Top Menu

Category Archives Google

On March 31st, 2016 you will no longer be able to use Chrome to Phone. Google decided to (sadly) get rid of it a while back. You also may even be aware that Google is advertising another way to still send items to your phone and that’s by typing in “Send a note to my phone” but this feature has actually not worked since November 2015 and it’s now the very end of February of 2016. There are a bunch of posts about this same issue by others on the Google Forums but apparently there’s not a Google employee that ever used either Chrome to Phone or the newly advertised replacement “send a note.” Odd right?

Well a while back I remember a post on the XDA-Developers forums from someone making a replacement for Chrome to Phone. Since Chrome to Phone will stop working in a month, I decided to revisit this application and see it’s progress, I’m glad I did. It’s an exact replica of Chrome to Phone and I love it.

In order to follow the steps in this guide you will need to first make sure you have turned on USB debugging (see bottom of guide) and have installed the PC ADB drivers (troubles? see bottom of guide).

  1. Download this file containing all the necessary files needed.
  2. Extract the files from the zip file.
  3. Open the folder location you extracted the contents to.
  4. Run the file named “1-install-Play-Store.bat” and simply follow the instructions.
  5. When completed, reboot the device and you will now have all the necessary Google apps.

Enjoy!

Questions and Help?

First you need to enable Developer Options if you haven’t already, you can do this by going to Settings > Device Options and then tap on Serial Number several times. Then once they have been enabled, go into Developer Options and enable USB debugging by checking “Enable ADB.”

Second you need to make sure you have installed ADB and PC ADB drivers on your computer, you can install them by downloading them from here. If you have problems installing those, then install this alternative set instead from here.

Once that is installed, connect your Fire to your computer and open up Command Prompt to use the following ADB commands and type in the following:

adb shell
pm hide com.amazon.kindle.kso
exit
adb reboot

That’s it. You should no longer see anymore ads on your lock screen.

Here are essential Chrome Extensions that I believe most types of users should have installed, rather it be to enhance their experience or for security/privacy/etc reasons.

This root method should work with similar RCA tablets and other alike tablets that were released over Black Friday 2014.

The main method to root is with a tool called Kingo Root, available to download from http://kingoapp.com. Here is a mirror for this file is ever necessary: android_root.exe

  • Step 1: Download and Install Kingo Root
  • Step 2: Turn on USB Debugging on your RCA or like tablet.
    • In order to do this you need to turn on Developer Options by going into the Settings Menu and going down to “About phone”. After that, scroll down until you find “Build number” and tap this seven times in a row until you get a dialog telling you that Developer Options have been turned on.
  • Step 3: Plug in your RCA or like tablet via USB into your computer.
    • You might need to install the USB drivers at this point for your device to be recognized. It should auto install after plugging in your RCA or like tablet.
  • Step 4: Open Kingo Root and follow the instructions to root the device.
  • Step 5: Profit! You are now rooted. If you’re not sure what to do with root or what you can, you can start by improving your battery life by installing Xposed Framework with Amplify and Greenify.

Recently a post was made by a guy named Mitch on his website on how to make YouTube Faster on Time Warner Cable. What people may not realize though is that blocking these IP addresses (below) will indeed block you from downloading on Google Play if blocked network wide.

This means you will be unable to update your apps if you have an Android phone or if anyone else attempts to and is of course connected to your WiFi at that time, again this only matters if you are blocking these IP addresses network wide from your router.

Sure, you can always switch to your phones network to update apps, but why use that bandwidth (and likely slower) if you do not have to as well as if you have a bandwidth limit or even unlimited. There are probably more services by Google that might be effected by blocking these IP addresses too, but I have not come across one yet or may have not realized yet.

The IP addresses that you are asked to block are these below. I have not tested which IP address it is specifically yet (lazy) however I believe it is the first one as far as the location goes.

173.194.55.0
206.111.0.0

Just simply remove these IP addresses from your router to simply regain back the ability to download from Google Play again. If you still continue to want to block these IP addresses and get a faster YouTube; if it works for you, then just block them on your each specific computer instead.

Google announced their “talking shoe” today at SXSW. Please remember this is all concept apparel and it could never make it anywhere. It aims to translate movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. I personally do not find this better than Google Glass and really do not see how some people would; even if they can have their own opinion. I see more usefulness out of the Glass then Shoes, especially as far as what you can do with one another and cannot be compared.

Even with that all said, I still think it is cool but my guess it would need a lot of work for it to take off and probably would only be more active in certain and few markets of the world. When you think of all the data that can be collected and what other companies such as Nike can do with it and even go as far as using them on professional athletes either it be the NFL, NBA, Soccer and everything else it could provide to be quite useful and interesting stats.

I think similar products to this are cooler though, take for instance the Nike+ FuelBand. They also attempt to take a step forward with everyone becoming more social and encouraging others to set goals and what not. Which I understand is what Google Shoes wants to attempt at eventually doing. I have personally never tried the Nike+ FuelBand but would not be opposed to it if I were to get my hands on it especially if they ever did come out with an Android app as I believe it is still iOS only without further looking into it.

You can read more about it here at TechCrunch, with much more information and what not that I would rather not copy and paste.

Would you wear and use these shoes actively if it ever came out of concept and on the market?

Around a week ago Google decide to rename Google Market to Google Play as well as other services such as Google Music to Google Play Music. I think it is one of the most ridiculous name changes I have seen especially in the longest time. It does not make much sense to me, other than the complete obvious.

What was wrong with “Market”? It is the most simplest name for anyone non-tech-savvy to completely understand where to get applications, games, music and much more from.

Then you also have the new icon for it; shown above, which I think is one of the most ugliest and hideous icons Google has ever given us too. I know this is my own opinion but I am sure there is at least a large group of other people out there that will agree with me on that too.

12
Close