Category: Software

DaVinci Control Panels app crashes? Try installing it on a different computer

Whenever DaVinci Resolve notifies me that a new firmware is available for the Speed Editor, the following happens:

  1. I open the DaVinci Control Panels software.
  2. It shows up like this for a few seconds (at most) and then disappears (crashes):
DaVinci Control Panels app showing a blank window before crashing

I was unable to resolve this problem on my PC. Instead, I’ve installed the Control Panels application on a different computer, where it worked just fine:

DaVinci Control Panels App working

Unfortunately this required installing DaVinci Resolve, too, which can take a while. It would be nice if Blackmagic made the Control Panels app available as a separate download.

This post is mainly meant to remind me to simply use this method the next time I want to do a firmware update. If you don’t like it, you can always try to get help on the official DaVinci Resolve forum.

Change the keyboard for an existing language in Windows 11

The problem: You’ve added several languages with different keyboard layouts to Windows 11.

Windows 11 language bar showing multiple languages with different keyboards

However, you want all of them to use the same keyboard (in this example “United States-International”).

The solution

In the language bar, click on More keyboard settings (or go to Settings > Time & language > Language & region).

Click on the three dots on the right of the language you want to change and choose Language options:

Windows 11 Language & region settings: Language options

Under Keyboards, click on Add a keyboard and add the keyboard you want:

Windows 11 Language & region settings > Language options: Add a keyboard

Finally, remove the original keyboard:

Windows 11 Language & region settings > Language options: Remove a keyboard

Your language bar should now show multiple languages with the same keyboard:

Windows 11 language bar showing multiple languages with the same keyboard

A user-friendly desktop wallet for Namecoin (NMC)?

Yes, such a wallet exists, though it is still in beta: AtomicDEX (desktop version only) supports Namecoin (NMC).

Namecoin (NMC) in AtomicDEX

You can even use the built-in “atomic swap” feature to trade your NMC, for example, for Komodo (KMD), which you can hold in the wallet and collect rewards or sell on many popular exchanges like Binance (affiliate link). Make sure you read the instructions first (found under Support). The atomic swap protocol requires that the maker and taker stay online and monitor the blockchains involved.

Exchanges which accept Namecoin can be found here.

Bootstrap file to synchronize your Dogecoin Core wallet faster

Update February 28, 2021: Dogecoin Core 1.14.3 has been released and significantly improves the synchronization speed. The method described in the original post below is no longer be necessary.

This article assumes that you have backed up your wallet and updated to the most recent version of Dogecoin Core (currently 1.14.2).

At the time of writing, you can get a torrent here which contains blocks until January 29, 2021. Note that it is not a single Bootstrap.dat file, instead it contains the blocks and chainstate directory.

You can find further information on the Dogecoin Discord (in the FAQ section), the Dogecoin Core GitHub and the Dogecoin subreddit.

Once synchronized, consider forwarding port 22556 to help the network. This should give you over a hundred connections instead of the usual 8:

Dogecoin Core Connections

This will, of course, create significant network activity as can be seen in Dogecoin Core under Help > Debug window > Network traffic. This is my traffic from just two days:

Interested in buying or selling Dogecoin? Take a look at Binance (affiliate link) , Bitpanda (affliate link) or Crypto.com (affiliate link).

Edit: My Dogecoin wallet on a PC that was running 24/7 still went out of sync multiple times:

Dogecoin wallet going out of sync again

Let’s not forget that Dogecoin was created as a joke.

Edit 2: I do not recommend using the full node wallet (version 1.14.2) if you’re just getting started with Dogecoin. Consider using a simple mobile wallet like Trust Wallet.

How to browse through all images from different subfolders

The problem: You want to display all images from different subfolders (subdirectories) in a flat view (instead of having to navigate to each folder).

One solution using IrfanView

  1. Download, install and run IrfanView.
  2. Drag and drop the parent folder from Windows Explorer into the IrfanView window, which opens IrfanView Thumbnails.
  3. Right-click on the parent directory and select “Load thumbs from all subfolders”:
IrfanView Thumbnail browser

After a few moments, thumbnails for all images from all subfolders will be displayed:

IrfanView Thumbnails view