Dual apps on Android phones

MI/  Redmi are the only phones that I know which allow dual apps by default (at least on versions that I have used). Dual apps is different from Second space, which also is available by default. In the latter, a separate space is created with all required apps, meaning a separate login which is differentiated from the other by means of pin/pattern whatever you have set for security. The former clones apps in the same login, thereby consuming less space and both apps being available simultaneously.

Having switched to a non-MI/Redmi phone, I missed this feature for non-social media apps like banking for my aged parents. Infinix does have XClone that allows social-media apps to be cloned, but that isn't good enough. Yet, you can achieve the same result by using open-source apps, Shelter or Insular. Google Play store has the former, but the latest version isn't available on it and the old version didn't respond during installation. Instead, download and install F-droid and search Shelter or Insular there, download and install. I am using Insular now, whereby a work profile is created where you can install the apps that you need cloned from personal profile and then use the same in parallel. 

By the way, if at all any of your installations fail with work profile access errors or admin rights, use the phone's OS to delete the work profile and try again. My pre-F-droid failed Shelter installation had created a partial inaccessible work profile. On deleting it, the installation of Insular through F-droid and follow-on app-cloning, their installations from Google Play store and use went smooth. There may be initial teething issues but the more you play around or read around these issues, they don't seem so much of an issue, considering the open-source benefit you get.

Thanks to the developer community of F-droid, Shelter, Insular and others supporting open-source.

Use your (old) VGA or HDMI monitor as a wireless display and/ or TV

I was using an external VGA monitor as an extention screen to my laptop during my classes, etc, with an HDMI to VGA convertor. Unfortunately, the junk Dell laptop HDMI port failed! Since months, I've been trying to find an external wireless monitor or even a TV but nothing seemed affordable. So, finally, I found a hack into it. Of course, Google Chromecast comes to mind first, but mirroring is easier than extending the display using Chromecast, or so I hear. Here's what I did instead with a cheaper but better hardware and got free TV features too:

1. Buy the cheapest Amazon FireStick (AFS).
2. Buy an HDMI female-to-female coupler.
3. If you need to use it as a TV, buy a bluetooth headphone/ earphone. If your monitor has built-in speakers, this isn't needed.
4. If the monitor is VGA only, buy an HDMI to VGA convertor; if your monitor has built-in speakers, buy one with audio socket.
5. Connect as follows:
1. Plug the AFS into one end of the HDMI coupler. 
2. Plug the HDMI cable (OR HDMI-VGA convertor) to the other end of the HDMI coupler and attach it to the HDMI monitor (or the VGA cable to monitor from the convertor).
3. Plug the AFS to power source.
6. Switch on. Set up the WiFi network (and Amazon prime account optionally) using the supplied remote.
7. In Settings->Display and Audio settings->mirroring: switch on mirroring.
8. On your laptop, setup the display for extension or 2nd display only or duplicate/mirroring.
9. For TV use, set up bluetooth headphone in Bluetooth Devices. Or if you have speakers built-in, plug in the audio cable to the HDMI-VGA convertor.

I am not going into other details of AFS. However, if you find the extension/ mirroring slow, look up and install freeware Spacedesk on Google Playstore

Formatting SD card to internal in Redmi 5

Downgrade from useless MIUI 11.xx to 10.xx

Lineage 15.1 on Redmi 5

Xiaomi Redmi 5 called Rosy recently had a MIUI update that slowed it down further more. Congratulations MI, you lasted more than a year on my phone. Last phone MIUI lasted 3 months into the warranty, before I replaced it with Cynogen Mod (CM). Although, unfortunately, CM died down, Lineage continued where they left off. Lineage has no official release for Redmi 5, but an unofficial 15.1 can be downloaded from here. For gapps, prefer pico for 8.1 and then download whatever else you need from Google Playstore once installed.

Details follow. Remember that all this is risky and you can brick your phone:

• Unlock Redmi 5
• Enable USB debugging
• Go to phone settings -> about phone -> click on build number continuously 7-8 times to enable additional settings.
• Go back and go to additional settings and activate USB debugging.
• Apply for unlocking the phone on MI website or using the Windows tool. 
• If you choose the latter, make sure that the tool is unzipped in C: root or C:\Program Files. Else you will spend an eternity without getting the "Unlock button" to turn active, troubleshooting your drivers and USB cable! 
• Run the same, unlock, confirm unlock and wait for 72 hours at least for MI to approve unlocking! 
• Back up phone completely as unlocking it will delete all your data!!
• After 72 hours at least, repeat the unlock run and hopefully it will be successful. If so... proceed.
• Download Lineage 15.1 ROM img and whichever gapps zip you prefer from above link.
• Download latest TWRP here.
• Download SuperSU to root your phone here.
• Copy all of the above downloaded images and zips onto a USB pendrive and keep an OTG cable ready as USB mount has trouble at times on TWRP. It didn't work at all for me!
• Download and setup adb (I found Redmi driver on Windows a pain to get to work. Try everything available online including universal and naked drivers).
• Repeat the process of activating USB debugging listed at the very beginning.
• Install TWRP
• Copy TWRP img file in adb folder. 
• Open command line there by clicking Ctrl+Shift+mouse right click.
• Connect phone to PC USB through the data cable.
• Run: adb reboot bootloader. If this doesn't work, power off the phone and once off, keep Power up +Volume down pressed together till fastboot mode shows up on screen.
• Run: adb devices OR fastboot devices to ensure that it lists your phone.
• Run: flashboot flash recovery recovery-xxx-xxx.img to flash the TWRP image where xxx-xxx are the version identifiers.
• Run: flashboot boot recovery-xxx-xxx.img to get into TWRP mode.
• Mount OTG.
• Wipe cache (and preferably more).
• Install -> image -> select downloaded TWRP image. This is with the hope that MI protection doesn't replace TWRP with fastboot. Mostly it will nonetheless and you will need the above commands to reenter TWRP mode!!
• Install -> zip -> select downloaded lineage 15.1 zip.
• Wipe cache (and preferably more).
• Install -> zip -> select downloaded gapps.
• Reboot system into Lineage 15.1.

Youtube playlists

I've spent a considerable amount of time since a couple of days trying to use some existing YouTube playlists and trying to sort them in the order of their uploads or in a useful sequence for continuous play. The Chrome extensions or Firefox add-ons that I found wasted quite a lot of time since they work with "new YouTube", whatever that is, thanks to Google's continuous ongoing changes, they don't! Let that be. I shall just share quick tips:

• To copy someone else's entire playlist to easily work with it, DON't install any plugin. DO the following:
• Click on the playlist and then on it's URL, append &disable_polymer=1
• Press enter.
• Click on the three vertical dots on the top right.
• Click on Add all to...
• Select or create playlist.
• Do whatever you like with this saved playlist.
• To reverse any playlist:
• Go to playbackloop.com
• Paste the playlist URL copied from YouTube there and order as needed from the drop-down list there at the top of the page.
• Play there itself.
• To reverse any playlist on YouTube itself, ImprovedTube seems to be working (for me) on Chrome.
• Install ImprovedTube extension on Chrome.
• In Playlists, switch on Reverse
• In  General Settings, try setting YouTube version to new
• Restart Chrome.
• Open YouTube playlist.
• Click on reverse-playlist icon (both up and down arrows side-by-side) on top of the playlist, next to loop and shuffle icons.
• If you don't see this icon, switch to old YouTube version and repeat above steps from the third bullet.
• If it still doesn't work, my apologies. You can try the following though.
• I am yet to try Playlist Sorter extension as it asked for me to login to YouTube via it, and also since I want to move on with using my reversed playlist than waste more time ...beyond this blog entry, of course :-)

CM12 on MI Redmi 1S

This is a short note to share my experience with upgrading to CM12 custom ROM on Redmi 1S. Those who have tried to upgrade and failed just like my earlier quick tries should know that it is as straightforward as it always was, although with a small pre-fix. I had tried some 3-4 upgrades with multiple versions of CM12 with Gapps earlier which resulted in crashes of all sorts of Gapps apps, post installation. The phone was practically unusable. Just CM12 without Gapps wouldn't crash, but that would take away the smartness from the smart phone.

Enough with the blabbering... if you face similar crashes, the fix seems to be simple enough. Just UPGRADE your CWM Recovery to the latest. I had trouble with the latest CWM zip installation also since its threw some "assert()" error. Instead I installed latest version of TWRP.img via fastboot. (I am purposely not mentioning any version since the current latest should suit best).

Having installed TWRP, I just did a clean reinstall, starting with the usual factory reset/ wipe dalvik cache, system, blah, blah, followed by CM12 install and then, Gapps install. That was yesterday, it looks good even today. :)

Ta.