iPod 6th generation blackout crashes

Almost a year ago, I bought a 6th generation iPod touch, which has largely been a huge improvement over my previous 4th generation one.

However, it has had maybe half a dozen "blackout crashes" from Sleep mode (screen stays dark), which I had imagined were due to faulty hardware. Although an in-warranty replacement would include the benefit of a new battery and shell, I hoped to keep this unit since I'd had the back personalized by Apple.

When it has plenty of remaining battery power, I've put it into Sleep mode, only to find that it won't turn on (Wake) when I pressed either of the two physical buttons. Up until a few weeks ago, my fix had been to charge it for a long time (e.g., overnight), then hope it turns on (Wakes) later, which did work but was frustrating.

Eventually I searched on the Internet and found the "Force restart iPod touch" solution, which worked for me and is in Apple's downloadable iPod touch (iOS 9.3) manual as well:

"hold down the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears."

Maybe I'd used this technique for earlier iPods, but if so, I hadn't remembered it.

Sea creatures in Chinese and French

(Mandarin Chinese Pinyin) French
whale 鯨魚 (jīngyú) la baleine
squid 魷魚 (yóuyú) le cal(a)mar
dolphin 海豚 (hǎitún) le dauphin
jellyfish 水母 (shuǐmǔ) la méduse
seahorse 海馬 (hǎimǎ) le hippocampe
shark 鯊魚 (shāyú) le requin
turtle 烏龜 (wūguī) la tortue marine
crab 螃蟹 (pángxiè) le crabe
skate 鰩 (yáo) la raie
octopus 章魚 (zhāngyú) la pieuvre

Firefly in Chinese

螢火蟲 (yínghuǒchóng)

That is quite a bunch of 火 and 虫.

French porcupines and Porky Pig

After listening to my Larousse dictionary app pronounce porcupine in French (porc-épic), I could not help but think of Porky Pig, an American cartoon character.

That link can serve as a mnemonic for remembering the French word for porcupine, if nothing else. 

Stir and wind/crank pronounced the same in Chinese

I found it interesting that in Chinese, the verb for a circular motion typically done in the horizontal plane (to stir, e.g., like sugar into coffee; 攪) shares the same pronunciation (jiǎo) as the verb for a circular motion typically done in the vertical plane (to wind/crank, e.g., like a fishing rod; 絞), although the characters differ.

Clean out iPod microphone hole

Some time ago, my iPod's microphone stopped recording sounds at their full volume. I typically use the microphone only occasionally for videos (which I might not have played back soon) or Voice Memos, so it could have been months before I noticed this problem existed.

An Internet search for this problem led me to a couple of YouTube videos, which led me to clean out the microphone gently with a needle, which restored the microphone to its apparent former sensititivity.


Doing the analogous cleaning for my iPad 2, whose microphone doesn't record any noise at all now, didn't help. Although there was a time when I got back some recording sensitivity by blowing hard into the microphone hole, that microphone seems to be totally unresponsive now.

Slideshow Builder (Lite) 2.3.2 by BitWink Ltd.

Initially tested under iOS 5.1.1 on a 4th generation iPod touch.

I wanted to make, entirely on my iPod, slideshows with captions. Primarily, I wanted to be able to share such slideshows in person, but ideally they could also be shared with (at least) other iOS users. The latter is possible, although the other parties must similarly install the free Slideshow Builder Lite (or the paid version SlideShow Builder) app, and then download slideshows. Users of the Lite version can make a single slideshow (at a time; you can delete one and make a different one repeatedly). I used the free Slideshow Builder Lite to test whether this app suited my needs. Subsequently, I bought Slideshow Builder.

Within the iOS Camera Roll, the right-facing triangle starts slideshow (you would presumably use an album of images for slideshows, as opposed to the entire Camera Roll), but captions would have to be added to the images in some other app, after which the images would need to be re-added to the Camera Roll (and your targeted album). Music is an option. Beyond these Camera Roll's basic capabilities, Slideshow Builder allows:

• Reordering of pictures
• Basic captioning (3/28/15: When viewing a slideshow, captioned images can be saved as iOS screenshot images, which I first did under iOS 6.)
• Sharing of slideshows
• Special effects
• Option to store independent copies of images and music, insulating slideshows against deletion of the original source from Camera Roll or the Music app, at the cost of using more storage memory. I particularly like this option because I prefer my slideshows kept separate from Camera Roll.
• Each slideshow can be saved either on only the device where it was created, or on all devices using the same Apple ID. In the latter case, updates (at least revised captions) will automatically be shared across devices via iCloud.

Lite has a limit of 20 pictures, and includes one advertising slide (which is displayed for a shorter time than the default 3.5 seconds of other slides). 20 slides may be a decent limit even in the paid version to avoid taxing viewer tolerance.

Slideshows can be shared with other iOS users via Dropbox/email/iCloud (time limited) running either the Lite or full version of the app, so iOS only. iPod photos with their relatively low resolution don't look great on an iPad 2 up close, but look "good enough" (depending on your photographic sensibilities) from farther away. iPhone picture quality is better than that of an iPod so shouldn't suffer as much. According to what I see, the Dropbox/iCloud (though I only tested iCloud) apparent advantage over email is that until the recipient downloads the slideshow, you can continue to make changes (e.g., tweaking captions), so the recipient will see the most up-to-date version when they download it.

My settings choices (in case I ever have to reinstall):

• Photos and Music: Copied to Slideshow
Default Settings for Slides (can be overridden for any slide):
• Play Each Slide For: 3.5 seconds (default)
• Zoom to Fill Screen OFF
• Ken Burns effect OFF
• Faces Animation OFF
• Slide Transition: Dissolve

My two Chinese keyboard choices (Chinese - Traditional: Handwriting; Chinese - Traditional: Zhuyin) are not available for captions.