Notes on AI, tools, and tech.
Buy a Chinese phone in Shenzhen and fly it to Texas, and you moved the phone without moving the warranty. Coverage follows the country where you paid, not the brand on the back. Most people learn this the expensive way. Something breaks in month nine. They look up the nearest service center. The answer is … Read more
A few months ago, tap-to-pay quietly stopped working on imported Xiaomi, vivo and OPPO phones. Google Wallet opened fine and the cards were still listed. The failure only showed up at the register. Every affected phone was built for the Chinese market. So what actually happened? The story starts with an update. In August, Google … Read more
I checked my battery health last week. 91%. Not bad, right? But my phone was dying by 3 PM. Every single day. I wasn’t gaming or editing video. Just scrolling, texting, taking some photos. Something didn’t add up. So I went down the rabbit hole. Read through Apple’s support docs, watched a bunch of videos, … Read more
I installed the August Windows 11 update last week. KB5121003. Didn’t think much of it. Security patch, right? Fixes some vulnerabilities, makes things safer. Then I tried to play a game. It crashed. Not a gentle crash either. The screen froze, went black, and then blue screen. EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION. My PC restarted itself. I stared at … Read more
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know this feature existed until about two months ago. And I’ve worn an Apple Watch every day for three years. Here’s what happened. I went to see Dune: Part Two with a friend. Dark theater, big screen, the whole thing. About 20 minutes in, I reached for my popcorn, and … Read more
Here’s a thing that kept bothering me. I was at a family gathering last weekend. My nephew was running around doing that thing kids do where they’re having the time of their lives and you’re just trying to capture one decent frame. You know the drill. You tap the shutter, check the photo, and the … Read more
DeepSeek’s API is cheap. Like, really cheap. Cheaper than almost anything else out there. That alone makes it worth a look. But here’s the thing — I spent a good chunk of last week hitting every error code they have. Not on purpose at first. But after I tripped over a few, I figured I … Read more
Last week, I started seeing complaints pop up about a Windows update. People were saying their games kept crashing. Others said Windows Hello stopped working. I thought maybe it was a few unlucky folks with weird setups. Then I looked into it. Turns out, this one is a bit of a mess. I think the … Read more
I’ll be honest: my Windows 11 PC was taking forever to start up. Like, go grab a coffee and maybe come back forever. It wasn’t always like this. When I first upgraded, it felt snappy. But over time, things got sluggish. I’d press the power button, walk away, do a small chore, and still wait. … Read more