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55 today

Another year goes by, and as someone said, you are past half-time now… or if framed differently, you have survived 55 years already – plenty of other people don’t get that old.

Anyway, with my meager blender skills (still improving!) I managed to make this, still pretty happy about it that this at least I can already manage ! Perhaps a better 56 next year 🙂

Happy 55th birthday to everyone who also has his or hers anniversary this year !

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Blog News

Wordfence is the max

I’ve been a happy user of Wordfence on all my WordPress blogs for years now, and I just realised that, while I did do a lot of word-of-mouth promotion for them to other blog people and clients, I never did publicly state how much safer I feel installing their default (free!) Wordfence firewall solution.

So this little blog post just to say that the Wordfence people are absolute good guys, letting people install a free solution, and providing even more improvements if you go for the paying solutions as a few clients have done over the year.

Thanks Wordfence !

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Blog News

Happy New 2023!

I hope that you have a wonderful / better than before 2023 !

a diorama of a snowy cottage in the winter  dark, with lights sining from the windows.ski's are standing in front of the cottage, and the door is open. Made in blender.
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Blog News

Twitter dying ?

I’ve been following the first week of Elon Musk taking over Twitter and all the changes he has implemented, including, apparently, firing half the workforce.

Moving to Mastodon is a solution, but then again, it’s totally different from Twitter (at least the last time I looked at it). Will have to look again soon.

I’m certain that there are other twitter clones out there being born as we speak…

Anyway. I’ve kept this blog up and running, with Twitter possibly going the way of the dodo, and Medium promoting paid content, it might be relevant to keep this blog around and start updating it again.

Curious to see what changes Elon will bring to Twitter next week.

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Blog News

Roborock 2.4Ghz Wifi issues and some solutions

Roborock S6 Pure vacuum cleaner and it's charging station.

I just bought a Roborock S6 Pure vacuum robot. Having 2 cats and plenty of hair every day lying around we needed something that could do a quick clean every day.

While I’m vary happy with it’s performance, there is a WIFI connection issue that has been plaguing all Roborock S5 and S6 vacuum robots.

The Problem

The problem I encountered was that it was not that hard to get the Roborock S6 connected to the WIFI.

Just make sure that your WIFI password does not have any weird characters in them (symbols) as apparently your vacuum cleaners’ wifi programming can’t handle that.

However, once it was connected, I couldn’t really control it from my phone – it worked, but only infrequently. If I was further away, on the other side of the house, then it worked, maps got loaded. But only sometimes, with frequent timeouts and slow internet errors. Weird, but it got me thinking…

As officially stated in the manual, Roborock does not support the 5Ghz Wifi spectrum. And nowadays that is becoming more and more standard in routers. Most routers still support both though, sometimes separately, sometimes transparant for the user. Some of the new ones only support 5Ghz, although for your own comfort, you are better off with one that supports both.

At home I have got a router that supports both, and automatically chooses how to connect to a device depending on the throughput – I have the same network name for both radio networks, so my phone only sees the one network name, but depending on distance it’ll be the 2.4Ghz or the 5Ghz network (the higher the frequency, the faster the connection, but the harder it is to penetrate walls with the signal; so the further away you are, the better it is to use 2.4Ghz).

And that caused the problems : when I was farther away from the robot and the router, I got notifications; I could access the amp, etc… because my phone automatically used the 2.4Ghz radio network. But when I wanted to change settings I automatically went close to the Roborock. And closer to the router, so the phone switched again to the better 5Ghz connection. All without me knowing it. And normally that’s not a problem. However, when you are communicating with a 2.4Ghz device, that IS a problem…

Solutions

Here are some solutions to your problems :

  • First, check that your WIFI password does not contain any strange symbols.
  • Set your encryption scheme from WEP to WPA. Honestly, if you are still running WEP, you’re asking for troubles. WPA or WPA/2 is better protection as WEP nowadays is eminently hackable.
  • If you only have a 5Ghz network router : you’re out of luck. You can still use your Roborock, but without the smartphone interface. But…
    Do check in your router that your router perhaps DOES have 2.4Ghz, but it is turned off. For that you will need to access the router’s administrative interface, which is different for each type of router and how it has been setup… Time to start searching for that router installation manual ! If it is turned off, turn it on, and then setup that network and connect your Roborock to it.
  • You have a router that supports both frequencies, and both are active but using different network names : eg. “RadioGagoo24Ghz” and “RadioGagaa5Ghz” – make certain to use the 2.4Ghz network name and *not* the 5Ghz.
    Additionally, the device you are controlling may need to use 2.4Ghz network as well. I’ve read reports from people that did not manage to control their Roborock using their recent iPhones, but did manage to do that with an (older) Android phone (one which probably only has a 2.4Ghz radio).
  • For those dual router, you could, if you want to, disable the 5Ghz network and force everyone to use the old network. But you are losing out on high-speed downloads, and some devices nowadays like USB network antenna’s (for plugging into pc’s without a wifi card) only support 5Ghz…
  • You have a router that supports both frequencies and meshes them into one network name (which is what I have) – and you want to keep on using that solution for whatever reason : what worked for me was to enable the 2.4Ghz GUEST network (and only that one) and link the Roborock to that. I also allowed devices on that network to connect to my network.
    Afterwards I set my mobile phone back to my regular network, but I can still control the Roborock ! This works because
    a) the Roborock now has a dedicated 2.4Ghz network and can save information like maps. And because it can talk to my internal network,
    b) my phone can see it and communicate with it.

I hope you manage to get your Roborock working. And honestly, Xiaomi, if you are reading this, an upgrade on your next model to 5ghz is something that you really need to consider. The problems selling this to European and/or American customers will only get bigger staying on just the 2.4Ghz network.

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Blog News

Installing HDX Media engine on Mac

This is a post to quickly detail a solution to the problem of installing the Citrix HDX media engine plugin for the Citrix Workspace app on your Mac.

If it keeps insisting that No, your workspace app is not installed while it IS installed (because, you know, you are actually using it!) then the problem might be that the script inside the installation package is not executed.

Why is it not executed ? Because the script is stored with a typo that only shows up on a case-sensitive file-system. And most Mac files systems are NOT case-sensitive.

Here’s how to fix it :

~ pkgutil --expand /Volumes/HDXRealTimeMediaEngine/Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine.pkg Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine.pkg                                                 
~ mv Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine.pkg/Scripts/RTMEconfig Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine.pkg/Scripts/RTMEConfig             
~ pkgutil --flatten Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine.pkg Downloads/Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine_custom.pkg  
~ open Downloads/Install\ HDXRealTimeMediaEngine_custom.pkg

Basically, it unzips the .pkg file (similar to .zip) , unzipping it, renaming a file in there by using the unix mv (move) command so that the script will run correctly, and then zipping it up again under another name.

Running that custom package (in the script above it’s saved in Downloads) will normally allow you to get this to work.

I found this in an online bulletin board from the HDX version 3 versions back. Apparently it’s still not fixed.

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Blog News

So true. How we get older…

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly.
We grow partially.
We are relative.
We are mature in one realm, childish in another.

The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
 ― Anaïs Nin

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Apple Blog News Hardware

Moving from Android to iPhone 6S : First Impressions

I recently moved back from using a Samsung Note 2 for almost 3 years to a brand new iPhone 6S plus phone. Before my Note 2 I had a iPhone going back all the way to the original iPhone.

Why did I originally move to Android ?

Mainly because of the big screen and me being a voracious ‘binge sf reader’. iPhones didn’t offer large size screens at that time, and my eyes are having more and more difficulty reading tiny texts. Using a large screen and larger sized fonts on the Kindle app solved that problem for me and converted me to the big phablet phones.

Also, I became bored with my iPhone. Everything I could want was in there, but all the settings have been pre-selected by someone else. I wanted to see what I could do more with an Android.

While I definitely enjoyed tinkering with every Android setting possible, there came a time when I wanted to move back, especially when the iPhone 6 came out with the large screen variant.

The reasons why I moved back to an iPhone 6S Plus

  • The slowness of my existing phone: After using my android phone for almost 3 years, it became so very slow that I wanted to throw it at the wall. Having your phone ring and not being able to answer the call because the swipe you make takes 20 seconds to be recognised (and the caller has already hung up) is a major issue for me. Starting up your camera and waiting 10 seconds for it to come up ? Too much. I know that I could get some speed back by reinstalling, but really, this is not how it should work.
  • Not getting the 4G network: only 3G was possible. This is slowwww when you know that 4G is out there if you have the right phone.
  • No upgrade : almost every iphone gets an upgrade to the latest iOS for several years after. Not so with Samsung phones, which, due to the extra stuffing Samsung puts in, gets -maybe- one OS upgrade, and then almost a year after the upgrade originally came out. Then they promise another one, but never deliver. Anybody wanting to go for an Android phone, take a Motorola or Nexus phone, they upgrade easily.

Things that I noticed immediately on my iPhone

I’ve put a positive or negative score next to each item, to indicate how ‘bad’ I feel this is.

  • (–) No individual sound levels for sounds are available (eg. the alarm clock and the ringer share the same volume) !
  • (—) Worse, a bug that makes it that when you select ‘no sound’ for the alarm, only vibrate, the vibrate does not work!
  • (+++) The blazing speed of the new A9 chip !!
  • (+) Using 4G instead of 3G is nice, but to my surprise it is only a little bit smoother.
  • (+++) Integration with iTunes and Mac OS X in general is just so smooth and it. just. works. Photos sync, music syncs…
  • (-) Still no sd card integration, you must pay a premium for using the integrated memory, but I knew this already
  • (+) “Hey siri” works, but I don’t use it too much, not yet integrated in my old mind.
  • (++) Logging into your phone with the touch of your finger – nice !
  • (+++) Quickly checking the picture you have just taken – bliss !

Honestly, the thing that I could hardly believe was the alarm clock volume that is not separate from the ringer volume.

This new phone of mine can do just about anything, yet the alarm clock sound is stupidly fixed to the same volume as the ringer sound ! I kept looking for a setting that I missed, but no, forums confirm that this is not possible with the default alarm clock. It’s linked to the ringer volume.

I’m definitely not the only one having this problem… and meanwhile, in Android each app has it’s own volume setting.

Sure, there are plenty of third party apps out there that do, as well as workarounds. But really, for this expensive piece of integrated hardware and software to not have a user-optimised ‘John Ive’-fixed-it-for-you-way of doing this is beyond the pale.

Conclusion

I’m quite happy with my new iPhone 6S, it has wondrous new features and incomparable speed to my old phone, yet at the same time I’m stumped that basic things like individual sound volume didn’t get fixed or better said, *still* haven’t been fixed. All in all, it’s still a big improvement over my old phone and I enjoy using it every day, hopefully for the next few years !

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Blog News

UP24 and why I will buy a Fitbit next time

TL;DR The design flaw of the UP24 makes for a product that breaks easily and cannot be repaired. It is too expensive for what it delivers.

Last year, the second of July 2014, I bought an activity tracker from Jawbone, called the UP24. It was very stylishly made in matt black plastic. It performed well and has made me realise I need to move more. So far so good.

But now, less than a year later it is broken. The plastic is deforming at both ends, the small status light no longer works, battery charging is nearly impossible because the connector is loose and the button on the other end no longer works.

It has become just a piece of dark plastic that I will probably have to throw away. 150 euros down the drain (it currently sells for 129 euros, fyi).

My colleague, who has a Fitbit, recently broke his plastic bracelet. Rather than buying a new activity tracker, he just bought a new bracelet for about 30 euros. Still a lot of money for a plastic bracelet, but a whole lot cheaper than buying a new Fitbit.

The Fitbit itself is just a small device inside the bracelet, so he transfered it into his new bracelet. While he paid 30 euros for the bracelet, at least his is still functioning. At least he had the choice to replace it whole or in part.

I love the app, I love the functionality. But I don’t like throwing money away.

The next activity tracker will need to be sturdier, and/or be able to be repaired or have similar functionality like the Fitbit. So the next activity tracker unfortunately for Jawbone, won’t be anything from them.

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Blog News

Surface Pro 3 Review

I’ve been using a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 ( a 2in1 hybrid tablet/laptop pc ) for a few months now, and I thought this would be a good time to share some feedback.

The Surface Pro 3 I bought is equipped with an Intel Core i5 CPU, 256 GB SSD and 8 GB ram. I chose this version because I wanted a good CPU that will last me a year or 3, and enough disk space to comfortably store stuff. It’s the laptop that I tote with me just about everywhere.

Here are some bullet points that capture my feelings towards it:

– WEIGHT : it’s incredibly light, my backpack feels almost empty, especially compared to when I take my (2011) Apple Macbook Pro. The current Macbook Pro weighs a lot less, and against a Macbook Air the weight difference is almost negligible ( Surface 3 is 2.42 pounds (with keyboard) against the Air’s 2.96 pounds). It’s a handy carrying size.

– SCREEN : the screen is big enough and with a high enough DPI to really make your pictures and movies ‘pop’. I love it.

– DRAWING : I originally bought the Surface Pro 3 for the included N-Trig pen, as I wanted to take notes, and I always wanted to learn how to properly draw. I’ve found out that I’m not using it as much as I want to, although note taking works fine it’s something that I will have to get used to. I’ve bought Clip Studio Paint to draw with, which works fine if you want to freeform draw. But what I’m really looking for is a ‘webdesigner’ vector drawing program that is usable with gestures and touch. On the mac I would go for iDraw, Artboard or Sketch. On Windows 8 I can’t really find a similar program except for Inkscape and the now-defunct Microsoft Design which isn’t fully touch-compliant. Adobe Illustrator or the now defunct Fireworks seem good alternatives, but they cost too much for my limited usage of them.

– WINDOWS 8.1 : using it with Touch it now makes sense. Suddenly everything is much more intuitive. I didn’t really understand how to work Windows 8.1 until I started using it on a touch-capable laptop. It all makes sense : the charms, the swipe up or down, swipe from left to get to your previous app – it all works beautifully. I even started swiping the screen on my mac (to my great frustration). Touch really adds an intuitive dimension, and I for one am waiting for Apple to add it to their laptops.

– HARDDISK SIZE : 256GB for an SSD is plenty of space. Although it is filled up for about half of it’s size already, now that most programs are installed, there should not be a lot of extra disk space needed, bar a few games now and then. I’ve bought a Sandisk 128 GB memory card from amazon on which I store music, movies and some less-frequently used software. If I need the soft I move it first to the SSD – launching from there is very slow, but that is probably more due to the micro sd card.

– PERFORMANCE : I really can’t fault the performance of the Surface, there are no hiccups, everything runs smoothly, even QGIS and a few games on it. The i5 Surface has a Intel 4400 graphics card. While some older graphic-intensive games do work (Fallout 3, Divinity Original Sin), in general they make the fan go on and the Surface gets really hot. You can certainly play games (a few of the best can be found in the Windows store AND are adapted for touch), but it’s best to limit yourself to some less graphic intensive games.

– KEYBOARD : the clip-on keyboard really should be integrated in the price – without one, you are buying an over-priced tablet. With one, the ensemble of tablet + keyboard is still pricey but you suddenly have a good laptop as well. The keyboard is ok, the keys have a bit of a good give and I would not want to work on this keyboard day and night like I would with my macbook pro, but they suffice well for travelling.

– BUGS: there were some initial bugs (not sleeping, not waking, iffy wifi connectivity) that were not immediately solved which garnered quite a bad press. Since then there have been several firmware releases that have solved the majority of the bugs. I only experienced the limited wifi issue in the beginning, but after an update this bug went away. However, it still (very infrequently) comes up and the only solution is to reboot the system (which goes fairly fast, but is still a hassle for such a pricey beast as this one).

My current conclusion :

All in all, I’m very happy with my purchase. It is a very fine fully featured travelling computer with enough space to store all your stuff in. I absolutely love the intuitive way of working with a touch display and hope that Windows 10 will keep this functionality (or I won’t be upgrading). I like Windows 8.1 in it’s Touch-enabled version quite a lot more than on a regular laptop, but in all honesty I still prefer the Apple desktop as I have more experience with that and it makes more sense to me.

If Apple would add a touch screen to their new or future macbook (one that I can draw or write upon with a pen) that would probably be my next buy instead of a Surface 4. Since that won’t be the case for quite some time or maybe for ever, I will continue using my very nice 2-in-1 hybrid tablet / laptop.