Submitted by drew on

 

Starting with Windows 7, Windows limits the number of items that can be opened simultaneously. Refer to Microsoft's article Context menus are shortened when more than 15 files are selected.

This is a bit of pain when I would like to select a bunch of items to add to VLC's playlist. Here's a method that will increase the number of items that can be selected and added to the playlist at a time, to 100. For details, see Creating Shortcut Menu Handlers.

  1. Open regedit.
  2. Navigate to HKCR/VLC.mp4/shell/AddToPlayListVLC. VLC has a whole bunch of different file types, this is just the one I am interested in at the moment.
  3. Add a string value named "MultiSelectModel" with a value of "Player"
  4. Press F5. You can close regedit, if you're confident it worked.
  5. Select a bunch of files and see if it worked.

 

The reg file would look like this...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VLC.mp4\shell\AddToPlaylistVLC]

@="Add to VLC media player's Playlist"

"MultiSelectModel"="Player"

 

Tags
Windows

Converting version control repositories from Bazaar to Git (bzr to git)

Submitted by drew on

Bazaar is great on Windows. Several years later, git's tools for Windows still.... (ahem) are lacking or too commercial. However, official development on it has ended and git is so much more popular now. So I think the time has come to convert all my beloved bzr repositories to git.

First we need note some prerequisites:

Adding a hardware clock to Raspberry Pi (DS3231)

Submitted by drew on

The popular clock module is uses the DS1307 real time clock chip, which is not very precise. For just a few dollars more, you can get a module with a much more precise DS3231 RTC chip. The one I got was SunFounder's module from Amazon for $9 (free shipping for Prime). It plugs right onto the Raspberry Pi's 40 pin header and doesn't even interfere with the plastic case I have. I have a Model B, but this module should also work on Model A and Model B+. The instructions refer to DS1307, but the chips use the same I2C commands, so it also works for DS3231.

How to run a PiPresents show when you don't have a Raspberry Pi

Submitted by drew on

PiPresents is some pretty cool software that will run a PowerPoint-like presentation. But with lots more flexibility. It was originally written for the Raspberry Pi.

However.... perhaps someone else has your Pi. Perhaps you don't even have one. It is possible to run a PiPresents show on  your good ol' desktop computer (Windows, Linux, or Mac). Here's how.