Category Archives: tech

tech, tutorials

create your own search engine using searxng and linux

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The excellent network chuck on youtube made a video the other day about making your own search engine with searxng so i thought id put the steps involved on doing in locally in Linux.

Update our linux installation

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

install docker;

sudo apt install docker.io

install docker compose tool:

sudo apt install docker-compose

navigate to dir where you want to keep searxng, in this example well put it in “/usr/local/”

cd /usr/local

download searxng;

git clone https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker.git
cd searxng-docker

create secret key;

sudo sed -i "s|ultrasecretkey|$(openssl rand -hex 32)|g" searxng/settings.yml

start up docker containers

sudo docker-compose up

point your browser to;

localhost:8080

Tweaks and settings;

See here for how to change things;

https://docs.searxng.org/admin/engines/settings.html#use-default-settings

refs;
https://github.com/searxng/searxng-docker

tech

Fix performance problems with Virtualbox and Vmware on Windows 10

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If Virtualbox & VmWare is causing massive problems with just getting a Virtual machine running in windows 10 its probably because you have Hyper-V enabled.  I learned the hard way that having Hyper-V enabled and running Virtualbox is a nightmare.  I kept getting the error;

MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC

Disable Hyper-V if its enabled in windows 10 by going to “Turn windows features on or off” and un select “Hyper-V”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also make sure that its disabled in bcdedit by making sure that you run the command;

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

Reboot your System and Virtualbox and Vmware will now work much better.

refs;

https://www.nakivo.com/blog/uninstalling-or-disabling-hyper-v-in-windows-10/

software, tech

How to remove the Bitdefender context menu from Windows 10

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Bitdefender is a great piece of software with a huge range of security features but doesnt give an option to remove the annoying menu option that pops up when you right click on a file., of course there is a way to remove it.

Download a program that makes this easy called “ShellxView” from https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html#DownloadLinks

Load it up and look for an entry called “BdShlExt” (see below) and right click and select disable.

tech

Windows 10 wont enter sleep mode – solved

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Ever since i upgraded my PC last year, my Windows 10 pc will not go to sleep and neither will the monitor and that’s with a fresh Windows 10 installation. The first thing i did was to press the “Restore default settings for this plan”..didnt work.

I’m really finding it hard to figure out how this is a problem when with my old hardware it was never a problem. The only thing i cant think off is that its the motherboard and some setting in BIOS thats not quite right.

This problem has been happening since i installed the new hardware and for some reason i thought it was normal..but remembered how my old PC would behave it would just go to sleep when the windows 10 power settings told it too.

Hardware Specs:
MSI B 450-A PRO (latest BIOS)
AMD Ryzen 2600
Win 10 64 210h (latest)
32GB DDR 4 3000

Possible fixes:

  • Steam running
  • Nvidia Overlay
  • GeForce Experience
  • USB Controller/Joystick being plugged in.

Solution:
After reading about the same problem being caused by a controller being plugged in, I disconnected the Joystick from my PC and within one min the screen had gone off.

Logitech Extreme 3D pro is causing the the issue:

Logitech Extreme 3D pro
https://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/27004-windows-10-will-not-auto-sleep.html

Sources:

Solution Found Here
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/monitors-wont-go-to-sleep-why.244167/page-3

Programming, tech

How to install two PHP versions in Window XAMPP?

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While Xampp with PHP7 is great there are times when you need PHP5 for an old project. I found this great article on medium the other day on how to have two different PHP versions and one Xampp installation. The alternative is a pain as running two Xampp versions is just too much hassle.

The below article allows you to setup xampp to use PHP 5 and 7 when ever you want. So for normal projects you would use the address’s below, basically it makes xammp listen on port 8888 (or whatever u want) for requests and then uses PHP5 to interpret/compile any Php5 code.

PHP 7http://localhost/myproject
PHP 5http://localhost:8888/myproject

Article with details;
https://medium.com/@naingdroid/how-to-install-two-php-versions-in-window-xampp-b1402c23f42

Games, tech

Call of Duty Modern Warfare – Shuts down my PC -[solved]

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After almost 7 months of this problem and having tried everything i read about it, i decided to run a temperature monitoring program in the background while i played the game.

When i posted this problem on reddit every post i read said to check temps.  Now i never overclock any PC hardware so i thoughts thats not the problem, i was wrong.

BIOS Settings:
There was a setting in the BIOS of the motherboard i had that was called ‘AMD TURBO-CORE’ which would over clock the CPU and cause an increase the temperature of the CPU.

TLDR/Long story Short/i dont care:
The CPU i had was an AMD FX 8350 and normally it would be around 70C Max load.  However this bios setting made temps hit 82C+  and thats where the PC would shut down as a measure to protect it from damage.

Suggestions for various websites that havnt worked;

  • v-sync on in the graphics settings
  • set ‘custom frame limit’ in game to 60 fps see GFX settings
  • turned off the NVIDIA in game overlay
  • shutdown almost everything running in background;
    • steam, Ea Origin,Epic Launcher
  • disabled Hyper-V
  • disabled Windows 10 fast start up
  • Power settings CPU min state 0%
  • Set max Framerate of Graphics card in the NVIDIA Control Panel to 60fps.
  • Cleaned all Fans in the PC case.
  • changed default sound format to 44100 mhz
  • AA SMAA 1x
  • Texture Filter Anisotropic filtering: Normal
  • uninstall Realtek Audio & LAN drivers
  • Reinstall Windows 10

Resources & Links;

PC shuts down while playing
byu/ProfRedBeard36 inmodernwarfare

Rant, tech

Google Authenticator App – What they dont tell you

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So i have been using the app for ages and had a number of different accounts setup on it.

  • ubisoft
  • google
  • lastpass
  • rockstar games
  • Epic Games

New phone, new problems:
When i got my new phone i assumed that when i logged into my google account and downloaded the Authenicator App again that it would setup the app with the codes that i had on the app, Wrong.

How wrong i was! it doesnt do this and i would need back up codes for all the services/apps i had installed!  I thought that i only needed the backup codes for the app and not for each service that i had installed.  Your talking about multiple back up codes for multiple login services.

tech

Hard drive failures – Western Digital Hard Drives are winning!

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Over the years ive had two hard drive’s fail but one failed before there was even a chance to know the drive was about fail probably before S.M.A.R.T back in 2002/2003.  It was a brand new drive with alot of programming stuff on it.  I didnt think id need to backup a brand new drive oh what a lesson learned.

The first one was at a time where there was no google cloud and no online sync and backing up was a pain in the ass.

The Windows 10 1903 update
When the Windows 10 1903 update “rolled out” it became one of the worst experiences ive ever had to go through in upgrading a Windows PC in almost 20 years.

When i did get the fecking thing to work after two BIOS tweaks it revealed another problem. Everytime windows booted up one of the harddrives would dissapear for no reason.

Turns out after a few software hard drive diagnosis programs, the drive is kinda fu*cked and its a Western Digital Drive.

S.M.A.R.T – Self Monitoring and Reporting and Tool:
This invention in hard drive tech is fantastic, if your having problems with a hard drive and do a scan if there are any problems with the SMART settings then you could be in trouble.

Now the drive is still working but S.M.A.R.T is reporting problems with the drive which isnt a good sign.

Thats two Western Digital Hard Drives dead!

Dont buy Western digital Drives im guessing i bought these drives cause they were the cheaper option and that wraps up this post with this link to a survery of hard drive failures and yes Western Digital is number one.

Hard drive failure survey;
56,224 hard drives later, Western Digital fails most often