Headworx

The alarm clock (app) did not ring. I started checking why after waking up a bit late. Clicked the Clock icon and it just briefly popped up the "Unfortunately, Clock has stopped." message without even giving me a chance to [Report] or [OK] it. Clicked the Clock again. Same thing. Clearly the Clock app was crashing and despite numerous attempts I could not make it run. What do you do? Reboot of course. It always helps. This time it did not. Same thing. Unfortunately, Clock has stopped. I solved the problem by going to the [Apps] settings and cleared the application data. Clearly the data was corrupt and the app was crashing trying to parse it. We live with such crashes. But some apps should just never, ever do that. Clock is one of them. You cannot manually fix an app that is supposed to be your watchdog. Because then is just fails to be that watchdog. It will not wake you up and you will miss your important flight / meeting / wedding / (insert your own). This is a fai...

Longer term hardware reliability in consumer and prosumer devices is still very challenging. This will drive people away from technology, as after several years dozens of their "smart" gadgets will start malfunctioning and falling apart. To me, when something fails, it is the most annoying moment, especially considering the busy schedule I have. Today, for example. it was two extra hours to rip the internet router apart and replace 5 dry electrolytic capacitors. Drying capacitors are probably responsible for 80% of home electronic products just dying all of a sudden. Software is usually unstable at the beginning of a lifecycle. Then it gets better and over time many software - powered devices we start considering like pure hardware - they just work. Until they stop, usually without warning. What is absolutely surprising, many of them being "connected" devices never monitor their own health and never indicate any problems until they happen. It could be as ...

Little things matter. I've been extremely happy using the Logitech Anywhere MX mouse since we installed glass desks at our office several years ago. In my opinion this is the best computer mouse ever. It works effortlessly on any surface. Including fully transparent glass. And is very precise. Actually it was the best mouse ever. Because there is the new kid on the block - the Anywhere MX 2. The name may not be very creative, but Logitech managed to address probably all remaining issues people might have had with the MX 1. Actually there were only two issues I could identify: MX 1 required a dongle. A small one, but still sticking outside and occupying a valuable USB port. MX 2 uses a dual - standard radio, so it still works with Logitech dongles, but it also may use Bluetooth. And it has a very good Bluetooth implementation: connects very fast and is very responsive. MX 1 worked on batteries. MX 2 is rechargeable. And unlike the Apple mouse you can still use it while chargi...

Increasingly more products today are defined by software that runs them. With the advent of IOT this trend accelerates. Yet the hardware companies still don't get it. We're getting evidence of this old school thinking on a daily basis. Take a light bulb. It used to be a very difficult hardware product. High quality glass required a huge glassworks factory. The tungsten wire required an ultimate hardware precision at a plant. And finally you had to produce vacuum in this sealed glass ball. There were only a handful lighting companies on the planet. Today the light bulb hardware is usually a commodity. LEDs from one supplier, plastics from another supplier and a couple of electronic components inside. No rocket science, at least for a standard LED bulb. The manufacturers have established their supply chain relationships with silicon vendors. It had all worked until they wanted to make the light bulb smart and connected. Which requires replacing an existing microchip with ...

I experienced a computer crash last week. Traced it down to a broken trace on the motherboard or a broken cable that connects the motherboard to the hard drive. To the extent I was able to resurrect it a couple of times before it died completely on the next day. Luckily it was the motherboard, not the hard drive. Following my previous experience in moving a Windows 10 hard drive between two completely different systems and having the new one up an running in minutes, I decided to do the same with the replacement machine. Unbox it, remove the factory installed hard drive, put the one taken out from the broken computer and - voila: I was up an running in minutes. What is more important: the whole system configuration is unchanged. Folders, drivers, saved passwords, web history, everything. This makes it obvious that the default procedure for migrating to a new machine should be the same: clone your old drive to the new machine and boot it up. Done. Except. Except this is not s...

This one came as a shocker to me. Major banks issue major credit cards that keep a history of transactions and offer that openly to any reader. And by *any* I don't mean an authorized wireless payment terminal a waiter uses in a restaurant. It can be just any NFC reader, like the one most of us have in mobile phones. So I can be riding a bus with my wallet safe in my pocket and the bus is a little crowded and a person behind me is standing with a phone in her hand. Entirely common situation. And then this person is capable of scanning my cards without me even being aware of this. Look what happens. You can actually get a lot of information. The transaction history on the attached screenshot is real. You can see this person travels a lot and even can track back the countries: Singapore, Poland, Hong Kong. You can trace the dates and spending habits. I just can't imagine what is the use for this information? Why did the bank decide to store that in the open? Is this somew...

I preparation of trekking vacations in some remote parts of the World, I've started evaluating options on what gadgets can / should I carry on my back for three weeks. So first - the priorities what is a must and what is a nice to have? It starts with a DSLR and 1 or 2 lenses. This is not negotiable an in my case (Nikon D750 + Sigma 24-70mm ART + Laowa 12mm + 3 spare batteries) makes a total of around 2600g. It is a lot but the truth is once I moved to a full frame format, there is no going back. I want to carry that extra bulk, period. The camera is accompanied by carefully selected accessories: ND and CPL filters, a battery charging cradle, a flashlight, a lens cleaning set (cloth+pen+fluid+blower), a remote IR trigger, and an OTG hub that allows connecting SD cards and pendrives to a smartphone. 400g in total. Ah it also includes the TrailPix - the lightest replacement for a tripod. This complete set of photo equipment is 3000g, it is almost a miracle, considering it ...