The $20 Android tablet

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

Yeah, there is no point really, it is just another option that isn't usually used the only thing I can think of is if you have a lot of RAM and a really small HDD

Like me? Hmm...
(Windows is welcome to die horribly on me whenever it wants, just so long as it loads ADE in between.)

[Glorfindel]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Like me? Hmm...
(Windows is welcom to die horribly on me whenever it wants, just so long as it loads ADE in between.)

that better not happen to me

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

Yeah, there is no point really, it is just another option that isn't usually used the only thing I can think of is if you have a lot of RAM and a really small HDD

You can allocate a really small page file. It's just hard to not have one at all.

One trick I used in the past was to put the page file on a different drive than the one Windows booted from, to spread drive access.

lol I bet

I got the impression from reading his stuff that Russinovitch knew more about NT internals than Microsoft. MS apparently agreed: they bought his company and put Mark and partner Bryce Cogswell to work in the Core Architecture Group. Mark's Sysinternals freeware suite is a must have if you do anything serious in Windows.
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Dennis

[Glorfindel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You can allocate a really small page file. It's just hard to not have one at all.

There is an option to turn it off in XP, I haven't looked in 7 or 8 I guess.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I got the impression from reading his stuff that Russinovitch knew more about NT internals than Microsoft. MS apparently agreed: they bought his company and put Mark and partner Bryce Cogswell to work in the Core Architecture Group. Mark's Sysinternals freeware suite is a must have if you do anything serious in Windows.
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Dennis

Hmm, I may have to look in to that

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

There is an option to turn it off in XP, I haven't looked in 7 or 8 I guess.

Nor have I.

Hmm, I may have to look in to that

Mark's code is now hosted at MSDN Technet. The complete Sysinternals bundle is here.

The pick of the litter is Mark's Process Explorer, a more powerful replacement for Windows Task Manager. (It can be set to replace Task Manager.) You can get that here.
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Dennis

[martinvy1]

Many thx for informing me of App Dragon. Might help me organize my tablet a bit and help me remove apps that I just dont make use of.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by martinvy1

Many thx for informing me of App Dragon. Might help me organize my tablet a bit and help me remove apps that I just dont make use of.

You're welcome. There are an assortment of apps like that. I use App Dragon because it's free, has no ads, and does what I want: generate a list of apps on device that I can save locally, send in email, or drop on my Google Drive.

It doesn't list all of the built-in apps, like Calendar, Clock, or File Manager, but I don't care. My concern is with the ones I add.

My configuration is in flux, and I need to dump a current list. When I have, I'll add commentary, drop it on my Google Drive, and share the link here.

The reason for the flux is limited app storage space. I'm at the point where trying something new means removing something there to make room. "Insufficient storage available" when I try to install an app is an all-too-familiar occurrence.

I haven't found the log entries that would tell me how much space the app wanted. It appears that often more space is required to install in the first place than is required once the app is in place, so I have occasionally removed an app to make space, installed the new one, then re-installed the old one and it worked, because the old one could install in the space left after the new one was installed.

It reminded me of the old days of MS-DOS, where you loaded terminate-and-stay-resident programs to extend what DOS could do. You learned to fiddle with the order in which things were loaded to successfully install them all in the desired space, and not have them step on each others electronic toes.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

One of the questions I had about the tablet was use of an external keyboard. The A727 device FAQ says they aren't supported, but there are various on-screen virtual keyboards available. (It comes with the Google Keyboard, which I replaced with the Hacker's Keyboard.)

Update: I got a keyboard working after I had rooted my tablet (because I needed an adapter I didn't have to plug in the keyboard, and got one after rooting.)

A contact bought one for his daughter at the $20 price. She was unhappy trying to do things like email or programming in JavaScript using an on-screen keyboard, and I didn't blame her a bit. He hasn't gotten it rooted yet, but got the adapter I got and a small portable USB keyboard for just under $10 at Micro Center. He plugged it in to his A727 and it worked on his unrooted device.

Okay, the User Guide on the device that says you can't use an external keyboard lies. I suspected that, and now I have proof.
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Dennis

[Glorfindel]

That is good to know.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by MajorDizaster

Anyhow, I read a review on the Microcenter site that stated "you can not put apps on the expandable microSD". I am too new to Android to know how to do this, but was wondering if this really was the case. Can some one confirm? Also, what about if it is rooted?

An update to this: It is possible to store apps on an external card, but it requires hacking. I just finished doing it. I was at the point where things like Google Sheets would not successfully upgrade because of insufficient storage space, and needed more space.

The problem is that external cards come formatted as FAT32. The FAT filesystem doesn't support permissions and other attributes needed.

To have apps on the external card, several things are necessary.

First, the device must be rooted. It cannot be done on an unrooted device.

Second, the external card must be re-partitioned, and a Linux file system used on the second partition.

Third, you need software than can handle moving the apps. You don't install apps directly to the external card. You install them normally, then move them to the card after install.

I have a 32GB microSD card in my A727. I ejected it from the device, popped it into a microSD->standard SD adapter, and plugged it into my Windows box to the the partitioning. (It could be done from Linux, too, but I happened to be in Windows at the time. Re-partitioning can be done with the Linux GPartEd partition manager in Linux, or with GPartEd run from a LiveCD, or with a Windows tool like MiniTool Partition Manager.

I created a new 2GB partition on the card. MiniTool moved existing stuff as required, and carved out a 2GB slice at the end of the card. I formatted that slice as Linux ext4. (ext2 or ext3 should work as well - ext3 is ext2 with journaling support, and ext4 adds support for extents. Neither is relevant here.) I also marked the new partition as Primary, which is required, and changed the partition ID to indicate a Linux filesystem.

Once that was done, I put the card back into the tablet and rebooted it. This is necessary to get Android to detect the new partition.

Once rooted, I could start moving things. I used a freeware app from the Play Store called Link2SD. It presents a list of installed applications that are candidates for moving. Apps already moved to the internal 1GB sdcard are noted. I used it on apps which weren't.

When you select an app for moving, Link2SD moves the app to the partition on the external card, and creates a symbolic link in the root filesystem so Android will see the app and run it from the card.

Using Link2SD, I could move large apps like Google Sheets to the card to free application storage. My free application storage space rose from 88MB to 292MB, and I didn't move everything I could have moved. After moving stuff, I was able to install things like a beta Android version of Apache OpenOffice, which is huge. (Whether I'll keep it is another matter, but I needed to install it to test whether it was usable enough to keep.)

There is also an open source application called Mounts2SD that does the same things Link2SD does. I have it here, but couldn't get it to work, so I used Link2SD instead. (I think I know what the problem was, and it works for others, so it's worth a look.

Thus far, I'm quite pleased.
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Dennis

[JMonroe]

I recently bought the $20.00 Azpen 727 tablet and I am really enjoying it. I know very little about computers so I have a question for you. When I have a tab opened for youtube playing music,I like to surf the web at the same time,but with this tablet I can't do that. Youtube will only play when the tab is opened to that page and not in the background . Is there an app I can download to run multiple applications at the same time,or am I doing something wrong? Thank you for your help

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

There is an option to turn it off in XP, I haven't looked in 7 or 8 I guess.

Hmm, I may have to look in to that

As it happens, I just migrated to a Win7 Pro machine, and there is a setting to turn off the page file. I haven't tried it yet, but might. The odd bit is that it sets up to have a page file equal in size to installed RAM. The box has 8GB, and I have yet to see it use more than 25% of physical RAM, so it's unlikely to ever actually use the page file.

(I'm dual booting Win7 Pro and Ubuntu Linux. Works very nicely, but there were some speed bumps on the road to getting there.)
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by JMonroe

I recently bought the $20.00 Azpen 727 tablet and I am really enjoying it. I know very little about computers so I have a question for you. When I have a tab opened for youtube playing music,I like to surf the web at the same time,but with this tablet I can't do that. Youtube will only play when the tab is opened to that page and not in the background . Is there an app I can download to run multiple applications at the same time,or am I doing something wrong? Thank you for your help

Good question, and I'm not sure.

My suspicion is you can't do it. Android is multitasking, and an assortment of things are happening in the background, but there will be distinctions between foreground and background tasks.

Are you using the Google YouTube app?

I use an app called Folder Player, which is designed for playing locally stored audio files, and I believe it can run in the background while I do other things. I wouldn't try to have YouTube as a background music player. The assumption of YouTube is that it's running in the foreground, and you are watching things.

Which browser do you use? I have Firefox Nightly installed, which is what I use on the desktop too, and Chrome for testing. If you bring up YouTube in a tab, can you play a music vid, then switch to another tab and surf with music still playing?
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Dennis

[rollei]

Hopefully, the next version of Android or Lollipop let us store apps on an external card and the external cards can be formatted to support permissions and other attributes at a click of a button.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rollei

Hopefully, the next version of Android or Lollipop let us store apps on an external card and the external cards can be formatted to support permissions and other attributes at a click of a button.

Android will let you store apps on an external card now, if a partition with a Linux filesystem is on the card. I do not expect to see the ability to repartition a card and format the partition as a Linux filesystem to be built into Android.

The vast majority of folks will have no use for the ability. Most folks who have an external card use it to store data, not apps. Many popular devices like the Google Nexus tablets don't have a slot for a card. They come with enough internal storage that an external card isn't seen as needed.

And as mentioned, doing stuff like this requires a rooted device. I really don't expect to see anyone offer a device that is rooted as delivered.

What I described is a DIY effort for folks like me who can. It's not something for the general user.
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Dennis