Tech Tips and Reviews
Just a quick benchmark I did a year ago between the two computers.
Though the computers seem to be a generation apart and one seems to have half what the other has, they run relatively the same performance through my daily tasks of design.
Work computer
Work Computer. 6 core with 16 gig memory
Home Pc
Home Computer. 3 core with 8 gig memory
Computer I just bought at resell shop for $5.50
$5 Computer. 4 core with 4 gig memory
Since Facebook does nothing to stop the sunglasses spammers from tagging you in pictures,let’s help you prevent getting tagged in things you don’t want to be tagged in. Because really, you can get tagged in other things that are really popular and your phone starts buzzing all day long over something you don’t care about. Neat…. a picture of a cheeto that looks like a belly button….
On right side of your screen click the padlock. a menu will pop up (see next image)
At the bottom of the menu click that spot that looks like a disclaimer but says “See more settings”
On left side of the screen click on “Timeline and tagging”
Next you will see “How can I manage tags people add and tagging suggestions?” look to the right and you will also see these three things:
Review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook?
When you’re tagged in a post, who do you want to add to the audience if they aren’t already in it?
Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?
Change those to what you feel comfortable with.
To allow no one to see what you are tagged in turn the first option on. That will prevent people from posting tags to your timeline. The next one if it is set to “only me”. Doesn’t allow it to get any further.
The last one set to “no one”, allows no one to get suggestions to tag you in pictures. This forces the tagger to have to type your name and purposely mean to tag you in a picture. Even though they see that you clearly do not want to be tagged.
Years ago you could tell Facebook to not allow people to tag you in pictures. That was removed when Facebook was working on perfecting their facial recognition software back in 2008 or so.
So don’t count on Facebook allowing you to block tagging.
Have you ever wondered what the Inside of a Solid State Drive looks Like?
I have. I always imagined tons of stuff inside the hard drive that would just blow me away.
Since I have 120GB Chronos SSD Solid State hard drive sitting around that doesn’t ever seem to work anymore, I took it apart. (don’t worry, it only worked for about a month)
Weird, to my surprise it looks as if the internals of the solid state drive are pretty simple. almost the same as what is inside a thumb drive. but many all on one main board.
There was literally very little to the solid state drive.
4 screws
2 plates for housing
1 main board.
That was it. I was seriously expecting a tightly squeezed set of two or three boards wired and clipped together.
Nope.
Programs found in the “Programs and Features” section of control panel on a Windows 8 computer that I found in one sitting after a recently dismissed employee left the company here.
WinCheck
Zoomify
Search Protect- by Client Connect Ltd – Browser Hijacker that uses Trovi.com
MyPC Backup – spammy annoying software that keeps telling me I need to back up the computer.
Remote Desktop Access (VuuPC)
Goodgame Empire
geniusbox 2.0
FastPlayer
consumer input compete inc
ip finder 3.2.1.3
I was working on a computer and found all of these bundled up in the same machine. This was a nice fast laptop slowed down to a snail’s pace.
After removal of these undesirable programs that could very-well be malware or viruses, the computer is running like brand new again.
I don’t even advise going to the websites of these software because if they are a virus or malware, then your probability of getting these again is quite high.
Have you ever wondered why you get a super strong signal from your WiFi then suddenly what seems like nearly no signal at all, out of nowhere?
Well there is a guy who posted a Youtube video showing you why. but for the most part, he is trying to understand it too. So no he doesn’t tell you why, but gives you a good look at the signal loss in action.
What the guy does is he holds a wifi device up and watches as it picks up and drops signal as he moves about in a small area and shows how dramatic the difference is in each spot.
The guy then saves this data and has it mapped out into a picture. color intensity to show where the signal is the strongest and where the signal is the weakest. Blue being the strongest signal.
The guy then realizes that this is not complete enout of data so he decides to not just move left and right and up and down, he now moves the WiFi devices front and back to give you a complete three dimension representation of the signal’s loss and strength.
Here is the the 3d image so you can see for yourself. and look at what is being done in the video above.
If the page does not load here is the link.
In sum:
since the guy is measuring such a small amount of space to test the WiFi signal loss, if you lose signal suddenly with your laptop, it would’t hurt if you move it just an inch and see what happens.
It looks as if the signal does not spread evenly and dissipate as you get further away, it more just broadcasts and only hits small spaces around an area.
Okay, first encounter of this so i have to know if others are experiencing the same issue.
I have been sending pictures with my cricket phone to a female friend of mine who is using Simple Mobile and she has not been responding to them. So i ask her why she doesn’t respond and she says she never got them. She is sure it is cricket messing up. So I test sending her pictures with my work phone which is on Verizon and the pictures send fine. Next I send pictures from my Cricket phone to my Verizon phone and from Verizon phone to my Cricket phone and all goes well. Yet not one picture received to the Simple Mobile network.
From what i see all sms text messages transfer fine and fast but to send a picture from Cricket to simple mobile, no go.
Now understand that I am on the version of Cricket that uses the AT&T GSM sim card, not the old Cricket with no sim card (except 4g) using CDMA network.
So if you are experiencing or not experiencing this please respond below so I get a grip on what is happening.
**Update**
I contacted Cricket and this is the tip they gave me to check my my APN settings to verify i am connected correctly. Sadly I am connected correctly. but nonetheless
Cricket Help: I will send you the APN settings , but this will work just for Cricket devices
Cricket Helps: Tap Settings > Mobile Networks (or Mobile Data) > Access Point Names > New APN (may have to tap Menu button to see this option).
Enter the following APN info:
Name: Internet
APN: ndo
Proxy: Not Set
Port: Not Set
Username: Not Set
Password: Not Set
Server: Not Set
MMSC: http://mmsc.aiowireless.net MMS
Proxy: proxy.aiowireless.net
MMS Port: 80
MCC: 310
MNC: 150
Authentication type: Not Set
APN type: default,mms,fota,hipri,supl
Note: on the above APN type be sure to enter it exactly as it is listed& don’t include any spaces!
Tap Save for the new APN.
Go back one screen to the APN list and tap the dot to enable this APN.
Reboot the device.
Test data and MMS.
Nope, did not work.
Decided to do a test between the ZTE Z740G Camera and the iPhone 4S Camera.
My test was to set both cameras at their full setting and full resolution and take one long distance photograph of the Houston downtown skyline and one close up photo within downtown Houston. To see how the cameras handle the lighting and what would be in focus and out of focus. and to go head to head between two phones in total different budgets. The iPhone 4s was quite expensive when it was released, while the ZTE Z740G was very cheap. Less than 1/4 the price of the iPhone.
To be as fair as I could, I also picked the exact same point as the focus point, and rested the cameras on the same objects.
The photos came out at very similar angles.
From what I see, the iPhone pictures came out darker and more grainy looking, while the Android pictures came out brighter but slightly blurrier.
The distance Skyline photos I have to give to the Android ZTE Z740G. Though they aren’t much better, they aren’t dark and weirdly gloomy. yet the iPhone image allows a tad more zoom and a clearer focus.
The close up photos I have to give to the iPhone 4. Especially when you look at the windows of the building to the left. You see the details in the curtains and the depth of the window area between the glass and the curtains.
After some time, I realize there are a few more types of photographs i could have taken to better test the two phones. Issue with that is the review would get long and bloated with pictures. So i decided to take just two photos of some coins up close with each phone. and not use flash
Android ZTE Z740G
iPhone 4S
again one image comes out blurrier and brighter while the other comes in dark and slightly more focus yet grainy.
Truth is, neither has a good camera. and this whole test is only good if you are trying to pick between the ZTE or the iPhone 4. Other than that, it would be in your best interest to find something else to compare these two phones by.
There are many reasons people do not leave Facebook or at least try other social websites. Such as Reddit or Google plus or even twitter. But the number one truth is, the deep down the most common is the #1 reason in this list.
I myself stayed for 8 long useless years but I did try other social websites instead of just Facebook alone. And ya know what? They all were fun. Especially during the boring times when no one posted updates to Facebook. Or during the constant bombardment of memes and no one actually talking. During the times of endless farmville and similar games invites.
I was always looking for a way out of Facebook. And well. Now that I am banned or suspended until I show them my i.d. (same thing for all I care, and yes they are requesting my i.d.) I feel less stressed out. I feel less fake. I feel less like I am trying to prove something.
I’m free really.
10. They use Facebook for specific reasons .
9. They somehow think Facebook is safer than other websites.
8. They believe Facebook is more than a chatsite because of very common features.
7. They have elder freinds who are hard to transplant to a new site and it would be hard to explain the privacy issues.
6. They have many pictures stored on Facebook.
5. They dont want to start their games over.
4. It is their home page.
3. They have already accepted so much privacy intrusion and don’t feel like giving up so much privacy to yet another website.
2. They can barely use Facebook and don’t want to learn a new site.
1. They don’t want to rebuild their fake freinds list again.
There are alternatives to Facebook. You just have to find them.
Simply put, get a fresh start.
Just build a new account. Until the chatsite, like facebook or twitter or reddit puts in the sign up page that you should send them your identification, then well friend, it really isn’t mandatory for you to upload your personal information to a very untrustworthy website.
Oh no, so you lost your friends on facebook? and don’t want to start over?
That’s pretty petty and vein of you. If they know you then they will understand when you explain that your account is locked. I mean it’s no big deal. so what, you started over.
Or do you have a bunch of people you have been adding and keeping because the compliment you and fill some weird void you have? big deal, start over. You will not die and it feels good to have a fresh start.
Don’t give in to that crap. If one site pulls it off successfully (meaning the whole planet is full of idiots) then all sites will do. Some will do it to pretend to be as troubled as Facebook (for example) pretends to be, others will ask for user identifications because they assume it is a law.
IT IS NOT REQUIRED BY LAW. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO UPLOAD YOUR IDENTIFICATION ONLINE TO USE A SITE. IF SAID SITE REQUIRES IT, GO TO ANOTHER SITE.
That wite will learn just how intrusive and disgusting it is to ask someone or force someone to send them their identification.
Remember folks, it is just a chat website after all. Where you talk to people you don’t know, about stuff that really didn’t happen as great as you pretend it does.
Those emails they start sending you about how you have messages (on facebook) after your account is locked, are fake. Your account is locked, no one can send you messages. The notifications tell you that your friends posted new crap. that is all. if you created a new account then you should get your friends back in no time, this time you can decide not to add some people.
I made the change back to Comcast.
I got two of the X1 boxes
I have had a week to test out the x1 boxes, here is my review of Xfinity’s X1 package.
Everything looks good. The colors are crisp. The black is a hard black, the colors are a vibrant and the whites are strong whites. You can read and see everything in the menus.
You can crank resolutions up to 1080p 16:9. but The signal is in no way 1080p. There is just no way. The images are not 1080p quality. Maybe slightly better than 720p. Which is still called 720p.
The menus on the X1 boxes are convoluted. There are barely any options or functionality. The menus load so slow. I have yet to find the channels I like, lord knows how the heck I am supposed to preprogram a show that I want to watch. You know, like on Direct tv, you find the title of the movie, highlight it and click. You get the menu … bam there it is.. Where is that option in X1? I just want my tv to automatically change to the channel when it is time. Should be simple right? All of the effort they put into looks, they could have put some into function.
but again. Did I tell you the menus load at a snail’s pace? I even tried this weird (far off in the menu) thing where you can test out options, which the menu “fast” option was off, I turned that on… well that did squat for me. I understand the design theme with having everyone’s logo on the left for the channel but really, I bet that is what is slowing down the menu.
If you are looking for a specific channel call letters, good luck looking for the title of the channel (which is usually right under the logos), what is there is tiny. This feels more like “Hey we know you are too stupid to actually read these, so here are the pictures that represent your favorite channels”.
The truth is the X1 feels like it is a prototype for something I’ll probably have to pay to upgrade to later. or as if they did a random hat draw of crap that people like and said “Okay we will make it look like 50 of these 500 things, just make it pretty they will eat it up, so we can charge more”. Then, they did, and nothing is useful together. Or actually useful at all.
Sometimes the signal flakes out. I also get notices that the device is ready to reboot. Right when I turn the tv on. and I don’t think the X1 ever turns off. At all. Weird thing is I contacted Comcast about an issue and they asked me which cable box I was having an issue with, and I told him the bedroom, he said “hang on it is rebooting now” It rebooted….. This kind of creeped me out. Nilson family intrusion junk .
When the X1 wants to reboot, it takes about 5 minutes to complete. and nothing seems to work any faster or any better.
There is some sort of bundled thing in this box that allows me to “stream” movies. Why? Can we just call this “on demand? and not whatever they call it now? How cheesy is that? Why does the sales rep and the installer want to tell me how it is like netflix “and similar’ blah blah blah.. it is dumb, it feels like netflix menu on dial up…. I’ll have to check more into that. Right now it seems pointless.
Maybe that’s the big problem. Maybe it just needs to have a wifi adapter so it can connect to my modem, because the x1 built in modem is sucky. and might need more ram.
Then there is the low def and high def channel flip flop the x1 does.
Say I click on channel 11. Which is a local station here. Since channel 11 is in low def and there is a high def duplicate at 611, the tv automatically changes to channel 611.
Why not just make 11 high def and forget 611? or make all local stations only in the 600s or even how about this option… If the channel is in low def and in high def, the low def option disappears so that when I go back to the guide, and resume my channel flipping, I don’t have to scroll through all of the crap i scrolled through to to get to channel 11? Because just below 611 is about 200 channels in different languages that I don’t speak. Can I turn all of that off? even the channels I am not subscribed to, can I turn those off also? When that dang menu or narrative bubble pops up telling me I don’t pay for that channel, the fricken x1 locks up for what feels like an hour but is more like 2-3 seconds.
The x1 box does not turn off. I guess so they can count you as a viewer even when you are at work… or asleep.
Not happy with X1
Even the xr2 remote is dumb. The shape of the xr2. Sure the form is great in your hand, but the xr2 shape is kind of figure eight. Both ends feel exactly the same. If the room is dark and you need to turn down the volume… good luck. You’ll likely press the number 6. Why would comcast do this? Come on. Make one end feel different. And why did Comcast put the mute next to the power button? That’s just rude. I’ll put a sticker on the bottom at the back end. to prevent smashing wrong buttons in the dark,that should fix that. Prevent me from hitting the number 8 when I am trying to go to bed.
Maybe I will wait for x2 or x3 and pay for my upgrade and cross my fingers I don’t have to try and learn another piece of junk.
If you came here for the remote codes for your x1 box, and made it down this far, look here