Expose the Camera App on the Asus Google Nexus 7

A short and sharp tip for today. Despite the Nexus 7 lacking a rear camera you can, with a bit of skill and coordination, use the front facing camera to take photos. However, if you want to take a photo without being in an app like Facebook or Instagram you’re somewhat stuck. Fortunately, there is …

Continue reading

Sharing Wi-Fi Via Your Microsoft Surface

One of the biggest gripes that people may have is the lack of 3G/4G/LTE connectivity on both versions of the Microsoft Surface. Of course, on Surface Pro you can plug in a dongle and add such connectivity but it can become cumbersome to have a USB device protruding from the tablet or a dongle hanging off …

Continue reading

Enjoying Your Own Media in Hotel Residence

Here’s another quick tip for those who might travel a bit. In the lead up to my business trip to Singapore I had fallen behind on my video podcasts and figured I would catch up on them when I was back at the hotel. I planned for this by packing an HDMI cable in my …

Continue reading

Save Money with Data Roaming Packs

Just a quick post for today. I am on assignment in Singapore this week for work which means that the question of international roaming raises its head once again not just for phone calls and SMS but for data. Some of those data charges are frightfully expensive so unless you take joy in burning through your money most …

Continue reading

Fitbit One Wirless Activity and Sleet Tracker Unboxing

A couple years ago I unboxed the original Fitbit after having it shipped out from the USA given that you couldn’t buy one locally. It has served me well but after going through three plastic clips which broke, losing it overnight and finding it again as well as surviving a session in the washing machine …

Continue reading

Asus Google Nexus 7 Tablet and Dock Unboxing

So, I decided to pull the trigger on an Android tablet in the form of the Asus Google Nexus 7 tablet as well as the official dock. I thought this would be a good way to get a more recent Android device as my Samsung Galaxy S is far too long in the tooth to …

Continue reading

Disabling a SIM PIN on Android

Recently, I dusted off an old SIM card to use in an old phone and found that it still had a SIM PIN on it. This wasn’t a big deal as I knew the PIN to unlock but having to put in two codes (one to unlock the PIN and another to unlock the phone) …

Continue reading

Handy SQL Code Snippets

I admit that I can be a bit lazy with my SQL coding and sometimes I do borrow handy snippets to get the job done. I should probably have memorised some of these or at least turned them into functions that can be called when required but I’ve not managed that yet (on the list …

Continue reading

A Faster Way to Google Now

If you’ve got a smartphone or tablet running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or higher you should have access to Google Now which is Google’s response to Siri on the iOS platform. It’s pretty neat with its voice recognition and speech capabilities as well as anticipating your data requirements by showing you information cards after learning …

Continue reading

Fitbit Dashboard Receives Metro Styling

A while back I wrote about how Fitbit developed a Metro app for Windows 8/RT which, in my opinion, did a fantastic job of aligning with the design language whilst still retaining the Fitbit identity. I think it is a great way to check my Fitbit stats without having to fire up and login to …

Continue reading