Category: Articles - Page 3 - Eric Cheng
Eric Cheng

Category: Articles

Default webloc files don't allow changes to Open with

Changing the Mac OS X default app for .webloc files to Google Chrome

I sometimes like to save web locations as files when it makes sense to bookmark in my file system rather than in a browser’s Bookmarks Manager or in a text document. On Macs, dragging a webpage icon from a browser to Finder creates a file with the extension “.webloc”; Annoyingly, regardless of how one’s default ...

Tuning the MSI Stealth GS65 Laptop for Less Heat and Fan Noise

MSI Stealth GS65 laptop owners will notice that they run hot, and the fan kicks in pretty aggressively (and loudly!). If you're OK tinkering with Windows tools, can you make the laptop run more efficiently (cooler/quieter), and set up a secondary power profile that makes it almost silent, while retaining all of the GPU power.

Alfred + lolcate: a first attempt at a Spotlight replacement for Macs that supports network volumes

The only utility I miss after switching back to a Mac from Windows is Everything (search) by voidtools. It is a blazingly-fast file and folder indexer that provides a better-than-Spotlight solution to searching for files in Windows...

Watchdog kernel panics in M1 Macs running macOS X Monterey (version 12.1)

I set up a brand new MacBook M1 this week; I was excited to potentially return to Macs after years of being on Windows machines, but my machine immediately started having kernel panics after the display would turn off. The kernel panics reported "userspace watchdog timeout: no successful checkins from com.apple.WindowServer in 120 seconds".

Add COVID-19 Vaccine Record to Apple Wallet in under 60 seconds (for California residents)

It literally takes 60 seconds to add your COVID-19 vaccine record to Apple Wallet. Article is for California residents, but your state and/or hospital might also have simple paths. Do it now!

How to keep rats out of your car’s engine compartment

Rats invaded our car’s engine compartment a few years ago. Luckily, we found them before they did any damage to the engine itself, although they did remove quite a bit of the insulation under the hood (whereas a neighbor had her engine effectively destroyed by a bad infestation). After some research, I picked up an ...

USB audio interfaces and system audio levels in Windows

USB audio devices like the Go XLR usually work well, but sometimes, Windows gets in the way. These interfaces like to be at fixed levels in the OS because they offer better levels adjustments...

Adobe Lightroom Classic constantly crashing in Windows? Unplug your Android devices.

tldr; A Google Pixel 4 in USB File Transfer mode caused constant Adobe Lightroom Classic crashes in Windows.

3D-360 and 180: Why do people sometimes look too big or too small in VR?

In the VR video formats 3D-180 and 3D-360, human scale is very important. If you see an immersive video in which people look too small, it's because the camera's stereo baseline was more than 64mm (hyperstereo). If people look too big, like giants, then the camera's stereo baseline was less than 64mm (hypostereo)...