The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

One of the things I wanted for a while was an Android tablet that could replace a laptop when traveling with a smaller, lighter device. Because of the sorts of things I do, this meant a 10" screen to have enough screen real estate.

I previously got a 10" tablet from a vendor called Azpen. Azpen has annoyances - they are constantly fiddling with the design and introducing new models, insist in installing bloatware as system apps that can't be uninstalled via normal add/remove, and the one I got ran Marshmallow which I've been unable to find a rooting solution for that worked, so I couldn't remove the crap - just disable it. There was enough storage that I could afford the space the bloat took, but there were other annoyances that would have made me pass on that model had I known what they did that time.

It suffered a hardware failure, so I went looking. eBay had various folks selling pre-owned RCA Viking Pro devices. RCA is long gone, but an outfit called Also seems to own the trademark, and are producing consumer electronics under the RCA brand.

The Viking Pro is a 10" tablet with an included keyboard. It uses a 1.3ghz quad core Mediatek CPU (ARM Cortex7 design), Mali graphics driving a 1280x800 screen, 32GB of internal storage, Wifi, and Bluetooth. It has microUSB and full sized USB ports, an HDMI port, a microSD card slot for external storage, and a separate power connector. The one I got runs Lollipop 5.0. That was deliberate, because I wanted to root it. What I got cost under $40 including shipping.

There were some pleasant surprises. One was that the full sized USB port would recognize and access USB thumb drives and let me transfer data to and from them. As a test, I plugged in a 4 port hub with a USB mouse and three thumb drives, and it saw and used them all. (The keyboard has a touchpad, but I loathe them.) Another was the microSD card slot. The on device manual said it could take up to a 32GB card. On impulse, I inserted a 64GB card I'd gotten for the failed Azpen, and it saw and used it. The 32GB limit is a hardware thing - SDHC slots have that volume size limitation. It appears there was an engineering change to make that an SDXC slot which handles larger volumes, but that never got communicated to the folks who wrote the manual. (The manual does say specs are subject to change without notice... )

The device came with preinstalled software, as expected. Some of it was stuff I'd install anyway, like the Chrome browser for Android, and the WPS Office suite. (Oddly, it also included Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.) Other things included the Opera Android browser, and apps for VUDU, Sam's Club, and Walmart, as well as Google Books/Game/Music etc. Opera, Sam's Club, VUDU and Walmart could just be uninstalled. The others are System apps.

And there were some curiosities. The only thing that the microUSB slot appears usable for is charging. It doesn't recognize anything plugged into it. This seems to be deliberate, to prevent folks from doing things like hooking a desktop to the machine via an OTG adapter, and doing things using ADB to root it.

This meant I couldn't root from the PC as I normally do. I would need one of the on device solutions where you install an apk and it attempts to root. The one available from Kingoroot, my preferred rooting solution, bounced off. The one from competitor King Root worked, but has annoyances. One is that it really wants to install other stuff I don't want/need. Another it that it makes it a chore to find out what has root permissions. A third is dialog boxes saying something wants root but not always saying what it is. A fourth is not remembering something has been granted root and asking again. And last, it wants to establish connections and phone home back to Shenzen. (That was easy enough to counter. Since I have a rooted device, I could run AFWall+, a GUI interface to the Linux IPTables firewall function, and create a rule to block outgoing access from King Root.)

If you can install another superuser app (my preference is Chainfire's SuperSu), you can uninstall King Root and still have a rooted device. But King Root camps out on the su binary and won't let SuperSu replace it. Kicking King Root off so you can install SuperSU is possible, but requires a complex process which I am exploring now.

The attached photos are it set up on the workbench, and a screenshot. I use Nova Launcher as my launcher, and am a minimalist.

So far, with quirks as noted, I'm happy.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Ahhh, but what a missed opportunity, in retrospect!

He didn't seem to upset about it. He had established business, home, and family. He couldn't just pack up and go who knew where for 6 months.

I know another chap in Boston who is a major Batman fan. He decided to make the costume from the last Batman film that Batman would have worn if he really existed, including Kevlar body armor and titanium fittings.

It got noticed, and he was contacted by a woman in Hollywood working for an FX company who wanted him to move the the West Coast and work for them. He said "Sorry, but I'm an upholsterer for a living and like what I do, and I have a house, wife, and kid in school. I really don't want to uproot." She understood, but said "We're thinking of opening an office in Boston, and if we do, you'll hear from me again."

I have a California cousin who says he was offered a job in the early 1980's, working with two Steves in a garage, making some new computer.

<shrug> I don't know what he was doing instead, but saying no was likely the correct decision. We can't all cast our fate to the wind.
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Dennis

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

... he was contacted by a woman in Hollywood working for an FX company who wanted him to move the the West Coast...

Why would a forex trader want a costume maker ?

BR

[DMcCunney]

[QUOTE=BetterRed;3830488]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Why would a forex trader want a costume maker ?

I can think of a few reasons centered around concealing identity...
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Dennis

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

So, what bit of technology has annoyed you today?

Right button down DnD wasn't working yesterday, so I posted on MS for any clues. Got a long cut and paste screed suggesting all the usual crap - check mouse driver, reinstall window blah blah blah. Got another one with someone's Mouse settings, and another one telling me to use a different mouse.

But not one of the four responders gave any indication as to whether right button down DnD was working on there rigs. Maybe they all use one button mice.

But its working today - I had a feeling it was intermittent - grhhh.

BR

[Dylrob]

This built-in flat top is bloody annoying. The dials are level with the surface, and all too close to my sink, making it all too easy for water to get inside. And of course once it does, the breaker goes off and I have to leave the whole thing unplugged until it dries out.

[badgoodDeb]

Kluge fixes: erect a cutting board vertically between the range and the sink? If there is a gap there. Or, drape a plastic silicone hot mat over the controls, permanently (except when cooking). The use of silicone should make it not catch fire, even if you forget for a bit.

I've had tea towels draped (messily) across my counters for 5 years, cuz the cat likes to chew on wires. So all wires are covered and out of sight.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

One of the things I wanted for a while was an Android tablet that could replace a laptop when traveling with a smaller, lighter device. Because of the sorts of things I do, this meant a 10" screen to have enough screen real estate.

I previously got a 10" tablet from a vendor called Azpen. Azpen has annoyances - they are constantly fiddling with the design and introducing new models, insist in installing bloatware as system apps that can't be uninstalled via normal add/remove, and the one I got ran Marshmallow which I've been unable to find a rooting solution for that worked, so I couldn't remove the crap - just disable it. There was enough storage that I could afford the space the bloat took, but there were other annoyances that would have made me pass on that model had I known what they did that time.

It suffered a hardware failure, so I went looking. eBay had various folks selling pre-owned RCA Viking Pro devices. RCA is long gone, but an outfit called Also seems to own the trademark, and are producing consumer electronics under the RCA brand.

The Viking Pro is a 10" tablet with an included keyboard. It uses a 1.3ghz quad core Mediatek CPU (ARM Cortex7 design), Mali graphics driving a 1280x800 screen, 32GB of internal storage, Wifi, and Bluetooth. It has microUSB and full sized USB ports, an HDMI port, a microSD card slot for external storage, and a separate power connector. The one I got runs Lollipop 5.0. That was deliberate, because I wanted to root it. What I got cost under $40 including shipping.

There were some pleasant surprises. One was that the full sized USB port would recognize and access USB thumb drives and let me transfer data to and from them. As a test, I plugged in a 4 port hub with a USB mouse and three thumb drives, and it saw and used them all. (The keyboard has a touchpad, but I loathe them.) Another was the microSD card slot. The on device manual said it could take up to a 32GB card. On impulse, I inserted a 64GB card I'd gotten for the failed Azpen, and it saw and used it. The 32GB limit is a hardware thing - SDHC slots have that volume size limitation. It appears there was an engineering change to make that an SDXC slot which handles larger volumes, but that never got communicated to the folks who wrote the manual. (The manual does say specs are subject to change without notice... )

The device came with preinstalled software, as expected. Some of it was stuff I'd install anyway, like the Chrome browser for Android, and the WPS Office suite. (Oddly, it also included Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.) Other things included the Opera Android browser, and apps for VUDU, Sam's Club, and Walmart, as well as Google Books/Game/Music etc. Opera, Sam's Club, VUDU and Walmart could just be uninstalled. The others are System apps.

And there were some curiosities. The only thing that the microUSB slot appears usable for is charging. It doesn't recognize anything plugged into it. This seems to be deliberate, to prevent folks from doing things like hooking a desktop to the machine via an OTG adapter, and doing things using ADB to root it.

This meant I couldn't root from the PC as I normally do. I would need one of the on device solutions where you install an apk and it attempts to root. The one available from Kingoroot, my preferred rooting solution, bounced off. The one from competitor King Root worked, but has annoyances. One is that it really wants to install other stuff I don't want/need. Another it that it makes it a chore to find out what has root permissions. A third is dialog boxes saying something wants root but not always saying what it is. A fourth is not remembering something has been granted root and asking again. And last, it wants to establish connections and phone home back to Shenzen. (That was easy enough to counter. Since I have a rooted device, I could run AFWall+, a GUI interface to the Linux IPTables firewall function, and create a rule to block outgoing access from King Root.)

If you can install another superuser app (my preference is Chainfire's SuperSu), you can uninstall King Root and still have a rooted device. But King Root camps out on the su binary and won't let SuperSu replace it. Kicking King Root off so you can install SuperSU is possible, but requires a complex process which I am exploring now.

The attached photos are it set up on the workbench, and a screenshot. I use Nova Launcher as my launcher, and am a minimalist.

So far, with quirks as noted, I'm happy.
______
Dennis

Did you try reformatting the 64 Gb chip as SDHC (that is simply Fat 32). It usually works for me. You can reformat up to at least 512 GB chips. . .

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Did you try reformatting the 64 Gb chip as SDHC (that is simply Fat 32). It usually works for me. You can reformat up to at least 512 GB chips. . .

Stuoid question--has anyone tried rooting and using the Kindle Fire 10" Droid tablet?

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Did you try reformatting the 64 Gb chip as SDHC (that is simply Fat 32). It usually works for me. You can reformat up to at least 512 GB chips. . .

No.

SDHC vs SDXC are hardware specifications for the slot the card plugs into. See https://www.sdcard.org/developers/ov...ity/index.html

SDHC slots have a 32GB volume size limitation. If you have larger volumes, you need SDXC or SDUC to successfully mount and read them. The file system on the card is irrelevant. The volume size limit will apply regardless.

(As mentioned in my post, despite the fact that the manufacturer's on device manual stated a 32GB volume size limit, the device saw and used my 64GB card with no issues. There was apparently an engineering change for the slot hardware that never got communicated to the writers of the manual.)

And cards that large tend to come as exFAT, so redoing as FAT32 would have questionable benefit.

What tends to happen in newer Android tablets (running 6.0 Marshmallow or above) is that the device will offer to "adopt" the card. If you do that, the card is reformatted with the Linux ext4 filesystem Android uses. The drawback is that you can't then pop the card from the device, put it in an adapter, and access it from Windows, because Windows doesn't grok ext4 by default. (There is an open source third party driver that lets Windows access ext* file systems, but the vast majority of users won't be aware of it.)

I use the card strictly for storing data, so leaving it exFAT was fine.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Stuoid question--has anyone tried rooting and using the Kindle Fire 10" Droid tablet?

Yes. See https://www.reddit.com/r/kindlefire/..._a_fire_hd_10/
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes. See https://www.reddit.com/r/kindlefire/..._a_fire_hd_10/

And to expand a bit on this:

The original Kindle Fire got interest as a cheap Android tablet which could be rooted and converted from a dedicated Amazon access platform to a general purpose Android tablet. My suggestion was to go for the Nook tablet instead. It had better specs, (including a microSD card for up to 32GB of additional storage, which the Fire lacked), and would provide a happier experience.

(My SO got a Nook tablet to DL and read library books, but the app it used was changed and it no longer works for that. She hasn't used it in some time, so I may have a go at rooting it. I could use a decent 7" tablet as well as the current 10" model.)

Because Android uses a Linux kernel, which is issued under the Gnu Public License, stuff that links against the kernel also becomes GPLed. You could get the Kindle firmware from Amazon the last I looked. Doing anything with it required developer skills the vast majority of folks lacked, and setting up an Android development environment, which is a non-trivial undertaking, but it can be done.
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Dennis

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And to expand a bit on this:

The original Kindle Fire got interest as a cheap Android tablet which could be rooted and converted from a dedicated Amazon access platform to a general purpose Android tablet. My suggestion was to go for the Nook tablet instead. It had better specs, (including a microSD card for up to 32GB of additional storage, which the Fire lacked), and would provide a happier experience.

(My SO got a Nook tablet to DL and read library books, but the app it used was changed and it no longer works for that. She hasn't used it in some time, so I may have a go at rooting it. I could use a decent 7" tablet as well as the current 10" model.)

Because Android uses a Linux kernel, which is issued under the Gnu Public License, stuff that links against the kernel also becomes GPLed. You could get the Kindle firmware from Amazon the last I looked. Doing anything with it required developer skills the vast majority of folks lacked, and setting up an Android development environment, which is a non-trivial undertaking, but it can be done.
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Dennis

I converted my Kindle Fire HD a few years ago. It was slow as molasses.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

I converted my Kindle Fire HD a few years ago. It was slow as molasses.

Was it slow as molasses before or after rooting?

Rooting per se shouldn't slow it down. The question is where the speed bump was coming from.
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Dennis

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Was it slow as molasses before or after rooting?

Rooting per se shouldn't slow it down. The question is where the speed bump was coming from.
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Dennis

Oh no, I mean I gave it the full makeover. I initial tried just rooting, but still found it too limiting (also the auto updates kept removing my root), and the performance with Google Play store apps wasn’t great. So then I went and replaced the android build altogether.