Used a pocket knife under a bright light to clean A LOT of gunk from the USB-C charging port of my POCO X3 Pro phone. Now the cables fit snugly again and don't wobble in the socket. Charging the phone the past few months has been a nuisance as cables were loose and disconnecting frequently.

StriderTR wrote on 2025-02-24, 18:41:

Yeah, I read those reviews, and measured my drive to make darn sure it "should" fit. […]
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bestemor wrote on 2025-02-24, 07:45:

StriderTR wrote on 2025-02-23, 18:45:

I just picked up a really nice USB3 external optical drive enclosure so I could put my Asus Blu-Ray drive to use again. My main system has no more room for internal expansion, so my BD-ROM has been shelved for a couple years.

This thing is really nice, well built (all aluminum, no plastic, rubber dampers), and just works. Drive is extremely quiet in it. Not the cheapest enclosure, but worth it!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRCCV44?

Now, if only they had built it 1cm longer... sigh. 😣
(any Pioneer drives does NOT fit!)

Yeah, I read those reviews, and measured my drive to make darn sure it "should" fit.

Mine is a 6.77 inch/17.2 cm drive (the max size for this enclosure), and it's a very tight fit. It buts right up against the PCB, but, it does fit, all be it with a bit of finagling.

I think it was designed for the most common "modern" shorter drives. Older or longer drives will likely not fit without modification, if at all.

I agree, I wish they had a longer version, even though it worked good for my drive, I really like it. Sadly, there are not many good choices out there for these types of enclosures anymore.

I ran across the one below after I got this one. It says it supports longer drives (185mm / 7.2 inch). It's internal PCB is mounted to the back panel, not horizontal like in mine, so more room. One of the reviews shows my exact drive and it fits perfectly too. I may have gotten this one if I had seen it sooner, still, mine worked out and I like it a lot. Maybe the Vantec one would work for you?

https://www.amazon.com/External-Enclosure-Gen … /dp/B09SS74KCN/

Well, that OWC model supposedly had good electronics/chip etc, as in better than average run of the mill enclosures.
And as data quality and error levels was of importance, I picked this one (OWC).

As for your suggested Vantec model, hmm... I don't know. Have to do some research.
But, at least my drives will then actually FIT, which is definitely a bonus 😄
Though, if the previous (first) generation of Vantec DX is to go by, it does not sound promising according to this semi-review/comparison:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RN … ASIN=B06XRCCV44
and...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3 … ASIN=B09SS74KCN

And yes indeed!:

StriderTR wrote on 2025-02-24, 18:41:

there are not many good choices out there for these types of enclosures anymore.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-23, 23:28:

Reading how people here are still using old mobiles ...wish we could still do that here but the government in all its wisdom shut down all mobile networks except 4G LTE and 5G, so no old phones will work here anymore, even if they support WiFi calling or are hybrid 3G/4G phones. they included the 3G/4G phones as they cant certify the hybrid ones wont try using 3G to call SoS/Emergency.

Forced me to upgrade to a new S24 Ultra as many international/3rd party phones are also blocked here due to the above changes.

I think we still have 2G here, but since previous phone already has 4G, network compatibility wasn't a concern, plus I don't use a lot of mobile data and have no need for 5G speeds. My reason was compatibility with newer apps, specifically the one for my bank and another for petrol station. Also being tight with internal memory space on the old one.

Android 14 seems pretty loaded along with some of the apps these days, but Jelly Max just flies through. I remember few years back there were complaints right on Google Play about petrol station app being slow, and it did take a good while to load on the old phone. The current version is not compatible with Android 7 anymore and the older one is blocked. Back then they said they will look into improving performance, but if anything, they just made it heavier. Newer hardware is really good at masking inefficiencies.

I wonder if there were any attempts at making newer apps compatible with older Androids. For example current Firefox still works with Android 5, Chromium doesn't.

I also tried Android Auto yesterday with my 2022 VW Polo, the connection works wirelessly. Looks like wireless connection uses both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and car has to have its Wi-Fi access point enabled. The first screen showed (empty - no internet!) maps on the left and YouTube music on the right. Not all apps were shown, I was expecting to see Textra there and AIMP, but none of them were shown! AIMP at least should be shown, it does have Android Auto related settings. Google's Messages were shown, but I don't use it ever since I discovered Textra. There was another app called just "SMS" app, but it didn't show any messages. The missing apps might have to do with the fact that I installed some of the apps through Aurora Store and not changing the default installation method, so they were marked being installed by Aurora and from searching around Android Auto filters out apps not marked being installed by Google Play Store. And some apps in general refuse to work if their installer is not Google Play. I'll look into this at later point. As usual, couldn't resist unlocking the phone's bootloader and installing Magisk.

Android Auto appears to be its own interface made for car screens for interacting with the phone, also seems to have some of its own stuff, there was GameSnacks on the app list, also Volkswagen (I didn't install any Volkswagen app on the phone). Didn't try those, was already sitting in the car for a while. I think I'll plug the car's battery to the charger if I'll be exploring Android Auto next time (in power supply mode, of course).

Generally, I think the bare bone basics work good enough over plain Bluetooth (no Android Auto). At least eg. having it play random music tracks or accepting phone calls. Android Auto might be useful if you want Google Maps.

I don't get it, I marked AIMP and Textra as installed by Play Store with AlterInstaller, but still they don't show on Android Auto without Unknown sources checkbox. Why Google always complicates matters? I chuckled when reading Fermata Auto's package name - me.aap.fermata.auto.dear.google.why.

Built and flashed latest and greatest Advanced Charging Controller, which seems to work, though not sure if battery capacity constantly staying at 75% is intended when plugged in, pretty sure it's supposed to go down to 70 and only then go back up with default settings. I read somewhere if plugged in for longer times that 60% is better for battery longevity.

Got another new to me app - App Manager. It has the following remarks about some of Google's apps:

• Assistant - The assistant that can stab you on the back.
• Drive - The drive where no personal data should ever be kept unencrypted.
• Play Store - The malware delivery store. Most apps are full of ads, trackers and malware.
• Photos - Allows Google to scan and catalog all your photos so that it knows you and your relations more than you do.

Not entirely sure on which launcher/home app to settle. Currently on Lawnchair, which is enhanced stock launcher. I liked having ability to scroll horizontally on the old Sony's launcher. Nova Launcher has this, but I think it's a bit overkill for my needs, which doesn't necessarily bother me, but they force user to install the updated version if available and block usage, so I'd rather not use it out of principle.

I also liked using modded QuickPic as the gallery app, but since it's closed source and based on the old version before being bought by some company, it's dependent on 32-bit native libraries and newer CPUs don't run 32-bit code anymore. At least on mine, arm64-v8a reads as the only supported ABI. I'll use MiXplorer for picture viewing for now.

Oh, I get it. Fermata was available on Google Play as me.aap.fermata. Guess Google didn't like it and removed it and then the developer put the reaction in subsequent version's package name.

My 2TB HDD started to read slow. Became erratic and after some trouble shoot I decided to check the SMART table.
end-to-end-error FAILING
Copying all my stuff and parking it elsewhere.

Now I have to buy a new hard rive. Bummer, I really needed and excuse to upgrade to 6TB. Me so happy now!
😀

I was trying to get Samba working on my desktop, and then it suddenly started working without me changing anything (except for showing the same shared folder under two names - "homes" and my username).

I learned that the smb.conf on my old laptop was broken. I must not have edited it to have a shared folder after reinstalling Linux (it's running Lubuntu, and the large number of changes when they switched from LXDE to LXQt required a full reinstall to upgrade), and it was configured to share a networked printer. Now I need to make it accessible using the hostname instead of the IP address.

The other problem is that neither of these computers can access Windows machines. The laptop instantly gives an error, and the desktop asks for a password on a non-password-protected share.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I occasionally test and review products for a few different tech companies and online retailers. I don't get paid for it, but I almost always get to keep what I test and/or review. It's something I truly love doing.

I was sent a Crucial P310 Gen4 NVMe 2TB drive rated for 7,100 MB/s. I'm supposed to test and review it, easy. Well, I just got it in the mail, went to drop it in one of my systems, and realized I have no available M.2 slots.... anywhere. The only open Gen4 M.2 open slot I have is disabled because those PCIe lanes are taken up by a video card, and I don't want to reconfigure the system just to test out this SSD.

So, I just ordered one of these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084GDY2PW/?th=1. I hear they work amazingly well, and this is the perfect opportunity to try one out. Plus, I'll still get the full speed use of the drive.

Either way, one of my systems if going to get an additional 2TB super fast storage once I'm done testing it. 😜

Since I'm still messing with Samba, I figured out that I can access shared folders from a Windows system that has a user account with a password. If I use that username and password, everything is accessible. However, my old desktop has a single user account with no password, and it's still inaccessible from Linux.

File transfers are also incredibly slow. I saw 1MB/s once, but it's usually much slower than that. Everything I've found so far tells you to change settings that the official Samba documentation tells you not to change because they significantly reduce performance. There are also claims that SMB is normally that slow, but transfers between two computers running Windows (even on the same hardware if they dual-boot) are much faster.

dr_st wrote on 2025-02-24, 21:04:

Used a pocket knife under a bright light to clean A LOT of gunk from the USB-C charging port of my POCO X3 Pro phone.

Where do people manage to accumulate so much of it?

---

Somehow got all stuff showing under Android Auto without Unknown sources checkbox. Haven't tried if stuff actually works in the car yet.

Managed to keep Play Store enabled and crippled to the point it doesn't self-autoupdate and install more Google's crap. It's not usable for installing apps, but Play Integrity API remains functional (for now). Though got 0 sensitive apps that really care about it.

I wonder if Google Play Services could be trimmed down somehow. I know there's MicroG, but I don't want to dive into that just yet. And it's super easy to break things by disabling random stuff.

I got Lawnchair's recent apps screen implementation working. It's not obvious it even exists! It only took one Magisk module, figuring the app to switch recents provider fails (and telling me to send non-existing logs to developer! 😁), adding extra line to one of Magisk's scripts because it's not compatible with latest Magisk as-is, after which it seemed it worked, but still got the old screen and adding another Magisk module workarounding whatever the original module didn't get right.

That's where the extra options at the bottom come from.

Still, disabling and hiding com.android.launcher3 (stock launcher) greeted me with mostly black screen after boot and unable to launch anything except what is launchable through notifications panel, which isn't much. Thank goodness for granted USB debugging authorization!

I know I'm not making any sense, there's lots of terms in Android modding world that don't make sense, eg. you need Shizuku to be able to browse Android/data folder in user's internal storage with MiXplorer.

Lawnchair's recents screen doesn't show RAM utilization though. 😒 Maybe it's a custom feature by the device's ROM developer. com.android.launcher3 is in fact not signed by Google, but it reads MediaTek. I doubt a fork like Lawnchair would remove it. Oh well...

Tried Android Auto in the car and the apps shown seem to work. Though if old versions are anything to go by, Android Auto comes with expiration date. It just stops working after a while unless updated. I kinda hate that. Software should just work with the feature set that was available when downloaded and installed. And I hate not being informed about the changes! But that's how all Google's junk works, one day you have one version, the next day it changes.

And, there's no Volkswagen app, it's just a shortcut with car brand's logo to return to infotainment's screen. In Android Auto's s settings->Customize launcher, it reads "Close", but in the car, it reads "Volkswagen" or whatever car you have. Maybe it changes if you rename the car on the list of added cars.

lti wrote on 2025-03-02, 22:16:

Since I'm still messing with Samba, I figured out that I can access shared folders from a Windows system that has a user account with a password. If I use that username and password, everything is accessible. However, my old desktop has a single user account with no password, and it's still inaccessible from Linux.

File transfers are also incredibly slow. I saw 1MB/s once, but it's usually much slower than that. Everything I've found so far tells you to change settings that the official Samba documentation tells you not to change because they significantly reduce performance. There are also claims that SMB is normally that slow, but transfers between two computers running Windows (even on the same hardware if they dual-boot) are much faster.

I don't remember the specifics, but I got the impression in the past that features like that are easier to use if you have password setup. Although I seem to remember you can also login with one or two special users. Guest or anonymous? Another thing to mind unless you deal with Windows 95, two levels of permissions, Samba + NTFS.

It's been a while since I used Samba, I did use it couple of times to access media files on a computer from a smartphone. And one time when I was copying files between 2 computers with Samba shares, connected with a cable, it invoked kernel level instabilities in one Win10 installation. Fun!

I learned that I can't shut down or restart my phone by holding down the lock button anymore. Now that opens Google Assistant instead.

lti wrote on 2025-03-04, 04:39:

I learned that I can't shut down or restart my phone by holding down the lock button anymore. Now that opens Google Assistant instead.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave"

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-02-11, 09:39:

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-02-04, 12:41:

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-01-28, 12:19:

Released a second post to my blog that shares what the whole ULID-thingy is about:
https://byteaether.github.io/2025/an-introduc … ftware-systems/

Time for part 3:
https://byteaether.github.io/2025/uuid-vs-uli … modern-systems/

And now, part 4:
https://byteaether.github.io/2025/ulids-as-th … infrastructure/

Been writing some more articles and announced QueryLink v1.0.0.

https://byteaether.github.io/2025/seamlessly- … ss-integration/

https://byteaether.github.io/2025/harnessing- … atterns-in-net/

https://byteaether.github.io/2025/announcing- … ta-integration/

lti wrote on 2025-03-04, 04:39:

I learned that I can't shut down or restart my phone by holding down the lock button anymore. Now that opens Google Assistant instead.

I got the assistant to open touching the bottom 3 buttons (forgot what they're called) at random while screen was mostly black due to launcher being unable to launch.

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-03-04, 13:33:

Been writing some more articles and announced QueryLink v1.0.0. […]
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GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-02-11, 09:39:

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-02-04, 12:41:

Time for part 3:
https://byteaether.github.io/2025/uuid-vs-uli … modern-systems/

And now, part 4:
https://byteaether.github.io/2025/ulids-as-th … infrastructure/

Been writing some more articles and announced QueryLink v1.0.0.

https://byteaether.github.io/2025/seamlessly- … ss-integration/

https://byteaether.github.io/2025/harnessing- … atterns-in-net/

https://byteaether.github.io/2025/announcing- … ta-integration/

Just released a bit more "provocative" article: HyperAction API: A Reimagined Approach to HTTP API Design
https://byteaether.github.io/2025/hyperaction … ttp-api-design/

Staring at BlueScreenView. My daily driver Win10 installation started crashing after being on hiatus for half-year while I was running Win11. The damned thing still BSODs with DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE every few days on transitioning to sleep. Since amdppm.sys was always in the stack few crashes back, I changed the power plan and set the CPU to always run at max frequency. It crashed, but amdppm.sys disappeared. AFAIK, amdppm.sys downclocks AMD CPUs to conserve power when the load is lower.

Then I RESET the power plan and disabled DWMBlurGlass (since the latter was really the only thing that changed since returning to Win10, besides running with an extra 2 GB RAM stick, for which I can't prove there's anything wrong with and Win11 ran fine with it as well, also transitioning to sleep). Now it still crashes, but interestingly, despite resetting power plan, still no amdppm.sys, just ntoskrnl.exe. I re-enabled DWMBlurGlass, will see if amdppm.sys comes back.

When I ran DISM with /ScanHealth, no corruption was found, as usual. Probably the only thing a clueless peasant can do is reinstall Windows.

UCyborg wrote on Yesterday, 20:50:

Staring at BlueScreenView. My daily driver Win10 installation started crashing after being on hiatus for half-year while I was running Win11. The damned thing still BSODs with DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE every few days on transitioning to sleep.

Chances are it's a network (or other peripheral) device driver not completing the power state transition on time due to being stuck on something. These things are notoriously hard to debug, but you may get somewhere if you configure the system to generate a kernel dump (not a minidump) upon crash and open it in WinDbg.