Technology - Liberty - Hunting and How To's

So,

 A while ago I did a post about this app that I use on my android phone called Drive Sync - http://www.techlibertyblog.com/index.cfm/2017/1/4/Backup-files-and-folders-in-Android-to-Google-Drive.   I have a really good use for this program besides for the ones that I had specified in the last post. Recently I had dropped my cellphone in the water and it died. Luckily I had all my photos backedup, as well as most of my media but I did not have my app settings backed up.

This program if I would have thouth ahead could have saved all my settings on all my apps that have automatic preferences backed up for my apps (some have this, the other ones I could have just saved to a folder or something), but if I would have had this setup, all my preferences for all the applications that I use quite a bit could have been backedup. I could have all the important stuff that if I were to lose my phone, what would I want backedup to my Google Drive account, to which I could have backed up all my settings easily. I also could have backed up the settings for the app that backs up the settings to make everything fairly self sufficient.

I always said that I would never drop my phone into the water as I was careful, but the otterbox holster that I had it on had started to wear away and it was not as secure as it should have been.

Some may say that there is nothing on their phone that they cannot live without, while some of that may be true, if you really feel that way lock your phone away and go without it for a few days and see what you really "need". Find those and back the settings up so that if something bad happens, you have everything backed up!

This entry was posted on February 1, 2017 at 6:20 PM and has received 842 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

A question that I get quite often from people is to which router should they get and do they need one. Computer networking is not my big subject, but I can manage to some extent.

My usual answer is it depends on what you want.

Normally, I would suggest a router as they usually have some sort of safeguards built into it from preventing someone from snooping around in your computer, but having a router alone will not prevent this.

A router will have a few main functions, and the more you spend the more features you will get just like with everything else. The basic thing that it does is take a network of computers and have the ability to "link" them up so that they can have the ability to talk to each other. Most people will get the router so that they can expand the internet capabilities of their incoming internet connection so you are not bound by the old "dial up" days where one computer was connected to the internet only.

They can also provide WiFi capabilities, which is a way for wireless devices to connect to the router and gain access to the internal network that you have setup and get access to the same internet connection that you have setup.

Routers will usally have at least 4 connections on the back for the possibility of having 4 computers hooked up to it, but you can always expand the number of computers that are hard wired using what is called a switch, but that is another topic.

As for what kind of router to get if you want to get a router that is really up to what you want to do, what brands you like and what features a router has that you like. I like the cisco brand routers, but this tends to come down to the Ford vs Chevy discussion.

Then it comes down to what do you expect to do. I like to plan for the future, so I will usually get more power than I really need as bandwidth use gets higher the impact on the router get to be higher.

Some of the newer high end routers do look more like space ships than a router.

If you plan on connecting via WiFi and streaming video over it, I would suggest getting a dual or a tri-band router (here is a good writeup regarding single band, vs dual band WiFi and here is a good writeup on the difference between dual band and tri-band WiFi )and I will usually get a gigabit router. The gigabit refers to how much data the router can send and receive, but if you do not have a computer card that can handle gigabit and cables that cannot handle gibabit then it might not be worht the investment, unless you plan on upgrading your equipment at some point. Some may disagree with that and may say that getting a gigabit router is a good thing or some may say that it is just overkill.

Some other features that may be nice to have.

• Guest access (this creates a guest network so that you can create a temporary guest WiFi network without having to give out your WiFi password)
• Config from anywhere. I know that newer Linksys routers provide this via mobile app that allows you to configure your router from where ever you are, even if you are not connected to your network.
• Network Map - This lets you see what all devices are connected to your network. Some routers will provide this and some dont. Others will show it in hard to find places. I have a Linksys router and it shows
• Parental Controls - This allows you to block certain websites on all or certain devices only, and allows you to set internet blocks on certain or all devices for specified times.
• External Storage - Some routers allow you to hook up an external hard drive to it so that you can use it for a network attached storage devices (NAS). This can allow all the members of your network to share files in a central location.

Which routers do I suggest?

That one is up to you. I like Linksys (which Cisco bought out Linksys). I have heard of others having good luck with Belkin , Asus and TP-Link

If you have any sugestions or comments, let me know.

This entry was posted on January 24, 2017 at 12:49 PM and has received 1012 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Here is a recipe for Thousand Island dressing that is not only Gluten Free, low carb but it is also Keto Friendly. This works as a great substitution to buying store bought as you have some more control as to what goes into this and you also do not have to worry about the possibility of getting sick off of it if you have celiac disease.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Mayo
• 1/3 cup sour cream (Daisy sour cream is Gluten Free)
• ¼ cup walden Farms Ketchup or some other gluten free, sugar free ketchup
• 2 tablespoons sugar-free relish
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:
In a mixing bowl add all the ingredients and mix with a wire wisk

This entry was posted on January 11, 2017 at 3:54 PM and has received 1052 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

If anyone buys one of the Samsung Gear Live smart watch (they are the android smart watch) off of Amazon or other retailer and you find that some apps do not work on it, such as changing the watch face or that WiFi does not work, or anything does not work on it. The reason that I found at least with mine is that the ones that were sold were "developer" editions of the watch
Since these were in developer mode, this prevented from most apps working correctly and it also prevented the Android OS from updating to the latest version of the Android OS that Samsung released for this watch (mine has Android 6.01 on it), it is not just your watch and it is not you.
There are some steps that you need to do to remove the developer edition of the watch. If you are used to "rooting" an android phone, this should be no issue for you. I have rooted a few so far, so I was able to go thru the steps quite easily. I had found all the steps on a Reddit page, after some searching as to why nothing worked for it.
Head over to this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidWear/comments/2rgx1p/no_update_on_gear_live/

After I was able to remove the "developer" edition of Android from the watch and then update it, the watch has worked perfectly fine for me. In another post I will do some tricks that I will use my watch for.

This entry was posted on January 10, 2017 at 9:52 PM and has received 834 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Here is a cake that is not only Gluten Free (as long as you get the Gluten Free ingredients of course) but it is also low carb and keto friendly.
I dont have any photos or a video of this yet, but I will be making a video of this soon, and it is very easy to make. It does not rise like a traditional cake will as there is no yeast in this, but it is still good. I am not a big coconut fan at all, and I have no problem eating this

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut flour (may want to sift it)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 5 eggs, save 3 whites on the side
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup Splenda, sucralose, stevia or Erythritol
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Directions In a bowl , mix the coconut flour, salt, baking soda, and splenda (sucralose or stevia). Mix until no clumps are left. Combine the olive oil, vanilla extract, butter, 3 eggs yolks and 2 eggs until well blended. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients.
Beat the remaining egg whites with a Kitchen Aid Mixer or a handheld mixer into soft peaks and gently blend them into the batter.
Grease an 8 inch cake pan
Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom
Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 to 30 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before taking it out of the pan. Let it cool for 1 hour before frosting it.

Frosting : 

• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream chilled
• 8 oz. neufchatel cheese softened
• 1/2 cup Splenda, sucralose or stevia
• 3 tsp vanilla extract

Whip the cream until stiff. In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese until very smooth, then beat in the Splenda and vanilla. Combine and mix lightly.

This entry was posted on January 10, 2017 at 10:20 AM and has received 916 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Here is a pretty generic all purpose flour recipe that is gluten free that you can use.
The part that surprises me the most with this recipe, that just does not seem to fit in, but actually makes the recipe work the best is the dry milk. I would have never imagined that dry milk would either make or break a flour recipe, but this proved me wrong, especially with a recipe that I have for biscuits, to which the dry milk completely makes the recipe

• 4 ½ cups plus 1/3 cup white rice flour
• 1 2/3 cups brown rice flour
• 1 1/3 cups potato starch (NOT potato flour!)
• ¾ cuptapioca starch
• ¼ cupnonfat dry milk
• 1 tsp xantham gum

Using a wire wisk all ingredients in mixing bowl until combined. Transfer to air tight container and refrigerate for up to 3 months.

This entry was posted on January 10, 2017 at 5:11 AM and has received 1205 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Here is a recipe for Almond Flour bread, which is Low carb, Keto friendly and if you use the correct ingredients it can also be Gluten Free bread as well.
In this recipe, I used blanched almond flour and the blanched almond flour is a lot better than the un-blanched flour.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups Almond Flour
• 6 eggs seperated
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp Cream of tartar
• 3-4 tsp Baking Powder
• 4 or so Tbsp of butter

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
• Oil a 8x4 inch loaf pan
• Take the almond flour and put it into a Ninja blender or a food processor
• Then add the Baking Powder and the butter.
• Blend for a bit until it becomes well combined.
• add the Cream of tartar to the egg whites
• Using a Kitchen Aid Mixer or a handheld mixer beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
• Add 1/4 to 1/3 of the egg whites to the dough and mix for a while.
• Remove the dough into a mixing bowl using a rubber spatula
• Fold the remainder of the egg whites into the bread dough using the rubber spatula
• Add the dough mixture to the greased 8x4 inch loaf pan and put into the oven for 30 minutes
• Take the bread out of the oven and use a toothpick to the center to make sure that it is done (by verifying that it comes out dry).
• Let cool for a few minutes then remove from the loaf pan and cut.

Here is a video of all of this:

This entry was posted on January 8, 2017 at 7:15 PM and has received 889 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Here is a recipe for Almond Flour bread, which is low carb, Keto friendly and if you use the correct ingredients it can also be Gluten Free bread as well.
In this recipe, I used un-blanched almond flour and the un-blanched almond flour almost had a bitterness to it that I really did not like, but those that like to use un-blanched almond flour may really like this recipe

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups Almond Flour
• 6 eggs seperated
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp Cream of tartar
• 3-4 tsp Baking Powder
• 4 or so Tbsp of butter

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
• Oil a 8x4 inch loaf pan
• Take the almond flour and put it into a Ninja blender or a food processor
• Then add the Baking Powder and the butter.
• Blend for a bit until it becomes well combined.
• add the Cream of tartar to the egg whites
• Using a Kitchen Aid Mixer or a handheld mixer beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
• Add 1/4 to 1/3 of the egg whites to the dough and mix for a while.
• Remove the dough into a mixing bowl using a rubber spatula
• Fold the remainder of the egg whites into the bread dough using the rubber spatula
• Add the dough mixture to the greased 8x4 inch loaf pan and put into the oven for 30 minutes
• Take the bread out of the oven and use a toothpick to the center to make sure that it is done (by verifying that it comes out dry).
• Let cool for a few minutes then remove from the loaf pan and cut.

Here is a video of all of this:

I do have an updated version of this that uses Blanched almond flour, and in my opinion it is much better

See Almond Flour Bread 2

This entry was posted on January 8, 2017 at 7:00 PM and has received 585 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Have you ever wanted to record your driving?
Some may ask to why anyone would ever want to do that. Well, a few reasons to why it is a good idea

• If you get into a car accident and it was not your fault, there is your proof
• If you witness a car accident and the person that caused the accident says it was not their fault, you have proof
• If you have ever been accused of trying to run someone over, this is your proof that they are lying and have issues (yes, this happened to me)
• If you have ever been in a situation where you said that you wish you would have been video recording something while driving, now you can
• If you witness some sort of illegal activity, now you have video proof of it

There are many, many other uses besides the ones above
Well, you dont have to spend a ton of money on a dash camera. If you have a cellphone with a decent camera, or even a backup cellphone with a decent camera and it is running Android you have all that you need to have a dash camera.
I bought a inexpensive windshield mount for my phone ( I have the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, so it is a big phone) and the holder works for it, with some room to spare (not to mention that I have a otterbox on it, so it is even thicker. The windshield mount that I bought can be purched for around $2.00 at wish. Note that it can take a few weeks for it to arrive at your house.
After you have that, all you need to do is head over to the Google Play store and download and possibly purchase Auto Guard. I think I paid under $20.00 for this, to which it may even be cheaper than that. This app not only does a video recording, but it also records your GPS location and your speed. When you play back a recording it will show a map under the video of where you were and the speed you were going, to which it will also record the audio. Some have wondered about the storage on their phone filling up, well this app can automatically back up all the videos to Youtube if you want it to. For the backup, you can specify if it should backup on Cellular or on Wi-Fi only, and you can specify if it should backup when charging only, or at any time.
I have found this little app to be quite useful in recording some almost accidents that I have gotten into due to people pulling out directly in front of me when driving.

here are some screen shots from the app on the Google Play Store





Here is some info regarding the app from the Google Play store
Your smart phone can be clever as you with AutoGuard, the best Blackbox application, will give you wonderful experiences. Key Features - (Pro) Background recording: Multitasking with other apps (like navigation) - Upload videos on YouTube.com with captions for location and time information - Capture photos at important situation automatically - Show the video and map information on one screen - Automatically starts video recording when put into car dock or connect with bluetooth devices - Records driving video, speed, GPS, and nearest address - Supports high resolutions (1080p, 720p) - Traces path driven on 3D Google maps - Snapshot (supports auto focus, flash & gallery) - Send recorded information via E-mail AutoGuard records various lengths of video, acceleration, latitude, longitude, and speed. The video recorded can be limited to save space on your phone. After the space is filled it will automatically delete the oldest videos, unless marked to be saved. AutoGuard Pro can be set to automatically start when placed in a car dock and run in the background. You can adjust video resolution, bitrates, the sensitivity of the accelerator, and GPS update time. With Pro Version(AutoGrard Pro Unlocker), you are ad free, can sync your videos on Youtube.com & Multitask AutoGuard with other apps such as Navigation or Mp3. Visit AutoGuard's home and get more valuable information! https://plus.google.com/communities/109441776333405866373 -------------------- Why AutoGuard needs the contact permission? - List up Gmail accounts for uploading videos to Youtube. - Referral check. AutoGuard doesn't need any other information rather than your gmail address. Anyone who wants to help translating will be welcome. Thanks. =:) Support languages : English, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Taiwanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Turkish, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech & Slovak.

This entry was posted on January 6, 2017 at 7:54 PM and has received 910 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This is something that I have been doing for quite a long time now, even when I had my Palm Treo, and it is extremely easy to do on your computer.
What I use to make my ringtones with, is I download a program called Audacity, and when you use Audacity it may require you to download a plugin or install a plugin called Lame encoder

Basically, with this program you can import a MP3 file from your collection of music that you have paid for, and you can extract a certain part of the MP3 and turn that into a ringtone or a notification tone on your cellphone or tablet.
After you install Audacity, you can either import a MP3 or "drag" into into the stage.

Once you do that, you can play and select the part of the MP3 that you want to keep.

What I do once I select the part that I want to keep, is I go to Edit then Copy or [CTRL + C] for a keyboard shortcut, then in Audacity go to File - New and then paste the audio into a new audacity window. From here I can finely tune what I want to keep as a ringtone and then once I have it the way that I want it I can save it as a MP3, as File - Export Audio (this is where the Lame encoder comes into place).

I can save it directly to my phone if I have my phone plugged into my PC or I can save it to my Google Drive folder on my PC and then use the Drive AutoSync post that I made earlier to automatically download the ringtone to either one device or multiple devices that I have Drive Autosync installed on. I will usually have to reboot my phone for the new ringtone to show up to select (For Android there is a folder in the root that is called Ringtones. There is usually another folder called Notifications or it may be under Audio - Notifications for the notification tones). This will allow you to make your own ringtones for one or multiple devices without having to pay for ringtones or try to find the exact ones that you want.

This entry was posted on January 6, 2017 at 4:09 PM and has received 894 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.