Orthogonal Thought

Fall Television Season 2018 Grid

Michael Chu — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 15:22:13 +0000

As usual, the new shows are in italics and shows to be recorded are in color (with green and blue for my two different DVRs). All times are Eastern / Pacific. Central Time would be one hour before the listed time.

Here are the previous year's schedules for comparison: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

(more…)

Fall Television Season 2017 Grid

Michael Chu — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 01:00:39 +0000

Here are the previous year's schedules for comparison: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

(more…)

Wikipedia - Betteridge's Law of Headlines, epicaricacy

Michael Chu — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 08:17:34 +0000

Betteridge's Law of Headlines - humorous adage that states "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
epicaricacy - apparently there is an English word for schadenfreude! (finding pleasure in the misfortune of others)

Prevent Windows 10 Professional from rebooting my computer in the middle of the night

Michael Chu — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 03:37:10 +0000

Since upgrading to Windows 10 on all my home machines, I have found my computers restarted in the middle of night due to Microsoft's highly aggressive automatic updates. I wasn't able to find a way to do anything except manually delay a reboot. This is bad news for my servers which I do not want restarted randomly and also bad news for my desktop since I often leave work unfinished and work at random hours. I finally found a setting in the Local Group Policy Editor that appears to be what I need: "No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations"

(more…)

Fall Television Season 2016 Grid

Michael Chu — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 06:00:04 +0000

Another year, another TV season to map out. Here is this year's fall television season grid.

Like the last few grids, the new shows are in italics and shows to be recorded are in color (with green and blue for my two different DVRs). All times are Eastern / Pacific. Central Time would be one hour before the listed time.

Here are the previous year's schedules for comparison: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

(more…)

Windows 10 Shortcut/Hotkeys

Michael Chu — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 09:54:30 +0000

Here are the Windows 10 shortcut keys that I'm aware aware of.

Window	Toggle Start menu
Window+[1 to 0]	Run 1st app in taskbar (or nth app where 0 is the tenth app)
Window+A	Open action center
Window+B	Highlight notification area
Window+C	Cortana listening mode
Window+D	Toggle show Desktop
Window+E	Launch Explorer
Window+H	Open Share pane
Window+I	Open Settings app
Window+K	Open Connect pane (connect to wireless displays and audio devices)
Window+L	Lock screen
Window+M	Switch to desktop and minimize all open windows
Window+O	Lock device orientation
Window+P	Open Project (connect to external displays/projectors)
Window+R	Display Run dialog box
Window+S	Launch Cortana search
Window+T	Cycle through apps on the taskbar
Window+U	Launch Ease of Access Center
Window+V	Cycle through notifications
Window+X	Open advanced menu in the lower-left corner of the screen
Window+Z	Open app-specific command bar
Window+Enter	Launch Narrator
Window+Spacebar	Switch input language and keyboard layout
Window+Tab	Open Task view
Window+[,]	Peek at desktop
Window+[+]	Zoom in
Window+[-]	Zoom out
Window+Esc	Close Magnifier
Window+Left	Dock active window to the left half of the monitor
Window+Right	Dock active window to the right half of the monitor
Window+Up	Maximize active window vertically and horizontally
Window+Down	Minimize/restore active window
Window+Shift+Up	Maximize active window vertically
Window+Shift+Down	Minimize/restore active window vertically
Window+Shift+Left	Move active window to the monitor on the left. (Multiple monitors.)
Window+Shift+Right	Move active window to the monitor on the right. (Multiple monitors.)
Window+Home	Minimize/restore all nonactive windows
Window+PrintScreen	Take a picture of the screen and place it in the Computer->Pictures->Screenshots folder
Window+Ctrl+Left/Right/td>	Switch to the next / previous virtual desktop
Window+Ctrl+D	Create new virtual desktop
Window+Ctrl+F4	Close current virtual desktop
Window+?	Launch Windows Feedback app

(more…)

Windows 10 and OneNote 2010 (Window+S Shortcut/Hotkey Not Working - FIXED!)

Michael Chu — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 09:29:07 +0000

I use OneNote 2010's screen clipping feature a lot. It's a lot faster for me to hit the Window+S keys and immediately start a freeform rectangle clipping than to use the Windows Screen Clipper utility. However, with Windows 10 (and Windows 8 apparently), pressing Window+S loads Cortana's search bar instead.

My workaround (for now) is to disable the shortcut for Cortana Search by editing the registry and adding a String Value of "DisabledHotKeys" = "S" to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.

(more…)

Fall Television Season 2015 Grid

Michael Chu — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 06:00:24 +0000

Here is this year's fall television season grid.

Here are the previous year's schedules for comparison: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

(more…)

Fixing SONOS "Unable to play" song / "Unable to connect" to local music library problem on Windows 7

Michael Chu — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:52:35 +0000

In general, I've been quite pleased with my Sonos units, but I've been plagued with a problem accessing my personal music library for more than a few days at a time. I think i have a fix for my problems now.

I run the Sonos application on a Windows 7 machine which I use as a file server and media server (running a variety of transcoding software for various devices around the house). My music library is stored on a local drive on that machine (this detail is probably unimportant as Sonos never accesses the library locally and always uses the network share for the library). My first problem was the Error 900 problem which occurs when the stack size of the network server is too small to buffer the data (or something). The solution was to use regedit (Start->Run->regedit.exe) and modify key:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanServer\Parameters\IRPStackSize
from the default value of 15 (decimal) to either 18 or 24 (decimal). I upped mine to 24 and it got rid of the Error 900 problem, but I would still routinely lose connection to the music library. (See Sonos Error 900 FAQ.)

(more…)

Fall Television Season 2014 Grid

Michael Chu — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 16:27:03 +0000

For the last four years, I've published the schedules to the fall television season and which shows I plan on watching. The previous years I've been late at preparing the TV show grid so this year I'm trying to get the grid out before the season begins. Some of the schedule hasn't been finalized by the networks yet, but this should be the current info. I haven't marked the grid for what I'm going to be watching or recording yet because I don't know yet. I'll be doing another post with that update.

Like the last couple grids, the new shows are in italics and shows to be recorded are in color (with green and blue for my two different DVRs). All times are Eastern / Pacific. Central Time would be one hour before the listed time.

Here are the previous year's schedules for comparison: 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

Update August 22, 2014 at 11:50AM: I marked the shows I know I'm definitely recording. Basically, they are the ones I'm currently watching plus a couple new shows I know I'll definitely want to watch (The Flash, Gotham, Agent Carter). I need to find out more about the other new shows to decide if I want to record them. My general strategy is to record the ones that look promising and if the initial reviews are good, then I'll catch up. If they aren't good, then I won't bother to watch the recordings.

Update September 1, 2014 at 11:00PM: I added several shows that were missing from the grid and marked some more shows for recording.

Monday

	8:00pm	8:30pm	9:00pm	10:00pm
ABC	Dancing with the Stars September 15			Castle September 29
CBS	The Big Bang Theory September 22	Mom September 29	Scorpion September 22	NCIS: Los Angeles September 29
CBS	2 Broke Girls October 27	Mom September 29	Scorpion September 22	NCIS: Los Angeles September 29
CW	The Originals October 6		America's Next Top Model August 18
CW	The Originals October 6		Jane the Virgin October 13
FOX	Gotham September 22		Sleepy Hollow September 22
NBC	The Voice September 22			The Blacklist September 22
NBC	The Voice September 22			State Of Affairs November 17
ESPN	Monday Night Football September 8
HBO			Olive Kitteridge November 3
MTV				Are You the One? September 22
TRUTV				Fake Off October 27

(more…)