Most LG phones come with a “knock code” lock screen feature. Instead of using a pattern or PIN, you can elect to tap the screen in a certain pattern to unlock your phone.
I like having options, but never actually use this myself. Consider how difficult it is if you need someone else to access your phone. Imagine driving somewhere, and you need a passenger to check your phone. If you use a PIN, you can just say “yeah, the PIN is 1234” and the passenger can quickly figure it out. If they’re unfamiliar with knock codes, you’ll have to explain the entire concept: “OK, imagine the bottom half of the lock screen divided into four equal boxes numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 starting at the top left. You need to tap 1, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4”.
Yeah, not easy.
Many LG phones also come with a similar feature called KnockON. This turns the screen on (but does not unlock it) if you double-tap it. Thing is, this sometimes causes the screen to come on when you don’t want it to. If you have your phone in a bag – or, in my case, between my fingers with a handful of stuff getting out of the car – the screen can turn on by itself, wasting precious battery life.
LG used to provide the option to turn this off. All one had to do was go to Settings > Lock Screen and tap the LockON option to turn it off or on. But LG has hidden this option in newer versions of Android. So how do you turn it off?
Note: Please see the update at the bottom of this post!
The following procedure is easy, doesn’t require root, and is easily reversible.
1) Open the Play Store, search for, and install, an app called Activity Launcher.
2) Once the app is installed, open it.
3) At the top of the screen, you’ll see a drop-down box allowing you to change the display from “Recent Activities” to “All Activities”. Select “All Activities”. It will likely take a minute or two to load the next screen, and you’ll see a progress bar giving you information about that.
4) Scroll down (waaaayy down) to Settings, and tap on that. If you have more than one “Settings” entry, try the first one.
5) Scroll down (waaaayy down) to KnockON. Tap the first option, the one marked
6) The KnockON settings page will open. Uncheck the box at the top of the screen to disable it (as shown in the screencap below), or check it to enable the option:
(click to embiggen)
Contrary to what the Settings page says, after unchecking the box, you’ll be able to turn your screen off or on via the power button, like a normal person.
7) OPTIONAL: If you like, you can create a home screen shortcut to the KnockON option by long pressing the KnockON option in step 5 and choosing “Create Shortcut” instead of just tapping it.
8) OPTIONAL: If you like, uninstall the Activity Launcher app. You will, however, need to download and install it again if you want to enable\re-enable KnockON. If you’ve made a home screen shortcut (mentioned in the previous step), it will continue to work if you uninstall Activity Launcher.
UPDATE (04/17/2017): An easier option is an app available on the Play Store called V10 Hidden Settings. Although it’s designed for the LG V10, many of its functions – especially the ability to turn KnockON on or off – work on my Stylo 2. Note that many features of this app will not work on a non-V10 phone: “Quick Info”, for example, gives me a “this device not supported” message when I tap on it. And “Screen Mode” (which gives you the option of choosing standard, vivid and natural color options) doesn’t give me an error message, but doesn’t appear to do anything at all on my Stylo 2.
One of the coolest – if unsexy – features of Android Marshmallow is its ability to use adoptable storage. This means Android can treat an SD card as additional internal storage, rather than an external device, as it has in the past. Under the hood, Android will still see two separate devices, but it will (more or less) treat it as a single storage unit. It’s almost (but not quite like) having a 2TB drive in your desktop computer, then buying a 2TB external drive and, after installing it, Windows giving you the option of treating the drives as a single 4TB unit instead of two 2TB drives. It’s kind of like that, only better, because it’s much more difficult to expand a phone or tablet’s internal storage than to do the same on a desktop computer.
Unfortunately, two of the biggest Android device makers – Samsung and LG – have disabled this feature in their versions of Marshmallow. They claim that customers would be “disappointed” in the performance of their devices, since an SD card is likely to be slower than the internal memory. This is true, but not a dealbreaker if you know that going in. They also claim that SD card failure would cause apps to break… which is also true, but it’s not the end of the world: just buy a new SD card, repeat the procedure below, and reinstall the apps in question. As someone who played around with CyanogenMod a LOT a few years back, this is not a problem at all… especially since SD cards don’t fail that often.
So this post will show you how to enable the feature. There are a few caveats, however.
The first thing – and this should go without saying – is to make sure to back up any important files you may have on your SD card before you do this. This procedure WILL ERASE the card, so data will be lost forever. Also, read the instructions below, in full, and make sure you understand them completely before you even touch your phone or computer. The time to be confused is before you start an IT project, not during the project.
Secondly, I have only tested this – once – on a Virgin Mobile LG G Stylo. It worked for me, but it might not work on your device. It might not even work on the same phone on a different carrier. Google “[your device] adoptive storage” and see what comes up. As always, there’s the possibility of wrecking your phone, so please research this before jumping in feet-first!
Thirdly, this procedure will create an encrypted ext4 partition that will fill your entire SD card. You’ll still be able to attach your device to a computer via USB and copy files that way… but you won’t be able to take the SD card out of your phone, pop it into an SD card adapter, then put it into a laptop or desktop card reader to copy files. If you haven’t already, it’s probably a good idea to look into cloud services that offer online backups of your pictures, like Dropbox, OneDrive or Mega.
Lastly, this isn’t something you can “just try out” with a spare 8GB SD card and upgrade to a 32GB card later. If this is something that interests you, go ahead and spend the $10 on a new 32GB card and be done with it.
NOTE: PLEASE READ THE ‘IMPORTANT UPDATE’ SECTION AT THE END OF THIS POST FOR ANOTHER POSSIBLE ISSUE TO CONSIDER!
That said, here’s how to enable adoptable storage on your Marshmallow device. It’s really simple: I was able to do the entire thing in around 10 minutes… while on hold with Virgin for an unrelated billing issue.
1) On your computer, go to this page on the XDA forum and download the “15 Seconds ADB installer”. I used the current version – 1.4.3 – but it might be updated by the time you read this.
2) Once downloaded, right-click on adb-setup-1.4.3.exe and choose “Run as Administrator”. As the linked page says, press Y to “install ADB and Fastboot”, Y or N to install for all users (Y) or just the current user (N), and Y to install the necessary drivers. After the last question, you should see the standard driver install dialog. Click “Yes” (or “Allow” or “OK”, I forget which) to install the Google device driver.
3) If you haven’t already, enable “Developer Mode” on your device by going to Settings > About Phone > Software Info and tapping “Build Number” seven times. You will know you’re getting close when the phone says something like “only 3 more taps to Developer”.
4) Tap Settings > Developer Options and enable USB Debugging. Click “OK” to the warning message that will appear.
5) Connect your phone to your computer via USB. A window should pop-up on your phone asking to enable USB debugging and showing your computer’s “RSA key”. Tap “Always allow from this computer” (if desired) then tap “OK”. If you don’t see this window, drag down your notification area and look for a similar debugging message and tap that.
6) On your computer, open a command-prompt in the ADB directory (which should be c:\adb).
7) Type adb devices and press ENTER. You may see your device listed, probably with a long name, like “LGLS7709e27dc19 device”. If so, skip to the next step. If you get a message about a “service not running”, the software should say that it’s starting it, but the app won’t poll your devices again. So type adb devices and press ENTER again. You should now see your device listed.
8) Type the following commands exactly as shown, pressing the ENTER key after each one:
adb shell sm list-disks
adb shell sm list-volumes all
adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true
adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 private
adb shell sm set-force-adoptable false
adb shell sm list-volumes all
NOTE: the fourth command partitions your SD card, and may take 2-3 minutes (or longer) to complete, depending on the size of your card.
9) Disconnect your phone from the USB cable and reboot it. The reboot is crucial. Your phone may (or may not) take a bit longer to boot this time. One message board user reported that his phone appeared stuck on the Virgin boot logo for several minutes, but finally booted and has been fine ever since. My phone seemed to boot normally, maybe taking just a few extra seconds at most. Your mileage may vary.
10) Once your phone is fully booted, tap Settings > Developer Options and disable USB Debugging, clicking “OK” to any messages that may appear.
11) Go to Settings > Storage & USB and tap your SD card. Tap the three dots in the upper-right corner and choose “Migrate data”:
(click to embiggen)
12) A wizard will appear, telling you that photos and media files will be moved to the SD card, and that in the future they’ll be saved there, too. Tap “Move”:
(click to embiggen)
13) After the move, you’ll see that although Android reports the size of each device individually, you have a total of x space. In my case, it’s 37.33GB:
(click to embiggen)
14) Go to Settings > Apps and tap on an app. Tap “Storage”. At the top of the resulting window you should see “Storage used: Internal storage”. Tap the “Change” button and choose your SD card, like so:
(click to embiggen)
Not all apps support being run from the SD card. Not surprisingly, most of Google’s own apps can’t be moved. Most can though, and you’ll get a simple, two-step wizard to move the data. If you don’t see a “Storage used: Internal storage” option, the app cannot be moved. Also, if you use Spotify, you will need to tap Storage > Clear Data. This will reset the app, so you’ll need to log in and download all your offline music again. If you don’t do this, the app will open and immediately close (no matter what you do) until you clear data.
15) Repeat as necessary for other apps. Note the overall amount of space used on my phone is the same, but internal storage usage has decreased while SD storage has increased:
(click to embiggen)
If this sounds a bit like my old article on expanding storage on the LG Tribute… it’s almost exactly the same thing… only this time it’s using tools built-in to Android to do so. Also, root is not needed in this case, so apps that complain about root status will stay quiet.
* * *
IMPORTANT UPDATE (03/12/2016): This may (or may not) be related to adding adoptive storage to my phone, but I just wanted to let you know about a possible issue that might happen, and offer a strange workaround if it does.
The issue is this: after adding adoptive storage, you might notice that the “None” and “Swipe” options are disabled in the Lock Screen options, with the message that it has been “disabled by administrator, encryption policy, or credential storage”:
(click to embiggen)
I work from home most days, and almost always leave the lock screen on swipe, since there’s little need for security in my own home. I went out the other night, and since I was running late I quickly set the option to PIN and didn’t notice the two other options greyed out. But then I came home and tried to switch back and found that I could not.
Now, my phone might have been like this for weeks, and I only just now noticed it. My carrier upgraded the phone from Lollipop to Marshmallow early January, and it’s possible that this could have happened then. That’s the point: I just don’t know. I’ve been an IT guy long enough to know that coincidences are rare… but they do happen from time to time.
So… how do you fix it? I don’t know. I haven’t found anything that’s worked yet. One solution offered is to go to Settings > Security > Certificate Management and click “Clear Credentials”. But this has not worked for me.
I have, however, found a strange workaround that won’t let you select swipe, but will enable it anyway:
1) Go to Settings > Lock Screen and choose “Pattern”.
2) Choose a pattern, then choose a PIN if you don’t already have one.
3) Lock the phone, then enter the WRONG pattern five times. You will get a message that says something like “You have incorrectly entered your pattern 5 times. Please try again in 30 seconds”. You will also see a box in the lower right corner of the lock screen that says “Backup PIN”. Tap it, and enter your PIN.
4) Until you change it, your lock screen should now be on swipe, even though it’s not an option you can select (just like my screencap above).
As I said, my phone could have been like this for weeks, and I only just noticed it after adding the adoptive storage. I read several articles and how-tos online on the subject, and not one of them mentioned anything about the lock screen, so I’m inclined to think it’s just a coincidence.
Huge thanks to AndroidForums member stanton renna, who actually typed all this up in a handy post. He (or she) did all the real work – I just wrote it up in my own words and added a bunch of screencaps!
One of the main selling points of Spotify Premium is the ability to download albums and playlists for offline listening. If you’re taking a long plane flight or going on a road trip, for example, you can download the music so you don’t have to worry about having access to Wi-Fi or LTE to listen to your tunes.
On previous versions of Android, Spotify would look for the storage device on your phone\tablet with the most free space, and save your offline music there. For most folks, this would be a microSD card. Hell, apps like Spotify Premium are one of the main reasons Android users install 32GB (or larger) SD cards in their devices in the first place.
If you’re using Marshmallow – Android 6.0, currently the latest version – you may have noticed Spotify storing music on your device’s internal storage instead of the SD card. This is especially worrying for people who don’t have a lot of spare space on their phones… but even if you do have space, it’s kind of annoying to spend money on an SD card, only to have Spotify ignore it.
What’s happening is that Marshmallow, by default, does not allow apps to access the SD card. The app may request permission, but if you accidentally click “no”, or if the app installer doesn’t ask (or somehow fudges it up during install), it won’t use external storage at all.
So… what to do about Spotify and offline music?
If you DO NOT have Spotify installed, go ahead and install it from Google Play, but don’t open it yet. Instead go to Settings > Apps > Spotify and look for the “Permissions” section:
The section will probably say “No permissions granted”. If so, tap it and move the “Storage” slider to the ON position:
Exit out of all that, then start Spotify and log in. The app should now save offline music to the SD card. You might want to verify this by tapping Settings > Storage and checking the available space on your SD card before and after downloading some music.
If you ALREADY HAVE Spotify installed on your device, tap Settings > Apps > Spotify > Force stop. Wait for the app to close, then tap “Storage” then “Clear data”. Then go back a page and tap “Permissions” and enable “Storage”, as shown above. When you restart Spotify, you will need to log in again. You’ll also have to download all your offline music again, but this time it should be saved to your SD card instead of internal storage.
Another year, another schedule! Last year wasn’t so great, but I’m sure Georgia Tech will bounce back this season! As I do every year, I help you keep up with downloadable versions of Georgia Tech’s 2016 football schedule. There are versions for both Microsoft Outlook and Gmail-Apple devices.
Because college football start times usually aren’t known until a few weeks in advance, most games on the schedule are listed as starting at 8AM the day of. There are two exceptions: this year’s opening game against Boston College (which will be played in Ireland at 7:30AM ET) and the Clemson game, which is a Thursday night game.
The schedule also lists the location of the game instead of the network. So “Bobby Dodd Stadium, Atlanta, GA”, instead of “ESPN”. A reminder is also scheduled for 13:00 (1:00PM ET) the day before each game.
The schedule is available in two formats: CSV (for Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo! Calendar) and iCal (for Google Calendar and Apple devices). The CSV version is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 98 or later, but has only been tested with Outlook 2016. It may work with other apps that can import events from CSV files. The iCal version of the schedule has not been tested at all. I used this handy tool to convert the CSV to iCal format. Both versions are included in the zip file; please be sure to import the right one after downloading!
Outlook users may use these instructions to import the schedule. Make sure to read the all the instructions before you begin, as there are some options you may wish to change before importing the calendar:
Download the file to your desktop and unzip.
For OUTLOOK 2007 and earlier: select “File” > “Import and Export” > “Import from another program or file”, then click “Next”. For OUTLOOK 2010 and later: Select “File” > “Open” > “Import” > “Import from another program or file”, then click “Next”.
Choose “Comma Separated Values (Windows)”, then click “Next”.
Use the “Browse” button to select the CSV file you unzipped in step 1.
On the next screen make sure to select “Calendar” as the destination then click “Next” and “Finish”.
DISABLING REMINDERS: If you wish to disable the reminders, open the CSV file and change the value of “reminder on/off” (column G) to FALSE for each game before you import the Calendar into Outlook.
CHANGING “SHOW TIME AS”: By default, the entries will display their time as “Free” on your calendar. If you wish to change this to something else, change the value of each entry in Column V (“Show Time As”) from FREE to “1? (Tentative), “2? (Busy), “3? (Free) or “4? (Out of the Office) – without the quotes.
TROUBLESHOOTING: If you try to import the schedule but don’t see any of the games listed in your calendar, shut Outlook down (open Task Manager to make sure that OUTLOOK.EXE is not running) and re-open Outlook and try the import again. If you’re still having problems, leave a comment below and I’ll try to help!
VERSION INFORMATION: These files were created on January 28, 2016 on a computer running Windows 10 Pro x64 and Microsoft Office 2016 x86. They were scanned with Bitdefender and found to be virus-free. It’s the exact same file I’ve used for a over decade now, so it should work for just about everyone.
First things first: I apologize for my latest “nifty gadget” posts. I know some of them are, well, kind of lame. But in every case, these “nifty gadgets” have solved some real-life problem I was having. I just want to spread the news to others who might be having the same issue.
I know this has either happened to you, or happened to someone you know: you go out and buy a new phone. Maybe that same day, or maybe later on, you buy a case for the phone. Only problem is, the case is just a millimeter or two too thick, and the micro USB charging cable won’t fit in all the way. So you have to either take the phone out of the case every time you want to charge it, or you have to jam the cable in and use something – books, or maybe a nightstand drawer – to keep the cable in place while the phone charges.
Well, you don’t have to jump through those hoops any more! Amazon sells USB cables from a company called Proxicast that have extra long USB connectors:
(photo via Amazon)
On the right is a standard micro USB connector; on the left is a Proxicast cable with their extended USB connector. It’s only a couple millimeters longer than a standard connector, but it can make all the difference with phones or tablets and a “thicker than anticipated” case. I’ve had one for a few days, and it works a treat with my new LG Stylo phone and wallet-style case.
A 6-foot (1.8m) Proxicast USB cable costs around $6.99 and is available from Amazon here. If you’d like to save a dollar, you can get a “charging only” cable for $5.99 here.
If 2014 was “something of a down year for music”, then 2015 was even worse. I listened to as much music as ever… but most of it was from years past. My second most played album of the year was CHVRCHES’ The Bones of What You Believe, from 2013, while other albums from 2013, 2006, 2012 and 1983 rounded out my overall top 10. In recent years, I could easily come with at least 15-18 candidates for this list; this year I struggled – mightily – to come up with 10. I even briefly considered making this a “Top 8” or “Top 6” instead of the traditional 10!
Below are my Top 10 albums of the year. After that you’ll find selected stats from my Last.fm page.
My Top Albums of 2015
10) New Order – Music Complete – I didn’t love this album, but you know what? It didn’t totally suck, which is more than I can say for New Order’s last two (or three) albums. I think the band struck a pretty good balance on this album: sounding like the old New Order I loved so much, but not sounding like a retread of all those old songs from the 80s. They didn’t do anything wild and crazy or unconventional on this album… but that’s OK. It’s good enough as it is.
9) Priest – Priest – Priest is a synthpoppy band from Orlando made up of singer Madeline Priest and producer David Kazyk. Priest herself shows promise, and could be one of the up-and-comers on the synthpop scene. However, while this album shows flashes of brilliance, it also shows signs of being overproduced and worryingly mainstream. It’s one of those discs that starts off great, and you want to hear more. But by track 5 you’re like “OK, I’ve heard this. Time for something else”. Still, it’s worth a listen… and it’s worth keeping your eye on Madeline in the future.
8) (tie) Sarah Cracknell – Red Kite and Pete Wiggs – How We Used to Live – It’s a Saint Etienne two-fer! Just the other day I realized I’ve been listening to Saint Etienne for almost 18 years… which made me feel really old. Sure, there are a lot of bands I’ve listened to longer – I’ve been a Duran Duran fan for 33 years, for example. But I only discovered Saint Etienne after I graduated from college… which somehow seems so much longer ago than liking Duran Duran since elementary school. So yeah, the band took a hiatus this year, allowing lead singer Sarah Cracknell to release her third solo album – Red Kite – and fellow bandmate Pete Wiggs to release How We Used to Live, the soundtrack to Paul Kelly’s 2013 film of the same name, which celebrates life in London from 1950 to 1980. Like most of Cracknell’s solo efforts, the album starts out well, and kind of ends with a whimper. Plus, there’s something that’s just so… girly about her solo stuff. I don’t know how else to describe it, but that’s how I feel. I love Sarah and her music, but bandmates Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley give the band’s music an “edge” (or maybe an “oomph”) Sarah’s music lacks on its own. As for Wiggs’ soundtrack, it’s interesting stuff. It’s not something you’d throw on for the hell of it – I can’t picture myself doing household chores to it – but it’s great “thinking music”. Tune in, space out.
7) Marsheaux – A Broken Frame – If you’ve spent any time at all following my music tastes, you’ll know that this Greek synthpop duo are one of my faves from the past couple years. Even though I didn’t listen to them nearly as much this year as I have in the recent past, they still hold a very comfortable lead in my “most scrobbled band ever” stats on Last.fm. If the title of their newest album sounds familiar, it should: the girls decided to cover Depeche Mode’s 1982 classic… like, the whole thing. And it’s good. Quite good, actually. The girls pay a beautiful homage to one of their most influential artists, yet make it their own at the same time. The only reason it doesn’t rank higher this year is because it’s a cover. As nice as this album is, I want original content from these ladies, and maybe we’ll get that in 2016.
6) Beach House – Depression Cherry – I like Beach House as much as the next guy, and I think this is a solid effort. But lemme toss this out at ya: my girl just bought a new (used) car that came with a free trial of SiriusXM. I really like the SiriusXMU station, but one day I noticed that I really couldn’t tell one Beach House song from another. I’m only partially joking. So listen to this album; it’s good stuff, but it all runs together after a while.
5) Pale Blue – The Past We Leave Behind – Pale Blue is mainly Mike Simonetti, a man who started his own record label in 1993. While the label initially focused on hardcore punk stuff, it later expanded to include many other genres. He became interested in synthpop, and formed a label called Italians Do It Better with Johnny Jewel, producer for Chromatics and Glass Candy. Pale Blue is Simonetti, with help from vocalists Elizabeth Wight and Jana Hunter. The Past We Leave Behind kind of tells you everything you need to know about the album: it’s bittersweet, airy, lonely, and downright elegiac at times. It’s not life changing, but then, one gets the notion that’s it’s not supposed to be. I’m not entirely sure it works as a full album, though. I get the feeling that, had Simonetti pared it down to six tracks and called it an EP, it’d be in the running for record of the year. But this disc never wears out its welcome… it just hangs around a bit too long for comfort. I do, however, look forward to a follow-up. Should the stars align just right, these folks could be magic.
4) Best Coast – California Nights – Bethany Cosentino finally got her hit! Best Coast have been rocking their special blend of jangle pop and surf rock since 2009, and while they were instantly popular with the in-crowd, they seemed to just miss hitting the mainstream. Until now. As soon as this album came out, the band started appearing everywhere, especially the late night talk show circuit. And why not? The album is full of fun fuzz rock, running the gambit from “stuff you can work out to” to “slow and wistful”. The problem with this band, however, is what Pitchfork called “diminishing returns”. Bethany and Bobb appear to be very nice people, but one wonders how many more albums they can crank out in their current configuration. You ever listen to Bob Dylan or Pink Floyd and wonder what the message behind the lyrics is, as if they were speaking almost totally in allegories? Yeah, that’s not a problem with Best Coast. Cosentino is as straightforward a lyricist as it gets, and she often makes Katy Perry’s lyrics seem like Keats in comparison. And when I wonder if their music alone can carry them, I’m inclined to say no. Still, California Nights just might be the high water mark of their careers.
3) Gliss – Pale Reflections – It’s hard to pin down this Danish-American band. Their early albums were a lot of damn noise. But then they went and made Langstrom Dans in 2013, an album I really, really loved. It wasn’t quite as heavy, repetitive and “stuck in the mud” as most shoegaze stuff. It was almost like some kind soul took the best parts of shoegaze, knocked the cruft off the rest and made it much more accessible. Pale Reflections seems to be a compromise between the band’s early sound and that of Langstrom Dans. It’s not nearly as… “dreamy” as Dans, but it’s not the “in your face” sound from their earlier discs, either. At times, you’d almost think you were listening to their fellow countrymen, The Raveonettes… and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
2) CHVRCHES – Every Open Eye – Confession time: I didn’t like CHVRCHES the first few times I heard them. The rest of the synthpop subreddit went nuts over them, but I just didn’t get it. Until one day, when I did get it. And CHVRCHES have been my most listened-to band since. I’ve played the hell out of The Bones of What You Believe, and spent much of the summer hyperventilating over their next album. And then it came and… it was pretty good. The tracks I love on this disc, I really love. But the ones I don’t like so much.. I really don’t like. So while I can’t seem to tire of “Leave a Trace” or “Clearest Blue”, I hit always hit the skip button on “High Enough to Carry You Over”, which is something I didn’t do with any of the tracks on Bones. According to Last.fm, I played tracks off Every Open Eye 114 times since September, but that’s mostly just 3 or 4 songs. I don’t think CHVRCHES are in some kind of sophomore slump… I guess I just expected too much. Hype can do that.
1) Purity Ring – Another Eternity – Holy shit… where have you guys been all my life? Purity Ring are Canadians Megan James and Corin Roddick, and their music is… sublime. Beautiful. Transcendent. It’s every damn thing you could want in electronic music. I’ve traditionally been one of those people who has to listen to an album 2-3 times before I like it, but Another Eternity sucked me in from the very first instant, and never let go. Much like the premiere of Mad Men, I felt inexplicably drawn into this universe, only in this case it’s a world of shimmering synthesizers and drum machines. It was only after the first 2-3 listens that I realized that the band are on 4AD Records, and that explained it all. If Purity Ring aren’t “Cocteau Twins you can dance to”, they are certainly the spiritual successors of the name, and they are worthy of such praise. And unlike Every Open Eye, every damn track on Another Eternity is good. I certainly have my favorites, but I won’t skip over any tracks on this disc, and often just listen all the way through… one of the only discs released this year I do that with. As a bonus, their live show is amazing: James makes all the costumes herself, and both she and Roddick play custom-built synths, including one that looks a bit like a minimalist Christmas tree that lights up when struck with a drumstick. Even if it wasn’t the only concert I’ve been to this year, it would certainly be the best.
Raw Data from Last.fm
All playcounts are in parenthesis
Most Played Artists
1) CHVRCHES (352)
2) Purity Ring (286)
3) Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (148)
4) Marsheaux (119)
5) Postiljonen (106)
6) 10,000 Maniacs (105)
7) The Sounds (102)
8) Gliss (87)
9) The Raveonettes (78)
10) Saint Etienne (73)
Most Played Albums Overall
1) Purity Ring – Another Eternity (2015) (230)
2) CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (2013) (131)
3) CHVRCHES – Every Open Eye (2015) (114)
4) Postiljonen – Skyer (2013) (98)
5) Pale Blue – The Past We Leave Behind (2015) (65)
6) The Sounds – Dying to Say This to You (2006) (64)
7) Best Coast – California Nights (2015) (62)
8) Purity Ring – Shrines (2012) (55)
9) Sarah Cracknell – Red Kite (2015) (47)
10) Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark – Dazzle Ships (1983) (46)
Most Played 2015 Albums
1) Purity Ring – Another Eternity (230)
2) CHVRCHES – Every Open Eye (114)
3) Pale Blue – The Past We Leave Behind (65)
4) Best Coast – California Nights (62)
5) Sarah Cracknell – Red Kite (47)
6) Gliss – Pale Reflections (43)
7) Pete Wiggs – Saint Etienne Presents: How We Used to Live (37)
8) Soko – My Dreams Dictate My Reality (28)
9) Say Lou Lou – Lucid Dreaming (22)
10) Marsheaux – A Broken Frame (21)
Most Played Tracks
1) Purity Ring — “Begin Again” (75)
2) Postiljonen — “We Raise Our Hearts” (63)
3) CHVRCHES — “Leave a Trace” (49)
4) The Sounds — “Painted By Numbers” (46)
5) CHVRCHES — “Get Away” (42)
6) Owl Eyes — “Nightswim” (41)
7) CHVRCHES — “Recover” (37)
8) Purity Ring — “Bodyache” (36)
9) The Sounds — “Living in America” (33)
10) CHVRCHES — “Clearest Blue” (32)
Almost all gadgets these days are auto-switching, which means that the electric guts of most laptops, tablets, mobile phones and media players can automatically switch to a different electrical system. If you were going to Europe, for instance, you wouldn’t need to bring a voltage converter, just some plug adapters like these:
pic via Amazon
When you get to Europe, you just insert your American plug into one end of the adapter, then plug the adapter into the wall outlet, and you’re done: your device handles the rest.
You know what would be even better, though? How about a European power strip with universal plugs!
pic via Amazon
The business-end of this power strip is an EU plug, but the outlets on the strip can accept several types of plug: 2 or 3 prong US plugs, the UK and Ireland’s comically large plugs, native European plugs and more. It also has two USB ports providing a total of 2.1 amps.
I bought one of these for a recent European vacation, and couldn’t be happier with it. Our hotel room in Brussels only had one available outlet, so the missus and I were able to charge our many devices without a problem. We rented a private apartment in Paris, and the bedroom outlets were in inconvenient locations; I put the power strip in the living room, and the four of us took turns charging things off it. Very handy indeed:
Here’s a cellphone pic of the strip in action, charging (from left to right), an Anker 5-port USB charger, a European cell phone with native charger, my Asus tablet, and my iPod Nano via USB.
The iFer power strip is available from Amazon for around $15.99.
