Tech Corner

[mr.hackcrag]

Haha, I spent about four hours trying to buy the phone today and it's impossible due to COVID. They can't activate it due to store closure and freezing all new accounts. Can't use current account either because I can't receive verification since my phone is broken. At minimum, will have to go one month without phone and maybe more depending on how long virus is around.

[Pol]

It seems that COVID rule.

Any other shop which can do that? In our country online shopping still works perfectly. And for beer and food, there are, ..windows. To get them and leave. Some jobs as hairstylist or plumber man are forbidden and it starts to be a problem. Really quickly.

[mr.hackcrag]

I haven't cut my hair in five months and can't because hairstylist forbidden.

Online shopping still requires in-store service to setup account and input SIM card. Well, maybe by the time COVID is over, Note 20 Plus will be out and I will just pay a fortune for that instead.

In the meantime I almost missed job interview by phone because I didn't have a phone.

[Pol]

I was today toying with an idea of getting new CPU and my eye spotted an "AMD Ryzen 5 2400G", with good price/performance ratio. Without doubt because it's an older model, paired with B450 and some DDR4 in mini ITX board, external sound card and minicase it would been an interesting piece of machine.

But no, I have different priorities atm and will need to survive on integrated sound card. I'm pretty happy with my current APU (see sig), so that' why. Inbuilt VEGA11 is biggest difference, and worthy.

But it doesn't satisfy whole PC change.

[mr.hackcrag]

Sounds like you found a good deal, but it's not good enough for what's really important to you.

[Pol]

Sounds like you found a good deal, but it's not good enough for what's really important to you.

In summer we will be doing room for our daughter, so that's top priority. She will go to the frist grade.

[mr.hackcrag]

Congratulations. After she graduates and starts making money, she can buy you a new PC.

[Pol]

That will be a way looong time, she's six.

Anyway for that setup you don't need external graphic card, so I can keep my current silent setup but make it smaller. Let see if there will be a chance, it's also question of a case, where I need at least 4 positions and having it very small. Half of my HDD are already 2.5 SSD.

Yesterday, I spotted something else. Another bliss for a (mini) audiophile, which is vacuum speaker system Lanchiya MK30.

It costs around the same price tag like the processor...


And you can accompany it with at least UGM192 like external sound card or it's older versions, which are not a good buy atm, having the same price.

[mr.hackcrag]

It's too bad kids are so expensive. You'll have to wait about 20 years to upgrade your PC at this rate. But at least by then, you'll have advanced technology.

[Pol]

That will be a way looong time, she's six.

Anyway for that setup you don't need external graphic card, so I can keep my current silent setup but make it smaller. Let see if there will be a chance, it's also question of a case, where I need at least 4 positions and having it very small. Half of my HDD are already 2.5 SSD.

Yesterday, I spotted something else. Another bliss for a (mini) audiophile, which is vacuum speaker system Lanchiya MK30.

It costs around the same price tag like the processor...


And you can accompany it with at least UGM192 like external sound card or it's older versions, which are not a good buy atm, having the same price.

Or another variant with usb mini external "sound card" is DragonFly-Cobalt. Suprisingly it's more costy than the one above. But you can put it not only behind PC or NB, but also behind tablet or cell phone.

[mr.hackcrag]

Which one produces higher quality sound?

[Pol]

I would say that it depends on your output. You need studio speakers, at least. Otherwise they have some limitations in sampling on a very high frequencies. Point is, if you can hear that.

[mr.hackcrag]

I just had an audiogram and it turns out I can hear every frequency perfectly.

[Kalah]

I just had fiber installed. 500/500 speed. Used to have 30/30.

[Pol]

Cool, nothing like that here for a decent amount of money. So still been "slow" (which is 300/20 with capped foreign connectivity). At least, it's one of the things, which didn't raised prices after COVID. Congrats!

BTW Got myself mini OTG flash disk (Verbatim Store'n'Go) and adapter from micro USB to USB-C. Should cover additional storage for my daughter's tablet, ..and my phone.

New AMD processors are pretty cool, in every sense. Did you noticed that new AMD Ryzen 4000 can run Crisis - 3DMark's Time Spy test without cooler and complete it?

[Pol]

Just wanted to burn some DVD, so grabbed my favourite ImageBurn and seeing a warning.

So, the truth is that developer repacked it with OpenCandy "proactive Adware". The repacked version is bigger 3.8MB instead of 3M only. This must happened around 2015.

The old version without any Candy additives can be still grabbed here:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/imgburn.html
https://www.videohelp.com/software/ImgBurn/old-versions

[Pol]

So, what do to if you have a new Android phone and have backup via MyPhoneExplorer?
(Which is actually pretty reliable offline backup and management solution )

#1 - Allow USB debugging
Settings -> About phone -> Build (tap 7 times)
List "USB Debugging and enable it"
#2 - Connect phone via USB cable to PC, launch connect (F1)
#3 - If you don't see an authorization prompt, change USB connection type from files/charging to PTP. When you will be switching modes, it will appear
Voila! You are done and you can recover!

[Pol]

If you desire for "point and kill" application, like is linux xkill, look no more. There's Super F4

Even other linux features can be mimiced, like is "select to clipboard" by TXMouse.
(But original is better, you need to enable/disable this simple app just if you need it.)

And even "Always on Top" can be mimiced by DeskPins

[mr.hackcrag]

It sounds like the GeForce RTX 3080 is the best video card to get for value these days. And sold out most places.

[KayBur]

It sounds like the GeForce RTX 3080 is the best video card to get for value these days. And sold out most places.

Well, when something cool and expected comes out, it is not surprising that the whole batch is bought up very quickly. Perhaps NVIDIA will release another batch of such chips for video cards.