Product Review for Common Man: XPOD PLUS

This is a cheap rip of Samsung buds and lacks functionality in all possible ways. To begin with, user manual is thrash and wrong about manything written. 

The fit of these buds is sort of  comfortable but takes a while to get used to. The touch controls are not accurate and they have no use if you have any intentions of pairing these to any computer. Sound quality is balanced nothing to greatly appreciate. 

Now for some unacceptable things. There is no ways to reset pairing on the buds itself. So basically you have to unpair these from the paired device. A measure for this is to take the device away from the paired device and then open the lid of the case. 

Also if you connect this to a pc it's volume is not controlled by windows volume control and rather by individual application. This very painful as you have to adjust volume in the application individually. This is not observed in mobile. There is no noise cancellation of any sort. 

Mic quality is basic and accetable as long as you are seated in a quite environment. Also another annoying things is the presence of flashing red and blue lights when not paired. 

Verdict: You can get better tws of brands like boat (in india) in this range. This is people who want to have a clone for showing off and who cant go for real buds.

Product Review For Common Man: Dell M3320W

 

Compact workspaces, limited space at home makes wireless accessories desirable. At basic a good wireless mouse and keyboard is a necessity. This review of dell mouse talks about how this product is suitable for common man. In India, this mouse is available between INR 1000 to 1200.

For this price, this product offers:

Maximum DPI: 4000 (as per what we see in Dell peripheral manager)

Number of Buttons: 3

Connectivity: Dual (Dongle + Bluetooth)

Ambidextrous: Yes

Warranty: 3 years

This mouse operates on 1 AA battery and has a very good battery life. The battery is expected to last 36 months under normal usage. This mouse is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 that results in easy pairing and seamless connection. This product is compatible with all platform like windows, Mac, Linux and can be also used with Android devices such as tablets.

On Windows, this comes with Dell peripheral manager which helps in configuring the parameters of the mouse such has which handed use and dpi. 

The only down side that observed from day to day use point of view is lack of additional buttons for forward and back. These buttons have become essential aspect for majority of people out there. This mouse is not for gamers as such as the design is not so gamer centric.

This mouse is best suitable for casual and working users who expect good performance and accuracy for a reasonable price. Coming from brand of Dell this is a very reliable offering. Having dual mode not helps in pairing this device with 2 other devices but also helps in preventing this device from becoming useless when the dongle is lost. It is also backed by 3 years warranty which provides ample peace of mind.

Overall verdict: A very reliable purchase for a reasonable price. If not Dell some budget friendly options from Logitech are available as well.

Ad-blocking for MIUI and other Android Devices

Many of MIUI users have been suffering from issues of "Ads" shown practically everywhere across the phone. Well not only MIUI, but many other phones from other manufacturer too share similar kind off problem. Sometimes such issues also arise due to various apps we install that show plenty of ads. 

These continuous flow of ads not only ruins the end user experience but also ruins the battery life. So regardless of whether your phone has 4000Mah battery or 5000Mah, It doesn’t seem to last the way it should. Now amongst several solutions available out there many of the solutions require rooting of phone which is not a easy task for an average end user. In this post I will share a method which does not require end user to root the device. 

To begin with we need to install an app named "Blockada" (https://blokada.org/). Please make sure you install the app from this website and not from the Google playstore. The version on Google Playstore only allows changing of DNS as ads play important role in Google's Business model. Once downloaded, install the apk onto your phone and launch the app. 

As soon as the app launches you will be greeted with several options like "Ad Blocking", "DNS" and "Blockada Plus". You will also see an icon at bottom which will launch settings for the app. Now lets begin with setting up the ad blocking: 

Step 1. Open 1st option of ad blocking:

Step 2. Open Host List and select the host configuration as shown in the below screenshot.

I have come up with this selection basis of my surfing habits and apps that I have present on my phone that have ads in them. You can choose to ad or remove these host basis of your requirement.

Step 3. Open Adblocking Settings and enable  "[BETA] Advanced adblocking rules"

Step 4. Go to VPN options in the system found in network settings. Make the VPN "always-on". This will help in preventing auto disconnections.

Step 5. Disable "Private DNS" from network settings as well. Incase on some versions of MIUI this setting may not be directly accessible. In that case you can install "Hidden Settings for MIUI" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ceyhan.sets&hl=en) and access this setting as shown in the screenshot below.

Please note that this is very important. The adblocking may or may not function properly if it is left enabled. You can further ignore this app from battery optimization to make sure that it does not get killed automatically. 

Eco-friendly note taking for old school

While digital note taking is gradually catching up with next gen, earlier generation still prefers the pen and paper approach. Note taking many a times in our day to day routine, is very ad-hoc and unstructured. This leads to notes getting scattered across various books or pages which have high chances of getting misplaced. Plus gradual accumulation of lot and lot of old books. With many individuals doing note taking in similar manner we end up cutting more and more trees and damaging the nature with every passing moment.

So what can we do in order to make our note taking eco-friendly as well as not requiring extreme changes in our note taking habits? In this article I talk about my eco-friendly note taking habits. For this we use following things:

• Spiral Book (I prefer Navneet HQ | EZEE Disc Book (https://www.amazon.in/Navneet-HQ-Pages-Black-Color/dp/B082NGMGJY/ref=sr_1_9?crid=2TZ5WTBK9MBRW&keywords=hq%2Bnotebooks&qid=1579625203&sprefix=hq%2B%2Caps%2C299&sr=8-9&th=1) as it allows me to rearrange the pages which adds convenience to note taking. 
  
• Pilot Frixion C1 Roller Ball Pen erasable pen (https://www.amazon.in/Pilot-Frixion-Roller-Ball-Pen/dp/B00WGNPH52/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Pilot+Frixion+C1+Roller+Ball+Pen&qid=1579631017&sr=8-1)
  
  (For people using fountain pen erasable inks are available in the market)
• Faber-Castell Eraser (Blue and White) (We are more concerned about the blue part here which is an ink eraser) (https://www.amazon.in/Faber-Castell-Blue-White-Eraser/dp/B07G6GZ35D/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Faber-Castell+Eraser&qid=1579631557&sr=8-3)
  
  

• Page scanning apps (I prefer using adobe scan or office lens) (Apps are available iOS as well)
• Adobe scan (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adobe.scan.android)
• Microsoft Office Lens (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.officelens)

With all this in place how do we go about note taking? Here is what I usually do:

• I take notes as per my requirement (daily/weekly)
• Scan to PDF using the app suggested above and share it if notes are to be shared
• Then on every weekend erase the book using eraser.

This way I'm able to reuse a single book for several months there by reducing stack of notebook which would pile up otherwise. Plus scanning the articles helps me maintain the notes for long term basis without worry about loss and wear and tear of pages.

If more and more people follow similar approach or something on these lines we can certainly reduce the amount of trees that need to be cut there by protecting nature.

Finding difference between two dates in JS

"Finding difference between two dates" is not a new topic in JavaScript world, however with this post, i wish to go one step ahead by providing this ability as an extension of Date object itself and in a configurable manner.
In this code we extend Date object prototype with a new method named "difference". This method take another date (Created using "new Date()") and "unit" for comparison result i.e in what units do you want to know the difference e.g "seconds","minutes","hours","days" or "months"

How to fix: Smart watch 2 won't install apps on MIUI

Many people trying to connect Sony smartwatch to phones with MIUI or Xiaomi Phones have faced issue where even after downloading and installing apps for smartphone from Google play store, the apps are not seen on the watch for use.

In this post i will provide simple steps for solving this issue. Please note that this fix requires rooting your phone.

Step 1: Root your phone.

Step 2: Install Lucky patcher (http://lucky-patcher.netbew.com/)

Step 3: Install all the smartphone apps you need from Google Play Store.

Step 4: Select the specific app from lucky patcher's list. Click on tools and select "Move the app to "system/app""

Step 5: Reboot the phone

After phone reboot you should see the installed app on phone. :)

Can't download App's from Google play via 3g network

This is a short post describing a solution for a very common problem on android phones. One of the common problem with android is that, Apps cannot be downloaded over 3G connection. This problem is not only there with the play store, but with other applications dealing with media. The solution for this is very simple!
Go into Settings/...More settings/Mobile networks/Access Point Names. Choose your Access Point name and empty Proxy and Port. And that should fix your problem!