Asus S400CA

I'm typing from my mother-in-law's ultrabook. As weird as it sounds I do not have a notebook, just my loyal PC ready for gaming. I'm on a Windows 8 and I have fearless decided to use it for a while being surprised and annoyed almost equally. I have also decided to put a little shrine dedicated to the start button. Sniff.

Has an appearance like the Macbook Pro but with Windows and a touchscreen

So.. Here are the specs:

• i3, third generation
• 4 GB of RAM
• Touchscreen

If you want more specs you can visit the website. The ultrabook is neat although I really don't like the feel when I type. Its kind of like a keyboard that has dust, bread and other what nots under it. Aside from that I really like the touchscreen and I use it a lot. I have never been a true fan of the mouse, being used to use as many shortcuts as I can. I feel it rather clumsy unlike the touchscreen which allows me to click exactly what I want very quickly. When the brightness is at maximum the colours seem to washed out but the resolution but I guess you won't need that much brightness unless you're are the beach. Its also pretty light and easy to carry around.

Now, here comes the thing that kinda punched me on the neck (since it was me the one that went with her to buy the ultrabook)

The. Touchpad.

It was neat, it was gorgeus and it was pretty amazing. But underneath its silver colour there's evil. Let's begin describing whats good with it. You can click anywhere through its area without having to use two fingers which is very comfortable. The trackpad is one whole thing that its not separated by the click buttons.
Problem is that after a week or so of use it has a mild elevation on its center. Now I'd like to take a photo of it, but tragedy dictates that I lack my smartphone. My mother-in-law doesn't mind it and I'm sure the warrant would cover it.

Trackpad is not flat, see for yourself (if you can spot it)

Aside from that I got scared when we were just unpacking it. Windows was slow at everything but after a few boots it was fast again. Seems Windows 8 takes a bit to index and do its evil deeds until it decided it has manifest its shadows through the hard drive. After all, what kind of devil would create a Windows without a Start Button?

Google Playstore refunds, a developer's POV

So.. refunds. That's a neat feature that affects developers and customers equally. You buy something, you don't like it? You give it back, hopefully without making a backup copy of the precious .apk. After reading and researching a bit I've come to appreciate it, even if I'm at the dev's side. Refunds means more people willing to try out your app, which means a public more willing to spend money which is, ultimately, good.

I've a few apps on the playstore and its a bit sad though to see such a high refund percentage. You won't believe the amount of people that buy and return. At least 60% of my sales are refunds. Perhaps my apps are weak (which it'd be my fault) but its still a bit depressing watching and picturing all those people raising their eyebrows while eyeing my beautiful and hard-coded app. I imagine them with a judgmental sight or perhaps a poker face, waiting for a minor bug to let them unleash the fury and press the damned "Refund" button. I had nightmares with it.

But being a bit more serious, when you have a refunded sale Google sends you an e-mail to remind you of your failure. Each. And. Every. Time. So each time a mail arrived my gmail inbox I knew it was spam or just a kick on the back of my head. Google does not send you an e-mail in case you made a successful sale.

Maybe this is just ultimately a rant of a mediocre developer just learning the ups and downs of a market that has high expectations. I am still expecting my first payment. Things will look good then.

Oh and in case you're wondering. This is my app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.playdata.sherlocked

Please, don't judge me.. or refund me.

Android Kit Kat on my Nexus 10

Frankly I am always more excited than I should be when there's an android update around the corner. I read and try to inform myself as much as I can about the new features and try to analyze what I will REALLY gain when it reaches my device. But hype is hype and I just can't avoid to feel excited to the news of a new Android version which my wild imagination suggests it will have holographic keyboards, graphics on par with the ps4 and will allow me to turn off the lights with bluetooth. I must admit that I won't install it on my olde S2 ASAP due to the number of bugs Cyanogenmod will have as soon as it is released, and I really need my phone to work. But I have my Nexus 10, still without a next generation. And I already have my ADB drivers installed, still haven't left Stock AND Google released the stock image so anxious guys like me can make the update manually.

So... What can I say? Disappointed or did Google delivered? Maybe half and half would be the straight short boring awful answer.

I must admit the best feature I was eager to have were those beautiful transparent bars. More screen and more colors. You should know I really do miss the merged navigation bar ice cream sandwich had and I really think two bars seem like a waste of space. So you must now know how disappointed I was when it was announced my dear and just a year old (it was released on November, 2012) Nexus 10 would not have it. More so, I was shocked it was due to performance issues due to the alpha level of the navigation bar. Let me get you how ridiculous that is. Have you checked how much RAM your OS really sees? If you go to the applications on execution, you will see you have 1.1 GB of RAM. The device is advertised as 2 GB. Google does not lie, the device does have the RAM it claims it has, but it uses a whooping 900MB on just the processing of the screen. Just. The. Screen... AND that's not enough for a bit of transparency? You might say that's possible, but then again we have ROMs that have apply those transparency levels without issue. Google did disappoint me on that aspect. And by disappoint I mean it hit my head with a sledgehammer. I hate you, Google (no, I don't)
There is something that did change a bit, though. Nova Launcher allows me to hide the notification and go full screen from my "desktop". You might think "Why? Why would you want that?" But I'll take every bit of screen I can to enjoy my precious wallpapers with 300 PPI. Don't judge me.

The other features I wasn't so eager to see but after I installed the update I started to spot the differences. Besides the obvious visual changes, I kinda died a little on the inside when my wi-fi symbol was plain white whether I had internet on wi-fi my connection or not. To check if I had wi-fi now I had to swipe down from my notification. If my wi-fi was poop-colored, then I was pooped and without wi-fi.

I don't really print stuff and I think the fact I lack a printer is a big reason for it. So I could not check the new way Kit Kat allows me to print stuff.

The surprise was when I started Magic 2014. This game is pretty demanding and I noticed a big change. My fps went up. I wasn't looking for a change like that, I just noticed it so I don't think its just placebo acting up. The app was way smoother. Besides that, I could just swipe down from the top of the screen to see my notifications which is neat.

Besides all this. All of you Nexus 10 owners should concern with the following: Due to the lack of updates the Galaxy Nexus will have, we should all start looking ourselves in the mirror. In 6 months we will be for ourselves, without support (18 months will have passed since the release of the Nexus 10).

Thank God for those ROM cookers.