[SOLVED] Geforce Experience fails to install SHIELD streaming update

Have you ever received this error message when updating your NVIDIA Geforce Experience?

NVIDIA Installer Failed

Component	Status
SHIELD Streaming	Failed
NVIDIA GeForce Experience	Not Installed

No matter how many times you uninstall, reinstall, update or download the latest version, it seems to fail to install and update your GeForce Experience. You can try this step by step solution below:

1. Press 'Windows' (⊞) and search for 'services.msc'

2. Look for 'NVIDIA Streamer Service' and if the status is 'Stopping...' then this is your solution.

3. Press 'Windows' (⊞) again and search for 'cmd' to open the Command Prompt as administrator.

4. In the Command Prompt, type 'sc queryex NvStreamSvc' and remember the PID number.

5. Then type in 'taskkill /f /pid ####' (replace the #### with your own PID number, in my case it is 1956).

ERROR! If you received the access denied message, that means you did not run Command Prompt as an administrator. Please go back to step 3.

6. After the task kill, type in 'sc delete NvStreamSvc'. You should get a SUCCESS message.

7. Run the NVIDIA GeForce Experience installer again and everything should update without a problem.

Enjoy your NVIDA-powered games, and do share this post to help our fellow brothers in need!

How to Remove Homegroup Desktop Icon

I woke up today and saw this icon on my Windows 8 desktop.

I don't remember downloading or installing anything last night. I can't delete it with the Delete button or right-click. So let's get to the point on how to remove this unwanted Homegroup icon from your desktop.

Step 1: Press Windows + R
Step 2: In the search box, type regedit then click OK

Step 3: A Registry Editor will appear and you'll see a lot of folders. Follow this path;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\

Step 4: Find the folder {B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}. Delete this folder.
Step 5: Go back to desktop and press F5 to refresh.
Step 6: Win.

iOS 6 Review (On an iPhone 3GS)

Updating. And you can have both Apple and Samsung products together...

As expected with every new iPhone Apple will release new iOS to improve their product. Well for me and most owners of the aging ancient iPhone 3GS, we are delighted with the iOS 6.0 update as it let us experience some goodies that come along the new iPhone 5.

For starters it took roughly 3 hours to download (what a whooping update!). Then the updating takes roughly another 20-30 minutes. But after doing so you'll be treated with some improvements as shown below:

Typical update menu.

Do Not Disturb - Finally I can simply turn on this mode to still get selected updates without relying to total communication shutdown in airplane mode. Apparently you can set which contact are able to contact you while silencing the rest. Apart from that you can set "Quiet Hours" to make your iPhone leave you in peace even when there are calls and SMS coming in. It'll just sit there quietly waiting for your command. 

New Music Player Interface - Black and orange themed player, looks good. But changes are just visual.

New VIP in E-Mail - So we can get quick access mail from important people. Okay, a new category then.

Passbook - An all in one app where you can digitally get your scan-and-go boarding pass, tickets etc. But knowing Sibu, this neat function is quite impractical for now. Oh you still need to go to App Store to get those passes.

New Keypad - Okay, we have a new white and brighter keypads for us to tap in numbers. This is cool. Again changes are just visual.

New Camera & Photo Interface - Well, not new per se but the interface is now black in colour instead of white like earlier iOS versions. Changes are visual and no new improvements. In Photos, your images can be easily shared with the new icons form the 'More' options.

Apple Maps - Apple replaces Google Maps  with their own app and well... the satellite/hybrid map is horrible (for Sibu anyways)! It's like the comedic Restoration of Jesus! I could see my house in the previous app but now all I see is Pixel Land. At least the streets and roads are adequately named this time.

New Call Response Options - Besides the standard Decline or Answer key, you can now slide the menu up to reveal "Reply with Message" or "Remind Me Later" to your caller. For "Reply with Message" you can instantly reply with present messages to explain to the caller why you can't talk e.g. "I'll call you later" or "I'm on my way".  As for "Remind Me Later" your iPhone will remind you later to call the person. Cool. 

Voice Control - ...still cannot catch Manglish. I was asking "What time is it?"

Overall the iOS 6 didn't come with much features for iPhone 3GS but it's understandable as it was focused on iPhone 5. Some features are gone like YouTube and the good old high-resolution Google Maps. However the introduction of Do Not Disturb mode is very much welcomed. The iPhone do feel to run a bit faster too. I hope we can get the ability to blacklist some numbers too in the next update. And perhaps a map of Sibu with better resolution? Anyways I'll summed up the review:

iOS 6 for iPhone 3GS
by Apple Inc.
★★★☆☆

Some good upgrades like the Do Not Disturb mode (although some already used in other smartphones e.g. Android's Reply with Message), we appreciate the new updates. We just got a beef with the map quality and there are rooms for improvement. (Ability to blacklist please)

Wikipedia Blackout

Some posts were trending in 9Gag telling us about the blackout in Wikipedia. I checked it out and truly enough I was shown with this screen:

So what happened? Wikipedia has made its stance clear to go up against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). Basically these Acts will censor a number of the content on the world wide web and prevent access to free and open Internet. They will not stay idle and allow such oppression on the flow of information to happen. Kampua4Life for one supports the cause to prevent SOPA from materializing. Information should not be manipulated nor only selected information be distributed lest we want to live in a fascist Internet age.

You can read more on what's really happening here.

iOS 5 Review

★★★☆☆
Not so bad, if you overlook the glitches, bugs and battery consumption rate...

I like the new notification system. It bundles all notice from messages, missed calls etc into one place. You can simply drag the top of your iPhone screen and bring down this clean UI. They include updates on weather, apps, stocks and more. Once done you can push it up to hide it and get back to what ever you were doing.

There are some new apps which I find useless (like Videos) but Newsstand is kinda useful. It gathers all downloadable (IAP) magazines from the Store. Kinda useless on an iPhone due to it's small screen but useful for iPad users.

The last useful app addition is the Reminders. I used to rely on third party apps to remind me to buy new toothbrush, do groceries or remind myself to add things-to-do to my reminder list. A very simple and clean app. 

BTW take note of the battery consumption. 72% at 4:20pm and 65% at 5:16pm. Fast, no?

As for the rest, I'm still pissed at the Music playback issue. However there are online remedies to help you out. As for the playback I found this simple solution.

1. Plug in your device and start iTunes.
2. Under Music tab, uncheck ALL the songs manually.
3. Sync.
4. Check all the songs you wanted again.
5. Sync.

It's a quick fix, but it still messed up some songs where their album covers are missing. Looking forward to iOS 5 update 5.1

iOS 5 Messed Up My Playlist

Imagine hearing those fearsome Russian Red Army soldiers singing alternative rock songs...

After the long wait to update my iPhone to iOS 5 (despite all the problems and 3200 errors) last night, I was somewhat impressed with the new features like newsstand, reminder, camera options, cleaner notification system etc. Then later today I was about to get pumped by listening to some good old Russian Red Army Choir "Katyusha"... Only to be interrupted by Staind.

My Danza Kuduro was OneRepublic, some songs were unplayable and Linkin Park turned Indonesian. I'll update you once I get the solution to this. At the mean time I'll enjoy Menunggu For The End by Linkin Pan... or watch my iPhone endlessly scroll through all my songs without playing any...

UPDATE: BTW, here's an update on how to fix the playback issue.

iPhone App Review: Waze

★★★★★

Finally! A FREE app that'll help you to navigate when you're driving around. Depending on your GPS interpretation, it could be a Global Positioning System or Guna Pun Sesat...

Waze is a GPS navigation, tracking and mapping system where the roads and traffic updates are done by the users. Let's see the cool features and why does it deserve such a high rating:

Of course it uses GPS to help relay information from your iPhone to the satellite to give you real time info of your whereabouts. The system allows landscape or portrait view, below is a portrait view:

To make things fun you can "eat" your way to your destination. You'll munch dots on some roads that'll help you to level up (not sure what's the implication though). It's like Pac-Man but you're driving. And heck that Pac-Man Car thingy is really cute! Now look at me munching Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg... on nom nom nom

Sadly maps like Sibu is not updated. I looked at the road system and I can tell it's from pre-2000. Or maybe pre-1990. Some roads have yet to exist and some were using the old layout. Look at this one, I'm driving into the abyss... 

Fortunately one of the feature I like is the "Make you own road!". As most roads may not appear on the map, you are able to contribute by driving along the uncharted road and then update it at Waze's website. This here is me bulldozing and making the road of Jalan Awang Ramli Amit, while driving at 57km/h. 

And Waze also has the night mode feature. However it's just graphical. And can you see the 5 tabs at the top of the screen? The one with the !20 is like Facebook's notification system where other Waze users post updates like weather and traffic conditions of roads they are using. Sometimes they post stupid and fake stuff but hey look at Facebook...

A highly recommended app for people who are bad at navigating, for road-mappers who want to contribute or for those who fancy looking at Pac-Man-Car thingy chomp dots along their travel route and level up.

DOWNLOAD NOW from the app store

iPhone App Review: Big Time Gangsta

★★★★☆
Riding dirty, blastin fools and taking over the city block by block all in your pocket. And it's FREE. Alriggghhttttt...

Okay this is one good game if you're interested in RTS-ish, Final Fantasy-ish (huh?), gun-tapping or just feeling gangsta. BTG allows you to control your own gang and take over the city block by block. There's not much back story except for the intro rap song which explains how you just got out of prison and will have to take back the city and every last dime (honestly, the rap's kinda lame).

But luckily the song's just a minor 1 minute con compared to the whole content. Let's check it out:

You can control up to 6 gang members to a fight for new turfs. You'll meet some uniformly dressed gangs like the Colombians, the Guatamalans, some old biker-gang bangers and more. This is where you tap tap tap on screen to select whom your gangster should blast. Reloading sucks though.

This here is your crib or HQ. This is where it all starts and you can do missions from here. It may not look much but it was pretty hard to get that SUV, the two bouncers and the Jacuzzi on my crib's porch.

If you have the papers you can upgrade your crib into bigger pads like Da Kastle which may worth 1 hour of MTV Cribs review. You need dollars and credits to buy stuff. Dollars are collected from story missions and apartments you've taken over. However like all games credits are IAP but they can buy a lot of fancy stuff and guns. Did I mentioned guns?

Apart from pimping your puny bungalow, you can also purchase guns and other equipment for your gang members with even bigger guns with spoofed names. I though AKA GRILLA was a cool AK-47 spoof, until I saw the GOLD HAMMER... Gold-plated AKs are so gangsta!

This here is the snapshot of apartments you need to take over. The more you take over, the more money you get, the better equipped your gangsters are and the more turfs you can fight for. Repeat.

The map is kinda huge for a game this scale. For now (version 1.2.2) there are two of areas. Apart from story missions, taking over turfs and pimping your stuff, you can participate in an all out gangs vs gang gauntlet in the Arena.

Overall this is a good game. Beats a typical gangster game where you are required to buy random stuff to do a mission and do that mission a few times until you level up. Then use your imagination to visualize all those icons and numbers fighting among themselves. Highly recommended but can still be improved. Like, WHY IS THERE A GANGSTA WHO LOOKS LIKE AN ASIAN HERMAPHRODITE?

DOWNLOAD NOW  from the app store...

iPhone Accessory Not Optimized Fix

This morning I woke up seeing my iPhone turning on and off, as if I got some messages coming in every minute. And this notification appeared instead:

This Accessory is Not Optimized for this iPhone

You may experience noise caused by cellular interference and a decreased in cellular signal strength.

I was like WTH? I didn't add any new accessory or app to the iPhone recently. So here's a quick fix on how to clean and clear the problem.

Step 1: Undock the iPhone if it's still docked.
Step 2: Look at the iPhone's charger outlet (at the bottom of the only physical button)
Step 3: Fork out the lint, dust, dirt etc inside the outlet with a toothpick.
Step 4: Use cotton or twisted tissue to clean the remaining dust.
Step 5: Gently blow the iPhone's outlet.

Step 6: (Optional) Bang the iPhone on the table to unstuck whatever is lodged in the outlet.

There. That should stop the message from popping out. If problem persists contact your retailer.

Command & Conquer Generals DirectX 8.1 Error

Let's say you were able to play Command & Conquer Generals or Zero Hour before and now this error pops up:

DirectX Error: Please make sure you have DirectX 8.1 or higher installed. Also verify that your video card meets the minimum requirements. I bet most of you now have DirectX 11.

Here's an easy and quick fix.
For C&C Generals:  Go to My Documents > Command & Conquer Generals Data
For C&C Zero Hour: Go to My Documents > Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour Data

Then delete the Options.ini

The highlighted gear thingy is the Options.ini (may be other icon on other OS). Its Type is Configuration settings. Delete it. Destroy it without further thought.

Then run the game again. Enjoy!

iPhone App Review: Blogger

★★★☆☆
Because I can't (or don't know how to?) arrange the images or post links. Apart from that it's nifty. There are rooms for improvements.

I'm writing this post and the previous one on the app Blogger. Very nifty for those always on the move. Finally less excuse for me to not blog regularly. Ahh nuts. Now I need to figure out how to post app links from the iPhone app store.

Internet sold separately.

Click here to download the app.