My OG Pixel died last night and while I'm waiting for tech support to get back with me on how I can still use MFA to do my job, I figured I would ask you all how I should proceed with getting a new device. My first impulse is to get a Referb Pixel 2 on Amazon for $99, as I liked my original Pixel, I like having the latest Android version and I like only paying $99 for an older flagship phone. Additionally, I was considering a Pixel 3a as it would presumably last a bit longer and has had good reviews but is three times as much and hasn't devalued nearly as much when used, which is good and bad.

I'm open to anything that's relatively stock Android and still updated, and am curious about iOS, Kaios or other options. Landlines are a hard pass.

It could be positive ("I'm so glad I convinced Management to let us set up for working remotely" or "I'm so happy we tested for a ridiculous setting on scalability testing") or negative ("If you had let me set up the server to [whatever] we would not be in this pickle").

For the past few years I haven't had any speakers connected to my PC due to a lack of space in my room and on my desk. For the most part I have been using a pair of headphones which are great, but they aren't the most comfortable thing when I just want to watch YouTube on my second monitor and keep my ears available for my significant other.

So now I am looking for alternatives to desktop speakers. Right now I am either thinking of:

• Bone Conduction Headphones

• Bose Soundwear

I think the bone conduction headphones would give me a ton of options to use while I am biking and sitting at my desk. The Bose on the other hand have excellent sound quality. A small, discrete speaker bar may also fit my needs if there are any good ones that can be recommended. Any thoughts? Have I missed an audio product that may fit my needs that you could recommend?

I was recently in the market for a cheap used phone. I was looking for an Android device, preferably less than 3 years old, preferably with an unlockable bootloader and rootable, for $200 or less. I was looking at used Pixel 2's when I came across this weird Chinese manufacturer I'd never heard of.

The Umidigi F2 is a bizarre device. I was blown away by the specs, and the seller was only asking $200CAD for it, so I took a chance. I've got to say, so far I'm pretty impressed.

Quick Specs:

• 6.5" IPS LCD, 2340x1080px, bezelless, w/ hole-punch camera, no notch
• 6GB Dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM, 128GB Storage
• Mediatek P70 - ARM Cortex A73/A53 Octo-core 2.0/2.1GHz CPU
• 5 cameras, 32MP front-facing, 48MP rear, 13MP wide-angle, 5MP depth, 5MP macro
• Dual SIM, MicroSD
• 5150mAh battery
• ~40 frequency bands
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Stock Android 10

At this price I was initially skeptical. There must be something wrong with it, some glaring flaw I wasn't seeing, and/or those specs must be fake. I'm happy to say though, they're real, and the device seems much more solid than I expected.

I've had the thing a little over a week so far, and have only charged it once. On the first charge it lasted 4 days before I charged it, and still had 30% battery remaining after I'd spent a couple hours surfing the web and two hours watching youtube (total screen-on time was ~4.5hrs). After charging it I haven't been using it as much, but it's currently been running 3 days and it has 70% battery remaining. I've used it to listen to the radio for 3 hours this morning. Oh yeah, did I mention? Bizarrely, it has a FM radio tuner for some reason.

So far everything has been smooth, the device performs really well, which is not something I expected from a Mediatek CPU. Rooting it went smoothly, and I've been able to tweak a bunch of settings via the EdXposed framework, as much as you can in Android 10 anyway. I did remove some background bloat, but otherwise the default ROM is very close to vanilla AOSP.

The build quality of the thing is honestly not bad. I've used mid-range Samsung devices that have felt cheaper and more plastic-y than this. I have read some reports of bad touchscreens, but so far I haven't had any problems. There's also a DIY solution to solve that. Unfortunately, if it dies, this is pretty much my only option, since the warranty and support is pretty much nonexistent. At a quarter the price of a brand-name phone with similar specs though, I'm willing to roll those dice.

So, other than warranty, what are the downsides? Well, so far the biggest gripe I have is there is no notification LED on it. So if I go to the washroom and come back I can't just tell at a glance if I've missed a call or text, I actually need to unlock it. Luckily the fingerprint reader and face unlock are both pretty reliable. There is no wireless charging, which I'm more or less okay with. The main reason I'd want that is if the USB port died, but again, this is the sort of phone that if anything is wrong with it you're pretty much meant to throw it out. The speaker is a bit tinny, and unfortunately it's mono. The cameras are bad. The 48MP camera does take 8000x6000 pictures, but they're grainy to the point where even if you resize them down they still look worse than something taken with a good 6MP camera. This seems to be a software problem though. The camera module is apparently made by Samsung, and people have said it's gotten better with every OTA update. As for that, there's been an update this month, but a lot of people are expecting it might be the last update they put out. Umidigi apparently has a bad track record of only providing updates for a few months.

In conclusion, this is objectively a decent phone, and for it's price, it's exceptional. You sacrifice warranty, updates, any kind of support really, but you get some very decent hardware for $200.

Official site: https://www.umidigi.com/page-umidigi_f2_specification.html
Purchasable on amazon for fast shipping, purchase on aliexpress to save $50.

I am thinking on installing League of Legends, but I am not sure about the privacy implications of doing so. If I install it, would it be able to read all the other files in my computer? If it can, can I avoid the problem by using a guest account on my computer to play? Riot's privacy policy seems to be standard as far data mining goes, but I would like to know how much it can see if install it. I am playing on a Mac.

due to the looming pandemic forcing everyone to stay inside, I've recently decided to get back into video games. I did a fresh install of windows 10 the other day, and tried to play a few games with my controller. I found that whenever I press the right trigger on my controller, my computer's audio cuts out system-wide immediately and does not come back on until I restart.

The controller is a wired Afterglow for Xbox 360 PL-3702.

Windows 10, version 1903.

I see two audio devices under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager: a AMD High Definition Audio Device and a Realtek Audio device.

I've tried updating drivers for my controller and audio controllers.

I've reproduced the issue and collected logs of it following the steps here. If you know how to read these I'd be happy to send you the trace.

Now, I've tried to look at the trace of this in both Windows Performance Analyzer and Windows Media eXperience Analyzer to try and get a better sense of what's causing this. I see a pretty clear event where a bunch of stuff shows up in the visualizer, but I don't know what any of the stack traces that show up mean. This did not occur on my previous install of Windows on the same computer so I suspect it's related to something with some new Windows "gaming" feature I didn't have before.

I'm really at a loss as to where to go from here. It's both perfectly clear and completely mystifying. Any ideas?

I figured one thread for all of Apple's new product announcements would be enough.

The new MacBook Air with the same redesigned keyboard as the 16-inch model and newer processors. I'm glad to see that they're bringing the keyboard to the rest of the lineup so quickly (I'm writing this on a 2017 MacBook Pro and this keyboard is not pleasant even after two and a half years of adjustment).

The new iPad Pro is where things get interesting. Same design as the previous iPad Pros, but now with an ultra wide camera and a LIDAR sensor.

The iPad Pro also has a new keyboard and trackpad accessory that looks interesting. It has an adjustable hinge that can hold the iPad at any angle, which is one of my biggest complaints with the current keyboard case. I'm interested to see how well it works in a lap when hands on videos start coming out.

I'm excited that Apple is bringing official pointing support to iOS (beyond the basic accessibility feature in iOS 13). This could be a game changer. I'm also excited that it's coming to iOS 13.4 (and all iPads that can run it) and they aren't waiting until iOS 14 to roll out the feature. I've wanted Apple to start rolling out features on an ongoing basis (like Google is doing with the Pixel Feature Drops) rather than as one big drop every fall.

Solved!

Thanks to @pseudolobster's post here, I was able to resolve the issue by creating a new user account on the computer. I'm leaving the post up for posterity, in case anyone else is ever searching up this same issue in the future.

My husband is starting to transition to work from home. He is using his personal computer and just yesterday set up a VPN, Microsoft Teams, and Windows' built-in remote desktop so that he can access his work computer. Everything worked smoothly and he was able to finish out his workday from home just fine.

Primary Issue

This morning, upon booting his computer, he cannot access his Start Menu. It is on screen, and it appears clickable, but nothing comes up. Likewise, the search bar in his task bar is present on boot, but upon clicking the start menu for the first time it disappears and does not return. Other basic Windows functionality seems to be broken. Alt-tabbing does not work to switch between windows. System tray icons are present, but right clicking them and selecting an option does nothing. We cannot open taskbar settings or network settings this way, for example.

This might be indicative of a larger breakdown. Even by command line, I can't get to the Windows 10 settings or Windows Update. It seems like all of the "new Windows"-style interfaces won't start (though the old ones, like the Control Panel, do).

We can still open up apps by clicking on the links in his taskbar, and those seem to work fine. I can also get to the run command with Win+R.

He is running Windows 10, and as far as I know, it's fully up-to-date (I can't open Windows Update to check).

Additional Information

In attempting to diagnose this issue, I've come across several others that are potentially related. I don't know if these are relevant and they're not a primary concern at the moment, but I'm including them here in case they help contextualize what's going on.

There seems to be a runaway process that slowly eats up more and more memory over time, as well as a chunk of CPU. Sometimes it's called "Service Host: Windows Push Notifications User Service_#####" and sometimes it's called "Service Host: WpnUserService_#####" with the numbers changing each boot.

Also, in attempting to restart the computer, it sometimes (but not always) pauses with a notification about programs still running, with one of them being "Task Host Window" with the message Task Host is stopping background tasks. (\Microsoft\Windows\Plug and Play\Device Install Reboot Required) Finally, immediately before restarting, it shows an error message from "svchost.exe" which reads The system detected an overrun of a stack-based buffer in this application. This overrun could potentially allow a malicious user to gain control of this application.

Is this potentially a malware/intrusion issue?

Attempted Solutions

I have tried, to no success:

• Rebooting the computer, both via a restart in Windows as well as by holding down the power button
• Signing out and back in to his user account on the computer
• Running sfc /scannow
• Running DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Request for Help

I know we have a lot of techy people here, but I also know you are all probably busy with everything that's going on. Nevertheless, if anyone has any guidance or help they could give on this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Also, it's been a while since I've used Windows, but IIRC there's a way of just resetting the whole thing and starting fresh? That's not ideal, but if that's the course of action I need to take, just let me know. Ultimately I just want this to work, by whatever method, so that my husband can be at home and reduce his exposure.

I'm using OBS Studio to create some video tutorials. Nothing complicated, just me talking and demonstrating the steps on my screen.

I essentially just need to slice up these recordings into clips, delete portions of the recordings where I mess up or there are long pauses, and export it all as one video.

I've used Premier in the past but I no longer have it. While I am pretty capable of learning how to use software, I would prefer something that doesn't have a huge learning curve.

I need something that runs on either Windows or Linux and is free. Not "free trial" free, but actually free. Open source would be a plus but not a requirement.

Feel free to recommend your favorite free video editor even if it doesn't meet all of my requirements, as maybe it will help someone else in the future.