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How's everybody doing? My work-from-home setup involves a Macbook Pro, a CalDigit TS3+ dock, two external displays (one in portrait, one in landscape), and a couple other peripherals. Since getting the TS3+, I've noticed that OSX screws up the orientation of the external displays ~50% of the time. This inevitably results in me furiously tilting my head sideways while I try to maneuver the mouse pointer onto the Mac Display preferences for that display and fix it before my first meeting of the day starts.

I found a Stack Overflow solution that works for me. I downloaded the free Display Rotation Menu tool from Mage Software and now I can just click and change the orientation from the system menu. Should be part of the OS in these WFH days!

§1229 · December 5, 2020 · Apple, Software, Technology, Tips · Comments Off on Orienting From Home ·


My kids (9-year olds) each got a Kindle for Christmas (thanks Gramma and Grampa!). It looks like even for them to "buy" free books, this is how I had to set them up:

  • Create an Amazon account for them
  • Manage Account, 1-Click Settings
  • Turn on 1-Click for the account
  • Add an address
  • Click the link to make it the 1-Click default address
  • Make this address the billing address

After this, my kids were able to "purchase" free books (and gift cards can be added to their balance), all without requiring a credit card number. Thanks, Amazon for making this so simple! 🙂

§1049 · December 31, 2013 · Kids, Tips · Comments Off on Set up your kids with a Kindle ·


A simple vector image of a camera
I kind of forgot about the idea of writing in my blog so that I can find the answers again via Google. Well here's a quick one: How to backup the entire contents of your webcam (I own a Sony HDR-XR150) to a "Camera Archive Folder" on OSX.

  1. Open up iMovie
  2. Go to "File > Import from Camera" or the click big camera button under the Project Library pane
  3. Click the "Archive All" button beside "Camera: Sony HDR-XR150"
  4. Choose a location to save the entire contents of your camera (I use portable hard drives)

After doing this, you'll have a "Camera Archive Folder" where you can import movies into iMovie for your editing pleasure.

Screenshot of iMovie and the Archive All button

Screenshot of iMovie and the Archive All button

§1037 · January 2, 2012 · Technology, Tips, Video · 1 comment ·


[clipart]Cameron Adams decided to benchmark Flash, SVG, Canvas and HTML5 using a particle engine he created. Not surprising (to me anyway), the SVG scores were the worst of the bunch. This stands to reason: does each particle really need to be a DOM element? Nonetheless, I decided to see what I could do to make the SVG scores suck less. I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to also teach some techniques.

Update: Added some browser scores for Nov 2011

Read the rest of this entry ...

§757 · March 22, 2010 · Software, SVG, Technology, Tips, Web · 21 comments · Tags: , , ,


[clipart]I came across the MIX 10k Coding Challenge on the weekend, and on a whim I decided to submit one of my old SVG demos to the contest. The 10k challenge's tagline is "What could you create for the Web if you had only 10 kilobytes of code?". The rules didn't explicitly say I could use pure SVG, they mention SVG/Canvas in the context of HTML5 only, but I thought I'd give it a shot. It's in the spirit of the contest, after all. At the very least it would encourage Microsoft to clarify the rules and at the very best it would be accepted and the rules updated to allow pure SVG applications. Looks like it was my lucky day. Read the rest of this entry ...

§551 · January 14, 2010 · JavaScript, Microsoft, Software, SVG, Technology, Tips, Web · 4 comments · Tags: , , , ,