Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Snow, Ice anda dopey dog

My dopey dog, SamTheDog, thinks winter is the best ever - the whole world is covered in fresh, new edible crunchy!  When he was younger his water bowl would freeze solid and make a puck-shaped ice disk.  He'd chase that around the deck with abandon and joy, or at lest until it slipped under the deck rails into the yard.

During the summer, his favorite treat wa an ice cube fresh from the tray. Kerrunch, nom-nom-nom!  I doubt it was good for his teeth, but he certainly enjoyed them!

Surprisingly I captured a few on video with the cell phones:



As he gets older, he's more interested in just sniffing the snow and taking a few licks at it.  But my dopey SamTheDog loved his icepucks!



-  Will England 

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Buttons and turning on the AKG Y50BT

THe AKG Y50BT Bluetooth headphones are very nice cans with great sound and a fantastic battery
AKG Y50BT Headphones
life.  However, they are sorely lacking in documentation - so here is my take on the 'fine manual' about operating all the buttons, pairing and more.

On the Left earpiece is a MicroUSB B port to charge the phones.That's it.

On the Right earpiece are all the buttons. Starting from the top:

  • Button labeled '+' - increase volume 
  • Black button with a dot - One press for pause, / play two presses for track forward, three presses for track backward.  And they mean *quick* taps.
  • 3.5mm hole - to plug in the headphones for a non-bluetooth experience.
  • Black unlabeled button - power on, power off, pair.
    • To power on the headphones rapidly tap one time the unlabeled button.
      • Fast flashing blue light indicates it's on, and unpaired
      • Slow flashing blue light indicates it's on and paired.
      • Slow flashing red light indicates  low battery.
  • Black button looking thing - not a button but the microphone!
Hope this helps someone else out -- remember, *quick* tap on the button to turn it on / off.

-- Will England

References: 

Saturday, January 05, 2019

Netflix not working with OpenDNS / Cicso Umbrella?

Netflix can get caught up in the blocking many families use to restrict visiting illicit movie sites by
Blocked Netflix Content Domains by OpenDNS
their kids.  You'll find that movies in Netflix spin the orange circle for a while before throwing out an error code, Netflix error code M7037-1101.  You can't play any Netflix movies on Chrome or on Safari.    This error code  means your local machine cannot connect to the Netflix servers to play the movie.

It's quite simple to resolve when Netflix won't play because of OpenDNS filtering - go into your Umbrella control panel and whitelist:

  • services.wmdrm.windowsmedia.com (the Silverlight player)
  • netflix.com (just in case)
  • nflxvideo.net (their content distribution network)
  • nflximg.net (more of their content network)
Within 2 or 3 minutes of whitelisting these domains, your Netflix will be working again and you won't have to worry about error code M7037-1101!

-- Will England