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Tag: tech-foolishness

  • Onyx Boox Max2 Pro

    Serving PDF

    Using the Boox to read sheet music, I have to adjust my workflow. Previously, I had used a web server, KWS, to provide set lists and sheet-music pdf files to the browser.

    The Boox seems to be highly optimized to conserve battery life, and perhaps as a consequence the web server freezes. I see this happen on my Pixel C, but relatively infrequently — about once every 6-8 hours of use on the Pixel C versus once every 10 minutes on the Boox.

    To make matters worse, the Boox is slow to switch and restart applications.

    Organizing PDF

    The Boox default view is a PDF browser, and it supports organizing files by directory, but the selection process is slow and cumbersome and is opaque in that it doesn’t correspond to actual directories.

    Another idea is to concatenate sheet music into a single-file set list. There are lots of programs available to concatenate pdf, and Apple Preview is one of them.

    Another option is to use a sheet music app running on the Boox, such as Fakebook, Orpheus, or Mobile Sheets Pro. I have used Fakebook before to read chord charts, but didn’t realize it could read PDF, too.

    While searching for Android sheet-music readers, I stumbled upon Musical Android, a site devoted to Android audio apps.

    Bluetooth

    After several tries, I was able to connect my Airturn Duo pedal to the Boox. The process was tedious in that the pedal requires long button presses to send to pairing mode, the Boox only infrequently updates the list of available devices, and the Boox usually displays the Bluetooth address in the place of the device title.

    December, 2019 update:

    The afternoon of a performance, while I was warming up for an orchestra holiday show, the Boox did its best brick impersonation. I scrambled to print out my sheet music before rushing out for the performance across town.

    I was eventually able to return the Boox to usable condition, but only after booting it into safe mode and losing all of my sheet music.

  • Onyx Boox Max2 Pro

    I received my new tablet yesterday– an Onyx Boox Max2 Pro. The main selling point for me was the screen size, e-ink, and that it runs Android, though a dated version 6.

    Out of the box, it balked at signing into the Play Store, complaining about manufacturer/device licensing. Ereader Store posted a YouTube video to update the Boox version of Android and demo the play store.

    From Play, I installed Termux, KWS, File Manager, and Amazon Music. There was a hiccup installing Amazon Kindle, with error 910, solved just by restarting the Boox.

    From Termux, I installed git, openssh, and nodejs using pkg. To allow other programs to access Termux files, you have to run termux-setup-storage.

    Much of my tablet use before was viewing sheet music, either on-line or pdf. The latter looks beautiful on the Boox. For viewing material on-line, I’d suggest installing Chrome which handles color-to-gray mapping better than the built-in/default Boox browser and opens the default pdf viewer automatically. (Using the Boox viewer, you have to find the download alert and select the file.) For my use case, it will probably be worth scripting a set-list into a single pdf file, or keeping a directory of the ordered set list and use the Boox pdf viewer.

    My initial impressions using the Boox are that the display is nice, the control buttons feel clunky, the finger touch response of the display is unreliable, and the WiFi powers down automatically after disuse. I’ll be looking at connecting a Bluetooth page turner and keyboard, and perhaps a monitor stand.

  • Introduction to Computer Vision with Go I: Obnoxious Webcams

    Earlier this week I spent a morning listening to Ron Evan’s introduction to computer vision with Go course through Safari. Following my belief that every course should should have at least one project, I hacked up an application to deface images and webcam streams with hats: Lotsohats.

    The course walked through several GoCV example applications to apply filters to images and use deep-learning packages with pre-trained models for image classification. To me, it seemed like an obvious easy assignment was mimic a certain alcohol-advertising crowd-cam app used at the local hockey arena and drop hats on people in images.

    It was my first experience with Go, but the proof of concept took a morning to hack something together, learning Go unit testing and exploring the GoCV and Standard Go Library APIs along the way, and this morning was spent polishing, tweaking, and documenting. The Donovan and Kernighan Go book is also a good resource.