Category Archives: Ask J.D.

Adjust XBMC OpenELEC volume via keyboard? [+/-]

It took me a bit of key pressing to finally figure out how to control the volume on my fresh OpenELEC XBMC installation via keyboard. Eventually, I found that a default OpenELEC XBMC installation uses the + and – keys (plus and minus keys) to adjust the volume UP and volume DOWN. Hopefully this tip will save you some time and allow you to enjoy the perfect volume for your movies and TV shows 🙂 PS after my trial and error

Kawasaki MULE 4010 Trans4X4 skid plates

The Mule 4010 is a nice farm machine that is quite durable. However, if you do a lot of driving through heavy brush you may want to invest in some skid plates to protect the undercarriage from damage. Kawasaki offers a rear skid plate, and CV join guards. Here are the relevant part numbers and prices: For MULE™ 4010 Trans4X4 Rear Skid Plate: KAF30-035 $199.95 MSRP C/V Joint Guards: Front KAF25-049 $109.95 MSRP Rear KAF30-036 $92.95 MSRP Description: Metal covers

Connect an older iMac to a TV via HDMI

Large LCD TV’s are nice for showcasing plans, presentations and other business documents. However, many recent TV’s only have HDMI inputs and HDMI ports are often not available on older business PCs or Macs. Today I encountered just that situation where a client had been trying to connect an LCD TV to their older (circa 2008) iMac as a secondary display. They had tried an expensive $85 USB to HDMI adapter with no luck 🙁 Thankfully, since the iMac was

How to download YouTube videos to your computer or phone [SOLVED]

I received the following question from my friend Alicia: Do you know of a way that I can take videos from youtube and put them on a flash drive or disc so I can watch them at home? I’m wanting some zumba videos to use at home but my phone internet isn’t strong enough to run them.. -Alicia So I sent her are a couple websites where you can paste the youtube video’s URL (website address) into the form and then

Data truncated for column ‘status’ at row 1 [SOLVED]

Recently I encountered the following error: Data truncated for column ‘status’ at row 1 This was specifically in a PHP based web hotel/reservations app that uses MySQL for the database backend. When trying to add a new dropdown option value of ‘departed’, the form submission would always fail with the aforementioned error. Thankfully, the solution was easy once I checked the table/field definitions. The column ‘status’ was of type enum and thus needed to have the ‘departed’ value specifically enumerated in

Enable remote MySQL access (root non-local access)

Often one of the first tasks after setting up a MySQL server is to enable connections from other IP addresses. Here are a some articles that discuss how to setup a user that can access a MySQL database remotely (non-locally). Between the two of them you will have all the info you need to create user accounts for remote MySQL db access 🙂 If you are in a testing environment you can also enable non-local root access for all databases

Regenerate thumbnails error on WordPress [SOLVED]

Recently I switched to a new WordPress theme and subsequently encountered some image thumbnail issues. Here is the specific error I received when regenerating thumbnails: function (){if(l){var t=l.length;(function i(t){x.each(t,function(t,n){var r=x.type(n);”function”===r?e.unique&&p.has(n)||l.push(n):n&&n.length&&”string”!==r&&i(n)})})(arguments),n?o=l.length:r&&(s=t,c(r))}return this} This was particularly frustrating, because if a custom size is not available then WordPress will use the FULL size image even for thumbnails. This of course results in slow page times and wasted bandwidth 🙁 The solution Thankfully, after a little checking it appeared to be a simple permissions

Windows Update error 80072f8f [SOLVED]

If you get a Windows Update “error 80072f8f” when you try to Check for Updates, you may need to adjust your computer’s date and time settings! The 80072f8f error generally happens when there is a large discrepancy between your system clock and the Windows Update service…. so when that happens you will get the error and be prevented from receiving updates. 🙁 Thankfully, as mentioned earlier, the fix is generally very easy as you just need to update your computer’s date/time