Finding how contacts are linked via degrees of separations in LinkedIn

In the old days LinkedIn would tell you how someone is linked to you. That information is useful when you are trying to connect to a 2+ degree user and want an intro from your mutual contact.

Unfortunately, I can't find that information anymore. (As of 20200830) Is there a solution to this problem? From what I have googled, the answer is yes. What is the solution? Money -- that feature is now a paid feature.

From a Pulse post via LinkedIn on the hidding 2nd degree connections:

A few weeks ago LinkedIn changed their design. Things changed. Some good... some not that great. There's a few, but one of them that strikes me most is the fact that about 60% of your second degree connections are "hidden" in the free version of LinkedIn.

 

How to Fix the Issue with No Sound in VirtualBox with Lubuntu

 

I managed to fix my "no sound with my Lubuntu install inside VirtualBox" issue, which I will explain below. If your settings differ from mine, my solution might still work for you so give it a try anyway. I am using VirtualBox Version 6.0.8 r130520 (yes, I use a rather old version for stability), Lubuntu 19.1 Eoan, and Guest Additions 6.0.8. If you ever wonder how to check your Ubuntu/Lubuntu version, Guest Addition versions, etc., here's how: 

$ uname -a

Linux my-pc 5.3.0-23-generic #25-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 12 09:22:33 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a

Description:    Ubuntu 19.10

Codename:       eoan

$ ls /opt

net.downloadhelper.coapp  VBoxGuestAdditions-6.0.8

Your first step should be to make sure you installed the Guest Additions. For me, that didn't resolve my issue. The additional step I take is to change the audio card of my virtual machine from ICH AC97 to Intel HD. For me, that resolves the sound issue. 

Another additional wrinkle here is that I did have to reboot the machine with both audio output and input (if you are recording) enabled in the VirtualBox settings. I assume the cause is that if Lubuntu detects the audio output/input disabled, it doesn't load some audio drivers.

Good luck with your sound issue!

Playing Amazon's Version of PUBG Mobile gets Banned?

So it seems players are getting banned according to a handful of recent Amazon comments? So what to do? How to solve the problem? Honestly, this post goes pretty much exactly as my last post. So the tl;dr version is to go to the official site at Pubgmobile.com and get that version instead. For more details on how to do this, see that last post.

Anyhow, my original plan was to replace the official version of PUBG Mobile with the Amazon version now that the Season 14 Livik update is available in the Amazon Appstore. In particular, I wanted to see if my account is preserved, and if real money purchases work in Amazon's version.

Fortunately, half way into the Amazon download, I looked over the Amazon reviews and found that multiple people are mentioning about getting banned after updating and playing. Thank you to the sacrifices of these reviewers, I stop the download and just reinstall the official PUBG website version.

So, FYI, after uninstalling and reinstalling the official PUBG Mobile app, my progress is preserved. I can also get back my control layout via the cloud. However, I do have to go through and redo all my other settings like graphics options for example. Again, I play as a guest on my phone.

I did not verify that if you play the updated Amazon version you would indeed get banned -- yeah, I am not going to risk it. I can easily envision this happening though because Amazon definitely injects code into a lot of its apps so that you can make in-app purchases using Amazon coins and its payment system, and perhaps the code injection incorrectly gets flagged as a hack. If this is the case, I hope Amazon can sort it out with Tencent and have the bans reversed. To be fair, it is also possible that all the recent commenters commenting about bans are indeed cheaters, and that the new version of the game simply have improved on cheat detection.

Now, if you haven't gotten banned and purchasing is important to you, then good luck continue using the Amazon version of PUBG. Even so, you might want to wait a few weeks and let the issue (hopefully) sort out between Amazon and Tencent. If you don't do any purchases, and I do not, then I would strongly recommend that you switch over and install the official version via the official website's APK file instead.

Or, if you are like me and actually have a Chinese phone with the Chinese App Store, you can also download the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile to get around the issue. The Chinese version is treated as a different game by the phone, and so you can have both versions installed. I myself have started playing on the Chinese version on occasion. The downside of this approach is you would either need to know Chinese, or know the layouts of all the options really well so you can do without Chinese.

There are slight variations between the two versions of the game, and some menu items are moved. Nonetheless, those who played the non-Chinese version a lot should be able to get by.

Amazon's PUBG Mobile won't Update, How to Solve This?

I have been playing PUBG Mobile using Amazon Appstore's version, because I have a China Xiaomi phone with no Google Appstore. People with Amazon Android tablets like Kindle Fires also tends to use Amazon's version of the game. 

As of today, July 14, 2020, season 14 has arrived but an update has yet to arrive at the Amazon Appstore. People on the Amazon PUBG Mobile page are complaining that the game can't be updated or won't update on their kindle fire / android devices. I've only started playing this since May, but some of the reviews suggest that the Amazon Appstore's update lags the Google Appstore update all the time.

How to resolve the won't update issue

I got tired of waiting and solved the problem by updating using the APK file from the official PUBG Mobile page directly. The official site is at Pubgmobile.com, and it has the option of downloading the APK file directly.

 
So, I downloaded the APK file, and ran the apk file on my android phone to install. The game works after the install is complete and I can play with friends again. Note the APK file is just around 600MB, but when you install the file it's going to download a lot more things. If you are not familar with installing from APK file, you can usually find the APK file via some sort of file explorer program, and just click on it. It might just work if you click the apk file via your browser after you have downloaded it. You might have to allow your phone to "install from unknown source," but I trust the APK file since it's from the official PUBG page. You should install using APK files from sources that you trust.

Notes about the old Season 13 version running during season 14

• Arena in the old version (season 13) still works. So if you want to just wait on Amazon, there's that.
• Classic mode in the old version doesn't seem to work. I tried a few times, waited for over 4 minutes, and still can't connect. Some people in the Amazon PUBG mobile page commented that it does work but takes a really long time.

Notes about the Season 14 installed via APK

• I can't purchase anything. I get a message saying I can't purchase from my region. This doesn't matter to me since I've never purchased anything. But if you want to buy the season pass and whatnot, just know that installing this version won't let you do so. (See image below.)
• I do not link the game on my phone with any accounts -- i.e., I play as "guest". I can confirm, at least for this version, my character is preserved. My character and progress is still there after the update.
• The amazon app page now shows PUBG mobile as "Not from Amazon". (See image below.)
   

Here's the purchase error.

Here's the Amazon appstore page showing PUBG mobile as "Not from Amazon". If you tap on "Open", it will open the non-Amazon version of the game. However, running some of the other apps you get from Amazon, you don't need the Appstore running for the game to run.

Anyhow, happy gaming!

Remap a Key to Work Around a Broken Keyboard Key on a Windows 10 PC

While you can use Microsoft's PowerToy's Keyboard Manager to remap a key, I advocate using AutoHotKey (AHK) instead. Why? It does the same thing and more. In additional to simulate pressing a broken key with another key or a set of keystrokes, you can for example press a key and have AHK type out a string of text (perhaps your email signature), or your favorite website's url, or even have AHK directly launch your url using a browser.

In addition to remapping broken keys, you might also want to remap keys so all your laptops have a more consistent keyboard layout. I had a Samsung NC10 and the key locations are quite different from my Lenovo x61. Because of the difference and my constant use of both, I hit the wrong keys a lot. Remapping the keys of one laptop alleviates this problem.

How to set this up

But back to the more pressing problem of replacing a broken key, you will first need to install AHK. You can get AHK on their website at https://www.autohotkey.com. I have been using a very old 1.0.48.3 version (never saw the need to update), and the AHK website has a specific link to download this deprecated 1.0 version. Though I have not tested this with the newer version, I would think the newer version should work just as fine.

After you have installed AHK, write a script to specify the key remapping. One way to use AHK is to write a script, run it, and instruct AHK to constantly monitor your keypresses and act as directed. Here is one of my remap key scripts. To use it, you would save it as a text file (say using notepad) and save it with the .ahk suffix. I remap the end key to function like insert key, and the insert key to function like the end key -- because of the NC10 vs X61 issue I mentioned about. Note the first 3 lines are comments and is not necessary for the script to work. On the fourth line, all it tells AHK to do is if the "end" key is press, send the "insert" key instead.

    ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
    ;; Remap end and insert key for laptop
    ;; Note it is possible to remap via registry
    ;;   also: http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/misc/Remap.htm
    end::insert
    insert::end

If you want to run the script at Windows startup, you can create a shortcut with the following syntax, and put it in your Startup folder.

"C:\Programs\AutoHotkeyAutoHotkey.exe" "c:\bin\KeysRemap.ahk"

For Windows 10, the startup folder is located at the following location. Remember to replace "userName" with your own username. 

C:\Users\userName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Some suggestions for what keys to use as replacement

There are surprising number of keys that I don't regularly, if ever, use. Some keys to consider: the menu key that usually located on the right side of the space bar (AppsKey), right alt (RAlt), caps lock (CapsLock), scroll lock (ScrollLock), or print screen (PrintScreen). Numpad keys might also work for you if you rarely use them. A more complete list of keys and their names is located here: https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/KeyList.htm

Concluding thought

As further advocation of using AHK, the program has a good community via its forum for support and you stand a good chance of finding help with your particular program and automations and shortcuts. I highly recommend giving it a try.

How to Check Your Gmail Storage / Google Drive Quota, 2020 Edition

Finding the page showing how much Gmail is taking up Google Drive took a while, and thus a post about this.  So, to check how much Gmail is taking up my Google Drive storage, go here: https://one.google.com/u/0/storage. 

If you are bored and need a break, feel free to read the rest of the post retelling my life story just so the post might show up higher in search results.

My story started when my Google Drive is filling up and I want to check how much of that is due to Gmail. From drive.google.com,  even though it tells me 87% of my drive is full, clicking on that link only shows me the files stored in Google Drive and their sizes. I.e., nothing about Gmail.  I vaguely recall that information used to be there, but alas, it is not relocated to elsewhere.

Googling for keywords like "google view storage breakdown" or "how much Gmail take out google drive" takes me to page like this: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-free-up-google-drive-space/. Not helpful.

Instead, to see how much Gmail is taking up your Google Drive, you need to go to the settings via Gmail.com, and at the bottom of the General settings, there's a "Manage link" that sends you to the right place. I.e., the link I noted on the first paragraph of the post.

How to Disable that Steam Sales Dialog Box that Pops up Every Time

If you are tired of that extra Steam sales dialog box that spits in your face every time you start the program, you can disable it. To do so, go to your settings via Steam -> Settings.

In the dialog box, click on "Interface" and uncheck "Notify me about additions or changes to my games, new releases, and upcoming releases." Here's a picture of that dialog box and option.

Q: You know you can turn that off right...? A: No. No I did not.

Complete Guide to Setting Up your EasyN Security/Web Camera

After storing my EasyN security ip web camera away for year, I find the need to setup it up again. It was purchased from China years ago, and like most products purchased from China, the documentation and support are poor. Nonetheless, it work well enough given the price. Here I want to document its setup and have it working with the app and working with the iSpy monitoring software that you can setup on your computer. I can also confirmed that as of April 23, 2020, the EasyN app is still being updated and works with the cam. iSpy (I use version 6.5.3.0) also works with the cam.

My model is the EasyN 10D. If you have a newer model, then this might not be as complete a guide. But since newer model has the tendency to have similar setting as their old counterparts, this guide might still be of some use to you. 

Steps to setup the camera to work via Wifi

First. Reset the camera. There's a nub you poke on the camera to reset it to factory setting.

The camera has both LAN and Wifi abilities. I prefer the Wifi option just to have one less cable to worry about. To set up the Wifi, you will need to use an ethernet cable and connect it between the camera and your computer, to access the camera's device settings via a browser on your computer.

The default IP address of the model is 192.168.1.126. To access the camera settings, connect your ethernet cable between the camera and your computer. Given the default IP, you should set your computer's LAN to use 192.168.1.1 / 255.255.255.0. I don't believe the default gateway matters with two devices being directly connected, but set it to 192.168.1.1 can't hurt.

When I was setting this up, the first cable I used doesn't work. But retrying with another cable works. So keep that in mind. I think the problematic cable might just be a really old one that wasn't twisted, or maybe just broken.

To access the camera's web settings interface to change settings, use a web browser and go to 192.168.1.126:81. By default, your login and password are "admin" and "admin".

In some situation, usually with Wifi networks, your admin might have a mac filter set for security reasons. After you have gain access to the camera's web settings interface, the LAN's mac address is listed in one of the menu screens but not the Wifi's mac address. The web settings interface just shows the mac address of the current network.

If your network has mac address filter set, you either have to disabled the filter temporary so you can get DHCP to connect and then check the mac address, or you need some other way to do this. The way I managed to get the Wifi's mac address is go through the Wifi setup for the camera, and at the every end, while I still have the ethernet cable connected and I'm still accessing the web settings interface via the LAN, I go back to the web setting interface menu that shows my mac address. At that point, it actually shows the Wifi's mac address instead.

Another thing to note is that the wireless settings only allows for DHCP, whereas the LAN settings seems to allow for both DHCP and static IP with DHCP being the default. In the words of the webcam firmware: "Automatically obtain IP" vs "Manually set the IP". This makes me suspect that if you use the LAN interface and plug the webcam into the router that has DHCP, you might actually get a different IP than 192.168.1.126 by default, and you will have to check your router's setting to figure out what IP is assigned to the webcam.

Steps to setup the camera to work with the EasyN App

The name of the app is EasyN. Once you have download the app, you can add a camera. For me, the app was able to find the camera on the network, and setup is very straight forward.

Steps to setup the camera to use with iSPY

You would want to do this if you like the ability to see a history of what went on via your computer, as the EasyN app isnt' all that great. iSPY is great in that you can setup recording on motion, scheduling recording time, see what your camera's seeing via the program, and look through thumbnails of all the recorded videos so you can review each day if anything odd happened. The downside is that the way to access the camera is via image snapshot, and so the resolution and frame rate of the "video" are quite low. 

The best feature for using iSPY is that you can save what's captured in a Dropbox folder and have it sync to the cloud. Again, the quality of the videos are a bit low, but if you have an SD card in your camera as well, you can go back and check the higher quality captures easily knowing the time of the video.

The setup is relatively straightforward, but if leave a question via comment if you are having trouble. I check them and can reply and update the article if needed. The key settings that most people will have trouble with is the capturing settings. I suspect ONVIF might work as well, but I wasn't able to. Instead, I settle on using JPEG URL as the way to capture images. You will need to modify the URL in the picture with your own login and password. And you will also need to change the IP address to your camera's IP. In case you are having issue with the image, the JPEG URL is: 

http://admin:password@192.168.1.123:81/tmpfs/auto.jpg

Note that you can type the URL into your browser, and you will get a JPG of what the camera saw when you made the HTTP request.

Final reminders after you have setup the camera

Now that you've got your EasyN security/web camera working, here's a few things I've (re) learned using it.

My camera is white and so heat from direct sun is less of an issue. That's not relevant if you are putting the camera somewhere shady, but buy a white security camera otherwise. For me, the camera gets sunlight from the morning to around 1:30pm, and the sunlight is not an issue.

You should write down on a piece of paper and tape it to the camera the two mac address of the camera, the default passwords, and the default IPs. That way, the next time you have to reset this, you don't have to google for all the information again. Or, at least bookmark this page.

In addition to the admin account, this camera also have two other accounts (user and guest). Make sure you change the password (and ideally the login name also) of these other accounts. There's probably not much you can do to prevent the government from spying on you, but you can certainty keep out the moms and pops hackers. 

References

http://blog.coultard.com/2012/01/how-to-configure-easyn-ip-web-camera.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfTGqFAN_Jg

How to Show Random Posts with Thumbnails in Blogger

A hat tip to a post that helped me with setting up a widget to show randomized old posts on the blogger sidebar: https://www.talkofweb.com/show-random-posts-with-thumbnails-in-blogger/. If that's something you are interested in setting up, check out that post. Do note, however, of the one huge caveat if you use that code as is: 

The caveat is that with the way java script gets and displays images a "connection not secure" error is triggered. That is not something you would want even if you are blogging on a trusted platform like Blogger. I work around that by taking out the part of the code that generates the thumbnail. I.e.:

The following is what I end up using:

How to Resolve Issue with Virtual Box Copy and Paste Failing

I use Oracle's VirtualBox for my virtual machine needs. For me specifically, I still use a very old copy of Outlook running in Windows XP and clipboard sharing is important. Unfortunately, I had been having problems with copy and paste failing for the past half-year. I.e., I can't copy from the host and paste the content into programs in the virtual machine. And I can't copy from the client virtual machine and paste the content into programs in the host. If I reboot the Virtual machine, copy and pasting would work for a little while and then stopped.

Well, at least for me, the solution is to update the VirtualBox Guest Additions program. With your virtual machine running, select Devices -> Insert Guest Additions CD Image, and then install the Additions via the CD drive of your virtual machine.

I had been neglecting to update the Guest Additions in the client virtual machine while I update the VirtualBox program. Seems like eventually the version incompatibility creeps in and breaks copy and paste even though other services supported by the Additions still works fine.

How to Resolve Issue with Windows 10 Crashing at 70% When Updating to Version 1903

After lots of trail/erroring, googling, and reading, this is the solution that worked for me and allowed me to update Windows 10 to version 1903.

Download the Media Creation tool. As of October of 2019, it can be downloaded via https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10. This is the download associated with "Create Windows 10 installation media".

After the download, run the program. I am actually doing this for a Virtual Machine (Virtual Box), so I opt to create an ISO using the tool. After the ISO is created, I mount it and run the setup program associated with the ISO image. The prompts are relatively straightforward, and I just select the update option.

The program then just updates and reboots, and voila, I am upgraded to version 1903.

If I am doing this for a future update, I might need to download the tool again. The medial creation tool exe file seems to be associated specifically with version 1903. I.e., MediaCreationTool1903.exe.

Ref: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/cant-install-windows-1903-update/8b1fccf3-18f6-42c1-aeff-8add33c2f85d

How to Disable Autofill in LibreOffice Calc

This feature goes by a few names - autoinput, autocomplete, autofill. As you type, it auto completes your current cell using cell contents from nearby cells. The problem is that hitting enter midway throughwill result in the auto fill -- whether you actually want it or not.

The option to disable this varies depending on the version. To disable this for version 5.4.3.2:

How to Maybe Fix the "Task XML Contains a Value which is Incorrectly Formatted" Task Scheduler Errors

Thanks to a system restore on my Windows 8 machine to try fix some issues, I now end up with a host of new errors. Two sets of these errors are seeing the following messages when I start the Task Scheduler:

"Task microsoft compatibility appraiser: the task xml contains a value which is incorrectly formatted or out of range"
"Task license validation: the task xml contains a value which is incorrectly formatted or out of range."

After some googling, I find the following suggested fix (https://www.kapilarya.com/the-task-xml-contains-a-value-which-is-incorrectly-formatted-or-out-of-range-windows-10). I was able to get rid of the error messages after following the instruction, but my machine is still unstable and at least one of the continuing issues are related to the "Task license validation" tasks. So, use the following with care.

To eliminate the type of error messages noted above when starting the Task Manager, run regedt32 and go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\TaskCache\Tree

You should export/backup the relevant keys and back it up in case things go wrong and you have to restore them. Then, search for the name of the task that cause the error and delete the key.

Use handle.exe to Find Processes That are Locking Up Files

My automation script that downloads foreign exchange rates data and email myself the information is crapping out this past week. For whatever reason, my code to use perl to do inline edit is throwing an error about "Can't do inplace edit...."

After googling a bit, I find the following Sysinternals utilities that shows what processes might potentially be locking on the file: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/handle. I can see this being quite useful for other things as well, and therefore is making a note of it here.

Change Color of the Second Y-axis using YYAXIS in MATLAB

If you want to plot the axes themselves in different colors, here's an example that just works. You can copy and paste the code into Matlab and tinker. What I figured out is that you need to get the gca object and modify the relevant parameters.

XX = 1:10;
YY1 = rand(10,1);
YY2 = rand(10,1);

subplot(3,3,6);  % I'm doing a figure with subplot, but "figure" would work too

yyaxis left;
plot(XX,YY1,'k');
ax = gca;
ax.YAxis(1).Color = 'k';

yyaxis right;
plot(XX,YY2,'r');
ax.YAxis(2).Color = 'r';

And in case you need a reminder of the basic color coding:

           b     blue          .     point              -     solid
           g     green         o     circle             :     dotted
           r     red           x     x-mark             -.    dashdot
           c     cyan          +     plus               --    dashed  
           m     magenta       *     star             (none)  no line
           y     yellow        s     square
           k     black         d     diamond
           w     white         v     triangle (down)
                               ^     triangle (up)
                               <     triangle (left)
                               >     triangle (right)
                               p     pentagram
                               h     hexagram 

This took a while to figure out. I came across the following unanswered stackoverflow.com post (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45758444/change-color-of-the-second-y-axis-in-the-matlab-using-new-yyaxis-tool) that helped.