Boom, crashed again

And boom, my machine crashed again while using my Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard.  Just like what happened when I used the Logitech keyboard.

Now I don't know for sure if it's a software/OS problem, driver problem, or even hardware problem.  All I know is that the system gets freaking unstable, and I am not happy about it.  I kept getting "Driver Power State Failure", and searching the Net doesn't give me the concrete answer I want.  So I have a few options:

• Switch to a radio signal wireless keyboard (instead of Bluetooth)
• Re-install my Windows 8.1 clean.
• Re-install Windows 7 Ultimate clean.

The more I think about it, the more I lean towards re-installing Windows 7.  Reasons:

• I have pretty of hard disk space to install OS clean in another partition.
• I gained no benefit using Windows 8 at all (except maybe using Netflix on Metro)
• I got my Windows Media Center back

The downsize, of course, is that Windows 7 support will be end early next year.

Hmmm .... think ...

Time to give up on Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 ... at least not for home use

Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 is supposed to be my "dream come true" keyboard for home use mainly because of the Bluetooth keyboard switch feature.  This feature should allow me to switch between using my Windows 8.1 Dell PC and my MacMini at ease.  It turns out that I super rarely use that feature.  My MacMini is rarely turned on these days as I don't need to code in XCode anymore.  But that's NOT the reason why I finally give up on using Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 at home.

The mainly reason I can't use it at home with my Dell PC is that:

• The keyboard lost connection frequently, and I had to use my mouse to navigate to the Windows 8 charm, select device, and force the system to re-recognize the Bluetooth keyboard again.
• And sometimes even that failed, and the machine will suddenly crashed, gave me that notorious blue screen of death.

The frequently of that blue-screen of death is getting so ridiculously frequent that I had to switch back to my Microsoft Sculpt Mobile Keyboard.  In fact, I actually like using this keyboard at home better since it:

• has small form factor
• has all the key that I need to use in Windows environment
• actually more comfortable than Logitech K760

I am not quite sure if the problem was on the Logitech K760 keyboard, on my Dell PC (particularly the bluetooth drive), or what.  But if the Microsoft Sculpt Mobile Keyboard eventually having the same problem (losing connection, crashing the machine), then I think it proves that I should just stop using Bluetooth on my Dell desktop all together, and just switch back to regular radio signal wireless keyboard, which seems to be extremely reliable.

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.