If you are a fan of Shortcuts on either macOS or iOS, no doubt you would have encountered a similar problem as I. In order to load some data on to a custom shortcut, only sensible way would to do so is via a dictionary-type variable. But Shortcuts doesn’t make it easy to enter the…
The Mad Tea Party
Inspiring yet Mad Spiels
By Rian
Gray, a writer.
OLED Screens, Mac Studio, and MacBook Pro
My last TV, the one I had replaced just few months ago, lasted well over a decade. It was a 3DTV, (the one with the 3D glasses) but as far as the screen goes as a generic television, its panel wasn’t damaged even as I was planning to have it upgraded. It didn’t support HDR…
Expelled! Spiel
If someone asked me what kind of game Expelled! is, I would say it is a visual novel, or a mystery novel stylized in a video game. Its experience is akin to what many Agatha Christie novels were when I first read them —bleak, and justice served was not always what I would have imagined.…
Monster Hunter: Wilds Spiel
Monster Hunter franchise had lots on its shoulders —it’s been 21 years since the first title was released in 2004. World, previous title for non-portable devices from 2018, had introduced new set of features to entice new gamers. Wilds, on the other hand, had to compete against plethora of other RPGs that are quite literally…
How to Generate Random PIN Codes
One of the rather recently added feature on 1Password, which I believe was both an oversight and the inherent flaw of the system, was PIN generation. The password manager was always capable of saving PIN codes, often only 4 digits long. Randomly generating one wasn’t supported until recently. To play devil’s advocate, it is only…
How to Generate Custom Length Passwords for Apple Passwords App
In my previous post, though I didn’t go into any details as to what limitations I’ve faced, I believe I’ve hinted enough that Apple’s Passwords app has missed the mark on the convenience features. One of which was rather shocking; the app doesn’t let a user generate a custom length password. The app is certainly…
How I Tried Leaving 1Password in 2025
I’ve been using password managers for a while, and I believe I started using 1Password beginning with either version 3 or 4. Inevitably when I say I am using 1Password, I’m not just talking about simply using an app; I’m talking about the entire password manager platform. 1Password has gone through series of audits, bug…
How to Change Ollama Model Path
I’m not particularly a big fan of having a big system storage. Most of my machines usually have 1 TB or less, and when needed, I use external drives or NAS. If you are interested in playing with Ollama, especially with the new Mac Studio, one of the missing key features of Ollama is to…
How to Port Forward PS Remote and PS Portal
This one is a collective study post. As far as I could find, Sony hasn’t released an official documentation on which ports are needed to use PS Remote and PS Portal. Official support documents and manuals for the PS Portal make no mentions of the matter, let alone for the PS5 console networking features. I…
How to Disable In-App Ratings Popup on iOS
I had a moment of pause while I was trying out Reminders. After using it for a while, Reminders app asked if I wanted to leave a star. A to-do list app from Apple called Reminders is asking if I want to leave a star. If I wanted to leave a review for a third-party…
App to Test UPnP for External Discoverability
As much as I would like to recommend simply disabling UPnP and be done with it, there is no complete replacement, from what I can gather, in terms of day-to-day home network environment. It warrants a separate write-up, but long story short, on IPv4 with NAT, there is no theoretical replacement for UPnP yet. With…
First Party Apple Apps are “Sherlocking” Subscriptions
Back in late 2000s, back when I was considering to move to OS X as my primary system, one of the big appeal —albeit it’s not always up to the level— was that Macintosh was bundled with first party softwares that are often exorbitantly expensive on the other side. And let me tell you, the…
How to Exclude Steam Games from Time Machine
One of the obvious challenges of using Time Machine is that not all apps and databases are optimized to use automatic backup. Or to be more blunt on the subject, with modern video games ranging roughly up to several hundred gigabytes with day one patches that are equally large, Steam has been enabling developers to…
It’s Now on CDN
Putting Mad Tea Party on CDN or any other cache servers have been on the back burner for the longest time. And for the first time since its inception, and frankly thanks to free tier services available, Mad Tea Party is now using CDN. It won’t drastically change the experience for the readers; perhaps some…
How to Replace WP-Cron with Linux Cron pt. 2
It’s been about 4 months since I wrote about wp-cron madness. To reiterate why wp-cron had to be called manually, that’s due to how some of the cron jobs weren’t executed even though it was queued for prolonged time. I’ve tried three different methods, one of which was to tackle only the cache. As of…














