Saturday, March 10, 2012
Why Hike in the Grand Canyon?
The average visitor to Grand Canyon National Park spends two hours. In contrast, Professor Harvey Butchart spent 1,500 days hiking about 12,000 miles in the Canyon during his 40-year Arizona hiking career. Why? This piece says it pretty well- http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/lure+grand+Canyon/6281454/story.html
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
More on the Kindle Touch Battery Life
Now that I've had time to put some more miles on my Kindle Touch 3G as a backcountry reading device, I've noticed that the battery sometimes gets depleted pretty quickly, even when I'm not using it. There are a couple of possible reasons for that.
One is leaving the Kindle on and closing the cover. That's a real no-no if you then stuff it in a bag, as I learned with the Kindle Keyboard. Until the device goes into sleep mode, any pressure on the cover could press keys and cause it to stay on and possibly do page turns. I know that happened with the Kindle Keyboard because I'd turn it on and find it was on a different page than where I left it.
Accidental key presses can happen with the Touch also, because of the Home button on the front. Every it gets pressed, the Home screen is refreshed, even if you're already on the Home screen. Of course, the solution is to manually turn the Kindle off with the power button when you're done reading. It's become a habit and now I turn the Kindle's off even when I'm just going to set it down.
The other cause of battery drain appears to be the 3G connectivity. I've noticed that when wireless is on and I'm in an area with little or no 3G service (and no Wi-Fi), the battery often loses half it's charge in about eight hours without ever being turned on. The answer is to make sure wireless is off if you'll be out of 3G and Wi-Fi range for long periods of time and don't have an easy way to charge the Kindle. On a long wilderness trip, you'll do this to extend the battery life to weeks, but you may not think to turn off wireless for the drive to the trailhead.
By the way, I haven't noticed such quick battery drain on the Kindle Fire. This is probably because there are no buttons on the bezel to be pressed by the cover, and also that the current Fire only has Wi-Fi, not 3G.
One is leaving the Kindle on and closing the cover. That's a real no-no if you then stuff it in a bag, as I learned with the Kindle Keyboard. Until the device goes into sleep mode, any pressure on the cover could press keys and cause it to stay on and possibly do page turns. I know that happened with the Kindle Keyboard because I'd turn it on and find it was on a different page than where I left it.
Accidental key presses can happen with the Touch also, because of the Home button on the front. Every it gets pressed, the Home screen is refreshed, even if you're already on the Home screen. Of course, the solution is to manually turn the Kindle off with the power button when you're done reading. It's become a habit and now I turn the Kindle's off even when I'm just going to set it down.
The other cause of battery drain appears to be the 3G connectivity. I've noticed that when wireless is on and I'm in an area with little or no 3G service (and no Wi-Fi), the battery often loses half it's charge in about eight hours without ever being turned on. The answer is to make sure wireless is off if you'll be out of 3G and Wi-Fi range for long periods of time and don't have an easy way to charge the Kindle. On a long wilderness trip, you'll do this to extend the battery life to weeks, but you may not think to turn off wireless for the drive to the trailhead.
By the way, I haven't noticed such quick battery drain on the Kindle Fire. This is probably because there are no buttons on the bezel to be pressed by the cover, and also that the current Fire only has Wi-Fi, not 3G.
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