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Facebook Connect Meteor 1.3 Cordova Android and iOS Build

By | meteor, Tips | No Comments

Add the following to your Meteor application for Facebook Login compatability with the latest 1.3 update.

[raw] App.configurePlugin(‘cordova-plugin-facebook4’, {
APP_ID: ‘XXXXX’,
APP_NAME: ‘XXXXXX’
});
[/raw]

Finally add this to your cordova packages.  Edit .meteor/cordova-plugins

[raw] cordova-plugin-facebook4@https://github.com/jeduan/cordova-plugin-facebook4.git#5f66097f998f64cdf8594965f8d058b5da88fadd
[/raw]

Ubuntu 16 LTS Extend Battery Life and Improvement Tips

By | Configurations, Tips | No Comments

These quick changes increased my battery life from 5-6 hours to well over 10 hours with a Thinkpad X250.  I would highly recommend these for any mobile Ubuntu install.

[raw]

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw

(For thinkpads continue with)

sudo apt-get install tp-smapi-dkms acpitool

[/raw]

Now update your TLP file with

[raw]gksudo gedit /etc/default/tlp[/raw]

Finally Add Powertop

[raw]

sudo apt-get install powertop

sudo powertop –auto-tune

sudo powertop

[/raw]

Reboot

Can’t deploy to Modulus with Meteor 1.3

By | meteor, Tips | No Comments

If you’re having trouble deploying your Meteor app with the latest 1.3 update there’s a documented but not well known fix for making sure that your latest applications run on modulus.   

https://help.modulus.io/customer/portal/articles/1647770-using-meteor-with-modulus

Modulus now requires that meteor apps use the meteor setting under the ministration tab as the deployment environment. If you do not update the setting with the new Meteor 1.3 update you will not be able to play your application.

All deployments now require the NPM module modulus@next

[raw]npm -g install modulus@next[/raw]

Why you should buy an NVIDIA Shield now.

By | Flash Review | No Comments

The latest from NVIDIA, the Shield has a little known feature called GameStream.  This is a first of its kind allowing you to seamlessly stream PC gaming titles direct to your TV via the Shield.  You’ll need GeForce hardware and the latest GeForce Experience installed.  The Shield supports 4K – so don’t think about using anything less than a GeForce 980Ti. My personal preference is the GeForce 980Ti G1 gaming.  Lag compensation is impressive to say the least and as long as you have current hardware you won’t notice any input lag.  

The Shield is truly a one of a kind, unique device.  Allowing PC gamers to finally easily enjoy the latest titles from the comfort of your big screen.  You can play both on a Shield controller or plugin a wireless or wired mouse and keyboard.  

Stream is directly integrated with its own app running on the Shield.  

Do yourself a favor now and go pickup a Shield for only $179 on Amazon.  You won’t regret it.  

Klipsch Promedia 2.1 Review

By | Flash Review | No Comments

Starting a review with “although made in 2009” may be appropriate in this case, there are unfortunately few consumer 2.1 THX certified options still available on the market left to review.  The Klipsch Promedia 2.1 is a formidable option, well suited for a small home cinema on a budget or a solid speaker system for your desktop or gaming needs.  The bass is loud and profound.  You can easily upset the neighbors, or control the bohemth bass by a turn of the controls on the left speaker.  Purispts might hate the fact there is no remote but I don’t find it to be an issue when paired with an NVIDIA Shield which has speaker control built into the remote.  Don’t hesitate now as who knows how long these systems will be available as these speakers are definitely “legacy”. At this point.  If you don’t need glitz and glamour options or more than 2.1 – there really isn’t any other option.  The only competitor is possibly the Razer Leviathan.  Read more details on the Razer system and my impressions here.  BestBuy will price match this item, which is currently listed at $149.99 – but you should be able to price match if you watch the deals.  

daily driver

What’s your daily driver? |A Mac/PC/Linux Operating System Shootout

By | Configurations, Linux | No Comments

Linux Distro of Choice (GNOME Ubuntu 16.04) – best home desktop experience on Linux today.  Competes with LinuxMint, but without all the mintyness.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/daily-live/pending/

Windows Distro of Choice: Windows 10 Enterprise, Available with FreeBiz Spark MSDN Access

Mac Distro of Choice : Hackintosh 10.11.4 / Clover Bootloader

What’s your daily driver?

z87n-wifi Haswell Mavericks Hackintosh Install Guide GTX760

By | Hackintosh | No Comments

This guide covers how to install the latest OS X Mavericks General Master seed on a Gigabyte z87-N wifi motherboard with a 4870k Haswell processor and Gigabyte GTX760.

Files Required:

OS X Mavericks GM Seed – http://apple.com/developer

myHack Beta 8

Multibeast 5.5.2

Z87n-wifi mavericks 10.9 gtx760 install guide hackintosh

Geek bench score : 18885

Spheroid case
I’m using an H55 water cooler mounted with the radiator and fan above

Format drive mbr
Download mavericks gm master
Run my hack selecting gm master from applications folder
Create 10.9 install disk
Answer no to mbr support

Bios – default, disable secure boot, disable uefi , disable integral graphics
Boot flags installer
GraphicsEnabler=0 dart

Boot flags first boot

GraphicsEnabler=0 dart=0 -v -x -f

Setup account

Reboot with
GraphicsEnabler=0 dart=0 -v -f

Install multibeast 5.5.1 with
Dust free
Audio
Networking
GraphicsEnabler No

Reboot with

dart=0 -v -f

Add dart=0 to smb

Graphic

Switch to second display port

 

Zotac ID91 Hackintosh Yosemite Clover Install Guide

By | Interest | One Comment

This guide is written to get you up and running with the latest OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 with Clover bootloader.  I used to use MultiBeast but it took a while to learn Clover, however the advantages are worth the learning curve.  This guide should get you up and running on a Zotac ID91 – a perfect <$400 hackintosh!

Pre-Requisites:

  • Download latest OS X Yosemite on a Mac – or find it on the bitttorrents
  • 8GB or greater USB Key
  • Software:

Latest Clover bootloader from Sourceforge

1.  Format an 8gb or greater USB Key with 1 partition – GUID boot loader – and OS X Journled partition.

2.  Run the following – replacing XXX with the location of your USB Drive.
[raw]sudo /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/XXX/ –applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app –no interaction[/raw]

This will extract Yosemite onto your USB Key

3.  Install Clover – with following settings

Now we must mount the EFI Partition and add our Extensions to the 10.10 kexts folder to make things work ootb.

To mount your EFI Partition, use

[raw]diskutil list[/raw]

Determine your drive and EFI Partition and mount with

[raw]diskutil mount disk1s1[/raw]

Add the following kexts to your EFI/Clover/Kexts/10.10 folder –

AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext
ApplePS2Controller.kext
FakeSMC.kext
lspcidrv.kext
NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
Patched_10.7_AppleRTC.kext

Restart with the new USB Key

Goto Options > Binaries Patching Menu >  Kernel PM Patch and hit spacebar to enable it

Boot the installer

Format your boot drive with GUID bootloader and Mac OS X Journaled

Stuck in a reboot loop?

Remember if you restart at this point, the Kernel PM must be enabled each time – until we install Clover on the main boot drive –

Audio:

  1. Clover patched AppleHDA
    1. Download (View Raw) audio_cloverALC-100.command
    2. Double click: Downloads/audio_cloverALC-100.command
    3. Password:
    4. Confirm Codec ALCxxx: (885, 887, 888, 889, 892, 898, 1150 only)
    5. Clover/Legacy: answer y to Confirm Clover Legacy Install (y/n)
    6. Clover Audio ID Injection (y/n):
    7. Use Audio ID: x (y/n):
    8. Optional: Terminal/Terminal Saved Output
  2. Restart
  3. Verify ALC onboard audio
    1. System Preferences/Sound/Output/select audio device

Incomplete – not enabled yet.  Lookup HD4400 HDMI Audio for guides

Graphics: Intel HD4400 Desktop using FakePCIID

  • Install latest version of FakePCIID from https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-fake-pci-id/downloads
    Install both FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_HD4600_HD4400.kext in /System/Library/Extensions, /Extra/Extensions or Clover kexts.
  • Insert a fakeid and platform-id through clover configurator.
    Devices>FakeID>IntelGFX = 0x04128086
    Graphics>Inject>Intel>ig-platform-id = 0x0d220003

pihole with rasberry debian in 5 minutes

By | pihole | No Comments

pi-hole adblocking in 5 minutes on debian 8.4

install debian 8.4, setup a root password and first user
login to debian and run updates
Set your IP to a fixed IP that you will use as your pihole. You only need one ethernet adapter as this dns server will sit on the network just as any other device.

[raw]super su[/raw] into root
run
[raw]pihole command [/raw] Make note of your ip’s used during the setup.
–add additional sources if needed
Reboot the machine.

Now goto your browser and try to reach the machine at
http://ipofmachine/admin

You should see the admin panel, if not someting went wrong.

Now goto your router, and configure it to point at the new DNS server that is availabe on your network.
Confirm piHole is working by verifying the stats are updating in the admin panel.

Customize your adblock lists by copying the default adlists.default to adlists.list. adlists.default will be regenerated automatically, so only the changes in adlists.list will remain saved.

Uncomment the lines of additional lists like xxx that you like.

Run [raw]pihole -g[/raw] to update your adblock lists.

Now setup DNS on WAN https://community.ubnt.com/t5/EdgeMAX/Change-WAN-DNS-Server/td-p/977885
Enable DNSCrypt https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/wiki/DNSCrypt

Install necessary system packages and reboot

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential tcpdump dnsutils libsodium-dev
sudo apt-get -y install locate bash-completion
sudo reboot
Build DNSCrypt from the sources

mkdir -p dnsproxy
cd dnsproxy
wget http://download.dnscrypt.org/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy-1.6.1.tar.gz
tar -xf dnscrypt-proxy-1.6.1.tar.gz
cd dnscrypt-proxy-1.6.1
sudo ldconfig
./configure
make
sudo make install
Configure the system

Preparing resolv.conf:

sudo mv /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resol.conf.ORIG
sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf
Then paste and save the following:

nameserver 127.0.0.1#40
nameserver 127.0.0.1#41 (if adding a second resolver)
Lock resolv.conf file

sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf
Starts DNSProxy in daemon mode automatically

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/dnscrypt-proxy.service
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/dnscrypt-proxy-backup.service (if adding a second resolver)
And paste this content:

[Unit] Description=Secure connection between your computer and DNS resolver
After=network.target network-online.target
[Service] Type=forking
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
PIDFile=/var/run/dnscrypt-proxy.pid
ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/dnscrypt-proxy –daemonize \
-a 127.0.0.1:40 \
-R dnscrypt.eu-dk \
-E \
–edns-payload-size=4096 \
-p /var/run/dnscrypt-proxy.pid
[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Change the port to 41 and use a different resolver on the backup

Then reboot the RPI

sudo reboot

Test DNSCrypt

sudo journalctl -u dnscrypt-proxy
You should have a similar output:

Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] + DNS Security Extensions are supported
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] + Provider supposedly doesn’t keep logs
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [NOTICE] Starting dnscrypt-proxy 1.6.1
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] Ephemeral keys enabled – generating a new seed
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] Done
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] Server certificate #808464433 received
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] This certificate is valid
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] Chosen certificate #808464433 is valid from [2015-09-11] to [2016-09-10] Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [INFO] Server key fingerprint is 164E:1AD6:4356:777D:2019:F2F9:D389:2DDB:BC75:8AF0:9172:8E0C:A874:10C7:3BE8:423B
Feb 26 22:13:43 raspberrypi dnscrypt-proxy[6130]: [NOTICE] Proxying from 127.0.0.1:40 to 77.66.84.233:443
The last line is important and should look something like the above!

Change your DNSMasq config

Change DNS resolver in DNSMasq config

sudo nano /etc/dnsmasq.d/01-pihole.conf
Edit this section and point to dnscrypt-proxy

# Add other name servers here, with domain specs if they are for
# non-public domains.
server=127.0.0.1#40
server=127.0.0.1#41 (if adding a second resolver)
Reboot your Pihole

sudo reboot

suggested hardware :

Voila!

What is the longest lasting Thinkpad battery life?

By | Interest | No Comments

Battery Life means everything.  Without it, the party is over.

Ever wonder what model of Thinkpad has the longest battery life/runtime?

Here is the list:

X1 Carbon Touch

Up to 8.2 hours

X201/201s

  • Battery life:
    • 4-cell: up to 3.4 hr.
    • 6-cell: up to 6.7 hr.
    • 9-cell: up to 11.3 hr.

X220

  • Battery life:
    • 4-cell: up to 4.1 hr;
    • 6-cell: up to 9.2 hr;
    • 9-cell: up to 13.8 hr;
    • external battery: up to 9.4 hr;
    • 9-cell plus external battery: up to 23.2 hr

X230

BATTERY 4 cell (29 Wh) − up to 8.9 hrs 6 cell (63 Wh) − up to 9.9 hrs 9 cell (94 Wh) − up to 14.8 hrs 6 cell (57 Wh) Slice Battery − up to 24.9 hrs with 9 cell and 6 cell slice

X240

Upto 17.4 Hours (with 3 cell battery (23Wh) + 6 cell battery (72Wh))

X250

Battery Up to 20 hours and available with 6-cell Power Bridge 72Wh battery

T400

  • Battery operation (*1):
    • Four-cell Li-Ion battery: Up to 3.6 hours
    • Six-cell Li-Ion battery: Up to 4.3 hours
    • Nine-cell Li-Ion battery: Up to 6.4 hours
    • Three-cell battery Li-Polymer: Up to 4 hours

T420

  • Battery life:
    • 6-cell: up to 3.5 hours
    • 9-cell: up to 5.8 hours
    • 9-cell Slice battery: up to 5.8 hours

T440

Integrated 3-cell 23.5 Whr + (center + sign) ThinkPad® 68 Battery (3-cell 23.5 Whr) ThinkPad 6-cell 47 Whr Battery ThinkPad 68+ Battery (6-cell 72 Whr)

More than 10 hours of battery life???

T450

psref_lenovo_com_PSREFUploadFile_Sys_PDF_ThinkPad_ThinkPad_T450_ThinkPad_T450_Platform_Specifications_v467_pdf

 

The winner?  The x230 with 24.9 hours.  But the deal and steal is the X220 – now priced for around $200-300 on Ebay with an IPS display, if you can spare the 1 hour difference (you won’t even notice).  Pick one of these up before they are all gone.

Run your Own Mail Server just like Hillary Clinton

By | Sample Work | No Comments

https://mailinabox.email

Now in development over one year and with no signs of stopping in site – one of the best mail servers around is Mail-in-a-Box.  Z-Push support and Encryption as a blown out feature and is a much needed improvement over the aging iRedMail.  Make sure you have considerable hard drive space as the secure backups will eat a VPS in a few days.  Bare Metal is what real men use anyway.

Follow along on Github too

WooCommerce Sort By Sku

By | Wordpress | No Comments
[raw] add_filter(‘woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args’, ‘am_woocommerce_catalog_orderby’);
function am_woocommerce_catalog_orderby( $args ) {
$args[‘meta_key’] = ‘_sku’;
$args[‘orderby’] = ‘meta_value’;
$args[‘order’] = ‘asc’;
return $args;
}
[/raw]