Online journal of posts about computers and fixes to common issues.
The Panasonic DMP-BD84P-K is a Blu-Ray player for the TV, that can also handle DVD and CD. Resolution : Blu-Ray is 1080p (1920x1080) so it looks so much better than DVD 480p (720x480). DVD : When DVD disc is played, it up-converts to HD 1080p. Size : This is a compact player, easy to fit into any small space under the TV. Dimensions (WxHxD): 245 mm x 38.5 mm x 175 mm Remote : It is simple and…
The Philips AJT3300 is a Bluetooth clock radio that can also charge a smartphone. Specifications Bluetooth Version: V3.1 + EDR Profiles: A2DP, HFP, AVRCP Range: 10M (free space) Clock: Digital LED, 12H format Alarm No. of alarms: 2 Alarm source: Buzzer, FM radio Snooze (repeat alarm): Yes, 9mins 24 hours alarm reset Sleep timer: 15/ 30/ 60/ 90/ 120 mins FM Radio Frequency range: 87.5 - 108 MHz No.…
Freeform is the default whiteboarding application that works all of Apple's devices: MacOS, iPad and iPhone. It can be used to create boards and a board can have sketches, shapes, post-it notes and text. Sketch : A board can have multiple sketches in it. A sketch can only be created using a drawing device (like pencil) on the iPad or using the finger on iPhone. Sketch cannot be created on MacOS…
GNOME Decoder is a Linux tool that can be used to decode QR codes. Many websites and documents now include a QR code, but do not provide a link. I find it useful to screenshot that QR code using this tool to obtain the URL. Install : $ sudo flatpak install flathub com.belmoussaoui.Decoder Usage : Open the tool, choose Scan at the bottom and From a Screenshot. It brings up the OS screenshot UI and…
Search in Popup is a Firefox extension that opens a popup of a search page using the currently selected text. It is similar but more limited than the Selection Search addon , but overcomes that addon's limitation of not having a popup functionality. Source code : It is open sourced on Github . Install : Go to its Firefox addons page . Usage : Select text on a webpage, right-click and from the…
Selection Search is a popular extension for Firefox (and Chrome) to search for the selected text on search engines or any websites that have search functionality (like IMDB or libraries). This addon is highly configurable, and I felt that its only limitation is that it can only open the search webpage in a new tab or replaces the current tab. I would have liked it to have an option of opening the…
There’s still no point in gigabit broadband – Terence Eden’s Blog Online video calling isn't that intensive. All the 4K streaming services recommend 25Mbps. I've wired most of my house with Cat6 Ethernet - but most of my switches and ports are 1G rather than 2.5G, so the max bandwith isn't likely to get to any single device. The best I've got directly is around 940Mbps which is about what I'd…
Nobody understands the point of hybrid cars - YouTube Great explainer on how hybrid cars work. Non-hybrid gas engines use the Otto cycle. They are relatively inefficient because they waste energy at the end of the power stroke when hot gases still have pressure that could be captured. Hybrid gas engines are inspired by the Atkinson cycle. Their power stroke is longer relative to the compression…
On MacOS, the cmd tab keyboard shortcut only switches between apps, not the individual windows. I use apps like Firefox, where I have multiple windows open and so the MacOS solution does not work for me. Furthermore, I want to see the thumbnails of the windows, not just the app icons. AltTab is a fantastic open-source tool that solves both of these problems on MacOS for me. Install : Download and…
The Brother HL-L3290CDW is a color laser printer and scanner with wireless capability. Specifications Size: 16.1” W x 18.7” D x 14.5” H Weight: 47.8 lbs Black toner: TN223BK Yellow toner: TN223Y Magenta toner: TN223M Cyan toner: TN223C Initial Setup Following the taped directions, open up the center of the device, extract each of the C-M-Y-BK toner cartridges, remove the orange protectors and put…
Apple Shortcuts is an app that can be used to create a shortcut associated with a sequence of tasks. It is available on all the Apple OSes and devices. The shortcuts we create can be invoked from the Shortcuts app, but also through other means like Siri. Some shortcuts I find useful to use on my Apple devices are listed below. Convert photos to lower resolution JPEG on iOS Since the lowest…
llama.cpp is a LLM inference framework written in C++ and primarily meant for edge computers like laptops. It is built on top of GGML , a low-level tensor library and uses its own GGUF file format for models. Install Install using brew: $ brew install llama.cpp Run a LLM Download and run a HuggingFace model: $ llama-cli -hf ggml-org/gemma-3-1b-it-GGUF
Insights from NVIDIA Research | NVIDIA GTC - YouTube Talk by Bill Dally at GTC 2026. Low latency decode at right end of pareto: At concurrency 1, generation of 1 token touches all the weights of the model and the results have to be updated all through the model. So, bandwidth (data movement) and latency (communication) limited. High efficiency decode at left end of pareto: energy (data movement)…
Image Capture is the built-in app on MacOS that can be used to scan photos or pages from a scanner. Scanners : The scanners that are detected and visible on the left side. If a scanner you plugged in with a USB cable is not listed, you might need to install its driver. Select one of the scanners to be able to scan. Scan details : Click the Show Details button at the bottom-right corner to choose…
GoAccess is an open-source log analyzer and interactive viewer for the terminal or the browser. I like to use it to see the traffic to nginx. Install $ sudo apt install goaccess View nginx traffic For a live view of the traffic at the terminal: $ goaccess /var/log/nginx/access.log --log-format=COMBINED Generate a interactive HTML file and view it from the browser at yourdomain.com/stats.html : $…
Nginx is a popular web server for Linux. Install $ sudo apt install nginx Configuration /etc/nginx/nginx.conf : This file has the configuration options for nginx server itself. For settings specific to a website, look at /etc/nginx/sites-enabled directory. /etc/nginx/sites-available/ : This is the directory where we can store all the website configuration files. Note that the files in this…
uv is a package and project manager for Python projects. It fully replaces two things: manually using virtual environments and managing packages. It is super fast, ironically because it is written in Rust! Install $ curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh Usage Initialize the directory of the Python project by invoking this inside the directory: $ uv init This creates a pyproject.toml with…
human.json is a simple decentralized mechanism created by Beto Dealmeida to discover human-authored websites and for owners of such sites to declare authorship. It essentially helps build a human-curated network of trusted sites. For website owner To assert that your website is human-authored, follow 2 simple steps: Add a human.json at the root of your domain in this format: { "url":…
Claude Code is the CLI agentic AI tool by Anthropic designed to aid in software development. Install $ brew install --cask claude-code Basics Invoke claude at the root of any project directory. Ask it questions in natural language about the codebase in that directory to learn more about the project. Implement code changes by asking it in natural language. It will show you the diff before writing…
One of the best features of Firefox is the availability of a large number of addons. It is pretty easy to create a Firefox addon and with AI tools the bar is lowered to create addons to enhance your browsing experience in many little ways. Develop the addon Developing an addon involves at least a manifest.json and additional HTML/JS/CSS files they pull in. Example of manifest.json : {…
I have been using trackballs instead of mice for almost 18 years now. Last year, I upgraded to a Kensington SlimBlade Pro EQ Trackball from my trusty Kensington Expert Mouse Wireless Trackball . SKU: K72084NA Size : This trackball is smaller, slimmer and lighter than my previous trackball. Wireless : Just like my previous trackball, this one supports using Bluetooth and also using a wireless…
Macbook Neo is an entry-level laptop from Apple that was launched in 2026. I was impressed by the features and performance available for the $600 price and obtained it on launch day. Specifications Chip: A18 Pro Memory: 8 GB Storage: 256 GB Display: 2408x1506 Battery: 36.5 watt hour Weight: 1.23 kg Missing features Features I miss on the Neo: Touch ID : The $600 version of Neo does not have Touch…
The iPhone 17e The $599 iPhone 17e, with the A19, benchmarks faster in single-core CPU performance than the $599 MacBook Neo, with the year-old A18 Pro. This post also has a useful pricing comparison table for the iPhones on sale right now. Thoughts and Observations on the MacBook Neo The MacBook Neo is not a footnote or hobby, or a pricing stunt to get people in the door before upselling them to…
iTerm2 is an open-source alternative to the Terminal app that ships with MacOS. Split : The window can be split to create a new terminal session. Press command d to split vertically or shift command d to split horizontally. Change shell : To set a different shell as the default one, go to Settings -> Profiles -> General -> Command. Choose Custom Shell and provide the full path to the shell binary.…
9V Battery Smoke alarms : These alarms can be in places that are difficult to reach, so it is best to choose a battery that lasts the longest. The recommendation is to pick a Lithium non-rechargeable battery with 10-year shelf life and the maxmimum capacity (on 2026-02-27 this was 1200 mAh ). Avoid rechargeable or alkaline batteries. I ended up choosing Tenergy batteries for this purpose.
PageFind can be used to add search capability to any static website. Install : $ python3 -m pip install 'pagefind[extended]' Index : To index the HTML webpages located in a local directory: $ python3 -m pagefind --site ../my_website_files This adds the index files and also the required JS files in ../my_website_files/pagefind directory. If you prefer to use uv to run pagefind: $ uv run --with…
Wallbox makes home EV chargers and their Pulsar Plus compact EV charger is what we found in our home when we moved in. Specifications Model: PUP1 Output: 25 ft EVC: Type 1 Power: 9.6 kW Version: NEMA 14-50P Color: Black Enclosure type: 4 Input/Output: 208/240 VAC, 60 Hz, 40 A Usage App : The Wallbox app is required to view, configure, monitor and control the Pulsar Plus. Changing ownership : We…
Instapaper is an online service to save articles from the web to read later. It is similar to the now-discontinued Pocket . Saving a webpage : Webpages can be saved manually by adding their link in the Instapaper webpage. A more convenient option is to install their Firefox extension and click its toolbar button on any webpage. An older method is its bookmarklet , which works, but is deprecated.…
Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS to install, remove or update applications/libraries from the shell. Install : Download and install the latest .pkg installer from the Github releases page . Install a package : A package is called bottle and installing it is called pouring . $ brew install foobar_app The binaries installed by Homebrew can be seen at /opt/Homebrew/opt . Add a package…
Reminders is a todo app, or a task management app that works across MacOS and iOS, with syncing through iCloud. Apple calls these todo items or tasks as reminders , so I will use this term in this post. Install : The app was pre-installed on my MacOS. For iOS devices, it can be installed from the App Store here . Online : It can also be used through iCloud online here . Reminders : Click on any…