Build your own cheapest Android PC

Technology is evolving every single second but prices are nowhere seem to be shedding. Laptops are somewhat expensive, desktops are fairly affordable but still there hasn’t been a device that is cheap enough and does everything, I mean everything. Tablets come little close but they are also unable to do most of the things but with right accessories; even a tablet can be transformed into a complete desktop experience.

So let me share an idea on how to build a cheapest android desktop.

What you need,

1. A monitor with HDMI input

2. A USB/Wireless keyboard

3. A USB/Wireless Mouse

4. A powered USB hub

5. An external hard disk

6. Finally the heart of the entire system; an android mini PC or a Tablet that support video output, e.g. MK80x series or Mini iMito MX series

Well before we begin lets discuss about the main hardware of this setup. You can either use an Android Tablet that supports a video output (HDMI preferably) but that will increase the cost of the entire setup. Instead go for mini pc devices which are available in abundance across the web. A mini pc is a device that has everything that tablet has, with no screen.

So as you can see that such devices are very small and are loaded with connectivity options. These devices usually have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi inbuilt.

There is a huge fan following of these devices and you can find lots of forums where people make custom ROMs for these devices enabling additional features. One of the famous one is www.freaktab.com

 

Following is a video that compared 10 such similar devices,

Let’s build it, though not as much assembling a desktop..

1. Hook up your mini pc with the monitor’s HDMI slot and power plug to the power source.

2. Connect the powered USB power plug to power source and USB port to the mini PC.

3. Connect external hard disk to the USB hub

4. Connect Keyboard and mouse to the USB hub

5. Switch on the power source.

And wolla, you have a working PC within 10k including everything from monitor to HDD.

This setup would work well if your requirements are moderate and does not go beyond web surfing, torrent downloading, light android gaming and documentation. This device alone can work as 24x7 downloading station in conjunction with a powered USB hub and an external hard disk; this is a great alternative instead of spending too much in DD-WRT routers.

Different accessories that go well with such devices are as follows,

The Air mouse keyboard

And if you have trouble connecting to Wi-Fi then there is an option for wired connection using USB to Ethernet adaptor or cable

There are lots of app that can support for any kind of need that you might have, so give it a try and let me know how it went.

All mails at one Inbox

All mails

Let’s admit that usually all of us have several email accounts or we enroll to numerous email accounts for different use. I am guilty; I have 3 email accounts,

· A Gmail account 1 for private usage,

· A Hotmail account for signups on various sites (Facebook, Pinetrest, newsletters etc.) and

· An Additional Gmail account 2 is the old one that I do not use any longer but still get emails on.

Now it’s a freakishly annoying task to go to each mailbox and check for the arrival of a new mail. What if all could be checked at one place? What if that once place is one of the inbox of these 3 accounts? Will it not be awesome that all your emails from different email accounts come to a single inbox without using any Third party software like Microsoft outlook? Microsoft outlook can be configured to collect mails from all your email accounts but then it will be accessible only on that local machine where MS outlook runs, you might still have to check all email accounts individually on your cell phone or a tab.

Let’s know the solution to this by demonstrating how I overcome this problem. I decided that the Gmail account 1 will always be my primary account and all the new emails from Gmail account 2 and Hotmail will flow into Gmail account 1.

· One advantage of doing this is that you can reply using the same email accounts from Gmail account 1 to the emails that are flowing in from another accounts, awesomeeeeee!!

· We also will be setting up a way that will allow to classify where an email has come from by just looking at the email subject in Gmail account 1

Step 1 – Setting up Gmail account 2 to forward any new incoming email to Gmail account 1

a. Click the gear icon, the top right.

b. Select Settings.

c. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

d. From the first drop-down menu in the "Forwarding" section, select 'Add a Forwarding Address.'

e. Enter the email address to which you'd like your messages forwarded, in my case its Gmail Account 1.

f. Google will send verification to that email address.

g. Open the forwarding email account and find the confirmation message.

h. Click the verification link in that email.

i. Back in Gmail account 2, select the 'Forward a copy of incoming mail to...' option and select your forwarding address from the drop-down menu.

j. Select the action you'd like your messages to take from the drop-down menu. You can choose to keep Gmail's copy of the message in your inbox, or you can send it automatically to All Mail or Trash.

k. Click Save Changes.

Step 2 – Setting up Outlook (Hotmail) account to forward any new incoming email to Gmail account 1

a. Click the gear icon, the top right.

b. Select ‘More mail Settings’

c. Select ‘Email Forwarding’

d. Select the radio button for ‘Forward your mail to the following email accounts’

e. And add the email ID on which you want these mails to be forwarded to

f. You can choose to keep a copy of the message in outlook.com also

g. Press ‘Done’ button

Step 3 – Setup an identification method of the source of the email in primary gmail account.

a. Head back to your primary Gmail account, Gmail account 1

b. Click the gear icon, the top right.

c. Select Settings.

d. Select ‘Labels’

e. Select ‘Create New Label’

f. Create 2 new labels ‘Hotmail’ and ‘Gmail Old’ or anything you like,

Don’t worry about the nest label, you can leave it blank and click ‘Create’

g. Go to ‘Filters’ setting Page

h. Click on ‘Create a new Filter’

i. In ‘To’ text box, enter the Hotmail (Outlook) email ID and click ‘Create filter with this search’ at bottom

j. On next page, select ‘Apply the label’ and choose the label ‘Hotmail’ which we just created

k. Click on ‘Create Filter’

l. Repeat the process for Gmail account 1

Well there you go, all setup. Now you can check all emails from 3 different email accounts at one single inbox. Do let me know if it does not work as expected.

The Shortcut

Who does not like getting things done faster? Wouldn’t it be great if you never had to search for a file and application to launch? What if I tell you that the document you are working on can be opened without even knowing where it is and without even clicking it? Yes, this can be done with revolutionary Qliner hotkeys.

Webpage: http://qliner.com/hotkeys/

The Setup:

1. Download and install the setup file

2. Once installed press Win + Z to launch the keyboard layout which will look like this,

3. The vanilla installation comes with pre-defined shortcuts but you need not worry; you can retain or remove all and place your own shortcuts. There are 3 ways to assign new shortcuts,

a. Either select any key and right click on it to launch the menu; browse through the file that you want to launch upon the trigger.

b. Go through a shortcut adding wizard

c. Or, drag and drop

4. It also comes with some pre-defined scripts (Tools) that can prove very handy.

5. Right clicking on an empty space on the keyboard layout gives the following options,

Lastly following are some innovative ways you can use the Qliner Hotkeys,

1. Shortcut to different important folders

2. Shortcut to that important document you are working on

3. Shortcut to useful applications like Messenger, Outlook, MS Word and my favorite Notepad.

4. You can even create new email shortcut and place to a key and that will give you a one hotkey shortcut for new email.

Phrase Express – A text expansion marvel

How many times do you write “Thanks and Regards” followed by your name?

How many times do you write “Happy Anniversary, may this day ……” on Facebook?

Well all those phrases that repeat in our day today life become quite a headache when you are unable to find an easier way to repeat them. Phrase express can do that for you AND much more.

Phrase express expands any text anywhere, be it MS Word, Facebook, Gmail or Skype. It is a powerful tool that can be used for more than text expansion. You can run define text macros and do all kind of artistic stuff.

Webpage: www.phraseexpress.com/index.html

Setup Phrase Express

1. Download and install Phrase express, it will look like this

2. Right Click on Phrase Express and create a new folder,

3. The reason to create a new folder (e.g. “Defined by me”) is to distinguish between the phrases that come bundled with Phrase express and phrases that will be created by you. All standard phrases (e.g. wont –> won’t) come pre-installed with phrase express and are present under “PhraseExpress” folder.

4. Once the folder is created, you are good to go. Start adding phrases now. Right click on the new folder and click on “New Phrase” which will open up another list that presents the varieties of phrases that you can create.

Unformatted text

• Efficient and memory resource friendly

• Phrases are stored without any formatting information and without bitmaps.

RTF ("Rich Text format")

• Recommended for formatted text without bitmaps
• Exact reproduction of text formatting
• Recommended for MS Office or Outlook

• Requires more file space

HTML format

• Recommended for text containing bitmaps.
• Recommended in particular for web page snippets.
• Very efficient storage of bitmaps in their native format.

• Requires more file space
• The text formatting appearance may vary depending on the target application.

Explanation from Phrase express user manual www.phraseexpress.com/docs9/09/manual.htm#edit

5. First let’s learn the unformatted one and once you master that; you can play around with the limitless depth of Phrase express world. Select “Unformatted Phrase”

a. Description: - is the title of the text expansion which will help you distinguish between different phrases you will define overtime.

b. Phrase Content:- is the expanded text or the end result that you are looking for.

c. Now there are 2 ways to get the phrase expansion,

a. Assign a combination of Hotkeys (as I have shown in the above screenshot; shift + ctrl + D)

b. Or, my favorite, define an auto text. An auto text will trigger the text expansion. But be very cautious that you do not define a auto text that is a common part of words; e.g. “add”, so if you write “saddened”; it will try to replace the “add” in it with the text. I declare “my_add”.

d. Auto text again have 4 types of triggers,

a. Execute immediately, my favorite, executed as soon as “my_add” will be written.

b. Execute after default delimiter, text will be expanded after space, enter key etc.

c. Execute after manual confirmation, as soon as auto text is identified a confirmation box is popped up,

Once you confirm (Press Tab) it, the text that is displayed in tooltip will be substituted by the auto text.

e. I will not cover “Expert mode” yet but that is something you can explore on your own once you are good with “Easy Mode”

Phrase express can be used for many innovative text expansion tricks. Following are few examples,

1. You can have an auto expansion for anniversary messages which keep coming everyday if you have lots of friends.

2. If you do not remember your phone number or card number then you can add your number as expansion text with auto text “mynum”, you can do this for cubicle ID, machine ID, Card numbers etc.

3. You can also make text expand as your passwords.

4. Autotext for a signature image or logo, so that you need not copy paste it every time.

Other useful things that are part of phrase express is that,

1. You can restrict every phrase to particular application, if you do not want a particular phrase to be executed on Facebook; you can do it.

2. Phrase express keep learning as you type and it suggests you automatic expansions (Not the defined ones) that you might have written previously or write quite often.

3. Not to mention that it corrects a good amount of regular spelling mistakes.

Phrase express is much more powerful tool that can be explored. For more understanding visit their user manual, www.phraseexpress.com/docs9/09/manual.htm#edit

PrtScr –Screen Capture made easy and powerful

Did you know that there was a key named “Print Screen” that was primarily used to take screenshot of the active screen? It did not have any significant features, just press the key and paste it wherever you wanted it. Well print screen days are over and there are now numerous screenshot capture tools around. I am going to talk about one of them, PrtScr, yes with the same name that we have been seeing all along.

PrtScr largely gives you freedom to choose on the figure of the screenshot that you want. You can either go for four-sided shapes or free forms.

PrtScr comes with marking feature that gives user the advantage to highlight desired section on the screenshots while you take them.

PrtScr has following selections for taking a screen capture,

Right click is for marking and left for screen capture area selection but using CTRL in addition give control over a regular four-sided figure.

The animation presented after taking capturing the screen is incredible and feels like an effect from a Sci-Fi movie. Following preferences are available for screenshot.

This gives you lots of choices straight after you are done taking the screenshot.

You can access all settings by clicking on the Settings tab on above dialogue box,

You can assign any key to trigger the screen capture (I have mapped it to good old Print Screen key itself) and has various other self-explanatory useful settings.

Watch the video below for the tutorial.

Never forget birthdays and Anniversaries, Anymore

I am sure that it happens with everyone that we try hard to remember the birthdays and anniversaries but no matter what we attempt; we eventually unable to summon it up at the precise moment. I recall that I used to have a software that used to show whose birthday it is that day as soon as I switch my desktop on. It had a batch file that used to run before windows start. It was neat and I never forgot any birthday but that was me. We are so busy these days that I have seen people leaving themselves note, writing on sleeves and even asking friends to remind but nothing really work 100%

People might argue that now a days everyone is on Facebook and we get to know when someone’s birthday is, yes its true but,

• Does it tell anniversaries ?
• Is your granny on Facebook ?
• Does it tell you it in advance so that you can actually plan for a big party for your loved ones ? I don’t think so.

The method I am going to describe below come close to 100% mark, it just needs initial time investment and then upgrades whenever required.

What do you need – A Google account (Gmail), A cellphone and little time and patience.

Step – 1

Collect all important Info

Collect birthdays and anniversaries of all those people who you care about and do not want to forget their important dates next time.

Step – 2

Setup the device to get alerts

1. Go to http://calendar.google.com/

2. Click the gear button on top right corner,

3. Go to Settings.

4. Go to Mobile Setup Page,

5. Select your country,

6. Enter mobile number,

7. Select your carrier from the drop-down menu (This might not work for all Carriers)

8. Click Send verification code.

9. You will get text on your phone with a code

10. Enter the code you received in the Verification code field on the webpage.

11. Click the Finish setup button

12. Click Save

Step – 3

Setup the reminder

1. Click on the Create button on top left

2. Following screen will be loaded

 

3. Now add the Title for the event, maybe “Birthday: Brother” Or “Anniversary: Parents”

4. Set the date and Time (Time is when your event is active and you will get reminders based on this time)

5. Select Repeat

6. Following Pop-up box will open,

7. For anniversaries and Birthdays you need to set following values,

a. Repeats: Yearly

b. Repeat Every: 1

c. Click Done

8. Now Come to Reminders and set reminders to get Email and SMS according to your preference,

    a. You can set maximum of 5 reminders

    b. There are three types,

i. SMS – You will get a reminder text on cell

ii. Email - Reminder email on Gmail account

iii. Pop-up – Pop-up reminder on desktop (Only when Gmail/Calendar running in background on Chrome)

    c. You can set any value in the 2^nd column boxes. You can set reminders a week or 2 in advance so that you can plan for that surprise party for the Birthday or Anniversary which you were missing out on previous occasions.

    d. And next column gives you options on Unit of time

i. Minutes

ii. Hours

iii. Days

iv. Weeks

You can play around with these options and create yourself loads of innovative reminders like,

# Fertilizer the plants (Every month on first Sunday)

# Get Car Serviced (6 Months once)

# Take Backup (Every Fortnight)

9. Press Save and you are Done,

Now you will never forget any important date

Please let me know if you have any questions.