Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

My spit is coming up brown with darker flecks in it. I had a cold recently, and am still blowing my nose a bunch and am beginning to feel a chest cough coming on- slight congestion that I cant address yet. I am not a smoker. Do i need to be worried?

 

Yeah, I would go to the doctor. That doesn't sound very good. It might be nothing, but it's better to check.

 

I'm thinking about getting a Huawei phone now that my old Samsung is no longer cooperative, and I'm having a hard time parsing if the potential Huawei ban is something I should actually be concerned about? Some articles seem to be saying it'd only affect future phones (which is obviously irrelevant for my purposes), while others go more along the lines of claiming even older Huawei phones will no longer be able to run google apps (like google maps, or youtube). Could someone help me figure out what the actual deal is?

I don't care much if it doesn't get the super new and improved android OS or whatever (although continued tech support would be... nice...), but I'd really like to keep using google maps & youtube & the play store...

 

I'm almost thirty, still unemployed, and so having my "I am a black hole of uselessness no one will ever want" feelings again. I know that the way to solve this is to attempt to do something which will result in gainful employment, but a) every effort I've made before has failed and b) it's hard to get myself to do anything when I'm in this mood. What do I do?

 

Have you tried volunteering?

 

Tried. Even the volunteer organisation wouldn't get back to me after the interview :(

 

If you're worried about huawei, maybe look at the pixel line? The cheaper ones are the pixel 3a/3axl phones. I've heard nice things about them, they might suit your needs. Pixel 3's are pretty nice, i've had a pixel 2 almost since they came out and haven't had any issues with it.

 

thank you for the tip, but those are both a bit above my price class! I'm contemplating the Samsung Galaxy A40 (~2600 sek) vs Huawei p30 Lite (~3500 sek, better battery phone & memory) so I mostly just... need to pick one. I want the Huawei, I just don't know if it'd be a really bad decision to get one

 

Huawei could continue to use android through the android open source project, though official google apps might be removed from the phone, there may however be unofficial apps from huawei to make up for that lack. Really it depends on how long this will go on, if the ban seems like it'll continue then I'd go with the samsung phone. Are you in the u.s btw?

Personally I would go with the samsung phone, and then save to change to a different one in the future.

I might have another phone recommendation, I really liked my previous moto g6, and the g7 has similar features and price point to both of the other devices you talked about. It has a better camera, and processor than the samsung phone, [Edit:] The moto g7's specs are a little better than the samsung, and a little worse than the huawei. The samsung display blows the other two out of the water, samsung always does though, they make the best displays and sell them to the other phone manufacturers.

 

...Hey, speaking of Android stuff :D;; I just switched from iOS (on an iPhone 5s) to Android (on a Moto G7 Power) the other day, and I've got almost everything set up...but...how do I transfer music files from my computer to my phone?

On my iPhone I could rely on iTunes to recognize my phone and sync my music library to it, but...iTunes doesn't recognize this phone. ...Moreover, neither does my actual computer?? It doesn't show up as a device when it's plugged in to my laptop via USB. All the native music-playing options I can find seem to be for streaming only, and it's like, no, I want to listen to the music I already own, thanks...

 

Depends on which version of android you have and if your phone has microsd slots or not. I've always used a micro SD card personally, but depending on which version of android and which computer OS you have, there's ways to make your computer recognize your phone as a drive.

 

@sirsparklepants Oh, my computer's on MacOS Sierra (version 10.12.6) , and I thiiiink my phone's using Android Pie? Although I don't actually know how to check... As for microSD slots, my phone does have one (and in fact I purchased it specifically because it was the only phone in my price range that could handle a 512 GB microSD), but I just bought my card online yesterday, so it hasn't shipped yet. Am I going to have to wait until it comes in before I can add any music...

 

Okay, I have an older version of android, but I don't think they would have gotten rid of this, so, when you plug your phone into your laptop via USB, you should have an option under settings for devices, and under devices there should be a USB option. I can't actually access that unless my phone is plugged into something, which it's currently not, but under that menu should be some options for how your phone behaves when connected, and you should click one of the options that say "media" or "file sharing" or something of that sort. If that doesn't do it, it's probably some disconnect between Mac and Android - that one I can't help you with because I use pc.

 

Seconding sirsparklepants, and also adding that the 'device options' should be visible from your phone as well while it's plugged in; iirc Android defaults to charging-only connection, and needs to be manually switched to file transfer (might also be listed as 'FTP').

 

Setting it to "file transfer" worked, thanks!! I was wondering why the Android File Transfer app wasn't recognizing my phone when plugged in, but I thought maybe it just didn't work with my phone model or something...now I've got a decent 700 songs to tide me over until my microSD comes in. :3

 

Should I get a cube organizer or a bookshelf? I want to put a record player (it's the suitcase kind) and some books on it, and I'd like to put my printer on top of it, so it would be pretty short.

 

I don't have a suitcase type record player, but ime, neither of those things are wide enough across the top (as in, dimension coming away from the wall) for any type of turntable, simply because just the part that the record sits on has to be at least a foot in diameter and most shelves aren't that wide. I had to buy a separate table for mine. My shelves are generally about 8 inches wide/deep/whatever you want to call it, and cube organizers aren't much bigger in that dimension. You can try to find either in a larger... depth I guess, but you're probably going to be frustrated.

 

Seconding sirdparklepants here. In my experience, Cubes are good for display, less good for functionality.

 

Is there a way to hard reset a Kindle when its power button is broken?

 

so I’ve got some bee’s wrap:

which is basically just a waxed cloth food wrap thing. I got it as a present last xmas and started using it for sandwiches a couple weeks ago. it works great except the wax has started to ball up in a few spots and now it leaks a little, there are tiny holes where the wax doesn’t completely permeate the cloth anymore. anyone know how I would go about fixing this without wrecking the cloth? tentative idea is to melt a little wax onto it and then put it in the oven on lowest temperature setting for a bit.