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• Note: An AI Generated pill displayed in the list below indicates that the post description displayed on the page was generated from the post content using Generative AI (GenAI). The post content itself was written by a human (me).

• Spacing Slats Evenly

  Wednesday, July 16, 2025 at 07:24 AM in Woodworking
  

  When I built the love seat I described in my previous post, one of the assembly tasks for the seat was to screw slats to the frame spaces a quarter inch apart. Since each slat was 46 inches wide, I had to come up with a unique approach to doing this consistently with only a single pair of hands.

• Drilling Holes Consistently Across Multiple Pieces

  Sunday, July 13, 2025 at 01:46 PM in Woodworking
  

  For a woodworking project I completed recently, I had to drill 16 countersink holes in the same location across 8 boards. I created a jig to make this easy and consistent.

• Setting Windows File and Directory Timestamps to Now

  Sunday, June 29, 2025 at 06:18 AM in Microsoft Windows, Delphi
  

  When working on a book and sometimes while writing software applications, I like to set my project files (Word documents or other files) to the same timestamp. I'm not sure why I started doing this, but it allows me to set a sort of release grouping on the files based on timestamp.

• Install Windows DLL Using Inno Setup

  Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 05:50 PM in Delphi
  

  I recently wrote a Delphi application for Windows that implements a Windows Shell Extension which means I must distribute it as a DLL. I've used Inno Setup for a while now to create and publish Windows installers, but I'd never created one before for a DLL.

• Magnetic Dust Collection Port

  Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 03:19 PM in Woodworking
  

  Dust collection is a pretty big problem in my workshop; I've ignored it for a long time, but I decided I had to do something about it. My router table has built-in dust collection under the table and in the fence, but if I'm not using the fence, I make quite a mess in my workshop.

• Delphi Single Instance App With Runtime Parameters

  Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 03:58 PM in Delphi, Microsoft Windows
  

  AI Generated   In the article, I learned how to prevent multiple instances of a Delphi application from running simultaneously and published a complete sample application demonstrating it. By assigning a unique name to the application and implementing code to check for existing instances, I can ensure only one instance runs at a time. The article also covered passing command-line parameters between instances and activating the initial instance when a second one is launched.

• Published Subdirectory Copy v1.1

  Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 12:45 PM in Delphi, Microsoft Windows
  

  When I created my Subdirectory Copy application, my use case was copying a single set of files to a flash drive. As I got closer to releasing the product, I started thinking more about how users would use it and I realized that the application had to be able to manage multiple filesets for copying.

• TechSmith Windows Snagit Stops Loading or Capturing

  Friday, June 13, 2025 at 07:45 PM in Microsoft Windows
  

  A few weeks ago, Snagit stopped launching its capture window on startup (yes, I had automatic launch at startup configured) and stopped being able to capture accurately 90% of the time.

• Simplifying Copying Music Files to a Flash Drive

  Friday, June 6, 2025 at 02:56 PM in Microsoft Windows, Automobiles
  

  AI Generated   I created a Windows application called Subdirectory Copy (SubCopy) to automate the process of copying music files from my computer to an external drive for my car's music player. By populating the root directory with my music files and selecting the artist folders to copy, I can easily update my music collection on the external drive.

• Acura MDX Play Music on USB Flash Drives

  Thursday, June 5, 2025 at 06:48 PM in Automobiles
  

  In Audi Q7 Drive System Failure I described a problem I had with an Audi Q7 I owned. As soon as I got it back from the dealer (after waiting almost 6 months for them to fix it), I immediately traded it in for a 2025 Acura MDX. The replacement engine they installed in the car had 10,000 more miles than the one that broke, so I knew it was a ticking time bomb.

• Outlook Pastel Categories macOS

  Thursday, June 5, 2025 at 06:41 PM in Microsoft Outlook
  

  AI Generated   I recently had an issue with Microsoft Outlook on my work MacBook where the Calendar view displayed categories in annoying pastel colors instead of solid ones. After searching for a solution online and contacting IT support with no luck, I stumbled upon a fix in the Outlook for macOS Help menu under **Clear Application Data**. By selecting the option to clear data for Experimental Features, I was able to revert the category colors back to solid.

• TeraCopy Disable Check Free Space Check

  Saturday, May 24, 2025 at 11:49 AM in Microsoft Windows, Miscellaneous
  

  I purchased a new car recently, and I'm trying to setup a Flash drive with a lot of (but not all) of my music so I can listen to my favorite artists while driving and not need Pandora or Youtube Music. I'm building a simple utility I can use to refresh the files on the flash drive when I pick up something new for a particular artist or when I want to add a new artist's music to the drive.

• NeoPixel Stick Mounting Issues

  Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 07:28 AM in Arduino, ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT), Project Builds
  

  In yesterday's post about mounting Adafruit NeoPixel Stick devices in a line, I made the following comment: "But, the folks at Adafruit didn't feel the need to make this easy." For this post, I thought I'd explain why I said that.

• Mounting Multiple NeoPixel Sticks in a Line

  Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 05:48 PM in Arduino, ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT), Project Builds
  

  This post describes a 3D printed device I use to mount multiple Adafruit NeoPixel Sticks together in a line. I had a friend create it for a project I'm working on.

• FoxAlien Masuter Pro Spindle

  Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 07:14 AM in Woodworking
  

  Recently, I purchased a FoxAlien Masuter Pro CNC Router for my workshop. I assembled all the parts and started testing the unit. Everything seemed to work, except for the spindle. I couldn't get the included software to turn the spindle on.

• Mounting Breadboard-friendly NeoPixels

  Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 06:11 AM in Arduino, ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT), Project Builds
  

  I build a lot of projects using Adafruit's NeoPixels. They dramatically simplify the process of wiring multiple LEDs into a project, requiring only three wires between each NeoPixel rather than two wires and a resistor to each LED. This article explains an issue I discovered with mounting Breadboard-friendly RGB Smart NeoPixel in a project and the solution I found for resolving it.

• USB 3.0 Cable Power Switch

  Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 01:37 PM in Project Builds, ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT)
  

  On a couple of projects lately I found myself repeatedly plugging and unplugging microcontrollers to/from my development system. This happens most frequently when writing faulty code for an ESP32 device and, when the compiled code runs on an ESP32, the code Panics and repeatedly reboots the device - panicking every time it restarts.

• Phishing American Express Message Ready to View

  Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 10:48 AM in Phishing
  

  I received an email message the other day that seemed to be from American Express, but wasn't.

• Cloud Function Certificate Issue

  Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 07:53 PM in Arduino, ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT)
  

  After publishing my M5StackC-Plus Cloud Function Execution example, I used it for about a week before it just stopped working one day.

• ESP32 Request Repeater With Sleep

  Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 06:46 PM in Arduino, ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT)
  

  In my previous post I described how to put an ESP device to sleep (allowing it to wake up later). I used a sample sketch I created, ESP32 Request Repeater (HTTP), to show how it works.

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