2019 geek recap: more console mods, mainstream trends....

dang.. been a while since i've posted a real geek post about what i'm doing personally..

2019 for me was more about learning things beyond the geek realms and into metaphysics/quantum entanglement. this year was mainly me trying to get a mental grasp on the basics of quantum entanglement and how it all works or supposedly does thereotically.. ;) oof.. right??

actually, i'd say 2018 - 2019 to now present has been me digging more into this. why? well.. lets be honest, the current geek tech world is pretty boring.. corporate america and overall boring corporate has put profits over innovations.. we are seeing 1999 all over again. and 2008 in the real estate realms... we are at bubble times.. imo.. ;)

the worst mobile phones as of late are decent if not even good.  AR still has yet to find its hardware tech to show what it really can do (yea, i've been saying this since 2006.. check my blogs..)

VR is finally starting to gain traction but we are still not at 4K VR resolution for mainstream users/consoles.. once someone can do a full 4K VR setup under $1K.. they win VR imo.  cough. sony is very very close.. ps5... ;)

Personal items i've done this last year:

Full PS Vita and PSTV softmods/hacks w/SD2Vita implementations
3DS XL still soft modded, hacked
Wii U, soft modded and hacked
PSP Go, still soft modded
GBA, rebought w/upgraded backlit LCD, flashcart vs modding since you can't hehe)
PS3, legit original
PS4 Pro, legit original
PSVR v1.1, legit; 2nd gen revision; wanted headphone holders and thought breakout would solve my HDMI-CEC probs or lack of using..
ECU hacked 2013 MINI Cooper via NCSExpert
Reloaded Win 3.1/NT, Win95b, Win98SE,WinVista, WinXP,WIn7,Win8.1,Win10 for work projects
Raspberry Pi setups: OSMC w/retropie add-in
Complete 30+TB NAS upgrades

for 2020.. i just want LED wallpaper that i can use as active wallpaper or pure custom input layouts (ie 5 different screen sizes i can choose layout on wall and different video sources to each or ability to choose which one mirrors them.. also.. color e-ink when off would be a total bonus!! then use e-ink to set wallpaper when no video is being played..  of course.. i still want ability to use whole wall as a screen/monitor too)

me.. out for now.. also.. have a 2020 MINI JCW Countryman enroute as i type. OMG!! can't wait for clyde.. am gonna miss my current bonnie... ;)

Programmatically associating .mht and .mhtml files to notepad vs Internet Explorer 11

Yes, you can do this easily by creating a text file, renaming w/a mht and mhtml extension and then right clicking the file and choosing "Open With" and then choose Notepad and check the "Always open with"

However, if you have to manage over 300 workstations, doing this manually is impossible and in turn we need a programmatic way to do this. I believe I found a proper way to do this on Windows 10 however IE11 is still an option but notepad is selected by default the first time you try opening a .mht or .mhtml file.

Here is the process / thinking below.

I am running my tests on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition (1809 builds) with patches up to March 2019.

1. First, I clear out the HKCU keys for mht and mhtml files.  Remove these entries:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.mhtml

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.mht

2. After clearing the keys, i then just use the built in ASSOC and FTYPE commands to force the associations.  You will have to run the batch file (if you script it) or run command prompt as an administrator!

Then run these commands:

assoc .mht=
assoc .mhtml=
assoc .mht=txtfile
assoc .mhtml=txtfile
ftype mhtmlfile=%SystemRoot%\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1

3. Finally, we will just need to restart explorer.  You can go the taskill route and then call explorer again to relaunch it, ie:

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
explorer.exe

Hopefully that helps the other sysadmins out there.

Referencing exploits via AskWoody:

https://www.askwoody.com/2019/that-internet-explorer-xxe-zero-day-poking-through-to-edge/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-explorer-zero-day-lets-hackers-steal-files-from-windows-pcs

Apple: Give us the Mac Mini WE WANT, not what you think we want!

Apple... I just wish you would make the Mac Mini us Mac Mini hardcores want.  Notice my header pic.. this is 2018.. i have opted to run a late 2012 Mac Mini Core i5 vs upgrading to a newer Mac Mini.. why?? Because the late 2012 Mac Mini was the last Mac you could actually really upgrade on your own.  I can replace DDR3 RAM, add two 2.5" based drives (SSD, HDD). 

All this talk of a possible Mac Mini upgrade just has me bracing for major disappointment like we have seen the last 6 years.  we don't care about soldered on RAM and actually loathe that idea.  Both as a consumer and a person who cares about the environment; your soldered on, non-upgrade-able hardware is great for business but HORRIBLE for the Earth.  STOP IT!! BE BETTER!

OSMC and the new NESPI Case with safe shutdown and getting it working with a script and service! Verified!!

Yea, i'm a sucker for the Raspberry Pi3 these days and using them as mini media servers and retro gaming consoles. I had originally gotten the NesPi case that had both power and reset buttons but the buttons were hard power offs/resets vs an os initiated reboot/shutdown.  Hard powering off/resetting a raspberry pi running can correct the sdcard and basically make it not boot and require one to do the full re-install.

Enter the new NESPi case by RetroFlag (amazon link, i do not make anything on these! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BRHDVTN )

Plex Media Server - Moving your setup to a new system (same OS to OS, Win to MacOS)

Plex Media Server is a MUST HAVE software suite/service for any media junkie.  Plex is a media server that can aggregate info about your media from imdb/tvdb/plex's own metadata services and create a very nice interface to access and play said media. I'm not going to go into what plex is or why you should be using.  

So here's how you can move your library from either Win7 to Win10 (did this already once w/these notes), Win10 to Win10 (also did this with these notes) and hopefully Win10 to MacOS High Sierra (doing this right now as i write this).

How to claim your LCC (litecoin cash) after the 10:1 hardfork with a Ledger Nano S

Per my reddit post:

Here is my full method to claim our LCC for us Ledger users who had their LTC on their NANO S when the hardfork happened. I have confirmed this just tonight.

1. Before you do anything, move all coins/altcoins off of your Leger Nano S. You will pay gas no matter what you do but imo its worth it if you get more than 10 LCC out of it. I moved my ETC and ECR20 coins to a single MEW paper wallet. I used a single paper wallet due to ETH needed for gas and then being able to recover said ETH, use less ETH to move all altcoins (i had ICX, TRX, LTC, ETH and XRP).
2. For XRP i used an exchange as a temp holding place since i have a ton of XRP and well i can afford a few XRPs to keep it safe. Binance is one place.
3. LTC, i moved all of it to the LiteCoin Core Wallet for now. Be sure to encrypt and then encrypt said backup too. blah blah.. keep privatekey safe like with any paper wallet or wallet.. ;)
4. Once i moved all coins from my Ledger Nano S to paper wallets or exchanges, i then used the tool recommended: https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39
5. I then disabled all network access and ran the .html file locally. Main thing with this .html file is to set the BIP to 24 words, enter words in and then scroll to bottom that has all paths, addresses, public key, private keys.

you can use the 2nd field (address) to check if it is the LTC account/address. use the litecoinca.sh site to do this! enter the address (2nd field in web page at bottom list) into site and if you see LCC amounts, this private key is what we need later

1. Once i copied all of the keys at the bottom into a text file offline, i then went back online. My plan is to fully recreate my Legder Nano S by entering in wrong PIN to force it to reset. i did this the first time i received my Ledger Nano S.
2. I then opened up my LiteCoinCash Core Wallet and made sure it was synced. After it fully synced, go to File > Import Private Key. For the private key, i used the private key associated w/the public key i checked for LCC.
3. LiteCoinCash Wallet will then do a resync which will take 10-30mins. Once it was done, my LCC wallet now shows over 50+ LCC. Wallet is encrypted and offline until we get a Ledger LCC app (hopefully!!)
4. At this point, i plan to now reset my ledger nano s 3 times (ie set up and enter in pin wrong) and then will resetup properly as a new wallet and will move crypto back in the next month or so. i may leave my ETH/tokens in paper wallet form since well.. no more wasted ETH...

I hoped this helped out my fellow LTC #HODLERS to get some free money or $LCC... ;)

CryptoCurrency and getting into - my quick intro

So how does one get into cryptocurrency and markets? in the USA your a bit limited. The biggest mainstream exchanges are Coinbase and Binance (links are refferal links as a FYI for me!)

https://www.coinbase.com/join/530cad473b1246be7500023d
https://www.binance.com/?ref=13090080

Binance: Accepts only BTC, ETH to buy altcoins. You can buy most of the top ten coins here including Ripple (XRP), Verge (XVG) and Tron (TRX). Also you can get monero, dash, doge and others.HOWEVER, new user registration for Binance is suspended ATM due to the surge of new users. Hopefully they will reopen new user registrations.

Coinbase: You can buy BTC, BCH, LTC, ETH. You can use a bank account or credit/debit card. Credit card/debit card transactions are instant and crypto is available nearly instantly where as bank account purchases take 7 days to be available.

If i want to buy say ripple or verge, here is what i have to do:

1. buy ETH on coinbase.
2. transfer ETH to binance (there is a fee to do this!!! damn you fees!!!)
3. once transferred to binance, buy said crypto/altcoin w/ ETH or BTC.
4. either keep crypto on the currency or move it to a mobile, paper or hardware wallet.

Common Terms being used in the crypto world:

FUD: Fear, uncertainty and doubt.
FOMO: Fear of missing out
HODL: Hold on for deal life
MOON: hoping crypto takes off and hits the moon for prices!
Pump and Dump: when whale investors hype up a coin they have invested highly in to drive prices and newbs to purchase and then selling at high point to then bring the price of crypto down. XVG is a recent example but i believe the FUD around was created by the FOMO people and Whales looking to make easy money.


Long term holding: learn about how to store your currency!! you are literally your own bank. you can use paper wallets, digital wallets, hardware wallets. READ UP ON THESE ASAP; exchanges can be hacked; remember Mt Gox and the millions of BTC lost??

Taxes: OMG, this part is what will really suck. we basically have lost the like for like classifications of crypto trading and in turn have to keep records on price paid on coinbase, costs to move to binance and any possible profits/loss of ETH/BTC while crypto transfers and then the capital gains on when we cash out or sell said crypto for another... so yea!! keep records!!!

Disclaimer: this could all burst and we lose it all (very unlikely but not out of the question) so use only money you can afford to lose.

So hopefully helps you all get started. Finally, use your common sense and don't fall for the hype or FOMO. this market rises and falls... it makes millionaires in a seconds and bankrupts others in minutes. here's to us all making it big and finding out moon. ;)

My Raspberry Pi 3 Rev B Projects: Ultimate RetroPic / OSMC build and replacement for parents WDTV Live...

The last few months, I've been on a quest to find a decent offline local media player.  My parents are in their late 70s and farmers and not very technological (well, my dad is but he won't admit it).  As a geek that loves to introduce the non-geeks to tech, I've been working on a way for them to enjoy the digital media I have but in a dead easy way.

Thus my ventures back into Raspberry Pi builds.  My main goals initially started out to just build a replacement media box that 1.  DIDN'T REQUIRE A CONSTANT INTERNET CONNECTION TO WORK (ie Fire devices and ATV were out of the question). 2. Easy to use interface/customizable.  3. Under $150 total cost  4. Ability to use usb harddrives to host media vs just streaming services (ie no plex or netflix)

2017, Tech and My Random Thoughts (ie let me take a try at this product cycle thing!)

Well. been a while since i've posted a tech related blog post.  Tonight I plan to do my usual; rant about what the big companies are doing wrong. ;)  Apple. oh shit... your in trouble....

2017... the year the companies that benefitted most by listening to core audience decided they didn't need us... and sunk deeper and deeper into innovation-LULZ.

yea.. Apple... 2 in 1 is the future.  Again, just make a really shitty prototype of a macbook air and ipad pro to the geek blogs.... your stock will rise upon that leak alone.. no really.. you are avoiding a market that will continue to grow and evolve beyond anything you can even try to offer.  going all in on the iPad was a bad idea.  Laptops still fuel the core of the computing world. I am our companies Citrix/XenApp admin/architect/creator/implementor and a VDI of Win10 vs running  a full blown OS on a device natively is still NIGHT AND DAY.  Yea, it's 2017 but there are still areas where internet coverage sucks or is non-existent.

If Apple would have announced a 2-in-1 Macbook Air and iPad Pro in the last 2 years; it's market share in the business world would not be declining as it is.  I have personally seen the use cases of iPads replacing laptops go from 10-20 a year to now... ZERO.  Our company just upgraded to Windows 10 and new hardware.  We went all out and went w/the Lenovo X1 Yoga w/Core i7, 16GB DDR4, 256GB NVMe.  Hardware-wise this X1 KILLLED EVERY MAC OUT.  Apple, iPads are a fad and that will be replaced w/a true reader based OLED tech VERY VERY SOON! All non PC based tablets have a limited life; and it's shrinking each day.   Laptops will be here for a good 10 more years.  Smartwatches are finally moving towards what i imagined 3 years ago but the patterns of evolving have slowed recently but now again are being ignited.

My true vision of what a 'smartwatch' really is will be envisioned in the next 3 years; my desktop pc will run on my wrist and i will power it by being human and moving and kinetic energy along w/a QI wireless battery pack i most likely wear as a belt. *COUCH* ANKER!! did you ever read my idea and email about a the smart belt that is really just a flexible 10,000mAh battery backup device w/QI fabric pouches you put in your pants to let you charge your devices w/QI anytime they are in your pocket?

Calling it now, called this 2 years before inception/implementation.  Seriously... any tech company want to give  a person who can give them a vision of a product from inception/prototype/pilot/beta/mass production? i think i could do it.  give me a chance on a product Google or Apple. I've been a proponent of AR for now over 6 years. Hell... i bought Google Glass and was left in the dark less than a year later....  then again what do i know... not like i blog my predictions and have been pretty spot on for the last 10 years... just saying.. DirecTV Now..   suggested that over 10 years ago. ;)

peace out/rant out: jimmy

No Man's Sky - My wiki creating script!! v8 updated for new NEXT Hub templates!

Well, today is a big day for the No Man's Sky Galactic Hub reddit community.  Our fearless leader 7101134 and the Hub council has decided on moving to a new location after the 1.30 updates due to system names not reflecting what they are and just starting a new.

Prior to the move, a Hub Council was created to help offload some of the tasks needed to move a virtual civilization of interlopers.  After my script contributions to the community, I was invited into the council and gladly took up a position as a Lead Archivist due to my work on the wiki and making a script to make entry creation easy to add to the Gamepedia No Man's Sky Wiki

So today I announce my updated script version 7.  This template is a basic dos/commandline script that uses input variables to ask questions and then outputs a notepad sourcetext file that you can copy and paste into a new gamepedia.com entry and have a nearly finished wiki entry.

The outputted sourcetext still will need to be edited to add images and other details however this will take out a lot of the work of trying to find and replace fields from an already existing entry.  Notes have been made in the template to help users know what to put where. :)

Templates included:

• Star System
• Planet
• Base
• Ship
• Fauna

Example of gamepedia outputs found here:

• Star System page
• Planet page
• Base page
• Ship page
• Fauna page

DOWNLOAD FROM MY GOOGLE DRIVE FOLDER BELOW:

NMS Template Maker v8.0 Google Drive Folder

NOTES: 

• some escapable characters may cause funkiness in formatting, the pipe command def does cause issues but i think i've fixed this in v4.0
• once variables are entered, notepad is called to open the text file that gets saved to your desktop. you should be able to then create a new gamepedia wiki page and just insert this code to have a very quick initial wiki page.  
• you will want to edit the tables for resources, planets/moons and blueprints
• images still need to be uploaded and inserted into where i've noted they should go
• text file are created on your desktop and then opened in notepad once created

Version History

 (all .cmd files are available for download and remarks added to script to explain how it works)

• Updated notes in script on updated naming systems via NMS Next updates on july 24, 2018. Other tags also updated for NEXT for wiki.
• This is just version 1.0 and i hope to add in a planet and ship template option and also a multitool one later this month.
• Updated version 2.0: added Planet template (see preview below, be sure to download v2 file)
• Updated version 3.0: added Ship template (see preview below, be sure to download v3 file)
• Updated version 4.0 (7/21/17) reworked advanced tables in the star system template for planets in system; much more readable on mobile devices and easier to edit on wiki source!
• Updated version 5.0 (7/23/17) reworked flora and fauna tables in planet template to be friendlier looking on mobile browsers. probably last update for a while unless requests/bugs in script are found. :)
• NOTE: v6.0 is up (8/6/17)!  Very minor updates to tables based on some feedback from gamepedia admins on some changes. Close as I can get to making mobile browser friendly for now. Enjoy!
• v7.0 is live and updated for the Atlas Rises 1.30+ updates and new Hub templates! 8/20/17 
• v7a has been updated w/the new gamepedia version tags to mark if atlas rising based template vs legacy/pre 1.30 (9/4/2017)

Download the .cmd file at my Google Drive Folder: NMSTemplateMaker (Google Drive)

Windows 10 Pro - Disabling Windows Updates completely (1607 build)

I'm so done w/windows updates being forced onto my system and the thought of waking up to a computer w/3TBs of personal data not booting because it installed a CU update for Win10 that wasn't fully tested (remember, Microsoft missed patch tuesday in Feb 2017; the FIRST TIME EVER SINCE Windows XP.. not a good sign!!).

Today, I'll show Windows 10 Pro users how to disable Windows Updates completely via GPEdit and local group policy.

Business Geek Rant: Microsoft updates and Windows 10, STOP FORCING THIS ONTO US!!!

So my real job is as a desktop and mobility administrator. i manage my companies desktops/laptops and also build images for them including a 'thick' hardware agnostic Windows 10 Enterprise image. I've been building images of Windows since XP (on a personal basis) and Windows 7 as my real job/task.  I know Windows very well and how each version functions and is serviced.  With Windows 10, Microsoft for some stupid fucking reason decided that THEY were superior testers of their OS and software so much as they would now start FORCING windows updates onto consumer and enterprise users machines, including corporate machines using just WSUS to manage updates.

Softmodding notes: PS Vita: Transferring PS3 PSP game to Vita w/CFW;Henkaku. Activating PS Vita via PS3.

Some notes about getting PS Vita activated after modding via Henkaku. I did do a full backup of my official firmware PS Vita 3.63 to QCMA prior to softmodding my 3.60 Vita.

PS Vita: Transferring PS3 PSP game to Vita w/CFW;Henkaku.

Current Geek projects: OS X on my work x220, handheld hacking..

so what have i been up to? well.. the usual things, console hacking/modding/softmodding and putting os x on a lenovo x220 along w/wifi upgrade and m2 sata add on for dual boot of win7/10 and macos sierra.

2017: My current setups for home and mobile and tech

Happy 2017! well, i guess it is feb already so yea, a bit late. Sorry for the lack of posts; lifes been.. busy and i really need to get up a few of my Windows 10 image creation articles since I've been successful in creating a fully customized default profile image of Windows10 for our new X1 Yoga laptops at work and finally moved to a hardware agnostic approach. ;)  however that will be coming later once we rollout Win10.  Today though I plan to just give an overview of my currrent tech setups; i like looking back 5-10yrs from now and seeing what i was rocking.