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Access more than 2,400 hours of IT training for just $199

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If you’re looking for a lucrative career in modern workforce, it’s pretty tough to find one where technology is not involved. Be it coding, web administration, app development, or something else, chances are good that you’ll need to know a thing or two about tech.

The IT space is one that shows no sign of easing up. If anything, it will only become more in-demand as new businesses come online or grow. Skilled IT individuals can essentially pick their jobs, whether it’s holding down complex networks behind Fortune 500 companies or creating systems for local businesses.

Where does one acquire those those skills? While there are plenty of resources available online — we’ve highlighted plenty — there are few repositories for IT knowledge than ITU Online.

With a massive library of more than 2,400 hours of up-to-date training in IT systems, it’s a university of sorts which lets you take only the curriculum that matters most.

Tech certifications are a big part of a modern resumé, or the easiest way to justify a pay raise, and ITU Online is a wonderful resource for test preparation. Whether your company uses Cisco, AWS, CompTIA, or Azure, you’ll find more than enough courses to help you hone your skills and ready for critical exams. Once you’re logged in, look around and select a career path topic to narrow down the courses from a library of more than 220.

Get Started Today!

Ready to take the first steps to your own IT career or accelerate your career trajectory? AndroidGuys readers can now purchase a three-year subscription to ITU Online All-Access for $199, 50% off the $399 MSRP. Or, go for a lifetime subscription for just $100 more.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 64GB tablet is $82 off

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The Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet is a very popular device. It has become a conduit for the online retailer to wrap all their services up in a single, portable device. Book, video streaming, and online shopping are at your fingertips for all your media consumption needs.

If you act today, the company has the Amazon Fire HD 10 at an all-time low price of just $108 for the 64GB model. You won’t find a better deal for a brand-new Fire HD 10. That’s $82 off the full retail pricing.

While the tablet isn’t an iPad Pro, for many it’s just what they need. You get a combination of 2GB RAM paired with a 2Ghz octa-core processor providing plenty of horsepower for most tasks. You can also expand the 64GB internal storage with a microSD card.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 doesn’t skimp on battery life either. With a 12-hour battery pack and USB-C fast charging, an outlet should rarely be necessary.

The 10.1″ full HD display at 1080p also makes this perfect for Ring camera monitoring and even has an option to use this as an Alexa Hands-Free device much like an Echo Show.

This special offer lasts today only for the Amazon Fire HD 10. The discount applies to both the ad-supported and ad-removed editions. Although, the latter will cost you another $15. These should sell out fast at this price so get on over to Amazon and snag yours!

How to setup a mobile hotspot on Android 10

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Mobile Hotspots are a feature that have been baked into Android for nearly a decade. For those who are not aware of what it does, it’s basically a way of taking your wireless connection and sharing it with other devices.

Much like you would connect to a router at home, mobile hotspots make it so that you or others can piggyback off of your mobile 4G and 5G data. It’s helpful stuff for laptops, Chromebooks, and tablets which would otherwise be offline when out in the wild.

In this guide, we will walk you through all the steps involved in setting up a mobile hotspot on Android 10.

Setting up a mobile hotspot on Android 10

To start, open your Settings and open your Wi-Fi & Internet menu. This can vary from one OEM to the other but mobile hotspot settings are most commonly found in the Wi-Fi settings menu.

Next, choose Hotspot & Tethering, or anything that sounds similar to Hotspot.

A new menu will open up. Over here, go to Wi-Fi hotspot.

When in the Wi-Fi hotspot menu, this is where you can configure the name of your hotspot so you can know what your device is transmitting as, and to share with others if needed.

Choose your preference of security, but always make sure its WPA-2 or a similar protocol to protect against others piggybacking off your unprotected Wi-Fi.

Once you have chosen your security, set a password (preferably AlphaNumeric).

Lastly, choose the AP Band. If you are on 4G or 5G, we recommend using 5Ghz, but certain devices like the Nintendo Switch and others can’t properly use 5 Ghz so if you or anyone you’re sharing the internet with is facing connectivity issues, drop the AP Band down to 2.4 Ghz.

With that your Wi-Fi hotspot is set up. Keep in mind that you should only use this according to your data plan. It is generally not recommended to do heavy downloading on these networks. Mobile hotspots are geared more for light work such as checking email or downloading a crucial video when your home internet is not accessible to you.

Looking to build apps for Android? This $20 ebook can show you how

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You might think that Android is a pretty big player in the mobile space, but do you know how big? It’s huge, actually, taking up around 70 percent of the worldwide market share. That means tons of phones and bajillions of apps.

According to AppAnnie, mobile app downloads are projected to hit nearly 260 billion, up almost 50 percent from just a few years ago. If you’ve ever thought about turning your idea into an Android app, you’re in luck. Right now, the Android 9 Development Cookbook ebook can point you in the right direction.

Sure, Android 11 is in full swing now and version 12 is on its way, there are plenty of reasons to develop for an older build. This is especially true as the newer releases are more about polish and refinement.

This extensively updated cookbook helps you find solutions for working with user interfaces, multitouch gestures, location awareness, web services, and other device features.

  • Lifetime access to eBook with 464 pages
  • Find solutions for working with the user interfaces, multitouch gestures, location awareness, web services, & device features
  • Get useful steps on packaging your app for the Google Play Store
  • Learn many tips & tricks on the rich features of Android Pie

The coursework walks you through deploying various app solutions to actually start creating your own apps. It will help you examine how to modernize and enhance app interfaces, how to make apps communicate better between activities, and even how to troubleshoot.

Get Started Today

Order your copy of the Android 9 Development Cookbook for just $19.99 in the AG Deals Store.

Cobra Kai: Card Fighter Game review

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Cobra Kai is one of the best shows on TV and seems to have only gotten more popular after having been acquired by Netflix. It features the return of two central characters from the Karate Kid movie and features a cast of new characters that fans have come to love.

Cobra Kai Card Fighter is a mobile game based on the series and features a unique twist on the usual deck-building games. Here is what we think about it, and if it is for you.

This is a free-to-play game, available on both Android and iOS, and features a multiplayer system that pits players against each other in live PvP modes.

Gameplay

Unlike other deck-builders, players have to choose cards at the same time behind screens, and there isn’t exactly a turn-based structure here. You build a deck of 30 cards, and there are various moves that range from kicks, punches, grabs, boosts, and health cards that you can choose from. Now, each turn, you choose three cards from the ones you drew. The opponent is doing the same, and players are given some time to decide.

After you have a sequence of three cards decided, both players’ cards will be pit against each other in a rock-paper-scissor scenario. We won’t spoil which card cancels out which, but to give you a general idea, if you picked Kick, it will beat a Punch. If both players had the same card in the sequence, it will be considered a draw, for example, if your second card was a kick, and the opponent’s second card was a kick as well, it will be considered a draw.

Essentially, your goal is to finish off your opponent, and their health bar. Each card has an energy requirement too, so you will be using energy boost cards to maintain that. The gameplay itself isn’t exactly deep, but it is fairly engaging. Especially if you want to kill some time, and collect more cards on the go.

A game like this would have been better with on-screen combat buttons like Mortal Kombat Mobile, but the deck building helps in giving it a unique element.

Visuals and Audio

Considering this is a mobile game, the visuals are decent enough. Players’ characters are shown on-screen as they perform the various card moves you have decided for them. These short bursts of animations are surprisingly well done for a mobile game and provide both players some visual feedback on their decisions. Usually, card games don’t exactly animate their player avatars, and since this is a karate game, it does commit to that part, with a lot of effort.

Character portraits are well done, and all the game icons are self-explanatory. The menus aren’t very cluttered either, so navigation throughout the game is fairly simple. We have various characters from the TV show as playable characters, mainly the teen stars.

The game sounds fine, and as well as you would expect. I would’ve appreciated, if the general soundtrack was a bit more thrilling, and it sometimes falls flat even during intense encounters. The grunts and impact sounds of characters are pretty good though and keep players engaged throughout the match.

Here are a few screenshots of the game in action.

Online Experience

Since this game is entirely online, you will be either taking part in Quick, or Ranked matches. These are fairly self-explanatory, where Ranked has higher stakes. Now, finding a player wasn’t that hard, and it took me a few seconds in most cases. Given how this is a free-to-play title, the player-count is pretty healthy at the moment. So for now, the online experience is satisfactory, without any disconnections whatsoever. Hopefully, the developers keep adding content to the game to keep players engaged, which in turn will ensure that there are enough players to keep online play functional. Given how there is a turn-based element to the game, your ping doesn’t matter all that much either.

Conclusion

Cobra Kai Card Fighter is a fun game, that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It features characters from the hit TV show from NETFLIX and puts a unique spin on the deck-builder genre. You can face off against other players in a deeper version of rock-paper-scissors with energy management, and a decent amount of strategy. The visuals and audio are decent, and the online experience is good enough. Recommended for players looking to kill time.

T-Mobile extends its T-Mobile Tuesdays offerings to Metro prepaid brand

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T-Mobile announced it will soon begin offering its T-Mobile Tuesdays incentives and promotions to its Metro prepaid brand. Effective Tuesday, March 30, the weekly exclusive offers, discounts, and perks will be available to those who subscribe to Metro by T-Mobile.

With this move T-Mobile becomes the only wireless company to provide both prepaid and postpaid customers with the freebies and goodies.

Back for a sixth year in a row, T-Mobile customers will be able to pick up a full year of MLB.TV subscription just for being a subscriber. Worth about $130 were you to purchase it on your own, it’s available to every line on an account.

With MLB.TV, customers won’t just get to continue watching games while they’re away from the ballpark, they’ll get exclusive looks into world of baseball with features, documentaries and classic games. Fans can stream every out-of-market game live or on-demand, with live game DVR controls to pause and rewind in HD. 

If you want to take advantage of the offer, you’ll want to sign up before April 6 at 5AM EST because that begins a new T-Mobile Tuesday and the deal goes away.

To get MLB.TV, customers need to download the T-Mobile Tuesdays app to their mobile device, verify an eligible phone number, save the offer, and redeem.

$1M Funded In An Hour! BLUETTI EP500/Pro Is Selling Like Hot Cakes On Kickstarter

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BLUETTI, a U.S.-Chinese renewable energy start-up, once again, created another miracle after their huge crowdfunding success with the cutting edge AC200 last year: their latest 5.1kWh home power station – the EP500/Pro – has pulled over $1 million in only an hour at kickstarter.com, and is now fast marching to the $2M milestone.

The new power stations feature a more elegant and minimalist look, a 12V 30A output port for the RV crowd, up to 3000W pure sine wave inverter and, yes, seamless UPS. But the price tag of these typically premium home battery products may be more important than ever. 

Starts at only $2799 for the EP500($0.55 per watt hour), makes the EP500 series extremely competitive even against the giants like Tesla’s Powerwall or Sonnencore. Yet, most importantly, unlike the Powerwall or Sonnen, BLUETTI EP500 family is plug-and-play and way more versatile. Not only it will work as a home backup power station, you can also shove it in the trunk of your car for a road trip or van life.

The first time ever, BLUETTI offered the remote control feature on their EP500 Series. With BLUETTIs exclusive B-Lynk connection technology, you can easily monitor your EP500/Pro’s status and adjust settings it whether it is near you or a thousand miles away(WAN & LAN). No more having to walk to a unit to determine remaining battery or inverter capacity.

With BLUETTIs exclusive B-Lynk connection technology, you can easily monitor your EP500’s status and adjust settings it whether it is near you or a thousand miles away. No more having to walk to a unit to determine remaining battery or inverter capacity.

If the 5.1kWh/3kW specs aren’t enough to cover your needs, feel free to get two of these and connect them together with BLUETTI’s Fusion Box. You can immediately double the capacity, voltage and power, that’s MASSIVE 10.2kWh and up to 6kW output at 240V, which means not only for the vital needs, you can also run your home air conditioner, clothes dryer, in-wall electric heater and other high power appliances totally off-grid with ease.

As for the most important part about crowdfunding projects – delivery and warranty – BLUETTI said they will DELIVER the EP500 in August(start shipping in late May), and the Pro will be DELIVERED two months later, in October. Since Kickstarter won’t charge your card until the crowdfunding campaign reaches its deadline, you only need to wait about 3 months after you finished the payment for the EP500, which is pretty impressive since even giants like Tesla would have to put you on the waiting list for about 4 months before the install.

After backing the crowdfunding project, you’ll get a 3-year warranty out of the box, and by paying additional $699, you can enjoy 5 years of peace in mind.

This year could be the time BLUETTI breaks through. With the groundbreaking features of EP500 family, BLUETTI has obviously widened the gap with its early competitors, and stepped into a higher stage to compete against the Goliaths like Tesla and LG Chem. We’ll see.

Learn more and pledge for the EP500 series: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluetti/bluetti-ep500-and-ep500pro-the-new-era-of-home-backup-power

Master & Dynamic debut MW08 earbuds with premium materials and ANC

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Master & Dynamic is back with a new pair of truly wireless earbuds as the premium audio brand debuts the MW08 with a March 30 availability.

Priced $299, the earbuds bear the familiar design of its predecessor, the MW07 Plus; however, they’re constructed from a more premium set of materials. Indeed, the new model are comprised of ceramic with an aluminum band for the antenna.

The new model has a more polished appearance that better aligns with the overall aesthetic of the brand. Master & Dynamic is a known for its materials which often include leather, aluminum, and other high-end textures. Notably absent in the MW08’s design, too, are the wing that helped keep the earbuds in place.

The on-board controls are still present, with a multi-function button on the right play/pause, track control, pairing, and Voice Assistant. The left earbud houses the volume rocker and controls ambient sound and ANC.

New for the MW08 is a third microphone on each earbud for what Master & Dynamic touts as “superior wind reduction” that keeps calls clear. Lastly, the earbuds are IPX5 rated water resistant and can withstand sweat as well.

The earbuds come with a stainless steel charging case that opens slightly different from its predecessor. The USB-C jack has been relocated to the right side.

The MW08 offer hybrid active noise cancellation with ANC Max and All Day ANC modes. Moreover, it also offers a pair of ambient sound modes, Voice and Awareness. Master & Dynamic employ a slightly larger 11mm Beryllium driver; the MW07 Plus were 10mm.

Also making its debut is a new M&D Connect app that displays battery levels and gives users control over ANC and ambient sound modes and other settings.

According to Master & Dynamic, the MW08 can last up to 12 hours on a charge with an additional 30 hours of listening time via the included charging case. A quick-charge yields 50 percent battery life in 15 minutes while a full charge can take 45 minutes.

The MW08 will be available in black, white, blue and brown colors starting March 30 for $299. These replace the MW07 Plus which will be dropped to $249 upon their arrival.

Poco launches killer value proposition with its X3 Pro

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Poco this week introduced another hard-to-beat value proposition with its latest handset, the X3 Pro. Priced as low as $300, it boasts a new Qualcomm processor and features an impressive, large display.

The X3 Pro has a 6.67-inch LCD display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate. This means gaming graphics will appear as smooth as silk with players getting truly accurate screen tapping.

Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 processor; this marks the first phone to offer the chipset. As the third new 800 series processor from the OEM in 2021, it’s the most robust 4G-ready one yet. Indeed, this is not a 5G phone, and that’s likely what helps contribute to the low price.

Digging deeper, the chipset has a 2.96GHz clock speed and an Adreno 640 GPU, putting it technically it closer to the Snapdragon 855 (2019) than its latest stuff.

As for cameras, the Poco X3 Pro offers up a 48-megapixel main camera, 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, 2-megapixel depth camera, and 2-megapixel macro sensor. In terms of shooting modes, the phone has Ultra-wide Night, Dual Video, video cloning, and long exposures.

Around front is a 20-megapixel selfie shooter centered in the upper edge of the display via punch-hole. It features Night mode and supports AI facial unlocking.

Wrapping things up, the Poco X3 Pro houses a generous 5,160mAh battery with 33W fast charging, a 3.5mm headphone jack, side-mounted fingerprint sensor/power button, NFC, USB-C, and Bluetooth 5.0. The whole thing is held together with Android 11-based version of MIUI 12.

Availability

The Poco X3 Pro will be offered in Phantom Black, Frost Blue, and Metal Bronze colors with pricing as low as $296 (6GB RAM with 128GB storage). The 8GB RAM/256GB variant runs about $356. Look for it starting March 24.

We have a Poco X3 Pro on hand and are putting it through its paces. Check back soon for our review.

How to spy on your child’s Android phone activities

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Today, children are getting cell phones at younger ages than in the past. But why? The primary reasons are of course needing one to communicate with parents and because other kids in their school grade have them as well.

However, phone use, including Android devices, can expose children to various dangers in the digital world. This includes the fact that kids who just got their first cell phone don’t know how to properly use it yet.

That is why parents need to learn how to spy on their child’s Android phone activities. To understand, follow the steps below to properly spy on an Android phone, including using a third-party cell phone spy app.

Step 1: Answer – Why Do You Need To Spy On Their Android Device?

To start with, you need to understand what your motivations are for tracking your child’s phone. The most common reasons parents do this include:

  • Protecting their child from online dangers including hackers, catfishers, predators, and cyberbullies.
  • Knowing what their children are up to on their phone.
  • Ensuring their child is properly using their device.
  • Making sure they do not view anything inappropriate, explicit, or violent while browsing online, using social media, and other applications.
  • Knowing their child’s GPS location at all times.
  • Tracking down their phone in case it is lost or stolen.

Step 2: Know What Type of Phone They Have

When searching for Android spy apps and other tools and features, you will need to know as much about your child’s phone as possible. This includes the phone’s manufacturer, model, the type of operating system it runs on, and the IMEI number. By knowing this, you will have a much better understanding of what parental controls, privacy, security, and app restriction features are available to you and your child.

Step 3: Evaluate Your Spy App and Parental Control Options

Now that you know what type of phone, your child has, you should make a list of the phone’s useful features and what you are looking for in a spy software program. Ensure that between all of the available options, you can easily monitor and control every aspect of your child’s device use.

Besides hidden spy apps, there are other useful tools that can help ensure phone safety, including Google SafeSearch and Google Family Link.

Step 4: Purchase & Install An Android Cell Phone Spy and Monitoring App

With your options laid out, it is time to purchase and install an Android cell phone spy and tracking app. When deciding which spy app for Android to purchase, always consider the following:

  • Features You Need: These apps often allow users to monitor text messages, phone call logs, web browser history, social media messages, device GPS location, and more.
  • Budget: What are you willing to spend on a spy application? Usually, these apps require a one-time or monthly payment.
  • Compatibility: Ensure the spy app will work on the target device.
  • Customer Reviews: Always see how other people liked or disliked the app to ensure it’s worth purchasing.
  • Customer Support: If they have a customer support number, call it to see if a live person answers and if they are helpful.
  • Usability: Determine if it will be easy for you to use the app and view the retrieved data.

After selecting the best product for you, install it on your child’s phone. Most Android spy apps only take a few minutes to do so. Usually, access to the physical phone will be required, but rooting the device should not be necessary.

Step 5: View Your Child’s Cell Phone Activities

With steps 1 – 4 complete, you can now monitor and restrict your child’s phone use. Make sure to inform your child that you are spying on their device so you don’t lose their trust. Also, when accessing their information, always do so from a secure device connected to a private Wi-Fi network. You don’t want to accidentally expose your child’s data to hackers!

By following all of these steps, you will be ready to spy on your child’s Android device. Remember not to abuse your power while overseeing your child’s phone use. Being too controlling could lead to a disconnect between you and your child. Try and find a nice balance between monitoring their phone activities and giving them privacy and freedom.