MIUI 10 on Mi Mix 2S

I just updated my Mi Mix 2S to the new MIUI 10.

There is not a lot of difference at the first. Dragging the screen up gets you the Google search, and dragging it down gives to the setting menu. Pretty much the same as MIUI 9.5.

At the start, my keyboard disappeared from my Facebook Messager and Facebook, and after restarting the phone, everything was fine again.

One thing I need to get used to is that now to close apps, you have to swipe left / right instead of up...

Holding on the app at the app switch screen allows you to lock the app, create a split screen or change settings on the app.

The timer now also has sound options for you to listen to natural sounds for the duration, sort of like a napping aid to help you relax.

The toggle app screen is also different.

I have yet seen significant improvements on the camera, calendar and other claims that MIUI 10 has over MIUI 9.5.

My phone was already running pretty fast with no lag, so there is not much difference.

Overall, I do like the new changes, and yes, there is a little need to get used to the new design. Overall, the UI and UX seem better, and nothing much is compromised except for the initial bugs I faced with Facebook, but all seemed to clear up once I restarted my phone.

I do like it and I would recommend that you update to the latest MIUI when you have the chance.

-- Robin Low

Pokemon Go - Gym Updates

Pokemon Go has recently released a new update for the Gym System and with the new Raids in place, many players have returned to play the game.

There are a lot more gyms, and you can now spin the gyms for drops. You get a Raid pass every day (you can only have one) and buy premium raid passes for 100 coins to join in the raids.

In the US, Europe, Japan and Singapore, I've seen players gather in masses for rare raid like Tyrranitar and Snorlax.

The raids seemed to require coordination and teamwork. The rare raids have big pokemons which require many trainers to take down. In Boston, players coordinate and have groups on Discord to form local teams to take down raids and take over gyms.

The new gym system favors coordination. As the gyms are still very unstable. A group of 4 - 6 people from a team can take down a gym in minutes, and when they coordinate to put in their pokemons together, all 6 pokemons can go in at once, making it easy to defend.

In Boston, I joined the local team in Allston / Brighton / Brookline and in 2 hours, we can take over all the Gyms locally.

I would say the new gym system is a big improvement, but the way the coins are rewarded is still far from desirable.

You cannot change your teams once you pick it, and being in a team locally with poor coordination, you can NEVER earn any coins. I'm back in Singapore, and when I talk to several adult Team Valor players, they don't seem to understand coordination and attack on their own. Sadly, with the slightly broken system, when these people from the same team attack at their own pace, they may come to a point where they get to put their pokemons in, and when an opposing team is attacking, no one else can put theirs in, and the result is that, the only pokemon in the gym gets taken out really quickly.

The problem of spoofing is still around in Singapore, and many people simply want to fight in the gym and "win" rather than form groups and play the game as it should -- socially.

In Europe, I've met people and went to bars after a raid. In Boston, I've joined Gym raiding groups to take over gyms, and we take breaks and have meals together. The game does have potential, but the bugs are still present. Hope it more of the bugs get fixed in the next few days.

-- Robin Low

Fuji x100 New Updated Firmware is out! Ver 1.20

FinePix X100 / X100Black Firmware Update Ver.1.20

This firmware is out just as I was complaining about mostly worthless metering in the day. The images will either be too dark or too overexposed. And worst of all, random colors will appear. Manual metering is not so bad, but even in raw, sometimes random colors gets absorbed into the camera.

The blue in the image is out of nowhere!

My previous version on my camera is 1.11, and it shoots perfectly indoors and at night, but when it is bright outside, it can't meter for nuts. With ND on or off, it plainly sucks.

With the new firmware, I took it out to shoot various things in situations where it previously sucks.

And yes, shooting at night, Macro, flash, just works fine as well.

I guessed they fixed it.

Here are some other updates.

1.Some functions, which can be set to "Fn" button and shown as "Fn BUTTON" in SET-UP menu, can be also set to RAW button. After pressing the command dial to right in the SET-UP menu of "Fn BUTTON", "Fn" and "RAW" are displayed and each of selectable them,
Also, by holding down RAW button for more than 3 seconds, same type of selection menu for RAW button is displayed, just as short-cut procedure.
2.By selecting in "ISO" menu in the shooting menu, either ISO sensitivity value or "ISO AUTO CONTROL" can be selected.
3.When AF MODE is set to "AREA" in Single AF (AF-S) mode, active focus point is zoomed in (magnified to approx 5x) by pressing center of the command control.
4.When "ND FILTER" is set to "Fn" button or "RAW" button, setting between ON ("ND" is displayed) or OFF ("ND" is NOT displayed) can be changeable by pressing "Fn" button or "RAW" button, which is set for "ND FILTER".
5.When the image is shot with vertical angle of the camera and played back the shot in the LCD, the image is displayed with whole area of LCD even after pressing "playback zoom in" button.
6.When the human face is shot, the detected face is displayed during the playing back, and pressing the command dial to down, detected face is magnified during displaying.
7.AE control system and AF performance including AF speed has been improved for movie recording mode.

Most of which are on my wishlist.

I would say, the x100 is much better now. The updating is also not difficult. just follow this link.

Preparing for updates

1.Prepare the target digital camera.
FinePix X100 (Version 1.00 - 1.13)
FinePix X100Black (Version 1.12 - 1.13)
2.Prepare a formatted memory card.
The firmware updating procedure requires a formatted memory card. Refer to the Owner's Manual for information on using "FORMAT" in the SET-UP menu to format a media.
Note that formatting procedure will delete all data on the memory card, including protected files. Always copy any important files that you do not want to lose to your PC beforehand.
3.Prepare the power supply.

Use the fully-charged battery.
4.Prepare the USB cable.

Have the USB cable bundled with your camera ready.

I basically downloaded from below

Download
Firmware
FPUPDATE.DAT [32.2MB]

Placed it in my formatted SD card, and put it in the camera.
Follow the instructions here.

And note the version of my firmware before was 1.11 and my other friend had 1.10, and we updated the new .dat file and everything now works like a charm!

The camera works great now, but still, if you don't like photos like this.

Where the camera tries to be too intelligent and pulls in too much light out of no where, don't get the x100.


-- Robin Low