Author: Tim

Migrate Chrome Extensions to Manifest V3

Tim 1 Comment

Google has released a timeline for the upgrade to manifest V3, which will force all extensions to be converted to V3 by January 2023. This is frustrating for many developers like me who have several extensions that I rarely update but will require significant changes to move to V3. I have to decide whether to migrate them or let them be deactivated.

This frustration made me realize this could be a massive opportunity for anyone who does migrate their extension to v3, and the five other clones are deactivated because the developers forget to migrate them. Over the next couple of months, I plan to find potential extensions that have not been upgraded in years and have high user counts. There could be several opportunities to build a new version in v3 that users will be forced to migrate to when the old extensions are shut down. I was able to do this with my URL Shortener Extension when Google shut down their shortener service.

What extensions do you use daily that have not been updated in years?

 

Bluebird House with Camera

Tim 2 Comments

Bluebird houses are quick and easy to build and great projects for using leftover wood from the scrap pile. They can be inexpensive, depending on how complex you want the house to be. You can also get your kids involved and teach them a little about woodworking and birds at the same time. I went with a simple design that I modified to allow me to add an outdoor Wyze wireless camera to record the bluebird nest. I built the house a couple of inches taller to fit the Wyze camera inside. I also added a door to make it easy to clean out the old nest and charge the camera.  Bluebirds can be picky about where they build their nest, so make sure you follow these important steps.

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How to Control MacBook Volume When Connected to External Display

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When I plug my Mac into a DisplayPort or HMDI monitor that has built-in speakers, Mac’s volume controls become disabled. Not being able to control my monitor’s sound has annoyed me for years, but I’ve never looked for a solution. When upgrading to the new MacBook Pro M1, I hoped Apple would have fixed the issue. Unfortunately, the problem still happened, so I when searching for a solution.

I came across several articles that were outdated and recommended Soundflower. I kept searching for a better solution and came across MonitorControl. After a quick install, I found MonitorControl to be a great solution to my problem. MonitorControl has tons of options, such as controlling the brightness of your monitor and keyboard shortcuts. I can now control the volume and mute from my Logitech MX mouse. Read More

How to Pin Chrome Extensions in the Toolbar

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To pin an extension to the Chrome toolbar, click the extension icon on the toolbar and click the “Pin” icon next to the extension.

A couple of years ago, Google Chrome redesigned the way it shows extensions in the toolbar. By default, now extensions have to be “pinned” before they will show in the toolbar. In this video below, we will teach you how to pin a chrome extension to the toolbar.

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