Tech Spot

I begrudgingly upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11.  That decision was made because Microsoft will stop support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025.  I actually do a decent amount of work in Linux Mint, but my workplace uses a lot of Microsoft and other Windows-based software. After upgrading, I uninstalled various unnecessary items like the login screen widgets, Copilot, Xbox, etc. but I quickly found out the taskbar was not very customizable.  The main issue for me is that Windows 11 doesn't allow you to rotate the taskbar to be vertical.  This was actually a deal-breaker for me because I frequently switch between programs, and with a dual 22" LED monitor setup, it was inefficient and awkward to constantly move both my gaze and mouse pointer to the bottom of the left screen to select a program.  Of course there is the ability to Alt+Tab or Windows+Tab, but being able to just click on what you need in the centerpoint between the left and right screens is more...

While updating VirtualBox Guest Additions for a minor version upgrade on v7, I ran into an odd issue where I couldn't run a shell script with sudo or even as root, and the appropriate execute flag set. I ended up having to run in a separate shell to get it to work. I don't recall this happening before. Here's are my attempts below, along with a screenshot and the capture of it finally working. user@linuxmint:/media/cdrom$ ls -la total 48888 dr-xr-xr-x 5 root root 2742 Feb 6 05:09 . drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Mar 4 2024 .. -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1048 Oct 23 11:00 AUTORUN.INF -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 7003 Feb 6 04:40 autorun.sh dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 1468 Feb 6 05:09 cert dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 1252 Feb 6 05:09 NT3x dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 2828 Feb 6 05:09 OS2 -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 5096 Feb 6 04:40 runasroot.sh -r--r--r-- 1 root root 653 Feb 6 05:09 TRANS.TBL -r--r--r-- 1 root root 2095024 Feb 6 04:49 VBoxDarwinAdditions.p...

I installed BlueStacks X to try and run some mobile games from my Windows 10 desktop, for purposes of saving my phone battery from being drained so quickly.  My initial experience was a little rocky as games kept crashing.  After some tweaking I was able to find some stability.  If you have plenty of resources on your desktop, great, go ahead and use the Performance setting and have everything at High.  I didn't have that luxury on my Windows 10 desktop with an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU and 16 GB RAM, as I have multiple apps running including virtual machines (on a similar note, I did try out an Android 9 x86 VM from OS Boxes  but most Android games are ARM-based and wouldn't install).  I read that BlueStacks will work because it's emulating ARM, but this does come at a performance cost. Here is a screenshot of the strategy game Puzzles and Survival running in BlueStacks: Initially, I had tried to get it to run using Medium (2 CPU) and 2 GB of RAM, but the game kept ...

  It's 2023 and I still keep my Hotmail email address around, mainly to use when I need to create an account for some app or web site. I have my Gmail account set up to sync the emails - Google's spam filters are far better than any other free email service I've used.  Recently, I've gotten emails with the subject line "Microsoft account unusual sign-in activity".  The links in the email do go to account.microsoft.com so I looked into it.  Each time, it shows the location of the activity as coming from Ireland (I assure you, I'm nowhere near Ireland!).  After I clicked "This wasn't me" on several occasions, I realized Gmail was no longer syncing my Hotmail emails.  When I went to Gmail's "Accounts and Import" section, it displayed a warning that emails couldn't sync for that account. In that section, I had to re-enter my Hotmail credentials and then go to https://account.live.com/activity to click "This was me" to ...

I recently started using Grav for a separate blog unrelated to this one.  It's been great so far, with an easier learning curve than other self-hosted CMSes (though not easier than a default Blogger/Blogspot or Wordpress site).  One thing that was strange to me was that there doesn't seem to be a default way to add a piece of JS code such as a Google Analytics tag to your Grav site using the Admin console. It's not readily apparent, but there are some plug-ins you can install such as "Custom JS", which I prefer to the Google Analytics plug-ins for future proofing and ease of adding other JS code snippets as needed. From the Grav Admin console, go to Plugins > + Add > (search for "custom" in the filter box) and then install it.  Note, the plug-in automatically has a <script> tag before and </script> tag after. So if you are adding a code snippet that already starts with <script> and ends with </script> then you will need to r...

I accidentally installed Debian 12 with GNOME on a "headless" virtual machine with only 10 GB of disk space with a low-cost hosting provider.  I would only ever need to SSH into such a VM. Rather than re-installing again I tried to see if I could remove the GNOME/X11 components.  Various Reddit, Stackexchange and Superuser threads gave some commands but they were far from complete, at least for the newer Debian 11 and 12 versions. Using "sudo apt list --installed" showed what else was remaining after I ran "sudo apt remove gnome". Some of these I looked up online to see if they truly were graphical only. Warning: Do not just run "sudo apt remove gnome*" or "sudo apt remove x11*".  One of these ended up doing a cascade uninstall of sudo itself!  Fortunately I had the root password and could re-install it, but if you don't, I'd try these commands separately.   sudo apt remove totem sudo apt remove xauth sudo apt remov...

Make your own backing cover plate for a Eufy doorbell (DIY) I recently upgraded my old LaView doorbell to a Eufy 2K Pro doorbell.  The Eufy is a tad slimmer and exposed some of the roughed up exterior wall.  Not only was it unsightly, but if you looked from the side, you could actually see and potentially pull out the power cables using something like a paper clip.  I looked online for some wall backplates and found some on Amazon with names like Wasserstein or Vomenc.   But most of these were for Ring or Blink doorbells.  I just needed something simple.  At first, I thought to find a piece of generic black plastic, but then found an almost perfect match. View after initial mounting with exposed hole You can just use a simple light switch plate that costs less than $1 at a home improvement store.  The screw holes almost line up perfectly - I ended up screwing one in at a slight angle and it was fine.  Also, I opted to use some stronger screws I h...

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is pretty cool. We've had some good alternatives like Cygwin and virtual machines, but having a Microsoft-supported Linux kernel that runs natively in Windows is a whole other story. If I had a time machine and visited my younger self to tell me about the future, I could talk about neat things like almost self-driving cars, reusable rockets, cryptocurrency, or even an online movement to beat hedge funds in the stock market! My younger self could've believed all these things, but not "Microsoft embraces Linux". Younger self would have branded current me as a bold-faced liar, an imposter! I've been pleased with WSL thus far.  But the default bash color scheme is horrendous (this isn't necessarily specific to WSL itself, as other Linux native bash shells have similar issues). What I'm talking about are dark colors on a black background, the worst being dark blue on black, and some colored font on a green background. ...

I've used open source router firmwares such as DD-WRT, TomatoUSB, and most recently FreshTomato and Asuswrt-Merlin. I had been using a trusty Cisco/Linksys E2000 on TomatoUSB 1.28 for a number of years, and sometimes marveled at its relatively good range despite having no external antennas. But having read ASUS routers and their stability, along with the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware and its ease of installation, I bought a couple of used ASUS routers. I picked up an RT-AC66U (AC1750) and a T-Mobile co-branded RT-AC68U (AC1900). Installing the latest supported Asuswrt-Merlin was a breeze. Then it was time to measure wattage to see how much power usage increase (all tested with wi-fi only, no customizations, no WAN connection, 1 LAN connection). Cisco/Linksys E2000 running FreshTomato 2020.8, 5W usage: ASUS RT-AC66U on Asuswrt-Merlin 380.70, 9-10 W usage: ASUS RT-AC68U on Asuswrt-Merlin 384.19, 9-10 W usage: I was pleasantly surprised that I'm able to r...

The Hikvision web browser interface can be clunky and downright frustrating to use. One of the most important functions is simply to be able to download any surveillance video clips for copying or distributing. There are at least two things you must do before you can download videos, and it's not apparent or documented (at least that I could find). Run the browser as administrator (in Windows, right-click on the browser icon and Run as Administrator). If you were reviewing a video in playback mode, as one does 99% of the time before deciding to download, you have to stop the video playback (even if paused) or you'll get an error "Downloading failed." How nice it would have been if they simply added a message "Please stop playback first." Here's a screenshot showing a successful download. Another thing that might be clunky is that choosing a different download directory in Configuration may not work well. I j...

Registering a domain name is like trying to sign-up for and find the real cost of a cell phone plan. I couldn't find a good, unbiased and up-to-date domain price comparison (some try to funnel you to sign up for a particular registrar so they can earn a commission; I have affiliate links, but my chart is sorted by price alone!). This was pretty comprehensive, but out-of-date.   Now, this one is pretty close (Sept. 2012) , but didn't include pricing. So after personally visiting a bunch of registrar sites, I came up with the price list below. For today's post, I'm reserving comment about the quality or morality of most of these registrars, but I highly recommend doing an online search or checking a site like Better Business Bureau to make sure you're not going with a bait-and-switch type of company. These are all for a .com name, 1-year registration ignoring the introductory pricing (in other words, these are the year 2 and onward prices). These were ch...

I recently set up Shinobi  to replace an old NVR system, to support newer assorted cameras consisting of LaView, Amcrest, and Reolink brand cameras. While most of these are likely some re-brand of Dahua or Hikvision, it was still hard to find all the necessary information.  The manuals are definitely lacking, even if some of them were written in plain English. The LaView PDB1520F1 was the hardest.  It appears to be a re-brand of the Hikvision DS-KB6003-WIP.  There are several other brands that appear to be the same, such as the RCA HSDB1. When I tried to add the LaView doorbell to my Shinobi monitors list, it kept failing the probes no matter what I tried.  I searched endlessly, but was using the wrong keywords.  I kept seeing posts where people said to flash the LaView firmware ONTO the Hikvision or other re-branded cams in order to get the ONVIF stream. But I couldn't find the ONVIF details in those posts. First, I installed the ONVIF Device Man...