This week is bit hectic with everything going on in South Korea. So this one is one of the reserved pieces I was thinking to publish should I need more time to work on a post. This is a commonly known trick for seasoned Mac users, and a feature I believe should be available on…
The Mad Tea Party
Inspiring yet Mad Spiels
By Rian
Gray, a writer.
Poppy Playtime: Chapter 1-3 Spiel
Poppy Playtime as an indie horror game has a special place in many PC gamers’ heart. There is no doubt it has a special place in my heart as well, only that place doesn’t happen to coincide with “great” in “great-ok-fail” scale. Chapter 1 went viral as a new player in horror game with its…
How to Change Windows Hibernation Behavior
Did you know Windows 11 is shipped with power button replaced with hibernation? If you are starting a computer from cold boot, the computer isn’t starting a boot up process from scratch; in fact, it’s reloading the cache from what was on the previous session. I won’t go into the details as to what the…
How to Fix Firefox “Unable to Access” DSM Web on macOS
If you are having trouble connecting to Synology DSM via web with recent influx of Firefox and macOS updates, this is likely the cause. The odd bit of it all is that in my case, it didn’t happen after an update. I didn’t get any updates on either one, it just happened out of the…
How to Fix Harmony Activity Input on LG TV
Logitech Harmony is no longer maintained. Perhaps “maintained” is not the right word; Logitech stopped manufacturing of the product, but the server —for accounts and DBs— is maintained. As far as I am aware, this also indicates the DB for the device lists and commands aren’t kept up as rigorously. Many users are already stockpiling…
HDMI Nightmares, Switches, and Dongles
Few years ago, when I was looking for a replacement USB hub in South Korea, I quickly realized I was in the world of trouble. The listings for a powered USB hub with at least USB 3 rating were swarmed with Chinese knock-offs, and a lot of them didn’t ship with the power adapter when…
How to Block HDMI-CEC
This week is a home theater special. If you have just upgraded your home theater during Black Friday, chances are you are probably facing the same problem as I do. The infamous HDMI-CEC; it doesn’t work. The last time I had the pleasure of working with HDMI-CEC, which happens to be today, it was waking…
How to Add TV Button for Apple TV on Logitech Harmony
Logitech Harmony remains to be few semi-functional universal smart remote —that is mouthful— currently available, even though the Swiss-based company has decided to pull Harmony from production years ago. I’ve seen some new candidates since, but not all remotes offer the big database Harmony has, let alone offering both RF and IR functionality. But today’s…
How to Convert SAMI (*.smi) to ASSA (*.ass) Subtitles
This is yet another “Korean” problem I encountered, because I am yet to find non-Korean SAMI subtitles. SAMI is a closed caption format developed by Microsoft back in 1998. As far as I am aware, Microsoft hasn’t updated the format since, and frankly I don’t think the format has seen much usage outside of South…
How to Randomly Generate a Pattern Lock pt. 2
The last how-to I published had some backstories. It’s always easier to input a pattern lock when it only has 8-direction: up, down, left, right and 4 diagonals. But security-wise, having more options is always more preferable. This is one of the weakness of the pattern lock; you might as well use a simple PIN…
How to Randomly Generate a Pattern Lock
PSA before we begin: if you are using pattern lock on your device as primary method of authentication, find alternatives. Pattern lock is unsafe. There is a reason why password managers don’t try supporting it. Compared to that of PIN, the safety provided by pattern lock is mediocre at best even with the best of…
iRobot Roomba j7 Spiel on Solving Problems pt. 3
The high bar set for Roomba’s software can only be resolved by upgrading its hardware. Features such as “linked clean” would have been entirely unnecessary if iRobot pioneered the combo market and concentrated its efforts only on the combo models. In the previous posts, I have discussed about iRobot’s software solutions in part 1 and…
iRobot Roomba j7 Spiel on Solving Problems pt. 2
When iRobot launched its gen. 3 navigation system with forward-looking cameras, the robot duos needed a software update to stay competitive. In the previous post, I’ve talked about problems that could have been solved by softwares without significant changes to the hardware. Now we are talking about problems and solutions that sit somewhere in between.…
iRobot Roomba j7 Spiel on Solving Problems pt. 1
iRobot, possibly the frontier of consumer robot vacuums, is now just about late in all the robot games imaginable. The company’s lack of direction in developing either hardware or software solution to the average household problems has left the latest iRobot vacuum, Roomba Combo 10 Max, with poorly received reviews. Seeing as iRobot made it…
How to Add Korean Calendars (24 Solar Terms, Lunar Calendar)
It’s that time of the year: the holidays and the calendars. Before we begin, I do want to emphasize the links I am sharing are not “universal”. As I was going through different kinds of calendars, one thing I noticed was that a lot of English sources often lumped “solar terms” as one and “lunar…