How To’s

How to’s on how to fix things!

How To: Host Virtually Jackbox Games using Google Meet (with audio!)

Emmanuel How To's , , , , , , 0 Comment

Since the pandemic started, I’ve hosted virtual board games like jackbox game nights every Tuesday through google meet. After the first night hosting, I realized that google meet does NOT share pc audio for others to hear. People missed out on the goofiness of the jackbox games. By the next night, I was able to figure out a way to share the audio, which although a bit clunky it’s worked well.

You will need:

  • A laptop/desktop with the game
  • A phone

Setup overview

  • Laptop/Desktop
    • Jackbox Game Instance
    • Google Meet –> Video feed
  • Phone
    • Jackbox Game Controller
    • Google Meet –> Microphone feed

PC Setup

Step 1) Setup PC to share audio (using Stereo Mix) and Jackbox game

  • At the bottom right of your taskbar, right click on the speaker icon and select sounds

  • Click on the Recordings tab
  • Right click a blank area and press Show Disabled Devices

  • Look for the one that says Stereo Mix and enable it

  • Now Right click on Stereo Mix and make sure Listen to this device is checked off (not sure what this does exactly but that’s how I have it)

Step 2) Change Google Meet Call inputs to use Stereo Mix

  • Launch a new google meet call by going to https://meet.google.com/
  • Click on the three dots at the bottom right and select Settings

  • Now under AUDIO you should see Stereo Mix as an option, select it.
  • Whenever you want to share your pc audio change the Audio setting to Stereo mix and when you want to use your mic change it to your microphone.
  • Note: You can’t share both at the same time, and people won’t be able to hear you when sharing audio through Stereo Mix

You can now Share Window and select the window with the jackbox game.

You should now be:

  • 1) Sharing the audio from your computer
  • 2) The jackbox game window
  • 3) Your webcam from your pc if you chose to

Phone Setup

  1. Join the Google meet call on your phone
    1. Turn your video off
    2. Turn your mic on
    3. Keep the call in the background. In Android: press the back button or fling your finger upwards from the bottom
  2. Join the jackbox game
    1. Open a browser and go to jackbox.tv and join the game by inputting the code

Note: Having the call and the game going will drain your phone battery rapidly so make sure you keep your phone powered!

You should now:

  • 1) Be sharing your voice to the google meet call through your phone
  • 2) Able to play the game through your phone

If you’ve made it this far you are ready to have an awesome time with friends! I hope you found this helpful and stay safe!!

How To: Share PC Using Google Meet (Win 10)

Emmanuel How To's 0 Comment

I regularly host jackbox game nights using google meet and after the first night trying it out I realized that there was no easy way to share pc audio with others. Doing some research led me to the steps below which although a little clunky worked well. Some people have had luck using “Share window” and it also shares the window audio but that was not my case. I’ve listed below links to sources where people discuss this same issue. Some people have had luck using VB-Cable but this guide doesn’t show you how to use that.

Step 1) Enable “stereo mix” on your windows pc

  • At the bottom right of your taskbar, right click on the speaker icon and select sounds

  • Click on the Recordings tab
  • Right click a blank area and press Show Disabled Devices

  • Look for the one that says Stereo Mix and enable it

  • Now Right click on Stereo Mix and make sure Listen to this device is checked off (not sure what this does exactly but that’s how I have it)

Step 2) Change mic input on Google Meet Call

  • Launch a new google meet call by going to https://meet.google.com/
  • Click on the three dots at the bottom right and select Settings
  • Now under AUDIO you should see Stereo Mix as an option.
  • Whenever you want to share your pc audio change the Audio to Stereo mix and when you want to use your mic change it to your mic.
  • Note: You can’t share both at the same time, and people won’t be able to hear you when sharing audio through Stereo Mix

Sources:

  • https://www.reddit.com/r/jackboxgames/comments/flutlz/google_hangouts_plus_quiplash_quarantined_fun/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
  • https://support.google.com/meet/thread/23407453
  • https://support.google.com/meet/thread/36010293?hl=en
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/jackboxgames/comments/fl6tsn/screen_sharing_with_audio_via_google_hangouts_or/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

How To: Fix Spyder gui terrible scaling with high dpi monitor (Windows 10)

Emmanuel How To's , , , , 0 Comment

I recently upgraded my monitor to 4k and the first thing I realized was that spyder scaled horribly, tiny text along large icons etc. This appears to be a problem with qt as me and others have managed to fix this by modifying the qt.conf file as below. There is a closed issue on github with a recent post.

https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/4316

Sources:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35854289/spyder-interface-icons-very-small-on-high-resolution-screen-in-windows-10

1) Locate the qt.conf file

Where is the qt.conf file?

If you installed as admin ( and meant for all users )
C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\
If you install as a normal user
C:\Users\User-Name\AppData\Local\Continuum\Anaconda3
or here:
C:\Users\User-Name\anaconda3\

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37117571/where-does-anaconda-python-install-on-windows

2) Modify the qt.conf file

In order to modify this file I had to first copy it to the desktop, modify it then replace it on the C: drive. Add the following lines to the file. Change to 0 or 1 depending on your display

[Platforms]
WindowsArguments = dpiawareness=0

3) Restart Spyder

In order for changes to take effect you will need to close and restart spyder. If that didn’t work for you change the value to a 0 or 1

How To: Fix missing “At a glance” widget not showing the weather.

Emmanuel How To's , , 0 Comment

Problem: Androids “at a glance” widget doesn’t show the weather

Solution: Uninstall and reinstall updates to the “Google” app

  • Go to:
  • Settings
  • Apps & Notifications
  • “See All __Apps”
  • Find the “Google” app
  • Click on the 3 dots (top right corner)
  • Click on Uninstall updates (as soon as I did this the weather app came back)
  • Reboot phone
  • Update Google app

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/afmqo4/solved_missing_weather_in_at_a_glance_widget/

How To: Make flash cards using Microsoft Word and Excel

Emmanuel How To's, Random 0 Comment

I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this for a while and now that I finally figured it I thought I’d document it 🙂 Hope someone finds this useful! Also a great way to print out cards for board games on both sides This may seem like a very tedious process but it’s nice when you are printing 100-200 cards. Also P.S. my printer messed up a couple of times and I had to re-print some of the words by deleting the messed up prints. Sorting/aligning words and definitions and printing again.

I got a bit of help from the links below
Sources:
Changing layout of word document: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI0MG05OojQ
Using Mailing merge document: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/merge-excel-data-word-documents-54185.html
Center text vertically: https://www.howtogeek.com/240521/how-to-center-text-vertically-on-the-page-in-microsoft-word/

1) Preparing the excel spreadsheet

  • Open a new spreadsheet and on sheet 1 place two columns with headers “front” and “back”
  • Now fill in the corresponding information for front on column 1 and back on column 1

2) Preparing the word document

  • File> New blank document
  • Layout>Page Setup>bottom right corner
  • Margins Tab
    • Change margins to 0.5″
    • change to landscape
  • Paper Tab
    • width: 8″
    • height 5″
  • Layout Tab
    • Change Page Vertical alignment to Center
  • Click OK
  • Set Layout
  • Preview new layout
  • Select excel sheet and columns
  • Insert front of words
  • Format the text to fit the size of the index card
  • Preview card
  • See ALL cards and fix any overflows
  • overflows fixed!
  • Changing printer paper tray!

3) Import/Auto-fill with Excel words

Mailings Tab> star mail merge >Start Mail Merge> Step by step mail merge wizard
step 1 Select Document –> Letters
step 2 Select Starting document –> use current document
step 3 Select recipients –> use and existing list and browse for excel sheet (with header in sheet one with one column)
step 4 Write your letter –> click on…more items and select column header and press insert
step 4b –> Now format the text size( ~100) and set align horizontally
step 5 Preview your letters –> Nothing really to change, click next
step 6 complete merge –> Click on “Edit Individual Letters” Merge records, select ALL
* Now fix any of the cards where the text is overflowing into the next card. Highlight and change text size to something smaller.

4) Print front of cards

  • Now you should be able to print these cards in the order they appear in the excel column
  • Note: Also there seems to be a error in the last card with it not being centered. Print a blank card at the end of the list.

5) Back Side

  • Repeat with Column 2 inserting “back” instead of “Front”
  • Generate another set of pages with the back text on all the cards. Font size should be about 30 depending on the index card size and amount of text.
  • Make a note of how your printer is printing relative to how you load the index cards into the paper feed
  • Load the cards in order of how you previously printed the words or the definitions won’t match up
  • Repeat this guide to create a set of cards with the definitions based on the excel sheet.

How to: Get Matlab to recognize visual studio c++ 2017 compilers

Emmanuel How To's, Random 0 Comment

First of all, be sure to install c++ compilers 2017 from visual studio, they aren’t automatically selected during the install

If Visual Studio Compilers C++ 2017 aren’t detected you need to add an entry to the registry.

Edit Registry
Matlab Source
Edit Registry

As an admin, edit registry entry:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7

Add a new “string value” called “15.0” and add a path to the following folder containing visual studio

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\

Start matlab and check that the compiler is found

mex -setup -v