Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro in Full, Original, Chinese Glory…

Posted on by dk

From the prelude to the current predicament: I have, on one hand, a powerful device with notable capabilities, but, on the other hand, appears to be plagued by Chinese dictatorship and possible unwarranted data gathering…

Putting aside personal political views and paranoia, does the Mi 5 Pro, in full unadulterated “China Stable ROM” glory, work?

2016/06/05 Update: The Global Stable version 7.3.5.0 of the ROM was launched, although it should be noted that if your device is on the China Stable ROM, then you will still need to unlock your boot loader, literally reformat the /data partition (i.e. losing all your information because the stupid China Stable 7.3.4.0 ROM does not give you the option to decrypt the partition) before installing the Global ROM. Depending on what time and inclination I have, I may try to install it and review this Global version (maybe in comparison to China Stable and EU ROM).

2016/07/31 Update: Other numerous Global ROM updates have since been released (the latest being “Global Stable 7.5.2.0“), and although my experience grows with multiple handsets being used as “daily drivers” (one with ROM version “Global Stable 7.3.10.0”, the other “Global Stable 7.5.1.0”), the below points have been updated and all other points are still relevant up to “Global Stable 7.5.1.0”.

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Forward Unto Dawn… of the Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro

Posted on by dk

Back at the start of May, I jumped on the chance to start using the Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro, which is my first experience with Xiaomi phones. In fact, other than a few of their respectable power banks, and a “not-completely-hacked-yet-to-do-what-I-want” Box 3rd Generation (which is due its own separate review/post; read the article if you are asking “what the heck is that?”); this is my first Xiaomi product.

Nevertheless, I will prattle for quite a bit before diving into the actual usage experience thereof, ranting for a bit and providing background as well. If you wish to skip this, just jump directly to the actual article.

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Going to the Dumb Side – Using the iPhone 6S

Posted on by dk

I hear gasps from certain friends whom thought I was always “anti-Apple”…

Just to be clear: I am not “anti-Apple”, and neither am I an Android/Windows/Nokia “fanboi”… I am simply “anti-inefficiency”, “anti-idiot” and am totally against the “control-freak”, “I-know-better-than-you” typical Apple attitude/products… It took ages before Mac die-hard idiots/”fanboi”s learned to control more than one finger on a mouse… It took ages before iPhone die-hard idiots/fanbois found out that alternative input methods/keyboards existed… For what it is worth, iPhone die-hard idiots/”fanboi”s still haven’t discovered single-handed navigation (needing to rely on the “screen shrinking” double-tap) – that needing to reach diagonally across the screen at any size just to tap the “back” button is just retarded with all that unused real-estate around the oh-so-Apple-Pay-secure fingerprint scanner.

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ANTLR4 with C# in Visual Studio 2015…

Posted on by dk

So, some three years after the site launch, we have used plenty of products, but with kids, family and work, little time to write about it…

Nevertheless, I had been experimenting with ANTLR4 for about over half a year now. I had initial issues setting it up due to the somewhat out-dated instructions available then. When I was “forced” to upgrade to Windows 10 and re-installed everything from scratch, I realised I had totally forgotten what the steps were to get ANTLR4 working with Visual Studio 2015…

Hence, in an effort to help others and as a reference to self, please find a step-by-step guide to using ANTLR4 (version 4.3.0 stable) with Visual Studio 2015 (Community Edition) (although the instructions should work for other VS editions as well).

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First Post!

Posted on by kw

Hello Everyone, this is our first post, not necessarily techie, but we all need to start somewhere.  In the near future, we will be looking at reviewing gadgets, IT equipment, software applications or basically anything that runs on electricity (that we have/used or using) and give you our point of views.

OK, so enough of the posting for now, let us dig up what gadgets we have or am using and let you know what we think how well (or not) they are.!