How to burn-in an Android

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , ,
How to burn-in an Android

I always burn in my computers. But how do you burn-in an Android?

Here’s what burn-in means, if you’re unaware. When you first buy a computer, the very best thing you can do for it is leave it on for 24 hours nonstop, preferably doing something that’s reasonably hard work. That practice is called burning in a computer. If there’s anything at all wrong with it, there’s a very good chance it will come up in that initial 24 hour period. I’ve been doing that for more than 20 years, and of all the computers I’ve owned in that timeframe–and it’s an army of them, believe me–I’ve only had one machine fail prematurely. One.

The practice works.

So what about a tablet or a smartphone?

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Model railroading with your Droid: Solving electrical issues

Dave Farquhar Android, model railroading, Toy trains , , , , ,

Electrodroid is an Android app designed for electronics hobbyists, but it has uses for model railroaders too. Its LED calculator is invaluable when using LEDs to light buildings, cars, locomotive cabs or headlights, or for other projects. Knowing the input voltage, you can then determine what resistors to use to protect the LED.

The voltage drop calculator is useful too, if less obvious. Read more

Mobile malware is coming. Get prepared.

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , ,

One thing I’m seeing in the predictions-for-2013 columns is that mobile malware is going to increase this year. While I can’t be certain it’s going to happen, all of the ingredients are there. The only thing stopping it is motive.

I’m familiar with Avast antivirus on Android. It’s nice. Whenever I download an app from the Google Play store, it scans it, and if it finds something it doesn’t like, it intervenes. Read more

Model railroading with your Droid: Color matching

Dave Farquhar Android, model railroading, Toy trains , ,

The biggest problem with making custom (or reproduction) decals for use with trains of the miniature variety is getting the colors on the computer-generated decal to match the paint on the model. Eyeballing the color won’t work; you need a computer’s help to do it.

Enter a free Android app called Color Eye. Launch Color Eye, point your phone or tablet’s camera at the paint you need to match, and your phone will give you the closest color matches that it knows about, including a Pantone color and a CYMK value.

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How to be a hero next Christmas (or your next family get-together)

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , , , , , ,

My mother in law didn’t have wifi set up, but she picked up a smart TV this year, so she asked me if I could help her with it. So I picked up a D-Link DIR-615 on sale, brought it with me and set up wi-fi securely (hints: set the SSID to whatever time it happens to be, disable WPS, disable WEP and WPA, and use WPA2 with a long password with some numbers and symbols in it) and once it seemed to be working right, I put her TV and laptop on it. Then, as other relatives trickled in, they asked me for the wireless key. Soon the air was full of Androids and Apples chattering away on wireless.

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Where I was when I first heard about the end of the world

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

Since all the cool kids (or at least some of them) are writing about the end of the world, I thought I’d write about where I first heard about this.

I’m such a notorious cheapskate, the Mayans had a folk song about me. I was at a library sale, scooping up cheap books, in the summer of 2007. You meet some interesting people at these places, and one of the more colorful is a guy named Jim. Read more