The Gadgetry Thread

[piranesi]

Rudy Sarzo is drinking Fresca.

[RIPPA]

Logitech becomes just Logi today

 

In case you are wonder if there was suddenly a new company making shitty stuff

[glfpunk]

The Oneplus Two is supposed to drop on July 27.  Specs look fantastic.  Still no word on the price but it's expected to be between $400-$500.  They're going to be using the invite system again so I'll have to find a way to get one.  I don't know if they'll be sending out random invites to previous purchasers of the One or what.  The One is still the best phone I've had and I've used the S6 and the LG G4.  I did not like the G4 at all.  It's not all that thin, it felt plasticky and light(cheap), and the battery life does not appear to be good at all.  A guy that works for me has one and he's always plugged in to a charger.  The S6 is a beautiful phone and the performance seemed to be really good but man is that thing a fingerprint magnet.  I don't know if my OCD would ever let me feel comfortable with it lol. 

[NikoBaltimore]

The S6 is definitely a fingerprint magnet.  For the sake of my sanity first thing I did was get a protective case and a tempered glass shield for the screen.  Still a fingerprint magnet, but much more manageable with the shield.

 

I was definitely thinking about the Oneplus Two, but wasn't sure when it would come out.  So far I definitely still love the S6, but I'm really interested to see who here gets it and how it is.

[glfpunk]

I will get it one way or another for sure.  Oxygen OS is pretty barebones for sure but that's a good thing for speed.  I'm sure I'll miss some stuff from Cyanogen.

[misanthrope304]

There's a massive sale going on over at Amazon.com right now....all kinds of tech shit up for grabs, so far I've seen:

 

40 inch 1080p tv for $115 (probably sold out now)

Kindle Fire HD7 for like $99 I think (definitely sold out)

Kindle Fire HD6 for $79

 

 

*edit, here's the press release*

 

Starting at midnight PT on July 15, Prime members can shop thousands of deals and find new deals as often as every ten minutes

Prime Now will also offer deals in the six cities where the service is offered

Amazing deals include 32-inch TV for $75 and 40-inch TV for $115

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 14, 2015-- (NASDAQ:AMZN) – Beginning Wednesday, July 15, just after midnight PT, Prime members can shop thousands of exclusive lightning deals with new deals added as often as every ten minutes throughout the day. With more deals than Black Friday, members will enjoy thousands of deals from sought-after devices and tools to popular toys and pet supplies. Anyone can join Prime, to start a free 30-day trial and participate in Prime Day visit amazon.com/primeday.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150714005630/en/

Join the Celebration:

• Transparent Red Carpet Experience: Amazon customers in the US, UK and Germany will have a chance to win a trip to the Transparent Season 2 premiere this fall. One winner and a guest from each country will receive round-trip airfare, hotel stay and transportation as well as a chance to meet the cast and creators from the Golden Globe-winning Amazon Original Series. For a chance to win in the US visit: amazon.com/redcarpet.
• Listen to Win: Prime members in the US who listen to any song on Prime Music will automatically be entered to win up-to $25,000 in Amazon Gift Cards. Prime members can stream a song, an album or listen to any Prime Station or Playlist for a chance to win Amazon.com Gift Card prizes, ranging from $1,000 to the Grand Prize of $25,000 in Amazon.com Gift Cards. For a chance to win visit: amazon.com/listentowin-rules.

Deals Preview: The following are examples of some of the deals that will be available at various times throughout Prime Day.

• Fire TV Stick, fastest selling Amazon device of all time, $15 off
• Kindle, $30 off
• Fire HD 7, $60 off
• Fire HD 7 Kids Edition, $60 off
• 32-inch LED TV, $75
• 40-inch 1080p LED TV, $115
• Brand-name 32-inch Smart HDTV, under $200
• 50-inch 4K TV bundle, under $1000
• Bose headphones at the lowest price ever on Amazon
• Chromebook laptop, only $199
• Over 50% off two Nikon COOLPIX cameras
• Highly rated binoculars, under $120
• Two security camera-kits, $279.99
• K'NEX 2-in-1 Ferris Wheel Building Set (Amazon Exclusive), $35.99
• K'NEX Crossfire Chaos Roller Coaster Building Set (Amazon Exclusive), $23.99
• Playskool Heroes Transformers Rescue Bots Optimus Prime Figure (Amazon Exclusive), $9.99
• iRobot Roomba Pet Vacuum Cleaning Robot, under $300
• Husqvarna mower, under $300
• 40 lightning deals on DVDs up to 75% off
• Up to 50% off any of the Harry Potter books
• Save more than 70% on the Divergent Series Complete Box Set of books
• Save up to 70% on select kitchen products from top brands like Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Foodsaver and Thermos
• Save up to 50% on select tools for the DIY auto enthusiast
• Connected Car and Scan Tool products starting at 60% off
• Road-trip-ready automotive products starting at 50% off
• Save more than 50% on Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain
• 30% off select clothing, shoes, jewelry, watches & more
• 60% off Amazon Elements Baby Wipes with code ELEMENTS60
• Free luxury beauty sample box with $50 purchase of luxury beauty products, with promo code LUXSAMPLES
• Buy an Amazon.com Gift Card multipack, get $10 in Amazon.com promotional credit
• Get 25% bonus Amazon Coins when you buy 5,000 or 10,000 Amazon Coins
• Prime Now will also offer deals in the six cities where the service is offered

#PrimeLiving Photo Contest: Through July 15, members are invited to snap a photo of #PrimeLiving moments and upload them at amazon.com/primeliving for the chance to win $10,000 in Amazon Gift Cards. To learn more about the #PrimeLiving photo contest and get inspiration from artists around the world, watch here.

Prime Personalities: Amazon invites customers to take a quiz to discover what kind of Prime member they are, and enter for the chance to win a $2,000 Amazon.com Gift Card. No purchase necessary. See contest rules at amzn.to/QUIZ.

Deals on the go: Prime members can shop Prime Day deals on any device, including smartphones and tablets and find deals anytime, anywhere.

It’s a great time to try Prime: Anyone can sign up for Prime and participate in Prime Day, eligible customers can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime at amazon.com/primeday.

More to Prime

Amazon Prime is an annual membership program for $99 a year that offers customers unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 20 million items across all categories, unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, more than one million songs, more than one thousand playlists and hundreds of stations with Prime Music, early access to select lightning deals all year long, free secure, unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive with Prime Photos and access to more than 800,000 books to borrow with the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. Members in more than 500 cities also receive unlimited Free Same-Day Delivery on more than a million items. In addition Prime members in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Dallas, Manhattan and Miami and even London receive one and two hour delivery on a selection of tens of thousands of everyday essentials with the dedicated Prime Now mobile app. Not a member? Start a free trial of Amazon Prime at amazon.com/primeday.

About Amazon

Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Amazon Echo are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.

Edited July 15, 2015 by misanthrope304

[Vincey Greene]

I think I'm sitting out of this upgrade cycle. My Z3 still seems great, so even though I can JUMP in November, unless the Note 5 is better than I think it will be, I'm standing pat.

Unless Sony drops a phablet and T-mo picks it up. Then I'm sold.

[Tabe]

Hey look!  A new ipod!

[Ace]

My Nexus 7 finally stopped charging worth a damn. So I picked up a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite to replace it.

[AstroBoy]

Don't know if it's okay to post a question like this here but I'm pretty tech-illiterate and desperate at this point.

 

I get kicked off of XBOX live or PSN about every 45 minutes at this point and it always gives the same error message (8007274c for xboxlive) but is fine when I just restart the system.  Until another 45 minutes or whatever.

 

Originally I had thought it was a router issue, so I tried a wired connection but the problem still persists, it just never mentions DNS error anymore.  And I no longer have to cycle my modem, I simply have to restart the system.  Still -- this problem never affects my actual internet connection.  It's only on devices I am trying to use.  Needless to say this has been incredibly frustrating and I have looked for and tried so many different solutions.  If I had more computer knowledge I'm sure I'd realize some easy fix, but I don't know where to start at this point.  Is it my modem.  Is it something to do with Time Warner or something more complex than that.  Any help would be greatly appreciated at this point.

[Raziel]

That code is indicitive of too strict security settings. It could be the router is too secure and not letting all the necessary traffic through. Way to fix that is try making sure the uPnP mode is on in the router, that could fix it.

Or, you could just set up a DMZ and manually set the consoles up for it, but that's kinda a last resort.

Is it all devices,or just the consoles?

[AstroBoy]

At this point I'm not using a router at all.  The modem is connected directly to the laptop and also directly to the Xbox.  I haven't tried any other devices other than the consoles, no.

[Petey]

Hey look!  A new ipod!

Picked one up last night. 64gb Touch. First Apple device I've had in about 8 years. I had a Zune forever but it died. I've been using my tablet at the gym but it's cumbersome. I wanted a device to put my music on that would be smaller and was gonna buy a 5th gen Touch but figured a new one would be coming soon. I enjoy it for what it is and it serves my needs. I didn't want to use my phone because with it being a Nexus 6, it's not all that much smaller than the Nexus 7 I've been using. All that said, being that this is my first legit foray into iOS, I don't think I could ever switch to an iPhone. I hate not having an always on-screen back button.

[Raziel]

At this point I'm not using a router at all.  The modem is connected directly to the laptop and also directly to the Xbox.  I haven't tried any other devices other than the consoles, no.

At the same time?  That'd be your problem if there's no router.  If its not an all in one, and *just* a modem, switching could be the issue.  Modems weren't made to do that.

 

Who's your carrier, your router might be your modem as well.

 

Only other thing I can think of off is an IPv6 issue that plagues non-Windows 8 machines.

[AstroBoy]

Okay so I'm an idiot and checked only to realize the modem is also a router.  Time Warner is my provider and I now have the modem hooked up straight to the laptop with the PS3 gaining wireless connectivity from the correct source.  I still expect that I've done something wrong and that this won't work somehow, but at least I figured out one stupid mistake I had made.  Thanks for the help up to this point.

 

Well that didn't work.  One hour later I got error 80710092 on PSN.  I don't know what to do at this point.

[CSC]

Made the call to DirectTV this afternoon and will officially be cutting the cord at the end of the month.  

 

Went out and purchased a Roku 3.  Still need to pick up a good set of rabbit ears for the TV and a decent sized harddrive for everything I'm going to have to download.  Looking at streaming services probably just going to stick with Netflix, Hulu Plus and Sling TV for our occasional need to have ESPN or Food Network just on as background noise.

 

I've sure I'm forgetting something and pretty sure this could all go horribly wrong and we'll have cable again by the end of August but we'll see.

[Craig H]

Made the call to DirectTV this afternoon and will officially be cutting the cord at the end of the month.  

 

Went out and purchased a Roku 3.  Still need to pick up a good set of rabbit ears for the TV and a decent sized harddrive for everything I'm going to have to download.  Looking at streaming services probably just going to stick with Netflix, Hulu Plus and Sling TV for our occasional need to have ESPN or Food Network just on as background noise.

 

I've sure I'm forgetting something and pretty sure this could all go horribly wrong and we'll have cable again by the end of August but we'll see.

 

I cut the cord last July and haven't looked back. For antennas, I got a Mohu Leaf and it's worked pretty well.

[CSC]

Awesome, thanks for the recommendation.  Was fairly clueless as to what was a good one and that looks like it'll work perfectly.

[Technico Support]

Okay so I'm an idiot and checked only to realize the modem is also a router.  Time Warner is my provider and I now have the modem hooked up straight to the laptop with the PS3 gaining wireless connectivity from the correct source.  I still expect that I've done something wrong and that this won't work somehow, but at least I figured out one stupid mistake I had made.  Thanks for the help up to this point.

 

Well that didn't work.  One hour later I got error 80710092 on PSN.  I don't know what to do at this point.

 

Have you tried using a wired connection instead of wireless?  I'd try that first.  I've also read that it could be a DNS issue and saw this in a thread, so it may help you:

 

Go to "Internet  connection settings"

 

Select "custom" for  connection method

 

For Wired  connections: select wired connection, select auto-detect, select automatic for  ip address settings, dhcp host name "do not set", for DNS SETTINGS select MANUAL  and then put in two numbers from the following website http://theos.in/windows-xp/free-fast-public-dns-server-list/, choose the top option for everything else and then  try signing into your PSN account.

 

For WIRELESS connections: select wireless, select enter manually,  for ssid click to the right, click to the right for security, click to the right  for security key, automatic for ip address, do not set for dhcp host, MANUAL for  DNS and then enter two numbers http://theos.in/windows-xp/free-fast-public-dns-server-list/, choose the top option for everything else and then try  signing into your PSN account.

 

 

Barring that, maybe it's a firewall issue.  A long time ago, I had to mess with my router's firewall to allow the specific protocols my Xbox used, which was a pain in the ass.

[AstroBoy]

Okay thanks everyone for the help so far.  I'm pretty close to giving up on all this, though, since new problems just keep coming up no matter what.  Just to run everything down.

 

-- I have tried wireless and wired connections.  With wireless, it will give me the DNS error after a bit and kick me off.  With a wired connection I would get that error indicating a firewall problem.  Since then I've gone into my router and enabled Upnp sharing and although I haven't gotten an error message yet, whatever I'm using will consistently slow to a crawl after 15 minutes.  If I watch WWE network it will sputter and freeze forever.  If I'm watching Netflix, same thing.  I ran a speed test this morning and I'm getting speeds of 25.9 and 2.46.  The Time Warner I pay for is the 30 and 5 speed one so I don't know if this is related to them or what. 

 

-- I had previously gone in and messed with the DNS settings and it didn't help me at all.

 

-- At this point I really just don't know what to do.  It does me no good to connect my devices if I can't watch one single thing uninterrupted.  For the record I can watch things just fine on my actual computer.  No freezing or anything like that.  I feel like I've tried everything and when I talked to Time Warner months ago they insisted my speeds are fine and it must be a different problem. 

Edited July 23, 2015 by AstroBoy

[Raziel]

Two things:

 

Sounds like the issue is fully with your connection between the Console and the Router.  There's lots of shit that can be wrong there.  Your best bet might be to create a DMZ and assign your console to it.   Downside is there are NO firewall protections from the routerside in a DMZ, so beware accordingly.  There's another kinda issue where different devices use different servers for the video transfer.  I can have WWE Network running live on my PS3, Laptop, and Phone at the same time, and all 3 are in different places, and different video quality (I tend to get better and more stable connections on my PS3 than my laptop, and don't lag as far behind.)  Revert your DNS settings to auto on the router, let your device use its own DNS.  Check the DNS on the console.  Either have it at auto, or switch it to Google's (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and try that.

 

Is your actual computer the laptop, or 2 different devices?

 

 

Your speed is standard.  Yeah, you're paying for 30/5 Max, *but* you have Cable, and the thing about cable is that you're sharing bandwidth with everyone else in your area with cable.  Those speeds are fine.  30/5 is your max, and will mostly be affected by how many devices are running/how many other people are running things.  You'll almost never hit it unless the whole run is clean, no one else on.  You really only need 2 mbps constant for HD Video anyway.  

[AstroBoy]

Again thanks for the advice.  Sorry to be ignorant but any tips or links on how to go about creating a DMZ.  Should I just run a google search. 

 

My laptop's screen is busted so I have the laptop hooked up to a monitor if that's what you're asking.

[Raziel]

Dependant of the router type.  Usually somewhere in the settings, there's a tab with DMZ settings.  Basically, set the DMZ's IP address to something outside your regular network range (most cable company devices set the default range at 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.100), so if that's the case, set your DMZ to something like 192.168.1.125, then manually set the console's IP address to that same address.  I'd try the DNS stuff first and use DMZ as a last resort, because again, DMZ is exactly what it says on the tin, there's no protection from the router of any kind in there, its just a straight traffic pass through.

[AstroBoy]

I am no expert of course but I did some research that also said DMZ should be a last resort and Port Forwarding is another option.  I came across some stuff about NAT 1, NAT 2, and NAT 3 and it said as long as you have NAT 1 or 2 there are no problems.  I ran a connection test and it comes up NAT 1, that I'm directly hardwired to the modem.  I would think this would mean there should be no problems.  Or are you trying to say there could just be a faulty connection between the two regardless of that.

[Raziel]

Not so much a faulty connection, but there's a logical problem somewhere.  Something's preventing the router from communicating with the console properly.  There are still a number of things it could be, most likely a number isn't matching up somewhere.  The connection test is just going to see if it can pass traffic, which its doing within the timeframe of the tests.  The problem is what is it doing after a while.  

 

It sounds like something that shouldn't be happening on consoles like the 360 and PS3, but I don't know if you're using the Xbone or PS4.  Go into everything's settings and make sure IPv6 is disabled, that's the last thing I can think of without having to have someone come in and look at everything.  I know IPv6 being on in Windows machines on networks and routers without it enabled has caused a similar problem as to what you're describing.