Chrome is Slooooooow

Everything in Chrome was soooo sloooowww. The cure was:

• Settings > Advanced > System
• Unclick the "Hardware Acceleration" [sic!]

I also killed an extension or two.

Catalina and OBS

OBS running after a cold system start

For some reason OBS did not work out of the box. There were security issues. But after a system restart OBS worked. I don't know why Catalina insists on making life a hell for Mac users. Perhaps the system is slightly more secure. But by Bartzabel - using Mac is a nightmare these days. Especially for the creative humans.

But oh joy. OBS works now.

I can see the screen, but the camera?

Of course you can't.

Mac is such a waste of time.

Solution (Hack)

Start the app from the terminal: /Applications/OBS.app/Contents/MacOS/OBS

Give the terminal permssions to use cam, mic etc.

However OBS is made totally crippled by Catalina. I don't want to fight the OS. I want to work creatively. Linux is far more easy to use. Catalina is hopeless.

Backup: Timeshift

Timeshift is a nice GUI for rsync system backups. So I've Ext4 formatted a 4TB USB drive and use it as my external backup.

File Systems USB Drives

A USB disk should be easy to use. In practise that is not the case. I need a disk where you can read and write files between Mac, Linux and Windows. Often the suggested solution from Mac-oriented people is: format as a Mac drive. Yeah, great. Then I cannot use it with Windows.

Anyway my Seagate drive is NTFS-formatted. Probably the solution is the foxy old lady FAT32 or the bleeding edge exFAT format. Or ....

Airtame not working after Mac update

Airtame should be allowed to use the screen

This morning Airtame did not work. So the reception helped me and a guy from the servicedesk arrived. He found out that Airtame worked. After a while I vaguely remembered that my Mac was updated to a new version. I told the servicedesk man - and then he knew what to do.

Above you see the setting. Airtame was blocked, but the OS did not care to tell me.

Improved security is ok, but dear developers from Apple - please let us know what the problem is when you block something.

For security reasons updating is important. But the user experience often is the opposite: updating you system is the recipe for trouble.

[Possible solution ??] YouSee Google Chrome Cast

I guess that this is kind of a solution for Chromecast on YouSee:

1. Unplug the Chromecast - both cables must be removed.
2. Turn on the TV
3. Plug in the Chromecast.
4. Wait

With a little luck the chromecast will connect to the correct network.

I hope that this is the solution. 

YouSee Supporters don't know anything about LAN

Trying to get some useful info from YouSee. They block the LAN, so my computers cannot communicate. I cannot ping. So this may explain why the Chromecast is lost again and again. As a consequence I'll have to find a better web provider.

A service guy tried to help me. But he could not. He did not know what a LAN is at all. In the end he suggested, that I should shut down the modem, and then my LAN would work he suggested. No further questions were necessary. The YouSee supporters apparantly don't know anything about simple web techlology.

If you know a better service provider than YouSee let me know in the comments.

Unfortunately my conclusion is:

YouSee sucks big time if you want to do something "advanced". Like setting up a server om a localhost ... So basicly the service is expensive and useless.

WordPress Custom Frontpage

front-page.php - a costum front page for the theme.

An evening in my WordPress staging environment - or rather sandbox. The front-page.php file was made with a W3 Schools Bootstrap tutorial sample. Features:

• Three widget areas.
• Bootstrap design.

WordPress - Twenty Nineteen: How to Remove the Heading Dash

Twenty Nineteen is a very clean theme. But for some reason I don't fancy the dash over all headings. You can remove it via this entry in style.css - or in the costum css:

/* remove the top dash */
h1:not(.site-title):before,
h2:before {
  background: #767676;
  content: "\020";
  display: block;
  height: 2px;
  margin: 1rem 0;
  width: 0em;
}

.entry .entry-title:before {
    background: #767676;
    content: "\020";
    display: block;
    height: 2px;
    margin: 1rem 0;
    width: 0em;
}

/* you may also want this ... */
.post-navigation .nav-links a .meta-nav:before, .post-navigation .nav-links a .meta-nav:after {
    display: none;
    content: "";
    width: 2em;
    color: #767676;
    height: 0em;
}

.comments-area .comments-title-wrap .comments-title:before {
    background: #767676;
    content: "";
    display: block;
    height: 2px;
    margin: 1rem 0;
    width: 0em;

}

WordPress REST API route on localhost

This route works on a localhost:

http://localhost:8888/wordpress/?rest_route=/wp/v2/posts

Probatum est.

Chromecast does not work with Yousee

After an upgrade of the moden my Chromecast became unstable. Sometimes it's found. Sometimes not. It does not matter whether I use 5g_ og the ordinary wifi AP. I need something that's stable. Yousee sucks big time. Or is it my chromecast?

[Fixed] Chromecast Not Working

• Hold down the reset button for around 20 sek.
• Update the Chrome Home App on an Android Mobile
• Follow the setup instructions on the screen

Strangely enough the Android fix changed the Chromecast settings on the Chrome browser in Linux. So if it does not work on your PC, try to update the thing on your phone. 

DSLR: Force Sharper Images on Night Pictures

Night photo: F8, ISO 100, shutter decided by Sony SLR-A58

If you want a photo that is sharp all over you could select an aperture priority, and just shoot. But then the camera will try to get an image with a fast shutter speed. In order to do so the ISO-number will rise. As a consequence the image quality will suffer.

Here is a simple recipe:

• Set aperture to F8
• Set ISO to around 100 to 400 or so
• Let the camera calculate the shutter speed

As a result of these settings you will get a fine depth of field because the aperture is F8. The camera cannot choose a lousy quality of the image, because the ISO is defined as 100 or a bit more. Since the ISO and aperture are fixed the camera is forced to calculate a longer shutterspeed - and as a consequence your picture will be sharper with more details. 

Manjaro: Record Sound from Microphone or Intrument

For some reason you have to tweak the soundcard settings to both sound and input, like this:

Note the recording by Audacity in the background. Now the sound could take a little fine tuning in order to reduce the noise. But for now the problem of getting sound is solved.

1. Open the sound control in settings
2. Find your soundcard and make sure that you have both input and output options

IMHO such a thing should work out of the box ... I cannot see the reason for hiding such settings.

Epson ET 2750 - printhead: colors missing

I have tried to clean the printhead - first via the standard method. In a video a power cleaning was recommended. It is initiated by click power + help. After a 7 minutes cleaning process you'll have to wait for 12 hours.

Well, now I just hope that the thing works.

Mapbox - problems with Chrome

Strange problem: Mapbox maps will not display when I use Chrome. But with Firefox it's ok. The dark side I sense.

GIMP - Crappy Crop Tool

For some reason I cannot use the crop tool at all. However I can mark part of an image, and then select crop to selection. The behavior does not compute at all. However after the manner of yodisms: solved the problem is.

Chrome Lag on Manjaro Linux

1. Goto settings > advanced
2. Remove mark by "hardware acceleration"

Strangely enough this will speed up the system. It was recommended in a blog.

I also tried to stop a few extensions.

However Chrome is RAM eater, see this article.

Between sleep and wake - idea for Mapbox with custom icons

Code and result: costum icons

Between sleep and awake this idea came to me - how to get images via geojson on a  map made in Mapbox.

See this file on my Github repository.

The geojson was formatted like this:

let geojson = {
      "features": [{
          "type": "Feature",
          "properties": {
            "city": "Nordborg",
            "symbol": "tux.png"
          },
          "geometry": {
            "coordinates": [
              9.742207,
              55.054442
            ],
            "type": "Point"
          },
          "id": "47dfbd93a4ac0e3d94d492fc6fe5f0cb"
        },
        {
          "type": "Feature",
          "properties": {
            "city": "Augustenborg",
            "symbol": "tux2.png"
          },
          "geometry": {
            "coordinates": [
              9.877219,
              54.946994
            ],
            "type": "Point"
          },
          "id": "9bec41b72adf6c7e74b090764c46fcc2"
        }
      ],
      "type": "FeatureCollection"
    }

And here is the loop, that printed out the result on the map. An img element was created on the fly:

  for (i=0; i [blogger hides the loop!]

      // create html element in the DOM
      var el = document.createElement('img');
      el.src = 'images/' + geojson.features[i].properties.symbol;
      el.alt = geojson.features[i].properties.city;
      el.style = 'width: 75px;height:auto;';

      // add the markers to the map
      new mapboxgl.Marker(el)
        .setLngLat(geojson.features[i].geometry.coordinates)
        .addTo(map);

      // by thine own ingenium add a popup with relevant info
    }

For some reason Bogger hides the last part of the loop. Probably it's a useless security stunt, however you can see the code here.

Manjaro: how to print a several copies

Problem: When I try to print several copies of a file, only one is printed, then the printjob is terminated.

Solution: a bash file, like this:

for i in {1..18}
do
  lp foo.pdf
done

Quicktime

How to trim a video (clip): CMD + T. A yellow box will appear. Trim and save. The video below saved my day.

Manjaro: NPM conflicting versions cannot update

Problem solved npm up and running again.

Problem: Could not update Manjaro after an update in NPM. The message was: "conflicting versions".


Solution: Removed all NPM packages, and then update was possible.

I guess the next step will be to reinstall NPM. It is of course unfortunate, since there is a lot of nodejs related stuff on my system. So I'll hope for the best ...

And here I was right. I cannot install NPM again! However there is a list of conflicting files, that exist in the system, even though NPM was removed. I guess that I have to remove these 11 files manually:

npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/.licensee.json findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/ci-info/vendors.json findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/graceful-fs/clone.js findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/chownr/LICENSE findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/chownr/README.md findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/chownr/chownr.js findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/chownr/package.json findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/minipass/LICENSE findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/minipass/README.md findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/minipass/index.js findes allerede i filsystemet
npm: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/tar/node_modules/minipass/package.json findes allerede i filsystemet

Hypothesis: With my experience with NPM I guess that this may cause problems, if these files relate to something else. But ... without further ado I'll remove the problemmakers.

Experiment: remove 11 or so troublemakers.

In order to do so I created a bash script:

The "npm:" was replaced with "rm" in the Mousepad editor, and end of the lines " findes allerede i filsystemet" (danish for = "the file already exists in the file system") was removed in the same way. So the error message was transformed to a simple bash file.

Note the missing shebang (I admit, I'm lazy here but the thing worked for me). You'll have to run this as sudo, since one of the files is protected.

The next step is to reinstall npm.

Result: Success - NPM is now up and running version in 6.5.0. And pacman & co. are able to update the system.