One thing about google Play and older devices

...and one reason why I prefer console (and retro) games

 Long time ago, I purchased Android port of legenadary Carmageddon game from Google Play store. The game was perfect; It ran perfectly on my low-end Gigaset tablet and controls were almost better than the original MsDos/Win95 version.

Kuva, jonka Arthur Samuel Rowan (@arsapi) julkaisi 31. 07ta 2016 klo 18.15 PDT

Some months later the game was suddenly updated, and android 4.x compatibility was somewhat butchered, and the original paid, adfree version of the game was converted to in-app-purchases supported game... And I had auto update enabled in my device, so it updated and then the game didn't work anymore... Yeah... Shit happens

 
And that is one bad thing about Google's Play store and other digital distribution platforms; App developers can just suddenly change their old feature rich and complete app to something else, instead of releasing the "new" version as different app...

That's why I prefer old game consoles and non-online-updating DRM free PC games; when it comes to ability to play games long after their release date in their original form.

Low-end Android devices

I recently got new cell phone: Sony Xperia M4 Aqua. It has enough power in processing side, but only 4gb storage out of 8gb and Sony has already bloated it with its own software so there is only 2gb for end user.

I also own this cheap Gigaset QV830 tablet with almost vanilla Android 4.2.2 . For comparison there was 4gb free for user.

Either way both of my devices are still quite low-end spectrum for Android device storage capacity. 

I have to really think what apps I can Install. 

I like to find those Android apps with low storage footprint (low RAM footprint is also good with devices with 1gb or less). But there is one problem. You can't really see the true requirements for apps in Google's own Play store. You can see if the app is compatible or not, and amount of storage the initial installation needs, but that's it.

My workaround is HP Mini 110 laptop with Android installation in HDD. It has only 1gb of RAM and single core processor, but enough storage capacity to hold multiple Android apps.
(Another solution would be running  the Android in virtual machine, if you have powerfull PC).

Now I can inspect apps before installing them to my other devices and I definitely know how much RAM and storage they consume. And if android app runs smoothly in old laptop, then it runs smoothly on my other devices too...

What's up?

...

Random thoughts and notes about my current (and past) computer/electronics related life:

• I'm still using my EeePC904 mainly for IRC (hexchat is good) -and to write this blog text.
• Sony PSP is still my fave. when talking about handheld gaming consoles: It is perfect for running Wolfenstein 3d (and homebrew indie games).
• I use Chromecast to watch youtube.
• I have android phone and tablet, they are both really low end.
• State of electronics is really interesting documentary series about (mainly Australian) electronics hobby culture:  https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIizEY7AraGytx9YRynoCqXuWcvvCjQbg 
• I would like to do some videos about my low-end retro hobby, but my english is so bad that I'm afraid to do any content to youtube (where I'm speaking). maybe some day...

The Sony PSP

Yes. I have a Playstation Portable console (PSP3000); As I'm lazy adopter of new technology I bought that tiny marvel of pocket gaming just after Sony's brand new PSVITA was launched to the consumer market.

But why?
Dunno, maybe I just like the idea of PSP. It's huge catalog of games and ability to play almost all PSone/PSX games.
Even the UMD format used to distribute physical games for PSP was -at least- mechanically inferior compared to other systems at the time (mainly Nintendo's Game Boy line and DS line). PSP was otherwise superior in technical terms and processing power.

And in my opinion, it was the last and therefore best 32 bit (ish) console in market...

New kid on the block

Actually. Not so new...

Some time ago I got another netbook; Asus Eee PC 904HD, or "mini portable" as we call these laptops in my country.

At the time, when Asus introduced Eee PC for the masses, it was first of it's kind... kind of... Even there has been some tiny laptops before Eee-family. However Eee PC really started the low-cost, low-end, internet centered, semi-mobile hardware boom. And I wanted one of those, but never got enough spare money to buy one, even they were really cheap. And in the end, I didn't really need one. I was just fascinated about the idea of tiny net laptops.

But these days no one want's those underpowered wonders. and that's fine for me; Currently I own two netbooks and I've gotten both for free.

I installed The CrunchBang Linux (that is really light linux dstro) to my Eee PC and configured the web browser same way as I have done before.

Compaq Vs. Compaq

Size comparison of Compaq Contura Aero 4/25 from 1994 and Compaq Mini 110 from 2009:

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Compaq mini

So... I got this Compaq mini 110 for free (150gb HDD version. So no SDD) and installed LUbuntu linux on it (it originally came with  windows XP installed)...

I intended to use it to do some internet browsing (Email, News, IRC) while on the road, but as soon I started Firefox, I noticed that many web sites are grown really resource hungry over past few years; For example Facebooks desktop version has grown to that big hideous bloated monster that brings those little innocent laptops in their knees, but on the other hand their mobile friendly version is really sophisticated... So lets do some tweaking;

As we know, this Compaq nettop can barely stand against modern, lower-end mobile tablet computers (in specs wise, with it's single core Intel Atom processor and 1 gigabyte of ram);
We need to tell to the mighty internet that we are using lighter mobile device, not fully featured laptop.

I have earlier experimented with even lower-end laptop with windows 98 so that experience came to good use now:

Here's what I did:

First I downloaded some extensions to firefox:

-Adblock or Adblock Plus (I prefer the ABP AB )  ...disabling ads may save some (=many) resources.
-Wmlbrowser ...Enables firefox to view WML formatted mobile (wap) sites.
-XHTML Mobile Profile ...Enables mobile browsing in firefox.
-Modify Headers ...with this extension you can easily edit firefox User Agent strings.
-(all extensions can be found from official firefox extension and addon site).

After installing all addons, I edited firefox user agent profile using Modify Headers extension, to tell websites that I'm using mobile browser:

Here's that UA string code:

Mozilla/5.0 (Android 4.0.3; Linux i386; Mobile; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0

Good tutorial to Modify Headers can be found from developers web site: http://www.garethhunt.com/modifyheaders/help/quickstart/

Some resources I used:

• https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/09/final-user-agent-string-for-firefox-4/
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Gecko_user_agent_string_reference
• http://useragentstring.com/

EDIT: Currently it runs XFCE based Xubuntu 14.04 LTS: XFCE desktop adapts to Compaq mini's odd screen resolution (1024 x 576) more flawlessly than Lubuntu's desktop solution.