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Becker Map Pilot Update Drama
Some cars have a satnav called Becker Map Pilot. Somewhere in it’s name there also appears “Harman”. It’s unclear to me if they’re related to the audio equipment manufacturer. Anyhoo, recently, I wanted to update the maps, having not done so for the past 3+ years. Time has really flown by, but USB continues to…
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Brief Review: Sharp 900W Standard Flatbed Microwave R360SLM
Very briefly, it’s a microwave, it works. Flatbed is convenient, and it has rubber suction feet which help keep it firmly planted where you place it, and it looks pretty good. However, using it is frustrating because: The buttons are supposedly touch-sensitive, but require a slightly disconcerting amount of pressure to activate, unless you’re lucky…
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Ubuntu 18.04 Chronicles: Creating a dnsmasq service
In Ubuntu Bionic, I found that the dnsmasq package no longer creates a service for dnsmasq that you can control with service or systemctl. After a fair amount of experimenting and some help from the friendly folk at #systemd on irc.freenode.net , I ended up with a dnsmasq service file that does the right things,…
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Ubuntu 18.04 Chronicles: Applying firewall rules on startup, Pre-network
Another installment in this series. If you are used to dropping scripts in /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/ and seeing them get executed just before the network subsystem is up that’s another thing that doesn’t work in ubuntu Bionic, and you get no feedback that it doesnt. Don’t panic though, because here I show you how to accomplish partially…
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Ubuntu 18.04 Chronicles: Static DNS settings without Stub Resolver
The “new” way to configure your network in Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver is to use netplan files in /etc/netplan/ instead of the age-old /etc/network/ . For some reason, /etc/network still exists and you get no warning that whatever you specify there will be ineffective. Personally, I renamed the single file in /etc/netplan/ to something that has…
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Ubuntu 18.04 Chronicles: removing cloud-init
You just deployed yourself a fresh copy of Ubuntu Server 18.04 Bionic Beaver. It should be the latest and greatest, and you just need a virtual machine to do some web development or perhaps you just want to enable IP forwarding and use this machine as a router. That’s great, except the latest Ubuntu assumes…
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How To Run Need For Speed Most Wanted in Fullscreen
In a bout of nostalgia, and seeing as the game was now reasonably cheap on PC-DVD, I got myself a copy of EA’s 2012 (personal favourite) Need for Speed Most Wanted for PC. They didn’t port this title to PS4 of Xbox One. Amazon provided prompt delivery in their usual style and I was up…
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Android TV Series: Samba Services wants to track your viewing, and you can’t kill it
The latest instalment in life with an Android TV. The picture above says it all. Samba Services is an app on the TV that Sony uses to analyse what you’re viewing so that it could build a marketing profile for ad targeting. You can disable this service like most non-system services in the apps list,…