A fan picture i made of 2003 strawberry shortcake, angel cake, orange blossom, Huckleberry pie, and gingersnap as princesses.

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Over the years, I have amassed a small collection of iPod clones that would eventually be known as "MP4" players. The MP4 moniker usually has nothing to do with the MPEG-4 video codec, but rather, it was meant to signify an evolution from the standard MP3 player. "MP4" ends up just being a fancy name for these players since they can display photos and video and have additional features like built-in games and sometimes an FM radio tuner.

By the mid-2000s, you could find these MP4 players at major retailers sold at deep discounts compared to name brands like Apple, Sandisk or Creative. The price reflected the overall quality of the devices. While some devices could actually be decent, others can have cheap build quality, buggy firmware, and poor battery life.

Despite this, I had an appreciation for these kinds of media players... at least the ones that worked well. Below is my collection that I have built up over the years, along with details about them.



1 - RCA M6204-B MP3/video player. This little player was a Menard's holiday special in 2014. It looks like it has capacitive buttons, but it's just a thin flexible plastic sheet that sits over mechanical buttons. The buttons do work well, and navigation is easy to figure out. It has your basic functions like MP3/WMA playback, FM radio, and photo viewer. FM tuner isn't the best. It's not that sensitive, so distant station reception is very hit and miss. The player is limited to onboard storage, which in this case, is 4GB. No expandable memory slots at all. It works rather well, even if the menu navigation is a bit slow.

2 - Mach Speed "Eclipse" 180 Pro. This is/was a very common brand seen in big box discount stores like Walmart, Kmart, and Shopko. The 180 Pro has that familiar Chinese iPod-clone design, only with branding printed on the reverse. Features are similar to the RCA, but the layout mimics the iPod interface somewhat. It also has a low quality digital camera and expandable microSD memory. The player itself comes with 4GB onboard storage. As a useful player, it's debatable. The music playback functions well enough, but the FM tuner leaves a lot to be desired and the player takes a really long time to start up. Build quality is decent thanks to an aluminum casing.

3 - HOTT MU763. This is my only Rockchip MP4 player I own. The case is aluminum like the Eclipse. The player has a resistive touch screen, which works okay but sometimes doesn't respond like it should. I really like the equalizer in the music player. It has something called "MS EQ" which with the right headphones, can produce a rather deep bass and crisp treble. FM tuner is once again not that great. This player would be alright to use if it weren't for one "feature" that ends up being a nuisance. In the music player, you can shake the player right or left to go forward or back in the playlist. If you carry the player in your pocket, this "feature" may trigger by accident and your music playlist gets disrupted as the player goes forward or back unintentionally.

4 - Altus M204-B - Probably my personal favorite of all the MP4 players I have used. My original from 2010 is long gone, but I found new-old-stock on eBay a couple years ago. As you can see, I have two of them. The batteries charged up fine and continue to hold a charge. The menu navigation is easy to learn and responsive, and the media features work really well. The best feature is the ability to customize the startup, shutdown, and main menu background images. It also includes a camera which isn't that great. The FM tuner works really well and handles weaker stations fine when the display goes to sleep. Has 4GB onboard storage and additional microSD card slot.

5 - Hipstreet Crossfade 4GB I found this on sale for $15. There's a reason it was so cheap. The build quality is among the worst I have seen. The player is very lightweight plastic, and the button switches are very glitchy. The FM tuner is quite excellent for such a cheap player as well as music playback. There's no expandable storage and you're limited to the onboard 4GB storage. My player is now disassembled because the battery has swollen, and I need to find a safe way to disconnect the cell before trying to recover the data that's still on the device.

6 and 7 - Generic MP4 players from China I found these at a small town RadioShack franchise. These were the most generic MP4 players you can find. The one on the right requires a microSD card to function, and came with a 16GB card. The one on the right has no expandable memory and 8GB onboard storage. FM tuners are okay. The player on the left suffers from glitchy buttons and the one on the right is having battery issues. Battery doesn't seem swollen, but it will not charge at all.

8 - Eclipse Supra Fit From the same company behind the 180 Pro. Has the features of that model but with one of the worst capacitive screens I have used. It's way too sensitive. You can barely touch the sides of the plastic bezel and it will register a random touch on a part of the screen. It has 8GB storage and microSD slot.

9 - Visual Land ME-907 I originally purchased this in 2012 to replace my first Altus M204-B that died. The UI is entirely built on Adobe Flash, and has the ability to play back Flash movies. It could load Flash games, but IIRC, the touch screen doesn't work with Flash content, so you can't click on buttons presented in such files. In addition to a 8gb storage, it has a microSD slot and a mini HDMI output. The UI is very responsive and full of fancy animations, though it doesn't have dedicated buttons for changing music tracks. In order to change the track, you have to turn on the screen, get past the screensaver, and then go back/forward in the playlist.

I'm currently trying out my players to see which one I can use as my main music device. I was thinking of just getting one of those cheap USB-stick MP3 players that use a AAA battery, but seeing how I have so many of these, there's no real need to add yet another.

Here's another ROM dump I made for the Epic:


ROM build number is KOT49H.user.1.8.160.20190530.103948. Should work on all editions using SP Flash Tool v5.1744 and later. Just make sure to BACK UP the stock ROM first before flashing this, and clear /data and /cache via recovery mode after flashing. Trust me, I bricked one of my Epic demo units before and it helps to keep the stock secro, seccfg and NVRAM prior to doing anything with the Epic.

Benson's Melancholy

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The following is a work of fiction, and I do not in any way claim ownership of the Toy Story franchise or its characters, created by Pixar and produced by Disney.



Benson remembers his former career as a ventriloquist's dummy in the 1940s, and the time he spent being Gabby Gabby's loyal assistant and brother. Set post-TS4.

There are plenty of cheap, no-name brand Android tablets these days, and many American big box stores sell these things too. Whereas Walmart and Target tend to carry slightly more recognizable names like RCA, smaller chains end up with even more obscure brands and models that have rather unique features when compared to their similar ilk. This brings us to the Azpen G1058B 10.1 Android tablet.



And this is the box it came in...



The most unique feature of the G105B is the included 4G LTE connectivity, something you don't see often in discount tablets sold at major retailers. The MSRP of this tablet was $149, but because the store I bought it from is going out of business, it was marked down 60%, and I got it for only $60.

The G105B comes with a Mediatek MT6735 Quad-core SOC with a Mali T720 GPU, approx 1GB RAM, and 64GB of built in flash storage. There is a microSD card slot that supports up to 64gb cards, as well as two SIM card slots, one already used with a bundled SIM for FreedomPop, which I will get into later. The tablet has Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Performance is rather decent for this tablet. Startup was a bit slow when first powered on out of the box, but subsequent start ups have been much smoother. App performance varies. Small apps like terminal emulators and system information viewers open up rather quick, while complex apps like Google Mail or Play can take a bit to get going sometimes. After loading, they tend to work more or less okay.

Preinstalled software is limited to just the Google apps and a few basic utilities like a file manager and user manual. There is a "My FreedomPop" app for use with the associated pay-as-you-go internet service. There is also an FM radio app as this tablet comes with an FM tuner. I haven't seen any Android tablet sold at a store that comes with an FM tuner until now. I have tested it out, and reception is rather good outdoors as I was able to get many channels I normally can't get indoors. It also has a recording feature too, so you can save FM broadcasts to MP4 audio format, though the extension has to be changed from 3gpp to m4a to get them to work with Winamp.

The camera is alright. There isn't as much detail compared to my LG Rebel 3's camera, and the front facing camera needs a good amount of light to be usable. I tried Skype with family with said tablet, and I had to sit near my apartment window so my face wouldn't become a dark shadow. The indoor lights didn't help brighten my face at all. Later on in the thread, I'll post some photos taken with both the G105B and the LG Rebel 3 and compare them side by side.

I will give a warning about a potential unwanted app that is preinstalled in the tablet. Malwarebytes reports that the infamous Adups is preinstalled as a system application. The Adups variant present on the G1058B is classified as a PUP (potentially unwanted app), and is part of the tablets built in "Wireless Update" utility. Still, it may be advisable to follow the guidelines here to "freeze" this bit of software.
https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/21...for-adups/ The variant on the tablet is the first name on the list. The other two Adups variants, which contain an actual backdoor, aren't present on the G1058B AFAIK.

Finally, about FreedomPop. The tablet came with a bundled offer for this pay-as-you-go mobile internet service. The SIM was already installed in the tablet, and you just have to follow the instructions on the included leaflet to activate it. The FreedomPop services offers free 500mb 4G LTE data per month, but there are a few strings attached. Yes, the 500mb a month really is free, but FP really tries to get you to part with your money. When you activate, there is a small $.60 or so fee, but that's just the beginning. Want the free 500mb and only 500mb? Keep your eye out for the "no thanks" links. They tuck them away in the corner in small print, where the big green button tries to gain your attention so they can sign up up for a free one month trial of their Premium 2GB plan. That 2GB plan is presented as a monthly option, but the fine print states that if you forget to cancel the trial before the period is up, your card will be charged around $95 for one year of service. There is also a sketchy feature called Automatic Top-Up, which charges your debit/credit card $15 to add more data to your free service when you get within 100mb of reaching the 500mb free data cap. You can't turn this off either unless you sign up for a $6.99 a month "safety net" feature. 

FreedomPop may have good prices if you manage to score one of their plans that actually bills monthly, but their hard selling of their additional premium features and sketchy practices almost makes them a complete turn off for me. Luckily, you can swap out the FP SIM and install any compatible GSM SIM. The tablet is unlocked.

WRC (v1.3.1) No Root Check

Official Download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...laola1.wrc

Modded APK Links: [Updated-2/1/2019]
WRC v1.3.1 MOD [No Root Check] (Zippyshare)

Changelog:
NEW: WRC+ ALL LIVE now with English & Spanish commentary
All Stages of every Rally Live & On-demand.
- Universal App for Smartphone & Tablet
- New Quick Navigation
- New EPG Feature
- New Calendar Feature
- Performance Update

Notes:

'Tis just a simple mod on the app for it to run on rooted devices, particularly those cheapo TV boxes like the x96 Mini. I know you can use an Xposed module or MagiskHide to prevent the app from looking for any signs of root access, but for some reason those don't work at all. Not to mention that I did this to show how ultimately pointless it is to add anti-rooting measures on the app though it is understandable as to why. And I gotta thank xperia64 for making this possible as he's the one who showed me the ropes on how to mod it in the first place.

App Description:

Quote:The WRC App is the only official mobile application of the FIA World Rally Championship. 

Use it to keep up-to-date with all the news, videos and photos from one of the world's toughest motorsports, the WRC. Follow every rally in the calendar by monitoring the live timing and reading the live text updates.


The WRC+ section offers a monthly subscription including online access to LIVE STAGES, LIVE MAPS, ONBOARD ACTION and FULL HIGHLIGHTS videos.

All features:


*Home*
News, videos and the countdown to the start of the next rally at a glance.

*WRC+*
Your ticket to the world’s toughest motorsport - the subscription platform offers additional content from the FIA World Rally Championship. Enjoy Live Stages, Live Maps, Onboard Action and Full Highlights on your mobile – or any other device from each upcoming WRC rally event! The monthly basic subscription (30 days) for only 4,99 € is unlimited, it renews automatically at the end of each month (30 days) and can be cancelled any time before the end of each month (30 day period). Your account will be charged for renewal at the beginning of the next month (30 day period).
Privacy Policy (https://plus.wrc.com/about/privacy/) and Terms & Conditions (https://plus.wrc.com/about/terms/).

*News*
Keep up to date with everything that is happening in the FIA World Rally Championship.

*Live*
During a rally, this is where you’ll find stage times, split times and other data direct from the stages. You can also follow the live text and listen to the WRC radio stream.



*Media*
Spectacular videos, pictures and audio podcasts.

*Calendar*
An overview of all of the rallies in the season, illustrated in detail with facts, links, videos and pictures.

*Results*
Including FIA championship standings for drivers, co-drivers and manufacturers.

*Facts*
Detailed information about drivers, co-drivers, teams and manufacturers.

*Social Media*


WRC on all channels: 
Integration of the official WRC Facebook page and the @OfficialWRC Twitter feed.

Get the official WRC App now and experience the World Rally Championship!



So it's a lost cause then, all despite acquiring Nokia in an ultimately horrid move that cost the latter:

Quote:https://www.computerworld.com/article/33...e-era.html

Microsoft earlier this month reminded owners of devices powered by Windows 10 Mobile that support will end Dec. 10, although some services may remain active for months after that expiration date.


In a support document revised three weeks ago, Microsoft also told Windows 10 Mobile customers to now steer for Android or iOS smartphones.

"As of December 10, 2019, Windows 10 Mobile users are no longer eligible to receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft for free," the Redmond, Wash. developer said in the support document.

The end-of-support was not completely unexpected.

Previously, Microsoft had said it would support each version of Windows 10 Mobile - initially Mobile was upgraded every six months, just like the desktop OS - for "a minimum of 24 months." The last Windows 10 Mobile feature upgrade was tagged 1709 in Microsoft's now-familiar yymm format and issued in October 2017.

Just before Windows 10 Mobile 1709 launched, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore, then the company's top phone executive, acknowledged the obvious: "...building new features/hw ((hardware)) aren't the focus," he said of the OS and the decision to withdraw from hardware design and sales.

In the revised support document, Microsoft urged anyone still carrying a Windows 10 Mobile device to dump it for something that runs Google's Android or Apple's iOS. "We recommend that customers move to a supported Android or iOS device," the firm said.

It's not an everyday occurrence for Microsoft to exhort customers to switch to software not created by its own engineers.

But even though security and non-security updates will cease as of Dec. 10, some services tied to Windows 10 Mobile and the its devices will remain active after that date. "Automatic or manual creation of new device backups for settings and some applications will continue for 3 months, ending March 10, 2020," Microsoft said. Other actions, including uploading photos to online storage and restoring a device from existing backup "may continue to work for up to another 12 months from end of support," or until late 2020 ((emphasis added)).

One sign of Microsoft's seriousness in ending support was its acknowledgement that commercial customers - who are often shielded from Microsoft's most painful changes - will be cut off at the same time as consumers.

The finality of support was anticlimactic after the earlier drama of Microsoft's foray into smartphones and its quick - in corporate terms - retreat.

Less than two years after announcing the acquisition of Nokia's phone assets - and little more than a year after that deal was finalized - Microsoft effectively admitted the move was a disaster when it wrote off $7.6 billion.

Along with the enormous charge against earnings, Microsoft began laying off thousands of workers, most of them inherited from Nokia.

Microsoft stayed in the smartphone business but only after significantly scaling back. Even that strategy was unsustainable. By early 2017, the firm's phone revenue plummeted to near zero.

Later that year, Belfiore announced that all development on Windows 10 Mobile had ceased.

The Letter That Never Came

It's not even the 1st of December yet, but I'm looking forward at my plans for 2019. Prepare for another long post...

I'm currently thinking over plans to either upgrade or replace Greta. I have had a chance to use her over the weekend during my Thanksgiving mini-vacation. Basic things like web browsing or text documents are still no problem for her. I do notice her old Pentium B960 may be getting a bit outdated for some of my Steam games. The games do take a bit of time to load compared to Pearl. Should this be expected though? The Pentium B960 is clearly an entry level CPU from 2012, and I'm surprised she is still capable of even basic tasks with Windows 8.1. Her old GeForce 610m is also very capable of playing my Steam games on low to medium settings.

I'd rather have Greta on Windows 10, but as I mentioned before, that OS is extremely taxing on her hardware. Windows 8.1 is much faster but is far more clunky in design. 

If I were to replace Greta's old HDD with a modern SSD, would that be enough to run Windows 10 without any slowness, or will the B960 be a potential bottleneck? Given her age, would it be more advisable to replace Greta with a modern laptop that can run Windows 10 from the get-go?

I also plan to upgrade Pearl in steps. I'm starting to discover that she may need a slightly beefier CPU and/or GPU for video recording tasks. As it stands, recording video is mostly flawless, but there are small moments in the recorded videos where obvious frame-dropping can be seen. Since I mostly record TV stuff, the frame dropping is a minor nitpick, but I'd rather have the video as smooth as possible. I don't know if I need to either upgrade the CPU or the GPU. Movavi uses hardware acceleration for recording and displaying the video preview from what I can tell. I want to upgrade the RAM first since it won't take me long to save money for another stick of 8gb RAM. That will make the board run in dual-channel mode, so would simply installing another RAM stick improve performance alone?

If I do need to upgrade the GPU, I would like a GTX 1070 and an upgraded Corsair PSU to match. A GTX 1070 would seem overkill to someone like me, but if I ever want to play Super Lucky's Tale on max settings, I'll need that. 

The question is.. will I need to upgrade the CPU, RAM and GPU? Or will just one of these being upgraded improve things alone?

There is also the matter of Pearl's HDD. Her HDD is quite old, being the 500gb disk from Audrey, who I purchased in 2012. So far it doesn't seem to have problems, but the older the drive gets, the possibility of failure increases. Whenever I do need to replace it, I will get an 1TB SSD, despite being very expensive. What color of SSD should I go for? Western Digital has various different kinds of SSDs, such as Blue, Black, and Green.

And finally, perhaps an unnecessary upgrade... getting a BluRay burner. BD-R discs are a bit on the spendy side, but backing up photos to disc is a bit tedious since I only have a DVD writer.

This is going to be a long one, but perhaps if I write out my thoughts, it will help me make a better decision. Here it goes...

I'll cut to the chase. I want some kind of Mac computer, possibly an iMac. I shouldn't have sold off my old Mac Mini a few years ago. It would have made it easier to switch.

For those who don't follow the Spam Thread. let me get you caught up to speed on my current situation. I have my own Windows based PC that I have built myself nearly two years ago. It has an Intel Core i5-6100 dual-core CPU, GeForce 750Ti graphics, 8gb RAM, and a somewhat dated 500gb HDD. It's my first PC build and it came out great, though my cable management sucks. I haven't had any issues with my build, and I'm confident that I would be able to upgrade the system when needed.

For all the good my custom PC has brought, it still has brought on a bit of stress, no thanks to Microsoft. Windows 10 is becoming a mixed bag for me. The most recent OS updates brought along nasty bugs like users documents being deleted or Windows not remembering file type associations. I haven't encountered any of those problems myself, but compared to Windows 8, 10 doesn't seem to perform as well, especially during boot up. It also brings along features and apps I don't particularly care for like Cortana or the myriad of bloatware. Not all of it can be uninstalled of course... unless you use third party tricks to forcibly remove them. But I tend to stay away from such tools that mess with system files. 

There is of course, Windows 8.1, which is still supported with security fixes until 2023. I have this on my ancient Gateway laptop since Windows 10 is too much for it. I only have one Windows 8.1 license which is being used on said laptop. There is also Linux, which is starting to become more and more user friendly. Issues still abound if you ever need to use proprietary graphics drivers, and not all of my Steam games are Linux compatible.

I guess that is a good segue into explaining what I use my computer for. I don't do anything that requires lots of hardware power. My activities mainly consist of browsing the web, watching online video and playing casual type games and pinball simulators. The heaviest work I do is in video editing, and I do want to learn how to draw digitally as well. My current computer is obviously up to these tasks, but what if my computer gets hit with some nasty Windows 10 update bug in the future? Will Linux ever get to the point where I can drop Windows and skip macOS completely?

Given my current needs, I have considered either getting an all-in-one PC with downgraded specs to fit my workload and giving my current PC to my mom at home. She too has one of those AIO units from 2012, and it's an entry level AMD E-Series one. Windows 10 is getting too much for that old computer as well and my mom could really use a new PC.

Besides a Windows based AIO, there is of course, Apple. I understand that Apple really tries to nickel-and-dime their user base and marks up the prices on their tech far higher than their PC equivalents. They also like planned obsolescence, with every macOS release dropping several models of older Macs. In fact, my old mid-2011 Mini isn't compatible with Mojave. It can only run up to High Sierra. I would go the Hackintosh route, but it requires lots of terminal use, manual editing of config files, and just lots of tinkering to get macOS running on a non-Apple computer.

That is where my idea of just switching to the "dark side" comes from, I guess. For all the bad things Apple does, I still admire their product designs and macOS itself. I just got this feeling that an iMac would be a better fit for my computing needs. I still do have a lot of Mac software linked to my Apple account, and iMovie would be good enough for my video editing needs. As for audio/video capture, my current Honestech Vidbox has Mac drivers available. I would just need capture software to go with it. As for games, two of my pinball sims, Zaccaria Pinball and Pinball Arcade, do have Mac versions on the Steam store. I even have Pinball Arcade linked to my Apple account as well, but my Steam content won't transfer to that version. As for my Windows casual games, it's not that big of a deal if I can't get them to run on a Mac. I still intend on resurrecting my old XP box for older PC games someday and those games do run fine on that PC's old Radeon 9600XT AGP card.

I have a tough decision to make here. Either stick with what I have, get a Windows based AIO replacement, or start saving up for several months to buy the iMac. The model that I would particularly want is $1,499. I'd prefer the iMac have at least 8gb RAM, 1TB Fusion Drive, and dedicated graphics. I can configure the iMac to have 16GB RAM at order, and it's the only way to get 16GB since RAM is not upgradeable in iMacs. Given my daily use requirements and my low gaming requirements, 8gb would probably be enough.

I could go Low End Mac as an alternative, getting an older refurbished iMac or Mac Pro. But forward compatibility becomes an issue with the aforementioned macOS releases dropping older products from the support list.


If I go the Windows AIO route, I would have to get a possible downgrade in graphics quality of my pinball sims, but I would still be able to do everything else just fine. I would be willing to accept the tradeoff since I hardly play those pinball sims as much as I used to. The AIO would have to be capable of utilizing my video capture device, but I have seen AIOs that use Intel i5 CPUs.

And there you have it. Perhaps I'll just end up sticking with my current setup in the long run, but who knows what the future may bring?