Blackmoor Vituperative

You may find this useful: How to get back ‘exact size’ and ‘larger than’ search filters on Google Images

tl;dr version, bookmark this url:
https://www.google.com/advanced_image_search

Here are some animated GIFs I made for Cinema Insomnia.

Any plan to include Google as a core part of a business process should also include a contingency plan for when (not if) Google shuts down that service.

Feel free to quote me.

Currently taking a course on AWS, in preparation for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam. Interesting stuff. Possibly the tangent that is most interesting to me at this moment is the concept of a “non-relational database”. Of course I have heard of that — Mongo, Redis, etc. But I have never had the time (or really cared enough) to investigate them. I might try rewriting one of my simpler web sites to use a non-relational database (Amazon DynamoDB, specifically). I think it might be a fun exercise.

Google has removed the options to search for images “Larger than …” and “Exact size” from their Images search. If this makes Google Image search USELESS for you, as it does for me, consider using Yandex, instead.

Twitter is the very worst of humanity, delivered 140 characters at a time. It is the untreated sewage of the Internet.

I might sound like a grumpy old man, but I think we had a better class of angry white wingnuts back before the Internet. Nowadays, every halfwit with a keyboard thinks he’s William F. Buckley.

Here is how I play music (MP3 files) into a Google Meet.

Hardware

• Windows 10 desktop
• Wireless headset with over-the-ear type headphones

Software

• Google Chrome
• Audio Repeater Pro
• VB Cable A+B
• VLC Media Player

Setup

1. Install “Audio Repeater Pro (64 bit)” and “VB Cable A+B”. Don’t mess with the settings. Just install them.
2. Run “Audio Repeater Pro (64 bit)”. Use these settings:
   • Input Device: Microphone (Logitech G935 Gaming Headset)
   • Output Device: CABLE Input (VB-Audio Cable B)
   • Stream Format: Processing Format (default)
   • Stream Buffer: 40 milliseconds (default)
   • Process Audio: (not checked)
   • Stream Gain: 100%
   • Stream FX: FX Chain (default)
   • Bypass FX Chain: (not checked)
   • Click “Start”.
3. In the task icon area of the taskbar, right-click the speaker, and select “Recording Devices”.
   1. Right-click Microphone (Logitech G935 Gaming Headset), and select “Set as Default Device”.
   2. Right-click Microphone (Logitech G935 Gaming Headset), and select “Properties”.
      • On the “Listen” tab, set to UN-check “Listen to this device”.
      • On the “Levels” tab, set to 90.
      • Click OK.
   3. Right-click CABLE-B Output, and select “Properties”.
      • On the “Listen” tab, CHECK “Listen to this device”.
      • On the “Listen” tab, set “Playback through this device” to “Speakers (Logitech G935 Gaming Headset)”.
      • On the “Levels” tab, set both to 100.
      • Click OK.
4. In the “Playback” tab of the Sound application.
   • Right-click the headset, and select “Set as Default Communication Device”.
5. Run Chrome.
6. In Chrome, go to Google Meet, and join the meeting.
7. When the Meet window opens, click the three dots in the bottom right corner and click “Settings”. On the Audio tab, use these settings:
   • Microphone: CABLE Output (VB-Audio Cable B).
   • Speakers: Speakers (Logitech G935 Gaming Headset).
8. Open VLC Media Player.
   1. Add songs to the playlist.
   2. In the Audio menu, select Audio >> Audio Device >> CABLE Input (VB-Audio Cable B)
9. Invite people to join the hangout.
10. Play songs in VLC. Other people in the Hangout will hear them. To avoid drowning myself out, I set the VLC output level to about 80%.

Recording

Here are the settings I used to record in Flashback Express.

1. In the Tools >> Options menu, look in the Sound section.
2. Under Sound Source, select “PC Speakers (what you hear)”.
3. In the drop-down under “PC Speakers (what you hear)”, select the headset.
4. Now, when recording in Flashback Express…
   1. Under “Record”, select “Window”.
   2. Check “Record Sound”.
5. Still in Flashback Express, in the sound section, check “Record Sound”, and for the source select “Speakers (Logitech G935 Headset)”.

When done with the hangout

1. Close the Hangout window.
2. Click “Stop” in “Audio Repeater Pro (64 bit)”, and close it.
3. Close VLC Media Player.

Here is what I am using now in Firefox:

• bug 489729
• Context Search
• Cookies Manager+
• F.B. Purity (and hide the Trending pane)
• gtranslate
• Lastpass
• MapQuest search
• Tab Mix Plus (I set it to open my “home page” in new tabs, and to reload a tab when I double-click the tab)
• uBlock Origin
• Xmarks Sync (I synchronize bookmarks, but not passwords, and I turn Xmarks’ “Discovery” features off.)