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Thursday, August 15, 2019

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

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

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

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

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

Monday, August 12, 2019

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

Sunday, August 11, 2019

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