I use a Moto G4 play device and noticed a weird issue lately. Whenever I launched any Music or video apps and tried increasing the volume, I would get the "Unfortunately, system UI has stopped working" error message. I panicked a little thinking that my new smartphone has somehow got corrupt due to some software issue or due to a malware infection. Checking for this error message in Google brought up many posts where other users were also facing the issue. This at least brought me some peace as I was not the only one facing this issue.

I thought that one of the recent apps that I installed might have caused this issue and uninstalled few apps that was installed most recently. However, this didn't resolve the issue and the same error was still displayed while trying to increase the volume. The next step I tried was resetting the app preferences and clearing the cache. To my surprise this resolved the issue. Hooray! I was able to increase the volume without getting that stupid error message anymore.

I tried this in one my friends mobile who was facing the same issue and it worked! I can't give any assurance that this will definitely work for your device. However, if you would like to give it a try, follow these steps:

Note: Resetting the app preferences will reset all permissions to default. You might have to manually provide permissions for required apps to access storage and contacts.

• Go to the device settings app and tap on "Apps".
• Click on the more options button on the top left,
• Now tap on the option "Reset app preferences".
• Once this is done, tap the back button to navigate to the main setting page.
• Tap on "Storage and USB" and then on "Internal storage".
• Scroll down to the "cached data" section and tap on it to clear the cached data.
• Now restart the device and check.

Did this work for you? If not did you try any other steps that helped you resolve the issue? Please feel free to share your resolution in the comments.

Though I have travelled through Andhra several times in train, I haven’t been to any place in Andhra. So, naturally I was eager to visit Lepakshi when my friend suggested this place. Lepakshi is a small village located near Karnataka – Andhra border, and is well known for its Veerabhadra temple which is believed to be constructed in 1538 A.D.

The Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway.

On the 18th of March 2014, we started from Bangalore around 10:30 am in my friend’s bike. We went through the Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway which didn’t have many pot holes and was good enough for out plan. By the time we have reached Yelanka, we started to feel the heat. It was a very sunny day and we had to make our first stop after Nandi hills to get some cool drinks and freshen up a bit.

Our second stop was unexpected as the tyre was punctured. Thankfully, the tyre was punctured near a small village (Doddapyalagurki) which had a puncture shop. The mechanic was very helpful. Though he didn’t have a new tyre, he replaced our punctured tyre with an old one he had. It was amazing to see his very old method of fixing things. Once the bike was back on road, we stopped nearby to have our lunch and hit the road as soon as possible.

We finally reached Lepakshi around 5 pm and was informed that the temple would be closing by 6.30pm. So we started exploring the temple without further delay. The sculptures in the temples were very old and the detailed art work was amazing. We checked out the ‘Hanging pillar’, ‘The Naga’ and the unfinished dancing hall. The mural paintings on the roof of the temple were almost faded. The few parts of the paintings that were still visible showed the excellent works of those period.

Once we came out of the temple, we were lucky enough to see the sunset. The small village made a very beautiful and peaceful horizon for the sunset. We took some more pictures of the sunset and started our return journey. Both of us were little exhausted after the long day and were listening to music in our ear phones on the way back to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore around 11.30 pm. I went straight to bed even without dinner as I was very tired at because of sitting in the bike for long hours. Though it was an exhausting day, the trip was great and worth all the pains.

I have been watching series like “House of Cards” and “Mr.Robot” recently and the mention of “Deep web” in them caught my attention. I have heard of it earlier and I knew that it was something to do with secret websites, but never researched to know what it exactly was and how to access it. So I quickly googled Deep web, sometimes also referred to as “Dark web” or “Black web”, and what I learned was very interesting.

So, what exactly is it?

Wikipedia defines Deep web/Deep Internet as “The Deep Web, Deep Net, Invisible Web, or Hidden Web are search terms referring to the content on the World Wide Web that is not indexed by standard search engines. ” These websites can be accessed using proxy applications like “Tor” which relay the traffic through various networks to keep your identity anonymous. Since the identity of users in the Deep web is anonymous, anyone can post about anything or sell anything without revealing their identity.

How to access the Deep web?

Just Google or Bing for “Tor” browser and download it for free from their official website. Connect to the “Tor” network using the browser and make sure that you check your IP address after you are connected to the Tor network to make sure that you actual IP is not visible. Once that is done, you can now just perform a search for the “Hidden Wiki” which contains a list websites that you can access in the Deep web.Since the web address of this Wiki is frequently changed, you can perform a quick search from the Tor homepage itself to get to the current updated web address.

What is in it?

Once you are in the Invisible Wiki, cautiously browse through various links provided, particularly any links that offer paid services. If you carelessly enter any of your credentials to make any purchase, that could be used to track you. There are many hackers in the Deep web who can use your information or even sell your information in the web. There are also many websites that show illegal adult content and you have to be very careful to make sure that you don't visit these sites. You might find various websites that offer recreational drugs, hacker services, fake identities and everything you could possibly think of.

Like every other thing, Deep web can be used for both good and bad. As mentioned above, most of the users use it to do what they can't do publicly. On the other hand, if you look at the good side, there are few countries where the government has made certain websites inaccessible to the public. The people residing in these countries can use Deep web to access these websites that are available for the rest of the world. It has been also used by journalists from various countries to keep their identity safe while looking for and sharing information. Many whistle-blowers who wants to share about conspiracies use the dark web.

So what do you think about the Deep web? Do you think it is good or bad? Have you ever accessed it? If yes what weird things did you find? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

In Safe mode, we boot the PC with just the essential services and drivers that are required for Windows to run and most of the third party services and all non essential Windows services are disabled. We use this method when we suspect that a third party service is causing the issue or when we are unsure of what is causing the issue. Since all non essential services are disabled when you boot the PC in Safe mode, any issues occurring as a result of these services/drivers will not be present in Safe mode. This way we can identify that the issue is caused by one of the non essential that was disabled in Safe mode.

Once we have determined that the issue is caused by one of the non essential services/driver, we need to determine which specific service/driver is causing the issue. To find out the culprit, we will perform a procedure called as "Clean Boot". In Clean boot we will disable the services group by group until we find the specific service. For example, if we have 25 non essential services, we will disable the first 5 services and boot the computer to check if the issue occurs. If the issue occurs, then the first five services disabled might not be causing the issue. The next time, we disable the next 5 services and boot the PC. If the issue doesn't occur, then one of the 5 services currently disabled might be causing the issue. Then we will disable the the 5 services one by one till we isolate that one service causing the issue.

Steps to boot the PC in Sade mode:

To boot the PC in Safe mode, press Windows key  and the "R" key to gather to get the "Run" command box. Type "msconfig" and press enter. Click on the "Boot" tab and then check the option against "Safe mode" and click "Apply". Now restart the PC to boot in Safe mode.

Steps to boot the PC in Clean boot:

Once you have confirmed that the issue doesn't occur Safe mode, you can boot the PC in Clean boot as described in the following Microsoft KB article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135 

Once you have identified that a particular service is causing the issue, you can uninstall that software that service belongs to or install a more recent version of that software and check if the issue occurs.

Yes, CloudU is offering a free online course on Cloud computing with a free certificate too. The curriculum is mainly designed for Technology professionals who wants to increase their knowledge on Cloud computing. Keep reading to find out more about the course and how to sign up and earn the free certification.

How to sign up?

Wanna sign up? Just go to cloudu.rackspace.com and create a free account for yourself. Now head over to the CloudU certification page and click on the launch button to launch the course and get enrolled in the course automatically.

 What’s covered in this course?

The course is made of ten units, starts off with basics and gets and gets more advanced as it progresses. Each unit has a quiz to test your knowledge on that particular unit and a final Exam. The course starts with the basics of Cloud computing, understanding main concepts like SaaS, PaaS, Iaas, and also about planning and running a business on cloud.

Looks like an easy course to me, so will update you guys about how the course was once I finish the course and get the certificate.

Other courses offered by CloudU:

Check out the below screenshot from the CloudU website about the other they offer.

OneDrive groups is feature where users can create a groups and share files with multiple users in that group. Since people can achieve the same by just sharing public link now, the groups feature was retired but the users who were using groups already were still able to access it.

Microsoft has now sent a mail to the OneDrive group users informing that the OneDrive group feature will be removed completely and existing groups will not be accessible from 16^th October 2015. Check out this screenshot of the email that was sent by Microsoft for more information:

These are the help links provided in the mail to move your files and then share them again:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Move-files-from-a-group-to-your-own-OneDrive-0c35298e-14e6-4d27-a38f-b72dbf151678?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Share-files-and-folders-and-change-permissions-9fcc2f7d-de0c-4cec-93b0-a82024800c07?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Is my PC eligible to upgrade to Windows 10 for free?

In order to get the free Windows 10 upgrade, your PC must be running Windows 7 with service pack 1 or Windows 8.1 update and must be activated. To check the hardware requirements to install Windows 10, check out this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-specifications

How do I upgrade to Windows 10?

If your PC meets the above requirements, then you can install Windows 10 through Windows updates or through the Media Creation Tool. All eligible PCs will get a notification to install Windows 10 automatically provided they have installed the latest Windows updates. Just click on the notification to reserve your copy of Windows 10 and it will start downloading through Windows update as soon as Windows 10 is available in your area.  If you don’t see the upgrade notification, the check out this article to find out why:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3081048

If you are an impatient geek like me who doesn’t like waiting to try out new things, then you can go ahead and download Windows 10 using the Media creation tool. You can check out my other post here to find out how I upgraded to Windows 10 using this tool.

Which version of Windows will I get if I upgrade?

Here is a concise version of the upgrade path showing which version of Windows 10 you will get.

Windows 10 upgrade path and editions

The above image is taken from the following page and you can refer to the section ‘Upgrade editions’ for more information.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-specifications

How do I clean install Windows 10?

Once you have upgraded to Windows 10 and have activated your copy of Windows 10, then you can perform a clean install anytime.

Note: Your activation status won’t be affected when you make hardware changes to graphic card or HDD/SSD, but making changes to hardware like TPM, Motherboard and might have a negative impact your activation status. In such cases, you can do a phone activation as explained in this article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/950929

You can also refer to this FAQ by Microsoft for additional information:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-faq

More Questions? Leave a comment and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.