From the Dark Side
by Tiny Ruisch
Way back in 2003, I bought my first iPAQ pocket computer. It was a Windows Mobile device and I loved it and every other one I purchased over the years. When I finally decided to get a pocket pc with telephone capabilities, it had a Windows operating system. When Microsoft decided not to keep up with the electronic world, I went to the dark side and started using Android. Since then, Android mobile has had three major upgrades. Windows has had one. I’ve found out that the applications make a big difference.
I remember when I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was the talk of the small town that I lived in. Everyone thought it was pretty amusing when I was walking home from school while reading a book. I accidentally walked into a tree. I couldn’t help it. I’ve always been an avid reader. I’ve always liked magazines, books and newspapers.
It’s a high tech age now. I still visit the library every two weeks, but most of my checkouts are audio books. I only get two actual magazines delivered by the mail person. The rest are electronic versions I read on my tablet. The books I read are either on my tablet or pocket PC. In fact, the only paper book I read any more is the one by my bed stand. I tend to fall asleep while reading and drop it on the floor. Paper books don’t break as easily as electronic devices.
I quit buying the daily newspaper about four months ago. It is so much easier to read the news on my mobile devices wherever I happen to be. A pocket PC or a tablet is just more convenient than an over sized printed sheet of paper. There are several newsreader applications in the Google Play Store. Many are very good and some have a nice graphical interface. They all claim to aggregate the best news sites.
My newsreader of choice is Google Currents. The main screen shows the news categories that are available. They are News, Business, Science & Tech, Sports and Entertainment. Tapping on a category opens the sub-menu. The first time you open a category, you get the option to read breaking stories or customize the category. In each section there are several newspapers, magazines and blogs that you can add to your news feed. There are also many international publications you can subscribe to. Google translate can be used to translate them into 44 languages.
Reading your subscriptions is really easy. Tap on the publisher you want to read and you get a screen where you scroll through all of the headlines and when they were posted. Tapping the headline will open the article. From the article window you can share the story via social networks, email, messaging, etc. You can also save the article to Dropbox, Evernote, or other note keeping applications you have installed on your device. You can even save the article to your Currents for later off line reading.
I haven’t tried it yet, but the latest update is supposed to create a play list for audio files. The application is free. It takes 5.2 mb of space. If you’ve got an Android device, you can download it from the Google Play Store. Give it a try, you might like it.
Excuse me, but I’m off to read the New York Times, or maybe Maximum PC, or maybe one of those British or Australian publications.