Thursday, November 27, 2014

Nexus 7 Slows Down on Android Lollipop

Here's a simple fix that worked for me:

Clearing your troubled tablet’s cache will reportedly resolve the issue and it’s pretty easy to do. If you’re up for the challenge, just follow these easy steps:
  • Turn off your device.
  • Press and hold Power and volume down buttons simultaneously until you see a large arrow at the top of your screen.
  • Press the volume down button repeatedly until you see “Recovery” in the arrow.
  • Select it by pressing the power button.
  • You’ll see an android mascot with a red triangle and exclamation mark.
  • Hold down the power and press the volume up button once and then release the power button.
  • Press the volume down button repeatedly to select “erase or wipe the cache partition” from the list of options.
  • Wait for the process to complete and then restart your device.
If successful, you should notice an improvement in your tablet’s performance.
Source: Mark Hern (2014) at http://9to5google.com/2014/11/19/2012-edition-nexus-7-running-slow-after-installing-lollipop-this-might-help/
 and:

These steps are all easy to do and reversible.
Settings > About tablet > tap on the “Build number” entry seven times, which will unlock “Developer Options”.
Settings > Developer options > Set WINDOW ANIMATION SCALE, TRANSITION ANIMATION SCALE and ANIMATOR DURATION SCALE all to ANIMATION OFF
Settings > Developer Options > Background process limit > at most 3 processes

My tablet now goes fast enough to keep me sane until it is (hopefully) fixed with updates.
Source: Jason Molesky (2014) as comment to the above source.
I hope this works the same for you.

Best regards,

Jong San Pedro, M.T.M.
Manila, Philippines

Thursday, September 12, 2013

A technology a day keeps life easier each day

Word

Adopting my experience from the command line window (boxed selection), I rediscovered how to make a rectangular selection in MS Word: Hold down Alt while dragging on the selection.  This can be very useful in extracting data from a columnar/tabular information in a document.  Simply select the desired column, copy & paste it in Excel.  Repeat this for each column.  Use the formatting techniques below as needed.

Rectangular selection/boxed selection: 

Alt-drag 

Excel

After years of using MS Excel, I still learn new things that makes work and life a lot easier!  For today, these includes removing leading and trailing spaces (blank spaces) after a paste operation and adding leading zeroes to an existing number.

Remove leading/trailing spaces:

=TRIM(C2) in a blank cell then copy back the value to the original reference cell.

Add leading zeroes:

=TEXT(A1,"0000") in a blank cell then copy back the value to the original reference cell.

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3992541/add-leading-zeroes-0s-to-existing-excel-values-to-certain-length by GSerg & Martin

Notepad++

I use this as intermediary between softcopies made in various applications, such as MS Office, and Dokuwiki.  Here I paste formatted (Wiki-compliant - all symbols included) texts, usually from Excel, and simply "copy-find-paste-replace all" things I want deleted (like extra spaces or tabs) or formatted in a certain way as defined in the "replace with" string.

I choose the Extended option whenever I find/replace carriage return/CR (\r) and new line/LF (\n) symbols.

I hope these learnings can help others searching for similar solutions.

Have a nice day!

Monday, December 3, 2012

ATM ATe My Card

It was my Metrobank Credit Card's due date and as usual, I came to the same Metrobank ATM machine in Cybergate 3-Pioneer where I usually pay my Metrobank Credit Card using my Chinabank ATM. But this day, technology has bitten me... the machine ate my ATM card!!!

I approached the building guard but he simply advised me to wait further as the machine will spit out my ATM card. Guess what??? It never did. So I went to the adjacent store to call 8700700 using a Bayantel Wireless Landline. The CSR made a report and gave me a reference number advising me that it'll take 5 or more banking days before I can retrieve my ATM card. I asked for the nearest Metrobank branch where I can do an over-the-counter transaction but he rather advised me to ask Chinabank to make a manual debit for this transaction.

When I approached Chinabank's staff, she told me that they do not do manual debit and advised me to transact online instead using my Chinabank Online Banking account. Unfortunately, I forgot my User ID, password, and email address and she cannot retrieve it for me. Good thing, she has another alternative: Bancnet Online!

www.bancnetonline.com enabled me to do balance inquiry for my Chinabank account free-of-charge. It also allowed me to pay for my Metrobank Credit Card dues by simply providing account and payment information similar to that found in ATMs when paying for bills.

Bancnet has done a very good job leveraging on existing online technologies and pairing it with a very familiar user experience similar to that in ATMs, which makes the facility useful to their clients with low technology learning curve.

Nice job, Bancnet!


Technologies used:
  • Metrobank ATM Machine
  • Chinabank ATM Card
  • Bayan Wireless Landline Phone
  • Blackberry Smartphone
  • Nexus 7 Tablet
  • Chinabank Online Banking facility
  • Bancnet Online Banking facility
  • Lenovo Notebook
  • LAN

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Samsung Omnia and VoIP

I thought Samsung Omnia (B7610) has it all (business and entertainment) but I cannot use VoIP with it. Also, the messaging interface is too slow. I feel that I am shortchanged with this phone.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Continuous Development of PHP Community in the Philippines



Hi! If you are a code developer, an I.T. professional, an I.T. consultant, or simply a web enthusiast, you're invited to attend this event, which will be held at the very heart of the Philippines: Quezon City.

If you have further inquiry, just post a reply.

Thank you.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Hyundai Getz 1.1


This unleaded-fed pet is fuel efficient according to the sales agent. I have yet to prove its 10-12 km/liter claim. Any tips on how to attain or even surpass this limit is welcome. Thanks!