Για Αποτυχία 100% στις εξετάσεις για το Πανεπιστήμιο κάνει λόγο το άρθρο της Ελευθεροτυπίας στους υποψήφιους της Λιβερίας. Παραλείπει να κάνει σχόλιο όμως για τους Έλληνες υποψήφιους οι οποίοι επίσης θα έμεναν εκτός σχολών αν τηρούνταν η βάση του 10 στην εισαγωγή και δεν έμπαινε η σάρα και η μάρα σε ΤΕΙ και ΑΕΙ.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
PORT COVER COVER FOR TOUGHBOOK CF-18 review
So some time ago I bought second hand a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18. It is rather dated by todays standards but works flawlesly so far. So along the way 2 of the port covers were ripped apart and gaping holes were left to remind me of the fact.
I was searching every now and then for replacements on ebay and elsewhere but their price was prohibitive taking into account the age of the laptop.
A few days back I found on ebay replacements for a reasonable 5$ per piece. I bought the ones I needed and waited. It is a pity it takes almost a month for items to reach Greece from China, even after Piraeus port was bought from Chinese company. Eventually I received them and today I installed them in my laptop.
Something was amiss. The covers did not fit tight on the ports. The reason for that as I realised was (probably) cheap manufacturing.
The ones I bought were lacking a signigficant feature as shown in the photo below:
The photo addmitedly was not taken with a steady hand, but the difference is obvious. The part of the cover that is supposed to make the cover water resistant (if not waterproof) is ommited on the cheap copy. I am obviously refering to the thin grooves that run around the cover at the part that inserts in the port.
So lesson learnt I guess.
I was searching every now and then for replacements on ebay and elsewhere but their price was prohibitive taking into account the age of the laptop.
A few days back I found on ebay replacements for a reasonable 5$ per piece. I bought the ones I needed and waited. It is a pity it takes almost a month for items to reach Greece from China, even after Piraeus port was bought from Chinese company. Eventually I received them and today I installed them in my laptop.
Something was amiss. The covers did not fit tight on the ports. The reason for that as I realised was (probably) cheap manufacturing.
The ones I bought were lacking a signigficant feature as shown in the photo below:
So lesson learnt I guess.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
MK809IIIT Quad-Core Android 4.2.2 HDMI stick with Air Mouse, 2GB RAM - 8GB ROM short review
Update 2, !!! the device stopped working!!!
63 days after the purchase, the device would not boot. It would remain stuck at the R-box boot screen and it would not bood. So after contacting DX.com I send it back and DX.com was nice enough to refund not only the item's cost but the postage as well.
About a month ago, I bought an Android HDMI stick to use with my TV.
I got a MK809IIIT Quad-Core Android 4.2.2 Mini PC Google TV Player w/ Air Mouse / 2GB RAM / 8GB ROM - Black drom DealExtreme.com that came with a wireless remote control - keyboard.
So far I have been using it to watch movies and TV series with and without subtitles. I hadn't had any problems so far.
I did try to instal a game, N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit but as with my MTK mobile phone, it didn't play at all. It kept showing the loading circle but nothing else happened.
One of the issues I have encountered, is that the android stick does not keep the time after turned off. I assume that when my TV is off there is no current flowing from the USB port to keep the stick even partly activated and looses all ram memory data. Shouldnt there be a small (replaceable) battery to avoid the issue?
I do think it gets rather hotter than it should but it is currently summer so that may affect it a bit.
I have run it continuously for about 3 hours, without any issue.
The other problem I encountered, is that I cannot make it to connect with my PC. I plug the usb cable in either of the 2 microUSB ports and the device is not identified from Windows 7 as a memory device. It might be because on android phones you need to press OK on the screen to make it work as a memory device. When the stick is not pluged in a screen this obviously cant happen.
The stick came with a very useful USB cable hub with 4 ports. 1 port is used with the keyboards wireless usb dongle and there are another 3 free for USB memory sticks or whatever.
It is rumored but haven't tried any, that there are custom roms available for these devices. One example can be found here: http://blog.geekbuying.com/index.php/2013/06/17/custom-rom-for-qc802ug007bmk809iii-quad-core-tv-sticks/
Personally although I love a device that does what ever I want it to do and have a rooted and rommed Android phone, I don't see much reason to experiment with this HDMI Android stick.
The wireless keyboard is powered by 3 AAA batteries that were not included in the box. So I used the rechargable batteries I always use at home 900mAh. The first few days the keyboard seemed to suck the life out of them and had to recharge them everyday! Even when charged the batteries wouldnt last more than a few hours the most. And I am not talking about writting an extensive essay with the keyboard, just using it as a 2 click mouse. The last few days it seems to behave better though. I think it needed a hard turn on-off button rather than shut after a period of inactivity like it currently does.
This post will be updated as necessary.
Update: So, after watching a few dosen movies, videos and TV series on the stick, I realised that sometimes the hardware video decoding that is used by default perhaps due to overheating or other unknown factor has problems displaying the image properly. The image becomes pixelated or freezes. You can turn it to software decoding though and the picture comes back to normal.
63 days after the purchase, the device would not boot. It would remain stuck at the R-box boot screen and it would not bood. So after contacting DX.com I send it back and DX.com was nice enough to refund not only the item's cost but the postage as well.
About a month ago, I bought an Android HDMI stick to use with my TV.
I got a MK809IIIT Quad-Core Android 4.2.2 Mini PC Google TV Player w/ Air Mouse / 2GB RAM / 8GB ROM - Black drom DealExtreme.com that came with a wireless remote control - keyboard.
So far I have been using it to watch movies and TV series with and without subtitles. I hadn't had any problems so far.
I did try to instal a game, N.O.V.A. 3 - Near Orbit but as with my MTK mobile phone, it didn't play at all. It kept showing the loading circle but nothing else happened.
One of the issues I have encountered, is that the android stick does not keep the time after turned off. I assume that when my TV is off there is no current flowing from the USB port to keep the stick even partly activated and looses all ram memory data. Shouldnt there be a small (replaceable) battery to avoid the issue?
I do think it gets rather hotter than it should but it is currently summer so that may affect it a bit.
I have run it continuously for about 3 hours, without any issue.
The other problem I encountered, is that I cannot make it to connect with my PC. I plug the usb cable in either of the 2 microUSB ports and the device is not identified from Windows 7 as a memory device. It might be because on android phones you need to press OK on the screen to make it work as a memory device. When the stick is not pluged in a screen this obviously cant happen.
The stick came with a very useful USB cable hub with 4 ports. 1 port is used with the keyboards wireless usb dongle and there are another 3 free for USB memory sticks or whatever.
It is rumored but haven't tried any, that there are custom roms available for these devices. One example can be found here: http://blog.geekbuying.com/index.php/2013/06/17/custom-rom-for-qc802ug007bmk809iii-quad-core-tv-sticks/
Personally although I love a device that does what ever I want it to do and have a rooted and rommed Android phone, I don't see much reason to experiment with this HDMI Android stick.
The wireless keyboard is powered by 3 AAA batteries that were not included in the box. So I used the rechargable batteries I always use at home 900mAh. The first few days the keyboard seemed to suck the life out of them and had to recharge them everyday! Even when charged the batteries wouldnt last more than a few hours the most. And I am not talking about writting an extensive essay with the keyboard, just using it as a 2 click mouse. The last few days it seems to behave better though. I think it needed a hard turn on-off button rather than shut after a period of inactivity like it currently does.
This post will be updated as necessary.
Update: So, after watching a few dosen movies, videos and TV series on the stick, I realised that sometimes the hardware video decoding that is used by default perhaps due to overheating or other unknown factor has problems displaying the image properly. The image becomes pixelated or freezes. You can turn it to software decoding though and the picture comes back to normal.
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