Galaxy S3 4.3 Jelly Bean Update Annoyance

If you are looking for steps to stop that annoying download complete notification, skip to Instructions section.

There have been a lot of issues with the 4.3 Jelly Bean update pushed out so at some point Samsung decided to pull back the update and work on fixing them.  But I was surprised when AT&T pushed the 4.3 update nonetheless.  I didn't want to be guinea pig or spend hours fixing annoyances, so I delayed the update, but, not very unlike Windows ~~~aarrgghhh~~~ it kept insisting every few hours that I update the darn phone.  The only respite being God-sent postpone button that allowed me to postpone the update for up to 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours, I selected the max duration, 8 hours.  After doing that 2-3 times, today morning, to my horror, when I got up and checked my mobile I noticed there was a subtle difference in my lock-screen's appearance.  Even before unlocking it dawned upon me that I have gotten the dreaded upgrade.  Instead of my early morning routine that helps me shake off the slumber, it was this squeamish feeling of being violated that jolted me back from sleepiness.

I haven't used it more than an hour, so I can't say what I like and what I hate about this update, or what are the annoyances, except one...  There's one that's breaking everybody's resolve to NOT swear and that is: randomly showing notification that a file has been downloaded.  Now, this file, in all the cases is either not recognizable or was downloaded years ago, actually in mobile-years, eons ago! So, of course when you tap on it, you get back an error something to the effect of "Cannot find this file".

After Google'ing, I figured this was a very common annoyance and people suggested "Clearing Cache" to get rid of this.  But no one actually shared detailed steps how to do so.  Or more importantly, "which" cache to clear!  After some trial and error I figured how to do it.  And I thought of making a quick post to help others rid themselves of this irritating behavior.

Instructions to Clear Cache:

0. Pull down the notification center when you have an icon notifying you of some download
1. Tap-n-Hold on the filename that appears
2. An "App Info" menu will pop up
3. Tap on that "App Info" menu
4. It takes you to Android's standard interface from where you can manage the applications
5. Just hit "Clear Data", it will warn you, just say ok and proceed with clearing data
6. Voilà!  You will not be bothered with this again, unless you REALLY download something

I couldn't find this app whose data I cleared from Application Manager, so I take it must be some system internal app that's hidden from Application Manager.  And I didn't know if what I was doing was the real solution, so I didn't even take any screenshots to help, but at least I remembered the steps.

Edit: The app is called "Download Manager" and actually is visible if you are patient enough to scroll through "All" apps tab in application manager.  Here's the screenshot.  Blogger is not letting me upload images, so here's the link to screenshot: Screenshot-Clear Download Manager's Cache.

Edit: The BIGGEST annoyance so far has been random battery drains, just yesterday it dropped off from 100% to 85% in less than 5 minutes, the phone's back went warm AND this was while in "power saving" mode!  I fired up Elixir2 and noticed most CPU has been hogged by Samsung's wretched KNOX.  My battery is lasting less than half a day in power saving mode (and I don't have any bells-n-whistles enabled, aka FB, Twitter, Email notifications, etc.).
This is just pathetic. 

Moral: When will these idiots (the ones defining upgrade/update experiences) realize that there are some of us who DON'T want to be forced to upgrade, especially when there are many known unresolved issues with the update.  And if you MUST annoy with hourly reminders, at least don't FORCE upgrade while I'm asleep and can't baby-sit your f!@#$ing notifications! ~~~sigh~~~ There's no dearth of idiots in this world, none whatsoever!

Is Samsung becoming the new Yahoo!/HP, refer to my previous post: Stop Writing Crappy Software

My Dirty Secret: Wettest Dream of My Life

Today, I'm letting you in on my real dirty dream, wettest of wet dreams I would LOVE to experience, vividly comic'ized by the great artist at xkcd...

All the nerds-n-geeks out there are experiencing a nerd-boner as... .. ... ~~~aarrghh~~~ I'll be back shortly!

Healthful Spinach Smoothie

As I promised in the last post, here's the recipe I promised.  First things first, fret not, as I have told you earlier, I'm not going to convert this blog into a store house of cooking recipes, people have already done wonderful job all around the blogsphere.
But in my quest to improve my eating habits, I will share a few health-filled recipes once in a while.

Making this Spinach Smoothie (Palak Smoothie) is so astoundingly easy and simple, that it really defies the commonly held belief that you have to spend hours in order to cook a healthy meal(*conditions apply!).  Not to mention it would be outrightly criminal NOT to make this regularly!

This is enough to make about 3-4 glasses of smoothie, scale it per your needs:

0. Banana - 2
1. Pineapple - 1/4th
2. Slice of Whole Lemon - 1
3. Spinach - approx. 3 handfuls
4. Peeled Oranges - 2
5. Papaya - 1/4th
6. Condiments: Black Pepper
7. Optional: Almost any fruit you want, esp. berries, avocado, Cinnamon, Honey
8. Water, to get the consistency you prefer

If you don't want to read rest of the boring interesting commentary, then here's your skipping-to-the-best-part...
Quick Recipe: Grind them (0-5) all together, sprinkle freshly ground pepper and top it off with a mint leaf!

If you have time, patience and zest to endure my boring (but not totally useless) commentary, then here you go...
The key idea here is gathering the ingredients, once you have them, it is just a matter of putting them in the mixer and making a smoothie out of it, there's not too much more to it.  But if there's one thing I want to point out is, do not skip on the slice of a whole-lemon, the lemon's grind (thick outer skin) is what gives this smoothie its unique deep flavor.  If you don't have one handy, DO NOT expect spectacular results when you substitute it for that lowly chemical-laden lemon juice from your fridge.  I recommend running out to the nearest grocery store, instead and picking one up (note that running will also up your appetite for a healthful drink!).  My 3-handfuls of spinach measurement is approximate, keep adding till you get nice vibrant green color.

The trick is to grind all of these properly, putting Spinach in first will make the mixer's motor run on near-zero-load with leaves sitting there almost undisturbed!  Don't curse me when this happens, because it means you haven't read the full post ;-) Luckily for you, you will almost instantly start getting the burning smell, so you'll know something's amiss!  (Note that I have a very cheap 4 year old mixer, so I have to be creative how I grind things in it; chances are you might have better luck with yours, or coincidentally, have a cheapo one like mine!).  Always put juicy fruits first, the juice helps form the base of the smoothie, a thick paste.

Once ready, top it off with freshly ground pepper and a flavorful mint leaf!  That all there is to it!

You can experiment the base recipe in many many ways, the above is a good reference of what all goes into this smoothie, a good starting point, be creative with what you can add.  Like avocado, papaya and black-pepper are my own personal touch to this recipe.
If you want to keep this healthy, then there are a few things I strongly recommend against adding.  Also, unless you want your smoothie to taste like a slush, I recommend keeping ice out too.

Things to keep out of your smoothie: sugar (NO NO NO additional sugar or sweetener is needed, for christ's sake banana and pineapple bring enough sugar already), milk (doesn't go well with citrus fruits), Strawberries (will conflict with pineapple and citrus flavor).

If you have all the ingredients ready(*), it doesn't take more than a minute to whip a glassful of this smoothie, including cleaning time.  Use fresh ingredients, especially spinach leaves, frozen spinach will not get you anywhere close to what fresh ones can achieve.  I'm willing to bet it will not even taste like a smoothie.  I generally chop the fruits over the weekend and keep them in the refrigerator, that way I don't have to spend too much time gathering all the ingredients whenever I want to make a glassful. Chopping pineapple, especially, is a bit time consuming a task best reserved for weekend.

More Tips:

0. Bananas
Another trick I have picked up for making great smoothies over the period is using frozen bananas. I have had to throw away a lot many bananas for not eating them before they went black and rancid. So now I just peel all the bananas, put them in a nice ziplock bag and put them in deep freezer! They will stay there for at least a month, but I consume them within a week's time. This also means you will never have to use ice in your smoothie again!
1. Leftovers
Make sure you don't make too much, this tastes best when made fresh. But if you have leftover, then just put the smoothie in a nice air-tight mason jar, it will last for 3 or so days in the fridge.  Spinach is rich in iron, so naturally it will turn a tad dark, don't be scared, it will still be good for consumption.

I have been hacked!

Have you ever had a feeling that your brain is being hacked into while you are asleep? And by hack I mean programatically, of course, not physically. That's the feeling dream I had early morning today... while I lay half awake I had an unsettling dream that my brain was hacked into and someone was having fun while rummaging through it.  I bet I squirmed a bit, who wouldn't!

Was it not enough that I have, more than once, had recursive dreams, now somebody has to hack into my brain?  I lay perfectly still struggling with my part asleep-part awake-part confused state of mind without perturbing anything just so that I can understand what's happening, or lack hereof! Early morning brain hacks would so very well explain the slow mornings I have had! Stupid me, anything that will convince me I need to spend an extra 5 minutes in the bed :)

My mind then wanders off (hacker seems to have gone by now ~~~phew~~~) first worried about what has been deleted from my brain, not that you can backup a brain (funny, you can hack into one, copy it contents, delete some, but not back it up, attaboy!).  But as it goes, one never knows what has been deleted until the one actually needs it.  And then I get concerned about what inner thoughts the hacker might have tapped into.

I lay there contemplating (ohh.... in reality, here comes another 10 minutes of sweet sleep!), so I lay there contemplating, what would it mean in reality to hack into someone's psyche programatically, if and when it could be done, without the subject knowing it.  That's when I realized it was just a dream (but nothing is ever JUST a dream, never, is it!).  And no, I'm not talking about the stupid movie Inception and again no, neither did I see it before going to bed nor do I intend to see it in foreseeable future, I didn't even think of thinking of seeing it in foreseeable future.

It has been longest break on blog so far, somewhere around 8+ months ~~~sigh~~~ A few people asked me lately why have I stopped writing and I assured them that I haven't stopped writing I just have stopped blogging them for a short while (a popular euphemism for: am being a lazy bum!).  So this useless bizarre dream of today's seemed like a perfect post to resume blogging with, or a good attempt at the very least.

As to life...
It pains me to see that I haven't been making full use of the Sun that's blessing us Seattle'ites (residents of Seattle, not satellites!) with longer days.  Hope to get back on the saddle before winter kicks in and days start getting shorter where it gets dark by 4pm and it starts feeling day ended even before it started.

Coming up next: How to make a quick very healthy smoothie in under a minute!