A Bluetooth speaker that I didn't realize I have: my Windows 8.1 Dell PC

There are times when I found the speaker of my mobile devices (my iPad 3, Nexus 5, Nexus 7, iPod Touch ....) is loud or clear enough, and yet I don't want to device to be tided down to a speaker with wire.  The best way I know so far is by using Bluetooth speaker.  So I started to look around, comparing price and so on.

But then I started to wonder: is it possible to use my Dell XPS PC running Windows 8.1 as a Bluetooth speaker, since I have my PC connected to my HiFi system, and it's on whenever I am at home anyway.

Turns out it's not only possible, but easier than I expected.

Here's how I pair up a device to my computer:

• On your Windows 8 computer, find the Bluetooth icon on system tray, right click, and select "Add a Bluetooth device".  It will switch you to the Metro setting screen.  
• Now the computer is trying to look for any pair-able device.  So you go to the mobile device (can be iOS or Android) you want to pair with, and make sure Bluetooth is on by going to Bluetooth setting.  You should see your computer name as a pair-able item.  
• Now go back to your computer, and you shall see your mobile device show up in the list.  Click [Pair] button.
• Go back to your device, and click on the computer name in Bluetooth device list.
• A message will show up on both your device and your computer, with a number in 6 digit.  Check to make sure they match, and then click the corresponding OK button.
• After a while, like 15 seconds, you should have your computer paired with your mobile device.

In fact, if you only have one device paired, your device will be automatically connected, and you should be able to play audio to your PC now.  However, it's also possible that there is ANOTHER device already connected to your machine.  If that is the case, you need to DISCONNECT the currently connected device first.

How to disconnect (without forgetting the device) depends on what device is currently connected.  I realized that I can disconnect in 2 ways:

• On PC:
• On the "Bluetooth Operations" window (BTW, don't close it, as I don't know how to reopen it again, so I usually just minimize the windows) of your connection device, click the [Disconnect] button next to "To use this PC's speaker to listen to stereo audio playing on remote device".   To connect, go to your device's "Bluetooth Operations" windows and click [Connect].
• On device:
• On iOS:
• I can turn off and turn on Bluetooth, and thus disconnect all Bluetooth devices.
• On Android
• On Bluetooth setting screen, tap on the name of your computer (it should be under the Paired Devices list.  If your device is connected, it will disconnect it (with a warning dialog box before you commit the disconnection).  If it's not connected, it will try to connect.

My experience is that the most important thing to have a successful pairing is that:

• Always start by making your device visible first. On Android 4.4, make sure you tap on the device name right under the Bluetooth setting screen title.
• You should then see the device on computer's Bluetooth list.  Click [Pair] to start pairing.
• You should now see the 6 digit number shows up on both your device and your PC.

Some tidbits:

• I found pairing still a time consuming process.  So I try my best NOT to accidentally unpair a pairing.
• It takes more time to connect/disconnect with my iPad 2 (slow ...) then my Nexus 5 (very fast).  Maybe there's something to do with Bluetooth chip set on these devices.

Digitizer and Windows 8.1 Update on Asus Eee Slate

After updating my Asus Eee Slate from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, I realized that the digitizer seemed to be a bit off.  So I followed my previous post and try calibrate the digitizer again.  At the end it worked out fine, but I had some observation:

•  I found 2 registry entries, and one of them doesn't match what laid out on my blog.  Yet I bite the bullet and deleted both entry.  It worked out fine.
• After updated to 8.1, I found that there were more space on my main harddisk got freedom.  Since I have a 64Gb SSD, having a 25Gb+ free space is pretty nice, consider that I already have all the essential apps installed (Office 2013, Sketchbook Pro 6, and so on).

At the end I like the 8.1 update a lot.  I found myself actually enjoy using the Eee Slate now.

Now Eee Slate is just ... a nice photo viewer ... which is not a bad thing

My Eee Slate running Windows 8 is running super low is disk space, and I have no choice but getting rid of Visual Studio 2012 from it.  After all, the device is under power as a development tool anyway, and I don't see myself developing using that machine at now.  Now I have 10Gb space back, which make it an OK regular daily use machine.

• Photo view using metro Photo app
• Windows Media Center playback device
• Best portable office machine (as long as I don't need the display anything using VGA port.

And seriously, without Photo app being "fixed" to bring back all features I care, I don't even see why I should upgrade to Windows 8.1 for Eee Slate.

Fix my Bioshock 1 problem

When I started Bioshock 1 on my Dell XPS Machine, I realized that audio wasn't working.  Not matter what I do, the audio just didn't come back.  After reading this page, I tried the following, and surprisingly, it worked:

• Right click on Sound icon on system tray, and select "Recording Devices".  On Stereo Mix, select "Enable". 

And that's it.

Remove useless entry on start up

To remove useless entry on partition start up screen, simply use msconfig to remove the entries you don't want to show up.  It's that simple.

Oh, and one more thing ... about my EeeSlate Digitizer hacking journey....

(Follow up to my last post about fixing EeeSlate digitizer problem) I saw some posts mentioning about changing the system registry key from "LinearityData" to "UserLinearityData".  I didn't do it because:

• I am worry that doing so will make the system NOT taking my calibration that I did as the active one.
• If doing so is just for enabling "Reset Calibration" data, then I find deleting the Registry keys the better cleaner way to make sure that all old entries are gone.

Seemed to have digitizer and Bluetooth keyboard/mouse problem resolved

One thing that make me capable to resolve problem is my stubbornness.  When I found something that irritates me, I will try and try and try until I ultimately give up the problem (because I already wasted way too much time) or get the problem resolved.  This time, I thing I accomplished the later.

So I continue to use my second day  of my long weekend to deal with one that kept irritating me: EeeSlate 121.  I mean, the specification of this device is not great, but it should be good enough as daily use tablet and laptop, but as I mentioned in my last blog, there were 2 things that kept irritating me:

• Bluetooth keyboard and mouse discounted to work all the sudden.
• Inaccurate digitizer.

The bluetooth problem seemed to be solved when I realized that, under Bluetooth Settings, the following items are ON:

• Allow bluetooth devices to send you PIM items such a business cards ...
• Allow remote device to browse, send and recieve pictures, music ...

After I turned the above 2 items OFF, the lost bluetooth connection suddenly comes back.  And both the keyboard and mouse were working fine since then.

As for digitizer, it turns out the trick of increasing recognition point DOES work.  I proved that by intentionally did a horrible job on setting those track points, and sure enough the digitizer went nuts.

So here's the procedure I used to make digitizer working resonably well (there are still some spots on the screen that didn't get perfectly right, but I am a bit lazy and those spot didn't affect my work, so I let them slide and maybe re-calibrated later.)

• To clean up all the previous setting
• Make sure all the related entries in the system registry are gone.
• Use Regedit, and then find "Linearity".  You should be able to find 2 pairs of tries:
• One under the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TabletPC\LinearityData" (and a corresponding "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\TabletPC\LinearityData")
• One under something similar to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID\VID_056A&PID_0090&Col02\7&1ae9605e&0&0001\Device Parameters" (and a corresponding "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\HID\VID_056A&PID_0090&Col02\7&1ae9605e&0&0001\Device Parameters", with a name "LinearityData".)  (the "VID_056A&PID_0090&Col02\7&1ae9605e&0&0001" part may not be exactly the same.
• To clean up all up the setting, you need to delete :
• "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TabletPC\LinearityData" the entry.
• Delete JUST THE ENTRY of "LinearityData" under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID\VID_056A&PID_0090&Col02\7&1ae9605e&0&0001\Device Parameters".  Do not delete the whole "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID\VID_056A&PID_0090&Col02\7&1ae9605e&0&0001\Device Parameters" key,
• After deleted these CurrentControlSet entries, the ones under "ControlSet001" will automatically got deleted.
• You need to delete these Regedit entries when:
• You need to do the hack re-calibration again.
• You need to do the NORMAL re-calibration and thus need to "RESET" the old calibration data.  You WILL NOT able to cleanly RESET (by clicking the reset button in the control panel re-calibration property screen) unless these system registry entries are gone.
  
  
• To do the hack reclibration properly (at least on Asus EeeSlate EP-121:
• Open Command Line and run this command  "tabcal devicekind=pen lincal novalidate XGridPts=5,15,30,50,70,90,120,259,400,513,600,767,900,1021,1180,1210,1240,1260,1275 YGridPts=5,15,50,100,163,223,321,479,640,740,760,780,795" .   Some older post about this hack omitted "devicekind=pen" which caused the trouble least on my Windows 8 EeeSlate.  Also, if you got syntax error, that is because some spaces are being added by the cut and paste process.  Get rid of those spaces and it should be fine.
• The command will trigger a calibration screen with 100+ recognition point.  You need to properly set each of them.  If you failed, you will need to clean the registry and redo everything again.
• My experience told me that when you redo the calibration, how messy (or how well) you did the last time will affect your process (sometimes gives you hard time by refuse to take your new one because the new one seemed too far off from the old one).  So in that sense, the more do re-calibrate, the smoother the calibration process should be.

So that's it.  I wasted enough time on this mess.  But at least I got a reasonable good result at the end, and now I no longer have  incentive to buy Surface Pro, which is good.

Continue to battle with Asus Eee Slate (EP121)

After reading a few forum post, I reignited my passion on fixing a few problems that I had with my Eee Slate so far, including:

• Bluetooth keyboard and mouse frequently got dropped for no good reason.
• Not able to join Homegroup 
• Stylus not calibrated properly.

At least I got the homegroup problem fixed by installing the wireless driver Version  Version V10.0.0.110 .  THis is the latest one (2012.10.30  update),

And then I installed the bluetooth driver Version V8.0.0.206.  Again, it's the 2012-10-30 update, which seems to be the best I can get.  I am now using my bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  It;s see if it can survive for the rest of the day without dropping.

The digitizer problem, though, is still not fixed.  I tried the hack mentioned here.    At the end I give up, which kind of once again prompt me to think about buying another machine.  Damn it, I just so frequently wanted to spend spend spend.

Upgraded Eee Slate EP121 BIOS, still lame

I started putting company document on my Eee Slate 121, and thought that I should start taking security on my tablet seriously and tried to install BitLocker.  I then realized that BitLocker did not turn on on my machine.  Futher looked into it and I found that I need to turn on TPL on my BIOS.  So I went and checked, and couldn't find the checking.  I also realized that my BIOS was not up-to-date.  So I was like, first thing first, let me update the BIOS.

Updating BIOS on EeeSlate EP121 is actually pretty straight forward .... if you know how to do it.  The problem is that there's no clear instruction on Asus' official web site at all.  All you got is the download link.  So here's the steps I did:

1. Get BIOS file from official ASUS site.
2. Extract BIOS file (EP121AS_704.rar to EP121AS.704)
3. Put the file in a FAT32 (FAT may also work) thumb drive.
4. Connect that thumb drive to EeeSlate.
5. Start the machine while holding F2.
6. On BIOS screen, select EZ BIOS Utility.
7. Navigate to the BIOS first, and start flashing.

Sadly, even after I flashed the BIOS, I saw no TPL option showing up.  I also didn't see any improvement that I care, including the serious Wacom Digitizer alignment problem. At the end, time spent, and I gained nothing.  Great.

Hate on Surface Pro, some love on Sony Duo 11

I got totally fed up by the damn Asus EeeSlate as the Wacom digitizer kept throwing me curve ball.  After reading a blog about how drawing with Wacom stylus being such an awesome experience, I headed to a local Windows Store to give Surface Pro a spin.

This is kind of ironic, cause I brought my EeeSlate at the exact same store. 

So I tried Surface Pro, and I even tried it with Sketchbook Pro 6.0.  At the end, I was pissed, like ultra pissed.  Why? Because for every single freaking Surface Pro I tried, they ALL have digitizer problem at the upper left corner.  (I tried more than 6 Surface Pro devices) I even convinced a lady at the store to enter the admin code so that I can re-collaborate the screen (by the way, that another dude at the store had some serious attitude problem, which is NOT the user experience you want a flag ship store should deliver).  Eventually, I decided to never consider Surface Pro in my life ever again.

To my surprise, I tried Sony Duo 11, and I was pretty pleased by the digitizer   It was way way more accurate than my EeeSlate and Surface Pro.  I still have my X60T digitize better, but then that was a different technology.

So is Sony Duo 11 a keeper.  Hell no!  Mainly because of the damn crappy keyboard.  Key arrangement is stupid, and I don't understand why they wasted all those space on the keyboard area by making those keys tiny.  In fact, I typed most of the blog on that keyboard and it was a horrible experience.

And speaking of horrible experience, I wasn't pleased by my experience in the Microsoft Store.  Remember I mentioned a while ago that pissed-off employee who seemed wasn't pleased about being required to enter admin password in order for me to collaborate the digitizer again?  I was also not happy about more than one staff member there asking me to take off the thumb drive I brought along.  I use it to keep my Sketchbook Pro 6, which is the application that made me consider buying a freaking $1400+ device.  I've done it once by following the protocol of buying the device, bring it home, and then try out with my drawing app.  What did a got?  A shitty Eee Slate that has off-track Wacom digitizer surface.  And I got the exact same result after swapping 2 other machines.  So I have enough.  I will not spend my money unless I know it does exactly what I want.  And I thought that is what showroom is for.

Also, they have all sort of not working machines in the show up.  All the Asus Taichi machines in the show room had touch screen disabled.  I knew that indeed the machines had problem because even the employee there wasn't able to find a Taichi that worked.  Microsoft Store is supposed to be a public face of the company, then I can see why so many people still hate Microsoft.

OK, something positive though: I tried out several Windows Phone 8, including the super low end Lumia 520.  And I was actually pretty pleased by the performance.  They were smooth and very responsive.  Of course, there's no complicated apps to stress test the device, but at least, unlike Surface Pro, I had some good experience with them.

By the way, I am not the only one who rant about the digitizer problem on Surface Pro.

New workflow, new headache

Every time I switch my development workflow, either because of changing work location, or change development gears like computer and monitor and such, it always caused me sometime to adjust and figure out patterns that I need to follow in order have a smooth development experience.  That happened again recently.

Now that I am giving a fast DELL M6500 and replace it with 2 lower end machine, I need to work in a way that the office always-on machine being treated as a server, and the portable Eee Slate will be used as a client and development workstation.  I spent one and a half day to set everything up and I would say it's working ok so far ... until this morning ...

This morning I turned on my EeeSlate and tried to get latest of my code on my personal server machine.  TortioseSVN refused to give me the repository view.  After a few frustrating moment, I realized that yesterday I yanked out the thumb drive by force because the machine insisted that "something is still running". I guess that something is actually my subversion server (running on the thumb drive).  The consequence is that I couldn't access the subversion version from other location, including my EeeSlate.  So the solution seemed pretty simple: reboot.  And indeed that solved the problem.