Technologically Tormented to My Limit

I was desperate to have a Galaxy Tab, smitten by the colours, its light weight and size but I think I know now it’s not for me. I wanted a device to use when travelling and it does fit the bill as far as size, weight and even battery life go but I can’t get around the lack of control I have.

 

When I travel I take heaps of photos so I bought an SD card to store them, unfortunately Google, the developers of the Android system, seem to think that being able to write to the SD card leaves the user wide open to nasties like viruses. At the same time to do anything you need to use an app and to install an app you have to give the developer certain permissions. As an example, to download photos from my camera I needed to give the app developers the following permissions.

 

 

Shouldn’t I be more worried by that than the possibility someone might somehow manage to sneak something past my virus scanning program?

I want to download my photos to the SD card. Sorry you can’t do that.

I thought it was magic being able to transfer photos to the Tablet by direct WiFi (no modem or internet needed) until it took me over half an hour to download one weekend’s  photos in batches of 30. I want to connect my camera to the Tablet by cable to download more quickly. Sorry you can’t do that.

They tell me there’s no problem, just upload to the cloud. Sorry I can’t do that. Where I’m going more often than not there won’t be Internet coverage!

When we go away in a few weeks time I’ll be taking the “superseded” laptop as my device of choice and the swanky new tablet with the beautiful screen will just be our backup. 😦

 

Still Tormented

After months I’m still struggling to understand my Galaxy Tab but came a little further today. I want to be able to store photos on an SD card, find them later and edit them. On my PC it’s a breeze, I just download them into specific folders, I can always find them whenever I want to but it’s a completely different story on the Tablet.

I have a Panasonic digital camera so I’m using Panasonic Image App to get the photos from my camera to my tablet. Using the camera’s WiFi feature I can download to the Tablet without cables, access to internet or any other WiFi network. I’m now using the OpenX app to work with my files because it has the ability to move files to the external SD card and to delete files.

Using OpenX I’ve created a folder called Photos on the external SD card and here’s how I get my photos onto that card.

Open Image App. On the tablet

Without switching the camera on press the WiFi button

Select QR code on Image App

Place the camera in front of the tablet camera and move it around until it focuses in the square.

Tap Transfer Image (This does not transfer the file to your tablet)

Tap Select button in the top right of the screen

Tap each image you want to transfer, a green tick will appear in each selection.

In the bottom left corner of your screen tap the icon, your images will be copied to your tablet.

Copying completed        Tap OK

 

Press the Home button on the tablet

Tap the OpenX app

In the right pane you’ll see SD card/DCIM/Image App, the images are in there. Tap to open the folder

Go to the left pane.

Scroll down to the “Photos” folder on External SD card. Tap it to open

In the central column there are small icons, tap Copy

Check box  Move mode (delete source files)

OK

Photos will appear in Image App within the Photos folder on the external SD card.

 

If you know an easier way to do it I’d love to hear how, I need to be able to transfer the files without access to the net because when we’re travelling that’s often not possible.

I’ve discovered that even if you delete photos from your tablet they can still appear in your Gallery because they’re in the cache, even switching off your device won’t get rid of them.  When I FINALLY discovered how to clear the cache the photos were gone. I found the instructions here: http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-119427/

Just in case they disappear I’ve taken a screen dump of the instructions and here they are:

 

Still Tormented

My toys have been abandoned for several days but over the last couple I’ve been clearing off my laptop prior to donating it. Now that everything has gone from it I have to use the Tablet or the PC so I’m back trying to find my way around the Tablet. Inevitably that means a trip to the PC to download information and watch videos.

I bought a storedrive and put some family photos on that I wanted to use with my contacts, later I’ll have it as an extra place for photos if I fill the SD card. I couldn’t get the photos off the USB storedrive, I could see them there but I couldn’t get them into my contacts and I wanted them neatly in a folder anyway. It’s taken all day but I’ve finally managed  it by trial and error. There is a whole lot of information online about transferring to a Storedrive and to a PC but not what I wanted.

This is what I finally did. (I had a folder already in place on my SD card, unfortunately named “Photos Trial” and since it worked I haven’t been able to remove”trial” so I guess it is still a bit of a trial! Inside “Photo Trial” I have a subfolder “Family”.

I started at the Toolbox (the little round button on the screen with 3 vertical dots inside it), I have the My Files folder as 1 of the 5 apps or features in the Toolbox. You can set that up by going to the Settings, Device, Toolbox. There is an excellent YouTube video demonstrating that as 1 of 40 Tips and Tricks.

My Files

USB A

 

 

 

Select

 

Send to

 

 

SD Card

Photos Trial

Family

Move here

 

YEAH!!!!!!!!

Offline Photo Editing App

Another day has passed and I still haven’t managed to get a photo editing app loaded. I need something I can use offline and I need to resize photos. I thought I’d found what I needed with Cymera but it loaded sideways and I couldn’t reorient it. It looked as though it was intended for a phone rather than a Tablet but I’m so new to this I could have missed some very simple step. I have a keyboard cover for my Tablet so I can’t just turn that sideways.

One thing I’ve noticed with Tablet apps, you have to agree to all sorts of info being accessible to the suppliers something I don’t usually allow but it seems that I won’t have any apps if I don’t.

I’ve decided on PhotoEditor but there are so many with the same name I don’t know how to make clear which one it is. It’s fine for my purposes ….. I think.