Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro new features

Redmi Note 8 Pro is among the most anticipated flagship phone in the last few months in India. Now that it is available and I wanted to list out some of the features that new on this device and interesting.

You can connect to Wifi and enable Hotspot at the same time

This is a very interesting feature. You can enable WiFi and at the same time, you can enable the hotspot. Earlier, either you could enable WiFi or enable Hotspot at the same time. That means you could use mobile data in the hotspot. Once you enable the hotspot, your WiFi would be disabled and when you enable the WiFi, your hotspot would be disabled. With this, you could only share your mobile data through the hotspot. Now you can use the WiFi data to share the internet through the hotspot.

With this, you can use your mobile as a WiFi repeater, as a WiFi relay. If your WiFi router is a bit far from your TV, for example, and if the strength of the Wifi signal is weak, then you can keep your mobile phone in between these 2 devices. This works perfectly.

You can share your WiFi internet with other devices.

Built-in screen recorder with audio recording feature

The earlier versions did not support the audio recordings. Now, this is been enabled. But it is not enabled by default. You need to enable it in the App setting. Under settings, within the App, go to "Sound Source". You will get three options. Mute, Mic, and System sound.

Disable or edit the Camera watermark

You will see a watermark on the photos taken with many flagship phones where the camera is one the feature to be showcased or a selling point for the manufacturers. But not all of like it for obvious reasons. If you do not like it, well, there is an option to disable it. Wait, what if you do not like the default watermark and you want to have your own watermark, well, there is an option.

Open the camera, go to Settings, then select the Watermark option under the Camera section. You can toggle the default watermark or you can make a custom watermark as per your likings. Note there that, you can also add the timestamp

Game turbo mode.

It enables smooth graphics and speed. The enhancement includes faster Frames Per Second graphics, WiFi and 4G enhancement, and sound quality optimization. Overall the gaming experience will improve a lot better.

MS word drop down control with Excel data

There are lots of things you can do with MS Excel and MS word. Word and Excel can be connected easily to build sophisticated use cases. Mail merge is one of the great tool, where you can leverage the data power of excel and reporting feature of the MS Word. With a bit of VBA knowledge, you can extend the mail merge for usages.

Below I explain how to use the Excel data to populate the DropDown control in the MS word. And it is dynamic, when the data in Excel got changed, the items in the drop-down will also be changed. 

First, I have this sample data in Excel.

I want this data to be displayed in a dropdown control in the MS Word. For this I am making use of this macro or VBA code.

Private Sub ld_Click()

Dim objExcel As New Excel.Application

Dim objWB As Excel.Workbook

Set objWB = objExcel.Workbooks.Open("C:\Users\krsanjee\Documents\krishtalk.com\book1.xlsx")

'Me.drop.RemoveItem (0)

Me.drop.Clear

total_rows = Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

total_columns = Cells(1, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column

 With Me.drop

    For r = 2 To total_rows Step 1

        .AddItem objWB.Sheets(1).Cells(r, 1)

    Next r

    End With

objWB.Close

End Sub 

Note the Sub ld_Click()  Subroutine, it has been assigned to a button control. Clicking on this button you can load the dropdown control with the data from Excel

Compare the value in the first column in the Excel and the values in the MS Word dropdown. I am using the first column that is a serial number because I needed the Sl No. to manipulate the data to extract other columns from the Excel for reporting purpose. 

The code has been changed slightly to get the EMP Name in the dropdown. 

 With Me.drop

    For r = 2 To total_rows Step 1

        .AddItem objWB.Sheets(1).Cells(r, 2)

    Next r

 End With

In the .AddItem objWB.Sheets(1).Cells(r, 2) line I have changed the column number to 2 so that the EMP Name will be populated in the dropdown.

Watch the step by step tutorial in my YouTube channel 

VirtualBox and Hyper V conflicts on Windows 10

If you are using Windows 10 operating system and want to use virtualization on it, then you have 2 options.

1. Using Virtual Box
2. Using Hyper V

This post is not about how to use them but instead, what are the issues you will encounter if you have them together.

One scenario is, you have VirtualBox installed and working fine. Then you realize you want to use a docker on your Windows machine. The VirtualBox working fine until will start comparing about virtualization and acceleration. After installing the docker on your windows, all your VMs on the VirtualBox cannot start. It complains about the availability of virtualization.

"The hardware virtualization is enabled in the Acceleration section of the system although it is not supported from the host system. It should be disabled in order to start the visual system"

The error message not straight forward to understand. As you know virtualization is required for docker or VirtualBox to work. First thing you will do now is, check whether your system is virtualization enabled or not. There are multiple options to check if your system is enabled with virtualization or not. Check the BIOS settings, check the CPU section of the Task manager. 

Now you start worrying more about the possible reason for VirtualBox failure. The reason for this failure is having VirtualBox and Docker running on your system. 

If you install docker in your Windows, it will enable the Hyper V and install a virtual machine for docker to work. This is the requirement for docker on Windows. Both VirtualBox and Hyper V cannot run together. However, the later versions of docker might come up with some capability to have them together. 

To solve this problem, disable the Hyper V from optional features on your Windows 10. Remember, disabling the Hyper V will stop your docker. Only if you are not interested in docker and only need VirtualBox to run, then do this. 

Open the optional feature dialog box by entering the optionalfeatures in the run box

Then uncheck the box Hyper-V, it requires a restart. After a restart, your VirtualBox should work as before. 

Error messages:

1. Invalid settings detected. 

2. System acceleration page:

The hardware virtualization is enabled in the Acceleration section of the System page although it is not supported by the host machine. It should be disabled in order to start the virtual system.

3. General Basic page:

The virtual machine operating hint is set to 64-bit type. 64-bit guest system require hardware virtualization, so this will be enabled automatically if you confirm the changes. 

4. Raw-mode is unavailable courtesy of Hyper-V. (VERR_SUPDRV_NO_RAW_MODE_HYPER_V_ROOT

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine ubantu.
Raw-mode is unavailable courtesy of Hyper-V. (VERR_SUPDRV_NO_RAW_MODE_HYPER_V_ROOT).

Result Code:	E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component:	ConsoleWrap
Interface:	IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}