Aldi Stretch Silicon Seals review.

I have to admit I checked out silicon seals on eBay some time ago but never got around to buying them. Perhaps that should have told me something. As I was walking through Aldi there they were. A pack of three stretch silicon seals. I purchased a pack and couldn't wait to try them out.

Well I think I got my moneys worth. I had my wife in fits of laughter watching me trying to put the three different seals onto various objects. She told me a friend of hers had purchased some silicon seals and they'd also entertained others in their house. In other words, if you think silicon seals is the answer to Gladwrap then you like me, will be sadly disappointed.

I did manage to get the biggest silicon seal on a large bowl, but everything else I tried I failed.

My verdict, give stretch silicon seals a miss. I will keep trying to see if I can do better, perhaps with two of us trying we might have a better chance.

Update: 4 July 2022

OK. I persisted. I noticed there were small dots on the silicon which I thought was interesting. I couldn't tell which side so I decided to try having the writing up so I could read it correctly. All of a sudden I was having more success. Still an effort, but perhaps I have the knack now. Who would have thought one side or the other makes a difference and there's no mention of that on the packaging. Here's my first successful use of the largest of the three silicon seals.

Hopefully I'll have more success in the future. This is what I wanted the silicon seal for. Covering left overs so I could them in the fridge.

Kelvin

Aldi Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand (eco tech) review

Yesterday I purchased from Aldi a couple of the Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand (eco tech) and was pretty happy with the purchase. They are 15W wireless charging stands for $24.99 which I felt was pretty good value. Recycled material gives a nice feeling too although I do wonder if not buying it at all is better for the environment.

Plugged the Aldi Bauhn wireless charging stand in and put my mobile on the stand and the phone's screen came on showing everything was working. Then everything started to go down hill very quickly.

Charging for the Samsung S21 was quite slow and for the iPhone 12 next to useless. Didn't even charge the iPhone over night.

Something wasn't quite as expected. First checking the packaging gives you no specifications at all. Does it even work with the devices I have? The first thought is the ports in my powerboard are only rated at 2.1A maximum and older iPhone chargers are often 1A. Perhaps it's the chargers that's the issue. I suspect this is what everyone will be faced with so my experience won't differ from most people except that when I see a problem I like to know why something doesn't work.

I started to check the amps and my 5 volt, 2.1A Apple charge when charging an 85% full Samsung S21 was delivering around 1.25A, so a little over 6W. Perhaps that's what is to be expected for a 2.1A charge, I'm not sure.

For the Apple iPhone I think it was about 0.3A which is next to useless and the iPhone is more likely to lose charge than to be charged. So far useless for the iPhone 12 but OK, albeit slower charging for the Samsung S21.

I then started to investigate wireless charging and fast charging and found there's two standards, PD (Power Delivery) and QC (Quick Charge) with various version numbers. I checked the internet and found Kmart has a 30W PD3.0 and QC3.0 charger so I've ordered one and will soon continue this post.

At this stage if you're considering getting an Aldi Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand and only have an iPhone with a 5V, 1A charger you'll be wasting your money. Stick with the power cable. With a Samsung S21 it will charge faster than the cable, but still it will be quite slow. Also I've found if you're trying to do something on your phone (e.g. uploading) the charging will stop with overheating whereas you can use the cable and whilst the charge in the mobile will continue to drop, my feeling is plugging in the cable will slow the drop down so you can continue to upload for longer.

Update: 30/06/2022
Received the 30W charger from Kmart and after testing the Apple iPhone 12 charged up using around 10-12W or power using the QC socket. Charging was at roughly 9V/1.2A. It was interesting to see the higher voltage being used. If I recall correctly I think I read on the Apple site that wireless charging requires a minimum 20W charger.

The lesson here is the lower powered charges we typically have aren't good enough for wireless charging and a higher wattage charger is required, particularly for the Apple iPhones.

Kelvin

Any suggestion for an alternative to TeamViewer?

I was asked this question and whilst I have a couple of possible approaches, the first one I tried and was happy with was Google's Remote Desktop. Keep in mind I only used it for about half and hour but I ran YouTube videos during the session and the performance was quite good. The remote computer was connected using an Optus NBN service and my computer was connected to my mobile phone as a hotspot using the Vodafone service.

Visit the following Google site. Also you'll have to log on using your Gmail account on each computer.

https://remotedesktop.google.com/

The one tip I have is Remote Desktop is running in the browser (Microsoft Edge or Google's Chrome). If you change the content of the tab where you started running Remote Desktop you'll end your session. If you need to use the internet on the remote computer, open a new tab and use the new tab for accessing the internet and keep the remote desktop session tab in the background.

With my limited testing I was happy to suggest Google's Remote Desktop as the first option to try.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Can't set up email account using Microsoft Outlook under Windows 10/11. Fails every time.

One of my clients is using iiNet to host their email services. They started using the email service years ago through WebCentral and since then they've kept using the service as it moved to new owners. The problem is they can't set up their emails using Microsoft Outlook. When they try to set up a new email account it just fails and they can't even open Outlook. I suspect Outlook is expecting a response that isn't available on the older email service.

To get around this problem with older email services, you need to first set up the email account outside of Outlook. This allows Outlook to open with the new email account and you can then make adjustments if necessary.

Windows 10 and 11 have now removed the older Control Panel but the feature you need is available through the Control Panel.

In the Windows Search area type Control Panel.
Select the Control Panel app.

Next Select Mail (Microsoft Outlook).

From here you can set up your new email account without the checking that is causing Microsoft Outlook to fail. You may also need to set up a Profile if one does not already exist.

Once you've set up the email account (including testing to see send and receive works), you can open Outlook and continue to adjust as required.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

YouTube Video unavailable - Playback on other websites has been disabled - Watch on YouTube

I'm not sure if I've seen this message before, but at times I've clicked on a link to watch a YouTube video and the video has not been available. I always thought it was because perhaps the video had been deleted. Today however, I realised there may be another reason.

If you get the following screen with the message: "Video unavailable. Playback on other websites has been disabled by the video owner. Watch on YouTube", below is why this occurs.

When people upload videos to YouTube they agree to a whole range of things. One is that the video is available to all users using the facilities YouTube provides. One facility is the ability for others to embed the video in their own web page. I've used this feature in www.PracticalDrivingTest.com.au to help people find and watch actual practical driving tests. No one is copying anything, just using the features provided by YouTube.

If a creator of a video doesn't want the video to appear in other websites that's very easy. They simply untick the box for the video which allows embedding. When they untick the embed box a website will display the above message with a link to the video on YouTube.

Kelvin Eldridge
Check out my YouTube channel

How to extract audio from mp4 file using Audacity because the video's sound is not playing under Windows 10.

Recently I had to extract only the audio from an mp4 video file. This happened because Windows 10 could play the video file but there was no audio, even though the video did contain audio. For example playing the video using VLC or even the earlier Windows Media Player played the video with audio, whilst using Windows 10 the default video player (Films & TV or Photos) would play the video but not the audio.

I wanted to produce the video with sound and whilst I have converted files in the past with the VLC Player this approach wasn't working. My next approach was to extract the sound from each video file and then create a new video using the video file plus the sound file. This approach worked and gave me the video I wanted.

To do this I used Audacity which is a program I regularly use the edit audio files. By default however Audacity cannot read an mp4 file so it is necessary to install an mp4 plugin as follows.

First close Audacity if you have Audacity open.
Visit the following web page.
64 bit FFmpeg Library Download (buanzo.org)
Under the section Windows(R) FFmpeg INSTALLER click on the link for the installer, which as at the time I downloaded the file, the file was called FFmpeg v2.2.2 INSTALLER (.EXE).
Run the file.

Now when you open Audacity you should be able to open an mp4 file and the audio track will be available.

I hope this post helps anyone who is having the same problem.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

MyAnswers: How to turn off the image that appear to the right of the search field in Windows 10.

What Microsoft and Windows developers consider to be a nice embellishment to the Windows interface I some call it annoying unnecessary window dressing. I could say crud or crap, but really it's each person's decision to decide how much value the embellishments are to them. Personally I don't want it so I wanted to turn it off.

The problem is trying to find the option to turn the feature off. You have no idea what it's called so that makes it harder to find the option. So if the images to the right of the search field in Windows 10 aren't to your liking, here's how to turn the feature off.

Right click in any spare space on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
Select Search.
Select the ticked Show search highlights.

This now removes the tick from Show search highlights and thus disables the features.

My world is back in balance again.

You can also right click on the image to the right of the search field as well as any spare space on the taskbar. 

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au