How to Configure Adobe Media Encoder to Automatically Render Videos on a Remote Machine

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As much as I like working on videos, I must admit that the rendering process certainly takes a toll on a machine’s performance, particularly when you’d like to use your machine to do something else while it renders. In my case, my main computer at home is by far my most powerful and versatile machine, so when it’s locked up doing rendering for a multitude of hours, I’m faced with a terrifying prospect – actually going outside or reading a book. Determined to avoid this type of cruel fate when away from home, I started to think of ways that I could do the editing on a somewhat less powerful machine, but offload the actual rendering to my beast of … Read more

Working with High Resolution Images in WordPress

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Transcript “So I was asked recently to demonstrate the basics of working with images in WordPress, particularly when you’re dealing with images that are of a high resolution. So if you look at my desktop here, I have three images. I will just display them quickly – this one, this one, and this one. Now, what they have in common is they’re all the same size… if I hover over them right here, you’ll see that they are 3200 by 2400, that’s a fairly large size, and I can demonstrate that by opening one of them in Paint. So in Paint what you see is a portion of the sky, in this particular shot, and the reason is that the … Read more

Gearing Up

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It’s fascinating how you start to see people differently when you have kids. And I say that loosely, as I haven’t exactly spawned minions of my own – my experience stems from fulfilling a stepfather role, years ago, which came quicker than I expected. I mean sure, I had certainly thought of a hypothetical future that might involve kids, but there’s no way I thought that would happen in my 20s. In my mind, I wasn’t yet good enough at managing multiple aspects of my life, such as my finances, certain aspects of my business, etc. It wasn’t that I was bad at these things, but more so, I didn’t feel I was good enough. It thus felt ridiculous to … Read more

How to Remove Ads From the Windows 10 Lock Screen

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I’ve discovered I have a new passion in life, and you know what it’s all about? Helping people remove as much of the ads and sponsored content from Windows 10 as possible, assuming, of course, that that’s something they want to do to begin with. And so today, a very quick but essential tip… how do you remove the “helpful” facts and/or links that appear on the login page? Here’s an example: These icons visually pollute the lock screen image, and in many cases, Microsoft uses them to sway consumer behavior – something they’ve clearly grown fond of doing since people accepted free Windows 10 upgrades. Solution If Windows 10 isn’t doing what you want, beat it with a rolled … Read more

How to Hide the Tools Pane in Adobe Reader DC

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Transcription “Hi everyone. In this video, I’ll be showing you how to hide the Tools Pane from Adobe Reader DC. I’ll be showing it under Windows 10. So you know when you’re opening a PDF with Adobe Reader? On the right hand side, there’s this special section known as the Tools Pane. It’s an area that has several functions: Export PDF, Create PDF, and a bunch of other things. Now, generally speaking, I find this section obstructive, more than anything. So it’s in the way. I would like, for example, the Adobe Reader window to utilize the full width of the window, not just a portion of it because of this sidebar. So in order to hide the sidebar, I … Read more

Why Is Facebook Taking So Long to Delete a Video of a Guy Having Sex With a Chicken?

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So I’ll cut right to the chase on this one. On Friday the 10th of November, at 6:15 PM EST, I received an odd Facebook message from a friend, one that I’ll call Jane for the sake of this article. At first glance, just from the thumbnail, her message seemed like a risky thing to click on. Here’s what I saw: UPDATE December 7, 2022: I blurred the image quite a bit more. Now, I knew Jane pretty well, so I knew that she often said and did things that weren’t particularly appropriate – but it wasn’t a constant thing, it happened from time to time. So, even though the preview to this video concerned me, I reasoned that perhaps … Read more

The Pizza and the Compass

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On a particularly normal morning a few weeks ago, I was preparing to leave for work. I had a small pizza cooking in the oven, one that I planned to eat for lunch – it was not a standard small pizza, more reasonably-sized. When the timer rang, I opened the oven, took the platter out, and placed it on the top of the stove. I then tried to do my usual next step: lifting the pizza from the aluminum foil. To my surprise, on this day, the pizza was very much stuck to the aluminum foil, making for a complicated task – I had to separate the pizza from the foil without comprising the structural integrity of the crust underneath. Now, … Read more

Microsoft: Edge Is Better Than Your Browser

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So there I was, browsing the web with Chrome as I always did, when I noticed a new pop-up in Windows 10. Take a look at this: Now, as much as I like Windows for its simplicity, I have to express my total and utter disgust at this type of tactic. This is basically the corporate equivalent of a kindergardener pointing to another child and boasting how much better they are than them, in an attempt to increase their own popularity amongst the rest. And you just know that they’re using the fact that their dad is the principal to more easily get away with it. See, that’s the thing… if Microsoft actually had any ounce of fairness in their use … Read more

WordPress: “Request Entity Too Large” Error Prevents Saving Changes to Menu

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Recently, I finished writing a new page for my blog, and was looking to add it to the main menu. So I proceeded as I normally would – in the WordPress dashboard, I selected “Appearance,” then “Menus.” In that editor, I added the new page, and pressed “Save Menu.” Then, to my surprise, I got this error, which prevented me from saving my changes: Granted, after reading the error message completely, I realized that I was at least somewhat to blame. After all, the size and complexity of my menus were beyond anything I’d seen before in a WordPress site. I make heavy use of sub-menus. This screenshot only scratches the surface. Then again, was it my fault? Shouldn’t software … Read more

Windows Store Error “Try That Again” Something Happened on Our End

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As I went to launch the Windows Store app today, I encountered an error I’d never seen before. Here’s what I saw: My first instinct was to see if there were any new updates available for Windows, just in case. I quickly confirmed that I was fully up-to-date, and began to ponder what else I could check. To be safe, I verified that I could successfully log into the Microsoft website, just to confirm that I wasn’t having any authentication issues. When these attempts failed to resolve the problem, I took to Google to try and find a solution. Unfortunately, most of the articles I found simply didn’t solve my problem. Ultimately, I figured it out, so I’m sharing my … Read more