Bryan Veloso

Category: Geekery

  • Third Party Smart Plugs in Alexa App / Amazon Echo stopped working

    Since December 2020 last year, third party plugs such as GoSund Smart Plugs connected via Smart Life or Go Smart App through Amazon Alexa Skills stopped working.

    You need to disable the skill then re-ensbled it again via the Alexa App to make it work. It works for a few days or minutes, then it will become unresponsive again.

    Relinking, uninstalling then reinstalling the app will fix it temporarily then it will become unresponsive again.

    GoSund or Alexa support will just suggest the common troubleshooting methods that I mentioned. So if you encountered the same issues as I am, then just do the basic troubleshooting methods I mentioned.

    There’s no absolute fix yet. I suggest if you’re new to Alexa / Amazon Echo devices, just buy the official smart plugs. My official Amazon smart plug didn’t stop working when all else aren’t working.

    Third party smart plugs still work via their respective apps. It just doesn’t work seamlessly via voice commands through Alexa.

  • How to remove inactive cameras in your Chrome Browser in MacOS

    I’ve been googling about this since yesterday and I can’t find any solution to remove the inactive cameras that are already uninstalled from my Mac.

    I previously installed OBS Virtual Cam and the GoPro Camera in my MacOS Catalina. But after upgrading to MacOS Big Sur, GoPro WebCam stopped working. It will just display the GoPro loading screen, but won’t start the cam.

    So… I decided to just uninstall the GoPro WebCam software as it’s completely unusable. This issue is posted last November 2020 in the GoPro Support Hub, but until now, there’s no resolution or official fix from the GoPro Team.

    Now after uninstall the GoPro camera, it will still default to the GoPro camera in Google Chrome Browser. For example, if you use MyCrypto.com and scan your QR code, the GoPro camera will by the default camera, even if you change it in your Chrome settings at chrome://settings/content/camera (mine is brave://settings/content/camera, because I’m using the improved version of Chrome which is Brave.)

    I already selected the FaceTime HD Camera as you can see in the screenshot. Both OBS Virtual Camera (m-de:vice) and GoPro WebCam (o We:bcam) are already uninstalled, but it’s still appearing the list of options.

    And there’s a bug in Chrome where-in it will still default to the previous default Camera even if it’s already uninstalled from your system.

    What I did is viewed background processes on Activity Monitor, search for GoPro, and found a running background process called GoProWebcamDaemon.

    I clicked sample, and found a directory where an instance of a GoPro file still exists. Maybe this is a software that still runs after I deleted the GoPro WebCam app in the applications folder already. So I went ahead and disabled the Daemon, and browsed through the directory and found a .plugin file.

    In my folder when I browse Macintosh HD > Library > CoreMediaIO > Plugi-Ins > DAL, I found two plugin files as show in the screenshot below.

    I deleted both GoProWebCam.plugin and obs-mac-virtualcam.plugin, then checked my Chrome Camera settings, and both inactive + uninstalled cameras still exists.

    I restarted my Mac (because of the forced update, to install it as well), then poof! The two inactive cameras are gone.

    Now my browser camera defaults to Facetime HD Camera!

    If you encountered the same problem, I hope this solution helped you. As I cannot find any reference online, so I just posted this myself to help others who encountered the same situation as I am.

  • WordPress Theme with Dark Mode using the 2021 Theme!

    WP default themes keep on getting better and better. Now with the default Twenty Twenty-One theme, you have an option to support dark mode. Then you can toggle it on and off using the button on the lower part of your screen.

    BryanVeloso.com is now using the latest default theme for 2021. It’s a one column with 3-column footer for widgets. It’s pretty straightforward, simple and fast. You can add your logo in the header, and that same logo appears in the lower left part of your footer.

    Simplicity is what makes this blog theme special. You can also make your post show the full posts by default, or just an excerpt of your blog post in the customization settings. No need to add “read more” on every blog post you make.

    This theme is simple, fast, elegant, and modern. You’ll love it if you’re a minimalist like me. The default light mode and dark mode colors adapt well in all colored logos with transparent background.

    I didn’t adjust me logo color anymore to adjust with the theme’s default color options. It simple works, good to the eyes, and UI is fantastic.

    I’ll be using this theme for the entire year of 2021 until the WordPress Twenty Twenty-Two theme is released.

  • Bitbucket Connection Refused / No Route to Host (Siteground Server)

    If you recently encountered this issue when pushing a your git updates to Bitbucket and you’re using Siteground as your server, then you found your solution. I recently encountered this issue in my multiple Siteground hosts, using shared or cloud SG servers.

    Not really sure if this is a Siteground issue or a Bitbucket issue, but changing the port via config works.

    One solution I found online is adding 104.192.143.2 bitbucket.org to your /etc/hosts file. But sadly, at Siteground GoGeek servers, you have limited access and you cannot access your hosts file.

    If you’re getting a No Route to Host error, or a Connection Refused error when trying to push repo updates/commits.

    Just go to your .ssh/config file (create one if you don’t have one yet), and add these lines:

    Host bitbucket.org
    Hostname altssh.bitbucket.org
    Port 443

    No need to thank me. I just found the solution here by oliverkocsis.
    https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/BCLOUD-9519

  • JetPack is getting smarter and smarter

    Recently today, I upgraded my PHP version to 7.4.4. After a few minutes, I received an e-mail that my website is offline. It says that “Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue”. But good thing, I have JetPack. Gone are the days when your WordPress website is down or just blank white, and you don’t know what to do.

    Now, non-living things are getting smarter and smarter. I now know why my website is down and what’s the root cause of the issue. No need to troubleshoot it anymore. You’ll receive a link to enter your website in “recovery mode”, and you will also receive via e-mail all the details about which plugins caused the issue.

    Mine was this:

    Current plugin: Audio player (version 2.0.4.6)

    Error Details
    =============
    An error of type E_PARSE was caused in line 903 of the file /wp-content/plugins/audio-player/audio-player.php. Error message: syntax error, unexpected ‘new’ (T_NEW)

    So I just went ahead to my server and deleted that specific plugin that I don’t even use anymore. And eureka! My website is back online! Easy peasy right?

  • Xcode 11.5 update and the Exposure Notification API

    I just updated my Xcode to version 11.5. This version now support the Exposure Notification API. This API is used for contact tracing. So if you’re developing an app for contact tracing, this must be pretty useful. I haven’t read details about the Exposure Notification API, but I’m pretty sure it will speed up development of such apps.

    So how this it work? It’s already explained extensively by MacRumors. Check out this article here.

    If you want to know more about the ExposureNotification framework, head to Apple Developer’s official documentation. There are topics linked there that explains each class of the framework.

    Are you excited to try the API? I’m not as I don’t have any clue about iOS development. Why am I writing about this? I don’t know, just love to write something because this is my blog.

    Why are you reading this? I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22.

  • ETH to Bitfinex using Smart Contracts

    Do not send ETH to Bitfinex via Smart Contacts, if you’re unsure that your deposit will not be sent as part of an Ethereum contract execution, please find out for sure before sending your deposit. Most online wallets now use Smart Contacts, like Coins.ph. You can send to another local wallet first if you know how, then send it to your Bitfinex address.

    But to be very sure, just use Bitcoin or other cryptos with no issues like Ethereum has.

    I just found out about this after sending a few ETH from Coins.ph to Bitfinex. So be careful before sending any amount. Read, and re-read the latest instructions from Bitfinex. If you’re unsure about what you have read, then just don’t send anything.

    Cryptocurrency is old, but it’s still cryptic to many, just like me.

    UPDATE: I just contacted Bitfinex support and they said that they can manually process the transaction but it will take days to weeks. But hey! My ETH is not gone for good!

  • Single PHP file to send push notification via OneSignal REST API

    Here’s a single php file where you can send a push notification using your OneSignal account via REST API. It’s simple and straightforward using the code example at OneSignal.com. This one is more complete as the code example is just the curl_setopt code. But what if you don’t know how to POST the code from your form to send a message using the basic example from OneSignal REST API? Example in this link are all just API parameters with basic code example, no actual code example with an HTML form that will work if you copy paste it.
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