The Outcast -- Teaser

Read all chapters by blog label: The Outcast Posts Label.

The Outcast is a book written by Maoni, a renowned author in China. Many of his works are well received by readers have been adapted to TV series. Out of all the books he wrote, The Outcast is undoubtedly my favorite one. In fact, I liked it so much that I named my house after one of the characters in the book. 😄

The Outcast was named first place in the 20 Top Internet Novels in the Last 20 Years by the China Writers Association (the most authoritative body of writers in China).

I have never met Maoni in person. We only communicated in writings from time to time. Maybe because we were born in the same era in China (we were referred to as the 70s generation), we share many common backgrounds and interests. That made it easier for me to pick out the many hidden gems (references) in his writing.

Maoni, Author of The Outcast

Maoni has very kindly authorized me to translate his book The Outcast to English and post them on my blog and my website. This is a Dang Long book with TOO many chapters. But it is also a Dang Good story. I dream that one day I can finish and publish this translation, so the story can compete for the Nebula Awards and the Hugo Awards. Maybe the book can even be considered for a film adaptation and one day be put on the big screens to reach even more audiences.

I am getting up at 5:30 am every day to dedicate time to my translation (of this book and also the Smiling Proud Wanderer book). In the distant past, I had translated a few chapters of the book. Now equipped with better tools and stronger dedication, I hope to go much further much longer.

I will be posting the latest translation drafts on this blog first:
Address: http://lanny.lannyland.com or http://blog.lannyland.com
Label: The Outcast

After further editing, I will also post the finished translation on my website:
Address: http://www.lannyland.com/translations.shtml

Enough said. Now check out the teaser remarks the author wrote for each volume of the book.

The Outcast

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the sacred

moral principles within us, and the starry grandeur above our head. 

  -- Kant

Volume 1 Eastwood is All Boulders

One should have character as unyielding as a boulder, and a heart as broad as the ocean, the unattainable virtue I will always yearn for.

Volume 2 Bell Tolls at Upperwood

For whom the bell tolls? It tolls for those who heed.

Volume 3 Journey to Westwood

Our journey is not toward the ocean of stars, but to Westwood, the place of death and rebirth.

Volume 4 Stars and the Fleeting Years

Aren’t we all characters in a play where life always revolves between joy and sorrow? The world changes day by day, but the stars and memories linger…. The stars, the memories, and the fleeting years.

I hope you enjoy this story as much as I do!

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

Support translator Lanny by leaving comments below and also spreading the word about this great story!

Better late than never! 







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

Daily Battles: How to Change Default App for Different Files Types (PDF) on a Mac in macOS

In Windows, if you want to change the default application to open a certain file type, you just have to right-click on the file and then select Choose another app. 

For macOS, it is a completely different story. What you have to do is to open Finder first, and then locate the file you want to change default app. Right-click on it and then select Get Info.

Next in the Get Info screen, look in the middle of the window and find Open With. Click on that to open a dropdown menu where you can select the default application you want to use to open this type of files.

Then make sure you click the Change All button (I made the mistake of not clicking this and had to do the entire thing again) to apply to all files of this type, and click Continue to save it.

That's it. Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

Be creative! Make friends of ducttape, paper clip, super glue, and W-40!!

There's always a way! Love this kind of hacks!🤣 https://t.co/myV5P5GMMt

— Lanny Lin😷🧢 (@lannyland) April 9, 2021

Problem solving is a fun brain exercise. 







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

Daily Battles: Avoid Clicking the Wrong Button (Add to Tasks) in Google Gmail

Google really wanted to promote their Google Task app, so they added a button called Add to Tasks to the Gmail inbox user interface. And they intentionally put it right next to the Move to button (which I use frequently), so people will accidentally click the wrong button and then get sent to the Google Tasks user interface.

THIS IS JUST DRIVING ME NUTS!!!

And guess what, there's NO WAY to remove that button from the menu. Absolutely NO WAY.

Well, since Google removed the "Don't Be Evil" clause from their corporate code of conduct in 2018, this does not surprise me a bit.

Google is in some kind of a hot seat with the recent news of Google firing prominent AI Ethics researchers, and Samy Bengio resigns as a form of protest. So I don't think they'll care too much about my ranting here.

Google UI Sucks!!

And they just forced me to move my Google WiFi into Google Home, and now the UI Sucks Big Time!!

Anyway, back to the main point of this blog. I finally figured out a way to deal with this inconvenience of clicking Add to Tasks by mistake (and then requires multiple clicks to correct it). And I hope for others who feel just as frustrated as me, this can be of some help!

BTW: I tried changing buttons from text to icon. Not really helpful. I still click the wrong icon. But you can still give that a try. Here's what I recommend:

Solution:

The solution is to use customized keyboard shortcuts!

If you click the gear icon on the top right corner of Gmail to go into the Settings screen, find a button on the menu called Advanced and click that. Then find the entry called Custom keyboard shortcuts and enable it. Don't forget to save.

Now if you go back into the Settings screen, you'll see a new button in the menu called Keyboard Shortcuts. Click that to see your current keyboard shortcuts. You can also create your own. I am just happy with the default one, so I can just click the key V to open the Move to dropdown menu and avoid clicking the stupid Add to Tasks button.

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

30 Days Timelapse from a Cargo Ship

Corporations are just evil. So don't expect them to Do No Evil. 







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

Daily Battles: How to Reboot Windows Through Remote Desktop Connection

If you have multiple computers and need to remotely control one or more Windows computer(s) (even from a Mac or your phone), Remote Desktop is a great tool you can use to achieve that.

If your Remote Desktop is not enabled, you can follow this link to enable it:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/clients/remote-desktop-allow-access

However, you'll find that through a Remote Desktop Connection, you can't really restart your computer remotely. This is designed to prevent remote users to do damage to your computer. But for someone who knows what he is doing, and actually wanted to reboot the computer, this can be super annoying.

But lucky for you, here's a small hack that will let you reboot your computer at will!!!

Solution:

There's a command line tool you can use called shutdown.
Just open a Command Prompt (click Start Icon and then type CMD), and then type:
shutdown -r -f -t 0
-r means reboot, -f means forcing apps to quit, and -t 0 means do it right now! Just hit Enter to reboot!

 The shutdown command is built in with your Windows Operating System. You can also use this command for other purposes, such as just shutting the computer down or reboot another computer on the same network (I can't use this cause I am on a Mac). Just type shutdown and hit Enter will show you all the available options. I'll list them here for your convenience.

C:\Users\Lanny>shutdown

Usage: shutdown [/i | /l | /s | /r | /g | /a | /p | /h | /e | /o] [/hybrid] [/f]

    [/m \\computer][/t xxx][/d [p|u:]xx:yy [/c "comment"]]

    No args    Display help. This is the same as typing /?.

    /?         Display help. This is the same as not typing any options.

    /i         Display the graphical user interface (GUI).

               This must be the first option.

    /l         Log off. This cannot be used with /m or /d options.

    /s         Shutdown the computer.

    /r         Full shutdown and restart the computer.

    /g         Full shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is

               rebooted, restart any registered applications.

    /a         Abort a system shutdown.

               This can only be used during the time-out period.

    /p         Turn off the local computer with no time-out or warning.

               Can be used with /d and /f options.

    /h         Hibernate the local computer.

               Can be used with the /f option.

    /hybrid    Performs a shutdown of the computer and prepares it for fast startup.

               Must be used with /s option.

    /e         Document the reason for an unexpected shutdown of a computer.

    /o         Go to the advanced boot options menu and restart the computer.

               Must be used with /r option.

    /m \\computer Specify the target computer.

    /t xxx     Set the time-out period before shutdown to xxx seconds.

               The valid range is 0-315360000 (10 years), with a default of 30.

               If the timeout period is greater than 0, the /f parameter is

               implied.

    /c "comment" Comment on the reason for the restart or shutdown.

               Maximum of 512 characters allowed.

    /f         Force running applications to close without forewarning users.

               The /f parameter is implied when a value greater than 0 is

               specified for the /t parameter.

    /d [p|u:]xx:yy  Provide the reason for the restart or shutdown.

               p indicates that the restart or shutdown is planned.

               u indicates that the reason is user defined.

               If neither p nor u is specified the restart or shutdown is

               unplanned.

               xx is the major reason number (positive integer less than 256).

               yy is the minor reason number (positive integer less than 65536).

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

Kindness doesn’t always work! 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/4Ih2cg8QkE

— Figen.. (@_TheFigen) April 7, 2021

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

Daily Battles: Can't Change Computer Name in macOS Field Greyed Out

I recently changed my work laptop and migrated all my stuff from the old laptop to the new one. Then I found out that there were many things that were locked up by the company IT department.

One thing that drove me nuts was that I couldn't even change my computer name because the field is greyed out and locked.

This is simply stupid!

Anyway, I finally figured out how to resolve this. However, you do need to have sodu access on your own computer, which is likely! Also your company is using jamf to manage your Mac, which is also very likely.

Solution:

Open your terminal and then run this command and replace Baymac (my computer's name) with the name you want for your computer:

sudo jamf setComputerName -name Baymac 

You can actually also try to completely remove jamf by running this command below. But don't blame me if you get fired. Good luck! 

sudo jamf removeFramework

There are always some battles I have to fight with technology every day! Hope you don't have to fight so many battles OR hope you enjoy your fights and come out triumphant!

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

There's always a way! 







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

Daily Battles: How to Rearrange Icons in your Menu Bar for MacOS Big Sur

I have a lot of icons in my menu bar on my Mac because I use a lot of free programs such as:

• Moom for remembering my windows locations
• BetterSnapTool and Spectacle for auto snapping my windows
• f.lux to change my screen color so I can sleep better
• Irvue to automatically change my desktop backgrounds

I also have a lot of built-in utilities that I access frequently, such as:

• Bluetooth manager
• WiFi manager
• Sound input source and volume control
• Timemachine for backup
• VPN

Then there are programs like:

• WeChat
• Google Hangout
• Android Web Messages
• iOS Messages
• Slack
• VLC
• etc.

As someone with OCD, it is super important for me to be able to group things together the way I want. So how can you do that on a Mac with Big Sur?

The answer is super easy, although took me a while to find:

Solution:

You just hold the command key and then drag the icon with your mouse!

Yep, it's that simple! But if you don't know, you don't know.

By the way, I also am very particular with icons in my Dock and icons on my Mac touch bar. But since other people have provided detailed instructions, I'll just link them here:

How to customize the Dock and Menu Bar

How to customize the Touch Bar on a Macbook Pro

Hope someone finds this blog post useful! Moving on to my next daily battle!

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

The right way to work!

"We'll try and get the roof finished today, babe." 🍻 🍻 pic.twitter.com/6rIzua4KHS

— 🍺 Hold My Beer 🍺 (@HldMyBeer) March 30, 2021

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

Daily Battles: Pandora Won't Auto Start on Firefox

I think one thing we all have learned is that after some system updates or application updates, something just stops working. This time, it was my Pandora station not playing after Firefox updates.

You see, I live inside this giant robot called Philip. And Philip is also my sweet smart home assistant. In the morning, Philip would turn on music throughout my home, and gradually increase volume from low to medium to wake us up with beautiful and relaxing and free music on Pandora.

Then, one day, Philip just stopped doing that.

When I finally had a chance to investigate, I found the problem:

Philip uses Firefox to play Pandora in the morning. In the past, when opening Pandora on Firefox, it would just automatically start playing. But now, when I go to Pandora website, I have to manually click the play button to start the music.

So why was it working and not stopped working? Because I updated Firefox. And with a new Firefox, it automatically blocks music or video from playing on all websites. What you have to do is to explicitly enable autoplay on each website as shown below.

Click the lock icon on the left side of the address bar will show a popup menu where you can enable autoplay again. You can also go into the Firefox Preferences page to manage websites where you want to allow or deny autoplay.

To go to Firefox Preferences page, simply type about:preferences in the address bar and hit enter. Then just search for Autoplay.

Well, after this tweak, (and after I fixed the stupid Bluetooth volume control problem in Windows 10 since stupid Microsoft updated my computer AGAIN and then changed the registry setting,) I finally can enjoy Philip's morning natural music wake up ceremony again, and I can finally find some peace again during a pandemic.

Hope this is useful for someone else running into the same problem. Remember, whenever you update, something WILL break. So happy living in a technology world (or inside a giant robot)!

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

How the kids and their dog worked as a team to evade the coming home dad.

Security camera：kids, dog, and dadpic.twitter.com/T3bcuLvsYf

— 习近彭 (@wakeupfrog01) March 14, 2021

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

Daily Battles: Mac Not Detecting External Monitor After Waking Up From Sleep

Are you having problems connecting your Mac to your external monitor(s)? Especially after your Mac goes to sleep, and then upon wake up, it no longer detects your external monitor(s) that was working just fine before?

Maybe you see something like this:

Turned out this is a bug macOS Big Sur introduced by update 11.1, and the recent 11.2 as shown in this article: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/03/macos-big-sur-external-display-issues/ Basically your Mac failed to wake up the monitor after the monitor also went to sleep.

In my case, the Mac laptop always successfully detects 2 external monitors, but always fails to detect the 3rd external monitor. Very Annoying Indeed!!

So how do you solve this problem? Here are several things you can try:

Solutions:

1. Turn your monitor off and then back on.
2. Unplug your external monitor (HDMI plugged into a USB-C adapter) from the Mac laptop and then plug it back in.
3. Use the key combination ⌘-F2 or ⌘-fn-F2 to force monitor detection.
4. Go to System Preferences, select Display, and then hold the OPTION key down. The Gather Windows button will change into Detect Displays. Click this button will help your Mac find the external monitor.

If any of the above methods work for you, great! To be honest, still quite annoying. But to really solve the problem, we'll have to wait for Apple to release a fix maybe in the 11.3 updates.

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

The proper way to fish!

“What you do all day?”

“It was a long, tough day of fishing.” 😏😂😜🎣 pic.twitter.com/AV6vQGgGi8

— Fred Schultz (@fred035schultz) March 14, 2021

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

Daily Battles: How To Not Receive Phone Calls on Your Computer From An Android Phone

Last time in my blog I talked about how not to receive phone calls on your Mac from your iPhones. For more details you can read this blog post here:

Daily Battles: How To Not Receive Phone Calls on Your Mac

But guess what, your Android phone can still ring on your computer, whether it is a Mac or a Windows machine, and it is just as annoying, and you want to turn it off.

So why is your Android phone ringing on your computer? 

This could have something to do with how you set up your Google Voice.

This could have something to do with how you connected your SMS messaging to your computer.

This could have something to do with your Google Hangout settings.

But They Don't Matter!

Here's what you have to do to disable it!

In your Gmail browser window, click the arrow next to your name in "hangouts", and then uncheck "Ring on incoming phone calls." 

Credit goes to Clay Nichols for providing this solution on the web.

Hope you find this useful and stop getting annoying phone rings on your computer!

Video of the Day:

Covidiots Hall of Fame

The video from The Daily Show has a pretty good summary that fits this thread very well!pic.twitter.com/vCbtE7so0V

— Lanny Lin😷🧢 (@lannyland) February 23, 2021

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

Daily Battles: Slack Message Stuck as Unread or New

If you have OCD like me, it really, really bothers you when there are notifications showing that you have unread messages. This could be your chat messages (phone messages, Google Hangout messages, Microsoft Team Chats, Zoom Chats), emails (Gmail or Outlook), social media (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, you name it), or your Slack for work.

Slack has become this tool required almost for every office job out there today. People expect you to see it quickly and respond quickly. You expect yourself to be on top of your Slack messages because it might be new information you don't want to miss or new issues that require your immediate attention. So when you have read all your messages, but the Slack app is still showing that you have unread messages, it becomes a super big nuisance and just annoys the heck out of you.

Especially after you have clicked the All Unread menu and was issued that you have read all your slack messages! You would go nuts!! I did!

Tried everything I can think off:

1. Restarting Slack
2. Right-click and select Mark All as Read
3. Restart the computer
4. Open the web version of slack
5. Click through everything in the thread to "read" them again

Well, none of that worked. But eventually I figured it out and hopefully this can save you a ton of frustration:

On your computer, while Slack is selected, keep hitting the key combination SHIFT+ESC untill Slack stops showing you messages still as new. Just make sure to do this after you have read all your messages, because this forces slack to mark all messages as read.

There you go! Now get back to work! I'll move on to my next daily battle too!

Leave a comment if you find my blogs useful. You can also follow me on Twitter for more useful tips and tutorials!

Video of the Day:

Birds! I like birds!!

Every day the most magical wild birds visit this woman's porch — but she wasn't prepared for a bright red parrot to befriend her and bring his girlfriend over to meet her ❤️️ pic.twitter.com/1gIwZ16xq6

— The Dodo (@dodo) February 25, 2021

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