Fuck you microsoft and fuck you edge

I got updates to windows 10 on 11-14-2023 kb5032189, kb5032005, and servicing stack 10.0.19041.3684. not trusting microsoft I opened edge and checked that certain webpages for local equipment I have that MUST use internet explorer were not messed with. found that of the 5 of them, 4 were removed from internet explorer mode and had to be added back. fuck you microsoft, I'm not some newb who doesn't know better. If I have sites that open in internet explorer mode then those sites only work right in internet explorer mode because they rely on active-x apps and there is no updates for them. I will continue to use them until the devices fail. mind your own business microsoft.

I suspect servicing stack 10.0.19041.3684 is the culprit, as every time I get one of these something gets  fucked up, or changed to serve heir microsoft.

Accessing Q-see QR474-1 4 channel DVR remotely

If you have a Q-See QR474-1 DVR or some other Qsee DVR from before they went out of business, and you want to access it remotely from your phone.

You can do it using the Onvier APP. These are not detailed instructions.

add a new device manually. select generic RTSP stream.

name the device.

add the URL in this format:

rtsp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:554/ch1/0

the X's represent the IP the camera is on.

Channel 1 is ch1, 2 is ch2, 3 is ch3, 4 is ch4.

the zero on the end is the stream, 0 for master 1 for the lower quality sub stream

put in the username and password and hit test. if it works it should tell you it succeeded. 

you will have to do this for each camera channel. Same for accessing it externally once you open the 554 port on your router/firewall and point it to the DVR.

also if your Q-see HD DVR does not record motion even though it's turned on and scheduled, it appears that 1 or both send email and ftp upload have to be enabled for the camera. Email and FTP do not need to be configured but for some weird reason it won't record if they are disabled.

if you click save and the screen does not look like this with the channel number highlighted in green it will not record that channel. if you set everything like in this image and it still does not record motion then go in to maintenance, load default, and select alarm, and then click save.

Uniden Bearcat BC296D LIPO/lithium ion battery mod

For many years I have been trying to find a solution to the atrocious BC296D Uniden battery pack (BP120 / BP150 / BP180 / BP250). Other battery packs that held normal AA batteries would not fit. The garbage nicad/nimh battery tech made replacing the rechargeable batteries with something better (like Lithium ion) difficult. single cell lion bats put out a voltage of only 4.2v max, lower than the low battery voltage of a nicad battery pack.

most lion/lipo battery chargers only charged the battery and did not have an output voltage connection AND also would not fit inside the battery compartment. They would also require some kind of boost converter (taking up more space). The boost converter would increase the output voltage of the battery to at least 6vdc

Recently my intermittent (but relentless) searching finally found a combination of components that would fit in the compartment WITH a battery that was the same mah or higher than the nicad packs AND would have a service life longer than nicad/nimh.

for this mod you will need:
1 - J5019 combination 1S single battery charger/boost converter with built in BMS.

1 - LIPO battery pack measuring 10mm X 40mm X 50mm (thickness x length x width) or some type of lithium ion battery that will fit in the compartment with the other components and be of sufficient mah. the lipo or 18650 must have a protection circuit. most lipos do, 18650s usually do not.

1 - DC barrel connector socket that will fit in the narrow confines of the side of the case.

1 - 5v-8v DC power supply.

The resolve to alter your scanner.

I found a DC socket that just fit, carefully measured everything and found a LIPO battery that was 2400mah that also just fit. The boost converter/battery charger fit perfectly as well.

I used 3M 100mph double sided tape to hold the battery in. the BMS has 2 LED's on it a red one for charging and a green one for charged. it has a tiny POT to adjust the output voltage. I set mine to 5.99 volts because it was finicky. I reused the old battery packs connector.

the board is held in with hot glue. the BMS can charge at up to 1 amp. You can run the scanner while it is charging. I have not noted any interference from the boost converter (yet).

You cannot use the original power plug with this mod.

Dell UPS 500W Charger Fault or battery disconnected

Dell UPS 500W reports a Charger Fault/failure or battery disconnected.

Pull the batteries out, take the plastic case off, disconnect the batteries from each other and check voltages. if any battery are 1 volt or more different from the others:

One battery reads between 12.5 to 13.1 volts and the other reads 11 volts or lower the lower reading battery may be bad. Try charging it on a 12 volt battery charger for an hour or 2 if it goes back to the original reading or quickly goes below 12 volts it is bad.

Replace both batteries batteries.

On the UPS clear the error if it does not clear itself. Press and hold the left arrow button, then go through the menu until you find the option to clear the error log and reset error condition.

QT428 System Initializing boots to nothing

I have a Q-see Qt428 it belongs to my brother. he reported that after a power surge it would not start up properly.

unit is 12 years old. I did some checking and found that every single capacitor on the board is bad. So I replaced them. same results won't fully start up.

tried a different power supply. same results. replaced HD no dice. after about 6 to 8 hours of searching the internet I stumbled on an ebay review that states the devices can be recovered by putting firmware on a USB stick and turning the unit on, the device would supposedly load the firmware. Problem is I don't have any firmware.

contacted the reviewer and had to play 20 questions, he pointed me at a supposed firmware file which when put on usb stick and placed in the unit, got accessed but did nothing more. I contacted "q-see" and have not yet heard back from them.

this device gave my googlefu a massive work out. I went on a wild goose chase for firmware (which ended up NOT being the problem).

Every single electrolytic capacitor in this device was bad, very high ESR to not even being seen by my capacitor testers. how it was working at all I do not know.

Before 

                                                                                   After

Replacing the capacitors did not change anything.

So in my searching I found little tidbits of information here, and there like:

this unit is the same as a TVT TD-2308SE which led me to TVT's site where I found GARBAGE instructions on how to access the linux OS on the unit through ye olde fashioned RS232 com port. the purpose of which was to upload firmware which their site had none of.

Now of course all my new computers don't have a COM ports so I had to dust off an old DELL laptop I keep for such instances. BUT the unit has a TTL com port and cannot directly interface with RS232. luckily I had a TTL to RS232 converter I got for another project.

of course there are no pinouts on the main board of this unit as to what is what. but I determined where +5v and ground were. 

 said a hail Mary and plugged it in. 

just friction fit and did not push it through all the way.

next I consulted the worthless TVT doc which had zero information on the what settings to use. It ended up being 115200bps n,8,1, software handshake.

as soon as I put that in to putty and connected I saw a prompt and something constantly repeating about there being no more space. I spent a good hour trying to follow the instructions to update the firmware with the supposed firmware that the ebay reviewer directed me to. It never worked.

after a crash course in linux commands (I'm a Windows and DOS guy) I went to plan B trying to fix the file system since it appeared the flash memory was full. I finally located a TMP folder and noticed a 490k file with a name (similar to) zxzycxwv or something like that (probably a random name). I deleted it, and the error message about no more space disappeared. I restarted the device and BOOM it started up normal and the only information lost was the time and date (dead CR2032) battery. 

Adobe Bridge CS5.1 not running correctly

Adobe Bridge CS5.1 opens runs for a bit says not responding and closes, or opens and closes immediately. application logs may have an Exception code: 0xc0000005.

Press Ctrl key when launching Bridge CS5.1. Once Reset Settings dialog appears select Reset Preferences and Purge Thumbnail Cache, then press OK button. I recommend disabling startup scripts in preferences when bridge runs.

Editing or removing security from a printable PDF

If you have a (secured) PDF and you want to copy text from it, perform OCR, or for whatever reason remove security, AND it can be printed. do the following:
Print the PDF with the Microsoft XPS Document Printer.
Open the .oxps document with XPS viewer.
Print the document as a PDF (if you have that capability).
document now unsecured. OCR or whatever.

There may be weird issues if there are watermarks.