Funny story, I installed cyanogen with a barebones plain android rom on my S4 a month after having it and it completely wiped out all of the "features" I mentioned.
Besides that, the phone ran smoother and the battery lasted longer than ever before.

Another tech tip is to uninstall the official facebook and facebook messenger apps in favor of some sort of facebook mobile site wrapper like Metal to save massive battery life.

He understood and respected my decision. We were pretty friendly aside from work.

We finished up some projects and as luck would have it, a new role opened that I fit perfectly into. Now I work from my spare bedroom daily.

I use Nova Launcher instead of the stock Samsung launcher, so that probably cuts back on a lot of the bloatware I see. The two biggest things that come to mind that I use from the stock software is Samsung pay and the battery saver thing that they have when I need that extra 30 or so minutes at 10%. All the apps I don't use that I can't uninstall I just disable so I don't see them.

Oof don't even get me with NFC payment tech. That tech is debacle in the form of a game of wits between smartphone owners and stores too cheap to upgrade or too lazy to configure their terminals for the multitude of different NFC payment apps out there. You can have the newest and best smartphone but you're SOL if the retailer's CC terminal does not support NFC or have it set up.


I was at a grocery store the other day and while waiting in line I noticed a transaction at the closest til:

*Woman takes out apple flavored phone
Cashier: sorry we can't take phone payments

*woman takes out credit card and plugs into EMV card slot
Cashier: sorry we're not set up for chip cards yet
(mind you there was an industry fraud liability shift in OCT '15 where essentially bank card issuers were like "yeah you should've been taking chipped cards already so, if you get a chargeback from a stolen card being swiped you're on the hook")

The woman finally is able to complete the transaction by swiping her card like we did for the past three decades.

That was whole food$.

Samsung Note 3 on 4.4.2 KitKat (that's right) CleanROM 2.0 and Nova Launcher Prime 4.2.2
Some of the factory bloat is removed off of this ROM. They tried to recreate KitKat as it would have been straight from Google. Added on Nova Prime because everyone on Android should be using a launcher of some sort. Battery lasts all day and then some. Thing runs smoothly and crisp. Nova allows me to use custom icon sets, change the layout, tweak notifications, etc. My OCD doesn't like that Android is loose on their icon requirements for third party apps. I hate the mish mash, so I just run a pack and call it good.

Since we are on the topic here - I highly recommend Textra and SwiftKey. I went premium on both and haven't looked back. Well worth the few dollars for each. Love SwiftKey so much that I had it on the iPhone even though it was nowhere near as good as the Android version.

things like this is precisely why i love my fruitfone

i never have to think about hacking it, it just does what i want it to

Yes.

I never understood the phone-tech obsession. I used a low-end Samsung for five years, then got another low-end Samsung when it died. They do stuff OK. Granted I don't use them for work.

http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thu...hone-case.jpeg

Would buy. There's always money in a banana phone.

Stylish 3D Cute Soft Silicon Banana Case Cover for iPhone 5S 5g Biggest Case | eBay

Wasn't doing what I wanted it to. Wanted quick + offline access to documents. iPhone can't do that easily or quickly. Uploaded .pdf files to DropBox, downloaded on Note, open ES File Explorer. Create shortcut to documents right onto home screen. Click to open in Adobe. Done. Took me less than 3 minutes to accomplish this.

iPhone lacks Bluetooth controls that Android offers and that I use on a daily basis.

If I was looking for just a phone, and not to do much else with it, I would keep this iPhone in a heartbeat. Some people still have dumbphones. They don't need or want the ability to do anything else. I used to be like that. Then I realized what could be done, how productivity would increase and make my life a bit easier.


The same can be said for bikes. A BSO from Wal-Mart will get the job done right? People don't understand obsession outside of their own interest. I mean, c'mon, we don't need to spend $250 on a set of cranks now, do we?

I'm the same way with bikes, I try to buy used and good deals on everything. You can keep your 600 dollar cranks with stupid creaky BBs.

Yeah, right in the middle is usually the sweet spot. I had a Galaxy S4 for a while.

Got a much cheaper Moto G this time. I don't feel like I'm missing much yet, except a couple of deadspots up in Ridgefield cuz no Verizon action on the MotoG

yeah they dont work very well with files that arent sound or images or videos, but any of those i can access fine with internets because work and home im always connected to wifi. i use my phone as a phone maybe once a month for about 2 mins, and the only thing i use bluetooth for is uploading my ride from garmin, so those arent a big deal to me

to be clear im not saying droids are bad, theyre the right phone for a lot of people, just not me

True. Tech stuff has never been of great interest to me in general. And not gonna lie, I've found myself eyeing up the Walmart fat bikes a few times...

Oh I am catching you man. You gotta go with what works for you.

I'm tired. Big ride today with lots of intensity.

Decided to extend my trip 3 days and stay in Dubai.
148th floor of the Burj Khalifa
http://i1329.photobucket.com/albums/...psswciavc0.jpg
http://i1329.photobucket.com/albums/...pskygkcocx.jpg
http://i1329.photobucket.com/albums/...pszp2z1qgq.jpg

I'm having fun, but also excited to get home to NYC where it will be around 60 degrees, good riding weather!

Incredible pictures [MENTION=299067]AristoNYC[/MENTION]. What a modern city!

I don't know if that would be my word choice for Dubai, but pretty pictures and interesting place.

Beautiful pics!

i feel like dubai is some guys real world sim city 2000 and he just found the cheat codes

lol, that's a funny way to think about it.

Modern city and architecture with what could be perceived as archaic rules and laws?