Category: Toys & Tech

Solution for “Permanent ThinkLight Icon” Problem

ThinkLight Icon

Keywords: ThinkPad 420 420t 420r Windows 10 Win 10 ThinkLight OSD icon won’t go away won’t disappear on screen display hotkey permanent fucking annoying

————

On my recent trip home, I bought another laptop since I use one for work every day and it’s been six years since I bought my ASUS workhorse. The following is a direct copy of the post I left on the Lenovo message boards since huge corporations disappear pretty regularly (or at least change their websites), but my blog DOES NOT.

————-

Anyways, my Thinkpad is a refurbished T420 I powered up with an SSD and 8 gigs of ram, recently updated to Windows 10. After the update is when this problem appeared. The Thinklight icon would appear after waking from sleep and could sometimes be coaxed to disappear either by switching the light on and off, or by using the Volume buttons. The problem is, it only worked a fraction of the time and otherwise required a restart. It was so annoying, I almost went back to Win 7. The permanent solution for me was to install the following:

Hotkey Features Integration for Windows 10 (32-bit, 64-bit), 8.1 (32-bit, 64-bit) – ThinkPad

(Plain text link for above: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds029026 )

Hope this helps somebody else!

————-

I have a copy of this file on said ThinkPad, so if sometime in the future you cannot find this file elsewhere (because of aforementioned corporate website changes or whatever), hit me up. Hope this ThinkPad is still running then!

AVG will sell your browsing and search history to advertisers

On my trip back to the states, a few people asked me why I don’t use AVG Free antivirus software. Well, aside from the reasons I stated then (pop-ups, bugs, general clunkiness), AVG has changed their privacy policy and expressed their intent to sell the browsing and search history of their users to advertisers. Tsk, tsk. Of course, if you are reading this on Facebook (my blog auto-publishes to my FB wall), similar data of yours has been sold already.

The truth is, free antivirus programs are not free at all, and most are complete shit.

My choice of antivirus software? I do not always recommend my personal choice because it’s a bit esoteric, but it’s 360 Total Security with the optional Bitdefender and Avira AntiVir engines enabled.

Jet lag, Brain lag, everywhere a lag lag

We just got back from an epic trip back home to the states where I officiated my baby sister’s wedding, reunited with whole gaggle of relatives (some of whom I hadn’t seen for decades), and took the kids to Disneyland for their first time (thanks dad and Vangie!) the day before we left. It was basically a day and a half by planes and a bus (including a 1.5 hour stopover in Incheon and a brief respite in the Lad Prao area of Bangkok at our relatives’ place), and jet lag/exhaustion has hit all of us hard. I nearly went out of my mind for the past couple hours by accidentally enabling this setting on my phone:

Settings -> Developer Options -> Force RTL Layout direction

It will be fun to prank someone with this in the future; it’s incredibly irritating and nearly impossible to Google an answer. It basically reverses the order of everything in the Android taskbar (clock on the left, status notifications on the right) and justifies all text on screen to the right (and with that description, this page may now become the first hit for people who accidentally enable this setting).

Do you need to show your credit card at check in?

As an anti-fraud measure, many airlines have adopted a policy of asking to see the credit card your tickets were purchased with at check in. This concerned me after buying tickets with my dad’s credit card for my family (wife and kids) to visit home later this year. We are flying Korean Air, so this information is pertinent only to them.

The Korean Air website clearly states that the credit card used to buy the tickets online needs to be shown at check in:

Documents Required

  • Passport
  • Visa (if required by country visiting)
  • e-Ticket itinerary/Receipt
  • Credit card used for online transaction (if booked online)

Reading online flying forums for confirmation only served to confuse the situation, as it appears that some airlines (even Korean Air in some situations) actually ask for the owner of the credit card to also be present at time of check in.

To clarify, we called Korean Air on both continents we would be flying from and they gave us the same reply: Although their website seems to say otherwise, the only time you need to show a credit card at check in is if both of the following two items are true:

  1. You bought the ticket on the Korean Air website
  2. You did not encounter a Verified by Visa or MasterCard SecureCode screen at time of purchase

verisecur

In Thai, we were told “not to worry about it,” which is just about the most worrying thing you can be told in Thai when you want a straight answer, so I called KAL customer service in the states and was told the exact same thing. Since we bought the tickets from a 3rd party (discount travel site), it seems we will not be asked to produce the card at check in.

IARC Rating for C. Buddha’s Blog Reader

The updated terms and conditions for apps available at the Google Play Store dictated that I apply for a International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) rating, which I have now received: LINK

As you most probably are not aware, C. Buddha’s Blog Reader is an Android app; it’s a dedicated reader for this blog that hosts the spirit of virtual Keanu Reeves (yes, it is most excellent). You can check it out here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.warting.blogg.wis_cosmicbuddha_feed_nu

How to fix Broken Thai Text Display in Google Chrome

I recently experienced a very strange and vexing problem in Chrome (EN v.38, 64-bit, Windows 7) where all Thai text appeared as small boxes or squares, or squares with strange symbols inside of them. It literally appeared overnight, and no amount of tweaking encodings or font settings (you know, the normal stuff) could fix it. Only Thai language seemed affected, and it only happened in Chrome (I tested in FF, IE, Opera, and MS Office as well).

I cannot understand your boxy language.
I cannot understand your boxy language.

If you are experiencing the same problem, I have a solution that is working 100% (for me). It is tied to a new Microdicksoft font rendering technology recently enabled in Chrome by default called DirectWrite.
TL;WR: If you want to fix this problem with garbled foreign text display, you need to turn that shit off.

How to turn off DirectWrongWrite:
1) Open Chrome and type (or copy and paste, you lazy fucker) chrome:flags in the address bar, then hit Enter. This opens a magical gateway to a Land That Makes Chrome Bipolar:
20102020chromeflags-directwrite-on

2) Click the “Enable” link under Disable DirectWrite. That’s right, you have to click a link called Enable to turn off the Microphallussoft shit. But Bill Gates cured hemmorhoidal dysentery in the fourth world, so I forgive him.

3) Restart Chrome (remember to shut it down completely if you have it set to run in the background.)

Results for me:

What? Ping pong show RIGHT NOW? I'm on my way, homies!
What? Ping pong show RIGHT NOW? I’m on my way, homies!

I am including the bug report I filed with Google below, for posterity.

All Thai language text suddenly started appearing as boxes or squares in English version of Chrome 38.0.2125.101 m (64-bit). This was a sudden problem that appeared and persisted through various attempts at problem solving: Changing page encoding, font settings, re-installing Chrome, emptying cache, overriding CSS properties with various Extensions, etc. Although other browsers and applications were unaffected, I also tried re-installing all fonts in Windows (64-bit Windows 7), tweaking language settings, deleting FNTCACHE.DAT file, multiple restarts, etc.

I finally found a solution that is working for my system: disabling DirectWrite in chrome://flags/ and restarting Chrome. This solves all problems with Thai text rendering.

EnablingDirect write again and restarting Chrome causes the same problems again, disabling it and rebooting solves it instantly.

Keywords: Fuck Microsoft, Fuck DirectWrite, Fuck Windows 9, thank god it’s friday

How to Stop Spam SMS messages from True (TrueMove H)

I’m fairly satisfied with my monthly TrueMove H internet subscription; it’s fast enough and I’ve never run out of my monthly high-speed allowance (although I am careful not to download or stream too much with it). One thing that always bugged me about it, though, was the number of stupid spam messages I would receive from True, especially since I’m using this SIM with a Nexus 7 tablet (that doesn’t even have a phone function!).

Eventually, I got around to looking it up and found that it’s very easy to unsubscribe from the SMS spam sent by True themselves:

  1. Call *137 from the phone you want to unsubscribe (I had to put the SIM from my tablet into a phone to make the call).
  2. Press 9 for English.
  3. Follow the automated instructions (as of 2014, you press 1 to unsubscribe from SMS spam although this may have been changed to pressing 2 in April, 2020.).

That’s it!

The only problems I have found after doing this for a few friends are that sometimes the system gets overloaded, and sometimes True has no control over 3rd party spammers – in which case you should look for an app to help filter your spam while praying feverishly that the spammers quickly die horrible deaths and are reborn as toilet brushes.