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Search - "new smartphone"
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Assembly: He’s the nerd. He speaks very quickly and uses short sentences. Very few people talk to him. He’s considered to be an autist asperger by a majority of the class because he finishes the exams so quickly it’s insane and he faces a lot of difficulties in speaking with others. He’s at school but already dressed like an engineer.
Ada: She’s a foureyes nerd. When she gets the answer she’s doesn’t make any mistake. Ada often corrects the teacher when she writes a line a little ambiguous. She’s building a rocketship in her backyard and she’s always speaking about this weird hobby.
Python: He’s Mr Popular. He likes skate, brags about all the parties he’s invited to. He’s good in all the subjects taught in class but he’ll do them a bit slower than the others. Everyone loves him because he explainsthings so well, sometimes the teacher herself asks Python to explain some part of the course. He’s dressed with a hoodie, a baggy and glasses on the top of the head ;)
Java: She is one of the toppers of the class and very popular. She’s very good in all the topics. The teacher loves her but she’s a very talkative person.
Scala/Kotlin: They are twin sisters and the best friends of Java. Unfortunately, they are not as popular and it’s often Java who takes the lead in the group. It’s very difficult to distinguish one from another. Both are far less talkative than Java but Scala speaks a bit differently than Kotlin and Java.
C: He’s the topper of the class. He’s so fast in completing the exams that the teacher really thinks he’s copying Assembly’s work. He has a little brother C++ and they share a lot in common together. He’s the chess major and often plays chess with Assembly and his big brother.
Go: He’s the new kid on the bloc. He doesn’t like C++ and his friends and he wants to prove he can do better than them. Of course, he prefers playing Go over Chess.
APL: He’s a lonely guy. No one understands him when he speaks. Even the teacher is surprised when APL shows a correct answer after several lines of incomprehensible pictograms. People think that he was born in a foreign country… or a foreign planet ?
HTML/CSS: These twin brothers are very different. One is dressed in black and white and the other is dressed with everything except black and white. HTML is very talkative and annoying and the CSS is very artistic. CSS is the best student in Art lessons and HTML performs well in written expression.
LaTeX: She’s friend of HTML. The teacher likes her because she has a gift of writing. LaTeX likes the mathematical courses because she can draw fancy greek letters. The teacher knows this well and she is often asked to write a formula on the black board.
VBA: He’s in the back, looking through the windows. Not really interested in the courses taught in class. In the exams, he answers always with a table.
C#: He’s in the back playing yet another game on his smartphone. He likes being next to the windows also.
JavaScript: People often mix up Java and JavaScript because they have a similar name. But they are definitly not the same. Javascript spends a lot of time with HTMLand CSS. He’s as artistic as CSS but he prefers things that move. He likes actions and movies. CSS dreams to be a painter wheras JavaScript wants to be a film-maker.
Haskell: He’s a goth. Dressed up in dark. Doesn’t talk to anyone. He doesn’t understand why others write pages when he can write a couple of lines to answer the same question.
Julia: She’s the newest student here. She doesn’t have any friends yet but her secret aim is to be as popular as Python and as fast as C.
Credit: Thomas jalabert4 -
Got to learn Shopware (the eCommerce thingy written in PHP) for the job.
Bought a book worth ~60$.
The author writes: "Use vagrant it's soooooo comfy and cozy and everything!".
Sure, why not.
Got to get online over my smartphone.
Cloned the repo with the Vagrantfile.
Did a 'vagrant up'.
Downloaded the Ubuntu box of around 1.5 GB (reminder: over my smartphone which has around 3 GB 'highspeed' internet connection).
Vagrant initialized and provisioned the box.
Error.
Error?
Error.
VT-X is not enabled. Hm. Strange. Wait...when it's not enabled, can it be that...
Yep.
THIS SHITTY LAPTOP SCHMAPTOP DOES NOT SUPPORT VT-X AND I PULVERIZED JUST THE HALF OF MY INTERNET DATA FOR THIS SHITTY BOX IN ORDER TO JUST DOWNLOAD THE ZIP FILE AND INSTALL IT OLDSCHOOL-SCHMOLDSCHOOL INSTALL A APACHE VIRTUAL HOST.
Time for new hardware I think.11 -
"New revolutionary technology, ai powered smartphone, 720° camera, 8 screens"
Cool
Can i have 2 days battery life instead?11 -
How I chose a new smartphone:
- specs good?
Yes: good, continue.
No: hmm i might live.
- looks good?
Yes: OOHH MUCH BEAUTY, SUCH AWESOME, LET'S GO TO THE LAST ONE!!
No: 😩. I'll live I guess, last step :/.
- can find a rooting guide on DDG within a fee minutes?
Yes: YES YES I LOVE YOU ALREADY I'LL BUY YOU ❤😍
NO: FUUUCK. Next.30 -
Not directly a rant by me, but it would be a rant if my co worker would write it.
So lets the story start. Today my coworker wanted to see my new smartphone. And one of them is a little troll. After I unlocked he shouted "Ok Google call 666666"...
Lucky for me, my phone didn't respond. 10 minutes later he wrote me, that his phone is calling 666666 for 10 minutes xD.
There are about 20€ gone.
Karma5 -
Disclaimer: I have a strong hate towards apple for multiple reasons and this will only be temporary. (thank God for that)
My oneplus one is battery dead and the power button quit as well. Repair costs would be as expensive as buying a new phone (200-300 price range) so searching for a new one.
But, I need a temporary phone in the mean time.
A phone with googled-android is absolutely a no-go. I used to do that sometimes but those were wrong decisions.
So, for the sake of trying, I'm going for a second hand iPhone.
Will be testing how it works for me (never been able to form an opinion on it since iOS 4.2 (iPod touch)) and will also be searching my ass off for a smartphone which supports lineage/rooting (TIPS BETWEEN ABOVES PRICE RANGE ARE VERY WELCOME) because I'm fucking hell not planning on using that (the iPhone) fucker any longer than a month.
Even if I love it over android (highly doubt that), I won't continue using it for very specific reasons.
Wish me luck 😅14 -
November 2022
*Wife*: What do you want for x-mas? A new phone maybe? Yours has lived through a lot already - perhaps it's time for an upgrade?
*I*: Naah, thanks. My trusty S7 still works incredibly well. I also have all those 2FAs set up there and stuff I'm too lazy to transfer over to a new device.
*Parents*: What do you want for–//–
*I*: Naah, thanks. My tr–//–
*in-laws*: What do you want for–//–
*I*: Naah, thanks. My tr–//–
*Siblings*: What do you want for–//–
*I*: Naah, thanks. My tr–//–
January 2023:
*My phone*:5 -
So this happened a few days ago. I always want to root my smartphones for that little bit more control.
*Put's new smartphone into fastboot mode*
*Tries to flash root zip onto it*
"You have to OEM unlock the bootloader first"
*OEM unlocks the bootloader*
*Tries to flash but fails*
*Tries to reboot*
Phone: "The bootloader has been tampered with, the device will boot in 5 seconds".
*Screen just hangs there for ages*
FUCK.
*Tries to enter fastboot again to OEM re-lock the bootloader*
*Fastboot appears to startup RIGHT AFTER THE FUCKING ERROR MESSAGE so can't boot into that anymore*.
FUCKING FUCK.
Hmm... TWRP is still installed...
*Tries to flash some stuff through TWRP*
"The zip file you are trying to flash is corrupt".
FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE.
*Connects phone to Linux for adb flashing*
*Nothing happens after half an hour of trying*
*Connects phone to ancient windows 7 laptop*
*Laptop doesn't even RECOGNISE the phone although all drivers are installed*.
*Le me about to completely lose my fucking mind*
*Connects phone desperately with Linux again*
*Phone is recognised right away but the SPL flash tool can't detect it*
*Tries to put it into fastboot again*
*Fails for about an hour*
*phone in charging mode again*
*Presses the power button for a last, desperate attempt*
*SPL flash suddenly recognises the phone*
FLASHING
FLASHING
FLASHING
DONE.
*Android boots again like nothing happened*
I can use it again like normal but the No-Root firewall is draining my battery like crazy.
That was one hell of a journey though!10 -
Paranoid Developers - It's a long one
Backstory: I was a freelance web developer when I managed to land a place on a cyber security program with who I consider to be the world leaders in the field (details deliberately withheld; who's paranoid now?). Other than the basic security practices of web dev, my experience with Cyber was limited to the OU introduction course, so I was wholly unprepared for the level of, occasionally hysterical, paranoia that my fellow cohort seemed to perpetually live in. The following is a collection of stories from several of these people, because if I only wrote about one they would accuse me of providing too much data allowing an attacker to aggregate and steal their identity. They do use devrant so if you're reading this, know that I love you and that something is wrong with you.
That time when...
He wrote a social media network with end-to-end encryption before it was cool.
He wrote custom 64kb encryption for his academic HDD.
He removed the 3 HDD from his desktop and stored them in a safe, whenever he left the house.
He set up a pfsense virtualbox with a firewall policy to block the port the student monitoring software used (effectively rendering it useless and definitely in breach of the IT policy).
He used only hashes of passwords as passwords (which isn't actually good).
He kept a drill on the desk ready to destroy his HDD at a moments notice.
He started developing a device to drill through his HDD when he pushed a button. May or may not have finished it.
He set up a new email account for each individual online service.
He hosted a website from his own home server so he didn't have to host the files elsewhere (which is just awful for home network security).
He unplugged the home router and began scanning his devices and manually searching through the process list when his music stopped playing on the laptop several times (turns out he had a wobbly spacebar and the shaking washing machine provided enough jittering for a button press).
He brought his own privacy screen to work (remember, this is a security place, with like background checks and all sorts).
He gave his C programming coursework (a simple messaging program) 2048 bit encryption, which was not required.
He wrote a custom encryption for his other C programming coursework as well as writing out the enigma encryption because there was no library, again not required.
He bought a burner phone to visit the capital city.
He bought a burner phone whenever he left his hometown come to think of it.
He bought a smartphone online, wiped it and installed new firmware (it was Chinese; I'm not saying anything about the Chinese, you're the one thinking it).
He bought a smartphone and installed Kali Linux NetHunter so he could test WiFi networks he connected to before using them on his personal device.
(You might be noticing it's all he's. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't).
He ate a sim card.
He brought a balaclava to pentesting training (it was pretty meme).
He printed out his source code as a manual read-only method.
He made a rule on his academic email to block incoming mail from the academic body (to be fair this is a good spam policy).
He withdraws money from a different cashpoint everytime to avoid patterns in his behaviour (the irony).
He reported someone for hacking the centre's network when they built their own website for practice using XAMMP.
I'm going to stop there. I could tell you so many more stories about these guys, some about them being paranoid and some about the stupid antics Cyber Security and Information Assurance students get up to. Well done for making it this far. Hope you enjoyed it.26 -
[Dark Rant]
I'm sick of this stupid tech world.
Don't get me wrong, I love tech. I just can't stand anymore the global brainwashing that we're part of.
Think about all the huge companies making profit on our data. For a better service, yeah sure, but do we really understand what the cost is?
Ok sure, you don't care about your data because you trust these companies and the advantages are all worth it. What about the fact that we are all forced to buy the next new smartphone after 2 years?
Like if removable batteries were a problem for us, users. Or like the audio jack. Because now someone decided that the pricey wireless headphones are Just What You Need™.
Do you think you own your smartphone?
No, you don't. You are paying a bunch of money for something that soon will be just a useless brick of glass and metal which you can't repair. But you'll be happy anyway.
Someone is so happy to the point that they will defend their favorite company, doesn't matter how they decided to stick it into their ass.
Open your eyes, you've been brainwashed.25 -
---WiFi Vision: X-Ray Vision using ambient WiFi signals now possible---
“X-Ray Vision” using WiFi signals isn’t new, though previous methods required knowledge of specific WiFi transmitter placements and connection to the network in question. These limitations made WiFi vision an unlikely security breach, until now.
Cybersecurity researchers at the University of California and University of Chicago have succeeded in detecting the presence and movement of human targets using only ambient WiFi signals and a smartphone.
The researchers designed and implemented a 2-step attack: the 1st step uses statistical data mining from standard off-the-shelf smartphone WiFi detection to “sniff” out WiFi transmitter placements. The 2nd step involves placement of a WiFi sniffer to continuously monitor WiFi transmissions.
Three proposed defenses to the WiFi vision attack are Geofencing, WiFi rate limiting, and signal obfuscation.
Geofencing, or reducing the spatial range of WiFi devices, is a great defense against the attack. For its advantages, however, geofencing is impractical and unlikely to be adopted by most, as the simplest geofencing tactic would also heavily degrade WiFi connectivity.
WiFi rate limiting is effective against the 2nd step attack, but not against the 1st step attack. This is a simple defense to implement, but because of the ubiquity of IoT devices, it is unlikely to be widely adopted as it would reduce the usability of such devices.
Signal obfuscation adds noise to WiFi signals, effectively neutralizing the attack. This is the most user-friendly of all proposed defenses, with minimal impact to user WiFi devices. The biggest drawback to this tactic is the increased bandwidth of WiFi consumption, though compared to the downsides of the other mentioned defenses, signal obfuscation remains the most likely to be widely adopted and optimized for this kind of attack.
For more info, please see journal article linked below.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/...9 -
How Google loost its data Monopoly-
Present:
Step 1- US bans Huawei
Step 2- Google Bans Huawei
Step 3- China Gov helps Huawei get back on its feet
Future:
Step 4- Huawei makes their own OS to rival Google, the OS can run Android apps as well as IoS apps and has its own language/framework for developing new apps
Step 5- China bans Google from their market
Step 6- Chinese mobile manufacturers adopt the new OS
Step 7- China's population starts using the new OS i.e. country with the world's largest population starts using the new OS
Step 8- Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and OnePlus who already own approx 40% of India's smartphone market start distributing the new OS based phones in India. Factors like cheaper devices take this market share to 50%+
Step 9- Cry, cause the new OS is now being used by approximately 30% of the world's population.
Yeah, bring your hate in the comments but come back and talk to me in August 2022...12 -
This will definitely trigger some people.
New smartphone releases aren't 'tech news'.
An implementation of a technology ripped off from other devices (GPS, VR etc..) isn't 'tech news', it's just implementation of an existing technology.
So please, everyone who reads the self-called 'tech news' to look for a new phone release to waste money on - stop calling yourself a 'tech geek' - "Oh my god, I'm such a tech geek, it's embarrassing - this new iPhone was released and I just couldn't wait to get spend my money on it".
Just shut the fuck up - you are willingly dragging a tracking device everywhere you go and you are PAYING for it to look cool and be full of features you won't even fucking use.12 -
I have spent 6 hours waiting for Chrome OS to build and my new smartphone to arrive.
It's 14:56 +0900 JST and there's no sign of the courier yet, Chrome OS still getting those packages built...
I hate the waiting game9 -
If you can be locked out of it remotely, you don't own it.
On May 3rd, 2019, the Microsoft-resembling extension signature system of Mozilla malfunctioned, which locked out all Firefox users out of their browsing extensions for that day, without an override option. Obviously, it is claimed to be "for our own protection". Pretext-o-meter over 9000!
BMW has locked heated seats, a physical interior feature of their vehicles, behind a subscription wall. This both means one has to routinely spend time and effort renewing it, and it can be terminated remotely. Even if BMW promises never to do it, it is a technical possibility. You are in effect a tenant in a car you paid for. Now imagine your BMW refused to drive unless you install a software update. You are one rage-quitting employee at BMW headquarters away from getting stuck on a side of a road. Then you're stuck in an expensive BMW while watching others in their decade-old VW Golf's driving past you. Or perhaps not, since other stuck BMWs would cause traffic jams.
Perhaps this horror scenario needs to happen once so people finally realize what it means if they can be locked out of their product whenever the vendor feels like it.
Some software becomes inaccessible and forces the user to update, even though they could work perfectly well. An example is the pre-installed Samsung QuickConnect app. It's a system app like the Wi-Fi (WLAN) and Bluetooth settings. There is a pop-up that reads "Update Quick connect", "A new version is available. Update now?"; when declining, the app closes. Updating requires having a Samsung account to access the Galaxy app store, and creating such requires providing personally identifiable details.
Imagine the Bluetooth and WiFi configuration locking out the user because an update is available, then ask for personal details. Ugh.
The WhatsApp messenger also routinely locks out users until they update. Perhaps messaging would cease to work due to API changes made by the service provider (Meta, inc.), however, that still does not excuse locking users out of their existing offline messages. Telegram does it the right way: it still lets the user access the messages.
"A retailer cannot decide that you were licensing your clothes and come knocking at your door to collect them. So, why is it that when a product is digital there is such a double standard? The money you spend on these products is no less real than the money you spend on clothes." – Android Authority ( https://androidauthority.com/digita... ).
A really bad scenario would be if your "smart" home refused to heat up in winter due to "a firmware update is available!" or "unable to verify your subscription". Then all you can do is hope that any "dumb" device like an oven heats up without asking itself whether it should or not. And if that is not available, one might have to fall back on a portable space heater, a hair dryer or a toaster. Sounds fun, huh? Not.
Cloud services (Google, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc.) can, by design, lock out the user, since they run on the computers of the service provider. However, remotely taking away things one paid for or has installed on ones own computer/smartphone violates a sacred consumer right.
This is yet another benefit of open-source software: someone with programming and compiling experience can free the code from locks.
I don't care for which "good purpose" these kill switches exist. The fact that something you paid for or installed locally on your device can be remotely disabled is dystopian and inexcuseable.16 -
Can we rant about coworking spaces?
I like the coworking office concept and I love this desk I have for myself, I like this building, the supervisor is sweet and I made new clients here...
But I hate one of my "neighbours".
We have several office rules and he constantly breaks them.
No music allowed without headphones. Nope, gotta listen to shitty radio straight from the smartphone speaker.
No loud conferences or phone talks. Nah, let's set the volume to the max. And leave the phone behind and let it ring loudly forever.
You can only occupy one desk unless you rent more. In comes his coworker who keeps occupying an extra desk for free and who's as loud as he is. And bring the kids because hey, growing up bored inside a office is good for them.
And today's newest: no eating in the office. Coworker brought her kid who set up a -dinning table- on the extra desk and began eating her lunch leftovers. It wouldn't have been so bad and I wouldn't have noticed except the office was overflowed with the stench of overheated pasta.
This is a big office. I had to open the windows. I can still feel the smell. It's nauseating.
I didn't say anything because it's not the kid's fault they didn't take her to the building's canteen space. But at the risk of making enemies where I shouldn't, I need to have a "fun" talk with someone.8 -
Oh look. The monitoring channel is in flames, smartphone is vibrating so hard it's having a seizure.
Hm. Nah it's fine. Not my...
Damn it. Incoming call. -.-
I'm actually on vacation (more like you need to trim down overtime before management get's angry).
They decided to test the new hardware / os stack I set up in the last weeks. I'd actually be happy about it If I wasn't on vacation and would be part in something that I invested a lot of time...
Well now I am. Guess what. It's running too good.
And that's not a joke. It's partly due to an upgrade in infrastructure (got rid of some last remaining 1 Gbps networks)… but also because I changed quite a lot on the OS / VM side plus we changed from XEN to Proxmox... With major tweaks, too.
The whole stack can now handle peak traffic where it would choke before, and even go beyond the old peak traffic.
Enough of introduction, the simple reason why shit burned down was because they tried out the current development branch and let it ran.
The development branch had an currently unfinished ratelimiter framework, since I didn't had time for an full burn in and didn't knew what the maxima / limits were. And since I hadn't finished that, I didn't finish the traffic shaping either.
Hm. Guess it's not good when you let a bunch of heavy parallelized data generators / analyzers run for free....
In the end, we simply shotgunned the docker development machines, because thanks to network congestion / retransmissions and feedback, they were not really cooperative via network / REST.
But hey: To infinity and beyond. XDrant darling i grilled the network it was just a test dumb ways to die never ask the guy who invented it oops2 -
Allowing webpages to send notifications is the new ask toolbar for older people. Just saw my father's smartphone with hundreds of notifications from one. Please God have mercy
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MTP is utter garbage and belongs to the technological hall of shame.
MTP (media transfer protocol, or, more accurately, MOST TERRIBLE PROTOCOL) sometimes spontaneously stops responding, causing Windows Explorer to show its green placebo progress bar inside the file path bar which never reaches the end, and sometimes to whiningly show "(not responding)" with that white layer of mist fading in. Sometimes lists files' dates as 1970-01-01 (which is the Unix epoch), sometimes shows former names of folders prior to being renamed, even after refreshing. I refer to them as "ghost folders". As well known, large directories load extremely slowly in MTP. A directory listing with one thousand files could take well over a minute to load. On mass storage and FTP? Three seconds at most. Sometimes, new files are not even listed until rebooting the smartphone!
Arguably, MTP "has" no bugs. It IS a bug. There is so much more wrong with it that it does not even fit into one post. Therefore it has to be expanded into the comments.
When moving files within an MTP device, MTP does not directly move the selected files, but creates a copy and then deletes the source file, causing both needless wear on the mobile device' flash memory and the loss of files' original date and time attribute. Sometimes, the simple act of renaming a file causes Windows Explorer to stop responding until unplugging the MTP device. It actually once unfreezed after more than half an hour where I did something else in the meantime, but come on, who likes to wait that long? Thankfully, this has not happened to me on Linux file managers such as Nemo yet.
When moving files out using MTP, Windows Explorer does not move and delete each selected file individually, but only deletes the whole selection after finishing the transfer. This means that if the process crashes, no space has been freed on the MTP device (usually a smartphone), and one will have to carefully sort out a mess of duplicates. Linux file managers thankfully delete the source files individually.
Also, for each file transferred from an MTP device onto a mass storage device, Windows has the strange behaviour of briefly creating a file on the target device with the size of the entire selection. It does not actually write that amount of data for each file, since it couldn't do so in this short time, but the current file is listed with that size in Windows Explorer. You can test this by refreshing the target directory shortly after starting a file transfer of multiple selected files originating from an MTP device. For example, when copying or moving out 01.MP4 to 10.MP4, while 01.MP4 is being written, it is listed with the file size of all 01.MP4 to 10.MP4 combined, on the target device, and the file actually exists with that size on the file system for a brief moment. The same happens with each file of the selection. This means that the target device needs almost twice the free space as the selection of files on the source MTP device to be able to accept the incoming files, since the last file, 10.MP4 in this example, temporarily has the total size of 01.MP4 to 10.MP4. This strange behaviour has been on Windows since at least Windows 7, presumably since Microsoft implemented MTP, and has still not been changed. Perhaps the goal is to reserve space on the target device? However, it reserves far too much space.
When transfering from MTP to a UDF file system, sometimes it fails to transfer ZIP files, and only copies the first few bytes. 208 or 74 bytes in my testing.
When transfering several thousand files, Windows Explorer also sometimes decides to quit and restart in midst of the transfer. Also, I sometimes move files out by loading a part of the directory listing in Windows Explorer and then hitting "Esc" because it would take too long to load the entire directory listing. It actually once assigned the wrong file names, which I noticed since file naming conflicts would occur where the source and target files with the same names would have different sizes and time stamps. Both files were intact, but the target file had the name of a different file. You'd think they would figure something like this out after two decades, but no. On Linux, the MTP directory listing is only shown after it is loaded in entirety. However, if the directory has too many files, it fails with an "libmtp: couldn't get object handles" error without listing anything.
Sometimes, a folder appears empty until refreshing one more time. Sometimes, copying a folder out causes a blank folder to be copied to the target. This is why on MTP, only a selection of files and never folders should be moved out, due to the risk of the folder being deleted without everything having been transferred completely.
(continued below)29 -
I was a tad drunk last night because the week was... more than exhausting.
I felt like a pinhata yesterday - pretty beaten up and gutless.
Woke up this morning still a lil tipsy and decided to just be happy and don't give a damn.
Decided to take a hot bath to get nice and relaxed.
My smartphone decided to commit suicide and slided in the bath tub while I was in the kitchen making coffee.... And water was still running.
:) Bye bye smartphone, no more annoying messages.
While bathing, I relaxed a bit too much I guess.
Felt a bit of pain but then so much better because something in my back "plopped" back to where it belonged I guess?
I managed to rip off the shower curtain with my foot since it was a very short moment of "fucking frigging shit that hurt".
During that moment I also created a great flood, bath room is still wet...
And the funniest thing is: I don't give a damn.
Smartphone is definitely dead, ordered a new one, will arrive next week.
Guess I should stay the weekend on the couch before I accidentally blow up the mansion.
:)
I don't know where this good mood is coming from, but damn it has been a long time.11 -
this just happened a few seconds ago and I am just laughing at the pathetic site that is Facebook. xD
4 years ago:
So I was quite a noobie gamer/hacker(sort of) back then and i had a habit of having multiple gmail/fb accounts, just for gaming, like accounts through which i can log in all at once in the same poker room, so 4/5 players in the game are me, or just some multiple accounts for clash of clans for donations.
I had 7-8 accounts back then. one had a name that translated to "may the dead remain in peace "@yahoomail.com . it was linked to fb using same initials. after sometime only this and 2 of my main accs were all i cared about.even today when i feel like playing, i sometimes use those accs.
2 years ago.
My dad is a simple man and was quite naive to modern techs and used to hang around with physical button nokia phones.But we had a business change, my father was now in a partnership in a restaurant where his daily work included a lot of sitting job and and casual working. So he bought a smartphone for some time pass.
He now wanted to download apps and me to teach him.I tried a lot to get him his own acc, but he couldn't remember his login credentials.
so at the end i added one of my own fake ID's(maythedead...) so he could install from playstore, watch vids on youtube and whatever.
The Actual Adventure starts now
Today, 1 hour ago:
I had completely forgot about this incident, since my parents are now quite modern in terms of tech.
But today out of nowhere i recieved an email that someone has JUST CHAINGED MY FB PASSWORD FOR ONE OF MY FAKE ACCS!?!??
what the hell, i know it was just a useless acc and i never even check my fb from any acc these days, but if someone could login into that acc, its not very difficult to track my main accs, id's, etc so i immediately opened this fb security portal and that's where the stupidity starts:
1)To recover your account they FUCKIN ASKS FOR A PHYSICAL ID. yeah, no email, no security question you have to scan your driving license or passport to get back to your account.And where would I get a license for some person named "may the dead remain in peace"? i simply went back.
2) tried another hack that i thought that will work.Closed fb help page, opened fb again , tried to login with my old credentials, it says" old password has been changed,please enter new password", i click forget password and they send an otp. i thought yes i won, because the number and recover mail id was mine only so i received it.
when i added the otp, i was first sent to a password change page (woohoo, i really won! :)) but then it sends me again to the same fuckin physical id verification page.FFFFFFFFFuck
3)I was sad and terrified that i got hacked.But 10 mins later a mail comes ,"Your Facebook password was reset using the email address on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 8:24pm (UTC+05:30)."
I tried clicking the links attached, hoping that the password i changed(point<2>) has actually done something to account.NADA, the account still needs a physical license to open:/
4) lost, i just login to my main account and lookup for my lost fake account. the fun part:my account has the display pic of my father?!!?!
So apparently, my father wanted to try facebook, he used the fake account i gave him to create one, fb showed him that this id already has an fb account attached to it and he accidently changed my password.MY FATHER WAS THE HACKER THE WHOLE TIME xD.
but response from fb?" well sir, if you want your virtually shitty account back , you first will have to provide us with all details of your bank transactions or your voter id card, maybe trump will like it" -
I despise it when software developers remove features because "too few people use them".
Is this what those shady telemetry features are for? So they can pick which useful features to get rid of because some computer rookies whined that it is "feature creep" rather than just ignoring it?
Now I have to fear losing useful (or at least occasionally convenient) features each time I upgrade, such as Firefox ditching RSS, FTP, and the ability to view individual cookies. The third can be done with an extension, but compatibility for it might be broken at some point, so we have to wait for someone to come up with a replacement.
Also, the performance analysis tool in the developer tools has been moved to an online service ("Firefox profiler"). I hope I don't need to explain the problems with that.
But perhaps the biggest plunge in functionality in web browser history was Opera version 15. That was when they ditched their native "Presto" browsing engine for Chromium/Blink, and in the process removed many features including the integrated session manager and page element counter.
The same applies to products such as smartphones. In the early 2010s, it was a given that a new smartphone should cover all the capabilities of its predecessors in its series, so users can upgrade without worrying a second that anything will be missing. But that blissful image was completely destroyed with the Galaxy S6. (There have been some minor feature removals before that, such as the radio and the three-level video recording bitrate adjustment on the S4, but that's nothing compared to what was removed with the S6.).
Whenever I update software to a new version or upgrade my smartphone, I would like it to become MORE capable, not LESS (and to hell with that "less is more" nonsense).10 -
!(!(!(!(!(!(!(!rant)))))))
My new HTC smartphone hates me.
First it started to shut down all of the sudden yesterday night, when I was solving quadratic equations on my laptop.
I thought that it might be due to low battery. So I have restarted it. After putting itself into a bootloop for 4 start sequences, it was able to fully start to the page where it told me to enter the security pin to decrypt my files. I also had 30 attempts left. Like a ransomware.
I was like "tf I didn't set anything up".
So I decided to use my first attempt as I had 30 attempts left.
I entered the pin (I can swear that it's correct) and it told me that it has to wipe the /data partition.
I did that. I pressed that button. After waiting for 30 minutes I gave up and rebooted into the bootloader.
Bootloader -> Download Mode -> wipe /data (stock rom + stock recovery btw.)
Some error with "e: mount /cache failed[...]e: mount /data failed"
So, I tried using the adb sideload - no success.
Fastbooted into RUU Mode - HTC keeps rebooting itself into the RUU Mode - no success
Tried to flash the firmware and twrp recovery from Download mode - no success
Then I tried to flash all these things from the sd card - no success
Searched for revolutionary (I know this from my old HTC sensation device).
It wasn't big of any help.
Then someone on xda recommended htcDev (htc's <b>developer-friendly</b> lol site)
I followed every step. Everything seemed to be okay.
I got to the last step.
I needed to get my encrypted token by entering "fastboot oem get_identifier_token" to be able to submit it to HTC, and after they would send me an e-Mail with an .bin file that would let me unlock the bootloader to be able to flash my way through all this headache giving fucking piece of dog shit!
But since I can't back to the phone settings to select the bootloader activation box that would let me get my token... but nah.
FML
------------
Sent by using the devRant web app (:\)8 -
So back in November I wanted to get a new smartphone, after years and years of middle class stuff I decided "let's get the newest high-end shit out there!" so I bought the Huawei Mate20 pro.
I was SO DAMN HAPPY when it arrived 2 days later. I quickly switched to the new one and SUDDENLY after a few hours it started to get a hint of a green border arou d the display.. and yes it got FUCKING WORSE! Now after a few months it got worse and worse, I talked to my provider and they said I have to call Huawei so I called Huawei and guess what? The want me to send it in, which will take around TWO WEEKS! It's not even my fault and now they want me to have no phone for two damn weeks? Why? This sucks.. and only because I wanted to have a nice new shiny high-end piece of technology 😭17 -
tl;dr Do you think we will any time soon move from editing raw source code? Will IDE or other interfaces allow us to change the code in graphic representation or even through voice?
---
One thing I found funny watching Westworld is how they depicted the "programming" - it is more like swiping on a smartphone, a bit maybe like Tom Cruise's investigations in Minority report. Or giving certain commands and key words by voice.
There was one quote from Uncle Bob's "Clean Code" I could never find again, where he said something along the lines, that back in the seventies or eighties they thought they would soon raise programming languages to such a high level they would use natural language interfaces, and look at us now, still the same "if's".
So I feel uncomfortable without my shell and having tried a graphical programming language once this particular (Labview) seemed clumsy to me at best. But maybe there are a lot of web devs here and it seems with them frameworks you might be able to abstract away a lot of the pesky system programming... so do you feel like moving to some new shiny programming experience or do you think it will stay the same for more decades as the computer is that stupid machine where you have to spill it out instruction by instruction anyways?7 -
Smartphone manufacturers these days, imagine how meetings to come up with ideas for new products go about.
Product manager :ok people,what can we do to make our next smartphone 'different'.
Employee 1: let's add more cameras
Employee 2:Let's kill the notch
Employee 3:Let's include the buzzword AI in all of our marketing
Employee 4:Let's put 8Gb of Ram in our phone
Employee 5:Let's just do all of those things and also give it a screen with a ridiculous aspect ratio and unnecessarily high resolution.3 -
She doesn't understand that most smartphones are capable of calls and navigating menus simultaneously.
So whenever my mother calls in need of help with her smartphone, can be anything from installing a new app to posting on FB.
I have to explain 2-3 steps, then she will hang up, and call again in 5 minutes, where I will then explain the next few steps, and so on.
How she even manages to navigate that much and calling in between, and then struggling with simple task is unimaginable to me..1 -
Thinking about creating a tech news account on devRant. A little idea that just came to my mind...
The account will contain all kinds of news! (about the tech industry of course)
So for example when a company acquires another company (IBM > RedHat, Microsoft > GitHub, etc.), a well-known website/app gets new features or a company releases a new smartphone, we will inform you here!
Of course I'd need some help if I wanted to do something like this. Especially from other timezones! (I'm im Austria/Europe)
Write a comment, if you're interested in helping out! The more people, the better!17 -
How to get clicks on YouTube:
Step 1: wait for a mayor phone manufacturer to release a new phone.
Step 2: make a video with the title 'X reasons why you shouldn't buy <insert new phones name>'
Step 3: ???
Step 4: profit.4 -
I finally got my new Smartphone after going there personally to the courier
Seriously the couriers were lazy piece of shits and they can't even deliver to my address when it's perfectly valid.
Like couriers from my local PO and from Lazada/Taobao can even get to my house, what the fuck2 -
Why do people keep saying that Alexa is spying? Don't they have a smartphone, Smart Tv, Laptop, SmartWatch or something like that? Of course, Amazon, Google, ... collect your data, but why is that a new thing for them?4
-
Long long time ago when recharge coupons we a thing, I used to try out more codes in the series and waste my time. After failing a lot over this, I started trying out different USSD codes to see what other stuff is out there. This got me to stumble upon facebook and twitter on USSD. I'm not sure now but, twitter was probably *515# from my carrier.
Facebook. I remember chatting for quite a long period using this. Very slow and limited yet, fun. The USSD message expires within ~60secs. so you have to type the chat message before that or you lose everything you typed. The phone was no smartphone that would allow me to copy the text from the USSD input. On top of that panic, was a character limit to these messages. I remember hitting send while being midway through a message just so I don't lose what I typed, on a T-9 keyboard. Still miss those!
The person on the other side would receive a half message due to this, and would start replying without any patience, to which I panicked as now there's a new thing to respond to, and a half message which I'm waiting to complete.
Later over the weekend when I was allowed to visit the cyber cafe for an hour or two with 15-30 INR, reading the chat threads, being able to use the five sticker packs:) and thus continuing on a computer was fun. But, as the time at the cafe expires, I had to immediately shut off my session or I'd be charged more. Thus, I was left in the middle of a conversation again, and had to continue over USSD.
Using social media without any internet like this was quite fun in a weird way. If I get a new message, I'd get a USSD alert, and then an sms if I didn't reply in some 10-15mins!
This had all the features like like and comment. Friend requests too. For the posts in a "timeline" which was new and fancy in those days, all you see is the caption of a post which also gets truncated quite a bit as USSD also has to show it's options like:
1. Like
2. Comment
3. Next Post
4. Main Menu
This was around '13 or '14 I guess. After which I later got my first computer- a laptop. Anyways, the tactile feel of pressing the buttons on a T-9 keypad is nostalgic to me. 😅 And if you were a pro at texting, u must hv used shrtcts lyk dis too w/ emojis lyk :-) <3 -
every new smartphone these days seems to be like one of those scify movie aliens with weird eyes (dual camera lenses) .
I mean, pixel phones clearly shows that having a top-notch software for single camera is already at par with dual cam setups .
And yet huawei is slaying them all .
New huawei flagship phone : awesome specs , ai beautify , blah blah lens , blah blah block chain 16 mp AND "2MP " dual camera setup .
they are like yeah surely we give them dual cameras, but why bother because no one will read after the word "DUAL"
xD10 -
!dev
Hello there!
I'm going insane...
For years, ever since she's had a Laptop and a smartphone, my grandmother complains that they're slow.
Every few weeks she's like "yeah transfer all my photos from my phone to the laptop"
Okay, sure...
Laptop: windows 10, 500GB HDD, I3-2330M, 4GB DDR3...
It's constantly maxed out with everything. Booting up takes >4 minutes, transfer rates from her fuckPhone are around 2.4MB/s if you're lucky.
I keep telling her, for years now, to invest in a new laptop and phone, since her smartphone has only got 8GB of usable space, most of which (>5GB) are used by her fucking apps and partly by the OS.
She's, what I like to call "Beratungsresistent", roughly translates to "Resistant to suggestions/counseling/trying to genuinely help her".
I'm seriously getting sick of it.
I told her in December of last year to make a budget plan and I'll get her a well-performing laptop and phone with it.
"Ughhh, everything will be so different..."
HOLY SHIT I KEEP TELLING YOU I'LL PUT WINDOWS 10 ON IT, THE SAME OPERATING SYSTEM AS ON YOUR CURRENT PIECE OF SHIT LAPTOP AND YOU'RE NOT GONNA HAVE TO RE-LEARN USING AN ANDROID!
She's not stupid, but fucking lazy. She genuinely doesn't give a flying fuck about her devices until they start getting slow. I TOLD HER A BILLION TIMES THAT THIS IS WHAT SHE'LL HAVE TO LIVE WITH IF SHE DOESN'T UPGRADE HER HARDWARE OR GET A NEW DEVICE!!! LIKE HOW ARE YOU SO FUCKING DENSE NOT TO UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF AN HDD VS AN SSD AFTER I EXPLAINED IT A THOUSAND TIMES!
IT'S ALWAYS THE FUCKING SAME, I AM SUPPOSED TO MAGICALLY MAKE HER DEVICES FAST AGAIN, BUT I CAN NOT, FOR THEY NEVER WERE!!!
I feel like I'm about to explode at some point. It's the same thing every couple of weeks right after I come home from work and want to have a relaxed evening from a stressful job.
Rant over, have a good day.8 -
MTP is complete garbage. I want mass storage back.
The media transfer protocol (MTP) occasionally discovers new creative ways of failure. Frequently, directory listings take minutes to load or fail to load at all, and it freezes up infinitely (until disconnected) when renaming an item, and I can not even do two things simultaneously.
While files are being moved, I can not browse pictures or watch videos from the smartphone.
Sometimes, files are listed with the date 1970-01-01 (Unix epoch) instead of their correct date. Sometimes, files do not appear at all, which makes it unsafe to move directories from the device.
MTP lacks random access. If I want to play a two-gigabyte 4K 2160p video and seek in the video, guess what: I need to copy it to my computer's local mass storage first because MTP lacks random access.
When transferring high numbers of files, MTP has to slooooowly enumerate (or "prepare" or "calculate the time of") them all, which might even take longer than mass storage would need for the entire process. This means MTP might start copying or moving the actual files when mass storage is already finished.
Today, the "preparing to move" process was especially slow: five minutes for around 150 files! How am I supposed to find out what caused this random malfunction?
MTP sometimes drives me insane. I want mass storage back, at least for the MicroSD memory card, which uses a widely supported file system.
Imagine a 2010 $100 Android phone is better at file transfer than a 2022 $1000 Android phone (or iPhone, for that matter).3 -
My son used an ASUS Live L1 for about 3 years, and then we bought a new smartphone 1 year ago. Cool, except that the e-mail address he registered with Live L1, no longer exists, has been permanently deleted. His newest phone was stolen, and we took the L1 to set it up again. Only... Google wants him to log in to the original email (FRP Lock) that no longer exists.
How absurd, the L1 cell phone was never marked as stolen, and now we are unable to use our property. Is there a way for my son to convince google that the phone is his?
Microsoft, Google, Apple... They give the impression that people give money and use devices as if they were a "favor".12 -
Okay then, ex-android user there.
It started with Xperia TX - it was flagship Sony phone back then. It blew my mind when I touched it for the first time. You know, exploring android for the first time in my life was amazing.
It ran just well for about a year. Then it started to fall apart. I need to clarify that I kept it non-rooted, full stock. I'm not into that customization things.
At first, I noticed significant lags. They were everywhere. The longer I used smartphone, the more lags I encountered. I did factory reset, but lags haven't gone anywhere.
Year 2. Front camera stopped working. Battery became unreliable as fuck, going down to 40% and then instantly to zero. What?
Year 3. Camera broke. It refused to start, just giving me "Camera is not available" error.
I tried factory reset again. It helped at first, but month have passed and all that issues came back. And it also became sluggish as fuck.
Got Meizu m3s year ago. The exact same story. Long story short, in one year I got this:
1. Black spots on every picture I take. Much likely a matrix issue.
2. Camera also became slow as fuck, requiring about 10 seconds to even start.
3. Vertical stripes all along the screen. I never dropped my phone, it just appeared once and became brighter and brighter every day I used the phone.
4. Two huge yellow spots on screen. I think it happened because phone's cpu heat up the screen and it broke.
But the most important thing is that fucking lags chased me in every app, they were everywhere. Fucking tiny-ass lags. And they're not going anywhere, they're become more and more significant with time.
Don't say me about oneplus, samsungs and other top android phones. They are conceptually the same, the only different thing is hardware.
That's why I switched. IPhone has its downsides, but it's silky smooth. And my friend's iPhone 4 (not s) feels just as smooth as my brand new se.
I'm not going to jailbreak it. I don't need customizing the hell out of it.
I just needed quick and reliable phone, and SE seems to be exactly what I wanted.
Peace to android folks tho✌️17 -
What is your opinion on eSIM (embedded SIM)?
Now that Apple has built the first smartphone without modular SIM, it is, as history shows, only a matter of time until the same vendors who mock Apple for doing this will hypocritically follow Apple in implementing it themselves. There will be an outrage, but it will fade and the new restriction will be tolerated.
To me, "eSIM" appears like an euphemistic / euphemSIMtic (pun intended) marketing term, like calling non-replaceable batteries "eBatteries" ("embedded batteries") would be. It is less modular and more locked-down.20 -
I now have further proof that Android 9's fancy Battery Management is shit:
The compass on my new (flagship) smartphone uses the air pressure sensor and the air pressure at sea level to display your current elevation. The air pressure at sea level is fetched from the weather app. And of course, the weather app has its battery policies set to auto-managed.
Can you guess what happened? "Weather app could not be found" and an elevation of -17m
Because no one thought the battery manager could decide that the weather app should not be launched by other apps. Has no one thought this through? Good thing I figured out what was happening pretty quickly.2 -
Just wanted to clean up and update my old smartphone (Huawei Y300). Accidentally deleted the home screen and system.ui and can no longer open apps. TRWP (2.5.x) is too old to flash a new image. Need TRWP 2.6.3.3, but it is impossible to update it from within TRWP. Such a crap.11
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I just bought a new smartphone, cause i broke the one i had before, and i find it really good for only 140€. It has 4gb RAM and 1,5Ghz 4 cores processor, and an IP68 Shock/Dust/Water protection. The only problems that i have are that as the brand is not really popular (model is Phonemax Rocky 1), there are no recovery/roms or easy ways to root it. Maybe if i have time i'll try to port TWRP and LineageOS, but i'll have to do it myself... :(1
-
I need a new phone.
Should I buy the oneplus 6?
Why (not)? Or what other smartphone should I buy?
Still on the oneplus one since 3 years, it's time for a new one.10 -
Second Rant incoming!
I have a Elephone p9000 (China Smartphone). Great Value for it's price if you don't mind a shit camera.
Also, this is actually my second model! I cracked my screen and tried to replace it. Somehow I managed ti puncture the battery and nearly set my house on fire but that is another story.
This rant is about how the sd/sim-card read is FAILING ME! Everytime I call someone, my sim-card ejects spontaneously, thus ending the call. It's so goddamn annoying having to recall the same person every two minutes...
I tried inserting the sim-card in the other slot because it has dual sim but nothing changed...guess I need a new Phone. FML2 -
Web browsers removed FTP support in 2021 arguing that it is "insecure".
The purpose of FTP is not privacy to begin with but simplicity and compatibility, given that it is widely established. Any FTP user should be aware that sharing files over FTP is not private. For non-private data, that is perfectly acceptable. FTP may be used on the local network to bypass MTP (problems with MTP: https://devrant.com/rants/6198095/... ) for file transfers between a smartphone and a Windows/Linux computer.
A more reasonable approach than eliminating FTP altogether would have been showing a notice to the user that data accessed through FTP is not private. It is not intended for private file sharing in the first place.
A comparable argument was used by YouTube in mid-2021 to memory-hole all unlisted videos of 2016 and earlier except where channel owners intervened. They implied that URLs generated before January 1st, 2017, were generated using an "unsafe" algorithm ( https://blog.youtube/news-and-event... ).
Besides the fact that Google informed its users four years late about a security issue if this reason were true (hint: it almost certainly isn't), unlisted videos were never intended for "protecting privacy" anyway, given that anyone can access them without providing credentials. Any channel owner who does not want their videos to be seen sets them to "private" or deletes them. "Unlisted" was never intended for privacy.
> "In 2017, we rolled out a security update to the system that generates new YouTube Unlisted links"
It is unlikely that they rolled out a security update exactly on new years' day (2017-01-01). This means some early 2017 unlisted videos would still have the "insecure URLs". Or, likelier than not, this story was made up to sound just-so plausible enough so people believe it.50 -
!rant
...
.UseKestrel(options =>
{
options.Listen(new IPAddress(new byte[]{ 192, 168, 178, 20 }), 5000);
})
...
Look at this easy piece of code(that I added) from an Asp.NET Core 2 template project(MVC). I needed only to add this piece of code to WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder() (in the Program.cs) to be able to setup a working WebServer which will listen and answer on that IP(local network machine IP) and port, then I opened that port from my modem on this local IP, then used DynDNS with noip.com, tested out on my smartphone with 4G connection and it does work!
This is the EASIEST web project setup and test that I've ever tried and that let me showcase something from my machine to the entire world! :')
Great job Microsoft; can't wait to try the cross-platform of this open standard. -
App of a little social network I'm member of didn't connect to the server anymore, since the social network changed their SSL-certification and my smartphone is too dumb to accept the new one.
So, I pulled the source code of the app from GitHub and added some code dealing with SSL-connection-exception-handling.
A warning appears, that there were some errors with the SSL-cert with the question how to proceed and three options:
Quit, Ignore for now, Ignore and don't ask me again.
The code to ignore ssl-errors is just for debug-/develop-purposes, but hey, app with that little "hack" is running only on my phone x)
Now, the app is working again at my smartphone \o/2 -
Being pretty much the only one who has some knowledge of how to code and get my way around tech (even if minimal, I'm too lazy for my own good) in my familiar household - and by extension, my family (Family extends FamiliarHousehold - LoL I'm sorry) - (my brother is on his first grade of a programming course in high school, I'm a 2nd grade uni student aiming to become a game dev) sometimes I wish I knew nothing of it.
Don't get me wrong, I do like working on code (if in Java. C is making me wanna tear my eyes out) but sometimes ignorant family members push me through the edge.
I worked on a business thing my family started this summer and one of the "jobs" was managing everything via a website.
Fair enough, I knew nothing of it when I started but I learn fast and just like that I knew my way around it. The problem came when I had to teach the person who started the project how it worked. This doesn't sound all that bad except he is kinda in the stone age regarding informatics.
He got a computer a few years ago and he pretty much only played poker in it, and he still had one of those old nokias you could throw to a wall and get a hole into it. The computer is like 9y and runs like crap.
To make things worse he bought a new phone, a smartphone, and pestered me to teach him. I swear trying to teach him is like repeating the same thing 1000x and pray he keeps it in his head. Spoiler: he doesn't. ( sanity--; )
So to try and easy my suffering I decided to make a manual for the website (which is outdated by now because the team behind the website did a 180 and some things looks different), but it acted as if I'd done nothing. ( sanity--; )
To top this off he keeps on saying I don't wanna help him. ( sanity--; )
This kept going for the whole damn summer, and meanwhile I had to go back to uni and in the first days I still got like 4-5 calls/day, half of those might about the smallest things because he's so panicky.
Like (both examples happened while I was still there but it kinda goes along those lines sometimes):
- (During the period they changed the website the first time since we're there; they were mostly doing changes back and forth and testing because it had a new layout for a day or 2 before going back; also the site was totally functional, except for a thing or 2)
Him: "They're changing the website, why are they doing that?"
Me: "Because it's their website and they can?"
Him: "WHY DIDN'T THEY LET US KNOW"
Me: "They don't have to, they don't work for you." ( sanity--; )
Or (during the same period; the pages have a menu on the left; one of the submenus has a counter that resets every time the session ends; during that maintenance time they must've "disabled" the function because the number kept growing even after the session ended):
Him: "WHY IS THE NUMBER GROWING?"
Me: "They're working on the code, relax, it's nothing."
Him: "But why." ( sanity--; )
The only quesion he pretty much hasn't asked me yet is why "Is the website's colour this one and not that one?".2 -
I want to build a platform that decreases our need for apps. Right now it's hard for a new platform to enter the smartphone market as nobody will make apps for it if it has no users, nobody will use it if it has no apps, etc. without this centralization on apps we could see tons of new interesting smartphone platforms such as the ones that failed like Windows Phone, Firefox OS, webOS, etc.2
-
After reading through an article by EFF about Google's new FLoC technology, I finally woke up and realized that Google isn't any different from the other huge organizations, and that it isn't here to fight for greater user privacy and rights... As such, I made a switch, going from Google to DuckDuckGo.
Sure, I still use YT, but other than that, I don't have a gmail address that'd be of importance, don't use their search engine, and now...
Got any tips on how to minimize tracking potential of an android-based rooted smartphone? (Stock rom, Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro). I know using a custom rom is an option, however, Lineage isn't officially supported for this model of phone, and I still value functionality over anything else, so... Unofficial daily drive OS is sub-optimal.
Alternative hardware solutions like PinePhone, although nice in theory, are way too behind the commercial brands in terms of technology and features, so that's a no go.5 -
The "recycle bin" feature of Samsung "My Files" is amazing for data loss prevention when moving files out of the smartphone.
There used to be two ways to move files out of the smartphone to make space free. One is direct moving, the other is copy-deletion. The first is self-explanatory, the second means first copying the files and then deleting them on the phone.
Thanks to the the recycle bin, which keeps data for a month, files on the phone can be copied out and then put into the recycle bin instead of immediately deleted.
This means that if the copying was incomplete, there is a thirty-day grace period to get the files back from the phone.
The benefit of moving files instead of copy-deleting them is the lack of the deletion step. Moving files out directly does not have the emotional barrier of deleting the files from source like the deletion step of copy-deleting does.
Moving files feels like moving items to a new room, where as the deletion step after copying feels like destroying something.
So why not move files out? Because there is a risk of data loss if the device disconnects while files are moved to an USB OTG device. Due to write buffering, files that are moved out might be deleted on the phone shortly before they are completely written on the USB-OTG.
This is not an issue with MTP (Windows or Linux through USB cable) because the file systems are managed by the computer, so if the phone disconnects while files are moved out of the phone using MTP, the file system is kept intact by Windows or Linux.
Now, thanks to the recycle bin, there is no emotional barrier to deletion because the files on the phone are automatically deleted after 30 days in the absence of the user. The user can press the "delete" button without worries because of knowing "I can get it back until a month from now anyway". -
I am working on partitioning my life and getting my tech stuff and online life organized. Partially fun, partially dread. Still one of the better things I'm dealing with right now.
Tech stuff mainly includes desktop PC (Qubes OS), network (to be driven by openwrt) and smartphone (already running Lineage OS, but I want to build my own LOS). This is the fun part. I want to add a NAS, but I'm too cheap for a proper one (at least for my >20TB media).
Furthermore offline stuff: Remove clutter, get analog documents properly organized (with a sustainable system) and possibly digitalized. I already have maybe half of the things I own in boxes each with a specific purpose (e.g. audio cables, network cables and game controllers each have their own box). Can be tiresome, but it's easy to see a progress and that makes it quite okay.
Online life: That's a big one. A large chunk is email and the hundreds of website accounts. I have them in a keepass file, but all running under the same address. Unfortunately I need to have a Facebook account for some purposes, but I'd like to start over with a new one. Not so easy when you have to transfer group admin privileges though, when I tried the last time I tripped some system and the new account was banned. Annoying. -
It's these individually tiny annoyances in products and software that together form a huge annoyance.
For example, it's 2022 and Chromium-based web browsers still interrupt an upload when hitting CTRL+S. This is why competition is important. If there was no Firefox, the only major web browsers would, without exception, have this annoyance, since they're all based on Chrmoium.
I remember Chromium for mobile formerly locking scrolling and zooming of the currently viewed page while the next page was loading. Thankfully, this annoyance was removed.
In 2016, the Samsung camera software was updated to show a "camera has been opened via quick launch" pop-up window when both front and rear sensors of the smartphone were covered while the camera was launched by pressing the home button twice, on the camera software Samsung bundled with their custom version of Android 6. What's more, if that pointless pop-up was closed by tapping the background instead of the tiny "OK" button or not responded to within five seconds, the camera software would exit itself. Needless to say, this defeats the purpose of a quick launch. It denies quick-launching while the phone is in the pocket, and the time necessary to get the phone out could cause moments to be missed.
Another bad camera behaviour Samsung introduced with the camera software bundled with their customized Android 6 was that if it was launched again shortly after exiting or switching to stand-by mode, it would also exit itself again within a few seconds. It could be that the camera app was initially designed around Android 5.0 in 2015 and then not properly adapted to Android 6.0, and some process management behaviour of Android 6.0 causes this behaviour. But whatever causes it, it is annoying and results in moments to not be captured.
Another such annoyance is that some home screen software for smartphones only allows access to its settings by holding a blank spot not occupied by a shortcut. However, if all home screen pages are full, one either needs to create a new page if allowed by the app, or temporarily remove a shortcut to be able to access the settings.
More examples are: Forced smartphone restart when replacing the SIM card, the minimum window size being far too large in some smartphones with multi-windowing functionality, accidental triggering of burst shot mode that can't be deactivated in the camera software, only showing the estimated number of remaining photos if less than 300 and thus a late warning, transition animations that are too slow, screenshots only being captured when holding a button combination for a second rather than immediately, the terminal emulator being inaccessible for the first three minutes after the smartphone has booted, and the sound from an online advertisement video causing pain from being much louder than the playing video.
Any of these annoyances might appear minor individually, but together, they form a major burden on everyday use. Therefore, developers should eliminate annoyances, no matter how minor they might seem.
The same also applies for missing features. The individual removal of a feature might not seem like a big of a deal, but removing dozens of small features accumulates to a significant lack of functionality, undermining the sense of being able to get work done with that product or software when that feature is unexpectedly needed. Examples for a products that pruned lots of functionality from its predecessor is the Samsung Galaxy S6, and newer laptops featuring very few USB ports. Web browsers have removed lots of features as well. Some features can be retrofitted with extensions, but they rely on a third-party developer maintaining compatibility. If many minor-seeming features are removed, users will repeatedly hit "sorry, this product/software can not do that anymore" moments. -
I just installed a spiderman app on my smartphone...
Does anyone have recommendations on a new phone? I tend to go for Nokia 7 plus, my current phone is a Moto G5s plus, but I'm not satisfied with Motorola updating schedule anymore3