Tag: Android

Latest Facebook Beta for Windows Phone

If you’ve not yet checked out the latest beta of the Facebook app for Windows Phone then you might want to look now. In the latest update, the Facebook Beta app sees almost instant notifications and private messaging which is a welcome change from the rather slow, sporadic or simply broken notifications functionality in prior …

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The Return of the Infrared Remote in Smartphones

When LG visited work recently to show off their new G2 Android smartphone and some other product including a couple of Ultra HD televisions (which looked fantastic in my opinion) there was one particular feature on the smartphone which I really liked. It wasn’t the large screen or the quad core CPU, its speed or …

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Prevent Automatic Updates to Metro Apps in Windows 8.1

Another quick Windows 8.1 tip. A new feature in the latest iteration to Windows is the ability for Metro apps to automatically update. This has been a feature in Android for a while and more recently in iOS. Sure, it doesn’t take too much effort to go and see if there are updates available and …

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Backing up to the Cloud with CrashPlan

Another quick update this time regarding data backups. At home we run a Windows Home Server which centrally stores our data whilst backing up our computers. I do take periodic backups of the server using standard hard drives which I store offsite but I have been wanting to have a cloud backup solution as well …

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Handling NTLM Proxies on Android Without Rooting

This might be a bit of a bugbear if you’ve tried using your Android tablet on the Wi-Fi at work only to find that the corporate proxy server uses NTLM (NT LAN Manager) authentication instead of basic or plain text authentication. Android doesn’t have native support for NTLM authentication for proxy server which means that …

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Not All Versions of Office 365 Include Phone and Tablet Apps

I am a user of Office 365 and being able to get access to my mail and documents on the go from my Windows devices has been rather invaluable. The hosted Exchange mail account is the big goal kicker for me but SharePoint is very handy particularly after the platform update to the equivalent level …

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Video Scaling Issues in BeyondPod for Tablets

Another quick tip. If you’ve upgraded your Android tablet to Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) you may find that BeyondPod isn’t scaling videos to full screen. Apparently, there was a change made in Android 4.3 that affects how video scales by default and,, unless your videos are encoded at your devices native resolution, you’d have to …

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Incoming Gadget – Google Chromecast

Another short and sweet update. I missed out on the initial release but I have placed an order for Google’s new Chromecast product. In a nutshell, it’s a dongle that you plug into your television in a spare USB socket for power as well as an HDMI socket to send video and audio to the …

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Android 4.3 Hits the Nexus 7

Well, as fate would have it, after my disappointment with my Nexus 7 and its declining flash memory performance the latest version of Jelly Bean in the form of Android 4.3 actually includes support for TRIM. This capability was lacking in prior versions of the operating system unless your rooted your device and used various …

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The Case of a Laggy Nexus 7

Not too long ago I picked up a Nexus 7 Android tablet so I could test out my Pebble smartwatch (although the Samsung Galaxy Express has primarily taken over that duty) but in the short time that I have had this tablet it has really started to slow down to woeful speeds. Booting up would …

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