Tag: tech

When did Tech Forums Become So Useless?

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

Found myself in a tech support forum looking for help, leaving there very unhelped, unsatisfied and kind of bullied. Tech forums seem to have become the guy that argues the best, is the go-to guy for tech help these days. and that seems to have killed off a lot of people’s desire to visit tech forums. This is my experience with the latest forum I went to… and a little back story.

Cricket_PhoneI was gifted a Motorola Droid Bionic  by a coworker. This Phone was built for the Verizon network. The network I have my cell phone service from is Cricket. After some research, I find that I can get my bionic flashed to Cricket’s network.
At the time, I also had a roommate who had an android cell phone, that was on the Verizon network, and she was wanting to try Cricket. Since I didn’t have the money to get my Bionic flashed just yet, we took her Android to the local Cricket store and had it flashed to their network. We compared her phone signal, to the signal I was getting with my old phone. Her signal was a considerable amount better than mine. and my phone was built for the Cricket network. So I decided that I was definitely flashing this new  Bionic to Cricket.
That night, my roommate got an update notice to her phone. So.. Like any normal person would do, she clicked the “accept” button for the update request. Next morning my roommate had no signal. She was not receiving text messages and she was not receiving phone calls. She was unable to send a text massage and she was unable to make a phone call. So, back to the Cricket store we went. The clerk was very helpful and asked my roommate if she accepted an update notice, and my roommate like a trooper admitted this with a smile. The clerk said “yep, that’s what kills our flashings. First one is free for you ma’am, but please do not accept the next update or you will be in here again getting your phone flashed back to Cricket and it will not be free”. We thanked the clerk and came back a few hours later to pick up the phone. Sure enough, there was an update notice on her phone, she hit cancel and then fiddled around with the phone a bit and then disabled the notice.
After seeing that, I booted up my Motorola Bionic, connected to my router and searched for an update. No update available. A few days later (pay day) I booted the phone yet again and checked for any software updates I could. None except Facebook  but nothing for the operating system of the phone. I take my phone into the Cricket store and pay my $75 to get the phone flashed, come back an hour later to pick it up. Sure enough… Update notice. at the very exact second I saw the notice, the clerk told me “Do not update the operating system (may have said firmware but I have my doubts)”.

So I go home and search for ways to disable the update notice. I came across cricketusers.com . I posted a simple question trying to find where the heck my roommate went in her settings to disable the update notice. This turned into a bunch of over zealous tech tards trying to get me to reflash the phone. all I wanted to know, is where in the menu did she find the setting to disable the notice. Since the roommate wasn’t very techy, she really has no clue what she did. and that is brain murder in it’s self. but she got it done.

So now I know why that place is empty and no one goes there. Techy dudes that get angry because people do not want to follow their misguided misinformed advice. I don’t care if that guy was Dr. Jacob W. Cricket. He wasn’t listening to the issue and how simple the solution could be. Just in a mindset of “I know better, listen to me…. rebuild everything”.

and this is what killed forums. Newbies.

 

 

Nerdism induced Consumerism

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

Nerdism induced Consumerism.Consumerism induced Nerdism ?
Yet another reason why I am leaving the tech world. What I call “Nerdism Induced Consumerism”.
Why do we try and be more geeky or if anything show that we can appear geeky and that we can afford the latest trends.
Nerdy Trends? Why is geeky a trend? The more geeky people try and project themselves as, the more expensive the junk gets and well, less geeky. I want my operating system so complicated, you freaks can’t use it. I want my tech so techy, I am constantly learning more. Not complacent with bubbly puffy buttons that do everything, until the next puffier fluffy buttons version gets sold to me. Yet they still have not created a remote control locator that is built into the tv.. but sure enough they give you so few buttons on the tv, you have to have a remote.

Look how technical your tv has become. Most tvs these days run on Linux.. Is that not geeky? Question here is why in the heck is it so dang expensive now ? because it’s hot. Even though a tv these days does not seem half as durable as an old CRT. The image looks a ton better. But not that dang much.

To have a decent tv, you have to have a ton of gadgets. Blue-ray player , satellite or direct tv or cable that is broadcasting in High def. Roku box, Google Tv, Apple Tv. Along with your 27 inch wide screen monitor on your computer, Subscribed to netflix, hulu, and YouTube movies (isn’t that Google TV ????? WTF). Laptop that has a 17 inch monitor but thin as a blade with HD capability, along with your what ever PAD, and cell phone with a 5 inch or greater screen that plays in the latest highest resolution, of course subscribed to all of the same stuff your other gadgets are, and yes some subscriptions make you pay a little more for each device added. Then comes the XM and Hybrid Digital radio with mp3 player and mass storage device in your car, along with on star and GPS that you are subscribed to.

What does it all cost? and why do we pay for it? When did geeky become cool?

All of that stuff, all of the geeky stuff you are buying, the real geeks were building that for themselves. KnoppMyth boxes (DVR), cheap Mp3 players with 2 gig capacities connected to our car stereos by way of multi-disk player input connections. The fun was building that and making it work. Not just driving somewhere to have someone install it for you and then telling your friends that you are on top of tech. That’s not tech. That’s douchebagetry mixed with consumerism. It’s fine if you like things and want things, but to feed you guys, the industries are stealing our works, and making everything simple for the simple minded. Forcing us to become stale (bby way of not having anymore challenges). They are not evolving and trying to do the next major step to motivate more original thought. They are making fluffy buttons for the morons who have no sense of creativity and no understanding of anything great than push a button and say “look what I built”.. Example…. Look at Apple. Now look at the owner of Apple products. Now look back at Apple, Now look at the customers..Do you see it? Pastel 80’s Polo shirt, with white shorts  and white tennis shoes, hair spray and a scarf.

I’m done with all of that.

Give me a 70’s muscle car. Take my computer, take my phone, take my tv. I am done. It’s time to sit back and save money and not care who has what and how cool it is that they can draw this in Photoshop, or if they have a mac or windows machine, because I just don’t care. I never really did. I always wanted to do things as cheap as possible and show it’s as good as the most expensive. Took more skill and know how. but now one cares about skill. They just care how much you spent, and well, That’s pointless and not for me. This is a game I can’t play.

Maybe I will make Bonsai Trees or something.

New Year Plan – 2012

Posted onAuthorTruXter

2011 was a great year for truxtertech.com. we saw more traffic in 2011 than 2009 2010 together.

The tech community finally opened their hearts and eyes to what truxtertech has to offer.

For 2012, we promise to try and continue bringing content you want to read. We promise honest tech reveiws about low budget products, and tech news, as fast as it comes in.

Thank you for all the support you have shown us through 2011.

2012 is here.

We hope you have a great year in tech.

span class=”post_sig”reviews/span

What Killed the Tech Podcasts

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Have you noticed that all of the tech podcasts are falling off the web? Have you noticed the consistent demise of all of the top podcasts and low end podcasts? Have you not wondered why it all happened? I have the answer.
Did you not notice 3-4 years ago, all of the tech podcasters changed from disliking Apple products, to not going a full podcast without saying Apple or ipod or iphone at least 20 times?
That’s exactly what killed the podcast.
The podcasts became nothing but media focused on Apple. And well, the techy people are all Linux and Windows users. Why would you listen to some guy talk about how you have this fancy new feature in Apple products, that have been there for ever in Linux, if you are a Linux user?
There you go, you lost listeners. Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the kick back from Apple to promote their product. Sure you may have gotten a few sales, but you killed your whole media. The ones that went away got sick of not relating, while the ones who got the apple, were not that techy, but willing to learn, you showed them this thing you say will not break or get hacked ..lol. So they have no reason to come back.

You sold out.

ANON Got Raided

Posted onAuthorTruXter

35 search warrants issued. 16 arrests.
There is a large amount of blame on ANON for a lot of things.
I will not state the blame, because I do not know their level of guilt and will not accuse them.

I do know that back in the day, there was what we called a “script kiddy”. and the script kiddies fell pray to real hackers.
So just as easily, one of these people arrested, could have been using a script they got from the internet somewhere, and did not know that someone was either spoofing their I.P. address while doing something worse, or using their computer remotely for attacks. There is no telling what all is bundled in that dang script. This leaves the script kiddy with hacking software on his computer and no chance to pass a lie detector if asked if he committed a crime. This leaves the Script kiddy guilty of a crime and no proof that he didn’t commit the crime he is accused of. It would take a more thorough investigation than what I think our government is willing to perform. It would be up to the script kiddy to fund that investigation. If he can not afford it, tough luck.


This is one of the issues I try to point out all of the time. Don’t mess with it until you have thought it all the way through.
Now there will be no Anon. and who knows, we might really need these guys some day. I think we will but they won’t be anywhere to be found.

There’s no saying if the whole Rupert Murdoch is just a scrambled master Plan(t) and eventual frame up, because what he is accused of, and what ANON claims they busted him of, is exactly what they do. It’s like a crack head pointing at a guy laying knocked out and telling the cops “look he has crack” who says the crack head didn’t chunk the crack there when he saw the police???? on another note Rupert Murdoch’s wife got attacked and it looks like all of the guys near her just stood there with a look like a grumpy old lady scowling over a cup of tea. No one helped Wendy Murdoch . She took care of it all, all by herself. Most of the news out is exaggerating the moment, but she did take care of it.

Well people. Turn your computers off at night (can’t hack or zombie what’s not there), and run an up to date virus scan often.It’s all you can do.
Well, that’s the Tech news today with lots of opinion.

Cricket’s Free Sanyo Zio Phone Android

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

I left T-Mobile.
Yep, I jumped ship. I went back to Cricket.
The phone that I traded my blackberry 8100 in for is a Sanyo/Kyocera zio. AKA KYOCERA M6000.
Since Cricket was giving away the Sanyo Zio if you trade in your working cell phone from your current carrier, I assumed I should.
This phone is not a brand new technology, at all. This phone was originally with Sprint back in early 2010 brought to Cricket in late 2010.
I was on a plan that gave me 300 minutes of talk time at a cost of $49 a month and I still had fave fives. To now, an unlimited everything for $55 a month.
The first thing was to call T-mobile and request my account number. The guy who answered the phone put on a sincere voice and Acknowledge that he knows that typically when people ask for their account number, they are about to leave the company. The guy asked me if there was anything i was in need of, to keep me from leaving. i let the guy know that I was not happy with how I have been treated so i am looking around, and my first step is to get my account number and that I may or may not leave T-mobile. Really, that was exactly true. I could have backed out of getting my phone number ported over to Cricket, at any time. The guy kept asking questions and hesitating, So i had to get stern with him ‘ look, I am considering leaving and you holding out like this is making me want to leave even more, i just need my number and will consider all option”. He said just about everything he could think of just short of “please don’t talk to other people, you will see how good things could be”, what ever he said. I just hung up because I got my account number. and that’s all I needed.

I gave the teller my account number, in less than 3 minutes the phone was in my hand with a temporary number on it. I got a text message and it said for me to text back with a code and my old number will be moved to cricket. I tried and it did not work. After I called the help line, I realized i wasn’t pressing they ‘*’ key first. My bad. Phone number was switched over to T-mobile just like that. Whole deal took less than 20 minutes to complete.

Cricket Splash Screen on The Zio

Cricket Splash Screen on The Zio

Ok. Time to grade the phone.
The Sanyo Kyocera ZIO from Cricket, by feel, is a lot like my blackberry, smooth.

Menu on The Sanyo Kyocera Zio Phone

Menu on The Sanyo Kyocera Zio Phone

Nice and thin, slick,no buttons to interface, touch Screen, except volume and camera. I have few complaints about
the camera button. Sensitive when I am not trying to touch the camera button, but doesn’t do squat when I hit that button on purpose. Volume buttons are excellent.

Volume Button on Kyocera Sanyo Zio

Volume Button on Kyocera Sanyo Zio

there is a data/charging connection on the lower left edge.
Headphone jack on the upper left edge, and an SD card slot on the mid right. All have caps.
Large speaker at the upper back
Pin hole mic on bottom edge.
Screen feels like plastic over glass. I could be wrong as to whether it actually is, it’s just the way the Zio feels to me.
Software.
Initial Storage space 180MB
Yes this an Android 2.2.1 system on the sanyo ZIO.

zio_display

zio software display

But
The pinch zoom feature, does not happen with this phone. Tap and zoom, yes.
Scroll ball, is a bit sticky and sluggish.
Huge Screen Perfect fit for downsized (not re-sized) hd movies
Watched Diggnation, Tekzilla and life Hacker from the revision 3 website and was impressed with the resolution and quality of the images and video, Nearly never a buffer time. sometimes The revision 3 server hiccups.
Camera takes a very high resolution video, even in room lighting. (never great to have just room lighting)
Every application I tried, all work fine.
There is some bloat ware that I had to root the phone to remove. Some bowling game demo and an “uno” game.
Many applications load constantly, you can not go into settings and turn them off like you could with the g1 on android 1.6. So battery life isn’t what it could be.
Nice fade when opening and closing apps. but again, sometimes sluggish. Keyboard seems to be miss calibrated, When you press the Letter ‘o’ you get the letter ‘p’ and so on… If you are a fast texting person, you will get frustrated. Just find the letter that the Zio mistakes you typing, and hit the far corner of the button you intend to pres. Works well that way.

Internet speeds for the Zio – using speed test app from android market
upload 700k
download 400k
That is about what I was seeing on T-mobile with their “Edge”.

Reception
At home and at work, my signal fluctuates between no signal, and two bars. but with that said, I received a call from a friend while I had 0 bars and the phone call sounded fine on my end, and the person on the other end never asked me what I was saying. I never heard anything unusual or anything that would hint of a bad signal, other than the caller’s T-mobile lag. Was sad when we both were on T-mobile, neither knew when to talk.
although I find myself back in 2003, holding the sanyo Zio up in the air to get a signal enough to send a text message. I don’t remember Cricket having this bad of a signal.

Back Of The Zio

Back Of The Zio

internet 10/10
software 8/10
hardware 5/10
reception 5/10 (I gave it a poor score then added some because the phone seemed to work even with no signal)
look 10/10

Full Over all Score is 7/10

And that is enough to make me feel as if I got another great deal.

Another unprofessional review from TruXter Tech Review and the budget Tech review

Today in Tech News

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Tech News Today, latest tech news for Valentines day 2011.

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