[Rant] I really don't need a mobile charger

Few weeks ago, I bought a Lightning cable for my iPhone 5S. At first I was in a dilemma whether to buy just the cable or buy a mobile charger. I could use the cable to charge the phone at work. The chances of me needing a mobile charger was slim. The iPhone 5S's battery is very good (compared to my iPhone 4S) and with a full charge I could survive a day easily. The issue would be me forgetting to charge the phone the night before. Very seldom we go out on a long trip (like once in a year). 

Today something unexpected happened. I had plugged in my phone to charge in the morning because we were planning to out. But for some weird reason, it didn't get charged even though the phone was detected by Windows and I could even browse the camera roll from explorer. But the phone never got charged. 

I only found out about this "situation" about 15 minutes before the time we were planning to leave home. There wasn't much time to even charge it with the wall charger but I had to do that. The phone was only carrying 5% charge!!! But as always my wife took her sweet time to get dressed and I managed to charge the battery to 32%. But that's not enough for me. We will be mainly shopping so that means the phone will have a big role to play!!!

Before shopping, we were planning to go to a Sri Lankan restaurant in Naka-Meguro. Then it came to me that if I took the tablet with me,

I could charge the phone from the tablet while we were having lunch. It's bad manners to use the phone at the dining table anyways.

So I took the tablet (luckily it had like 90% charge left) and the Lightning cable (the original one, because the one I bought is at the office) with me and did exactly what I was planning to do. I only managed to charge it up to like 35% from like 18%. I managed to drain the battery from 32% ti 18% while on the way to the restaurant. I browsed a bit, used Google Maps from Musashi Kosugi station and wrote part of this post on the phone. 

Yes I know 35% battery is not much. And I probably won't be able to survive with just that most of the times. But it was better than nothing. However, since I took the backpack with me, I was able to charge the phone while I was using the phone. The tablet inside the backpack and the cable coming out of the backpack to charge the phone. The cable was long enough. And it was not getting in the way either. I could even charge the phone while the phone was in my pocket. It's just great. It is same as using a mobile charger actually. Just a bit bigger. I stopped charging when I got to 40% charge and I was able to do just fine with that much remaining battery life.

If I had an iPad I wouldn't be able to do this. That is not to say that I'm totally happy with my tablet though. Atom CPU and the eMMC storage solution suck big time!

By the way, I fixed the charging issue by uninstalling iTunes and uninstalling the Apple Mobile Device driver from Device Manager and then reinstalling iTunes.

[Article] Managed to install Windows 8 on my Dell Latitude 10 tablet after all

It's yet another blog post about my tablet woes. It's almost ready to be sent for repairs but there was one issue. I never mentioned to them (Dell support) that I had Windows 8.1 Preview installed on my tablet. While I don't think that is the cause of all the issues I've been having, especially the touch screen issue, there was a good chance they would put the blame on me if I mentioned it to them. They'll just say they cannot support Windows 8.1 especially on Preview state, and that I'm on my own. They are all the same. They never accept it as their fault. Neither do we, but hey, the customer is always right.

So as a last resort onmy end, I wanted to re-install Windows and see what will happen. I tried to boot off the bootable Windows 8 32bit USB stick that I just created but for some reason the POST screen never allowed me to change the boot device nor get into BIOS. Usually it shows a message saying press F2 to enter BIOS and press F12 for boot options. I don't know why it didn't show them. 

Forgot to mention one thing though. Since I didn't have the touch screen working, I had to connect my G15 keyboard to the sole USB port on the tablet and plug in the mouse and the USB stick to the two USB ports on the keyboard. Thank goodness for these new gaming keyboards coming with USB ports. And mine isn't new either. I've had it for 4 years and I got it second hand too. But the darn thing only has USB1.1 ports so it was horrendously slow.

[Unboxing] Got my Leap Motion controller and it’s time to unbox it

When I came home from work today, I was greeted with a package. At first I didn’t recognize what it was. In a few seconds, I figured out it was the Leap Motion controller. I thought they only dispatched it on 23rd and it would take a few days to receive it. I had preordered it (a year ago in fact) and they seems to have shipped it to us first.

I will review it in a few days after using it. The first impressions aren’t that great actually, and the reviewers also seems to agree with that, mostly because I didn’t really know what to use it for. I love my trusty keyboard and mouse. It needs a better control panel.

But for now, you will have to be satisfied with an unboxing photo-shoot.

		Leap Motion Controller -Unboxing VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

That last pic shows how I am currently using it. Keeping it between the monitor and keyboard makes it not that effective because of the distance. I would have to lean forward to operate it if I keep it there. That is a very uncomfortable experience. Ideally, I believe this should be integrated to keyboards. Perhaps that area where the Logitech logo is placed on the keyboard. (refer last pic) That would not only make it out of the way, but also lessen the cable clutter. After all, it is another USB port wasted and a new cable added to the grand haul of half a down cable on the desk.