Solution: Can’t find Bluetooth devices on Win 11?

If the Bluetooth device you want to connect to does not appear on Windows 11, try the following.

Go to Bluetooth and other device settings:

Bluetooth and other devices settings in Windows 11

Scroll down to the “Device settings” section and set “Bluetooth devices discovery” to “Advanced”:

Bluetooth devices discovery: Default and Advanced

If you now try to add a Bluetooth device again, you should see all available devices.

Explanation

Discovery involves scanning for devices that are broadcasting their availability to pair. The “Default” mode uses predefined filters to reduce the devices the system displays to common ones, such as keyboards, mice, and headsets. Presumably this was done to reduce clutter.

When “Advanced” is selected, this filter is removed, allowing the system to list all devices that are discoverable in the vicinity.

While I wasn’t able to find a comprehensive list of devices that Microsoft considers to be uncommon, the following ones only showed up after I changed the setting:

Improvements in Windows 11 version 24H2

It looks like the upcoming version will offer to “show all devices” when Bluetooth devices have been detected but filtered out.

Note for Windows 10 Users

The setting discussed here is specific to Windows 11 and does not exist on Windows 10. This can make it look as if Windows 10 had better Bluetooth discovery capabilities, when the actual cause is the filter in Windows 11.

Zeef.com is shutting down?

Zeef.com is (was?) a curated directory where users could create organized lists of links. I used it to make pages about video management software and RS-232:

Archived version on the Wayback Machine
Archived version on the Wayback Machine

If you visit zeef.com right now (February 29, 2024), you’ll see a popup announcing that the site will be shut down:

Although I wasn’t notified by email, the shutdown didn’t come as a complete surprise to me. Zeef apparently struggled to attract a large user base. Moreover, it suffered from frequent outages recently. Still, it’s sad to see it go.

I will be uploading my pages to this blog. If you’ve missed the chance to download your pages, you can probably still find them on the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive).

How to temporarily turn SQL strict mode off in phpMyAdmin

Pre-pending the query with SET SESSION sql_mode = ”; worked for me:

Note that executing multiple queries separately did not work. Here I ran SET SESSION sql_mode =” first and then SELECT @@SESSION.sql_mode, which showed that strict mode was still active:

Example

After the update of a MySQL server on a shared hosting account, strict mode was enabled with the NO_ZERO_DATE option and there was no way to change this. This meant that – among other things – I had to remove a default timestamp value of “0000-00-00 00:00:00” from multiple columns:

However this failed with error #1067 as other columns still used this invalid default. In other words, altering column A to make it compliant failed as column B was not compliant yet:

I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this is. However, temporarily disabling strict mode by pre-pending the query with

SET SESSION sql_mode = '';
let me make the necessary changes:

Result:

While this probably comes too late to help Pete, I hope it can help you.

How to Display Full Query Results in phpMyAdmin

In phpMyAdmin, the results of some queries can be truncated, as shown below:

phpMyAdmin: truncated text

This isn’t due to the size of the browser window or any error on your part; phpMyAdmin simply truncates the text.

The solutions is very simple:

  1. Click on the + Options link above the results.
  2. In the options menu, select Full texts.
  3. Click on Go to re-execute your query.
phpMyAdmin: Full texts option

Once you’ve done this, phpMyAdmin will display the complete results of your query:

phpMyAdmin: Full text displayed

How to Capture Screenshots Without Shadows in Windows 11

The Problem: Large Shadows in Windows 11

Window shadows are much larger under Windows 11 than under Windows 10. This can be an issue if you need to take screenshots, but don’t want to waste so much space on shadows. Simply cropping the screenshots is not a very aesthetically pleasing solution.

Solution 1: Use Alt+PrintSc

To quickly capture a screenshot of your active window without the shadows, press and hold the ‘Alt’ key, then hit the ‘PrtScr’ (or ‘PrtSc’) key. This will immediately capture a shadow-free screenshot of the window and copy it to your clipboard.

Solution 2: Temporarily disable shadows under windows

The simple solution above does not work for more complex scenarios, such as multiple windows in a single screenshot, or when you want to include tooltips.

For these cases, you can disable shadows under windows temporarily.

  1. In the start menu, start typing “view advanced system settings” and then click on the best match:
Windows start menu: view advanced system settings

  1. Click on Settings under Performance (in the Advanced tab):
Advanced System Properties Dialogue
  1. Uncheck “show shadows under windows”.

If you’re looking to disable shadows for a brief period, click Apply. This will disable the shadows but keep the dialog box open for you to easily revert to the original settings:

Performance options dialog with "show shadows under windows" unchecked

If you want to keep the shadows disabled for a longer time, click OK.

You can now use PrintSc or Windows+Shift+S to capture a screenshot.