Mobile and Tablet Devices Review

Cyber Living posts the specifications or details of the latest mobile phones and tablets with some thought comments on the device You can find them by clicking the MOBILE?TSBLET DEV on the menu bar above. Or you can click this link Mobile and Tablet Devices

Computer Problems Solutions

For personal computer/notebook problems and tips, refer to PC PROB from the menu or click this link Personal Computer Problem Solutions.

What's in the world with Philippine ISPs

Discussions about Philippine Internet Service Providers (ISPs) particularly problems users are encountering but are not getting any solutions.

  • Tips or work around to these problems to improve browsing experience.
  • Do you have any problems too? Give your comments below each of the posts to be heard.
  • Or better yet, send me a message on our contact form if you want a dedicated article to your problem on this site.
  • Bloggers and Webmasters tips/tricks

    Looking for something to implement to your site? Our Bloggers' tips/tricks have what you need. If you do not find it there, notify us through our contact form.

    SEO Tips

    Tips to improve your rankings on Search Engine Resuts Pages (SERPs).

    Sunday, June 30, 2013

    something


    Time Host Name Ping Result DNS Server Resolution Time Total Delay
    Smart Bro Google Public DNS Smart Bro Google Public DNS Smart Bro Google Public DNS
    Day1 @ 1am www.google.com 312 ms 479 ms 1110 ms 1130 ms 1422 ms 1609 ms
    www.facebook.com 447 ms 290 ms 1140 ms 1050 ms 1587 ms 1340 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 518 ms 446 ms 1160 ms 2170 ms 1678 ms 2616 ms
    Day1 @ 9am www.google.com 331 ms 512 ms 1290 ms 1120 ms 1621 ms 1632 ms
    www.facebook.com 433 ms 474 ms 1080 ms 1140 ms 1513 ms 1614 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 486 ms 507 ms 1380 ms 1130 ms 1866 ms 1637 ms
    Day1 @ 4pm www.google.com 411 ms 318 ms 1020 ms 700 ms 1431 ms 1018 ms
    www.facebook.com 358 ms 283 ms 880 ms 640 ms 1238 ms 923 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 420 ms 303 ms 1090 ms 700 ms 1510 ms 1003 ms
    Day1 @ 9pm www.google.com 509 ms 438 ms 1140 ms 900 ms 1649 ms 1338 ms
    www.facebook.com 399 ms 330 ms 1020 ms 870 ms 1419 ms 1200 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 510 ms 447 ms 6390 ms 940 ms 6900 ms 1387 ms
    Day2 @ 12am www.google.com 344 ms 298 ms 700 ms 550 ms 1044 ms 848 ms
    www.facebook.com 288 ms 255 ms 710 ms 430 ms 998 ms 685 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 302 ms 325 ms 670 ms 640 ms 972 ms 965 ms
    Day2 @ 10am www.google.com 645 ms 349 ms 1670 ms 750 ms 2315 ms 1099 ms
    www.facebook.com 505 ms 288 ms 1450 ms 720 ms 1955 ms 1008 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 566 ms 300 ms 1650 ms 720 ms 2216 ms 1020 ms
    Day2 @ 7pm www.google.com 378 ms 330 ms 840 ms 570 ms 1218 ms 900 ms
    www.facebook.com 428 ms 303 ms 740 ms 560 ms 1139 ms 863 ms
    cyberliving.blogspot.com 305 ms 349 ms 810 ms 820 ms 1115 ms 1169 ms

    Friday, June 21, 2013

    Is facebook down?

    I tried to open facebook just now (June 21, 2013 @9:00p.m.GMT+8) with my Android tablet but I am getting a "A secure connection could not be established" error.

    It has been more than 30 minutes since I have tried opening it but as of this writing, I still could not get connected.

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    Turn blogger blog into a static web page
    Disabling Google+ Comments after reverting back to the original Blogger Profile

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013

    Disabling Google+ Comments after reverting back to the original Blogger Profile

    You have enabled Google+ then enabled Google+ Comments but you decided to ditch Google+ Comments, for whatever reason, by changing back to Blogger Profile thinking that all will be restored.

    To your horror, your blogger profile now looks different because now you can't find Comments anywhere but Google+ is put in place. To make matters worse, your blog comments are not restored and Google+ Comments is still in effect on your blog. You want to take it out but you don't seem to find where to disable it anymore since you are back in Blogger Profile and no longer in Google+ Profile.

    Take out Google+ Comments on your blog and bring back all previous comments

    Every forum and sites only tell you to uncheck the "Use Google+ Comments on this blog" check box on your Google+ settings. But since you are back in Blogger Profile, there are no Google+ settings anymore.

    Solution is very simple:

    • Go back again to Google+ Profile - Switch back to Google+ Profile again the same way you did the first time or simply click on the Get Started button in Google+ settings.
    • Disable Google+ Comments - Once Google+ is enabled, go to Google+ settins (click Google+ on the left side) and then you can uncheck the "Use Google+ Comments on this blog" box.
    • Change back to Blogger Profile - On your Blogger Dashboard, click the settings button (gear icon on the upper-right) and click on "Revert to Blogger profile" from the drop down menu.
    Side note
    The main reason I took down Google+ Comments on my blog is because it is very limited. By that I mean only people with Google+ accounts could comment on my blog as opposed to the usual where virtually everybody can comment with a variety of options the way they want to appear in my comments including anonymous.

    One indicator that a site is active is through visitors comments plus the fact that I like reading other people's comments. And if I miss out on those because of Google+ Comments, no matter how fancy it may be, I'd rather go back to my original comments box.

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    Is facebook down?
    Kaspersky uses too much memory

    Monday, June 17, 2013

    Kaspersky uses too much memory

    From a previous post I have written about how you can monitor which of your programs running in the background is making your computer to run slow.

    In this post I am going to give an example.

    By sorting the list of processes in Task Manager by handles, I saw that avp.exe has the highest handles. Although it has not the highest memory usage, its memory usage is still considerably large. So with this new info, I went to search for answers and found out that avp.exe is the process name for Kaspersky Internet Security.

    I have also learned that Kaspersky do scan system memory, start-up objects and system partition while the computer is idle. It also checks for Automatic updates of anti-virus databases and application modules. Both this are resource intensive tasks that can cause CPU as well as memory usage to go extra high when it is started causing your computer to slow down.

    Fortunately, there is a way to disable it. Just open KIS then click Settings (gear icon), and go to General Scan Settings (click magnifying glass icon). Uncheck the Perform Idle Scan and Perform regular rootkit scan radio buttons.

    After disabling both, I now see a decline in my handles as well as the memory usage and I don't see much CPU spikes anymore.

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    Disabling Google+ Comments after reverting back to the original Blogger Profile
    New virus for Android found

    Thursday, June 13, 2013

    New virus for Android found

    Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obada.a is the name of the virus that is made specifically for Android devices.

    Kaspersky Labs last weekend has advised Android device users to be wary of the new Trojan virus that is spreading.

    The virus is exploiting an unknown bug in the operating system to be able to get administrator access, embeds itself to become impossible to remove. Kaspersky Labs said that it is does far one of the most sophisticated virus it came across as the code was written obscurely so it is harder to decipher.

    The Trojan can replicate itself to other devices as well as it can make copies of other malicious programs after the device has managed to establish a connection via Wi-Fi or bluetooth.

    It was also noted that the new Trojan is much similar to Windows malware than to other Android Trojans in terms of complexity and the number of unpublished vulnerabilities it exploits.

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    Kaspersky uses too much memory
    How to recover from memory leak without restarting

    Monday, June 10, 2013

    How to recover from memory leak without restarting

    What to do when your computer drags or becomes very slow after being on for some time?

    Sometimes after leaving your computer for a while, you encounter some slowness on your PC.

    I have had this problem too for quite some time now and have done countless hours looking for answers until I encountered the term memory leak.

    What it basically means is that when a program runs, certain amount of memory is allotted for it and normally after it closes, it returns it back to the system to be used again by other programs. But sometimes, this does not happen, specially for poorly written codes. What happens then is, the allotted memory sits there unused. That is memory leak.

    So far, searching the internet did not give me the answers I needed. There are so, many forums out there that would immediately advice you to add more RAM when how much more could you add to a system that is already using 3 Gig of RAM on a 32-bit system?

    But then I encountered the term handles, more specifically the handles column found on the Task Manager. The handles column provides you a measure of the number of handles or kernel level processes that a certain process has.

    What you can do?

    • Enable Handles count - On Task Manager click View (on the menu bar) -> Select Columns -> Check Handles column radio button. 
    • Rank handles - Click on the Handles header to arrange from highest on top to lowest at the bottom.
    • Identify the problem process - To identify the problematic process, look for handles with very high handles with also a corresponding high Memory usage.
    • Close problem process - Once you have decided which one is the problem process, select on it and click end process.
    The only difficult part of this is identifying which is the problematic process. If you encounter a process you are not familiar with, search the internet for its description. If you think that it is not so important you may opt to uninstall it.

    Also, there are times that only an add-on or a feature of the program is making it misbehave. If that is so, look it up on the internet on how to disable it that way it will not give you anymore trouble.

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    New virus for Android found
    Computer slows down even with only Chrome running

    Saturday, June 8, 2013

    Computer slows down even with only Chrome running

    I often here the following from my friends:

    "My computer becomes very slow after some time but become faster after reboot even if the only thing I am doing is browse the internet."; "I only have Chrome open but after some time I get an out of memory error. Why"; or "Why does my computer slows down even if only one Chrome window is open?"

    I have encuntered the same problem as well.

    When Chrome was first introduced, it has been hyped that it is the fastest browser out there and there was no denying that. Many experts had tested it and most if not all agreed that it indeed was faster.

    Another feature of Google Chrome that separate it from the rest, at least during that time was that every window and tab are independent from each other that when one tab/window crashed or become unresponsive and is forced to close, not all opened window or tab are closed. Great idea! Because of just these two things alone, it has become the browser of choice for individuals that surfs the internet a lot. In fact, all other major browsers are also going into this direction.

    The trade-off, however, was that Chrome needs more memory to function as each window or tab acts independently from each other. In fact Google Chrome is the most resource hug browser that is out there in terms of memory allocation is concerned.

    This then poses a problem, as the more pages you have open, the bigger memory is allocated just for Chrome. This is specially true to aging computers where the RAM is limited to say 1gb. A 1gb RAM today is small and can be easily consumed by Chrome alone that has about 7 pages opened as tabs (i.e. together with the essential programs on your computer). As a consequence you get a slow down of your computer and the more tabs or Chrome windows you have, the slower your computer gets.

    Take this for example, with my freshly booted PC, I have a commit charge/Page File (PF) usage of 654Mb.
    After restart my PC's PF usage is 654Mb.






















    I opened Chrome and 2 chrome.exe processes were immediately added. I opened several more pages as a different tab and after 6 tabs that opened different sites, I begin to experience a slowdown on my computer. Meanwhile my PF usage shoot up to 1.27Gb
    After adding several tabs, so do too are my processes added with each
    chrome.exe process using memory.















    Here is what you can do, enter OneTab
    Ever heard of OneTab? It is a small app (around 85Kb) that when installed shows as a small icon on Google Chome's Toolbar.

    What it does is reduce your tabs into a list on a single tab. Because of this, it claims to reduce memory usage by up to 95%. Neat isn't it? Well obviously, the 95% reduction is realized once you got lots of tabs open but when you got about 2 or three tabs open, I don't think that it will reduce that much memory usage. But then again with only a couple of tabs open, things will still be manageable so there is no need for OneTab.

    On the OnTab main page, there are several more functions listed such as you have control over the list, the list will not be lost if the tab was accidentally closed/has crashed.

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    How to recover from memory leak without restarting
    Create your own form and display all response real time using Google Drive

    Tuesday, June 4, 2013

    Create your own form and display all response real time using Google Drive

    Here is free and very simple way to make a form that records all responses and has the ability to display every response in real time. The best part is, there is no need to sign up and you will not have to worry about any databases.

    It is not from a third party but it is part of Google known as Google Drive.

    With Google Drive you have the ability to create your custom form then tie it to a spreadsheet (also in Google Drive) this way, all responses are saved to it which you can display the latest data down to the last second.

    Here is how.


    • Log-in to Google and go to Google Drive
    • Create the form - In Google Drive, click on CREATE located at the upper-left corner then select  Form at the drop down menu.
      1. Enter a title for the form and select your desired theme. Your theme should be suitable for the purpose of your form.
      2. Enter a description for your form. Something that tells users about this form and maybe add some reminders as well.
      3. Type in the question title. This serves as the label for each input field in your form. Ex. First Name, Address, Contact no., What computer do normally use?, Do you like dogs or cats?
      4. Fill-in the help text. This helps guide users to enter the correct response by giving them an example or a brief narrative of the kind of information needed.
      5. Select the question type from the list available.
      6. Click on the Required question radio button if this particular question is indeed required and response to the form is not accepted if it is left blank. The question will have a red star on the created form.
      7. Click Done.
      8. If more questions are needed, click on Add item. This will add another set. Just follow steps 3 to 7.
      9. When satisfied with your questions, you can personalize the confirmation message or just leave it as is.
      10. Click on Send form. Since we wanted to put this form on our blog or site, click the embed button found on the pop-up window after clicking Send form. You may change the height and width of the form then copy the embed code that is provided. Click Done. The form is already saved on Google Drive so don't be looking for a save menu.
      11. Not quite done yet. To save all response to this form, click Responses on the menu bar then click Choose response destination.
      12. Choose New spreadsheet and supply the name of the spreadsheet. It will be created once you click on create.
    • Paste the embed code on your site. Go back to your site and create a new document or decide where you wish to put the embed code then paste it.
    • Make responses visible within your site - In cases where you wish to publish every responses of  users then go back to Google Drive and open the spreadsheet corresponding to the form. If you don't wish to display the response, then this step is no longer applicable.
      1. Once the spreadsheet is opened, go to File - Share...
      2. Under Who has access, you will see Private. Click change then select which you prefer. If it is for everybody in the world wide web, then click Public on the web.
      3. Make sure that on the Access, the Can View is selected that way no one can edit the content of your spreadsheet except for you. But still anyone that enters data on the form will have the information stored on the spreadsheet once they clicked on Submit. Click Save.
      4. Copy the address on the link share box and paste it on a page within your site using the iframe tag. Like this: "<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=YOUR_SPREADSHEET_KEY_HERE&usp=sharing"></iframe>"
      5. You may customize the iframe further to make it look better by adding FRAMEBORDER, HEIGHT, WIDTH, MARGINHEIGHT and MARGINWIDTH options like this: "<iframe frameborder="0" height="1100" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" width="1000" src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=YOUR_SPREADSHEET_KEY_HERE&usp=sharing"></iframe>"
      6. You may play the values in red to suit your intentions.
    Done!

    Back to CyberLiving home page

    Other Posts
    Computer slows down even with only Chrome running
    Replace that mouse with Camera Mouse 2013