Category: technology
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Plex – Sports Videos Library
I use Plex to manage my music and video libraries. I actually don’t watch sports very often. The one exception is when I’m grading papers (I’m a college professor). I’ve found that watching soccer/futbol matches in the background while I grade papers breaks up the monotony of grading. With finals coming up, I thought it…
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LibreOffice Calc: Graphs with Two y-axes with Different Scales
While a bit technical, it’s occasionally useful to plot multiple data series that have very different scales in the same chart. Let me give an example to illustrate. Let’s say I want to see whether the number of Mormon temples being built aligns with the number of Mormon stakes (akin to a Catholic diocese) that…
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LibreOffice Calc: Interpolating Missing Values in Graphs
Here’s my situation. I have some data over time but I’m missing values in specific years. I want to graph that data but would rather not have to estimate all of the missing values. It turns out, LibreOffice Calc can do that for you in your chart. Here’s how… Imagine I’m plotting the number of…
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Setting Up a New Windows Computer for Your Kids
I recently had a colleague contact me for some computer advice. He knows I’m a computer geek and was looking for some help setting up a new Windows laptop for his kids. He was wondering which antivirus software to buy. If you’re at all familiar with my blog, you’ll know that I’m not a fan…
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Plex/tinyMediaManager and Doctor Who Specials
I’m a science fiction fan. And I want my science fiction at my fingertips. To that end, I have slowly been digitizing my favorite series (e.g., Star Trek, Stargate, and now Doctor Who) and putting them on my fileserver that uses Plex to serve the episodes to whatever device I want. I recently ran into…
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Change Doorbell Sound on Ring App and Amazon Echo
I’ve had a Ring doorbell (and security system) for quite a while. I never bought the chime that goes with the doorbell because it has always worked through my Amazon Echo devices. However, I only recently learned that you can change the notification sounds you get when someone rings your doorbell. However, how you do…
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Linux/Kubuntu – Disable Network Printer Auto Discovery
I don’t know when Kubuntu started automatically discovering printers on networks and then adding them to my list of printers, but it is a problematic feature in certain environments – like universities (where I work). I set up my home printer on my laptop easy enough. But, whenever I open my laptop and connect to…
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Linux – Failing to Read Encrypted DVDs
Thanks to the fine folks at VLC and Ubuntu, watching DVDs on Linux is generally pretty straightforward. Install “libdvd-pkg” and follow the prompts and you’re generally good to go. That works for me almost all of the time. However, I recently tried to watch a DVD and had no luck. I would insert the DVD…
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Plex – Syncing Media to Devices
NOTE: As of 2022, Plex has switched from “syncing” media to “downloading” media. More information on how to do that is available here. I love my Plex server. It works pretty flawlessly with devices like my Roku or allowing me to listen or view my media collection online. However, there are occasionally instances when I…
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Linux – Setting Up FTP/SFTP Restricted Access for User
I run a server (Ubuntu 18.04) that hosts about a dozen websites using Linode. Most of the sites are run using WordPress and are my own or sites I manage for friends or family. I do, however, host one for a colleague who actively develops online content for that site. As WordPress has developed, the…