Recently my old laptop, due to some unknown configuration, it shows a background image in the LightDM login. It is annoying, and it is user specific. Meaning, if I choose another user, the background image will be changed to black background.

Searched for the solution on Internet, most of links are about gsettings, or edit the image in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf. But none of the related to my issue.

Finally, I found the solution. The problem is not LightDM itself, but related to AccountsService.

Recently changed to new phone Vivo Y17. Installed all the apps needed. Then I discovered an issue with Wunderlist.

Wunderlist widget keep showing “loading”, and I cannot change the list to be viewed.

The reminder doesn’t show notification in time.

Then I tried to migrate Wunderlist to Microsoft To-Do, and it has same issue as well.

Searching the solution and I finally get this page.

To summarise the solution, go to Settings > Permission Management > Autostart, then enable Wunderlist or Microsoft To-Do.

In my previous post, I mentioned about AAC and the ID3 tag. And I mentoined that

I have an AAC audio file (technically M4A) […]

I used Audacious previously, then change to DeadBeef. The main reason I changed was because I kept failing to play AAC audio file. What’s wrong? FFplay can play it, SMPlayer can play it, DeadBeef can play it, Clementine can play it, but Audacious cannot. Audacious has a AAC plugin, it should support AAC format.

I just found that, if I have an AAC audio file (technically M4A), and if I added the ID3 tag 2 (aka ID3v2), then the audio file will failed to be converted by ffmpeg.

It can be either converted to mp3

• using DeadBeef audio player, or
• remove the ID3v2 tag then convert

So, how to add the metadata like ID3 tag? Use the Kid3 and add the Tag 3 (aka APE tag). This will not affect how ffmpeg to read the file.

Prelude

Last weekend was a long story, that I my Xiaomi Mi 3 is screwed! It happened like this.

I was in the car, using the phone to surf net and go through the social networks. Then suddenly, it popped up a notification saying that my phone is too hot, asked me to cool down, with a system button “Cool Down”. I cannot guarantee that this is not a virus, but I believe that my phone doesn’t have virus. (I can hardly find the Cool Down feature online, this is the only one.) So, I pressed the Cool Down button. With this press, sorry my phone. You got a stroke, and never overcome. Bye-bye!

Just now was trying to boot into Windows, by plugged in the HDMI cable, which supports for video only. But then, I rebooted into Linux without plugged out the HDMI cable. Then, it caused no sound in Linux.

Try 1: I killed the pulseaudio, then delete the ~/.config/pulse, and rebooted Linux. Failed.

Try 2: Run alsamixer, turned on everything, and do Try 1 again. Failed.

Then I guessed it was caused by the HDMI cable, which the Windows may assume there is audio, then caused my computer somehow ouptut the audio through the HDMI, even I rebooted into Linux.

Recently, I found that, the calendar item (agenda) created in MIUI 7 Calendar does not sync to my Google Calendar. Then I ignore it.

And until today, I found that, the agenda from Google Calendar does not sync to MIUI7 Calendar too. Then this will be serious. So, I search around the forum, and finally get this solution.

Install Google Calendar! This will solve the calendar syncing problem. Enjoy!

Recently I move back to use my (around) 4 years old laptop, HP Pavilion dv3. It has NVIDIA graphic card. But since I (re-)installed Arch Linux 64 bit on it, I failed to run the X11 with the proprietary NVIDIA driver. As a result, I used the Nouveau module instead. Then, I tried several times and finally successfully run the X11 with NVIDIA driver.

To use the Nouveau module, in the mkinitcpio.conf, we have to add in “nouveau” module, then build the initramfs (refer to wiki page). And use the “Xorg -configure” to generate the xorg.conf.

Today I just upgraded the MIUI to version 7. Actually, it prompted for the  upgrade since some times last week. But I failed to upgrade, expected to be server problem.

So, today I determined to find the solution for manual upgrade. The upgrade version is MIUI 7.0.5.0. I visited the official site and searched the ROM, but the official site does not have this ROM. As a result, just did a search, and found the target ROM in the MIUI official forum. Then everything becomes easy now.

Preface

LibreOffice Writer is better than Microsoft Word. If you are a web developer, you should understand that there are class and style. Using LibreOffice is tended to using class-like style, instead of direct formatting, which causes a lot of inconsistent, troublesome, and time consuming modification throughout the word processing. And this is happened when the newbies are using Microsoft Word to create templates for the advanced user like me, and causes me full of trouble as being tortured.