Some technicalities

Jan 11, 2022 | Stationary Work and Travel, Updates

We all laughed at that app called “Download SD Card 32 GB”.
Because there is one constant in the hardware we use: The available storage, which can be extended, too, but is then again fixed to a certain value.

Since I used Android smartphones, I liked to tinker with them and understand the inner workings of that operating system more and more.
The recent years I only used the devices and didn’t put too much effort into modifying and tweaking them.

So, now that I wanted to pull it off again, I decided to buy a new device. A tablet, because I would only use it inside the house. I went for the newest model, the freshly released Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 on Android 11 with the mere 32 GB internal storage space, as I didn’t want to overload it. Trusting it would bring me the benefits I wanted.

I got it, set it up and imported all the data I usually do and it was fine and a nice experience and then the storage was full.

This early? I barely surfed on it or downloaded anything! But the evidence showed I had a tremendous amount of so-called “System data”. So much, that I couldn’t install another app or receive another file via Bluetooth (for some instances it is still used).

It looked like this on the widely known app “DiskUsage”, before it was quickly fully blocked:

 

I might add that my device has only 32 GB of internal storage, which are reduced by about 10 GB of the core Android system data.

So 22 GB free to use, right? Right.

Now, I was at my wits end, deleting apps to make room and decluttering my WhatsApp Images by about 4,5 GB.

Nothing helped and one night I was certain I would go to the store and make an elaborate scene and switch to another device.

Though one thing, besides the unaccountable for “System data”, didn’t quite add up. And that was, that my tablet was still running smoothly, even though it shouldn’t, given the “full” storage space.
Some caches were still being written, some apps still worked, even though they shouldn’t. As if only a few operations really asked about free storage and others just wrote away.

Then I looked for one of those carefree options to exploit this and see what would happen.
My Nextcloud client seemed to be the right choice. So, on full internal storage, I downloaded over 13 GB of data from my Nextcloud.

It looked like this:

So, I accomplished it! I successfully expanded my storage capacity! 😀
And in the end, there were some different notifications and I felt that I really reached the limit of the internal storage. The tablet couldn’t even save a screenshot anymore…

Many forums I have roamed and many research only led to an understanding that this behavior (before the exploit) has been around for many years and affects several brands of Android devices.

Whyever Media Storage decides to allot twice as much data, I don’t know.
But after brutally overbooking the storage like that and then deleting all the downloaded data, it went to normal and didn’t fill up like that again.

All my hopes are towards the next software release, Android 12 namely, which might or might not fix this bug for whoever else is affected.

That is all for today, some technical breakthrough where no hope was left. 🙂

 

Edit, 15.01.22: It happens again, gradually, and is fixable the same way. Let’s hope the update makes it right…
Edit, 03.02.22: The Update X200XXU1AVAB/ X200XXM1AVAB seems to have fixed it.

What’s for lunch? Adventure!

Sep 30, 2021 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts

Most days of my employment I took advantage of my very short way home for spending my lunch break.
I liked the little trip into the familiarity, to recharge and replenish in another place than at work.

As my role changed, my team situation evolved and I as a person grew, I found myself in the company of my work mates frightingly often.
Either (the least of times) I brought something from home or we went to the near supermarket or we got some takeaway and spent our break together in varying groups.

I am a person who is always looking for things that make me happy. Little things count as well!
Food makes me happy, human company most of the time makes me happy, trying new things makes me happy, routines make my happy.

What I want to talk about today: My favourite means of food acquisition is the infamous oracle (it might be my responsibility it got as infamous).
With the oracle, you never know what awaits your taste buds, you never know if the oracle presents you with food you already know, you never know where the oracle sends you on your journey.

The oracle boasts its greatest advantage in it offering food on sale.
For it actually is that little part in the supermarket aisle where you find all the half-or-less priced food that has to go quickly, or else…

It is brilliant: You always strike a good deal, you always have a pre-selected mix of foods which dramatically helps with choosing, you save perfectly good food from being thrown out and most important of all: You go for things you would never have looked at until you see them on that daily short list.

The only thing you have to bring is a tolerance in sustenance preference, a sense of adventure and preferably someone to share the joy of the thrilling process each day you travel to the oracle.

I noticed the oracle is not the way for everyone. But yet again, I am not like everyone and not everyone is like me.

This excites me a lot: Learning about who I am and who I am not, what I am able to and what I like.
Be it through a funny routine and a seemingly trivial act of lunch: I get a glimpse of myself and that is something special.

What happened in 2019

Jan 2, 2020 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

Life

 

Life happened in 2019.

I told you all about the last last year 2018 and how my apprenticeship ended in the beginning of 2019.

After that, I went silent. As opposed to what a blog should be, I didn’t post anything new. And here is why: How could I post anything new, when there is my old blog, still sitting there and waiting to be translated? I wanted to finish that project first, before I start blogging about my further life.
And I did. I finished translating all of my old blog. Now, I can blog like I used to. Whenever I make experiences or/ and have something to say, I can just do so. Without thinking about the old stuff I didn’t yet translate.

This process took me a while. And 2019 was the first year after the second apprenticeship, so I had to adapt to this new kind of life. Which, by the way continues. And the point of this multi-part retrospective, ‘again one of those’ you might think, is to prove the motto of this blog.

Life is a mix. Like the music we listen to. At least for me, it is switching back and forth between the known, established and the unknown, sometimes experimental side.

Before I tell you all about the somewhat adventurous side, I like to elaborate on the more or less established side of things. Life in the latter areas happens at home and and work, mostly.

The picture above is a great example of the good ol’ side of life. Christmas. In my time abroad I had some other versions of this holiday, but it stayed the same at home.

 

Work

 

As I proudly proclaimed in the beginning of the year, my apprenticeship is done, finished and over!
I evolved into a customer service representative and love not only our costumers, but my colleagues and the company as a whole.
In my department, I was put in charge of making the life of our current apprentices and interns a good one. Also, next to my everyday duties, I had the opportunity to shoot some pictures for several use-cases at work.
Those tasks are valuable on a mutual basis and I am grateful for being entrusted with those ‘side quests’. 🙂

Life at work will go on and there is much room given for development. That is a plus and I like to ride that wave.

 

Home

 

As I translated the old blog posts, I was taken back in time regarding the state of my room. It is, for better or worse, one of the places I spend most of my time inside of.

But now, it features a genuine couch with a coffee table (on which my sturdy Yamaha stereo resides), remote-controlled sockets (makes switching on and off the subwoofers SO much easier), an absolute unit of a laptop (for developing photos, of course) with some accessories to work with it and many smaller improvements. It just feels so thoroughly good, improving your everyday life. 🙂

Also, one of the biggest improvements in life I carry with me, are my hearing protection plugs. They are of a custom made model, which was made to fit my ears and dampens noise in a linear fashion. This way, everything sounds the same, only quieter. It feels like a super power, being able to hear everything at a more comfortable level for the mind behind. For me, they are a total game changer.

 

The next posts will tell my 2019 along more pictures, so be excited!

 

Imprinted Impressions

Jan 30, 2017 | After The Great Journey, Photos

This post is the first of its kind on my blog, as it is a product review. NO other object would be more fitting than a photobook, don’t you think?

The company Saal-Digital gave me the opportunity to test their photobook and I made use of it!

It is a nice thing, to HAVE pictures and to share them online, but imprinted you give them a whole new significance.

As much as I usually like photography, a photobook of the own pictures you don’t capture every day…

This now is the result. My most loved pictures of many lovely places on paper. As this is my very first photobook, I will just tell from my perspective, how it works with Saal-Digital.

So you begin with installing the software you install on your computer.
The same offers many functions for any kind of product, of which the photobook might just be the most complex.
The process is quite simple, you just drag the images from the proprietary file explorer to the desired page, all intuitive. Cutting and pasting works like a charm, too, as does the feature to mirror to pictures on a centerfold. But all that mighty the internal file explorer is not, so I effectively chose the pictures from the Windows file explorer. Maybe, on the other hand, I just have a ton of pictures. 😀

 

 

I designed my first photobook in a puristic way and left out twirls and text entirely. Colour and print quality are most fine, I do not doubt, as far as my inexperienced eye can evaluate that. Even more, as the images out of my small-sensor camera let their limited detail show. I am happy not to have chosen a bigger format. For that you need bigger pictures. Also impressive are the black areas. For they are just black.

 

 

One point of convenience I didn’t notice until my family pointed it out to me: Not every supplier of photobook lets you design the fronts inside covers.
Also, you get the option to remove the Saal-Digital bar code for an additional fee.
In the end I missed the chance to see all pages back to back. You do get the scroll bar to browse through the pages, but I couldn’t make it full-frame. As rearranging the pictures between any page would be the icing of the designer’s cake.

 

 

 

 

With the cover I went for the cushioned variant. Now the book feels appealingly soft and every beholder liked to turn it over a second time in his hands. 🙂

Bottom line:
A splendid product, which is determined only by the own pictures and design ideas, in the end. Delivery was very fast as well.
Now I want to put more pictures of mine on paper. Yay!

Street Art in Dunedin

Nov 23, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Trips

I am sorry I published not much lately. That has several reasons.
Firstly, my life now follows a routine, called work life… You don’t do much exciting things other than saving money, going back and forth between work place and home and sleeping when all the other things get old. 🙂

Secondly, my last two days were filled by a visit. Which, on the other hand, means that there is a lot to share! This is going to get us a number of posts in a short time, so stay tuned. 😉

For Lea, the brave cyclist, had arrived in Dunedin and we spent some exciting days together. It was a good thing that it mostly fell on my days off, so we had room for some long spanning adventures.

One of those was all about the ‘Dunedin Street Art Project’, so street art, basically. More exactly, they are paintings on the sides of houses all over the inner city, created by a team of international artists…

I found it most appealing, to explore the city that way. For when do you purposely look into smaller alleyways and backyards?

You might just come with me for a little alternative route through Dunedin. 🙂