Dual booting Windows with Mac? Getting duplicate Windows Boot Manager boot entries appearing on every boot? Is your ASUS BIOS sometimes completely freezing on boot due to these boot entries building up (what a dumb bug!)? Eventually I got pretty fed up of unplugging every non-boot hard drive just to unfreeze the boot sequence, so I ventured to find a solution. After much research (there is a good thread over at tonymacx86) this is my write-up on the solution.

Here are some of the activities I used some lessons aimed at a class of school kids learning coding skills. All activities were coded using the special micro:bit version of TouchDevelop. The ability to “click-to-code” using the on-screen keyboard was excellent as an entry-level coding environment, considering that some are slow typers. However, the advanced text (actual code typing) mode was disabled on this special micro:bit version, which was a bummer for the older kids (and myself…)

Explain what NAS is? NAS is short for Network Attached Storage. It’s a server optimised for file storage. You plug one of these NAS units onto your network, and insert a couple of hard disks. You can access these disks from any computer or device over the network. Using your internet connection, the storage can also be accessed remotely from internet. NAS solutions are commonly found in all kinds of SMB/SOHO businesses, used to store data like client details, photos, documents, etc.

Work uses Macs exclusively, so it was time for me to brush up on some macOS skills. It gets a bit confusing when your jumping in between macOS, Windows, and Linux DE’s… Basics Get to know the funky symbols Control Option Command fn The command key is the primary modifier for shortcuts. (e.g. Cut, Copy, Paste) command + x command + c command + v Spotlight Command + Spacebar Text movement

Gosh, stubborn software can be the worst. As it tuns out, Air Display really isn’t compatible with Windows 10. It’s not listed as compatible, and many people have complained that the Windows 10 Upgrade Assistant had blocked them from upgrading over Air Display. Trouble is, I was already running Windows 10, and now the uninstaller would never complete – instead rolling back without a single error message. Furthermore, its driver would never remove from Device Manager – scanning for new devices would make the Air Display monitor device reappear!

Today’s BSOD of the day is APC_INDEX_MISMATCH. I encountered this during a casual Windows update today. How annoying! In particular, this update was the Windows 10 version 1607 feature update (aka build 14393), which corresponds to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. This was the very first day of the update rollout here in Australia – 3rd August. The APC_INDEX_MISMATCH “stopcode” presented itself on each attempt of a Windows Update, where each time it failed with this BSOD and consequently rolled back.

Update: Xilinx have published a support article ISE Install – Guide to Installing and Running ISE 10.1 or 14.7 on a Windows 8.1 or Window 10 machine which documents the same workaround as has been described in this YouTube video. Follow the instructions in the article, particularly the section titled “ISE 14.7 64-bit – Turning off SmartHeap”. Xilinx does not plan to release any further updates – sending the message that ISE has well and truly been discontinued.

So, what are you guys doing now? Uh, “Staring” #COMP3211

Figured out how to increase the font scale – and smoothen out the fonts – in the Spotify Linux client. It goes something like this: $ /usr/lib64/spotify-client/spotify --enable-font-antialiasing --force-device-scale-factor=1.25 Much the same arguments as from Chromium. 🙂 You can set the parameters on the application launcher by editing /usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop Exec=sh -c "spotify %U --enable-font-antialiasing --force-device-scale-factor=1.1" Make sure you restart gnome-shell – it seems to otherwise cache entries. This trick even works for the WordPress client app for desktop!

I have just completed a redesign the old Minecraft Server Dashboard website! It is something I have wanted to do for some time. About three days of work, starting from the initializr boilerplate. Enjoy.