How to Increase Battery Life for Android Phones

Leave a reply

I recently upgraded my phone to an HTC One X android phone. The phone performs very well. I have used some Android devices before, including the highly rated Asus Transformer. I was not impressed at all by those Android devices’ performances. This phone actually changed my view of Android. It has a large bright screen with high resolution. Every operation is responsive and does not lag at all. It’s way faster than my iPhone 4. There is, however, only one thing I do not like about this phone: the battery life is way too short. By default, it cannot last for even a day!

I have spent some time learning how to better manage the battery usage. Most of the suggestions I found can help to increase the battery life only by a little bit. Of all the tweaks I found, there are only some that would significantly increase the battery life. Here are the tweaks that I want to share.

Configure Accounts & Sync

On my HTC One X, this is under Settings -> Accounts & Sync. If you turn auto sync completely off, you will notice a dramatic increase of the battery life. However, turning everything off defeats the purpose of having a Smartphone. Instead of turning auto sync off, I just turned off syncing for some apps. For example, I never used the Stocks app: there was no reason for it to sync with the server. Go through all the apps listed under Accounts & Sync and turn off the apps that you do not use. After configuring this, I can now use my phone for two days without charging.

Turn off Fast boot

I usually turn my phone off when I go to bed. The phone  is supposed to keep the charge when it’s turned off, but I found that it still consumes quite a bit of power when I turn it off at night. I estimate it loses about 15% to 20% of battery life. This had me worried a bit. I thought my phone might be defective. I then found out the reason why the battery still drains when it’s off. That’s because I have this feature called fast boot. This is turned on by default. With this feature, the machine is not completely turned off. The phone is put into sleep mode, which still consumes power. I turned fast boot off and the phone no longer drains battery when it’s off. This setting is under Settings -> Power.

Always Exit out of an App

If you do not exit out of an app when you are done, the app is still running in the background. Some apps can drain out power quickly. I learned this when I found out the Weather Channel app used over 60% of my battery because I did not close it. Be sure to check the battery usage from time to time to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary. You can check this info by going Settings -> Power -> Usage.

These are the 3 tweaks which I found affect the battery life greatly. There are, of course, some minor tweaks. I am listing these here:

  • Turn off wifi, mobile data, GPS or Bluetooth when they are not in use.
  • Lower the brightness of the screen.
  • Lower the screen time out.
  • Do not use live wallpaper.
  • Install battery saving apps.
  • Limit use of widgets.

htc-one-x

 

 

 

How to Change Default Host for Cisco AnyConnect on Mac

Leave a reply

I had a post about how to change the default host for Cisco AnyConnnect on Windows. A user has asked me how to change this on Mac. I spent a few minutes to find this information. Here is how you change it:

  1. Open Terminal application.
  2. Type in the command at the Terminal window. This opens up TextEdit 
    open –e ~/.anyconnect
  3. Find and edit the DefaultHost line in TextEdit so that it is set to the host of your choice 
    <DefaultHost>vpn.mycompany.com</DefaultHost>
  4. Save the file under TextEdit.

The default host will be set to vpn.mycompany.com the next time you run Cisco AnyConnect.

anyconnect

Cannot Enable On-Access Scanner for McAfee VirusScan

Leave a reply

I recently helped a user with a McAfee VirusScan problem. The On-Access Scanner was turned off and when you tried to turn it on, it would not turn on. The user had just restarted the machine, so restarting the machine again was not an option. I tried to restart the services related to VirusScan, but the services were locked and I could not restart them. This is what I did to enable the On-Access Scanner.

  1. Open VirusScan Console.
  2. Click on Access Protection and click on Task -> Properties.
  3. Uncheck Prevent McAfee services from being stopped and click on OK. mcafee-access-protection
  4. Open up the services manager. You can do so by pressing Windows key + R, and type services.msc and enter.
  5. Stop the following services: McAfee Framework Service, McAfee McShield and McAfee Task Manager.
  6. Start the services mentioned in step 5.

How to Protect against Identity Theft for Free

Leave a reply

Some users have asked me how they can protect themselves against identity theft. I have researched the topic for a while and found the following steps for you to shield yourself from possible identity theft.

Review your credit report periodically

The first step is to review your current credit report. There is a website sponsored by the 3 credit report companies: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.

http://annualcreditreport.com

You can request a free credit report every year. When you get your credit report, review the report carefully and report any inaccurate info and unauthorized activity immediately. Remember to repeat this process every year.

Setup fraud alert

Once you have reviewed your current credit report, you can set up fraud alert. Equifax offers a free 90-day monitoring service.

https://www.alerts.equifax.com

You can renew it after the first 90 days. This service alerts you immediately when suspicious activity is found.

Security Freeze (not free)

If you are still paranoid about someone stealing your identity even after the aforementioned steps, you can freeze your credit report. This feature is not free for most states. This is probably the safest way to protect you from identity theft, but it also requires more work on your part. You need to contact the company and ask them to thaw your credit file whenever you want to apply for a new credit card or open a new bank account.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Restoring iPhone to Increase Battery Life

Leave a reply

A few months ago, my iPhone 4′s original battery couldn’t last more than a day. I bought a 3rd party battery to replace the original one. To my dismay, the replacement battery only lasted a bit longer than the old battery. I contacted the seller of the new battery. They agreed to send a new battery at no extra charge. The new battery they sent was still no good. So, I tried a different vendor and bought a more expensive battery. The battery life of this newest battery was only slightly better than the previous two replacement batteries. It never occurred to me that the problem was not with the battery.

Just a few weeks ago, I restored my iPhone due to other problems I encountered. I noticed the increased battery life right after I restored my iPhone. The battery life had gone from less than a day to two and a half days! I think part of the reason for the improved battery life was due to less applications installed on my iPhone. When I restored it, all the purchased apps had to be re-installed. I only installed a handful of applications that I used more often. I had quite a few applications previously installed that had processes running in the background even when the apps themselves weren’t running.  They quickly drained the battery.

You should give this a try if you have problems with the battery life of your iPhone: You may find that you do not need a new battery after all.

 

iphone4

How to Enable Duplex Printing for HP Printers on Windows 8

Leave a reply

We just found out that, when a HP printer is installed- even if the printer is capable of duplex printing- it may not be enabled for some computers. You will have to manually enable duplex printing. Here is how:

  1. Click on the printer you want to enable duplex printing in Devices and Printers.
  2. Click on Customize your printer.
  3. If you see a button on the left bottom corner that says Change properties, click on it. If you do not see this button, you can skip to the next step.
  4. Click on Device Settings and find Duplex Unit (for 2-Sided Printing). Change it to Installed.
    duplex printing
  5. If you want to set duplex printing as default, click on General tab and then Preferences …. A new dialog pops up. Click on Finish and then check Print on both sides.

Windows 8 Apps Not Launching

Leave a reply

Ever since I upgraded my workstation to Windows 8, I spent most of my time with a desktop and use it like a Windows 7 machine. I rarely use those so-called “Windows Store Apps”. The only app that I use the most often is the Mail app: It allows me to access all my email accounts in one place without going through multiple web sites. However, I recently noticed that the Mail app did not work anymore. I tried several other Windows Store apps and most of them did not work either. The apps just showed spinning circles, and they did not launch at all. I tried to uninstall the Mail app and reinstall it. However, the Store app did not work either! I found a Microsoft article about apps troubleshooting. Their recommendations are to update your app, sync the app license or reinstall the app. They all requires a working Store app to perform. Since my Store app did not work at all, I could not try the recommended steps to solve the problem. At the end of the article, it mentions Apps troubleshooter. It’s an application that can try to fix problems related to Windows Store apps. I tried to run the Apps troubleshooter twice. It found different problems each time. This looked promising, but it did not fix my problem.

w8-apps-troubleshooting

I then searched for other solutions. I came across one article that mentioned how uninstalling anti-virus software might help. I had McAfee Enterprise 8.8 with patch 3 installed in my computer, so I tried uninstalling it. After McAfee was uninstalled, the apps started to run again! If all else fails, you might try this to get uncooperative apps to launch again.