roychang@blogspot

How I search for that youtube channel I forgot to subscribe to

2021-10-01T14:52:00.006+08:00

Sometimes I stumble across an interesting video on youtube and after enjoying it I would never bother to hit the subscribe button. Sometimes I would bookmark it but often forget to. Then months or even years later I suddenly want to revisit it again but forgot the name. What to do? Here is a rundown of my latest challenge.

Let's begin. Think real hard what is the channel name. Something to do with visiting countries; search youtube for "travel stories", "stories about countries". I know it is way too general but I have nothing else to follow. Everything is vague in memory about the channel. Scroll through the results and nothing clicks.

Hold it, I think I saw a video title with "earth" and it kind of resonated. So let's search "earth" - too many useless hits. Try "great earth", nothing there that rings a bell. Fuck it, let's just google it, "youtube stories about countries". Now scan through results - first page, second page, third page - nothing, better not waste time.

Let's add more details in the search keywords, try "guy tells stories about countries youtube". Scroll through the first page then I notice there is a thumbnail of a video with a word blocked by the time stamp overlay and the next word "Earth". Bingo! "Rare Earth".

This is pretty much the way I shoot in the dark to search for most things on the web. What would we do without Google? :P

How to remove gas cylinder from chair?

2020-09-03T16:47:00.001+08:00

This is the way:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pV-wXwoQovc

Not the way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng0xneIT8hI

xpdf configuration setting file for Windows

2020-08-10T15:55:00.002+08:00

Save filename as xpdfrc in the folder of the executable.

#http://www.xpdfreader.com/xpdfrc-man.html#VIEWER%20SETTINGS initialSidebarState no bind R any rotateCCW bind r any rotateCW popupMenuCmd "Zoom Selection" zoomToSelection popupMenuCmd "Rotate +90" rotateCW popupMenuCmd "Rotate -90" rotateCCW

http://www.xpdfreader.com/

Essential workers?

2020-07-27T19:13:00.001+08:00

These 15 jobs will be in high demand over the next 5 years—some with salaries topping $80,000

1. Home health aide

2. Nursing assistant

3. Construction worker

4. Physical therapy aide

5. Medical technologist

6. Truck driver

7. Operations research analyst

8. Financial advisor

9. Health services administrator

10. Registered nurse

11. Web developer

12. Physical therapist

13. Information security analyst

14. Statistician

15. Software developer

#G-SHOCKHOMEWORK DW-5600 Paper Craft | G-SHOCK Watches Singapore

2020-07-16T16:24:00.000+08:00

#G-SHOCKHOMEWORK DW-5600 Paper Craft | G-SHOCK Watches Singapore

When a "Paint" scribble becomes a Shadow Art meme of the demo scene.

2020-06-20T16:11:00.001+08:00

Someone posts a request on niconico with a scribbled storyboard to accompany the Bad Apple!! song:

Then someone came along and created a shadow art.

Check out short history at https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bad-apple.

A Virtual Tour of Japan’s Most Beautiful Spots - Japan Rail Pass

2020-06-05T12:50:00.001+08:00

A Virtual Tour of Japan’s Most Beautiful Spots - Japan Rail Pass

AMD Radeon RX 5700XT green screen crash

2020-06-05T12:12:00.004+08:00

Update: Asus released gpu firmware that fixed the problem. No more green screen crashes.

My new ASUS TUF Gaming X3 Evo (AMD Radeon RX 5700XT) graphics card keeps getting a green screen and crashing whenever I play games like Division 2.

My current fix is to use the AMD Radeon software (AKA Adrenalin) included with the drivers by going to its Performance tuning options. I set the GPU tuning for maximum frequency to -40% and fan tuning max fan speed to 100%. It seems to work well enough with the latest Radeon software.

I still don't know exactly what causes the green screen crash. I can only guess the card cannot handle the graphics load required by the game. I doubt my new 650W PSU could be the problem. Windows Events viewer doesn't show anything relating to software issue. I don't have another rig to test on. Ducking results show this as a common issue for many users. I will make do with this workaround for now.

CleanURLs addon (Firefox) breaking Reddit mail links

2020-06-05T11:54:00.000+08:00

CleanURLs addon for Firefox is breaking Reddit mail links. There is no whitelisting feature in that addon to remedy this issue easily. I found that Redirector addon I have been using works for other purposes can fix this problem by stripping the URL of its trailing contents to redirect the URL correctly.

Create new Redirect with the following fields:

Include pattern: https://click.redditmail.com/CL0/(.*)\%2F\%3F\$deep_link(.*)
Description: <call it anything>
Example URL: <use any Reddit email link>
Redirect to: $1
Process type: Regular Expression
Process matches: URL Decode
Applies to: Main window (address bar)

Erratic volume control fix for Creative Gigaworks T3 speakers

2020-01-11T00:56:00.001+08:00

When adjusting the volume control and the volume isn't smooth, the control knob is faulty.

The black control knob pops off easily with a bit of strength since it was held with a bit of double sided tape. Remove all the screws to expose the board. The following rotary potentiometer from Alps Alpine is required to be replaced.

RK11K114003Y

RK11K1140-F22-C0-V503
Model type: Code 4 (Vertical type with bushing), Shaft type: Code F (Flat), Detent: Code C0 (Without detent), Resistance taper: Code V (3B), Total resistance: Code 503 (50kΩ)

I ordered slightly wrong one from RS that was 20kΩ but it worked fine except that it reached the max volume at halfway of full rotation. I was fine with that since it also had the detent at the mid mark.

I think this should be the correct one: https://sg.rs-online.com/web/p/potentiometers/2633208/

Desolder the part from the board with soldering iron and desolder tool. Take note the correct mounting side - I totally messed up when I mounted it upside down and just blindly soldered it on. Do a quick test then place everything back together.

I still need to fix the irritating hum, probably capacitor in the base module. That's for another time.

Unactivated Windows taking focus from games set to fullscreen

2019-12-03T18:36:00.001+08:00

If you have an unactivated Windows setup with the watermark at the bottom right of the screen, some games set to fullscreen mode may not refresh properly; it will look like the graphics is paused or stuck. You have to alt+tab out and back in the game to see it refresh. Either get Windows activated or use the disable watermark hack.

Add shortcut to Program list in Start menu for Windows 10

2019-11-25T16:24:00.001+08:00

How to add a shortcut in Start menu Program list without reinstalling the program. When you already have the working program in a folder and just want a shortcut in the Start menu program list.

1. From Windows Explorer, right click the executable, select "Pin to Start" in the context menu. This will create a shortcut as a tile in the Start menu.
2. Right click the tile, select "More", "Open file location". This is the folder where all the Start tile shortcuts reside. Rename the shortcut to appropriate name. Copy the program shortcut.
3. Right click any "non default Windows installed" program currently in the Start menu program list, select "More", "Open file location". This is the folder where all the Start menu Program shortcuts reside.
4. Paste the program shortcut that was previously copied. Allow permissions if prompted.
5. Unpin the same program from the Start tile. A new shortcut should appear in the Start program list under "Recently Added" and also in the respective grouped first letter.

Alternatively, you can skip steps 1 & 2 by directly creating the shortcut (with Windows explorer right click context menu) with the executable within the program's folder then use it to cut and paste over to the start menu folder. You may want to add the Start menu folder in Windows Explorer Quick access (right click folder, "Pin to Quick access") for future use.

Change YouTube home page grid layout[Firefox]

2019-11-13T12:37:00.003+08:00

YouTube updated their mainpage from a 6 column grid to a 4 column grid. Here is how to change it to an 8 grid layout for Firefox browser using userChrome.css.

Update (2021):
userContent.css

/* Youtube*/
#contents.ytd-rich-grid-renderer {--ytd-rich-grid-items-per-row: 8 !important;}
#contents > ytd-rich-grid-row, #contents > ytd-rich-grid-row > #contents {display: contents !important;}
}

uBlock:
youtube.com###contents.ytd-rich-grid-renderer{--ytd-rich-grid-items-per-row: 8 !important;}
youtube.com###contents>ytd-rich-grid-row,#contents>ytd-rich-grid-row>#contents:style(display: contents !important;)

(Superseded, retained for reference)
userContent.css

/* Youtube*/
@-moz-document domain("youtube.com") {
ytd-rich-grid-renderer.style-scope{--ytd-rich-grid-items-per-row:8 !important}
.ytd-rich-grid-video-renderer{font-size: 1.3rem !important; line-height: 1.3rem !important;}
.style-scope.ytd-video-meta-block{font-size: 1.2rem !important}
#avatar-link{display:none !important}
ytd-rich-item-renderer.style-scope.ytd-rich-grid-renderer{margin-left: 5px !important; margin-right: 5px !important; margin-bottom: 5px !important}
}

Spot Launch - YouTube

2019-09-26T15:26:00.001+08:00

Black Mirror "Metalhead" episode's combat killer robot dog is coming...

Spot Launch - YouTube

Let's get to work with Containers [Firefox]

2019-09-19T16:40:00.000+08:00

From Firefox help:

What are Containers?

Container tabs are like normal tabs except that the sites you visit will have access to a separate slice of the browser's storage. This means your site preferences, logged in sessions, and advertising tracking data won't carry over to the new container. Likewise, any browsing you do within the new container will not affect your logged in sessions, or tracking data of your other containers.

Containers are sandboxed tabs that are almost similar to Firefox's Private Browsing except the session settings like cookies and history are saved. A good usage example is to be able to have different Gmail accounts opened in different tabs within the same browser window.

Reference:Multi-Account Containers | Firefox Help

Container Addons for Firefox:
Firefox Multi-Account Containers

Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs that preserve your privacy. Cookies are separated by container, allowing you to use the web with multiple identities or accounts simultaneously.

Facebook Container

Facebook Container isolates your Facebook activity from the rest of your web activity in order to prevent Facebook from tracking you outside of the Facebook website via third party cookies.

Open bookmark in Container Tab

Adds an "Open in Container Tab" menu item to bookmark menus to open bookmarks in a container tab.

Container Bookmarks

Allows you to open bookmarks in containers.

Open external links in a container

This extension enables support for opening links in specific containers using custom protocol handler. It works for terminal, OS shortcuts and regular HTML pages.

Containerise

Automatically open websites in a dedicated container. Simply add rules to map domain or subdomain to your container.

Firefox no longer loads userChrome.css or userContent.css by default

2019-09-04T15:40:00.000+08:00

Firefox no longer loads userChrome.css or userContent.css by default improving start-up performance. Users who wish to customize Firefox by using these files can set the toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets preference to true to restore this ability.

Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/69.0/releasenotes/

How to set double click tab action in Firefox (Quantum)

2019-01-20T21:38:00.000+08:00

I used to have an addon that allowed me to double click tab to reload the page. But after Firefox changed the way addons work I was no longer able to reload page with double click at the tab. However it is still possible to make it work with userChrome.js.

Go to Firefox Quantum compatible userChrome.js and follow the instructions to install. Copy and insert the following into the userChrome.js file.

gBrowser.tabContainer.addEventListener('dblclick', function(event) {
if (event.target.localName == 'tab' && event.button == 0) {
gBrowser.reloadTab(event.target);
}
});

Reference: Double Click Closes Tab, fix in FF57+

How to increase rows and columns in Firefox new home tab

2019-01-20T21:23:00.000+08:00

It is possible to increase the rows and columns shown of the top sites in the new home tab for Firefox. If you change it in the about:config, it does not load your preferences when you relaunch Firefox. You must utilise locking preferences.

Create new file named mozilla.cfg then paste the following and save in Firefox install folder, ie. the folder where your firefox.exe is located. See more info in the reference link below.

//
//lockPref("browser.newtabpage.rows", 6);
// lockPref("browser.newtabpage.columns", 8);

Reference: Locking preferences

Youtube gray background when menu pane opened

2017-10-01T16:07:00.000+08:00

Youtube website has a very annoying implementation of a gray background mask when you click the menu button even if the menu does not overlap the contents of the page.

Disable it with the following lines in usercontent.css.

/* Remove Youtube menu open with gray background */ @-moz-document domain("youtube.com") { #scrim.app-drawer {background: none !important;} }

US to SG currency converter bookmarklet

2017-07-04T18:16:00.001+08:00

Using this as a simple converter. Add to bookmark by dragging the link into the bookmark toolbar. Highlight any number on a webpage and click the bookmark. Or click the bookmark and it'll prompt for the number.

USD to SGD

No, You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day - The New York Times

2017-05-11T22:48:00.001+08:00

No, You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day - The New York Times

Unusual Uses for Vaseline: 12 Steps (with Pictures)

2017-05-11T22:44:00.001+08:00

Unusual Uses for Vaseline: 12 Steps (with Pictures)

Wrong Time Format displayed on Lock Screen in Windows 10

2015-11-18T19:21:00.001+08:00

This is how to reset the correct 24 hour time format for the welcome screen/lock screen in Windows 10. This should also work for Windows 8.

Wrong Time Format displayed on Lock Screen (Builds 10162 & - Microsoft Community:

Go to "Panel Control->Clock, Language, and Region->Language": Click on "Change date, time, or number formats" on the left, click on the tab called "Administrative".

Then, click the button "Copy settings...", make sure the info displayed on the screen is accurate before continuing. Now, tick "Welcome screen and system accounts" and also "New user accounts" for good measure and click OK.

From that moment onward, the right 24-hour format will be displayed on the Lock Screen at the beginning of any session.
Despite this solution, when set with the 12-hour format, Lock Screen won't show the A.M. / P.M. marks."

When things go south with crowdfunding...

2015-01-26T12:24:00.002+08:00

... you have only yourself to blame.

All the contributors for the BE MAKER! KIT including myself have been strung along by ridiculous updates for the last few months of the creator of this project. The project has been hanging in the air well past a year after its $248,111 funding. All complaints from contributors to Indiegogo have been responded with boilerplate replies stating that all queries should be directed to the project creator for resolution instead; in effect saying Indiegogo doesn't give a damn - your money is In-de-gone. Alas after this incident, this will probably be my last ever contribution to any crowdfunding site be it Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

QR code any webpage bookmarklet

2014-10-29T15:24:00.000+08:00

This bookmarklet will generate a QR code using Google chart API.

javascript:%20window.location%20=%20'https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=150x150&cht=qr&chl='%20+%20window.location.protocol%20+%20'//'%20+%20window.location.hostname%20+%20window.location.pathname;

Drag and drop this link into browser bookmark bar: Create QR code