How to Download an APK from your App's Home Page on the Google Console

 Go to "Test and release" -> "Latest releases and bundles".

Choose a release and click on the "->" on the right side.

Go to App Bundles and select the "Downloads" tab.

There you have all the options, including downloading the "Signed, universal APK". 

Customizing a Preference Alert Dialog for an EditTextPreference in Android

 In your themes.xml, add the following:

<resources xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

  <style name="Theme.Your_Theme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.DayNight.NoActionBar" android:forceDarkAllowed="true">

[...]

    <item name="alertDialogTheme">@style/YourAlertDialogTheme</item>
  </style>

 </resources>

In the styles.xml, add the style for the dialog itself:

 <style name="YourAlertDialogTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.Dialog.Alert">
   <!-- Changes the dialog background color -->
   <item name="android:windowBackground">@color/light_grey</item>
   <!-- Changes the title and message text color -->
   <item name="android:textColorPrimary">@color/alert_dialog_button_txt</item>
   <!-- If using Material Components, use this for buttons -->
   <!--<item name="buttonBarPositiveButtonStyle">@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.Button.TextButton</item>-->
   <item name="buttonBarPositiveButtonStyle">@style/Widget.Your.Button.TextButton</item>
   <item name="buttonBarNegativeButtonStyle">@style/Widget.Your.Button.TextButton</item>
 </style>

 <style name="Widget.Your.Button.TextButton" parent="Widget.MaterialComponents.Button.TextButton">
   <!-- Changes the text and icon color -->
   <item name="android:textColor">@color/alert_dialog_button_txt</item>
   <!--<item name="iconTint">@color/red_status</item>-->
   <!-- Changes the click ripple color -->
   <!--<item name="rippleColor">@color/green_dark</item>-->
 </style>

In your your_preferences.xml, add:

<PreferenceScreen xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

  <EditTextPreference
    app:key="pk_quality_threshold"
    app:title="@string/title_quality_threshold"
    app:dialogTitle="@string/title_quality_threshold"
    app:summary="@string/leak_quality_threshold_summary"
    app:defaultValue="40"
    app:dialogLayout="@layout/pref_edittext" />

Then define the custom layout for the EditTextPreference to change the color of the edit text background, text and cursor:

pref_edittext.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!-- Used in ui_preferences.xml -->

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:padding="8dp"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <!-- If you use: android:textCursorDrawable="@null"
    the cursor will automatically inherit the color defined in
    the android:textColor property -->
    <EditText
        android:id="@android:id/edit"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textColor="@color/alert_dialog_button_txt"
        android:background="@color/white"
        android:textCursorDrawable="@null"
        android:padding="8dp" />

</LinearLayout>

Done!
 

Windows Cleanup Tips

 [1] The safest way is to let Windows do it

Go to Settings -> System -> Storage -> Temporary Files.

Select everything and click on Remove files. 

 [2] Use an external tool

 Example: PatchCleaner.

[3] Delete old files from the temporary directory

This directory is usually located in: C:\Users\<YOUR_USERNAME>\AppData\Local.

Here you can safely delete months or years old files. If they're still in use, Windows will prevent you from deleting them. 

If you're in doubt, skip what you were planning to do. 

dnf/rpm error on Fedora: package xxx.rpm does not verify: no digest

If you trust the source, skip the digest verification:

> rpm -ivh --nodigest --nofiledigest xxx.rpm

Windows keeps reverting my Wallpaper Settings

Here's Microsoft solution that seems to be working for me. I'll update this post once I reboot to see if it sticks in there.

1. Go to: Settings > Personalization > Background Set Personalize your background to Picture, then click Browse and select your image from a permanent folder like: C:\Wallpapers\MyImage.jpgAvoid using images from Downloads or external drives.
2. Next, go to: Settings > Personalization > ThemesClick Save theme to lock in your current setup. Name it something like “StaticWallpaperFix”.
3. Now disable sync to prevent Windows from reverting your theme: Settings > Accounts > Windows backup > Remember my preferencesTurn Off “Other Windows settings”.
4. Finally, open Run (Win + R), type: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\. Delete any leftover slideshow.ini or corrupted theme files. This clears out old slideshow triggers.

Source 

 

Change the Default Paper Size in Fedora Linux

 The quick way:

Change directory to /etc/cups/ppd.

There you should find a file for your printer.

Edit it and find the line:

 *DefaultPageSize: A4

The list of supported sizes is below that line. Make sure you set the default to one of those. 

Android: Can not extract resource from com.android.aaptcompiler.ParsedResource@xxxxx

There is probably an unescaped quote (') somewhere in the strings.xml files or somewhere else in the code.

Replace with: (\')

External screen on a Lenovo laptop goes black for a few seconds repeateadly

 That's what Google LLM suggests:

The keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Win + B (sometimes written as Ctrl + Win + Shift + B) in Windows is used to restart the graphics driver and can resolve issues like a black screen, screen freezing, or graphical glitches. Pressing this combination will cause your screen to flash black and you may hear a brief beep, indicating the driver has been reset without losing your open applications.

I tried multiple times after it occurred. After that it seems to have stabilized. We'll see... 

Changing Theme on Windows 11 Personalization with Multiple Virtual Desktops

If you try to change theme in one virtual desktop and then move to another one with Ctrl-Win Right Arrow and go back, your selection is lost.

Try doing this:

1. Select your theme in the first virtual desktop.
2. Open the Task Bar and click on the Task View.
3. Switch to the second desktop.
4. Open Personalize.
5. The wrong theme is applied.
6. Select another theme then do that again until the right one is applied.
7. Open the Task View again and go back to the previous virtual desktop. Now your selection should stick.

 

AMD CPU GPU Metrics Overlay Randomly Activated

 This annoying overlay suddenly appeared as an overlay in Windows 11.

If you want to disable it, open the AMD software, go to Performance, switch off Enable Metrics Overlay and hope it doesn't randomly activate again by itself.

 Thanks to Chezaus.

Update! I found out the key shortcut that enables it: Ctrl-Shift-o.

Thunderbird: Create New Message: default style is Paragraph instead of Body Text - UPDATE

 Update to the post from May 13, 2016

If you want to disable Paragraph format as the default style and revert to Body Text, go to Settings -> Composition and uncheck "Use Paragraph format instead of Body Text by default".

Configure a Brother Printer in Fedora Linux

I needed to configure a relatively old Brother HL2030 laser printer.

Don't look for the official drivers on Brother's Web site but rather install this package.

Make sure the printer is connected to a USB socket and switched on.

Then go to Settings and add a printer. It should be automatically found.

 

 Fedora Printing page.

Stop Windows 11 from Changing Input Language

 The default option when you have multiple keyboard languages is to present the default system language for every app.

If you want to stick with one language for all apps, go to Advanced Keyboard Settings and instead of "Use language list", choose your favorite language.

You can still change keyboard language from the taskbar.

Thanks to Sumit.

Firefox uses too much memory or CPU

A few days ago Firefox started becoming unusable for me.

I usually have more than 10 windows and probably 40 tabs open at any time.

It was so slow I switched for a few days to Edge, which was much more responsive.

But I couldn't give up. I've been with Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Firebird and Firefox all my browsing life.

I fould this page from Mozilla really helpful.

In particular the option to "Minimize memory usage" in the about:memory page.

A combination of actions can really have an impact on the usability.

Disable Firefox Translation Pop-up

Open a tab and go to:

about:config

 

Search for the entry:

browser.translations.automaticallyPopup

 

Double click in the row to switch from true to false.

 

Done!

Thanks to Mozilla Support.

Set up Credentials in Git for Windows

 Open a Git Bash terminal.

 

# Set user name

> git config --global user.name "John Doe"

# Set email

> git config --global user.email "john.doe@email.com"

Set password

> git config --global user.password "not_123456"

# Permanently store credentials

> git config --global credential.helper store

Thanks to GeeksForGeeks.

Remove an Account from Google Authenticator

Swipe from right to left to remove the selected Account.

Thanks to Parayil

Stop Seeing Unwanted Posts in Facebook

Are you still on Facebook and noticed the amount of undesired crappy fake AI-generated posts infesting your feed?

Instead of scrolling from Home, go to Feeds and choose more specialized feeds like Friends or Groups.

Less and Less Space on Your Disk? Using Thunderbird?

 If you see your free disk space going lower and lower and you are using Thunderbird, there's a good chance a bug is eating away a lot of it.

First step: disable automatic compacting of folders: uncheck "Compact all folders..."

Then go to:

C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\

Check the size if you have multiple ones, go inside and delete all "nstmp" files.

Those are the product of a bug:

"This sounds a lot like the folder compaction bug which can cause Thunderbird to drastically increase the size of temporary files (nstmp, nstmp-2, etc) if the process fails. We're currently rewriting the code for this (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1890448) and a fix should be coming soon."

Thanks to https://www.reddit.com/user/killyourfm/

Thunderbird Eating Up My Hard Drive : r/Thunderbird (reddit.com)

Free up Space in Windows 11

Open "System" and go to Storage -> Temporary Files or search for "storage" and click on Temporary Files. Customize and get some space back.