The Drunken Tech Blog

AnTuTu Benchmark is the go-to for many who want to test out their phone's capabilities. As of this posting, it has a 4+ Star Rating, with over 925,000 reviewers on Google Play. Recently I was in need of a Sprint-compatible phone that would work where my temporary (6-month) office would be. Not wanting to break the bank, I settled on the Essential Phone (pleasantly surprised, for sure). I decided to load up and run the obligatory AnTuTu Benchmark. Irrelevant to this post, but it scored pretty well. A couple days later, while browsing through my phone memory using Solid Explorer, I noticed something odd...so odd that it made my heart skip a beat. Keep in mind, I have Solid Explorer set to show hidden files, cause why not? Well, I noticed quite a lot of hidden files with random filenames. My mind immediately went to Malware, as this seemed pretty typical of Malware I've fought on Windows machines for decades. At first I didn't make the connection....but later that

Stay strong everyone...We will Overcome!

Spoiler/tl;dr - Philo TV is an awesome service! To clarify, this post is more focused on streaming Live TV, not just on demand... Let me start by saying I DESPISE Cable TV. Paying a ridiculous fee for an obnoxious number of channels that will never be watched just seems ludicrous. When I decided to cut the cord, Sling TV had just recently come into being. I liked the idea of around 25 channels, most of which I would actually watch, only costing about $20. This was also about the time that The Walking Dead was reaching the end of whatever season they were on at this time. This was a show that my wife and I watched religiously on Sunday night. So, my first foray into streaming Live TV channels had begun... For the most part, things went well. But then Sunday night came around and time to watch our show. I can't begin to express how frustrating the buffering was. It was more annoying than I could deal with and I decided to change the channel, with the plan to watch it

About a year ago, I decided that the new wave of "Mesh Wireless" devices was the way to go. I bought into the hype behind being able to "blanket your whole home in fast, reliable WiFi" that so many of these brands seemed to be offering. After doing my research, I settled on the Eero units due to bandwidth issues some users had experienced with the Google WiFi units. At the time, there were only a couple other options (Netgear being the main competition). I started my adventure spending $350 on a three-pack of the original Eero Pucks. It was on sale at Best Buy so I thought I was getting a great deal. Initially I thought I'd just use them as Access Points in conjunction with my nice Netgear Nighthawk router. Unfortunately, it took a lightning strike the night before so I succumbed to an Eero-only setup. At first, all went well. Aside from one of the pucks having trouble pairing, I eventually got all three placed and connected. According to the Eero App, m

It's no secret I'm a huge Deadpool fan. The second movie is probably one of my favorite movies in the past decade. Anywhooo.... If you have an Android Wear Smartwatch and haven't heard of Facer, go check it out on the Play Store HERE Facer provides a really neat web-based tool to build your own watch faces.  It can be found at https://www.facer.io/creator Well, a few minutes later.....I present my simple, analog, Deadpool-themed watch face! Get it for yourself here:  https://www.facer.io/watchface/Fqy7Df3FED

Let me start by saying I bought my DSC-QX10 "Lens-Style Camera" at the end of February through Amazon.  The first thing I did was update the firmware to the latest version. I also grabbed the latest version of the PlayMemories Mobile app form the Play Store. This "camera" has been the most useless device in in collection ever since.  Sony's marketing of the device is very "optimistic" and misleading. They have a video showing a few really happy-looking individuals seeming to really enjoy using the camera with their smartphones.  This is a complete farce! On the RARE occasion where I can get the "NFC/Wi-Fi® allows simple, one-touch connection with smartphones" to actually stay connected to my phone for more than 15-20 seconds, the ability to compose any kind of shot with the "live-view" on the smartphone is non-existent. There is such a tremendous amount of lag in the display that even stationary, landscape shots are madden