From How-to

How to Block HDMI-CEC

This week is a home theater special. If you have just upgraded your home theater during Black Friday, chances are you are probably facing the same problem as I do. The infamous HDMI-CEC; it doesn’t work. The last time I had the pleasure of working with HDMI-CEC, which happens to be today, it was waking…

How to Add TV Button for Apple TV on Logitech Harmony

Logitech Harmony remains to be few semi-functional universal smart remote —that is mouthful— currently available, even though the Swiss-based company has decided to pull Harmony from production years ago. I’ve seen some new candidates since, but not all remotes offer the big database Harmony has, let alone offering both RF and IR functionality. But today’s…

How to Convert SAMI (*.smi) to ASSA (*.ass) Subtitles

This is yet another “Korean” problem I encountered, because I am yet to find non-Korean SAMI subtitles. SAMI is a closed caption format developed by Microsoft back in 1998. As far as I am aware, Microsoft hasn’t updated the format since, and frankly I don’t think the format has seen much usage outside of South…

How to Randomly Generate a Pattern Lock pt. 2

The last how-to I published had some backstories. It’s always easier to input a pattern lock when it only has 8-direction: up, down, left, right and 4 diagonals. But security-wise, having more options is always more preferable. This is one of the weakness of the pattern lock; you might as well use a simple PIN…

How to Randomly Generate a Pattern Lock

PSA before we begin: if you are using pattern lock on your device as primary method of authentication, find alternatives. Pattern lock is unsafe. There is a reason why password managers don’t try supporting it. Compared to that of PIN, the safety provided by pattern lock is mediocre at best even with the best of…

How to Add Korean Calendars (24 Solar Terms, Lunar Calendar)

It’s that time of the year: the holidays and the calendars. Before we begin, I do want to emphasize the links I am sharing are not “universal”. As I was going through different kinds of calendars, one thing I noticed was that a lot of English sources often lumped “solar terms” as one and “lunar…

How to Adjust Aspect Ratio for Image Class in WordPress

If you are posting regularly on WordPress-run websites, you are most likely also posting an image as visual aid —best way to describe what the post is without a single word. And as I had discussed it in an op-ed, aspect ratio is a thing for modern readers, and images will play a major role…

How to Replace WP-Cron with Linux Cron

In my previous posts, I tried fixing WordPress’ weird behaviors with scheduled post not publishing correctly when the site uses a caching plugin. One such attempt was to add hooks to activate cache purging, and another was to forcefully activate wp-cron.php. I had hoped this would solve the problem, but I couldn’t get the stable…

How to Change WordPress Tag Cloud Tag Number

The title might be mouthful, but WordPress’ embedded tag cloud widget has a default limit on how many tags it will display. The widget does not update automatically based on the space, —yes, I was surprised to find out about it too— and the maximum number of tags the widget displays is set as a…

How to Test Proxy Servers from Remote Client

Normally a user can test the proxy server with any tools, —mine was Firefox until recently— but there is a time when more bare bone approach is needed —like when my Firefox started acting up. Jokes aside, it’s good to have an appropriate tool to test just the right subject, in which case the proxy…

How to Setup External Access of Home Devices

There is a problem with all IoT or smart home devices: external access. This is a problem that all users at some point have to ask themselves how they would like to approach it. What’s the point of having internet-enabled, sensor-filled, micro smart devices in each room, if none of them will respond soon as…

How to Setup Tmux Pane Synchronization Shortcut

Tmux comes in incredibly handy in multitude of situations, and one of them is when you are handling multiple ssh connections to pi devices or something akin to IoT devices. Assuming all the setup is already done on the local device, and this is part of your regular maintenance routine, logging in to each device…

How to Troubleshoot Steam Stuck at “Reserving Space”

This is one of the odd balls I found with Steam client. As the client hasn’t seen major improvements since release, apparently it’s a common knowledge Steam has marginal support of exFAT — unreliable even at the best of times. Back in the good ol’ days when I used HDD as the one and only…