NZ Tekonverse
-
Using Kodi with multiple monitors is abysmal.
Kodi is a great media player except for how it handles display settings. One of the areas that will really trip it up is when your computer has multiple monitors, especially if they have different resolutions. What I am generally seeing in my experience with multiple monitors is that Kodi’s default if it is the…
-
Google Photos: The free photo service’s automatic deduplication creates challenges
Yeah, we all know what Google Photos is. Another cloud based service from Google, and one that other cloud providers like Flickr find it difficult to compete with. I was quite keen on Flickr, but they have their own issues, like that people outside the US have no rights under the DMCA, anyone can send…
-
Rsync Backup System [5]: Ongoing Backup Journey
Since writing the first four articles on this topic, I have not yet figured out how to implement an incremental backup strategy, and so I am still doing only the full backup every few months. Hence right now I am doing my first full backup of mainpc for three months. The first issue that has…
-
Python Scripting [7A]: Change File Modification Time on Map Images
This scripting project is a part of the NZ Rail Maps project. The aim is to change file modification times for a group of maps so that they follow a certain sequence when imported into Google Photos. In the NZ Rail Maps project, maps published at what is defined as the “Basic” level are produced…
-
First Kubuntu computer
So the NUC gets Kubuntu. The primary reason for wanting it on this is with the screen layout with vertical screens, wanting to have the taskbar in the middle between the two, with one taskbar for both. With a TV as the upper screen and the lower screen a smaller computer monitor turned into portrait…
-
Elitepad gets a refresh…back to Windows 8
One of my least-known computers is an HP Elitepad 900 I purchased around 5-6 years ago. This is a Windows 8 tablet, which is a pretty unusual beast; MS had not invented the Surface at that stage. The Elitepad is a business tablet, which for its spec was relatively expensive, but it is designed to…
-
Debugging Linux startup issues with JournalCtl
My computers running Linux are very reliable but every so often a spanner will be thrown in the works and the computer will refuse to come up beyond a command prompt. When this happens you have to look at the logs to try to work out what is happening in the system and how to…
-
NZ Rail Maps: Large Area Raster Tiles At Reduced Quality Setting
Using Qgis to draw the maps, we’ve run against a few times some sort of limitation on the number of raster layers that it seems to have, which runs out a long time before hitting the actual resource limits of the computer it’s running on. This in turn limits the number of raster layers that…
-
Change Monitor Configurations Permanently in LXQt for Screen Recording
As we have discussed in the past, I use LXQt in two different configurations with my various computers. Lubuntu, which now uses LXQt as its desktop environment, is what most of my non-desktop computers use. For example a media playback computer and a laptop are normally set up with Lubuntu which is quick and easy…
-
Using a Raspberry Pi as a livestream player [1]
When I wrote the first post of this series I fully expected using my former Windows 10 PC as a home theater PC would work out. That didn’t last long and the Windows 10 part was soon moved to another computer so the Mini-ITX system could be reinstalled with Lubuntu for the specific role that…