Don't you find it very annoying that towards the end of a YouTube video you watch, a bunch of recommended video thumbnails cover up most of the player screen and obstruct the ending part of the clip?
Well, here's how you can fix that:
Go to YouTube web page and click on you avatar icon to open the menu. Click Settings with the gear icon. Next click Playback and performance from the menu on the left, and you'll see something like the image below. Uncheck Show annotations and in-video notifications. Make sure to click the SAVE button. That's it!
Another battle fought and another battle one. Moving on to the next battle!
This fix is also super valuable if you find yourself keep clicking those thumbnails to watch clips after clips late into the night... BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
Slack is a popular instant messaging app that many companies (especially among tech companies) use for internal team communications and collaborations. The company actually just had its IPO earlier this year (June 20th, 2019, to be exact) and peaked at an evaluation of over $20 billion.
Example Slack App Screenshot
To be honest, Slack is great for the communication part, but it can also be super distracting with all the notifications from all the channels you are in (some channels you just don't want to mute). And I actually sometimes intentionally turn it off for hours at a time if I need to get into the zone and focus on coding, troubleshooting, or designing.
One feature in slack is that you can edit your own messages in case you had a typo, forgot to @someone, or need to add additional info. But you might find that sometimes you can just right click on the message and select "edit message" to make your changes:
But some other times, when you right click, the edit option is missing from the menu and can't be found in the "More message actions..." screen either. WHY???
Turned out this is a setting your Slack admin can set, which governs how much time you have if you need to make edits. If you wait for too long, then you will lose the permission to edit. This help page below shows you how you can adjust that permission setting if you are the workspace owner or admin:
I opened my Google Adsense home page as usual today to see Google's Stats on my ad units. Then I got the following error message:
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.
Tried several times and still got the same error message.
If you are also seeing this message, don't let it fool you. This is a blatant lie!!! No Google engineer is looking at this to resolve it for you, because this is just a static message they display when certain scripts are blocked from running on their web page. You can wait till you drop dead and no Google engineer will help you!!
But I will!! 😁 And I don't work for Google!!
Normally, this error happens if you recently installed an ad blocker extension to your Chrome browser (or other similar things such as NoScript on Firefox). But I haven't installed any new extensions at all. So what is going on?
Turned out it was the uBlock origin extension I've always had that was causing this problem. My guess is that it just had an auto update or downloaded new database or something. All you have to do is to click the icon from the tool bar and then click that big power button to disable it for the current page you are on.
So the lesson learned here is that, again and again, auto updates might break things. Check your Chrome extensions. Something must have updated if the page worked perfectly for you for a long time and suddenly stops working when you have not made any changes to your computer.
We live in a world where things no longer work reliably in trade for the convenience of getting new features automatically. Just enjoy it, because there's nothing you can do. BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
Chromebooks are cheap laptop computers that run the Chrome OS, a lightweight OS developed by Google, that uses Chrome browser as the main UI to basically run browser apps (linux-based kernel).
Because of the lightweight OS design, many things become much harder to do on a Chromebook laptop, such as printing to your home printer, especially if it is a printer that's a few years old, like my Brother HL-2170W Laser Printer.
This printer has been serving our needs well. It is wirelessly connected to our home network. All our computers can send print jobs to it, except the Chromebook.
Google's online help page made it sound really easy to get your Chromebook set up to print to your home computer.
Your first option is to connect your home printer directly to the Chromebook via an USB cable. But seriously who does this? Most likely the printer is shared among multiple devices, and plugging it into a laptop each time you need to print sounds terrible when home printers today are pretty much all capable of wireless communications.
You can also set up the printer as a local wireless printer according to Google. You just make sure your Chromebook is on the same network (subnet) with the wireless printer, go into the settings page, search to find printer settings, and then add a printer by selecting the auto-discovered printer nearby, or manually specify settings such as the IP address of the printer and the IPP protocol.
Sounds pretty easy, right? I was able to quickly add my printer using the find printer nearby method (auto-discovered), but when I tried to print a test job, nothing came out of the printer. Also tried the manually add method by specifying the IP address of the printer. I know my Chromebook can see the printer on the network because I can ping its IP address and can also view the printer status in a browser when I enter the IP address. But still, nothing comes out of the printer when I ran a test print job.
The next option is to set up the printer as a cloud printer. One benefit of this approach is that you can print to the printer even when you are not on your home network. Some newer printers are cloud-ready, meaning they are automatically accessible from outside your home network. My printer, unfortunately, does not have this capability. So in order for it to be discoverable in the cloud, I have to install a Google Cloud Print connector on a computer that has to be always on and always connected to the same network as my printer and always logged in with your Google Account. You have to install the Google Cloud Print connector on this computer and this computer basically serves as a print server that will bridge the communication between your Chromebook and the printer.
In the Lannyland residence, unfortunately, I don't have such a computer dedicated to the printer just that the Chromebook can print. Even though Philip and Jane are always on (BTW: Philip and Jane are two physical existences of my smart home butler Philip Jane), their main functionalities required them to be on a different network from the regular home network the printer is on. And trying to make them multi-homed (meaning connecting to multiple networks at the same time) creates more problems.
But if you have such a computer laying around, this might very well be your solution. When I tested it, I was able to print from the Chromebook. Just make sure the computer never goes to sleep and always stay connected to your home network.
Read the linked articles below for details on how to set up your printer for your Chromebook in details.
So how does my daughter print from her Chromebook? I tell her to email me the doc, and I'll print for her from my computer. 😅
[Update on 11/21/19:] Google just quietly "announced" that Google Cloud Print will be officially deprecated by the end of 2019. Google, shutting down another Beta product and leave your users hanging. Hooray, You did it again!
Video of the Day:
Whale Lifts Kayakers Out Of Water
BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
Wyze cameras are probably the cheapest wireless indoor cameras you can find that offers quite a bunch of features such as live streaming with 1080p video, person detection, 2-way audio, and continuous recording (DVR) if you add a microSD card. For example, the Wyze V2 (top) sells for $25.98 on Amazon and the Wyze Pan (bottom) sells for $37.98 on Amazon. The Wyze Pan camera allows you to pan and tilt the camera with your smart phone app to look at all 360 degrees left right and up down.
Every once a while, the Wyze company will send out firmware updates to these cameras to add new features. And sometimes, unfortunately, the update might get stuck in a bad state rendering the camera unusable.
In such cases, the easiest way to resolve the problem is to first power cycle, and if that doesn't work, factory reset the camera as described in this article:
I actually had to factory one of my Wyze cameras. But following the instructions didn't work and the camera was still a brick. Took me many hours of trial and error, but eventually I found the solution.
Turned out you need to remove the SD card from the camera before you factory reset for it to work!!!
Probably the easiest way to pop that microSD card out is to use a pen.
That's it for today. Hope my post has helped someone to win their daily battles!
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- Albert Einstein BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
I have a Jasco Z-Wave Smart Light Switch just like the one pictured below that I bought from Amazon. I had integrated it into my Vivint Smart Home system and use it to control my outdoor low-voltage lighting in the front yard. I enjoyed it immensely. Before installing this switch, I had to flip a light switch in the wall to turn front yard lights on and off manually. With this waterproof smart switch, now I can turn on/off lights directly from my smart phone app. But the best part is that I don't even have to turn them on/off myself anymore. I have a custom action that will automatically turn lights on at sunset and then automatically turn them off at midnight. I can even have lights automatically turn on when my outdoor camera or my doorbell camera detects a person and then automatically turn them off after 5 minutes.
There are of course other brand of smart switches, and they might be using something other than Z-Wave (a communication protocol), such as ZigBee or WiFi. But the idea is the same. As long as you can integrate it into your smart home system, you are good.
Then one day, my control panel complained that my switch is offline. So the troubleshooting began.
I unplugged the switch off the outlet outside and then plugged it back in. Didn't help.
Next, I try to run diagnostics and rediscoveries of all my Z-Wave smart home devices and see if that would improve things. Nope, switch still shows as offline.
Maybe it is bad signal strength? I wondered. So I took my panel off the wall (it has built int battery) and then set it right next to the switch and ran diagnostics again. Still no change.
Having no choice, I went to the last resort: removing the device from the panel and then learn it back in again. This was not my preferred solution because after I do this, I would have to recreate all my custom actions and device groups relating to this device. But guess what, I couldn't remove or add the device at all.
Do I even have power on this outside outlet? Maybe it got shorted from the rain or something? So I took a lamp outside and plugged it into the outlet. Problem confirmed: I simply didn't have power.
So next thing was to see if the circuit break has been tripped due to the short. You see, I have two circuit break boxes and the switches were not very well labeled (which is probably typical for most homes). So there I was, turning switches off and on for all the unknown control regions, effectively rebooting many things at my house, the stove/microwave, the washer/dryer, the furnace/AC, my garage door openers, my computers/routers/switches, my 100+ smart home devices, the list goes on and on. But after I pretty much reset all the circuit breaks, when I took the lamp out to test again, I still didn't have power!
I was completely dumbfounded!
About a week later (a week without my convenient outdoor front lawn lighting automation), a thought suddenly struck me: "Didn't I use to turn front lawn lights on/off using an in wall switch?" I ran to the location of the in wall switch immediately.
Sure enough, the switch has been turned off even though I had it COMPLETELY TAPED OFF.
After I turned the switch back on, wah-lah, my lighting automation is back! I didn't have to reinstall anything, it just worked! So here's the important lesson learned:
Always check the in-wall switch first to make sure it is on for any of your smart home lighting troubleshooting tasks!!
The other lesson learned here is that your kids will always destroy your perfectly working things. But that deserves a whole series of blog posts of their own.
Ciao!
I repeat: your kids will always destroy your perfectly working things. BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
I was trying to compare two computer vision models on how well they handle object detection on certain scenarios and wanted to see the bounding boxes from each model drawn in the same clip and compare visually side by side. So I need a way to play two clips (same clip but with different bounding boxes drawn on top of them) synchronously so I can compare the exact same frame for both clips.
Problem Statement:
Be able to play two 1:1 ratio clips side by side simultaneously and synchronously (frame synced to frame) and be able to start and pause both clips simultaneously without spending any money on new software.
It was actually not easy to find the exact solution. Let me share with you what I learned.
Option 1: iMovie App on Mac
Obviously this tool is only available on a Mac. However, it is a free tool that comes with the Mac OS, which is handy.
The iMovie app has a split screen button that let you easily place two video clips side by side. Then you can even export the resulting split screen movie to a new video clip, so you can play them side by side again and again in the future.
You basically import two clips into the app, and then drag each one to the timeline with one above the other (not drag on on top of the other, which confused me quite a while). Selecting one of them in the timeline, and then click that split screen button. That's it!
This article link below will give you all the details.
However, since my two clips are 1:1 ratio, and iMovie only allows for 16:9 and 4:3 ratio, my two side by side clips all got cropped automatically (because two clips side by side becomes 2:1, which is 18:9), and I lost a section of my clip on the left side for both clips. And there is absolutely no way to create custom size ratios in iMovie. You have to pay Apple money to get their better version of the app, which doesn't meet my requirement. So this is not a solution for me!
Option 2: VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player that runs on both Windows and Mac.
Many people have posted tutorials (such as the one linked below) on how to change some settings in VLC that will allow you to open multiple instances of the VLC app, thus, allowing you to play multiple clips at the same time. You basically uncheck a few checkboxes in settings (which is not available for the Mac version and you have to do some command line trick to get it working).
But opening multiple instances of the player doesn't let me control both clips in order to simultaneously start and pause. In order to that, I have to create complicated across instance hotkeys, which I won't do.
Inside the VLC player, there are actually functionalities built in to allow you to play two clips side by side with synchronous control. In the 3.0.X versions, you go to File--Advanced Open File, and you get this screen below:
In here you can supposedly specify two different clips to be played synchronously. I was so happy when I found this, and then I was so sad when I found out it doesn't work!!
Then I found that I am not the only one suffering. Someone else has already reported a bug to VLC:
Anyway, if you are willing to go back to the 2.x.x versions, this function still works there. You do create security risks if you downgrade though.
So again, not a solution for me!
Option 3: QuickTime Player
QuickTime player is another Mac built in multimedia player. You can double clip on your two clips to open two QuickTime windows and drag them to be side by side. But how can you play/pause both clips at the same time?
I did find this web page below that says you can either select "Play All Movies" from the Movie menu, or press command-option-space to start both clips at the same time. But guess what? I don't have the option of "Play All Movies." That is only available in the paid version of QuickTime Pro app! Dang! And command-option-space also doesn't work!! Dang!!
After many trial and error, I finally figured out what works, and you are in luck!!
To start both clips at the same time, press Command-Enter. And to pause, press Command-Enter again!
That's it! And this would meet my needs. So problem solved and for this battle, I won!
Option 4: Command Line Tools
You can also play multiple videos side by side from command line control. But this requires installing and configuring frameworks, so not for the faint-hearted.
I can't believe I am blogging about a bug in Google Blogger in my daily battles blog series on Google Blogger!!
I have a blog post I saved as a draft and used as a template for all my standard formatting needs (and with images and fonts I use for things such as Tao of the Day). When I was about to start a daily battle blog post on software bugs, I went to this draft post (I normally leave it open) so I can hit the shortcut keys ⌘+A (CTRL+A for windows) to select everything, then ⌘+C (CTRL+C for windows) to copy them, so I can go to a new post and ⌘+V (CTRL+V for windows) to paste it as a starting template.
However, by mistake, I hit ⌘+Z, instead, because the Z key is right below the A key and I've got fat fingers. Normally, ⌘+Z means undo in the computer world. However in Blogger's case, it actually deleted everything in my post draft. As I was completed puzzled, Blogger's auto save automatically kicked in and saved my draft post with nothing in it. AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
This can't be true! I just lost all my contents in my template!
But it is true! I can actually reproduce this bug every time!
You see, you can have a draft post like this:
And if you hit ⌘+Z, it turns into this:
And then that Save button on the upper right corner flashes into Saving, and wah-lah (viola in French), your draft has just been wiped clean and there's no way to undo that!!
Thanks Google!!
I know software all have bugs, and my programs have plenty of bugs in them too. But a bug that makes bloggers lose their drafts completely with no way to reverse the damage is a CRITICAL bug!
As a good netizen, I clicked that "Send feedback" button and reported the bug. But we all know that Google is famous for ignoring feedbacks for 10+ years, so I am not keeping my hope hight.
For now, all you bloggers out there, avoid using any shortcut key combos when you just get into a post draft. After you have already typed something in there, ⌘+Z will work correctly as undo and you are not risking losing all existing contents you thoughtfully put together into a draft post and just haven't post.
By the way, the same bug exists if you edit an already published post. But as long as you don't revert to draft, nothing gets saved, so at least you don't lose anything! Thanks God for that, because I actually tried it on a published blog post!!
You win some, and you lose some! But never give up your daily battles! BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
Appliances today can be very fancy. For example, Washers and Dryers these days can automatically detect your load and adjust washing/drying cycles automatically for best laundry experience.
However, you might notice that sometimes when you start the drying cycle, your dryer machine tells you that it will take 55 minutes, but the dryer would stop only 10-15 minutes into the drying cycle, and your laundry ended up not dry at all.
This also happened to my LG Electronic Dryer!
No need to dig up your warranty and call tech support. What most likely happened is that the load sensor in your dryer just got dirty and you happen to be doing a light load of laundry.
There are two ways to solve the problem:
First option is to clean the sensor yourself. Just pull the lint filter out (the one you have to clean each time after you dry a load of laundry, and the sensor is located inside the slot for the filter. Stick your fingers in and rub them against a metal piece you can feel to clean it. Since the sensor can get dirty easily, you really should be cleaning it each time you clean the lint filter.
Another option, which is my preferred option, is to use laundry balls when you dry your laundry. These laundry balls will make the load heavier, so the "smart" dryer won't cut the drying cycle short. You also get the added benefits of reducing wrinkles and lint and saving the need of using liquid fabric softeners and dry sheet. Laundry balls are very cheap, you can buy a 6-pack laundry balls on Amazon for only $7.99.
Happy laundrying!! Moving on to my next daily battle!!
BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
If you actually follow my blog, then you'll know that my Logitech wireless solar keyboard ran out of battery yesterday. My keyboard is the exact same one shown above, a Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard for Mac, which sells for $53.97 on Amazon.
When the keyboard was working before but stops working, most likely it is out of battery. The easiest way to check is to push the sun button (upper left in the image below) and see if you get a happy face light (has battery) or a sad face light (out of battery). Note that if it is out of battery, there's no way to plug it into a power source, so your best bet is to leave it somewhere very bright during the day and leave it there for the entire day for it to charge.
However, after it has charged, it is very possible that even with a happy face, the keyboard still doesn't work. Don't panic, the fix is actually very simple. Plugged into your USB port, you'll find a 2.4GHz Wireless Receiver that looks similar to the one below. Simply unplug it and plug it into a different USB port would solve your problem and get your keyboard back working again.
Another option is to restart your Mac, and most likely the keyboard will resume working. I don't like rebooting my computers with so many things I have already running, so I'll stick with the first option.
So why do we have to do this? Well, just another bug or stupid design by Apple. Life goes on, so don't sweat too much over it.
Moving on to my next daily battles with technology!!
Key to Happiness: ARK - A random act of kindness a day.
BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com
