Gratefulfrog's GratefulBlog

2017-09-18

New Zealand Sept 2017

Le Film

Les Photos

2017-07-17

Win10 No Recording, No Microphone, Conexant SmartAudio HD drivers issue

Recent Windows 10 updates disabled my PC's ability to record sound.

It turns out that after some automatic updates, the microphone device was replaced by a "Stereo Mix" device, which was disabled.

Updating the Conexant SmartAudio HD driver did nothing.

Deleting the Audio input and output devices (Speakers, and Stereo Mix) and rebooting did nothing.

However, when looking down the list in the Device Manager, I found a "Sound, video and game controllers" section with a device called: "Conexant SmartAudio HD".

By deleting this device, all the Audio input and output devices were deleted.

Then, after a reboot, the Audio input and output devices showed:

Microphone Array (Conexant SmartAudio HD)
Speakers (Conexant SmartAudio HD)

and Recording Now Works!

2017-05-21

as Towel Day 2017 Approaches

I quote Ken Kesey and think of his son Zane:

"The sixties aren't over until the fat lady gets high."

2017-04-19

La Clarée - La Grave - La Meije Avril 2017

2017-04-04

Gran Paradiso Mars-Avril 2017

2017-03-25

Chamonix Mars 2017

2017-01-23

Sony Proprietary Camera Firmware Workaround

Well, I was searching for a new point and shoot camera. I use it mainly for skiing so I wanted a camera with a viewfinder so that it would be possible to actually see what I was shooting despite the strong sun in the mountains.

After some search, it seemed that the Sony DSC HX80 was the best compromise.

Not only that, but its viewfinder had a diopter adjustment so that I don't have to wear glasses to be able to see the image!

Furthermore, I was so happy to see among the many features of the camera, WIFI photo transfer to computer!

This was so exciting, at first, but sadly Sony only allows that feature to work with their proprietary photo software on closed Windows and OSX systems.

I proudly use GNU-Linux.

And the beauty of Linux is that it is supported by a community of nice people trying to fix all the broken proprietary solutions provided by rotten companies like Sony.

So, I found Airnef and good-bye to proprietary Sony software! I can now transfer my photos over Wifi, on GNU-Liunx with no problem!

Once again the world of open source has saved the day!

Thank you Airnef!!!

2016-12-22

Tignes Dec 2016

To visit the album directly use this link.

It was really hard to embed this slideshow!:

display album in Flickr
use organizr to make all photos publicly visible
display album and add '/show' to url
click share and then copy embed code!

2016-11-25

Character Pixels

Some experiments... Code available in my Github repo

2016-10-29

Building a Better Sink Strainer

Well, after changing the little metal kitchen sink strainer for the zillionth time, I decided that maybe I should try to make a better one myself...

This is what I wanted to replace:

This is what I was aiming at:

And this is what I got:

After a few attempts, this is what I got:

It worked!

Some cool things:

I made it in 2 parts that snapped together! No supports needed during printing and no glue needed to assemble!
It actually works!

But, the inner wall of the rim was very very thin, and the bridging during the printing of the basket seemed fragile.

So, I came up with a new design: