Outlook forces you to open links in Edge unless you tell it to your default browser (which hopefully is not Edge Chrome, or some other Chromium-based browser).
Category: Annoyances
Amazon Owes You A Refund
Last year Amazon announced they would start running ads on Amazon Prime Video starting in early 2024.
If you are still subscribed to Prime, contact your credit card provider and ask for chargebacks extending back to March 2024. This should be possible because Amazon violated their customer contract and is no longer providing the service you originally wanted. They shouldn’t be charging the same price while providing a lower grade of service. You deserve a refund.
“To continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time, starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements.”
Source: Amazon shares an update on Prime Video, introduces limited ads
The News Contrives To Frighten You
This is not intended to be a political post – this post explains how the news media is attempting to manipulate you again. I despise seeing people misled and outraged by the news media, regardless of their political beliefs. Continue reading
The Real Reason Congress Wants to Ban TikTok
If you can’t compete, litigate.
A Solution to Link to Windows Disconnecting
UPDATE: The issue with the dropping connection appears to have been fixed.
Make sure you:
- update to the latest version of Phone Link on your PC (run Windows Update)
- update to the latest version of Link to Windows (app & service) on Android (update from Play Store)
- grant necessary permissions to Link to Windows (app & service) on Android
- ensure Link to Windows (app & service) on Android are not battery optimized
You might need to remove and add back your PC to Link to Windows (app & service) on Android.
———
I love accessing my Android phone apps from my PC but the screen mirroring option kept dropping, making it unusable. After trying many things I finally uninstalled the latest update fom Android and it is now working again. No more disconnections. The version I’m using on Android is shown above.
Update:
Link to Windows seems to have been automatically updated on my Android and the connection started dropping again.
Follow these steps to re-install the (as of now) working version of Link to Windows (as referenced in the post above):
- First, a bit of clarification:
- “Phone Link” is the Windows app that runs on your PC.
- “Link to Windows” is the Android app that runs on your phone.
- Uninstall Link to Windows updates on your Android phone by going into Link to Windows and selecting the Uninstall Updates option from the menu in the upper right corner.
- Unlink your Android device (see here for directions).
- You might also need to stop and wipe the storage on the Link to Windows app and service on your phone. To do this go into each one’s properties, stop the app or service, click Storage, and wipe the cache and storage for the Link to Windows app the Link to Windows service.
- I was unable to find the Android version mentioned in the post above from Microsoft so I re-installed it on my phone from this link.
- Note: the source for this link is obviously not Microsoft so please take appropriate precautions by running virus scans before installing (I do this for things I install from Microsoft also – trust but verify).
- After installing from the link above, go to Link to Windows app properties on your Android device and ensure all necessary permissions are added back. Link to Windows will not work until you do this (you’ll have to log back into the Link to Windows Android app again).
- If your PC is still showing up in the Link to Windows Android app you might need to stop and wipe the storage on the Link to Windows app and service on your phone.
- To do this go into each one’s properties, stop the app or service, click Storage, and wipe the cache and storage for the Link to Windows app the Link to Windows service.
- Re-link your phone back to your PC using the Link to Windows app (you’ll need to scan a code that Phone Link will generate on your PC).
- At this point the connection should remain stable when you view your Android screen from your PC.
If you need to remove and re-install the Phone Link app on your PC follow these directions:
- Open PowerShell as Administrator
- Run this command:
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.YourPhone -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage - Phone Link will be removed from your PC.
- Re-install Phone Link from the Microsoft Web Store – this link will pull up Phone Link in the web Store experience.
- NOTE: Clicking install from the web Store experience will invoke the Store client in Windows, enabling you to re-install Phone Link on your PC. I’ve tried searching for Phone Link directly in the the Windows Store client but I’ve never been successful in finding it. So annoying.
- At this point the Phone Link app should be fully re-installed on your PC. Now follow the instructions above to re-install the working version of Link to Windows on your Android phone and get things reconnected.
Oy, what a pain in the tuchas.
Jared Bernstein, Chair of US Council of Economic Advisers, can’t explain why Gov borrows its own money
This video left me speechless. Everyone needs to see it.
Probably the most frightening clip you’ll ever watch on the people in charge of the US economy.
Source: Jared Bernstein, Chair of Council of Economic Advisers, can’t explain why Gov borrows its own Money!
How we end up with big, ugly commit histories and how to prevent having one
Lots of common sense stuff but also some useful tips…
- Do your dirty stuff inside your own fork.
- When you are on a feature branch, always rebase or pull –rebase.
- To make the history look more meaningful and modular, make use of git add -p and git rebase –i
- Never rebase any shared branch onto your feature branch and force push to any shared branch.
How To Program A Ford Focus Remote Key Fob 2008 – 2011
Bookmarking this for my wife’s old car…
- Unlock all doors using the power door lock switch on door panel.
- Turn ignition from OFF to ON 8 times within 10 seconds, with the 8th time ending in ON. Door locks will cycle to confirm programming mode. (*ON is as far forward as you can turn without starting the vehicle*)
- Within 20 seconds press any button on first keyless remote. Door locks will cycle to confirm programming.
- Within 20 seconds, press any button on a second keyless remote. Door locks will cycle again to confirm programming. (*If you only have one remote to program skip step 4*)
- Turn ignition to OFF. Locks will again cycle to indicate end of programming mode.
Source: How To Program A Ford Focus Remote Key Fob 2008 – 2011 – YouTube
Considerations for AI Opt-Out
The Web already has a way for sites to opt-out of automated crawling: the robots.txt file. This makes perfect sense – which is why it will likely never happen.
Source: Considerations for AI Opt-Out
The Last Straw
I love the privacy of the Brave browser but a couple of things made me decide to switch back to Firefox:
- More and more sites seem to be dropping support for Brave. That seems very odd because Brave is based on chromium and Google Chrome is one of the most popular browsers out there. This means that site developers are proactively detecting Brave and blocking its use. The reason is probably because Brave is one of the most effective browsers for blocking user tracking.
- Brave is based on Chromium which Google controls. Google is using its Chromium code to treat users like children, monopolize browser behavior, and break the web.
- Chromium’s approach to treating you like a child was the final straw for me. Turning off “safe browsing” prevents you from downloading anything. Ridiculous.
I still plan to use Brave Search since it’s the most private search engine and doesn’t censor its results.
