GoodBytes

It must be noted that the GPU doesn't suffer the same problem as the GTX 970 on the desktop with its memory, as it has only 3GB of memory, for those that wonder, as per Anandtech article.

I have a Surface Pro 2 and it is my daily driver. And I mean daily driver.

• Bending the touch/type cover back will randomly cause your Surface to reboot.

Not suppose to happen. There is a short that is occurring. Ensure that the contacts are clean on both side. Use rubbing alcohol. If that doesn't help, contact Microsoft for a warranty replacement of the keyboard (hopefully it is not the Surface pro 2 itself)

• Touch screen often becomes unresponsive, happens a lot when running Chrome.

Not supposed to happen. I don't use Chrome, but if I play say Civ 5, it works fine.

If it happens when you are on battery, that is the CPU that can't keep up with the processing of the touch screen and Chrome. Or if it only in Chrome that is not responsive, then the problem is Chrome. I don't use Chrome, but it EATS my Pro 2 battery life, like it did on my laptops. It is a horrible web browser. You should use something else. ANY web browser will do. For max battery life, based on reviews, IE11 is the best with considerable margins and has the best touch screen support, and high-DPI support, but it is IE11.

• Windows all together just crashes. (Even after a system restore)

I am assuming no BSOD, and just a crash. Never had it crashed. DO a system refresh (wipe everything, re-install Windows), update Windows to the max, and see if you have your crashing problem. Avoid installing programs.

• If you leave the Surface plugged in while it's fully charged in sleep-mode, you will hear a tazer-like buzzing.

Coil whine noise. Nothing you do about it. My laptop did the same the PSU and system. Even a high pitch sound if you come your head close to teh keyboard when on idle on battery. Replace your Surface Pro or change electric grid (change state/province/country) to hopefully correct the problem, but expect the problem to be something else somewhere else.

• You cannot move icon's all the way to the right even though there is room.

Windows. By design.

• The mouse randomly disappears and needs a restart to fix the issue.

You installed a program that does this. I had this problem with Mousewithout borders on random.

Like huilun02 mentioned, the GPU needs to pump 60Hz (not fps, just be exact), and as they are not cloned, the GPU needs to work harder to deliver this. The reality is that it doesn't need to clock faster (unless the GPU is too weak to handle the 2 monitor at minimum speed), but it is a limitation on the GPU in handling 2 things at once. It is difficult to implement a power management solution to handle multiple monitor, basically.

It doesn't mean, however, that Nvidia and AMD is not doing anything about it. So, depending on the GPU model and generation, it will have a different behavior.

The only real fix, is 1x graphics card per monitor. Forcing the GPU at minimum speed, will make one of the display flicker, due to the inability to send a continuous video signal. You can try.

In my experience it's the other way around.

The people buying cheap tablets try to make them last, while people who buy 'flagship' tablets/phones buy them because of the image and so they upgrade after each iteration so as not to be 'left behind'.

Or instead of keeping the image, because they need the performance or battery life, something true with Windows powered tablets, due to CPU technology improving, and other components power efficiency.

Sales of tablet computers have stagnate in 2014, reports DailyTech.

In Q4 2014, the PC market contracted slightly, shrinking 2.4 percent on a year to year basis, according to market research data from the International Data Corp. (IDC). Tablets, were even worse, though, shrinking 3.2 percent in sales on quarterly year-on-year (YoY) basis, according to the IDC's Tablet Tracker.

In Q4 2014, the IDC estimates that 76.1 million tablets were sold, compared to 80.7 million PCs.

Apple, the one that brought the tablet popularity and hype are among the looser.

Its official sales figures showed sales of the iPad declining nearly 18 percent on a YoY basis. Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), though, saw an even more precipitous fall with sales of its Kindle tablet line dropping nearly 70 percent.

For the quarter, only The Lenovo Group, Ltd. (HKG:0992) managed to sustain growth in the tablet space among the top five OEMs. On a full year basis, only Lenovo and Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd.(KRX:005930) (KRX:005935) sustained growth (although Samsung was roughly flat at 1.1 percent year-to-year growth and saw a bigger drop than Apple in Q4 sales).

The winners in the tablet space is Lenovo, Google, and Microsoft. Microsoft Surface Pro 3 has brought over 1 billion dollar revenue for the company based on their latest report.

Source: http://www.dailytech.com/Its+Official+the+Tablet+Market+is+Stagnant/article37123.htm

I see that people who wanted a tablet got one, but based on Lenovo and Microsoft sales, to me it suggests that people switch to productivity tablets. Tablets running Windows, where they can use it an ultrabook as well, running their Windows desktop programs. If that is true, Windows 10 will be a great success for Microsoft. But we have to wait to see, as it is too early to jump on such conclusion on my part.

If Google was smart, they would make a certification program of sort where if the manufacture uses Android stock OS, Google can send directly OS updates, and carriers won't need "testing", and Google has the power to put their foot down and by-pass upgrading from the carrier. Plug the phone on your PC, download the updater and run it. The certification can have a tag that manufactures can use for identification of such product

Now if others want to modify, then too bad for them, it is their problem in maintaining the OS. So either they do a good job, or people will choose the stock Android to get all the OS updates.

Agree. The worst, is that Target bought the reject stock from Zeller AFTER their liquidation, and put that in their shelf. No one wanted to buy it when it was dirt cheap, you think now they'll buy it?

The shelf were empty, it looks like they made 0 negotiations with manufacture. Wallmart which doesn't even have that good pricing on many products, has better prices than Target. To be honest I did found some select product cheaper than anywhere else, especially the special retail package of 2 products in 1. But that is less than 1-2% of everything being sold in store.

They didn't have a website, and lets not even forget that their flyers were crap: "30% off".. ok but that is the price? Nobody knows. Then you go there and you realize "Oh its not even on special, it is just regular price... that was disappointed." Disappointed should NEVER be a reaction I get when I go to a store, especially for first impression.

And I gave Target, as a consumer, MANY chances, and every time I go, disappointed and wonder why I did the trip. Employee started to be helpful, and energetic, but you can see that if you go now, they don't really care. Zellers deja-vue. The worst part is that I used to go at Zellers. It wasn't that bad, and for console games and accessories, they had US pricing! Or at worst, very close to! I did massive savings!

So does that mean that Target will sale products at the same prices as other Canadian stores, instead of being over priced? WOW! I just can't wait.

Usually, stores that liquidate, despite a few items to get customers in, liquidations are usually not a great deal, as they try to pay their debts the most they can.

Energize presents the first alkaline battery which is made from recycled Alkaline batteries, and that is high performance. The batteries will be sold in stores as the EcoAdvanced series, and available in: AA and AAA formats.

These batteries only contain 4% recycle alkaline batteries, but it is the step in the right direction.

The company says its the first major brand to introduce such a product, and says it spent seven years researching the process to prove the economic case for recycling. "Today there is a bottleneck [in processing]," Michelle Atkinson, Energizer’s chief marketing officer told The Wall Street Journal, explaining that many recycling firms don't bother with alkaline batteries. "[but] because we have created economic value for this output, that is going to enable more processing to come online."

Says, The Verge.

The company says that they are aiming 40% recycle alkaline by 2025.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/3/7969031/recycled-energizer-batteries-eco-advanced

I thought Radio Shack died out already lol?

very cheap buy for amazon

Amazon. Yes, they were in financial trouble in the past 2 years, and now they are closing down officially.

Amazon reportedly wants to buy RadioShack stores to have retail stores. RadioShack is closing its doors after 94 years. Sprint is also interested in buying some stores from Radio Shack. Apparently, Amazon is in talks with RadioShack to make a deal. We don't know the details, and if Amazon wants some or all or just a select few stores.

Bloomberg says that Amazon is considering using the stores as showrooms for its hardware and possibly other popular products ordered from Amazon, and as pick-up and drop-off centers for items purchased online. Both companies refuses to comment on this.

Apparently, Amazon wants to compete with Apple in the retail space. Apple stores have been a great success for the company, and Amazon wants the same, and compete in term of revenue against Apple.

Where tech competitors like Apple have maintained a glitzy retail presence in shopping areas for years, Amazon has kept most of its storefronts online, only occasionally opening pop-up stores in malls to show off specific hardware. The company has apparently toyed with the idea of a physical presence on shopping streets — reports surfaced late last year claimed that the company would open a store in New York's Midtown in time for the holidays, but the store never materialized.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/3/7968949/amazon-reportedly-buying-bankrupt-radioshack-stores-apple-competition

Back in October, Google releases Android 5.0, and people were excited in getting it. But after 3 months later, it only gain 1.6% of market share.

 

 

 

 

The company's latest figures show that Android 5.0 is now installed on 1.6% of Android devices - a considerable leap compared with last month, when the proportion of devices running Lollipop was below 0.1%. However, the data also shows that the number of devices running Android 4.4 KitKat also grew very slightly - up to 39.7%, from 39.1% last month. Even so, that growth was much smaller than in the month before that, when the KitKat user base had increased from 33.9%.

reports Neowin

 

Did people changed their mind and don't want it, or is Google discovering the problems it is starting to have in his hands, where manufactures need to spend money in working on each phone they have practically, to update the OS on all of them, and service providers needed to "test it" before releasing it, or more likely manufacture and carrier actually want you to buy new phones instead and delay the process as much as possible. Whatever the case, Google recently found that it has trouble supporting older Android OS versions with a critical security issue, that is only 2 years old, despite having most users on it. (http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/289583-google-wont-patch-security-hole-affecting-1-billion-users-on-android-despite-bashing-on-microsoft/)

 

 

Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/over-three-months-after-its-launch-lollipop-is-now-on-just-16-of-android-devices

Maybe the adapter is broken and the monitor can't communicate it's resolution so the graphics card reverts to it's minimal resolution. Or the VGA cable is broken.

I don't know, but the idea is the same. Flicker the back light to trick your eyes in seeing a sharper image. Now if it does things with the panel, I don't know. But that is the main idea.

Nvidia Lightboost was aimed for its 3D glasses to make the image appear brighter when you use the 3D glasses. It is a "hack" (turn it on without 3D glasses) that you can enable it by itself, and just happen to do this "blur reduction" effect.

Either can cause headaches due to strobe light effect on the panel.

I recommend: stop with the tricks, look for a genuinely fast panel by reading in depth monitor review sites which proper measures response time.

You cannot upgrade a signal just like that. When HDMI was made, they didn't see in the future on how DisplayPort would work, so that it can adapt itself in sending the DisplayPort signal on HDMI, so that the adapter corrects the plug, and you are all set to go. You can only downgrade.

So no you cannot do what you want to do. What you might be able to find is an active adapter. A box that requires power to convert the HDMI signal it receives and upgrades it to DisplayPort (expect input lag for this). It is also costly (as you have a chip/processor inside to do the conversion) and you are limited to HDMI specifications. A quick look on Amazon, I didn't find such box, only the reverse, which is what you don't want.

phpBB has a lot of documentation on how to get started.

https://www.phpbb.com/downloads/

Extract the zip files on your system, and upload it to your web hosting server that you are renting in the folder where you want it say: "forum", so you have <domain>/forum, to access it. Or put it on the root, and then you just have the forum (note that you can't move the forum afterwards, so carefully make your decision.. ok you CAN move it, but it really not easy). The web host that you use should have MySQL, PHP, Apache, and so on, all setup for you and ready to go.

Then visit your website where the forum is, and the setup will show. Just follow it, and you'll be all setup.

Like I said, I have never done it before. So I don't know. And I don't have any AMD graphics card to know.

But yes, once the firmware is flashed, you need to switch CSM to disable, and re-install Windows (delete all partitions in Windows setup, and recreate them to be GPT, you should see 3 partitions)

What if I need to reinstall over a year later and I only have 8.1 media?

The same way you do with any Windows Update since Windows 7 Upgrade and up.

1- Insert Windows Upgrade disk, and do a clean install

2- Change a value in the registry, rearm the activation, and restart

3- Activate Windows.

As for the media, do like how Windows 8.1 users have done for the 40$ upgrade disk of Windows 8 Pro.

When you first download the purchased ISO from Microsoft, back it up, and don't throw away the burn disk.

Did you try Windows System restore to bring back the system in time where your keyboard and mouse worked?

Can you remote desktop in some fashion to your computer so that you can use the system?

So what I thought it was, is that Avast had a false positive and thought that the keyboard and mouse Windows drivers is a virus and deleted them, so now you can't use either, and Windows can't get any drivers. It was corrected quickly (too bad for the affected people), as it seams, but you have AVG.

OneDrive for me. The integration with Windows and Office, (and soon XBox Music, including sync your own music), is simply a must have.

You can do all that GoogleDrive can do, plus you can use Office online in your web browser, free for all (Office 365 or not), and your documents won't screw up.

I use Google Drive for collaboration work since Google Docs allows multiple users editing the same document at the same time. I find that very useful. Perfect for students.

You can do that with OneDrive

Apple will convert its Sapphire manufacturing plant that failed to produce glass for Apple due to a combination of miss management on both Apple and GT Advanced Technologies side, and GT Advanced Technologies inability to mass produce it's glass for Apple iPhone.

 

Apple will be investing $2 billion dollars to convert the plant into a data center.

 

Apple initially built the plant for GT Advanced Technologies, which Apple forwarded a bunch of money to so that it could start building furnaces and churning out a ton of sapphire. The plant would have been an beautiful cog in Apple's supply chain — located in the US and able to provide it with enough sapphire to use on displays for many of its gadgets — but as it turned out, GTAT couldn't actually make that much sapphire, and it quickly filed for bankruptcy. Though that leaves GTAT in a bad spot, Apple seems to have found a way to repurpose its existing investments. With cloud services becoming increasingly important in Apple's software, a new data center certainly can't hurt.

 

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7965879/apple-sapphire-plant-turning-into-data-center

For Windows 10 Preview users will be able to upgrade to the official one, but I highly recommend to clean install. You really don't want beta OS stuff coming over the official build. Start clean -> no headaches.

So you have an account at some social networking site called Playfire, and someone else is using your account, essentially compromised your account, posting stuff in your name and stuff.

 

Changing password and using a strong password will correct the problem. If the problem is not solved, contact Playfire as the site might be facing a security issue.

Microsoft is another company joining Google, Taboola, and Amazon, to pay to not have AdBlock Plus lock their add with the default black list.

Online advertising is a $120 billion business, and AdBlock Plus wants a piece of the pie.

 

 

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Taboola have all paid to have advertisements go unblocked on their websites for users that are running Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus, unsurprisingly, blocks ads, unless a company pays Eyeo, the company that produces Adblock Plus, or meets certain conditions. If companies are forthright that they are posting advertisements and the ads are deemed as not disruptive they can be added to a ‘whitelist’ that allows them to go unblocked but being placed on the white list is only free if they are a smaller website. It but comes at a cost for larger companies.

Online advertising is a $120 billion business and blocking ads has been a controversial subject. Websites often only make money off of advertisement and the amount that they can charge advertisers is dependent upon how many viewers their site receives

 

Source: http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-others-pay-have-ads-go-unblocked-through-adblock-plus