Daily Battles: How to Enable Remote Desktop on Windows Home Editions

Remote Desktop is a great tool that lets you get onto a remote Windows computer as if you were just sitting in front of that computer. I can even use it directly from my Mac to support/control my family members' computers using an app called Microsoft Remote Desktop.

I just recently allowed my 10-year old son to start using an old computer, so he can write blogs, manage his calendar, and search for knowledge (not watching cartoons or playing games online). So naturally, I needed to put some parental control on his computer.

Read about a complete suite of parental control solutions I blogged about previously.

One tool I use is Remote Desktop. Since this is an old computer running Windows 8 Home edition, it does not come automatically with Remote Desktop capabilities. Same goes for any Home version of the Microsoft Windows operating systems such as Windows 8.1 Home, Windows 10 Home, etc., because Microsoft wants you to upgrade to the Pro version for this feature. However, you don't have to pay and upgrade. Here's what you have to do to enable Remote Desktop on your Home edition of Windows:

1. Upgrade to Windows 8.1 Home if you have a Windows 8 computer

This is important because there's a security patch included in Windows 8.1 that if you don't upgrade, Remote Desktop will return an error complaining about CredSSP encryption oracle remediation like the one below:

Just upgrade to Windows 8.1 Home, which is free from Microsoft Store (type that in the search field in the Start Menu), and this problem would go away.

2. Install RDP Wrapper Library

Go to the RDP Wrapper Library Github page and download the zip file. Extract the zip file and then go into the folder to run the install.bat file as an administrator (right-click and then choose run as administrator). Hit any key at the end to exit out of the installation.

Now run the RDPConf.exe file in the same folder and make sure it says Listening. If it says Not listening like the one below, move on to the next step.

3. Add Offset Code to the rdpwrap.ini file

In the above image, you should be able to see the version of windows (build number) you are running. In the above example, it is 10.0.17134.1. Find this number, and then go to this link below to find the match file.

https://github.com/fre4kyC0de/rdpwrap

If you can't find a matching txt file, then sorry, you won't be able to get RDP working on your computer. This is actually the case for my wife's computer. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see people requesting txt offset files for these versions of Windows, and for some versions, the author of the code repo simply will not support. Just come back to this page from time to time and see if the author might change his mind.

If you do find a matching txt file, yay! Go to the folder on your computer called \Program File\rdpwrap and find a file called rdpwrap.ini. You want to edit this file with a text editing app (such as NotePad) that runs with elevated access (right-click on the NotePad app and select Run as administrator). Then you want to copy the content from the matching txt file and then paste that to the end of the rdpwrap.ini file. Make sure you have a blank line at the end of the ini file, otherwise it won't work.

If your remote desktop still does not connect, check your firewall settings. Follow the article below to allow remote desktop and ICMP (so you can ping the remote computer) to go through your firewall and remote desktop problem would go away.

Allow Remote Desktop in Firewall Settings
Allow Ping (ICMP) through your Firewall

Happy remoting now!

Video of the Day:

Addy playing Chopin's Prelude in E Minor

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Mac Running Super Slow With kernel_task Using More Than 100% of Your CPU

If you use a Mac and start to notice that your Mac is running dog slow, most likely it is due to the "kernel_task" high CPU usage bug.

To confirm, open your Activity Monitor from under your Application and under Utilities folder. You should see something like this below where kernel_task should only use a small percentage of your CPU (in my case, 6.3%): 

If you actually see the %CPU going for more than 100% (mine went as high as 116%, which is beyond my math understanding), that's why your computer is dog slow.

This "kernel_task" process is actually your Mac operating system. So you can't really stop this process.

First, you should try to close all your Chrome windows or whatever web browser you use (I tend to leave like dozens of them open), because one possible culprit is the Flash player, which most likely only lives in your web browsers. The good news is that when you restart your browser, all your web pages (tabs) will automatically come back, so you don't lose anything.

If the above step doesn't solve your Mac slowness problem, then you should really just restart your Mac. It is very interesting that people always joked about restarting Windows as the defacto method to solve all Windows problems. But these days, restarting your Mac is also probably the defacto method you should use for Mac problems. Sad!

Hopefully, your Mac slowness would go away and you can get back to your usual life. If not, then you should read this article for more information on troubleshooting! Good luck!

How to Fix Your Mac’s “kernel_task” High CPU Usage Bug

Picture of the Day:

A nice evening view picture from my deck.

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Not Able to See Shared Google Calendars on iPhone

If you received an email saying that someone has shared a Google Calendar with you, and then you accept the invitation. Most likely you still can't see the shared Google Calendar events on your calendar.

Do not panic! This is Google's choice by design (a bad one).

Here's what you have to do to get calendar events to show up:

• Open a browser on your iPhone, whether it is Safari or Chrome or something else.
• Go to calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect.
• Sign in to your Google account if you are asked to.
• Check the checkbox(es) of the shared calendars you want to see on your iPhone.

Same goes for iPad and Mac. Just follow the same steps and you'll be fine.

See how easy it is? Now move on to your next battle with technology! Good luck!

Video of the Day:

My daughter's high school soccer team was featured by the local TV station on their effort to serve the community! Go girls!

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: How to Fix A Chromebook That Won't Turn On

If you have a Chromebook and you cannot turn it on even though you are pretty sure you have the battery fully charged, you've come to the right place.

Before you decide to open it up and replace the battery, or hard reset the Chromebook back to factory default, you should always try this method I am describing first. I might fix your problem without losing any data and save yourself a ton of work.

Step one: make sure the battery has been charging for a good while.

Step two: hold the refresh button and the power button together for 10 seconds and then let go.

Image from TechyThings.com

Now hit the power button again and your Chromebook should start normally.

Here's a video showing you step by step (come on, there are really only two steps):

Picture of the Day:

Silver lake in Brighten Ski Resort, Salt Lake City, Utah

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: HoMedics Shiatsu Neck & Shoulder Massager Stopped Working

Since I sit in front of a computer all day (with pretty bad postures), I have very stiff neck and shoulders. Boss got me a HoMedics Neck and Shoulder Massager (model number NMS-620H). Having just left it lying by my desk for quite a while, I decided to give myself a massage when I felt a very tight back. However, when I turned it on, nothing moved. Here's the thing, when nothing moves, no one gets a massage.

The massager was only about 2 years old and I honestly haven't used it much. I tried pushing all the buttons, hoping that I simply forgot how to operate this thing. When I push the heat button, the lights do light up and I could feel the massager getting warmer. It simply just doesn't move the kneaders. I power cycled it a few times, but that didn't change anything.

Tried searching online and see if other people had similar problems. The answer was yes. Many people had the same problems, but the only way to fix it was to have the manufacturer replace parts or replace the entire unit.

Didn't want to go through all those troubles, so I decided to try fixing it myself. If you have similar problems, here's what you can try.

First of all, make sure the massager has power (and don't make a mistake like this). In my case, since the lights come on and I can feel the massager warming up, I know the massager is getting enough power.

Next, unplug the massager from power and have it just sit overnight. Yep, it's that simple. Once you have patiently waited (or you simply forgot about it for many nights), plug it back in, and try turning it on again. You'd be very pleasantly surprised that the massager has returned to life.

We know HoMedic makes all kinds of massagers such as this one, this one, and this one. This method should also work for those types of massager. At least you should give this method a try before you start calling the warranty service.

Hope this simple method can help you out and save you a bunch of extra work. Moving on to the next daily battle!

No matter how delicious the just cooked noodle is, do not be tempted to eat it right away. Patience is the virtual, otherwise, you will burn your tongue and not be able to taste it.






BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: How to Get Rid Of Recommended Videos at the End of a YouTube Video

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

Daily Battles: Why Can't I Edit My Slack Message

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:

Manage permissions for message editing and deletion

I am neither the owner nor the admin, so I simply start a thread under the message I have lost the permission to edit and just post corrections there.


Video of the Day:

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Google Adsense Home Page Not Loading Can't Login

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

Daily Battles: How to Print on a Chromebook

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.

Chromebook Help: Set up your printer

Google Cloud Print Connector for Windows

Google Cloud Print Connector for Linux

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

Daily Battles: Wyze Camera Stops Working and Won't Even Factory Reset

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:

Basic Troubleshooting for Wyze Cameras

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