More thoughts on the $150 Hisense Sero 7 Pro tablet

Steve Aubrey wrote in with a link to a useful site dedicated to the Hisense Sero 7. It collects all the useful information that’s surfaced from xda-developers and other sites, including custom ROMs, rooting instructions, and where to get accessories.

He asked if I recommend rooting. The short answer: Yes, if you know what you’re doing. If you’re willing to read the prompts when an app requests root access and understand what it’s asking for, then sure. If you just blindly click yes to everything, then no, by all means, leave the tablet stock.

But if you know what you’re doing, one nice thing you can do is install a firewall, so a rooted Android tablet can be safer than an unrooted one. Have fun wrapping your head around that slice of counter-intuitiveness.

Let’s talk about my impressions of the tablet itself.

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This “Computer Maintenance Department” sure doesn’t know much about computer maintenance

“Peggy” from “Computer Maintenance Department” (1-645-781-2458 on my caller ID) called again. Lots of people are aware of these phone calls. They call, make vague claims about receiving a report that your computer is running slow and giving you errors, and are very careful not to say who they are or who they work for. Usually I just do whatever I can to get them off the phone.

But after having lunch with some other computer security professionals last week, a couple of them talked me into finding out how these guys operate. So I fired up a PC that turned out to have a real, legitimate issue. After resolving that issue myself, I turned the caller loose on my semi-functional PC so I could see what these scammers actually do. He had me connect to Teamviewer.com and run their remote access software. I followed his instructions, watched him connect, then slyly unplugged my network cable.

When my network connection dropped, “Peggy” quickly transferred me to a “senior technician” who used the name “Roy.” Read more

Nook won’t turn on? Try these four things.

Nook won’t turn on? Try these four things.

I’d owned a Nook Simple Touch for less than 24 hours when I had a problem. So I learned out of necessity what to do when a Nook won’t turn on.

I found several things to try to get them working. Don’t expect the same solution to work every time. But these things are good to know.

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Entry-level troubleshooting

Ars Technica offers a very good, brief guide to troubleshooting computer hardware. Being two pages long, it doesn’t tell you everything, but includes some good tricks, including one I don’t always remember to tell people. To fully discharge a device, unplug it from the wall, remove the battery if it has one, then press and hold down the power button for 10-15 seconds. This discharges any power that could be lingering in the capacitors inside. Read more

My Socket 775 adventures, Chapter 1

So I bought an Intel Socket 775 board to support a crash webserver rebuild project. I present the story in hopes that it might be useful, or entertaining, or both. I don’t know the ultimate outcome of it yet, but all of the decisions made sense at the time.
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Secure that public wi-fi with a low-tier, no-cost home VPN

If you spend any time at all using unencrypted wi-fi networks at hotels and coffee shops, you need a VPN. Public connections are fine for reading news headlines and checking sports scores, but cannot be considered safe for e-mail, online banking, making purchases, or anything that involves a username and a password. A VPN, which encrypts that traffic from prying eyes, is the only way to make them safe.

Here’s how to set up a VPN that’s good enough for personal use. All you need is a home Internet connection, a computer at home, and the laptop you take on the road.

Of course corporations can set up VPNs that are much faster and much more robust, but this is something you can set up in a couple of hours on a weekend afternoon without spending anything.

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The 15-second rule and other (non) myths

The 15-second rule and other (non) myths

Cnet investigated some computer wise tales, myths, conventional wisdom, or whatever else you want to call it. The one I take the most issue with is the 15-second rule. They asked Geek Squad, and, as a long, long-ago Best Buy employee, the answer they gave to the 15-second rule is, well, what I would expect. Read more

Save energy and money with smart power strips

I stumbled across this money-saving tip today. A company called Bits Limited sells “smart” power strips. Here’s how they work: You plug a device into one of the plugs, and when you turn that device on, it switches power on to other outlets. The strip also figures out how much energy the device uses when it’s off, so when it senses you’ve turned that device off, it cuts power to those other outlets.

Here’s an obvious use: Plug your TV into the master outlet, then plug your VCR, DVD player, cable box (or powered antenna if you’re a cable-hating tightwad like me) into the autoswitching outlets.The reason these strips work is because most home appliances use power even when they’re switched off. A powered-off TV uses power because part of it has to stay on all the time waiting for you to hit the power button on your remote. The same thing is true of your DVD player, VCR, and anything else that has a remote. Any device that uses a plug-in “wall wart” transformer is also consuming power. The transformer chews up a watt or two even if the device it powers is turned off.

So if you can bring yourself to walk over to the TV to turn it on rather than using the remote, you can buy the cheapest $31 model for each TV in your house and plug your stuff into that. (To save more money, check for refurbs.)

The manufacturer states one of these devices can save you $11.55 a month, on average, when used with a computer.

The savings won’t be as high with other devices like TVs, but you can expect to save a few dollars and in the summer, you’ll save slightly more because those devices won’t be generating excess heat that your air conditioner has to dissipate. Each strip you buy should pay for itself in less than a year.

Plus, those wall warts will last longer if power is cut to them when they aren’t in use. I’ve come across numerous “broken” old-school video game machines whose only problem was a burned-out wall wart. Replacements can be pricey ($10-$20), so if these power strips save you from having to replace two of those over the lifetime of the unit, they pay for themselves right there.

The company also sells beefier units with more outlets and more protection intended for computers. The idea there is you can plug the computer in, and when you turn your computer off, it will automatically shut off your monitor, printer, and any other peripherals you have in order to save power.

I have mixed feelings on using these with computers. From an energy consumption standpoint, having a computer powered on all the time is comparable to having the lights on in the room all the time–and we’re talking old-fashioned incandescents here, not CFLs. So plugging your computer into one of these devices and turning it off when you’re not using it would save a lot of power. While computer monitors should be turned off when not in use, there’s nothing worse for the computer itself than turning it off and on repeatedly. I leave my computers on all the time, and in the last 10 years, I’ve had two hardware failures. One was a hard drive crash in a laptop (very difficult to avoid), and the other was a dead power supply in an HP Pavillion desktop after a power failure. As underpowered as that power supply was, that failure probably was inevitable too. Two failures in 10 years is a pretty good record.

Electricity is expensive, but computer failures are expensive too. I prefer to leave my computers on, save power where I can (I own several computers but they all only print to one printer, for example), and maximize my computers’ life expectancy.

I’m thinking very seriously about at least ordering one of these for the living-room television. It won’t pay for itself as quickly as the programmable thermostat did, but they only cost about $5-$10 more than a traditional power strip with comparable protection ratings. If I look at them as a $10 investment instead of a $30 investment, they’ll pay for themselves pretty fast.

I did go looking for other manufacturers. It appears that Fellowes made these in the past but has discontinued them. For now, it appears Bits Ltd’s offerings are the easiest ones to find. It would be nice if that changed.

A crude way to get some of the benefit of these is to use an electrical outlet timer. Plug the timer into the wall, plug your power strip into the timer (assuming the timer has a grounded outlet), then set the timer to cut the power off at night. The savings won’t be as dramatic, but if you happen to have a timer or two around the house to control Christmas lights, you might as well put them to use saving you some money during the other 10 months of the year.

Upgrade diary: Compaq Presario 7360

Last week, I talked about my plans to upgrade a Presario 7360. I can now present you with the executive summary.
This isn’t a project for the faint of heart or the inexperienced. Upgrading is certainly possible, but this is one of the most difficult upgrade projects I’ve ever done, and this is coming from a guy who’s done a lot of upgrades. I can honestly say that for every soda I’ve drunk over the past seven years, I’ve probably serviced one computer.

With today being New Year’s Day and me having the day off (mostly), I decided to tackle the project. If you’re stuck with doing major upgrades to a 7360, make sure you’ve got a long block of time where you won’t be interrupted.

Caveat 1: The first question is how to get the old motherboard out in order to do anything. You’ll have to, unless your hands are about half the size of mine (and my hands are smaller than average). Remove the two screws from the underside of the motherboard, then find a couple of convenient spots to grab onto, and pull the assembly toward the front of the case. The board will then fold out, like a door.

Caveat 2: The factory power supply is woefully underpowered. It might very well fail if all you add to the system is a CD-RW drive. And there’s no way it’ll work with a modern Athlon or P4 motherboard. Fortunately, 200-watt SFX power supplies, while not necessarily something every streetcorner computer store carries, are much more common today than they were even two years ago. Newegg.com carries a suitable replacement for around $25. Look for an Allied AL-B200SFX. Not only is it 200 watts, it’s also certified for P4 and Athlon use.

Caveat 3: If you haven’t yet gotten the idea that this case is crowded, the position of the drive bays makes it difficult for a modern Socket 478/Socket A CPU fan to fit without moving the hard drive. After replacing the motherboard, I had to bust out the hard drive, open up the slot intended for a Zip drive, and slide the drive in from the front in order for it to fit, then bolt the drive into place and replace that slot’s front cover.

Caveat 4: The front panel. Like many brand-name PCs, this Presario puts the front power button and all the LED leads in one easy-to-plug-in block. Unfortunately, there’s no industry standard pinout for that front panel. I happen to have two Compaq Socket A motherboards purchased from various closeout joints. Those two boards, and the Socket 7 board that originally came in this Presario, all have different pinouts. You’ll have to rewire that block, and it’ll involve some trial and error. Assume this part of the job will take an hour or two.

Caveat 5: Airflow. Add a second optical drive or hard drive or both to this thing, and there’s not going to be much room for airflow. Don’t upgrade with a high-end CPU.

Caveat 6: Clearance. The first HSF combo I tried was 2 inches tall. It didn’t fit, and there was no way to make it fit, unless I permanently removed the drive cage that holds the floppy and hard drives. I replaced it with a Speeze 5C12B3, which fit. The first memory stick I tried was 1.375 inches tall. It didn’t fit either–I had to locate a shorter one.

Overall recommendation: If you can upgrade this thing, you have my respect. I got one working, but mainly because I had a larger-than-usual selection of parts on hand. If this had been my first attempt at doing a motherboard swap, I would have sworn off the practice forever.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re much better off buying an inexpensive replacement computer and relegating your 7360 to Web browing/e-mail duty, or donating it to a charitable organization that gives computers to the needy if your community has one (St. Louis does–Web Innovations and Technology Services, at 4660 West Florissant Avenue). Unless you tear into computers for a living, I wouldn’t recommend attempting a motherboard swap in this computer.

A safe way to test power supplies

A safe way to test power supplies

Sometimes when a computer refuses to power up, it’s due to the power supply going bad. Here’s a safe way to test power supplies.

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