Directv has been such a blessing. I ain't gonna lie.

I might go that direction. It can't be worse. But I am giving up cable for the nonce.

Seriously it's been a bad year.

yep.

give me a holler if you decide. I have some coupons that might get you a good deal if you sign up.

I cut the cord a month ago. We got a Roku and already had Amazon Prime. The Roku really improves the Amazon Prime experience over our old streaming BlueRay player.

I'm almost embarrassed to type this, because issues. But my Galaxy tablet started turning itself off--it had been doing it while asleep which is annoying but not world-ending.

Today it did it three times while I was using it.

Task manager hunt has been slow for the last week. No new software added--in fact, I'd been deleting software instead.

I went to Frys and asked what beside the quadcore made this Samsung so much more expensive than the Tab 3, and oh, did you have the Note 10.1. Answer? "Just the quadcore, and no we only have the note in 8 inches."

While I was reading up on my phone in the parking lot I realised that the more expensive quadcore with the lower Android version WAS THE FUCKING NOTE. But I decided if Best Buy had the same prices, I'd give them my money instead because she'd been so damned stupid.

So I'm holding a Note 10.1--also unlike Frys, BB doesn't have a restocking fee. So I have 15 days to see if I fall in love, otherwise I go back and start looking at the second best Asus and the latest Tab.

Hold me.

Miniature Mac: [link]

Sadly, I'm in love with the fucking Note. I'm focussing on stylus functionality, assuming all else will be equal (except speed), and the functionality allowing me to open a given app by handwriting one or two letters/symbols is...CRACK.

The multiple windows is neat, but will take some getting used to--balancing that against widgets, for instance--at least the task manager I'm currently using (I worked out how to sync with DGT GTD) lets me run it in a window, for starters. Oh, look--the window is pinnable so I can open full screen apps behind it...

Yeah, fuck.

Thanks Tab #1! You were great and I loved you, but if you can't be relied on to stay on for ten minutes at a time any more, your usefulness is radically diminished. Fuck, you can't even be relegated to alarm clock!

(I see Opera ripped the nads off its mobile browser too, but is still also distributing "Classic" for grumpy people like me--I'm even more likely to want to use a bookmark on a phone or tablet, over searching or typing, peeps. I feel weird that this is weird. Opera 15 has crashed twice on my Mac this morning (deviantArt doesn't work with 12 anymore, and I'm trying to get used to IO9 in it), and the first time it lost all its open windows, and opened with all the windows I have open currently in Opera 12. Second time it lost all of everything. Crashing is clearly bad, but this is even worse at restoring former state than Firefox (which apologises for not being able to do it, then does it--what is that all about?))

Google + Hangout? Anyone used it? Anyone have any tips? Apparently that's how I'm going to be doing the video chat thingie for @HuffPostLive tomorrow.

I've heard good things about it. The one time I used it was a disaster, but that was a connection to Gaza, and I gather that all internet connections to Gaza are a disaster.

Roommate is trying to decide if she wants an iPad or an iPad mini. She already has a kindle for reading. This would basically be for travel. (Has an iphone and mac laptop, so no interest in outside the apple universe). Thoughts? I suggested that if she were using it as an eReader, the mini might be good, but since she's not, the bigger is probably better?

I've used Google Plus Hangout for professional meetings. Worked like a charm. Test it out and consider your backdrop if necessary. Wear pants (or in your case, a skirt.) My colleagues have been generally charmed by my very curious cat, but you might want to sequester yours if that would stress you out.