‎RokiJump

‎Roki​Jump, the ROKU remote that can skip through commercials! Program a button to fast-forward for a certain amount of time before playing. Skip through one-minute, two-minute, or however long, commercials, sports timeouts, previous-episode rehash, and more. Of course, RokiJump has all of the normal…

My first iOS app is now available in the Apple App Store! RokiJump, the ROKU remote that can skip through commercials! Program a button to fast-forward for a certain amount of time before playing. Skip through one-minute, two-minute, or however long, commercials, sports timeouts, previous-episode rehash, and more. Of course, RokiJump has all of the normal remote functions too, even ones unique to ROKU TV, like power on/off, volume, and mute. You can also instantly select any of the channels you have installed (e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) RokiJump lets you enter text from your device’s keyboard! No more finger Twister when entering text. Just connect your iOS device and ROKU to the same WiFi network.

FEATURES:
*Free version includes a fully-functioning jump button
*No ads in the free version!
*In-app purchase unlocks three additional jump buttons!
*All the standard remote buttons included
*ROKU TV specific buttons (Power on/off, volume up/down, mute)
*ROKU Channels can be launched from app
*Text input using your mobile device keyboard (compatibility app-dependent)
*Automatically finds all ROKU devices on the same network as the mobile device, including Roku 1-3, Streaming Stick, Express, Express+, Premiere, Premiere+, Ultra, ROKU TV, etc.
*Compatible with iPhone and iPad running iOS 13+

ROKU, the ROKU Logo, STREAMING STICK, ROKU TV, ROKU POWERED, the ROKU POWERED Logo, ROKU READY, the ROKU READY Logo, “STOP DREAMING. START STREAMING.”, “HAPPY STREAMING”, “THERE’S A TON OF ENTERTAINMENT IN THIS LITTLE BOX,” and “NOW THIS IS TV” are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Roku, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

This app has no association with and is not endorsed by Roku, Inc.

If you have a ROKU and watch programs with commercials, you will want RokiJump. This iOS app let’s you skip through them!

Home – RokiJump

Roki​Jump A ROKU™ remote that can skip through commercials! RokiJump Doing the seemingly impossible Sadly, the standard ROKU™ remote lacks a skip forward button. However, what if you could program a button to fast-forward for a certain amount of time before playing? You wouldn’t have to guess when to press the play button.

Having owned the original Yi Home Camera, I had high expectations when I ordered the Yi Home 2 Camera. It’s version 2…it HAD to be better, right? I was really looking forward to the wider 130-degree lens. However, once I got it, I was very disappointed that Yi changed the base and the Home 2 camera can’t be freely rotated like the original. This made window-mounting the Home 2 much more problematic. Argh! Read more

Previously, my Windows PC happily send a command to my Synology NAS to shutdown when the UPS (connected to my PC) was running low on battery power. (See my post, “Shutdown Windows computer and Synology NAS using CyberPower UPS“) Things came to a grinding halt when DSM 6 was released and eliminated remote access by the root user…probably a good thing security-wise, of course.

After much research, I discovered the Network UPS Tools (NUT) project. Included in its goals is uniform control and management of UPSs and it seems manufacturers, including Synology, have embraced the “standard”. It’s a server-client model where you connect the UPS to the Synology NAS, the server (aka master), and run a monitoring program on your PC, the client (aka slave), to shut it down when the UPS battery power gets low.

Setup on the NAS side, is as easy as checking a couple option boxes. It’s not so straight forward on the client side of things. I found at least three different Windows client applications, all with less than clear configuration instructions. I settled on WinNUT, but lost patience trying to figure out how to configure the new version and opted for the older one which still seems to work under Windows 10. Read more

I’ve been intrigued by the idea of remoting into a cloud-based computer for years. Historically, it’s been expensive and the machines were limited in CPU power, RAM and storage. A french company called Blade is changing this with their Shadow service. For $35 a month, you get remote access to an Intel Xeon processor with eight dedicated threads, 12GB of DDR4 memory, 256GB of storage and NVidia GTX 1080 equivalent graphics. What’s really cool is that the hardware evolves and automatically upgrades. You don’t have to keep upgrading your computer!

You can remote in from your computer or mobile device (Windows, Mac and Android available now, iOS coming soon) and the minimum bandwidth is just 5Mbps. That will get you 720p at 60 fps. Faster connections will get you up to 4k resolution. (Note: Dual screens are not yet supported but will be in the future according to the FAQ.) Keep in mind that your local bandwidth is only used for display and remote control, the host computer has a 1Gb per second Internet connection!

Although it’s billed as a gaming service, it’s still just a Windows 10 machine so you could use it as an everyday computer as well. The question I have is how it will work with local storage which will be essential for resource intensive work like video and graphics editing.

$35 a month may seem steep, but it’s a lot cheaper than buying a similarly spec’d PC. Also, in lieu of using your own PC, you can also buy their Shadow Box for $139.95 or $9.95 per month to rent.

Check their website for availability. The west coast is already up and the east coast is scheduled for August 9. Look for a nationwide rollout by October.

A Service that Lets You Use Windows 10 on Any Computer or Phone Is Going Nationwide

Back at CES in January, French company Blade seemed to promise the moon. For a monthly fee, the company would give users access to a high-end Windows 10 machine, with the latest CPU from Intel and a beefy Nvidia 1080 GPU built in.

Interesting article discussing the origins of Atari. I remember bringing home my Pong game console purchased from Sears where I worked and playing it with my brother James all night. I am definitely going to read “Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom)” by Adam Fisher when it comes out.

https://medium.com/s/story/ataris-hard-partying-origin-story-an-oral-history-c438b0ce9440

The ASUS RT-AC88U is a pretty awesome router. However, out of the box, it’s a bit finicky if you try to print to it via WiFi or Apple’s AirPrint. It doesn’t seem to want to maintain the connection. I stumbled across this somewhat cryptic post and the suggested changes have solved my issues–at least so far. Read more