out: I can't understand why it hasn't been done.

On second thought, Ideasmith, please don't explain. You're drunk; just go home (in a taxi, if you would, please).

So are you using the Android because you don't have a PC or is it because the phone is the only way to get on the internet in your current long and boring situation?

I have a computer but no Internet connection. My 'long and boring' situation is that my father died last September and I am here taking care of my frail, 87-year-old, extremely stubborn, bull-headed mother who adamantly refuses to allow anything Internet-related on hers & dad's ranch here deep in the Rocky Mountains. The only high-speed Internet connection would have to be a satellite terminal, as there is no DSL here, no fibre, no nothing. Breathtaking scenery, yes. Technology, no. My only recourse is this mobile, or drive a considerable distance to the nearest town where there is free WiFi at a small bookshop. My situation here is temporary, as mum has put the ranch up for sale and, when it sells, will move in with my older brother in the U.S. Midwest.

Q: Why not use my mobile as a wifi hotspot?

A: For what? Ten seconds out of every seven minutes on average? Right. Next question.

Yes, there are places on Earth more remote. A couple, anyway.

Oh, btw, it's actually been quite an adventure and not boring at all!

Sorry about your situation mate.

You said it was boring....just quoting you, nice to hear that you are, in reality, making the most of the experience.

You preempted my suggestion of setting your phone up as a wifi hotspot...I've needed to do that a few times as a temporary workaround. Not sure what you mean about the 10sec/7min internet access duty cycle.....

Hope it/life all works out better for everyone in your camp there.

I mentioned somewhere something about my connectivity problems here. That roughly 2.5% duty-cycle is the average connection time I have for the interval. It takes longer to negotiate a hotspot connection, on average, than the connection actually lasts!

Are you Aussie or Brit or neither? Just curious.

I get it now. The reliability of your mobile internet connection is the choke point.

Oz.

"Oz."

Ah! The Lucky Country! Hope to go there one day, once I can get out from behind this Black Stump.

I had the problem with a regular computer using both Slimbrowser and IE, I finally made it with Chrome, and it was only four words! It took the tiniest amount of time to paste in the, "Welcome to the club" and preview and submit, but it was still too long.

Catchy song title, BTW - must work on it!

I have (HAD?) the same prob in Safari with Mavericks. - longer (time) posts. Solution seems to be format reply in a WP, copy & paste into browser. You may also need to put the start para and end para

and [p/] (or something) or it will destroy your formatting.

Oh, I remember those f!@#ing formatting control characters when using Opera..IE was fine but IE was a little bog...now on Firefox and the formatting is WYSIWYG and picture posting and URLs are easier too.

I just had to do the edit, copy, back, back, back, reply, paste and submit for this mini blither too.

You get used to it.

Opera, Apple's premier WYGIWYG* browser. AKA <primal scream followed by a host of expletives>

----

* WYGIWYG (WIG'-ee-wig) adj - "What You Get Is What You Get"

Yes, and I've learnt to write my posts in a WP when using an Internet-connected computer, but for the time being I'm stuck using this Android phone. Copy-and-paste works for most things on this mobile, but as I mentioned earlier, that popup on CR4's editor trashes the contents of Android's clipboard.

Really, all of the foregoing is not a 'solution,' but a workaround. The solution would be for CR4's masters to fix the problem. Something, somewhere on their servers is timing-out, after which time submissions are treated as errors. At other times I get a 'missing parameter' error message. I don't know if the two errors are related.

I have to agree that it seems like all they should have to do is change the timeout spec, and we'd be good. It has been quite a few months now...

I really feel for you having the phone as your only means of posting. I happen to use an iPhone instead of Android, but I don't even try to do email on it, and only rarely try to use the internet. My eyes need more screen real estate than that on any phone I've seen so far. I don't know why they don't just integrate a phone into the laptop!

The above took too long...

Hi e,

Welcome back. I've had the same trouble multiple times, and have complained a few. Several times I have not re-submitted. The best suggestion I can give you is to write your posts in a word document, and then cut a paste them into CR4.

-S

Thanks! I've had my scream and now I'm back. :-)

I've found a workaround on this phone which I described in another comment. Gimme a sec to see which one ....

#40.

Editing in a separate WP doc works, as you suggested, but on this mobile, when I copy the text from the doc and then try to paste it into CR4's editor, that little popup you get when you try to paste (the one that gives you option to undo, etc?) clears Android's clipboard so that there is nothing there to paste <insert Primal Scream here>, hence the workaround.

Thanks again. It's good to be back.

How is it today? I have been able to keep some comments open for quite a while. Take the river barge comment. It took me ages to find the original Kastrupsky post. Actually that was because I got lost in all these old posts rereading some of it for a good laugh!

Me thinks that Admin heard your call. Do you see an improvement?

Time will tell (pun intended).

Thanks for kastrupsky.

I've tried to remember his name to put into my hall of flame along with Joe-Fordham, JP76 and a few others who are good for an occasional laugh.

Now if I could just remember the crackpot thinker who never wore a shirt.

Aww, now Lyn, you KNOW all he needs is just a little LOVE, mamakhaifa-style.

I love everybody.

No doubt.

Time has told: "No change."

Yes back to the usual experience.

And I was sure it got better, but then yesterday . . .