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 is not about RF or IR, surprisingly.
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 Korea. But if you are dealing with medias from late ‘90s to 2010s, most of the Korean subtitles I could find are still in SAMI. I’ve seen some fan subtitles still published in SAMI too. SAMI, in many ways, is no different from SubRip (*.srt)…
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 code for better security.
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 practices.
iRobot Roomba j7 Spiel on Solving Problems pt. 3
The high bar set for Roomba’s software can only be resolved by upgrading its hardware. Features such as “linked clean” would have been entirely unnecessary if iRobot pioneered the combo market and concentrated its efforts only on the combo models. In the previous posts, I have discussed about iRobot’s software solutions in part 1 and hardware-software hybrid solutions in part 2. Now what about the solutions that are exclusively hardware-oriented?
iRobot Roomba j7 Spiel on Solving Problems pt. 2
When iRobot launched its gen. 3 navigation system with forward-looking cameras, the robot duos needed a software update to stay competitive. In the previous post, I’ve talked about problems that could have been solved by softwares without significant changes to the hardware. Now we are talking about problems and solutions that sit somewhere in between. The navigation system, which had now become the backbone of all smart features in robot vacuums, needed to be integrated so that to the robots can not only work side by side, but the data it produces can be reused.
iRobot Roomba j7 Spiel on Solving Problems pt. 1
iRobot, possibly the frontier of consumer robot vacuums, is now just about late in all the robot games imaginable. The company’s lack of direction in developing either hardware or software solution to the average household problems has left the latest iRobot vacuum, Roomba Combo 10 Max, with poorly received reviews. Seeing as iRobot made it to both vacuuming robots and mopping robots early on, I thought to share my two cents on the matter —what made it so late to the game? I think the pattern is the most obvious in how iRobot has dealt with the surge of new…
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 calendar” as one as well. They are not. Don’t be surprised to find out even though they are using the same ‘lunar calendar’ name, each calendar even have different dates for the new years. Anyone wise in the ways of ordering stuffs from abroad would…
Data Center, NIMBY, and Due Diligence
There was a letter addressed to the resident of my family condo unit, asking if we would be willing to hear them out. There is a plan drawn, and possibly already under way, to build a data center near my family home. The condo is in a small village with measly 40k population, —that’s considered small in South Korea— and the village happens to be near Seoul, the capital of South Korea with 9.4 million population. The condo association and neighborhood association are already up in arms, protesting against the construction of the data center.
Amnesia: Rebirth Spiel
I personally did not like the first Amnesia game when it came out. The Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game published in 2010 was most popular on the new platform called “YouTube” and played by the up and coming online stars called “YouTubers”. I recall having a stock YouTube app, a social media app I was always confused about. Can you believe it’s been 10 years since?
App to Test Outgoing Port Blocking
I was thinking of adding a category for ‘app for that’, but after some research I found out Apple had already trademarked the phrase “there’s an app for that”. So no luck there, and this time around this isn’t about the app either. It’s a web utility that is concise and beautifully designed to serve one purpose.
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 in how much space of that screen will be used.
CE Ultrawide, Aspect Ratios and Photography
What is the aspect ratio of your display? Was it ever the core concern behind a purchasing decision? I am aware of this rave behind the ultrawide displays, canonically “21:9”, but mathematically “64:27”, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It only became a concern not because I was in the shop for new TVs or monitors, but because I was updating featured images on the website. (side note: all featured images on Mad Tea Party are now adjusted to either 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio.)
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 results with neither of options —to the point where one of the recent posts weren’t published due to “missed scheduled post” error. The error seemed to be on parallel with the documentations I’ve read on wp-cron so far, so I decided to move on to…
Apple Intelligence, PCC, and M4 Macs
Apple Intelligence is in beta still. Some articles I’ve read unfortunately did not understand Apple Intelligence is to be deployed gradually, and while I would argue Apple’s ‘sell now, build later’ tactic to be disingenuous, I would simply disagree current Apple Intelligence is what will be for the remainder of fiscal year. But let us not dwell on the features that are promised or still in beta; let us discuss the hardwares that are supposedly powering Apple Intelligence.