Watch Party

Amazon Prime Watch Party/Netflix Watch Party is fine, but not all movies/series are available on Netflix and Prime. Some may be as Offline downloaded files, YouTube videos, other OTTs. I am listing here some of the Watch Party applications I have used.

• SyncPlay - https://syncplay.pl/
• Only For Offline Files - Works with VLC Media Player.
• Only for Windows/Linux/Mac users.
• No Audio Chat.
• A room needs to be created and the members can join with the room name. All the members in watch party needs to have the same file and the file needs to be added in their playlist. Once everyone is ready, anyone can play/pause/seek the video and it syncs with everyone else. 
• My comments - Worked good and synced well. I found no troubles except at the initial setup. 
• Rating - 9/10
• Metastream - https://getmetastream.com/
• Suitable for most of the Online Streaming Videos.
• Works only with Desktop Browsers.
• A supporting Extension needs to be installed.
• No Audio Chat.
• A session needs be created and members can join the session using the session/invite link.  Link to the video page should be pasted in Next Up. The video should be automatically detected and added in the player. If not we can use the Interactive mode to manually detect the video.
• My comments - Worked well with YouTube. Faced some problems with Soap2day. Subtitles can be added with Interactive mode,
• Rating - 8/10
• Rave - https://rave.io/
• Suitable for Online Streaming Videos and Offline Files uploaded in Drive/Google Photos
• Works with Android/IOS/Mac and Windows.
• Audio chat, Friends, Public Rooms, Needs to Sign in, No Subtitles.
• A room needs to be created and the members can join with the room invite link. When a source, for example YouTube or Google Drive is clicked, the same will be opened inside the application's inbuilt browser. We can find the video and select it to Play together with the Members in Room. 
• My Comments - Worked well with YouTube, Google Drive and Google Photos in Windows Application. Faced some issues in Android Application. No means to Add Subtitles.
• Rating - 8/10
• Local Party - https://localparty.netlify.app/ (Source Code: https://github.com/sheldor1510/local-party)
• Only for Offline Files
• Works with Any Browser
• Simple one, No Audio Chat, No Subtitles.
• A room needs to be created and the members can join with the room invite link/code. All the members in watch party needs to have the same file and when joining a Room, members need to select the file. Anyone can pause/play/seek the video.
• My Comments - Worked well with Local files, No Subtitles, No Audio Chat, Simple UI.
• Rating - 7/10
• Other Watch Party Apps that I have not tried much.
• Browsers
• https://app.kosmi.io/ - Online Videos, Local Files can be Uploaded and Streamed
• https://www.watchparty.me/  - Online Videos, Local Files can be Uploaded and Streamed
• Apps
• https://hearo.live/

Sun Sneezing - Photic Sneeze Reflex

Do you ever noticed people sneezing or sneezed when exposed to bright light like Sun? This is a special reflex that only 25% of people have this reflex. Those people are called Sun sneezers. The phenomenon is called Sun sneezing or Photic sneezing reflex.

The scientific reason behind it?
This is due to the confusion of nerve signals whose path ways are nearer to each other. Those nerves are Trigeminal nerve and Optic nerve. Both are called Carnial nerves which are 12 pairs of nerves arising directly from the brain. These nerves are responsible for sensing information from the sense organs. Whenever we stepout into bright light, the bright light entering the eyes sends a signal to brain via optic nerve which in turn sends signal to eyes to constrict the pupil. This a automatic reflex done to protect the eyes from light and is called pupillary light reflex. The sneeze reflex which works when there is a tickling in the nose, trigeminal nerve is in adjacent with the Optic nerve (responsible for pupil constriction). The trigeminal nerve interacts and also gets the signal from the optic nerve due to the nearness and the sneez reflex is activated. This is how some people sneeze when they are exposed to sunlight.

For most people the trigeminal nerve and optic nerve does not interact. Only for the Sun sneezers it is. The result? Exposure to bright light sends a signal to the brain to constrict the pupils, but the crossed nerve causes a sneeze as well.

Further reference : http://scienceline.org/2009/11/why-do-some-people-sneeze-when-they-look-at-the-sun/

Better Mobile Performance and Low Battery Usage

1. Delete Facebook and Messanger Application and use Browser or light. If you think Facebook and Messanger  app is important for your survival, then no other go.

2. Have a simple launcher. Evie launcher, Nova launcher are the light weight launchers with more options. 

3. Disable widgets, clock, battery, weather. Clock and Battery meter is already available in status bar. Why fancy widgets? 

5. Turn off location after using SHAREit, maps.

6. Uncheck adaptive brightness and adjust brightness whenever needed.

7. If you have rooted device you could try Greenify. 

8. Avoid using battery optimisation app, RAM booster. Clear recent tasks often that would be enough. 

Mobile Phone Addiction Controller

Do you use your mobile so often that you feel like you're addicted to it ? If you want to control this addiction, I got a small and easy trick. You need not download any app package, or buy a separate new gadget. There is an inbuilt option which you could use for this purpose. The concept is disabling colours form your mobile phone, that is having black and white screen.

The black and white colour will sure reduce the mobile phone addiction to some extent. Most of the time we check our phone even if there is no notification at all. This is probably our mind is addicted to the fancy colours, the fancy icons in launcher, the widgets in our home screen. But we don't feel that we're addicted, we don't agree either. Most people use to see time from their mobiles even though they wore watches. They only get satisfied when they see time in their mobile. So having a non colour mobile phone could control the addiction for it. You will use it only when needed.

Also some people say black and white colour is safe for eyes, but too much of white light will strain the eyes. Using this bnw colour would be more helpful if you while using mobile during night with low brightness. Some colours are really harmful when using the mobile in dark.

The another advantage battery usage will be reduced. Producing a colourful image would require more power compared to a monochrome image.

So, turn this feature on and give it a try if you really want to control the mobile phone addiction. I used this for a week and felt some changes, infact I hated my mobile phone without colours.

How to turn on black and white mode?

Android 4.4 and above only!

1. Goto settings
2. Developer options
(If you don't see developer options, Goto About phone and click Bulid number five times. This will enable developer options.)
3. After entering developer options, Scroll down for Simulate colour space and select Monochromacy. That's it!

Night mode - Protect your eyes

Lot of people use their mobile phone to text at night, read ebooks, scroll news feed to kill time. Most of them keep their brightness low. Inspite of that, the low brightness is high at night dark. The brightness option available does not allow the brightness to become too low. Some phones may have this option but not everyphone. You need to download a separate application for keeping the brightness low than the stock level. You need to download an app Night mode, Night Owl, etc. So the problem is when you download any app from playstore, most of them have ads in it, and will also high be high in memory.

The app I'm recommending is around 100KB only. It doesn't have ads in it, Simple UI. You can low brightness 80% from the stock low level. The main feature is you need not open the app to activate the night mode, one click on the app activates this. When you click the app icon, it doesn't open the app, it activates the night mode option. In most of the apps you need to open the app, see an and then activate. Orelse for a quicker activation, you need to place a widget in home screen. These are complicated. This simple app I'm recommending will do all the functions, even it has the colour filter option. You can choose multiple colours.

The app is Darker (Screen filter). It is available in playstore. See the screenshot for the configuration.

Now you'll enter into configuration screen.

Adjust the brightness to your required level, but you can't go below 20%. You'll need pro version to do that. Enable color filter option is used to mix the color with the normal screen.