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.

Manually Edit the TortoiseHg Registry

 Sometimes you have spurious entries that cannot be removed from the UI.

You can manually edit the Repository Registry by going to the local configuration directory--something like: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\TortoiseHg--and editing the file:

thg-reporegistry.xml

If you have an empty group, there will be a line like:

    <allgroup name="default"/>

which you can just delete.

Thunderbird (115.x.y) Use Body Text Style by Default

Update of my post from a few years ago.

You can set Body Text as the default composition style from the Tools Menu ->  Settings -> Composition:

uncheck "Use Paragraph format instead of Body Text by default".

Still, if you reply to an email and find yourself using the Paragraph style, you might think the option has been disabled. It's not. You just moved inside a Paragraph block.

Can not extract resource from com.android.aaptcompiler.ParsedResource

 If you get this strange error while building an app with AndroidStudio:

"Can not extract resource from com.android.aaptcompiler.ParsedResource"

 

 check if you just introduced an unprotected apostrophe (') in strings.xml and replace it with (\').

Thanks to soulflavacrew.

Download Your Data from Instagam

 The tricky part is to find how to start. 

1. Log in.
2. Choose your account in the top right corner.
3. Click on the Options icon, right of "View Archive".
4. Choose "Settings and Privacy".
5. In the "Accounts Center", choose "Personal Details".
6. Now in the left side menu, choose "Your Information and Permissions".
7. Choose "Download your Information" and proceed with customizing your request.
8. Wait for Instagram to notify you when the data is ready to be downloaded.

The End

AndroidStudio Archive

 The archive of older versions is here.

Windows Explorer is Dead in Windows 11. How to Restart it.

Windows Explorer is dead. You cannot open the Taskbar, switch workspace or even summon an open application but the mouse is responsive.

This worked for me:

Press Ctrl + Shift + ESC to open the Task Manager.

You can now restart Windows Explorer clicking: Run new task (top left) and then typing: explorer.

That should do it!