By Rian

Gray, a writer.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Spiel Pt. 2

Spoilers ahead of the game. I did a spiel on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 recently, and I wanted to elaborate on the subject. If you haven’t read it already, that one does not have any major narrative spoilers and primarily focused on the gameplay aspect. And for this particular piece, much of it relies on…

Email Address Is Not Immortal

This is sort of a PSA for all the future developers out there. Developers, do remind yourselves: emails are not permanent. When asking for emails to create a login credential, I suggest you come up with an auxiliary system that allows email address to be changed or updated in the future. And when it is…

App to Manage macOS Login Items and System Extensions

I have been migrating from one Mac to another whenever I upgrade the machine. Often it is delivered with the convenience that I get almost identical experience as before, but only on the newer hardware. That said, the part of the ‘migration’ includes, though I didn’t verify it, copying over login items and system extensions…

How to Remedy HomeKit Scene Returning Unresponsive Error

After adding some number of accessories to the HomeKit, my HomePod usually returns ‘some accessories were unresponsive’ error, even though the scene is correctly set. Same goes with Macs and iPhones. I can see there is some latency, but it’s nearly impossible to troubleshoot as HomeKit generally does not have troubleshooting guidelines aside from generic…

How to Fill-in from Password Manager on iOS Prompts

Normally, iOS and any apps on it that have a password prompt should label it as such. The system recognizes the textbox is reserved for password then offers to fill-in automatically from the password manager of choice. But not all apps have properly labeled its password prompts, let alone iOS’. Anyone who has more than…

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Spiel

I think I can comfortably say most readers have already seen the beautifully rendered trailers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 one way or the other. The premise that anyone older than the number on the giant monolith would die is simple, yet convincing, enough to get a world of live-action JRPG rolling. The number is…

How to View Extra Information from macOS Control Center

With the introduction of iOS-like Control Center on macOS, many Menu Bar icons can now be hidden unless they are absolutely necessary. I have most of the icons hidden unless they are active. But there are times when having a similar level of access the older icons had are simply needed — such as what…

Day One Patch Madness on Stellaris

Stellaris is a 4X game started in 2016, and its DLCs are still being released as of 2025. I would argue the game itself is alive and has been successful thus far. But as the title suggests it, the game has gone through several major overhauls during its lifetime and we are going through its…

Cloud Gaming and Remote Gaming

Before I start going through the op-ed, I do need to state there could be some confusions no thanks to mixed use of marketing terminologies. There are two competing, albeit not in the same league to begin with, standards of “remote gaming”, one is from the cloud and the other is from your own device,…

How to Remedy Hotfix #30 Graphical Glitches on Baldur’s Gate 3

In the recently released Hotfix #30, there is a known issue on Baldur’s Gate 3 where the game starts to have graphical glitches once fast-traveled to a different location. On DirectX 11 mode, the screen simply goes dark except for the UI; on Vulcan, the screen’s color is distorted to pink or purplish hue. It…

How to Unhide Drives for Automatic Mounting on Windows 11

After the upgrade from Windows 10, one of the immediate problems I had was hidden NVMe drives. I have some SSDs hooked up via PCIe cards that are formatted in NTFS. What I realized after the upgrade is that all of the drives are still functional; everything is in tact, just that they are marked…

How to Upgrade Windows 10 Boot Camp to 11 on Intel Mac

In coming months, Windows 10 will be sunset and Microsoft is aggressively pushing the users to upgrade to either Windows 11 or Windows 11 compatible hardwares. If you were on Windows 10, for the same reasons as I did, it is largely due to several factors that happen to line up like the stars: Mac…

App to Add 2FA on WordPress

Surprisingly, WordPress supports neither 2FA (two-factor authentication) nor passkeys. Considering the prevalence of both and how readily available they have become, it’s still hard for me to believe WordPress does not have native solutions. Websites, of any kind, due its nature, are bound to be exposed. No wonder why WordPress is being preyed on. From…

How to Check for Holidays on Calendar using Shortcuts

One of the big reasons why I keep things on Mac and iOS as platforms, compared to, say, Windows, is because how customizable even the basic apps are. The power of Shortcuts lies in its easy access. Last year or so, I did recommend this particular shortcut as my go-to. In my defense, I previously…

How to Manually Update TP-Link Deco Firmware

It’s less a how-to, but a PSA for Deco mesh routers users — the online automatic updates for firmwares on smartphone apps or web management are not working. In my case, automatic update said the version 1.2.13 is the latest, but the support page from TP-Link website clearly states v.1.2.14 is the latest with the…