AudioSwitch - quickly switch the PC audio output device

A convenient, Open Source, program to allow switching the active audio device from tray.

AudioSwitch on GitHub

Greenshot - a screenshot tool

Greenshot is a handy Open Source screenshot tool.

http://getgreenshot.org/

Run Android apps in Chrome

I might be late to the party but better late than never. That's two cliches at once.

Being late has an obvious benefit of not trying the stuff that does not work and/or screwing up the stuff that does. So, by now Google has released an official ARC Welder extension for Chrome browser (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/arc-welder/emfinbmielocnlhgmfkkmkngdoccbadn). The extension/app will convert an Android .apk into a Chrome app.

This is quite amazing from the user point of view. Technically, it is enabled by Chrome apps and Android using (more or less) the same underlying runtime.

The apps I tried were very responsive and much easier to use than on an emulator.

Genymotion issues

The most common issue I experience with Genymotion is inability to start a virtual device. At least now I believe I've figured out how to fix this behaviour.



It seems that Genymotion waits for a short time for the device to get an IP address from the VirtualBox DHCP server that serves the Host-Only network adapter. To work around this issue, the virtual device can be started from VirtualBox directly. Then, once the IP is assigned, and this is visible on the screen, the device can be started in Genymotion. It will simply continue the already-running session and will display the graphical screen in the Genymotion window while the console output will remain in the VirtualBox screen. One could also run the VM headless, in which case there would be no VirtualBox screen open, I guess. That way it would be harder to figure out when the IP address has been assigned.



Another issue that may cause this behaviour seems to have to do with the configuration of the DHCP. The main reason here is the discrepancy between the DHCP address range and the virtual network adapter IP address.

Sometimes there are multiple adapters in the Host-Only section of the VirtualBox network configuration. Make sure there is only one. Remove the others.

Then, synchronize the IP range of the DHCP server to match the given IP address of the host-only adapter.

Example: if the host-only adapter has the IP settings 192.168.248.2/255.255.255.0, the DHCP server can be configured as such:

Server Address: 192.168.248.100

Server Mask: 255.255.255.0

Lower Address Bound: 192.168.248.101

Upper Address Bound: 192.168.248.254



On Windows 10 these issues seem to resolve automatically as Genymotion sets up the host-only adapter on its own.

Manually updating Avira Antivirus

Avira Antivirus supports a manual update option, which is great when automatic update fails with different errors but all the required files can be downloaded through a browser, for example.

The tool is fairly simple and effective.



https://www.avira.com/en/support-vdf-update-info

World clock

Another world clock but with a very convenient presentation of time zones in parallel:

http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?pl=1&lid=2761369,5128581,184745,1609350&h=2761369

Markdown Editors: Typora

It's that time again, searching for a quick editor for Markdown (.md) files. This time it is getting easier as it seems that a lot of people are using Markdown. There are also lot of people developing editors, it seems.

After a fairly quick search, I narrowed down to two options. Will see how it goes.

There are several important factors to consider, in order of preference:

• startup speed
• HTML preview
• styles support (so I can make it dark)
• extended Markdown support (strikethrough, for example)

Current favourites: Abricotine, which is Open Source, and Typora, which is free while in Beta.