Simplifying IT, Amplifying Knowledge

Electric screwdriver

Well, I was always against using electric screwdrivers. As I always said, I'm not so lazy that I can't screw in a few screws. However, yesterday I bought this.

Screwdriver

There are two screwdrivers in that set, and I bought the whole box for 400 CZK, which I couldn't resist.

What made me change my mind? Firstly, it was definitely the price, but secondly, it was the fact that screwing things in a narrow space is really tricky, and also that screwing in a million screws when fixing phones or notebooks is really annoying. I'm not sure if I'm getting old or just getting lazier, but I'm looking forward to the first opportunity to try this out.

Continue reading →

Time to upgrade

As nobody was providing feedback on Stunter during the holidays, I decided to focus on my main project, HryProDva, for now. I took my notepad with all the 'nice to have' features and started deciding what to improve.

First of all, I started work on an Android app for Prลกรญ, as there were a lot of complaints about the controls. I am doing my best to introduce a better UI for the hand of cards and some fancy animations. Once finished, I will possibly port these changes to DOS too.

The second task on the list, and the biggest one, is to upgrade the pool and introduce many new features, different cues with different parameters, improved graphics and much more. This has been requested a lot, so I will do my best to implement all of these features. When I am satisfied with the result, I will try to fork the front end to create an Android app too. Stay tuned for updates!

Continue reading →

ICQ nostalgia

A few days ago, I read an article about a private server run by volunteers that enables you to use your old ICQ client. This inspired me to recreate one of the games I used to play on ICQ. I wanted to play Slide-a-Lama, so I created a clone called Slide-a-Hippo.

Slide-a-Hippo

The game mechanics, server and syncing took one afternoon to complete, but creating the animations and other fancy features took up about 80% of the time.

If you're interested, let's give it a try HERE.

Continue reading →

King Kong Godzilla Terminator Extra Special Ultra

Well, this phone is actually called the Cubot KingKing Mini, but I'm not really sure if that's a better name than the one in the heading.

However, it is a Chinese phone with a very unusual format and size. It is small enough that you can comfortably reach any part of the screen with your thumb while holding it in one hand. This is not a bad thing, and not many phones are suitable for this.



Cubot King Kong mini Cubot King Kong mini Cubot King Kong mini

Unfortunately, the phone is from 2019 and is stuck on Android 9, and the specs are also really low-cost: It has 3 GB of RAM, a 2,000 mAh battery, 32 GB of internal storage, and a screen resolution of 540 x 1080 pixels. This is quite fine for making calls and sending messages, but not much else. However, I can really imagine a similar device with up-to-date Android and better specs that would be fine for a lot of people who just want a simple device and don't really want to carry phones with 6-inch screens. It's a nice idea, but the lack of power and support really ...

Continue reading →

Nokia 301

I finally had a little time to take another phone from the input queue and have some fun with it. It's a great 'dumbphone' and is perfect for playing old games. It's great that it comes with USB-C, even though it's from 2013.

Nokia 301

The phone's specifications themselves are nothing special. The 240x320 display is very average for this type of phone and the sound quality is nothing special. But what I like is that I can play lots of games I remember from the old days, and I can fit many of them on the phone as it has 256 MB of internal storage. I guess I can fit all the games I can find on the internet for this resolution, which is awesome!

I will do my best to fit as many games as I can find and make it the ultimate gaming device. I'm really looking forward to playing Swen, Gravity Defied, Cars and Asphalt again โ€“ sweet memories!

//EDIT:

After receiving a message from Mr Logout mentioning that the phone was released around six months before the USB-C, I did some research but could not find a single mention of a USB-C variant of the phone. I ...

Continue reading →

AppStore troubles

Well, i was quite optimistic while releasing the apps on AppStory. And now i am again disappointed. The apps i have released were released.. But noone mentioned that they have not been released in any country of European Union. And i am not able to publish them there until i would do some huge paperwork, scanning documents and contacting Apple to gain some status to be able to release the apps in EU.

I have already started the process last week, and still have no progress or at least information at all. So.. well done Apple.

Continue reading →

HryProDva iOS apps

After more than half a year of intensive work, I have finally released a game for HryProDva on the App Store. The Xcode was very frustrating at times, and setting up App Store Connect was also nerve-wracking, as it was somewhat unintuitive. However, it was surprisingly intuitive and simple in other cases, so I can't say that either App Store or Google Play is easier to publish an app.

It is much simpler and more straightforward to fill in all the necessary forms and statements for releasing the app, as the process guides you through the initial setup and highlights any missing information.



However, the App Store's reviews are a billion times better. If they have a problem with your app, they tell you exactly what is wrong. They provide lots of details about the problem, so it's really easy to find a solution quickly.

I can still remember the crazy process of publishing one app on Google Play. By that time, I had already published quite a few apps there, but that one was hell. They rejected my app because of some issues with the privacy policy and user agreement declarations. This is a paragraph defined in terms with hundreds of ...

Continue reading →

Poco M3

A few days ago, a colleague gave me some mobile phones, one of which was a POCO M3. It's not an old phone and it's in perfect condition. When he gave it to me, it was like brand new. Even the factory sticker on the back of the phone was completely untouched. I decided to use it as a test device for app development.

Poco M3 overall

I was even more surprised when I found out what would happen if I turned the phone off. But let's start from the beginning. First, I made my way through all the setup and welcome screens, which took quite a long time. I also downloaded and installed accumulated system updates, so the phone rebooted a few times. Everything seemed to be working fine. I turned the phone off to come back to it the next day. However, when I took it the next day and tried to turn it on, nothing happened. Even the consumption on charger was exactly 0mAh, I tried all the combinations to force a reset, but it had no effect.

So I did some research online and found out that this phone is quite famous for its tendency to ...

Continue reading →

LG T580

Well, this will be a short one. This is one of the phones I've had in my "input queue" for a relatively long time. The problem is that even though this is a touch phone, it's just a dumb phone with some proprietary software.

LG T580

Honestly, I still can't understand the purpose of these phones. They have closed firmware with very limited or non-existent possibilities for installing or customising anything except the wallpaper. I can understand classic phones with a phone keyboard that can only be used for calling, writing text messages and setting calendar events. But who is the target market for this kind of touch phone that can do the same thing? When you want a touch phone, you probably want a multipurpose phone. And when you want a basic phone, it's definitely more practical to have a standard phone keyboard. Does anyone know of any practical uses for these phones?

Continue reading →

Alcatel Onetouch Idol

This phone is from the era when Alcatel was trying to make a comeback. It's a phone from the era when Alcatel wanted to be reborn. Personally, I really liked the Onetouch Fire series, which attempted to bring Boot to Gecko to mobiles โ€” a nice idea that I really liked. However, neither Firefox nor Android phones helped Alcatel gain a serious market share.

Alcatel Onetouch Idol

However, I also got today's phone as a present from my friend Tom. This phone was released in 2013 and came with Android 4.1. Based on my brief research, the reviews were quite good. It was a mid-range phone with a fairly good display and high-quality manufacturing, especially the back, which looks like brushed metal even though it is plastic.

The mismatch between my experience and the articles I read from 2013โ€“14 is the system. The articles are about a very clean version of Android, where Alcatel made minimal changes compared to other manufacturers. However, the first time I took this phone in my hands and turned it on, I could hardly believe that it ran on Android. The first thing I noticed was that it booted from power-off to a usable state in ...

Continue reading →

×