Category Archives: Fixed problems

Recover missing empty space after removing bootcamp on macOS

Today I tried to remove the unused bootcamp partition on macOS to get more space but unfortunately it turned out to be not so simple.

After deleting the bootcamp partition from Disk Utility, I was greeted with an error that says the bootcamp partition cannot be merged into the main partition.

I then run First Aid and found some corruptions. Following the guide on Internet I booted into Recovery mode and fixed those errors, but the empty space was still not given to me.

Until I found this answer on the Internet and turns out the magic is just one command:

disk0s2 is the existing macOS IDENTIFIER as shown in diskutil list Continue reading

Fixing WordPress Image Sizes missing issue on Ubuntu 16.04

While I was trying to upload some new photos onto my blog, I realized that all my photo sizes are gone. I use different sizes in blog posts and final tiles gallery as my portfolio so they are pretty important for me.

Uninstalling Simple Image Sizes and WP Smush did not help. Updating WordPress and all plugins to the latest did not help as well. So it had to be my Upgrading Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04 for WordPress that messed it up. Continue reading

reduce macOS Finder memory usage

How to Reduce macOS Finder Memory Usage

If you are experiencing slow performance on memory on macOS (OS X), chances are your memory is running low. While Chrome is notorious for taking up large amount of memory, another culprit is actually the macOS’s own app Finder, which can use up huge amount of RAM. This post will show you how to reduce macOS Finder memory usage from almost a 1GB:

reduce macOS Finder memory usage

Down to a mere 50MB:

Continue reading

letsencrypt Apache vhost

letsencrypt Apache vhost config on Ubuntu

Solving letsencrypt Apache vhost config issues

Setting up letsencrypt can be tricky with different variations of apache vhost configs. Here is how to set up letsencrypt Apache vhost config correctly:

(Note: letsencrypt is now certbot. The environment I am using is apache2 by DigitalOcean for Ubuntu/Wordpress VPS, single domain name)
Continue reading

Sony Z3 Top Speaker Noise

[Solved]Sony Z3 Top Speaker Noise Problem

I have recently purchased a Sony Xperia Z3. There seems to be a strange problem with the Sony Z3 top speaker. Most of the time it produces a static background noise when I run any applications that has sound. The noise can still be heard even if I have muted the media volume. But there are occasions where the noise does not occur.

I searched online and found out this a common problem for Sony Z3, the solutions they suggested on the forums(tuning the equalizer settings) did not help me. I have also contacted Sony customer service and they responded that “It happens when you use applications that access Internet.” That seems logical enough first but I soon realized that sometimes the noise does not occur even when I am using the applications that access Internet.

When I tracked down the cases where the noise did not occur, I found out the root cause of it: The Alarm Volume. 

sony z3 sound setting

Alarm volume setting in Sony Z3 sound and notification setting

This is totally strange but it is indeed the cause of the noise. Whenever I lower the alarm volume to below about 60% and reopen the applications, the noise disappears. The alarm volume is not supposed to be related to the sound inside the applications but it seems that Sony Z3 has a software bug that caused them to be linked.

Also note that the global alarm volume in the sound settings will be overwritten by individual alarm volumes that you set in the alarm application.

sony z3 alarm setting

Alarm volume setting in Sony Z3 Alarm app

So in order to make sure the noise does not come back, you need to set both the global alarm volume and individual alarm volumes to below about 60%.