Awakened

Earlier this month, Mhaelord and I got to watch the final installment of the Hunger Games movies. It was satisfying enough but would have been much more fulfilling had the 3rd book been shown in just one movie. And so ended Katniss Everdeen’s story. Interestingly, I didn’t realize how much she meant as a hero to look up to for girls and young women.

Not long after, we got to watch Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Wow. Mhaelord didn’t know how much of a fan I was until she informed me that a friend was preselling tickets. Too bad we didn’t have enough chances to complete the original trilogy and the prequels. We got to watch most of Episode VI. Nevertheless, I got to give her a general knowledge of the story. At the cinema, it was a blast. It was definitely the best movie of the year.

Not much on the gadgets this month except for papa’s new Acer Iconia One 7—which he won in a raffle at work—and Mhaelord’s Skyworth SkyPad finally getting fixed for just 700pesos.

My main PC is still out and I’m satisfied so far with my spare PC. I guess it’s my main now? With future Radeon Drivers not going to support my broken HD 6950, I just hope I’ll get to have my mobo fixed and will definitely get a new videocard this coming year.

Cheers to more exciting movies and awesome tech this coming year.

PC Fail

Funny how I looked back at broken devices last month and shortly after, my main home PC broke down. CPU fan failure, then some tinkering, then a “hot glow” on the upper part of the motherboard, near the RAM slots. Oh well. I think it didn’t take a week before I got to bring home my spare PC from the office. A couple of days more and I successfully transferred the RAID harddrives and later the backup drive to my spare PC so as to continue as if it was the same.

I have yet to decide and push myself to attempt to fix my main PC or upgrade. For now, I’m glad, at least, that I got myself a decent spare PC. It’s just unfortunate if my main PC is bound for scraps (the mobo and/or CPU, at least) as it has not yet reached the 5-year limit.

Broken Devices

I currently have 4 broken devices with me. The SkyPad 8” tablet that came with the Globe Tattoo subcription has a broken screen it is functional with a mouse or keyboard but generally not useable as a tablet. Mhae’s iPhone 4s, which was formerly my ate’s, has a broken wifi chip and it seems that the battery has given up. Mhae’s temporary Blackberry curve from the Netherlands is also here although it simply needs a battery replacement. KR’s then Bonbon’s Starmobile phone is also with me, unable to start, waiting to be brought to its service center since it is still under warranty.

These are repairable, but we seem to have no time and spare budget to get them repaired. We’ve since replaced the iPhone with a midrange LG Magna which is definitely a good deal at less than 5,000 pesos. It’s still certainly not a flagship phone.

Then my videocard gave up. I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t even think it was possible that after more than a year of not gaming on my main home PC, my Radeon HD 6950 1GB gave up. I miss its silence as the HD 5670 DDR3 I have installed as a temporary replacement has and audible fan. Yes, temporary. I’m eyeing an R9-380 by early next year.

I have yet to bring my Z1 compact for its headphone jack repair but thankfully my SBH70 is getting the job done right and well.

Apparently I posted my last month’s log to my other blog. Well that, I’ve fixed.

On non-broken stuff, “TV” season has started and my watching schedule is as below:

Monday	Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
Tuesday	Supergirl
	The Big Bang Theory
Wednesday	Agents Of Shield
Thursday	The Flash
Friday	Arrow

Too bad I can’t get either TBBT or Supergirl on Monday so I have a consistent 1 hour per weeknight for these shows.

Also, we finally got the 4 i7-4790k-based desktops at the office, one awesome samsung monitor, and an additional license of Autodesk Building Design Suite Premium. We’re just waiting for the hopefully useable Mini-ITX systems.

Tech 6’s and 9’s

This month’s geekery lookback is not much, as I am getting a bit sleepy. I don’t think I had my usual 2 cups of coffee through the day.

Most techie stuff I had this month would probably be learing Revit. It is indeed the future of building design coordination. As for its importance in structural design, well, it is still not that significant. I wish I could have counted how many times I ranted on how BIM should not be directly related to the creation of the structural analysis model.

I finally got a worthy pc quotation for 4 additional/replacement computers at work. With those coming in hopefully one week, our team will be having 7 Haswell desktop PCs. Pretty exciting. The incoming 4 are basically Core i7-4790k-based systems with a Z97 motherboard, 32GB of DDR3, and a GTX 950 each. If the need for new PCs weren’t that urgent, I wish we could have waited a bit more for Skyfall…err…Skylake-based systems. Again, I’m hoping my cousin would want to get a new PC soon so I can spec him a Core i5-6000 series based system with a GTX 900 series graphics card. Maybe I’d recommend an i7 instead, but I don’t know, I’m still leaning with an i5 for home and not-so-hardcore gaming.

	6th-Gen i5 + GTX 900
CPU	Intel Core i5-6600K
MB	Z170 Motherboard
GPU	nVidia geForce GTX 960
RAM	2 x 8GB DDR4
HDD	Seagate Hybrid Drive
Casing	Coolermaster 690 III (green)
PSU	Coolermaster Silent Pro M2 700
HSF	Coolermaster V8 GTS

I found out that Rey, an officemate, had a watercooled 6^th gen i7 with a GTX 980 at home. Not bad, not bad at all. Definitely a member of the PC master race. I miss building a PC.

On phone-related recent events, mhae’s iPhone 4s’ wifi chip failed again and the MCS technicians are very hesitant in doing a second heating repair. The phone still functions as a phone well and is just basically unable to connect via bluetooth and wifi. The search for a new phone for her kinda starts.

I considered getting an Xperia Z5 compact (when available) and giving her my Z1 compact but she says—and I agree—that it’s unwise spending. She’s thinking of getting a Huawei or ASUS phone but LG appeals to her a lot. Samsung is not in the preferred list. Still, if we could find a good deal on a brand new iPhone 5s (that is with a proper warranty as I’m very appreciative of the idea of a warranty), that might still be the best, considering she’s already gotten used to the iOS environment. And the geek that I am with particular preferences (provided well by Sony and Google) wants to have access to an iOS device without having to own one.

Oh, and I just have to say, props to Apple for releasing the iPhone 6s and 6s+ with iOS 9.

Xperia and Accessories

My Xperia Z1 Compact has been with me for 9 months now and is about to go on its second trip to the service center soon. I’m successfully deferring that earphone jack repair thanks to my SBH70. At last, thanks to Lazada, I got to force myself to buy this. That and the headset I got doesn’t force the jack to work anymore. Yes, I know it’s not much about the headset, but still.

Moving on, I have one accessory left for my Xperia—the smartwatch. I think it was 4 years ago, Sony Ericsson released its Liveview watch. They offered wearable tech before it was mainstream. It’s becoming a thing now. When Sony acquired the other half of the joint venture, the smart watch became aptly named the Smartwatch. The brand is on its 3^rd generation now with the SW3, and it being the first to run Android Wear. The prior models ran on Sony/Ericsson’s own software. The hipster I am and as my wallet prefers, I’ve been eyeing the SW2 for a year now.

Back to the SBH70 bluetooth headset, I’ve eyed it for some time, too. I’m glad Sony released this after the more expensive version, the SBH80. I think I could have forced myself to get the SBH80 instead if cost was the only reason, but it has those rubber mushroom earpieces. I’d go for the SBH70’s any day.

The imitation dock for Z3/Compact that I got for a not so good deal at Glorietta is sitting well there at the office and serves its charging purposes well. With those two and a third accessory hopefully soon, I think I’ll get the complete smartphone and accessories package I’ll be needing. If I’ll be acquiring the last part in the next three months, that would be a year of acquisitions. Hopefully, everything would last until my next projected phone upgrade which is 2 years and 3 months from now.

Finally, Windows 10

Windows 10 is finally available in retail (well, at least in the U.S. and major markets) and as an upgrade to those who haven’t upgraded with the insider preview—like i did for my dektops. That still applies to me for my transformer which i successfully upgraded yesterday, downgraded again today for silly sentimental start screen screenshot reasons, and just re-upgraded again soon after (and after not successfully doing what i intended to do.)

In any case, this is the new age of Windows.

Thriving Compact Tech

It’s been a whole month with my z1 compact back. Nice. I’ve successfully avoided buying the Sony smartwatch 2 and a bluetooth headset, the SBH-70 in particular. I have this list of want-to-buys in my notebook and so far, what I’ve checked is only the 2GB RAM for my father’s netbook. I think it did give a performance boost but not so much as the reduction of startup programs. The psychological effect may also help. Hope it does maintain it’s performance.

In a few days after that RAM upgrade, mhaelord’s netbook’s I,K, and M keys stopped working. The day after I found out, I managed to fix it for a couple of minutes only for it to fail me again when I was puttting the screws back. I’m guessing it had something to do with me opening it up in the first place to borrow it’s RAM. Nonetheless, her netbook is still useable with my spare PC’s USB keyboard.

I also found out that my old netbook’s not useable at the moment, most likely and hopefully just because its charger has gone faulty. I have yet to visit a laptop repair shop for it. Maybe I’ll have it checked same time as having mhae’s netbook’s keyboard checked. I’m refraining from ordering a replacement keyboard online, both because I’m getting a little stringent with cash outs and I want to make sure that replacing the keyboard will solve the problem. There may be the possibility that there’s just(?) a problem with the connection.

Back to my z1 compact, it’s either a software problem or one brought about by it falling to the floor. I’ve been having problems with the earphone jack that a restart quite solves. Dogi’s z1 compact has completely failed him. I’m comforted by the fact that I’ve gotten an extended warranty. I’m not bringing this one to the service center yet because I still have an out of town trip soon.

Fun trivia from spending time on the net recently: Sony has an Xperia J1 Compact model, a Japanese market exclusive, which is pretty much a rebranded Z1 Compact. I thought of getting an Xperia J before, but it wasn’t much of an upgrade for my Xperia pro back then. I’m glad to know that I practically have an Xperia J1.

Build Me Up

<p>Main PC is now on Windows 10 Build 10122 fixing my problem with the Start Menu not working in Build 10074.</p>
<p>My Z1 Compact is back and updated to Android 5.0.2 Lollipop i wish i could have retained my favorite KitKat. the consolations with the repair are many enough for me to let go. The back panel and magnetic charging port were replaced along with the damaged LCD (i think it wa the LCD that got damaged) and it retains its old IMEI.</p>
<p>I thank this year’s spare phone, my old Xperia pro (version 3) that took 269 photos in my Z1 Compact’s place and made me miss a physical keyboard on a smartphone.</p>
<p>Now, back to packing for summer trip.</p>
<p>(apparently, there is a problem with blogger and microsoft at the moment. oh well.)</p>

Tech Downs and Up[grade]s

After almost 5months of owning it, my Z1 Compact failed and while I was on the pool. Called the service center and I think it had a crack and got infiltrated. Good thing, though I have to wait a couple of weeks, things are still covered by the warranty. I’m currently using my old Xperia pro. I did miss using this.

As for Mhae’s iPhone 4S, it caught the WiFi/Bluetooth hardware problem. After a couple of weeks and me finally checking it out on the net, we got it fixed at Makati Square for P450. Not bad. The iPhone’s now running on iOS 8.3 and I hope it won’t run into problems or get a big performance hit. I’m pretty confident about it cause that’s one of the things I think Apple does better—software-hardware integration.

On the Windows side of things, my desktop’s Windows 10 Tech Preview is now on build 10061 and finally has the Search Bar working, albeit slower than it used to be on Windows 7.

Quick Bits for the Month

Windows 10 TP is working really well for me save for the disfunctional search. i’ve installed the latest build on my secondary desktop and it’s fine. it’s also difficult to find similar complaints so i’m guessing it has something to do with my main PC’s OS config before/during/after updating from Windows 7.

New hardware in the office but not all for me. i got an ink advantage printer. it’s black and white.

As for software in the office, ETABS and SAFE upgrade and some Bentley QTL problems resolved. MIDAS was presented and very impressive. Looks like we have a 3rd solution coming. Revit’s also starting to be utilized thanks to JT’s lessons.

Smartwatch…not yet says LG G Watch R availability and price.

Windows 10 Tech Preview Update on Main PC

A good portion of the time I spent using my main PC during the past two weeks or so was restarting, safe mode, verifying RAID1 status, and such. Thankfully, it has turned to a pleasant PC experience once I managed to work around the errors and issues with doing an in-place upgrade of my system from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Technical Preview, Build 9926 via Windows Update.

Things to look out for are possible compatibility issues with installed programs. What I found that turned the system unstable and freeze are Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology software which I updated and Core Temp which I stopped from launching at startup.

A major feature upgrade in Windows 8 that was carried over is the redesigned Task Manager. I found the Startup tab very useful in troubleshooting. Unfortunately with regards to Core Temp, it didn’t appear. I had to rename the program’s installation folder to prevent it from launching. Funny though is that I got to use the system a couple of times with Core Temp successfully launching at startup. I’ll account it to beta instability.

Although I’ve gotten to use earlier previews on my secondary desktop, it’s a different thing when done on my “daily driver”. (I noticed that term a lot in http://youtube.com/linustechtips.) Prior observations from using Windows 10 on my spare PC was how I enjoyed the animations and the convenience of multiple desktops. I use the multiple desktop feature from time to time during multi-tasking and finding windows cluttered.

I expected to do the same in-place upgrade with my Windows 8.1 hybrid netbook only to find out that it isn’t doable with the current release because of a compact installation. I hope it does happen before the actual release of Windows 10.

It’s great to find sites like http://www.winsupersite.com to find tips on some issues. 1 major concern which is also resolved for now is how buggy and absent the latest start menu revision is. Thanks to a registry entry, an earlier Windows 10 start menu can be accessed.

So far, the experience is generally positive. I look forward to the free upgrade this year and a worthy update on my PC experience.

Big Software Upgrades This Year

Autodesk and its partners have been constantly reminding and marketing the end of the upgrade option. Today is the last day. I’m not sure if the office did about it until yesterday.

I’ve been almost half-hearted about software upgrades. For programs like AutoCAD and office software, I think they are vital. These can’t be perfect when released and not have room for even the slightest improvement. For operating systems, though, I think major upgrades are unnecessary and overrated. I came across an article that android’s problem is how slow its new versions are deployed to the many android phones/tablets out there. I thought, why? Phones used to have specific firmware and worked with minor updates. And why would a phone people usually replaced in a year or two need to be updated a year or two after being bought? Then it hit me, hardware improvements are incremental and the devices are actually meant to last longer than people normally do as i actually constantly say.

Enter Windows 10 free upgrade announcement. This got me excited. Interestingly, one of the biggest problems with Vista was its high hardware requirements. It now seems like a necessary “evil” given how very uncommon bad hardware specs is despite looking so bad on paper. The excitement also came from the fact that I once wanted an updating Windows similar to OS X. Incremental changes that build up to major revisions similar to how service packs worked, only bigger.

I’m incoherent now so I’ll probably stop. Point is, I’m looking forward to how these big software updates are going, Autodesk software and Windows. These steady updates are a sign of a more stable progress in both software and hardware, and in general, an assured evolution in our computing lifestyle.