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.
I’ve been having a problem while watching shows or movies in VLC and Youtube for a while now, and it really got on my nerves and I decided to try to fix it today. The problem is the Audio playback would stutter every few seconds then cut out (silence) for a few seconds, then it would come back. This wasn’t an issue with the files. I tried everything, updating drivers, setting tweaks in VLC, downloading Media Player Classic, Disabling Audio Effects in Windows Audio Settings, changing codecs for Youtube. Then I stumbled on this blog post. I did have Airserver and thought it might be the issue. I disabled it, but the issue still continued. Finally I found that I still had the AirPort Base Station Agent running in the tray. I closed it and the problem went away instantly. I thought I’d share in case others ran into the issue as I spent a few hours on Google. After figuring out, I thought I’d reinstall Airserver, and it’ hasn’t happened. So it turns out, it was just Airport Base Station Agent, searching for drives to use.
If Google’s Chrome notifications have been annoying you like everyone else you’ve probably disabled them. But after a recent update they have come back for me, and the Enable Rich Notifications option is no longer there. They have just renamed the feature. This is an updated tutorial on how to disable the Google Now Notifications inside Chrome.
1. Open Chrome and type Chrome://flags
2. Press CTRL+F and search for Enabled Synced Notifications and Enable Google Now notifications support.
I recently ran into an issue with the HP 3005PR port replicator at a client’s office. The port replicator comes with a partition that has it’s install software on it, (which is nice, but I could just download the latest drivers from HP’s site). This partition sometimes takes over the F: drive or any drive that the usual network shares use and therefore the computer can’t access whichever drive letter the network share usually is. We’ve tried disabling the drive, but sometimes it comes back after switch usb port etc. The problem is that the storage management snap-in in Windows doesn’t allow you to change the drive assignment for this port replicator. A colleague of mine thought of a smart solution. You can use Diskpart to resolve the resolution.
Here are the instructions to change the drive letter Issue:
Run CMD.exe as an administrator.
Type “Diskpart” and press enter.
Type “List volume”.
Locate the HP DOCK volume and note the drive letter assigned, this is the drive letter you want to get back (usually 3, or 4 could be different for you)
Type “Select volume X” (X being the actual volume number you found)
Type “Remove letter=X” (X being the actual drive letter you want to get back)
Type “Assign letter=X” (X being the drive letter you want to give the port replicator that will not interfere with your network shares).
Have you just bought a Surface Pro 2, plugged it in, ran Windows Update and restarted only to find your Wireless driver has been uninstalled? Well I just found this out while updating a client’s Surface Pro 2. I tried getting the driver pack for the Surface Pro 2, and randomly found a February Firmware Update and driver pack from Microsoft, which you have to install manually for each driver. Anyways, the Pro 2 Wireless driver didn’t work, however the Pro 1 Driver did. I will link to all files so you can easily find them all and see what works for you. However I have found that the Pro 1 Wireless drivers are the only ones that actually worked for me on the Pro 2, go figure…
If you need help installing them, feel free to comment, and I’ll try to help out.
If you’re running outlook 2003 and Windows 7 you might have noticed that some of your sent items are missing text. Don’t worry you’re not alone or going crazy. It’s a known issue that I found while helping out a client, and it’s been reported on spiceworks. The culprit is Internet Explorer 11. You can just uninstall it and the issue will be resolved. If you’re having this problem and want to uninstall Internet Explorer 11 follow the link below:
Today I helped my friend unlock his Bell 2Wire 2701HG-G Modem/Router. We were not doing it to unlock it per say, but we wanted to update his router to a newer firmware to hopefully resolve a wifi disconnection issue with his iPad. I stumbled upon some forums that lead me to a file. We updated the modem, which cleared his Bell settings (something I knew would happen from experience!). So after a long time of scrolling through pages of forums, and trying to figure stuff out, with the help of the forum I figured it out on my own.
Firstly before I get to the good stuff (skip this part and go to the bottom if you just want to unlock the 2Wire 2701HG-G) let me warn you to never get a branded modem/router. Why you might ask? Well because of the fact that they are branded some features might be stripped and getting those features back, or a decent web interface might be difficult if not impossible. Secondly they barely release updates, and when they do, you can’t get access to the files your self. I would rather input all these settings into a D-Link/Linksys router or this Buffalo router that is on my wish list.
So first of all you will need to flash the Modem/Router with a newer firmware. This firmware is for another ISP called Singtel. Don’t worry it should work fine as I have used it on a Bell connection. The main problem was once we updated the firmware, and wanted to input the Bell username and password it kept inputting @Singtel.com to the end of the username no matter what we did. Finally I found out that we had to use a key code to remedy that (See this is what I was talking about earlier in the post! I have never used a key code on a router, I feel this is a very stupid idea or “feature” if you want to call it that). So follow the steps below and you should be able to get your router working with the Singtel firmware.
Before Updating your Modem/Router please make sure you have your username and password written down, or call Bell to get them, as they will be erased when the firmware is flashed.
2. Access your router’s firmware update page, I have listed all the possible web portal addresses that I have encountered, one of them SHOULD work for you. (http://gateway.2wire.net/tech/upgrade.html | http://192.168.2.1/tech/upgrade.html | http://192.168.1.254/tech/upgrade.html)
3. Select the Singtel 2sp file which you downloaded from above and click Update. (You should only do this through a wired connection and not wireless.)
4. Hopefully after a successful flash access the router’s Setup page (http://192.168.1.254/setup | http://192.168.2.1/setup | http://gateway.2wire.net/setup)
5.Enter this Key Code (5225-26P4-6262-22AS-B2E7) and click Advanced, now continue with the setup, and it will not append the @Singtel.com to the end of your B1 username. This is the only Key Code that worked for me as the others would fail even if we had the correct username/password combination. If this Key Code does not work for you check out all the rest of the Key Codes at the 2Wire website.
That is all, your Modem/Router should now connect to bell. The reason I wrote this tutorial, was because I saw that the information was scattered all over the forums, with a bit of correct information everywhere, and not all in one place. If I have made a mistake please point it out so I can fix this. Also I would hope that Bell and other ISPs find this post, and see how much users are frustrated with their branded hardware. Hopefully they will start using less restricted, and user changeable hardware/software. While it might be easier in the short run, I find that in the long run it is more costly, more annoying, and more problematic since there are such few firmware updates. Enjoy your unlocked/updated Modem/Router.
Ps. So far my friend’s iPad is working without a problem. Hopefully it stays that way.
Today I formatted my Mac Pro, and I always run into a problem with my iTunes Library. I like to keep it off my system drive as it is a small 120gb ssd drive. When I try to tell set my iTunes folder to the other hard drive it does not recognize the library and has no songs. This is made even more frustrating when Apple decides to keep updating the folder structure (9.2 in this case). So here is how to fix your iTunes library.
1. Copy the files and folders inside the iTunes folder to the system drive and click on replace all.
2. Click on the iTunes Library file.
3. Now iTunes should open up and have your library intact and will probably update it to the new format.
4.Copy it back to the location you wish to have it at.
5.Press option (shift on pc) while opening iTunes and it will ask you which iTunes library you want to load.
6.Click Choose Library…
7.Find the iTunes folder you want and click on the iTunes Library file.
8.Now it should be working fine, you can delete the old folder!
Let’s face it we all need to make money. Since we are in a technology driven age, there are lots of ways of making money online. Some of those ways are less legal than others, such as spamming, and selling Viagra and other prescription drugs online. However there are actually legal ways to make money online. I will list the ways that I have made money online, and if anyone has other ways to make money online please comment.
Google Adsense – This is my most preferred way of making money online, not only do I get to brag to people that I get paid by Google, but it is also hassle free, and keeps paying. Google Adsense is a advertisement platform for website publishers. This means if you have a website and are willing to allow for advertising space you can make money. The way it works is advertisers pay Google money (they use Google Adwords to do so) to direct web traffic to its site for various reasons. These advertisers select keywords that they would like to associate with their campaign. Google webcrawler has probably already crawled your site and continues to do so. This crawling allows Google to pick up keywords from your site, which might let the crawler know that your site is related to Photography for instance. Then Google decides to place photography related ads on your site in hopes that people will click on them and go to the advertisers site. This explanation is simple, and hopefully you get the point however in reality it could be more complicated. To make money using Google Adsense it is hard at first, and then gets easier. First you must have a website, after that you just sign up for an Adsense account (you can use your current Google account). After that you only need to create the styles of the ads, and then place the code in your website. If you are not experienced with HTML, or coding this may be a bit hard, however there are many tutorials online, and I’m sure you probably have a friend who can help. Google’s minimum payout though is $100 so it might take you some time before you make some money online. Finally I suggest that your website have real content, because that attracts more people to the site, which in turn helps your Google Pagerank, which in turn will make you more money. Setting up a blog or website and just posting rubbish will not get you far, in fact setting up a site just to make money is against Google’s TOS and will get you quickly blacklisted. Let me tell you this, you do not want to mess with Google, they are very smart when it comes to these things.
Filling out surveys online – Who knew giving your opinion on anything from products to economics can get you paid. Not only do you sometimes get to be involved with formulating a product or marketing campaign for a large company, but you get to know that you also have a say. Watch out though there are many sketchy sites on the internet claiming to pay for your opinions. I deal with two well known sites for surveys. Harris Poll offers packages at different point intervals, so it might not be money, your time is rewarded. They also offer sweepstakes that sometimes pay out $10,000 dollars, however this is a raffle. The second site I use is Angus Reid Forum, they actually offer money for each survey filled. I have only been using them for about a year now, but their surveys are nice. They will email whenever they think there is a survey that might be right for you, and let you know how much they will pay, and an approximation of the time commitment it will need, which is great if you are short on time. I really think filling out surveys is neat, because I get to see the inside of companies and the marketing world and how its cog wheels work. This is not a fast way to earn money, however with that said sometimes these online survey site will call you for a physical focus group study or survey that pays well, however I was not eligible for any because most were in French (I live in Quebec), or my schedule didn’t permit it.
Sponsored Tweets – Sponsored Tweets is a nice and easy way to make money online. If you live in the States or Canada, you may have a better opportunity than other regions. All you need to do to use Sponsored Tweets is have a Twitter account and at least 100 followers. Once you have those criteria fulfilled just sign up (you can sign up prior also) and wait for opportunities to come to you via email. The higher your follower ratio is, the more they (advertisers) are willing to pay. A lot of celebrities use Sponsored Tweets and they make a lot of money using it. So if you have a large following this is the method for you. As I warned about Google Adsense I will warn here too, don’t set up an account just to spam, eventually you will lose out.
Chitika/Infolinks in text ads – These type of advertisements add hyperlinks to words in your site/blog and when the user hovers over them it shows an advertisement. I currently use Infolinks, however I’m thinking of removing it because these type of advertisements are very intrusive and annoys a lot of people. This works pretty much the same as Adsense, however for me Adsense is King.
Affiliate Marketing – A lot of companies offer affiliate marketing throughout the internet. If you have an expertise or are related to a specific topic or industry it can be very lucrative. Since my blackberry unlocking post has been doing well thanks to Google, I signed up for a company I actually use to unlock Blackberry devices. I have not made so much money from them, but any extra bit helps.
As of now these are the ways I make money online, while it may not be much it’s still exciting for me, if you liked this post please follow me on twitter: @kushari
When I updated my Mac Pro to Snow Leopard, I selected the case sensitive filesystem. I could not install Adobe CS because it requires a non case sensitive file system. I was really annoyed by that but I’m sure Adobe has their reasons. I also found that the client my University uses for email (FirstClass) would not work. At first I did not think it was because of the case sensitive issue. Today I found out after tinkering around that it was indeed because of this. I figured out that you must edit the home.fc file in “/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/firstclass/settings/”. To edit it just open the file in TextEdit, or any text editing program you use, and on line 10 just edit the file extension from .FCP to fcp. Make sure to do this before you save your username and password, because the contents of the file will change and it will then be on line 2401. I am going to contact FirstClass and let them know about it hopefully they will fix this minor bug.
