Category Archive

Illustrated iOS10 on iPhone6 (or iPhone6S) Anda berbahasa Indoneisa? Baca artikel terjemahannya di sini! I’ll have to admit that iOS10 is quite a revolutionary upgrade. With various new features added such as widgets and into existing apps like Siri and iMessage, iOS10 might the most flexible (and possibly the most open) iOS to date. However, there’s one new “feature” which is quite disturbing to me, which is the need to press the home button when unlocking your phone. In the previous iOS version, you only need to rest your finger on the sensor to unlock your device. Press Home to Unlock. No longer. The good news is, this “new feature” can be turned off. Honestly, since I’m kind of a person who takes “extraordinary” care for his home button (including the ones in Samsung devices), I try my best to never press it whenever possible. Why, because I’ve seen numerous broken home buttons, either them being unresponsive or no longer comfortable to click. Anyway, if you’re the same type as me, you might want to follow the following tip: The annoying “new feature” can be turned off. Huzzah! Go to Settings. Go to Accessibility. Go to Home Button. On the …

When you see this sign, what will you do?Will you take the bait? Apakah Anda berbahasa Indonesia? Baca artikel terjemahannya di sini! I have quite an interesting story to share with you guys. Well, at least for me, this story is interesting enough to write and post immediately. A few days ago, on September 29 2016, to be exact, I saw an interesting deal. A very interesting and tempting one. Imagine, for each web hosting package you extend or buy in September, you will also score a lifetime discount of up to 40%. This means that all your future payments regarding to affected packages will be discounted by 40%, forever. Very tempting, isn’t it? Above is the promotion banner. In case you don’t understand, it says that there is a lifetime discount of up to 40%. For each web hosting package you buy, you will also get a free domain and free unlimited SSL. However, I just couldn’t bite that promotion, because I strongly believe that there are only a handful of deals that actually benefit the customers, or at least they come with lots of (hidden) terms and conditions. However, at that time, the promotion page didn’t mention any …

SSDs, compared to HDDs, are smaller and more compact Anda berbahasa Indonesia? Baca artikel terjemahan di sini! Have you ever heard of SSDs? If not, that’s fine. Actually, SSDs are like HDDs or most commonly known as harddisks, or storage. Except, there’s one obvious difference: HDDs spin while SSDs don’t. The term “SSD” is an acronym for “Solid State Disk”. The word “solid” is taken from the fact that they don’t spin. In fact, they look exactly like memory chips (or RAM, according to some people). A HDD’s speed is determined by how many spins it can make per minute. For example, the standard modern HDD is rated at 5400rpm while the speedier ones can score 7200rpm. HDD seeks data by reading “blocks” which are embedded on the spinning part. Ever saw a gramophone? Yes, that’s exactly how HDDs get your data, which is why spinning speed matters. The faster the disk spins, the faster it fetches your data. On the other hand, SSDs don’t spin. Your data is stored on the chips and is available for access at any time. However, unlike RAM, which clears out its storage when it runs out of power, SSDs retain their stored data …

Laptop fans. Small, but very important. Anda berbahasa Indonesia? Baca artikel terjemahannya di sini! Even though there are fan-less systems nowadays, fans still play a major role in the life of many PCs. That heat is responsible for many things going wrong in your system, such as frequent blue screen, sudden death, performance hiccups, or even degradation of your components. Heatsink, those thin metal fins, may help dissipating your heat, but they’re not as effective as spinning fans. Seriously, though, fans are important. A few days ago, I just noticed that my laptop fans are dead. Oh wait, fan. My Dell Inspiron 5447 only has one fan. How did I notice? Simple: it’s gone silent, and it got unusually hot. Very hot. Seriously, though, I was afraid, and I didn’t know what to do. To be honest, I didn’t want to take it to the service center, since it’s out of warranty, and I’m afraid about the price I would have to pay. Fortunately, I was able to open my laptop’s access panel and blew away the dust. I was able to spin it manually. However, I want to know if the fans really recovered. So, how did I check …

Google’s Illustration of Material Design Do you speak Indonesian? Read the translated article here. If you’re an Android enthusiast like myself, I’m pretty certain that you, at least, have heard of the term “Material Design”. Yes, it’s the design guideline recommended by Google to streamline the interface of Android OS and apps. If I remember correctly, the design was introduced in version 5 (Lollipop) and it’s getting better with 6 (Marshmallow) and the upcoming 7 (Nougat). Let’s just pray that our phones will get it :p. Anyway, the design is also starting to get popular among app developers, even major ones. And, if you like Material Design, I have a good news for you who use Google Chrome as your daily web surfing companion: Material Design is actually present in Google Chrome, though it’s hidden. You just need to find the settings and enable them. Where are the settings? As usual, it’s past the break. Don’t worry, it’s going to be short and easy :p Accessing chrome://flags chrome://flags Page Do you know that Google Chrome has a set of “experimental” features? I call them “experimental” because they’re still in beta, and may compromise not only your browsing experience but possibly your …

Windows 10 Anniversary Update Flyer Anda berbicara bahasa Indonesia? Artikel ini diterjemahkan di sini. Approximately one week ago, Microsoft released the latest major update to their Windows 10, dubbed the “Anniversary Update” which brings an update to the start menu as well as other changes and improvements, both visible and under the hood. While I updated my systems just fine, I was unable to update my trusty Acer Iconia W510. Why? Well… storage space, that’s why. How much space I had left If you’re updating through Windows Update, the application will tell you that you need to have at least 16GB of free space in your main partition (usually C:). Well, Sir… that’s certainly impossible for my Iconia, because it only has 32GB to start with. That number doesn’t count the partition size of ~4GB which leaves only 28GB of usable space. Cut that number with the size of Windows OS, built-in apps, and some of my personal apps, I was left with “just” 11.4GB. I’ve already tried Disk Cleanup a few times and CCleaner. However, that didn’t help. Fortunately, after browsing the Internet, I finally came up with a solution. I’m going to share the solution that I found …

The other day, I was requested by my aunt to fix her Skype. She said that the application refused to sign in, and that a sad smiley kept appearing as she repeatedly clicked the “Try Again” button. So, okay. I’ve done these small maintenance before, how hard could it be? Maybe there’s a glitch in the connection, or that it asks for a new update (although she said that she had updated it. She even had uninstalled and re-installed the program. Still, it refused to connect). She even brought it to her acquaintance which sells computers and told me that he had failed fixing it. He even resorted to last-resort alternative: reset and reinstall Windows. I thought it was ridiculous. Honestly, just because one program failing, I have to lose all my data and start over? Jesus, I would rather abandon that one program. Anyway, with overconfidence that I could fix whatever the problem was, I paid my aunt a visit. The Problem And well… Have you been put in a situation where everything you thought was wrong? Well, it was that. The computer wasn’t that old (a 15″ Centrino 2 laptop. Probably one of the best during its time) …

Illustration Well, Folks… I apologize for taking a very long time publishing something that I promised “won’t take long”. Things came up and I couldn’t simply ignore them. Anyway, as promised, I have a few ways to determine whether your Xiaomi power bank is genuine or not. As I mentioned in my previous article, there are a handful of counterfeit power banks not only here in Indonesia,but also worldwide. You can head out after the break to find out how to differentiate whether your unit is fake or genuine. Update: Sorry about the long delay. I thought the draft wasn’t ready yet, but today I reviewed the draft and it’s 98% complete. Once again, I apologize for the delay and happy Lunar New Year!  Where Do You Buy It? In some regions, like India and Indonesia, Xiaomi has an official distribution channel such as Flipkart in India (CMIIW) and Erajaya (or Erafone) in Indonesia (or through Xiaomi’s own online store). If you bought your Xiaomi power bank in one of these official channels, don’t worry. Your product is genuine. In my case, I bought my power bank from a third party retailer, so I was kind of suspicious and did …

Android Lollipop brings a lot of improvements, but if the firmware is still unofficial, God knows what bugs still live inside the software As you can see from my review here, some Evercoss One X units ship with a user debug version of Android Lollipop. User debug basically means that it’s still in beta stages and (probably) not ready for prime time due to bugs (camera flash and battery drain). What’s worse is that it won’t get official updates from Google, considering the firmware as ‘tampered’ and ‘unofficial’. I don’t know how a company as big as Evercoss could make such a mistake, as other Android One manufacturers don’t seem to have the same issue. If you want to get the best of your phone, then you’ll have to upgrade it to stock Lollipop. There are actually two ways to do this: either go to the official service centre and have them upgrade your phone or do it yourself. The former consumes more time since you have to get there and queue up. Moreover, they might charge you for the service and you’ll have to wait there until the upgrade is finished. However, it’s safe and you’ll have somebody to blame in …

Blend’s Hero Image. Courtesy of BlackBerry If you’re a BlackBerry 10 user, you ought to know about Blend, the latest feature BlackBerry offered as a part of their newest 10.3 OS update. If you don’t know and you’re a BB10 user, I suggest you look it up on Google, as it is a very useful piece of software, at least for me. In case you don’t know or don’t want to look it up now, Blend is a software that connects with your BB10 handset running OS 10.3 or above (via USB, Wi-Fi, or Mobile Network). Once connected, you’ll be able to send emails, BBM, text messages, and look at your calendar. You’ll also be able to view your Hub, Contacts, and Files in your connected device. Sounds neat, doesn’t it? What’s better is that the software is also available for iPads and Android Tablets, aside from MacOS X and Windows. As much as it is a useful software, it is still new, and improvements are needed here and there. One example is for Mac. Some of you might experience immediate closing once you open the app (the icon bouncing a few times on the Dock then gone), because I …