[subego]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

There are apparently no audio repair shops in Indianapolis. Seriously. I mean shops that work on good home audio gear. There are tons of car audio shops in the city, and that’s it. So, today, I’m shlepping the bass drivers from my JBLs an hour from me, to a guy in a podunk town who actually does work on home audio gear.

The drivers need re-foamed, and I have neither the experience nor acumen to do it myself. Plus, I have a slight tremor in my operating hand, and the possibility of fucking things up (and turning a re-foaming into a re-coning) is too great. The drivers are possibly the best JBL ever made for home speakers and are long-ago discontinued, so I really need the job done reliably right. I had this guy go through my amp last year, and he does a great job.

Circle City Audio? They might not do consumer, but potentially worth a call next time if you haven’t already.

[subego]

@reader,

Last time I checked, I couldn’t get my laptop to acknowledge it was connected to Ethernet. More evidence it’s the cable.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by subego 

Circle City Audio? They might not do consumer, but potentially worth a call next time if you haven’t already.

I called them. Had to leave a message with their (supposed) service tech. Never got a call back.

[ghporter]

I recently got a new receiver/amp. The old one was OLD, and the right channel had essentially died. Now that I can actually push sound through my speakers, I’ve noticed a few things. One of them is that the dome in the middle of one’s midrange speaker is bumped in. No holes or anything, just not nicely convex like all the others.

I don’t know if that can affect the sound, but it bugs me to look at it. I also wonder if I should take the backs off to find out how much dust has accumulated inside them, but taking the back off of these speaker boxes looks like it could also be opening a can of worms…

[subego]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

I called them. Had to leave a message with their (supposed) service tech. Never got a call back.

Assholes.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I recently got a new receiver/amp. The old one was OLD, and the right channel had essentially died. Now that I can actually push sound through my speakers, I’ve noticed a few things. One of them is that the dome in the middle of one’s midrange speaker is bumped in. No holes or anything, just not nicely convex like all the others.

I don’t know if that can affect the sound, but it bugs me to look at it. I also wonder if I should take the backs off to find out how much dust has accumulated inside them, but taking the back off of these speaker boxes looks like it could also be opening a can of worms…

The dented cone is basically doing its job and shouldn't affect the sound, as long as it's still solidly attached to the cone.

Is the box ported? If it's a sealed cabinet, chances are relatively little dust has gotten inside. Relatively.

I think the newest piece of audio gear I have is my preamp. And I got that back in the 80s.

[subego]

Yeah. Im like “old receiver… that’s not a good thing?”

Mine’s from the 90s. It’s due to bust a cap again.

[ghporter]

It’s good to hear that a dented dome isn’t a big deal.

There’s a big old bass port at the bottom of each speaker, so I’m pretty darn sure dust has made its way in. On the other hand, I don’t recall if the back is held on with screws, glued, or “other”, so I really don’t know how big a job opening them might be.

[Thorzdad]

My JBLs are ported in the back so, yeah, dust. Spiders. Pretty much anything that fits.

The only way into my cabinets is through the holes where the drivers mount on the front. Otherwise, they’re monoliths. I suppose I could remove the panel on the back where the speaker wires mount, but that’s not a very large hole. If I seriously needed to get inside, removing the 12” bass drivers is the best way.

[ghporter]

I checked, and the backs of mine are sealed, so if I want to clean them out, I’ll have to un-mount one of the drivers.

I had a bizarre idea this afternoon: I have one of those USB-connected “endoscopes” for peering into stuff. I may peer through the base port in the front of my speakers to see if there’s anything worth unmounting anything to get at.

[subego]

Had more time to play around with my dad’s network today.

Entirely unplugged the Ethernet cable I was worried about. Still having problems, therefore even if the cable is bad it’s no longer relevant.

Google had some hits for people having similar issues with eero. Solutions ranged from diddling with settings to calling tech support, which I guess are the next two steps. Some people noted they didn’t have the problem on devices with wired connections to their eeros. My dad’s TiVo has a wired connection and it never drops. If it did, I would hear about it.


At least my HomePod tests were more promising.

It played the radio both times I asked it to, but the first time it didn’t pitch it to ”the stereo” like I requested. It’s possible I mush-mouthed. The second time it worked, but it took an unusually long time to get it together.

Still had the same problem where “Siri, stop” wouldn’t work like it did when using the Apple TV, but my hunch was right and “Siri, stop the stereo” did the trick.

[ghporter]

I hope I’m not the only person who is irritated by the telephone tech support recordings that say “For faster assistance, go to www.XYZ.com/support” when the only reason I’m calling is that www.XYZ.com/support can’t do what I need done.

[reader50]

Psychic. I had that happen minutes ago.

Do you do palm readings too?

[andi*pandi]

every damn time.

[Thorzdad]

You get that same nonsense when you call Comcast customer support to report that your internet service is down. “To avoid long wait times, go to xfinity.com...”

[andi*pandi]

If you had the internet you could do that!

[subego]

Just noticed my 1st gen iPad Pro tapped-out at iOS 16.

On one hand, it’s 8yo hardware. On the other, it’s still snappy.

[Thorzdad]

Why is setting up a new phone (2022 SE) from either an existing phone (2020 SE) or an iCloud backup such a monumental clusterfuck? We've been trying to set-up my wife's new phone. First, we tried the "put phones next to each other and let the magic happen" method, but the new phone couldn't find the old phone. So, instead, we went with the "set-up from iCloud backup" method. But, then we ran into the new phone still trying to get some stuff off the old phone and telling us the passcode we gave for the old phone was incorrect. For some reason, it still let us in after awhile (I think) and the new phone wanted to transfer the old phone's phone number over. It tried, but then reported that the number wasn't eligible. WTF???

The lack of little details is frustrating. Things like "Do we put the SIM from the old phone into the new phone before we start all this?" or "Do we sign-out the old phone from iCloud before starting?" are not addressed anywhere. And, of course, the internet says yes/no/maybe.

Now, the new phone is in the middle of updating iOS, so we wait to (hopefully) finish the ordeal.

[andi*pandi]

This is why we handed DD old iphone6 to the nice people at tmobile who ported everything without issue to an iphone 13.

[subego]

Thankfully, it’s been smooth so far on my own DD upgrades (knock on wood). It’s given me problems when I’ve helped other people.

[subego]

That I didn’t realize until today the “lang” in “slang” is short for “language”.

[reader50]

YouTube ad targeting again. I'm getting:

Ads for Plus-sized girl wear.
Ads for yachts in the $M+ range. From two different dealers.
Ads for big Chevy trucks, from multiple dealers.
Ads for some very expensive homes. They look like the $10M+ range.
Lots of drug ads, especially weight-loss drugs.

So, I must be a girl who likes big breakfasts, and is a well-heeled millionaire. Who likes the ocean (I don't live on the ocean). Not sure where the trucks fit in - the yachts are too big for street towing.

[subego]

How big a breakfast are we talking? Maybe you only fit in a truck bed.

[Laminar]

Are these videos embedded in other websites? Or just in the YouTube app on your phone, or YouTube.com in a browser? I always see the most unhinged ads and recommended videos when I'm watching them embedded. (well, no ads anymore as I finally got sick enough of the political ads to pay for premium).

I was watching a how-to assembly video on Thingiverse and all of the recommendations were super right-wing Canadian political videos. I don't know if that's common to Thingiverse viewers or just the video creator but it was kind of funny.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Are these videos embedded in other websites? Or just in the YouTube app on your phone, or YouTube.com in a browser?

No YT app here - it's all browser on YouTube. CNN videos have unrelated subjects, though I think the YT ads do play on a few other sites with video ads.

On 2nd thought, the real-estate ads cover the range $500K - $10M, they're not all at the top figure. Seems like I've seen cheaper boats too, below the yacht level. But during the last few weeks, it's been almost entirely the top-ticket items. Along with the breakfast girls.

Maybe YT knows something I don't about upcoming lottery wins. It would be impressive if true, as I don't buy lotto tickets.

[Laminar]

why
all caps

[subego]

Are you serious? Jesus Christ. Un fucking believable.

What is it?

[Laminar]

Microsoft made everyone download a completely new app for Teams, not just an in-place update to the current Teams. Which means that everyone is going to have two separate versions of Teams installed, old and new. So the new app for Teams has NEW emblazoned onto the icon like some kind of addendum or notification, except it's just part of the icon.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...d-82aba60c74ab

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Microsoft made everyone download a completely new app for Teams, not just an in-place update to the current Teams. Which means that everyone is going to have two separate versions of Teams installed, old and new. So the new app for Teams has NEW emblazoned onto the icon like some kind of addendum or notification, except it's just part of the icon.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...d-82aba60c74ab

But wait it gets worse!



OAW

[Spheric Harlot]

Oh fucking hell.

WHAT FECKIN' MORONS!

In the 35 years I've followed/had to deal with Microsoft, there has seriously never been a phase where they haven't done something head-slappingly imbecilic.

[Laminar]

Obviously Teams NEW made itself a startup app and when I rebooted it started itself.



Hahaha it actually does put your online status on the icon. What a nightmare.

Removed it as a startup app. Thankfully I rarely have to use it.

[Laminar]

Windows doesn't let me use the scroll wheel while in the middle of a click-and-drag operation.

I would love to pre-scroll to the folder I want to drag to, but Windows also auto-scrolls the quick access sidebar to the current directory path, so it will not stay where I leave it.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Obviously Teams NEW made itself a startup app and when I rebooted it started itself.



Hahaha it actually does put your online status on the icon. What a nightmare.

That's…amazing.

Obligatory Steve Jobs quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KdlJlHAAbQ

[andi*pandi]

for a brief moment during the pandemic, my work tried to implement a microsoft app called yammer. It was microsofts slack, but for "Fun Chats to Stay In Touch!". It was horrible. It was meant to pull in the people who never installed or understood a need for slack. for everyone else it was yet another app to install and pay attention to.

it quietly disappeared. So long pix of everyone's dogs.

[Thorzdad]

Well, as of this morning, Wordle has officially become enshittified. You now must have a NYT account to see your stats (or use your Google, Facebook, etc. logins) Ugh. Marketing needs to die a quick, yet excruciating death.

[Spheric Harlot]

Anybody who didn’t see that coming…?

…anybody? Show of hands?

…Bueller?

[Thorzdad]

Yeah, yeah, I know. Still. At least you can still play the game without logging-in. For now.

[subego]

Does it need to be a paid account?

[Laminar]

No paid account, it just shows an ad before the game comes up, and mobile Safari automatically blocks that ad.

I signed up for an account a while back to avoid losing my streak. I had 125 at one point and then just straight up forgot to do it one day. I turned Hard Mode on and had another 125 streak that ended on Superbowl Sunday when, once again, I just forgot to do it. Back up to 12 now.

Latest minor irritant. Even with Chrome's "Safe Browsing" turned all of the way off, Chrome still blocks "suspicious" downloads. There's no way to turn it more off, but it gets mad when I try to download an exe.

[ghporter]

Chrome likes to block a lot of stuff. I found this on Superuser dot com:

Solution #1

Click on the "View Site Information" button on the left side of the URL (Padlock Icon) and click "Site Settings".
Set Insecure Content to "Allow" and it will no longer block downloads from that site.
Solution #2

You can also whitelist entire websites via Chrome's settings:

Settings > Security and Privacy > Site Settings > Insecure Content.
Under Allowed to show insecure content click "Add" and enter the main website URL and click "Add".
Solution #3

Here is how I did:

Go to chrome://settings or just click on the settings icon on the dashboard.
Scroll to the bottom of the settings page and click on Show advanced settings
Under advanced settings, find the subsection called Privacy and Security. Then look turn off the option Protect you and your device from dangerous sites.
=> You can now download anything from Internet AT YOUR OWN RISK !

=> You can turn back on the option.

Reference:

https://appuals.com/how-to-fix-the-d...ror-in-chrome/

I haven’t tried it yet, but I think it should work better than just turning off safe browsing.

I’m working on getting Chrome (or Chromium on my Linux machines) to stop marking my internal web site as “not safe”. I don’t want to turn off the shady site warnings entirely, just tell the browser my site is OK. So it looks like I’ll have to go the whole SSL cert route. Fortunately there are ways to create a self-signed cert and install it as trusted. It’s not a trivial task, but having a browser tell me my own web pages aren’t safe irks me.

[subego]

I have shades of this with Chrome. I sometimes use temp web pages. The login/password I use for them isn’t strong because they’re temporary.

I get a warning about it every single time.

[Laminar]

Whenever Chrome updates (which seems to have gotten very frequent in the past year) it pops up a "what's new" tab and sometimes also the "Chrome web store" tab. This is irritating to handle on each of my devices probably like once a week.

[Brien]

I yearn for a dumb browser with basically nothing but a page renderer. They’re all bloated these days.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Whenever Chrome updates (which seems to have gotten very frequent in the past year) it pops up a "what's new" tab and sometimes also the "Chrome web store" tab. This is irritating to handle on each of my devices probably like once a week.

Agreed - it's a pain. And AdBlock Plus is worse. It only tells you it's updated when you have opened a new tab. Then it opens another new one to tell you all about the AdBlock update. Go ahead and tell me you've updated, and even open a new tab to do it. But DON'T hijack my browser and bypass my new tab when I'm trying to enter something in the address bar. It's not just irritating, it's rude.

[subego]

Stop trying to make Photobucket happen. It’s not going to happen.

[subego]

That I didn’t learn until now a long press of the “+” button in Messages brings up Photos.

And you can long press space for cursor control. JFC.

[ghporter]

Have had a seriously challenging week but get it done. Plan for a productive Saturday and a laid back, “fun with friends and family” Sunday, and knock Saturday out of the park. Feel like low quality crap on Sunday morning. Not fun.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by subego 

That I didn’t learn until now a long press of the “+” button in Messages brings up Photos.
And you can long press space for cursor control. JFC.

Hmmm...I can’t get that + thing to work, but the spacebar trick is pure gold. Neat!

[Laminar]

Looks like it's not a long press but a hard press of "+" that does it for me.

Spacebar cursor control was a gamechanger. I swear it used to be a hard press anywhere on the keyboard started it and at some point they switched it to just the spacebar.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread...05?sortBy=best

Looks like that was the case with my X but not my 13 Pro. Something about 3D Touch hardware?

[subego]

Read from the bottom up.