Is It Possible To Tweet An Image With A Link? Here is the Test

When I've clicked on images in Tweets, Twitter only shows an enlarged image.  It doesn't then link to the URL that the tweet contains; that link is only in the text of the tweet.

What I've recently found is a possible solution to that, but I'm not really sure if it is correct.  I'll be testing that information here on this page.  It requires me to access the header area, which I'm not sure if that will work since I'm using a template on this blog.

I didn't place the information in the header since I found what seems like alternative or contradictory information.  I placed the html in the body.  Unlikely to have the results I'm seeking, but here goes anyway.

It didn't work when the meta information was in the body of the html, and it didn't work when all of the meta info was in the header either.  It did work when only the first line of the meta data was in the header.  So this is working according to the Card Validation provided by Twitter.

I'll test tweet this page and see if this image appears in the tweet now.

Here's the image I'll be attempting to use as a link back to this blog post.

Time to test it using Twitter's "card" feature.

I Saw the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

I Saw the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus and it was nice.  The display is large on the phone with it wrap around the edge a little.  Ok, but they already had the Note Edge back in 2014, and of course, LG released one a year later in 2015.


galaxy note edge at androidcentral

lg smartphone curved edges at CNET

So what more is Samsung brining with the S8?  It's a Samsung, It's a Galaxy, it's new, it's likely more powerful than anything released in the past 3 years, it's definitely slick and well done, but how much more?  I don't know and in the short video I made of my first impression, it's hard to tell.  Here's the video.

You definitely don't want to drop the phone, (like I immediately did, but that's because of the massive clamp on it!) and we can assume that there will never be a case made for it?  :-)  After all why cover up the "edge" if that's the main feature of the phone....

LINK: Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus - quick little peek at the display

How do you really get a good idea of a phone without using it and putting it on your plan, etc?  It's always a risk but the latest new phones in 2017 are all going to be pretty slick and advanced beyond what we used to be blown away by.

Do I want one? Yes, of course.

Boss SE-50 Stereo Effects Processor Display Issue Requires Battery Replacement

I wanted to use my old Boss "Pro" Stereo Effects Processor that I had sitting around for a long time, many years.  The display had random garbage characters on the user settings area, the first 100 patches.  I had this issue once, years earlier and found that there is an internal watch style battery in the unit that is in a battery holder, luckily, rather than soldered on the board.

The board has to come out, however, since the battery is on the other side, the inside, once the cover is removed from the unit.  I did it once, but it was so long ago I don't even remember doing it.  I made a video of it and posted it on my  YouTube channel.

Boss SE-50 Battery Replacement

I only had a really cheap Chinese battery handy to use in it, but it did work, and if I have to replace it again, it's not that much of a pain to do.  The battery is a common CR2032, I've seen them priced any where from 5 for $1.99, like this one, to something like $3.99, not sure why the wide range in pricing on this item, I hope it has something to do with the quality, but somehow I doubt it.

I didn't really like this unit after I got it, years ago, but now I like it more since back then, I was trying to use it more for a guitar multi-effects unit rather than a signal multi-effects unit for line level signals and processing voice and sending other signals like keyboards thru it.  It's definitely better for voice and keys.

At first, all I was looking for was a gate to control the noise on my mic while recording video, but there's a lot of fun stuff on there.  I used the pitch shift for fun on one of the videos that sounded like a disguised voice, which I thought was a cool effect.

It's now in my signal chain going to my audio interface input after the mic pre and compressor.

It has a lot of different patches, most of them are available thru software effects but those can also take up a lot of processing power so it's actually nice to have this outboard gear available to play with a whole lot faster than searching for and setting and resetting software parameters.  With this, just dial some in really fast and adjust fast and save fast to the 100 available user memory settings, which are now able to be saved with the fresh battery.

Super Fast Easy and Free Drum Beats with Linux Mint and Hydrogen

You don't have to be a musician or musical to do this super fast and easy drum beat.  I made a quick little tutorial on YouTube to show how unbelievably easy it is to do.  It takes 5 minutes.

Using Linux Mint, I just used the GUI app to get Hydrogen.  I think it's also available for Win and Mac.  At first, I tried it out in a guest Mint OS in Virtual Box on my Mint host and it was ok, but a little slow and didn't handle the timing well, but I was able to build simple beats in patterns, arrange them into songs, and then export the wave file and play that on host. 

It processed everything fine, it just had trouble playing in time without audio glitches on the host.  That was definitely asking for a lot considering that a lot of the time, it can be a challenge to get audio applications working well on a non-virtual machine.  Not sure at the moment what we call that.  Does virtual have an opposite? 

After it looked good and didn't even crash once, I decided to go ahead and  install it on the host.  The timing issue was gone and it's a really good program, and a really nice surprise is that the TR-808 sounds are in there on default install, no need to go find and download any add-ons for it, or figure out how to make my own samples, very handy.

In my YouTube video, I replace the standard sounds for the 808 and make two simple patterns and then play them over the video while describing what I'm doing.

Here it is.  Hydrogen Drum Machine Video

Chisel Tip Fat Marker in Gimp is Easy and Fun

Gimp doesn't have an angled brush, so you set the angle of the flat brush tool to negative 45 degrees.

 

 Fat Marker Short Vid

This short video shows the settings I use and the fun drawing with extreme bold.  I also am not using the mouse, but a tablet with a pen.  Tablet is connected to Mint via USB.

It works well, no extra drivers required.

Background music is a new original jam using some old gear from years ago.  Blender used for the editing and audio track sync.

If you watch the video, I could use some subscribers and likes, thanks.

The tablet is a Bamboo made by Wacom.  The pen was included with it.  I'll be looking for a later model, this one is probably not manufactured any more.  So the search is on again.

I'll post again later with more details on this setup.

...and it smells a lot better than actual fat markers.

UPS Battery Replacement in CyberPower 1350AVR

This got in the way of part 2 of prior post.  It had to be done.  For a few days, I was able to still continue using the UPS even tho the battery capacity was not showing on the front panel.

I guess it's a feature to not allow power to go through to the devices plugged in on the power strip that is for battery backup when there is no battery capacity.  I was able to continue like that for a few days until the replacements arrived.

This unit has no easy access door.  The front panel has to be removed but it is only one screw to remove.  The panel is connected by a plug that they do suggest be removed, but I didn't.

The unit with the batteries is 23lbs.  It takes a battery pack of 2 that are secured with a spacer and taped around it to hold it all together.

The tape on the pack I received was not stuck very well on one side so I pulled that part off, pushed the pack together and put the tape back on tight so it would all fit inside the case.

It's been plugged in all day and the display shows full battery capacity.

I haven't tested it yet by running it on battery only, I need to find if there is an alarm disable option.

Here's the YouTube video: UPS Battery Replacement

Optical Media for Backup and Archiving Part 1 - The discs

I still use optical disks for backup and archiving.  Other choices are flash memory like usb flash, SD, micro SD, and HDD/SDD drives.  Hard drives and solid state drives and flash are RW, read-write.  They will work but are larger and more expensive for a single unit or device.

The discs are always under a US dollar so it's easy to shred the old backups.  I always burn two copies for archiving and sometimes 3 if it's important data.

I know, you are saying, "Why not just use the cloud?"  I do for some redundancy, but I need some less amorphous, more tangible form for my own peace of mind. 

The Disks

CD data disks were great at the time.  700mb on one was so good, of course now I am managing files that are over 2,000mb.

DVD data disks were great for years.  4.7gb was fine until recently when I started using larger video files.

BR data disks I use now are 25gb.  25,000mb is a good size for me.  The dual-layer is 50gb, but they are more expensive and I really don't accumulate that much data yet, I hope I don't for a long time.

The Drives

My first CD drive was $330 a long time ago, then they came down to about $20.  Drives sold now for DVD are $16.  Blu-ray is about $50.

There was always a little compatibility problem with disc manufacturers and specific drives.  I've been lucky with that and did a little research before buying and all my discs worked with my drives.   I've been thru about 20 drives, they don't last a long time, so now I don't even install them in the PC case, I just go with external interface, that's for next post.