learnings
I never tried generating video clips or animations with SDXL before, simply because my GPU is not powerful enough. But after testing out the LCM LoRA for SDXL yesterday, I thought I’d try the SDXL LCM LoRA with Hotshot-XL, which is something akin to AnimateDiff.
I recently encountered a situation where Safari would not play background videos in web pages! I initially assumed the page was broken... until I realized mine was the only iPhone with this behaviour, yet I am on the latest iPhone and iOS version. I finally figured what was different with my setup, and how to solve this issue.
iOS 16 introduced new lock screen widgets! Rather that installing various third party widdgets, I want to create my own using Scriptable. Here is a simple “universal” widget to launch an application or a Shortcut (bonus: or even the home screen too!)
Last Wednesday, August 31st 2022, Apple released iOS 12.5.6. This Security Update fixes a WebKit vulnerability that “may have been actively exploited.” Users of newer devices will not care, but I cannot overstate how significant this is as a demonstrable commitment to security.
It’s been over a year (or two) since three major browsers enabled HTTP/3 using the QUIC protocol over UDP. Chrome and Edge enabled HTTP/3 by default in April 2020 and Firefox followed “shortly after” in April 2021. I am not sure - does Safari in macOS Monterey 12.5, released July 2022, enable HTTP/3 by default?
If you use an external keyboard on iPad, this is the most important thing to do - remap a key like the fn key to the globe 🌐 key. Here is how I do it for an older Apple wireless keyboard like the second generation A1255 or third generation A1314.
Here is a quick iOS Shortcut to join Cisco WebEx personal rooms by email name. In my organization, once logged in to Cisco WebEx, we can join a colleague’s personal meeting room just by his or her email name. Here is a shortcut to either:
Ah, just as I post my method of creating a shortcut with an icon of my choice on the iPhone home screen - which I demonstrated with Firefox - along comes a browser that allows a choice of icons out-of-the-box!
Here’s how I “changed” an app’s home screen icon on iPhone. I’m so OCD that I want my home screen dock icons (the tray at the bottom) to be all of the same colour! Actually, changing an icon is not possible, but creating a new shortcut with an icon of my choice is!
I had put off updating my iPhone 6 to iOS 11, primarily due to the poor performance reported by Netizens. But, with the release of iOS 11.3 - reported to be focused on improving performance, and more transparent power management (throttling) - I decided to go ahead!
I admit, my title is misleading. This is a list of mostly "not likes" with iOS 11. Why few "likes"? Because there is enough written elsewhere singing the praises of iOS 11 and detailing "what's new". Maybe my dislikes will help you decide if (when) you want to upgrade...
I upgraded my iPad to iOS 11.0.0 last night - and this morning realized that my IBM Verse contacts had disappeared from my iPhone! I didn't update my iPhone, nor did I make any changes of significance lately. Most upsetting! Here's a guide to restoring your contacts.
It's pretty easy to get Picture in Picture (PiP) in Safari on macOS - just a right-click twice - and if that didn't work, I described simple workaround by disabling JavaScript. Here I have a Workflow.is App based workaround to enable PiP in YouTube in Safari on iOS. This allows me to surf (or work) while having a video running in a tiny floating window on my iPad.
In August 2016, GE's CEO said he wanted every new hire to learn to code. And I must say, I do agree! In today's digital, data-driven, self-service world, everyone should learn to code. But, to clarify, I'm not necessarily referring to programming in C# or Swift (like I do), but rather "coding" for automation.
By now you have realized that the latest version of the Workflow App no longer has deep integration to Google Maps. That's not too big a deal, since you can make do with the Workflow Open URLs function. Here's how...
Does your service provider differentiate between standard or "premium" IDD and "budget" IDD like mine does? Typically, the standard + international call prefix will default to the premium option, but to use the the cheaper option, usually via voice-over-IP (VoIP), one has to specific a different carrier-defined prefix, e.g. 12300 (I just made this up, check with your telco). I can't find a built-in way to do this on iOS... enter the Workflow App!
Apple has noted that a number of users may experience an issue with iCloud setting being enabled after upgrading to iOS 10.3. For me, I had quite the opposite experience, as iOS 10.3 finally enabled some iCloud applications that I had never gotten working for a long time!
Remember the time I waxed lyrical about using Google Sheets to track my stock portfolio? Well, it's going to be a "standard feature" of spreadsheets soon, with the introduction of the capability to retrieve stock data with today's update of Numbers on iOS (3.1) and macOS (4.1).
Here's how to retrieve and display the latest exchange rate for two currencies with the Workflow App (though one could just use Numbers on iOS or macOS too).
I've been playing with the Workflow.is App recently, and this one is pretty cool - using Workflow to scan and generate a QR Code with Contact information.