Author: sjwillis

  • Air Freshener and Vacuums. That’s Basically How This N.J. Landfill Is Cleaning Up Its Stench. | NJ.com

    I think this explains why the stink is getting better!

  • Paradigm PDR subwoofer repair

    TL;DR, if your paradigm PDR-10 isn’t powering on automatically, check the fuse. It can be easily accessed by removing the back panel of the subwoofer. Sunday morning and I had the house to myself for a few hours so decided to listen to my favorite recording of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Firing up the 3rd and…

  • Amazon Dash button to call an Applescript

    The other day Amazon put several of their Amazon Dash buttons on sale for $1.99. I picked up a few. The first project I tackled was to get a Dash button to let everyone in the house know that the dog has been fed. This was pretty easy.  Someone feeds the dog and presses the…

  • Charlie Parr – Jaybird

    I like the hypnotic quality of the instrumental (National resonator guitar) that leads up to the very short lyric part (which is great in its own right). Feels like a combination of atmospheric and folk at the same time. Not that they’re mutually exclusive but listen and you’ll see what I mean. Here’s a live…

  • Old School Mac

    Spent a lot of time yesterday waiting for sql inserts to load and thought, hmm let me change my desktop background image. From there it was all down hill. Rabbit hole after rabbit hole, looking for vintage Mac icons. I even resucitated DragThing, forgot what a great application it is. Anyway, back to work.

  • Send txt and SMS messages from your Mac’s iMessage app

    [Note/Update: now that Apple has finally linked all the iMessage backend in iCloud you don’t need to jump through these hoops anymore. Just do this instead.] Finally figured out how to make iMessage on my MacBook cooperate with a group text thread that includes non-iphone or Android users. This assumes that you have an iCloud…

  • locking down iPad for kids/special needs

    [Note: combine these instructions below for how to lock down AirPlay on an iPad with an app called Volume Sanity and peace will descend upon your house!] We use Airplay for music throughout the many rooms and audio systems in our house. Our youngest son likes to watch YouTube videos of buses and trucks all…

  • mac spotlight can’t find applications?

    create a shell script with the following lines:   sudo mdutil -a -i off sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist sudo mdutil -a -i on

  • The Great $100 Home Audio Project*

      (*Actually only  $70 if you already have an amp/receiver to plug into). We’ve been in our house for almost 10 years and I still haven’t found a good way to take advantage conveniently of the speakers that were built into our Master Bedroom ceiling. The speakers feed into a selector box in the basement…

  • Farmer’s Market Challenge!

    The Red Bank farmer’s market is building up to its annual colorful crescendo right about now. The variety of fruit and vegetables available is pretty good and the prices are reasonable. The popular stuff abounds — tomatoes, zucchini, peppers — but you can also find some a few examples of strange-looking, less-widely available varieties of…