Can You Use Any Charger With Any Device?

Every device — smartphone, tablet, eReader, laptop — seems to come with its own charger. But do you really need all these chargers? Can you re-use the same charger for multiple devices?

The Micro-USB connectors and chargers shipped with most modern smartphones and tablets are now supposed to be standardized. This is a topic that’s more confusing than it should be, given this standardization.

Types of Chargers

While chargers are becoming more standardized over time, there are still a variety of different charger types in wide use:

Laptop Chargers: Unfortunately, there’s still no standard type of charger for laptops. You’ll want to get a charger designed specifically for your laptop. Connectors aren’t standardized, so you probably won’t be able to accidentally plug the wrong charger into your laptop.

Apple Lightning Connector: Apple has now standardized on the Lightning connector, introduced in 2012, for their devices. iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches, iPad Nanos — all the new iDevices use the Lightning connector and can be connected to any Lightning charger certified or developed by Apple. Older devices use Apple’s 30-pin dock connector. Apple makes a connector that allows you to connect new devices with a Lightning connector to older charges with a 30-pin dock connector, if you really want to do this.

Micro USB Chargers: Most smartphones — including Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry phones — and Android tablets use standard Micro USB connectors. These replace the proprietary chargers that old cell phones used to use. To comply with the European Union’s directives on a common type of charger for smartphones, Apple offers a Lightning-to-Micro-USB adapter.

Laptop chargers aren’t compatible, while Lightning connectors can be shared between Apple devices. (Note that iPad chargers will have a higher amperage than iPhone chargers, see below for more about that.)

Can Any Micro USB Charger Charge Any Micro USB Device?

The real question here is whether any Micro USB charger can charge any Micro USB device. In theory, all Micro USB chargers and devices are supposed to work together. Chargers can be mixed, matched, and recycled, so they don’t need to be tossed out when you get a new device.

If you have a device with a Micro USB port and a Micro USB charger, you should be able to plug the device into the charger and charge away. You can also use a standard Micro USB cable to connect any device with a Micro USB port to any laptop and the laptop will charge it over USB. Just as the laptop will charge over USB, so will your charger.

There are other concerns when moving between different countries, of course. If you’re travelling intentionally, you’ll need to know the differences between voltages and connectors used around the world.

Safety Concerns

The HP Chromebook 11 uses an ARM chip, just as smartphones do. This makes it the first laptop to use a standard Micro USB connector for charging — typical laptops require more power and can’t be charged this way. This laptop was recently pulled from sale after reports that its charger was overheating and causing damage. An HP spokesperson advised that “customers who have purchased an HP Chromebook 11 should not use the original charger provided with the product. In the interim they may continue using their HP Chromebook 11 with any other Underwriters Laboratories-listed micro-USB charger—for example one provided with a tablet or smartphone.”

Underwriters Laboratories is an independent safety testing and certification organization. If you look at your Micro USB chargers, you’ll likely see a “UL Listed” logo on them. This indicates that they were tested for safety, so they won’t overheat and catch fires or electrocute you.

In some cases, even approved chargers can have problems, just as faulty batteries can catch on fire. You shouldn’t use any sort of charger that has been recalled, as the HP Chromebook 11′s charger has.

Chargers that haven’t been certified are another concern. Just as you shouldn’t use unofficial batteries ordered direct from factories in China because they have a greater risk of exploding or catching fire, you shouldn’t use uncertified chargers that haven’t been tested for safety. Don’t buy super-cheap unofficial chargers — use high-quality name-brand ones.

Voltage and Amperage

All USB connections provide 5 volts of power. This means that you shouldn’t have to worry about voltage when connecting a charger to a device over Micro USB.

Amperage is another matter. To provide more power to a device faster, chargers increase the current, which is measured in amps. More amps provide more power, so the charger that comes with an Android tablet will likely be capable of providing more amps than the charger that comes with an Android smartphone. For example, the tablet’s charger may provide 2 amps while the smartphone’s may provide 1 amp.

In practice, a charger’s amperage is a maximum. For example, if you connected a smartphone’s charger to a tablet, the tablet would likely charge very slowly as the charger wouldn’t provide as many amps as the charger that came with the tablet.

If you connected the tablet’s charger to the smartphone, nothing would explode or catch fire. The smartphone likely won’t draw the maximum number of amps the charger can provide, but that should be fine. The smartphone may even charge a bit faster.

All of the above should be true. It should be possible to charge any device with a standard Micro USB connector using a standard Micro USB charger. In practice, some devices may not charge with some chargers. While there’s a standard for this sort of thing, it appears some devices may not be following the standard.

How To Check My Computer’s RAM Configuration Without Opening the Case?

If you need a more detailed look at your RAM configuration than the basic information a Windows report provides, you can find out all you need to know without cracking open the case. Read on to see how you can check your configuration and installed RAM module stats.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

The Question

SuperUser reader Vince wants an easy way to check the exact configuration of his computer’s RAM. He writes:

I would like to check my RAM configuration.

I know it is easy to check the total RAM installed on a computer (eg 32 GB), but is there an easy way to check in Windows if the RAM is e.g. 2×16 GB, 4×8 GB, 8×4 GB or 16×2 GB?

This information is particularly handy if you’re shopping for a RAM upgrade as you need to know which slots are filled and in which configuration.

The Answer

Two SuperUser contributors came to Vince’s aid, offering two unique ways of accessing the information he wants. Bob shows us how to use a built-in Windows tool to get a detailed readout:

If you don’t mind using the command line, WMI can do this and is native with Windows XP and newer.

Simply run wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel,DeviceLocator,Capacity,Tag

>wmic MEMORYCHIP get BankLabel,DeviceLocator,Capacity,Tag

BankLabel  Capacity    DeviceLocator            Tag

BANK 0     2147483648  Bottom - Slot 1 (top)    Physical Memory 0

BANK 1     4294967296  Bottom - Slot 2 (under)  Physical Memory 1

(DeviceLocator will likely give you DIMM numbers on a desktop machine – the top/under slots are because I’m on a laptop. Both BankLabel and DeviceLocator formats may vary by machine.)

There is a lot more data available, but it doesn’t display well in the limited columns of a command prompt. You can export it all to a text file for easier viewing (don’t forget to turn off word wrap):

>wmic MEMORYCHIP get >data.txt

>start data.txt

And you can use those extra columns to customise the first command to give you, e.g., the manufacturer name, product number and serial number.

For those of you that prefer a GUI, Hennes offers a solution:

Yes, there a way to do this since CPU-Z can display that information. If if one program can do that then so can others.

Between the two approaches, you definitely have enough information to make an informed purchase.

Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? 

What You Need to Know About Buying Touch-Enabled Windows 8.1 PCs

It has now been over a year since Windows 8 was released. A lot has happened — we’re now on Windows 8.1 and new devices running Intel’s Haswell and Bay Trail chips are coming out every day. Touch-enabled laptops, convertibles, and Windows tablets are getting cheaper and more common.

Head to the store to buy a new laptop or tablet and you’ll see a wide variety of new touch-enabled laptops and tablets running Windows. In the long term, Microsoft and Intel want every PC to have a touch screen, and they’re getting there.

Windows RT Is Less Common

Microsoft launched Windows RT at the same time as it launched Windows 8. This was rather confusing — not only was Microsoft’s own Surface RT a Windows RT device, other manufacturers launched their own Windows RT devices. For example, the Lenovo Yoga 11 looked like a laptop, but it actually ran Windows RT.

Windows RT has now settled into a place that makes more sense. There are only a handful of Windows RT devices on the market: Microsoft’s original Surface RT (now renamed the Surface), Microsoft’s new Surface 2, and Nokia’s Lumia 2520 tablet. Nokia is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft. These are the only three Windows RT devices you’ll encounter, and all of them are more-or-less Microsoft products. There are no Windows RT devices mixed in with the other Windows devices you’ll find. If it’s not from Microsoft or Nokia, it’s a full Windows 8.1 device that can run all your desktop programs.

Bay Trail is Competitive With ARM on Battery Life

Windows RT isn’t as necessary because Intel’s Bay Trail architecture is extremely competitive with the ARM architecture, while still allowing devices to run full versions of Windows 8.1 with support for desktop programs. (ARM chips are used in most smartphones, iPads, Android devices, and Windows RT devices.) Bay Trail offers comparable price and performance to ARM, so you can find $300 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablets and $350 convertibles like the ASUS Transformer T100.

This is a big deal. When Windows 8 came out, touch-enabled devices were very expensive. Most laptops for sale — especially at lower prices — didn’t support touch at all, so many people opted for Windows 8 devices without touch screens. Touch screens are filtering their way down to cheaper devices.

Haswell Chips are More Battery-Efficient

Even if you pick up a more expensive device running a more powerful Core i5 or i7 processor, Intel’s new Haswell architecture ensures that the device will have better battery life. For example, Microsoft’s first-generation Surface Pro only lasted a paltry four hours or so, which is terrible for a tablet. The new Surface Pro 2 with Intel’s Haswell architecture will last for over eight hours.

The message is clear: You can get a device that’s powerful enough to be your main laptop but long-lasting enough to also function as a mobile tablet. Even if you don’t plan on using the tablet features, the more power-efficient architecture makes for much longer battery life in laptop mode.

Some Devices Include Free Copies of Microsoft Office

Some devices come with free versions of Microsoft Office Home & Student edition. This includes all Windows RT devices, 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablets, and even some other machines like the ASUS T100 transformer.

However, larger devices will not include free copies of Office. This is a bit weird — for example, Microsoft’s cheapest Surface 2 tablet with Windows RT includes Office, while the more expensive Surface Pro 2 doesn’t include Office.

As a rule of thumb, the device will include Office if it’s a device you probably wouldn’t want to run Office on. If it’s a serious laptop that you would run Office on, it won’t be included — probably because Microsoft assumes you’d want to buy Office for it, but you wouldn’t want to buy Office for an eight-inch tablet.

Either way, businesses can’t benefit from this. They’ll need a license for the full edition to use Office for business purposes.

Samsung Galaxy S3 ''Hidden'' Features

Even though the Samsung Galaxy S3 is getting to be an ‘older’ device when you consider the rate at which new devices are being pumped out of the smartphone and tablet mill, this phone still tops the charts and is one of our users' favorites, coming even before the Galaxy S4. Today we are presenting you with some cool, perhaps borderline gimmicky, but nonetheless interesting and often forgotten features found in your Galaxy S3 that you might not have know about.

Record and store from FM tuner

Granted, listening to the radio isn’t so popular anymore considering you can get music streaming from Spotify or Stereomood among the many other services, but radio has less of a draining impact on your battery not to mention doesn’t use your mobile data. If you don’t have a ton of songs already saved onto your phone, radio is a good option and it won’t use up so much of your internal storage either. You can also record FM radio and store it onto your internal memory and if so desired, archive it on your computer.

Blocking Mode

The worst is getting notifications in the middle of the night when you are just trying to get a decent night’s sleep. The Galaxy S3 has a Blocking Mode that you can switch on or off in the settings of your phone under the Device subcategory. By tapping on ‘Blocking mode’ you will be able to customize what you would like to block, whether it is incoming calls, notifications, alarms, timers or LED indicators, either for all the time or a specific period of time. You can, however, ensure that emergency calls get through to you at any point in time by choosing ‘allowed contacts’.

Face Unlock

Though this isn’t the most secure way to lock your smartphone, it could be used in addition to the swipe or PIN if you so wish and setting it up is easy to do. Under Settings, you will need to go into ‘Lock screen’ and choose ‘Screen lock’. Tapping on this will prompt you to confirm with your current screen lock choice and then give you a list of various ways of unlocking your phone as well as indicating which ones are the most safe. By going through the steps as directed and holding the device at eye level to fit your head within the form on screen, you can set it up so that your Galaxy S3 will recognize you. It might mistake a similar looking person however, so if you are worried about your content, you might want to stick with another, more secure locking method.

Easy Mode for your home screen

If you are buying a Samsung Galaxy S3 for the first time, and are a beginner user, it might be a good idea to switch the user interface mode for your home screen to easy. What this will do is give you bigger, blockier icons on your home screen in order to make your apps and the other functions more visible. To get into this ‘Easy mode’, go into the settings of your phone and under the subcategory ‘Device’, choose ‘Home Screen mode’ and choose which mode you would prefer, and finally, apply. Once you feel more comfortable, you can always switch it back with the same steps.

Edit videos in Video Player

If you’ve shot a video and want to trim it down a little bit, you can do this right from the video editor, without the use of an external app from the Google Play Store. When a video is playing, tap on the menu button and choose trim. You can then choose which parts to trim out and which to keep.

Video overlay

Multitasking with the Galaxy S3 can be done in many different ways, like with Multi Window for example. Another way is having a video from Video Player play in a small window over the top of your home screen, or while browsing the web, texting with friends and so on. The way to do this is to go into the video that you would like to view, then select the icon on the bottom right corner. This will launch the video on the home screen where you can start doing something else simultaneously. Tapping on the video will bring up the ‘X’ to close it.

How to Fix Mouse Lag in PC Games on Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 allows Windows to work better on high-DPI displays. As part of this, the way Windows deals with mice has changed. Games that don’t read raw mouse data may end up with laggy, freezing, or stuttering mouse movement.

This problem seems to primarily affect users with high-DPI or high-polling rate mice — in other words, gaming mice. Microsoft has only released a partial fix, but there’s a way to fix this problem in any affected game.

Install Microsoft’s Patch

Microsoft provides a patch that introduces a new compatibility option to fix this problem. As part of the patch, the compatibility option is applied to a variety of popular games, including games from the Call of Duty series, Counter Strike series, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Hitman Absolution, Half-Life 2, Metro 2033, Portal, and Tomb Raider.

This patch is known as KB2908279. As of November 14, 2013, this patch has not been rolled out via Windows Update. To get the fix, you’ll have to download the patch from Microsoft’s website and install it manually.

Depending on the version of Windows 8.1 you’re using, you’ll need to download either the the 64-bit version of this patch or the 32-bit version.

If you’re not sure which version of Windows you’re using, press the Windows key to access the Start screen, type System, and click the System shortcut. Scroll down and look at the System type line.

Fix Other Games via the Registry

The patch above does two things. One, it creates a new type of compatibility flag in Windows. Two, it applies that compatibility flag to some of the most popular games affected by this problem.

If you have a less-popular game with this problem, you’ll need to apply the compatibility option to the game on your own. Microsoft advises game developers to do this themselves so their users won’t have to, but many games may never be updated with this fix.

You can apply Microsoft’s fix to any affected game from the registry editor. Note that you must have the patch above installed for this to work.

To get started, press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, type regedit, and press Enter.

Browse to the following registry key, or folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

The Layers key may not exist. If it doesn’t, right-click the AppCompatFlags key, point to New, select Key, type Layers, and press Enter to create it.

You’ll now need to create a new registry entry for your game. Right-click the Layers key, point to New, click String Value, type the full path of the game’s executable file, and press Enter. For example, if the game was located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Game\Engine.exe, you’d just type the following value:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Game\Engine.exe

Next, right-click the value you just created and select Modify. Type the following text into the box and press Enter:

NoDTToDITMouseBatch

You can now repeat this process to add every affected game you have.

Next, we’ll need an elevated Command Prompt window. To do this, press the Windows key to access the Start screen, type Command Prompt, right-click the Command Prompt shortcut that appears, and select Run as administrator.

In the elevated Command Prompt window, type the following command and press Enter to apply your compatibility settings:

Rundll32 apphelp.dll,ShimFlushCache

Warnings

Microsoft warns that this option will cause increased power usage, so you shouldn’t apply this option to unaffected games or other programs. In particular, they stress that this shouldn’t be applied to background processes that remain running, or your battery life will be noticeably affected.

There is another option Microsoft recommends — if the game In question has a “raw input” or DirectInput option, you can select it and the problem should be fixed.

3 Educational Apps That You Will Enjoy And Learn Something New!

Smartphones and tablets can now be used for educational purposes as well as for having fun and communicating with friends and family. In this article we will be reviewing some of the best educational apps that we have found to be quite useful and fun at the same time.

Whatchamacology

This app is useful for high school students who are studying science subjects and it is available on both iOS and Android. The basic gist of this app is it helps high school students learn the terminology used in the subjects they are studying. This terminology will be useful in school when writing tests or examinations. When using this app students have to form groups and decipher which word is being referred to using clues being given out by the app. The word they have to decipher is a technical term in that specific field of science and this helps students remember the term and its properties when being tested. The teams are competing against each other which also adds a bit of an incentive to the whole game and the learning process. This app is ideal for use in classroom situations.

NatGeo Today

This app is definitely one of my favorite educational apps but unfortunately it is only available on iOS. Nat Geo Today an official National Geographic app and is particularly useful to those studying anything to do with nature, animals and geography or someone who is just enthusiastic about these subjects. The content is provided by the National Geographic of course and the media available includes text, stunning images and videos covering a wide range of topics such as global warming, big cats in the wild etc. The content is constantly being updated which is great for users of this app. Android users will just have to be content with unofficial apps that can be found in the Google Play store such as National Geographic Apps. Hopefully National Geographic creates an official Android app in the near future.

English Tutor by SpeakingPal

This app is most useful for people looking to learn English in a fun and interactive manner. Fortunately this app is also available on Android and iOS. It also helps for those wishing to improve on their pronunciation of words in the English language. The app itself is free and there are some tutorials that come with the free version of the app but in order to do the other exercises you have to purchase them within the app. Basically in this app, a scenario is laid out in which a user will have to listen to the conversation and then answer comprehension style questions about the conversation to make sure that they have understood what was being talked about. There is a second type of exercise where the user practices responding to questions using the right pronunciation. This app is fun to use and will be useful to those wanting to learn English.

Do you have any educational apps that you have used and you think are cool. Please leave us a comment below and we will get back to you.

Nexus 10 - 2013 (Pop-Up)

Over the weekend, a bunch of press photos of the latest Nexus 10 emerged online. Furthermore, from the leaked images, it looks like LG will take over on the production of the newest Google tablet and leave Samsung and ASUS in the dust.

If the picture above isn’t apparent enough, the LG logo is completely overlaid over the photo of the Nexus 10 with the name LG-V510, the same name that has popped up over time and time again at via FCC certification documents. The second image found below is that from a disgruntled employee of Telefonica and appears to be a rendering that would be used for the O2 website. Apart from the narrow edge and the front speakers, the Google Experience launcher can be seen in both photos. As well, with most new Nexus devices being presented lately, it is expected that the newest Nexus 10 will ship directly with Android 4.4 KitKat.

While the quality of the photos presented leave much to be desired, two independent leaks bode well for the authenticity of them. With the authenticity of previous leaks being questioned as to how legitimate they are, we will most likely have an official announcement of this device this week, with most bets being placed on this Friday, November 22.

How to create new themes for your Android phone

Love Scrabble? Your Android phone can look just like a Scrabble board. The OS is endlessly customizable, down to the last pixel.

But creating the most striking and novel Android interface is a baffling chore. Take a look at the many 'how to tutorials' on YouTube, where Android theme designers — or themers , as they are known — offer step-by-step instructions so you can replicate their handiwork.

A new app, Themer, hopes to bring Android customization to the masses. Users download Themer, which is free, and immediately have a library of smartphone themes, any of which can be installed with a single click of a button.

Hit "apply", and your phone could, for instance, have the 'In A Row' theme, which is a column of white lettering against a black background, with fonts in the style of a hip restaurant menu.

There is a 'Grand Theft Auto' theme, a 'Game of Thrones' theme, and even one that uncannily recreates the look of iOS 7, in case for some reason, you want the iPhone look on your Android device.

To anyone who's ever tried the long-way route to installing such labour-intensive designs, Themer feels like a magic trick.