I AM your target demographic. Listen up.
Android’s most powerful feature is found on only handful of devices. None of which are Google’s. *sigh*
After Googling the above turned nothing up, I decided to start an XDA thread about it.
Please comment at the thread; I’ve disabled comments here to prevent folks from chiming in without reading the very important rules.
Yet another topic there’s much less documentation on than there should be
If you have cable internet or are using the coax cable inside your house for MoCA networking, you might eventually want to split a cable outlet between 2 end point devices, e.g. a set top box and a modem, or a network CableCARD tuner and a MoCA adapter.
You’ll need a digital splitter for that, and the most important spec for the job is the frequency range the splitter is rated for. It must be from 5 to approximately 1000 MHz. I say approximately because some splitters that work are rated for 5-1002 MHz.
Splitters that have worked for me – most recently with an Actiontec ECB6200 – include the Extreme Broadband Engineering BDS102H, CommScope SV2G, and Regal ZDSB3DGH10. If you can’t find any of those or a splitter that meets the 5-1000 MHz spec, then get one from a cable company truck. I did this myself years ago by just hanging out in the cable company office lot until a truck came by. I told them what I needed a digital splitter for, and they tossed me a couple.
Don’t just flash modem firmwares and think you’re done.
The following is directed at Samsung Galaxy S5s running custom ROMs and custom recovery environments only. The Galaxy S5’s internal storage has multiple partitions, each with its own separate image. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll divide the partitions into 2 groups: customized and stock.
Customized partitions are the ones you’ve put a custom image onto. For most devices running custom ROMs, that’s the /recovery – this is where TWRP, CWM, etc. live – and /system – where the actual (custom) Android phone OS lives – partitions.
Stock partitions are the partitions with unmodified OEM images. For most devices running custom ROMs, that’s every partition except /recovery and /system. Because some of these partitions contain firmware for the phone’s hardware components and said firmware was developed for a particular version of Android, it’s important to keep them updated. It isn’t too hard to see how, for example, pairing firmware designed for Android 4.4.2 with a custom Android 7.1.1 ROM could cause problems.
This guide will show you how to update as many of the stock partitions as possible without touching the customized partitions:
And that’s it. All your partitions will be safely updated without touching your custom ROM or custom recovery.
Thanks haggertk for the method, E:V:A for partition details, and Campbell Vertesi for the NON-HLOS.bin and modem.bin descriptions.
Is it Odin or Odin3? 🤔
If you’re reading this, you probably already know what Odin (or Odin3? Because that’s what the window title bar says) is and what it does. For the unitiated: Odin is a Samsung-internal Windows graphical utility that allows you to update Samsung Android phone storage partitions using image files from your PC. Samsung Kies does almost the same thing, but it downloads official files from Samsung only, while Odin allows the use of any image files compatible with the phone. It’s basically ADB for Samsung, but with a GUI.
Because it’s an internal tool, there’s no Samsung-official download site for it. However, you should always be able to find the latest version at XDA here. Odin is a portable .exe, so you can run it from anywhere.
Logitech’s HD webcam reign continues
The 2 major choices on the market for webcams that do background removal are the Logitech C922 Pro Stream and the Razer Stargazer. The latter uses Intel’s RealSense hardware technology and retails for $149.99 while the former uses Personify‘s ChromaCam software and retails for $99.99. I bought and tested the Logitech only, so I’ll review it here.
The C922 ships rather unceremoniously in a tiny box containing:
Unlike the Stargazer, which uses USB 3.0, the C922 still uses USB 2.0 for connectivity. Connecting it to my Windows 10 Pro 14393 machine resulted in it being instantly recognized and usable. I didn’t even see a driver installation notification.
You can go right ahead and start using the webcam, but accessing advanced settings and enabling background removal require installation of Logitech Camera Settings and ChromaCam by Personify, respectively, from the webcam’s support page. Shockingly, aside from a web link, no details about enabling the extra functionality are included; the user is left to figure it out on their own. Like far too many other OEM utilities, installing Logitech Camera Settings results in an entry being added under the Startup tab in Task Manager, so be sure to disable that so it doesn’t slow your PC down when you’re not using it.
ChromaCam installs a dummy camera device to Windows that has to be selected in the video/imaging app you’re using for the background removal feature to work (read: Windows sees it as a separate, selectable webcam even though you’re still using the same physical device.) This dummy camera produces output corresponding to the settings within the ChromaCam app itself. In the latter, you can select from preset or add your own custom backgrounds, in addition to adjusting preference for performance or quality using a slider.
Quite a few other outlets have covered this, but I’ll say it myself: the C922’s picture quality will blow you away. It’s a huge improvement over the legendary C920, especially in low/natural lighting.
You can adjust whether you want background removal to prioritize CPU usage (Performance end of slider) or accuracy (Quality end of slider). The Performance setting is relatively sloppy and allows minor background exposure; I wouldn’t recommend using it. The Quality setting is much better at complete background removal. It’s excellent at what it does for privacy but not for subterfuge; don’t expect to fool anyone into thinking you’re somewhere you’re not using a custom background. It definitely won’t mess your face up though, which makes it suitable for interviews.
In testing with the latest Skype for Windows desktop beta build and background removal set to full Quality, CPU usage on my Intel Core i7-3770 was approximately 20 to 25% with very smooth output, which is good enough for video calls. I suspect it may be good enough for PC gaming too, especially if you have a newer CPU (my Ivy Bridge i7 hails from April 2012), but I’m not a PC gamer (yet?) so I didn’t test that myself.
Solely based on the addition of the background removal feature, absolutely. This is a very worthy, practically impulse buy replacement for the C920 and is an upgrade from it in every way. I can’t think of any reason to get the Stargazer instead unless you absolutely need Windows Hello support or possibly lower CPU usage due to Intel ecosystem optimizations.
Yet another Firefox feature you won’t find in Chrome.
Every guide I’ve seen on how to do this talks about inspecting elements or installing add-ons or apps. None of that is necessary. Here’s how you do it:
And that’ll do it. You’ll get the original .jpg upload or an .mp4 video. This method of downloading videos also works for Clippit.tv, with the exception that you might have to play the video first to allow Firefox to sniff it before clicking Page Info.
Of course you need a PC to work around a subpar mobile app.
Yes, there’s a My Mixtapez Android app. Unfortunately, it really slows your device down with wakelocks and CPU usage, so here’s how to get music from the site otherwise:
The files in Step 15 will all be the original, playable mp3 files.
The Page Info feature is one of the main reasons Firefox continues to by my main browser; it’s basically a built-in content sniffer.
That Carol Danvers is something else, isn’t she?
You like comics and you like wallpapers. Did you know that you can extract gloriously high res ones of the latter from the former?
First, you’ll need the comic in CBR or CBZ format. Both are simply RAR and ZIP files, respectively, with the extensions changed. Once you have that, simply extract the file using your preferred archiving tool (I recommend 7-Zip). This will spit out every page of the comic as its own separate image file, which you can then use as you please.
🎶 If you’re having RAM problems I feel bad for you son 🎶
Ever gotten the error message below?
Your computer is low on memory
To restore enough memory for programs to work correctly, save your files and then clsoe or restart all open programs.
The root cause may be a poorly behaving service installed with Realtek network drivers called RunSWUSB. Disabling it should fix the issue. Here’s how to do that:
Services.So how’d I figure this out? First of all, it seems to be rare; only 1 of my 3 Windows 10 PCs was afflicted with it. The PC that was having this issue is running Windows 10 Insider Slow Ring and was experiencing errors during the build update process. As part of the steps to resolve those, I performed a clean boot. After the update process successfully completed, I went through disabled services individually to see which were worth re-enabling. Googling this particular one produced this thread about its associated memory leak problems.
If the above doesn’t fix the problem, try performing a clean boot. Then do the following:
msconfig.Thanks cartman82 for the fix!
Behave like malware, get treated like malware.
If you installed this useless app on your PC and find it won’t uninstall via Control Panel, try any of the following:
The developer, G-Agate, claims this should work, but I never saw any indication to reboot so I can’t confirm it.
If Methods 1 to 3 fail, Method 4 should work. The developers insist their app isn’t malware, but I consider anything that refuses to uninstall from the Control Panel to be so.
