So, I got the iPhone 15 Pro, and there was a lot of chatter online about the USB-C port being used to connect ethernet (and I’m guessing other accessories). Macrumors featured someone doing a gigabit speed test. I have a 1.5Gb internet connection, and a 2.5GbE USB-C ethernet dongle, so I thought I’d make a video (below) of a wired more-than-1Gb speed test. If you want to see faster, I could do a local test to a NAS (Comment below). I could also get a 10Gbe USB-C ethernet adapter, but they are expensive!
How to Delete “Printer Health Monitor” & “Printer Health Monitor Logon” Schedule Tasks in Windows
I usually put my gaming PC to sleep after playing. However, a while ago, I noticed it turned it self back on. At first I thought I must have forgotten to turn it off. But then realized that it was turning it self back on. After some googling, I figured out it was two HP printer scheduled tasks. So I deleted them, and moved on. Then after a few weeks, the behavior was back. Turns out, they come back every few weeks. So with the help of ChatGPT, and some editing on my own. I came up with this powershell script that deletes the tasks. You can run it manually, or you can schedule a task (I set it up daily) quite ironically to delete them. If there’s enough interest. I can edit this post with directions on how to do that, or make a video tutorial. But for now, you can download the script and I’ll also paste the code if you’d like to copy/paste without downloading.
I had to rename the powershell script to .txt to upload it. Once you download it, just rename it to HP.ps1
schtasks /Delete /TN "\HP\HP Print Scan Doctor\Printer Health Monitor" /F
schtasks /Delete /TN "\HP\HP Print Scan Doctor\Printer Health Monitor Logon" /FThe World’s first Job Application NFT
So, about a week or so ago, I started getting into NFTs and bought some of the H3H3 NFTs. A day later, the CEO of Kraken Jesse Powell bought one of those NFTs from me. I tried to get his attention on twitter, but I was only successful in getting a like from him.
I thought, how could I get his attention to potentially land a job with Kraken? So I created an NFT and transferred it to his address today in hopes of catching his attention. I was really proud of thinking of a new use case for NFTs and I’m pretty sure this is the first Job application NFT!
I Jumped in on the NFT Craze!
So I’ve been wanting to get in on the NFT craze that’s going on. Yesterday I was watching one of my favorite podcasts the H3H3 Podcast, when Ethan mentioned they put up some NFTs! I quickly paused the podcast and clicked on the link. I would have loved to place a bid on the Vape Nation God NFT however, I know this one will go for a really high price outside of my realm. Actually I might place a bid on it, if it doesn’t go much higher than it’s currently sitting at (1.269 eth at the time of writing this post). I did however purchase two of the other 1 of 5 NFTs. I also bought a bitbird.
So this inspired me to put up my own NFTs. Back around 2010, There was an initiative in Montreal to get Celebrities to paint old parking meters to make them attractive in order to catch people’s eye. Any money deposited in them would help the homeless. They had a map of the location of all these parking meters, so I went around the city and took pictures of all of them. There were supposed to be 70, however not all of them were actually installed. So I thought this would be a cool NFT Collection.
The first one I put up for sale is my favorite one I took. I called it Death By Paint. I also have this picture blown up and hanging on top of my couch.
Bitdefender Total Security Terrible Business Practice [Updated]
About a year ago, I decided to purchase a family subscription to Bitdefender as it was affordable, and gave you a 15 device protection plan with a dashboard to view all device status and incidents. I thought this was awesome, and Bitdefender had a really good reputation for being light and having high detection rates.
However here’s the part that is causing me to make this blog post and ask for a complete refund. Their business practices are terrible. They keep trying to upsell their other products in very annoying ways. They bundle their VPN product with this install, which OK, that’s understandable, so if you won’t want to try it, just uninstall it, right? Wrong. If you uninstall it, it will reinstall itself next time it updates, start the application, and be in your tray if you’re in windows or in your menu bar if you’re on Mac OS.
I contacted Bitdefender about this, and expressed my frustration, and basically they said, that’s too bad, you can disable it. I replied and let them know that the VPN re installs itself even if you uninstall it and will re enable itself. Eventually I just gave up, and dealt with this annoyance.
However, today was the last straw. I was watching a YouTube video in full-screen, when I got a pop up ad that was quite large advertising their VPN product. I first checked to see if I’m logged into the Total Security application so that it knows I’m a paid user, and I was. I can understand this type of behavior if I was using a free version of their software, however I’m a paying user, I shouldn’t have to deal with their ads to up-sell me. That’s why I submitted a ticket to have my money fully refunded and I’ll move to another product. I posted this, to hopefully keep people from using their software if they are looking into it, and hopefully to force them to change their terrible business practices. If the ad shows up again, I’ll take a screenshot and update the post.
Update: Ad came up again right after making this post, I’ve put the ad as the main image above, and attached a screenshot below showing it with the Bitdefender Dashboad showing that I am logged in (personal info redacted) and that I have an active subscription. And it immediately came up on my Mac the second I opened the lid. I’ve since told Bitdefender that this “Special Offers” option should be Opt in, not Opt Out.
Update [23/10/2020] – Bitdefender has apologized, and sent feedback to the team that this should be opt in, not opt out. I hope the changes get made. I believe also the VPN has not been re installing itself anymore of recent. Thanks to Bitdefender for accepting criticism.
WhatsApp Video not playing on iOS 14.2 Beta 2 workaround
I always eat my own words and end up trying betas, some better than others, but the latest iOS Beta 14.2 Beta 2 did something pretty annoying. It made WhatsApp Videos not play and also not scrubbable. There was one workaround of just playing it on Whatsapp Web or Desktop. But if you’re not at a computer and need to watch a video right now, there was no way.
I have found a work around on iOS until it’s fixed by WhatsApp/Apple (depending if Apple broke something or WhatsApp has to update something).
- Open the video you want to play and click on the squiggly line on the bottom left that allows you to edit the video before forwarding it:
2. Press Play in the edit window to watch the video. That’s it! Now you can watch videos. It’s annoying, but better than nothing.
I’ll be submitting this feedback to both WhatsApp and Apple.
AMD RX 6000 Series Big Navi Ultra-wide Wallpaper
Today AMD showed off it’s RX 6000 Big Navi Series GPU Design with cooler. They also provided a 4K image in the tweet. Since I recently got the LG 38-wn95c-w ultrawide monitor, I decided to make an ultrawide wallpaper for my monitor, which I then shared on Reddit. I decided to post on my blog in case Reddit compresses the original image.
For those curious, I simply added horizonal pixels to the image to get the same aspect ratio so (5184×2160) and then I used Content Aware Fill, and then I shrunk the image to 3840×1600 to keep the correct aspect ratio without deforming the picture.
Download Image (3840×1600)
LG 38WN95C-W Release Date
I recently was researching screens for a new PC, and after a few days of researching I picked the LG 38WN95C-W. I liked the ultra wide aspect ratio, 144hz refresh rate for gaming, Thunderbolt 3, fast response time, and higher resolution (3840×1600) than the other monitors in same size/similar aspect ratio. However this monitor is not out yet. I saw no release date, so I went to twitter. Some others had asked LG in their countries, but no reply. This morning LG Canada replied to me with a June 7th 2020 Release Date.
Update: The Release Date has been changed to second week of July. Customers in the States have already started to receive their monitors.
Update: LG 38WN95C-W is now available on Newegg and Amazon.ca from third party sellers for ~2200$ – 2300$
Tesla Unlimited Supercharging ends September 16th, 2018
Tesla has sent emails to owners telling them that if they want to refer family and friends for unlimited supercharging, they need to do it by September 16th, 2018. After September 16th, they will only receive 100$ worth of supercharging credit. The referral is available for Model S, Model X, and Model 3 Performance (P3D). If you need a referral you can click on it below or give the name followed by the four numbers to your sales person (ahmed4472): http://ts.la/ahmed4472
Smartcash txindex bootstrap
I’ve found that the txindexstrap.zip file that’s posted on the freshdesk page for Smartcash has fallen behind (8 days as of writing this post). I’ve decided to provide my own bootstrap file, and will try to update it daily below. If you’d like to donate, my Smartcash addres is: SQPankkgjYEkunA2xgiYYi5RsBBHkUh9bz
Also, if you’re buying a Tesla Model S or X please use my referral: http://ts.la/ahmed4472
Please update your wallet to version 2.0.4 (www.smartcash.cc)
Download: txindexstrap.rar (11844 downloads )
Last Updated 2:50 PM EST March 16th 2021