Category: Tech

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I have a Dell XPS 13 (9343, 2015 developer edition) with Ubuntu 16.04 and VirtualBox. I created a Windows 10 client and want to test a Windows app with webcam support.

Step 1. Install “Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack”
Before this is installed, if you run command VBoxManage list webcams, you will get error:

VboxMange: error: No extension pack by the name ‘Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack’ was found.

You can download this Extension Pack from virtualbox.org. After it’s installed, running VBoxManage list webcams will find the cam and its result is like:

Video Input Devices: 1
.1 “Integrated_Webcam_Hd”
/dev/video0

Step 2. Start the Windows 10 client, then in VirtualBox’s Devices menu, there is Webcams, check it.
Now Windows will automatically set up this new device. After all are set up, you can run Windows “Camera” app to verify it works.

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  1. Connect through USB
  2. adb devices
  3. adb tcpip 5555
  4. Disconnect from USB, and find IP_address of the Android device
  5. adb connect IP_address:5555
    e.g. adb connect 192.168.1.100:5555
  6. adb devices, and the devices shows as e.g. 192.168.1.100:5555

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If you find the folder for iOS simulator instances: ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/
uses too much storage, you can delete some of these files in this way:

  1. List the simulators’ IDs
    xcrun simctl list devices
  2. Delete simulator by ID
    xcrun simtrl delete SIMULATER_ID

Note: if there is error saying simctl is not found, you can specify its full path, e.g. xcrun /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/simctl list devices

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  1. Run xcode-select –install first
  2. Run brew install graphviz
  3. Run mkdir /usr/local/Frameworks if the following errors occur:

Error: An unexpected error occurred during the `brew link` step
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Permission denied @ dir_s_mkdir – /usr/local/Frameworks
Error: Permission denied @ dir_s_mkdir – /usr/local/Frameworks

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When I first used Apple USB-C AV adapter (MJ1K2AM/A) on my Mac mini 2018, there were several problems. But I found these are just some setup issues.

HDMI: I use my Mac mini with 2 Ultrafine 4K (by TB3) and 1 Dell P2415Q (by HDMI), all 4K @ 60Hz. I want to test the HDMI port of this adapter works. When I insert this adapter on a 3rd TB3 on my Mac mini, and connect its HDMI port to P2415Q, there is no video output.

The solution is, just unplug one of the Ultrafine 4K monitor (from TB3). It seems the HDMI port on this adpater only works when there is at most one other monitor plugged in (by TB3). And yes, when use this adapter, the monitor can only run 4K @ 30Hz.

USB: the USB port on this adapter works perfectly when I insert it to the TB3 port of Mac mini. However, when I insert it to the USB-C ports on the back of Ultrafine 4K monitor, the USB port doesn’t work.

The solution is simple: just unplug the TB3 cable of the Ultrafine monitor from Mac mini, then insert the adapter to the monitor, and finally plug the TB3 cable to Mac. I guess there is some data re-negotiation happens.

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I recently bought a 4K monitor Dell P2415Q of revision A04. It is connected to a Mac mini 2018 by HDMI cable. At first, every operation displayed on this monitor seems a bit sluggish. From “System Information” -> “Graphics/Displays”, I found the refresh rate of this monitor is only 30Hz (instead of 60Hz).

The solution is from this Dell doc: unplug all video cables -> power on this monitor -> select “HDMI(MHL)” as input -> press the third button (indicated by a green-color arrow) for 8 seconds -> in the pop-up window, disable “HDMI 1.4”, which will enable HDMI 2.0.

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My laptop has a SD Card Reader. I want to use it in Ubuntu guest OS (the host is Win7).

The method is widely available if you search it:
Step 1. In Win7, Computer Management -> Disk Management, find the disk number of the SD card. In my system it’s “Disk 1”
Step 2. In the settings of Ubuntu VM, Hardware -> Add -> “Hardware Type” select “Hard Disk”, Next -> “Virtual Disk Type” select “IDE”, Next -> select “Use a physical disk”, Next -> In “Device”, select (in my system) “PhysicalDrive1”.

The problem is: there is always only “PhysicalDrive0” shown in the above step, even when I can see “Disk 1” (SD card) in Windows Disk Management.

After wasting a few hours, I found the solution: VMware Workstation, at least on Win 7 (I haven’t tested other OS), should be started with “Run as administrator“. Then you will see “PysicalDrive1” (or what ever drive corresponding to the SD card).

Hope this trick can save you some time.

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When I open https://www.cbsnews.com/live/ to live stream CBS News, I found the CPU usage is nearly 100% and there are about 50 threads running at the same time for this process. You can find the URL address of the video source by checking the source code of the webpage. In my case, the video URL is something like the following, and open it in the browser.

https://dai.google.com/linear/hls/p/event/(SOME ID)/stream/(SOME ID):MRN/variant/(SOME ID)/bandwidth/3009600.m3u8

One additional benefit of directly using the video URL is, in Safari, it enables “Picture in Picture”.