Firefox 57 Annoyance fixes #2

Disable Screen shots -


extensions.screenshots.disabled=true
devtools.screenshot.audio.enabled=false
browser.onboarding.tour.onboarding-tour-screenshots.completed=true

Firefox 57 Annoyance fixes

1. Stop Autoplay
about:config > media.autoplay.enabled = False

2. Remove Pocket
about:config >

browser.toolbarbuttons.introduced.pocket-button=false
extensions.pocket.enabled=false
extensions.pocket.api=api.example.com
extensions.pocket.site=example.com
extensions.pocket.oAuthConsumerKey = Random Bytes from random.org (The
sequence is 5 digits - 24 digits)

3. Install Cookie Auto Delete (in place of Self Destructing Cookies)
Once installed, activate its options from settings.
Then enable Auto-Clean (Active) mode.

Remove Firefox URL auto complete / suggest / "visit X" prompt

If you upgraded to Firefox 43.0.1 , you may have seen the "New" auto-complete in the URL bar.












If you want to turn it off - you can do so by setting this browser preference:

about:config >  
browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete = False

Control a Lifx Bulb using Flic and Tasker

This is documentation on how I made Flic[1] control a Lifx bulb[2] on my local network WITHOUT requiring an internet connection.

I don't want to expose my Lifx bulb to the internet. (That's a discussion for another time and place). but, I wanted to use the Flic button to control my bulb. Here's how I made it work

Hardware Pre-requisites:

1. A Flic button [1]
2. A Lifx bulb [2]

Requirements:

1. Android 4.4 or newer device. (I'm using a Nexus 4)
   
2. Tasker [3]
3. Lifx Plugin for Tasker [4]

Why:

The built in method of making Flic control a Lifx bulb is the following.

Push button -> Talks to Flic app on phone -> Talks to Flic server -> Talks to Lifx Server -> Talks to your Lifx Bulb
This requires too much internet access for my comfort. I wanted something that did not depend on the Internet to work.

How to configure it

1. Install the Lifx plugin for Tasker.
2. It will give you a very simple app outside of Tasker that allows you to perform the basic operations to your bulb. Make sure this works before continuing. I spent quite a bit of time before I figured out this part.
   
3. Create a Tasker - Task (I named this LIFX-ON)
   
1. Choose plugin -> Lifx tasker plugin
2. Setup whatever you want it to do. I configured it to turn on my bulb)
4. Open the Flic app - DELETE any existing actions. (this is important, otherwise, the programmed action seems to take precedence over the notification to Tasker).
5. Close the Flic app.
6. Return to Tasker - create a new profile (credit: [5])
   
1. Profile -> Context -> Event -> Plugin : Flic
2. Choose the flic button, and choose your event. ( I selected ON).
7. Done.

How it works

1. Push the Flic button
2. This talks to the Flic app over BLE
3. The Flic app notifies Tasker that the button was pushed.
4. Tasker executes your Lifx ON task
5. Your bulb should now turn ON.

I've also created another event, this time for double click to Turn OFF the Lifx Bulb.

Hope this helps someone.

[1]Flic : https://flic.io/
[2]Lifx: https://www.lifx.com/
[3]Tasker : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en
[4] Lifx Plugin for Tasker: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.timothyb89.lifx.tasker
[5] http://ideas.flic.io/forums/283403-flic-ideas/suggestions/7177881-integrated-with-tasker-the-automation-app

Road Trip 2015

I took a road trip a recently and got to visit Awesome Extraordinaire. The road trip was fun and LONG. Covering just over 1100 miles one way, I visited / drove through 5 states : Texas (TX), Arkansas(AR), Missouri (Mo), Illinois(IL) and Indiana (IN).

This post is a random set of notes from my drive. 

Road signs

Indiana has the most polite road signs "Trucks and vehicles with trailers use the right lane". TX on the other hand says "No Trucks Left lane"

IL has its border with MO in the middle of the Mississippi river. There's a sign on the bridge that says Welcome to Illinois. On the way back, I noticed that Mo has no such sign on the bridge.

Someone in TxDoT has a sense of humor, there's a sign at a rest area on I-35 that reads  'One day you will love I-35, until then please pay attention'.

Mile Markers

Those sign posts that are placed at periodic intervals to mark distance.

TX  has mile markers at every mile
AR has mile markers at every mile
MO  has markers are every .2 mile apart. You see boards showing 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 1.0 ..
IL - markers at every 1/2 mile
IN - markers at every 1/2 mile on Interstate, 1 mile on State Hwy

Access roads/frontage roads

TX  has frontage roads almost the entire way of its Interstate system. A frontage road is a side street that runs parallel to the freeway. Other side streets feed in/off this street and do not intercept the interstate as frequently. The Interstate has exit/entry ramps at periodic intervals to connect to the frontage road. Typical TX frontage roads are one-way to traffic that flows in parallel to direction of the Interstate.

MO/IL/IN - don't seem to have frontage roads - but have access roads that join and leave on and off of the Interstate directly.

AR has a mixture of no frontage roads, and frontage road on one side of the Interstate.Since they only have one frontage road, it carries traffic in both directions.

Coming from TX, this made entry/exit from the Interstate something to be more cautious about. It almost felt you have to hope that the frontage road traffic will yield to the Ramp. Exiting a ramp at 65mph (there were no deceleration lanes) and almost immediately having to cut through a lane of oncoming traffic  can be quite nerve wracking.

Scenery & Misc

TX has the widest roads of the lot and the flattest fields. TX farms can be multiple hectares in size and often you don't get to see the farm buildings from the road.

AR started out quite green and full of trees when I crossed the TX-AR border, but quickly gave way to flat farm land that wasn't quite green.

IL was the greenest state across the lot on the Interstate.

IN had the most interesting scenery. Alongside the Interstate were farms / barn yards / the odd tractor, rolling hills in the background.

Texarkana

Texarkana is a border town situated on the border of Texas & Arkansas. Its name is a portmanteau of the two state names. The state line is divided by a road. One side of the road is AR, the other side is TX. Just outside of town on the TX side of the state, is a scrap metal yard that has a US military figther jet sitting in the middle of the lot. I wanted to take a picture of it, but forgot both times to have my camera handy.

Names of places

I saw quite a few towns/signs with interesting names.

Hope - AR
Friendship -AR
Moonlight drive (in TX)
Anna, IL
Hazen, AR
Marion - AR / IL
Mt Vernon,
Malvern,AR
Benton,AR
Palestine,AR - There are multiple Palestines (there's one in TX)
Blytville
Arkadelphia  ( I assume this is a portmanteau of Arkansas and Philadelphia)
New Madrid
New Boston
Sikeston
Miner

 Pictures of the trip are over on Flickr.

Moving to Android : Part- 4 : Battery Life

This is a series of posts where I describe my experiences in moving from a Nokia Symbian device to a Google Nexus 4 running Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean).
===========

At 8:30am one morning, my phone had 100% charge on it. I used for about 20 minutes that day. At 4:00pm, it was at 13% and screaming at me to plug it in... This is terrible! My Nokia used to give me 3 days of battery life, this phone can't last one working day without a lot of usage??
Surprise! there's an app for that.. I was recommended one called "Juice defender", which promises to improve battery life primarily by turning off radios when not in use. Really? does it really take an external app to tell the OS that if its not supporting a data transfer it could turn the Wifi/GPRS radios off? Anyway, with Juice defender, my battery life has improved! I can now come home at 7pm and still have 50% battery life. This is much much better!

Another day, I took to a baseball game - when I left home at 5pm, I had 95% charge. I used the GPS device to navigate me to the stadium. During the game, I took a bunch of pictures (no flash), browsed the web a bit and sent two text messages. I then used the GPS to bring me home (more on that in another post)... When I got home at 10:30pm, my battery was at 10% and the phone was crying bloody murder at running its battery so low.
Two 30 minute GPS guided commutes, 20 pictures and 2 text messages = over 75% of the battery gone? This is just sad coming from the Nokia world of Symbian.

I'm also starting to notice a trend here, "there's an app" for a lot of the stuff. However, coming from the Symbian world, I have to ask "You need an app for that?" Its just weird to see so many of the functions that I'm used to the OS providing, not being available and having to depend on a third party to develop. There are pros and cons to this - so I won't make a call either way other than to say its weird...

Moving to Android: Part -3 : Contacts

This is a series of posts where I describe my experiences in moving from a Nokia Symbian device to a Google Nexus 4 running Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean).
===========
Contacts

Moving 165 contacts from my old phone was easy. On the E-72, Goto to the Contacts application, goto options, Select All, Send, Send using Bluetooth, pair and send. 1 minute later 165 contacts including contact pictures were on this Nexus-4. Now, tell the Nexus-4 to import contacts and the People application has this data. Fantastic!

Did the data come across correctly, yup! Can I use it seamlessly? not really... About 50 of those 165 contacts, had custom contact labels, not one of the custom labes came across. So now I have contacts with 4 "Work" entries and 2 "Home" entries and no way to differentiate between which of the 4 work contacts was "Mobile, Vonage Number, Skype Number or Mobile in India"...

This is an issue with vcard - the format used to transfer contacts over bluetooth, and not Android. vcard2.0 which was used, doesn't support custom labels.

But, there's a weird restriction - if I have these contacts sync with my Google account, I can re-assign them custom labels. However, if i want to sync with another non-google account (in my case using Activesync), I'm limited to 8 options and no 'custom' option.

This is something I have to figure out. I really don't want the phone book contacts merging with the 300 odd contacts that my Gmail account has managed to accquire over the years, and I do want the contacts to have custom labels...

Moving to Android: Part-2: Notifications, Emails and Flashlight mode

This is a series of posts where I look at my experiences in moving from a Nokia Symbian device to a Google Nexus 4 running Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean).

[Flashlight Mode] So every Nokia device to date has had some sort of flashlight option. I use this every night when I take a walk to my mailbox. So is there a flashlight mode/option/switch? Nope, but there's an app (or 200) for that. Ok, I went to the app store, and found one called "Simple Torch". Does what its supposed to do, no mess, no fuss. This is good.

[Email accounts] This was quite a breeze. Add account, give it the account type and credentials and about 5 minutes later, my Yahoo and my own domain hosted email accounts were synced. Great!
Wait, my domain hosted email would only partially sync ... every so often it would die with an "Unfortunately, email has stopped" notification. Looking online, I realized that this "has stopped" is Android terminology for the application has crashed. I've managed to crash my device 4 times in the first week?

[Missed call/text Notification] Oops, I got a text message back from a friend, but I didn't realize that she had sent me a text message. Strange, every Nokia device has had by default, some sort of flashing/blinking notification for missed calls/messages/emails. How do I set that up on this? You can't. Android doesn't have a way of notifying you without you turning on the screen.... except, wait, there's an app for that. There's an app called "Light Flow" that does allow you to make your phone's notification LED blink (in multiple colors!). Ok, this is good! I got Light Flow installed.

Moving to Android : Part-1

After many years of being a Nokia user, I'm moving to Android on a Nexus 4. I've had my Nexus 4 for a few weeks now. This is going to be a set of time delayed posts on my impressions of the device.

I'm a long time fan of Nokia's hardware and their Symbian OS. I started my mobile journey with a Nokia 1100, moved to a Nokia 6126 and then until a week ago used a Nokia E-72.

My E-72 is still in working condition - it allows me to check email, browse the web and still gives me 3 days of battery life. However, one careless morning about a year ago, I dropped it and the screen got a crack in it. Over the last few months, that crack has started to expand. I decided that it was time to find another device before this one completely gave up on me. This way I could move to a new phone and still have my E-72 available should I need a backup device.

So what device do I move to? I'm still a Nokia fan, my mom has a pretty amazing N-8 device - the last of the Nokia Symbian devices, so that was one option. Alternatively, I could goto IOS or Android. Lots of searching and researching later, I decided that I would go to Android.

My basic requirements for a new phone are primarily (a) it be unlocked, (b) it doesn't change my contract (I have no contract!) (c) It should last me at least a few years, (d) it should allow me to tinker with it as I want to and (e) be priced around the $300.

I could have tried a Nokia Windows phone (its available unlocked on Amazon for about $500), but a) its running Windows phone not Symbian (b) You can't buy it unlocked from Nokia, you have to find it from a third party vendor and (c) at $500, its above my budget. So the only other phone I was left with was the Nexus-4, so I went and bought a Nexus-4 directly from Google.

Lets get started. To begin with, its huge! It is at least 1.5x bigger than my E-72. Makes putting it into the side pockets of a pair of jeans quite a tight fit if you decide to sit down. Its a got a very decent screen. I can read it quite comfortably in day light, though, in direct sunlight, its not the easiest thing to read. I don't plan to read books on this device, so that's not really a factor for me.

Lets set it up. A friend of mine helped me trim my original SIM card into the Micro SIM form factor that this device uses. I charged up my phone, put in the SIM card and started playing with it.

Initial setup:

Initial setup was quite smooth. I was asked to sign in with a Google Account and it asked me for my WIFI credentials, did some stuff (??) in the background and then told me that it was ready to be used. Great. I could text people, I sent a text message or two. It could find me on Google Maps, it was able to download some updates for the existing apps from the web, I was able to go online and browse the web. Excellent!

Overall, I'm quite happy with the phone even if I am about to criticize it a lot. When it isn't complaining about battery life and such, it is fast, the screen is brilliant and very responsive. The much bigger screen makes it easier for me to read the text and overall, the availability of the app store (and improved technology under the hood) provides a number of features that my E-72 just couldn't provide.

My next few posts will look at my experiences in getting it to do what I want.

Comparing Sun sign predictions

I compared my "Sun Sign" prediction from Yahoo!. Its interesting to see how the predictions are tailored both in content as well as in terms of language depending on the audience.

Here's what Yahoo India's monthly forecast for me says: (For May 2013)

"Some unexpected good news will lift your spirits up, according to Jupiter and Venus. You will be unable to do any stereotype roles. This time, you establish your authority, excellence and intelligence. If, at any point of time, you find that your career is not taking off, immediately look at ways to enhance your own skills. You're ultra powerful and must do your best to advance yourself. A new vision will help you to stand up against pressure with courage and fortitude, say Rahu and Mars. However, it will be very important for you not to neglect family traditions and strive to live up to the expectations of elders. Actually, try to blend both- your desires and their expectations. A hectic schedule eagerly awaits you, too. However, the good news is that instead of tiring you out, you will be able to conquer all your obstacles successfully, according to Mars and the Sun. But to achieve your goals you will have to wear different hats at different times. Mid month, with the help of the Moon and Jupiter, you will be able to sort out some of your past problems. You feel pretty fortunate, largely because you're surrounded with supportive friends, family and associates. A general sense of harmony pervades your mind and you go about your work in an organised fashion. Your decision to move forward without further ado, is, indeed, a good one."

Above taken from: http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/astrology/virgo/overview-monthly-may.html

Here's what the Yahoo! USA version of the monthly forecast says: (also for May 2013)

"You could find that two concepts you didn't think went together -- namely, super productive work and a little splash of romance -- are actually a winning combination on the 1st! So splash some romance on that super productive workday. Watch things sizzle! Try not to be super duper critical if a colleague makes a really stupid mistake on the 4th or 5th. They know just how stupid it was without you rubbing it in. Seriously, they're aware of the fact that they messed up. So be gentle! Communicate with as much panache as possible, the chitty-chatty but miscommunication-prone 11th and 12th. Go to yoga, or at least do some cubicle stretching, on the 16th and you'll be in great shape for all the terrific news and happy happenings coming your way on the 18th, 19th and 20th. A responsibility makes itself felt on the 25th or 26th, but it actually feels pretty good. Make like a construction worker (even if you are a market data researcher) and be constructive, particularly when it comes to criticism, on the 29th and 30th."

Above taken from: http://shine.yahoo.com/horoscope/virgo/overview-monthly-may.html

The Indian version talks about things including family traditions, obligations, elders and even Rahu,
The US version talks about similar things - but mentions career, criticism, communication.

In either case this is supposed to be a good month (Have you ever seen a horoscope predict a bad month?).