Windows 7, Dell Precision 7510 - When I resumed from hibernate, it would show the “Resuming” splash screen, then the video went dark, and it locked up. The problem did not occur on resume-from-sleep. The problem only occurred when the laptop was docked.

It turned out to be a USB mouse, plugged into the docking station, which was causing the problem.

I tried tweaking BIOS settings for USB, and boot options, but that didn’t fix it. I tried two different mice (same manufacturer, same model) and it happened with both. I tried running the mouse through a USB hub and that didn’t help. I tried a USB2 and a USB3 hub with the same results. The problem also occurs when the mouse is connected to the laptop directly (i.e. not via the dock).

The only solution is to not connect the mouse until AFTER the login (re-enter previously logged on session) screen appears.

Important Recovery Note: When you run into the problem, your resume is NOT lost. Unplug the mouse, power off (via the power button), power on, and when Windows asks, tell it to try the resume again.

Note: Chipset is RTL8812au

• sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential git
• git clone https://github.com/abperiasamy/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux /tmp/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux cd /tmp/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux
• sudo cp -R /tmp/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux /usr/src/rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux-1.0
• sudo dkms add -m rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux -v 1.0
• sudo dkms build -m rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux -v 1.0
• sudo dkms install -m rtl8812AU_8821AU_linux -v 1.0

You might have to reboot or to remove/re-insert the dongle. The first connect can take a minute or two.

This is the largest USB dongle I have ever seen.

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Update: When I did the above, it worked well on my home network, using WPA2. I was using it from an Ubuntu 16.04 VM, running with VMware Workstation Player 12 on a Windows 7 host laptop. Then I took the laptop to an attwifi network, and it wouldn’t connect. Here’s the steps that I took before it started working. I don’t know which of them fixed it, or if it just fixed itself, given time.

• I told Network Manager (the network icon on the menu bar) to connect to the scanned attwifi SSID. It reported ‘Disconnected’ after a few seconds. I tried again and again. Maybe 6-8 times.
• I ran some command lines:
  • “iw dev” showed that my device is named wlxec086b12e51c
  • “ip link show wlxec086b12e51c” showed state DOWN.
  • “ip link set wlxec086b12e51c up” gave a not-permitted error.
  • sudo ip link set wlxec086b12e51c up
  • “ip link show wlxec086b12e51c” still showed state DOWN
  • sudo ip link set wlxec086b12e51c up
• I went back to Network Manager and told it to associate to attwifi (again). After a few seconds, it showed it was associated.
• “ip link show wlxec086b12e51c” now shows state UP.
• “ping google.com” failed DNS.
• “iwconfig” shows we are associated with attwifi at 2.412 GHz.
• “iw wlxec086b12e51c link” shows we are associated.
• “iw wlxec086b12e51c scan” shows lots of output…
  • associated to SSID attwifi
  • no security (WPA/WPA2/WEP) for attwifi
• “sudo dhclient wlxec086b12e51c”
• “ifconfig wlxec086b12e51c” now shows an IP address.
• ping works!
• Shut down VM and VMware. Do NOT Unplug Wifi. Wait a few minutes.
• Disable that WiFi device in Windows device manager.
• Remove and replace the Wifi.
• Start VM and login.
• Network Manager reports failure, then a few seconds later it reports success. Total time to connect is about a minute. ping works.

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• I moved the Wifi dongle to another USB port.
• I had to tell VMware to connect it. (It sees that as a new device.)
• Network Manager tried to connect and failed.
• “ip link show wlxec086b12e51c” says state is DOWN.
• Waited abou 10 minutes, occasionally telling Network Manager to connect and getting “Disconnected”.
• It associated.
• A few minutes later, “ip link show wlxec086b12e51c” showed state up, but ping google.com failed.
• A few minutes later, ping worked.

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In the future, for debugging Network Manager, this may be helpful : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingNetworkManager

Once you are connected, you can use this to monitor signal quality (numerically):

• watch -n1 iwconfig

Term

• row - a single row
• column - a single column
• square - a single cell
• 3Row - a group of 3 rows; rows 1-3, 4-6, or 7-9
• 3Column - a group of 3 columns; columns 1-3, 4-6, or 7-9

• 9Square - a square of 9 cells with a bold border

• Pair-across
  • Find 2 rows in a 3Row with a shared value. Check the 3rd row of the 3Row in all its 3Squares to see if you can find a square for the 3rd instance of the shared value.
  • Repeat for all 3Row and 3Column.
• 2 squares remain
  • In a 3Square, when only two empty squares remain, ask yourself what 2 values remain. See if only one legit mapping of those values to empty squares exists.
  • Ditto for a row with only two squares remaining.
  • Ditto for a column with only two squares remaining.

I was automating Excel, from Autohotkey, via CSCRIPT or WSCRIPT. I followed all of the best practices for object management, such as setting my objects to Nothing in VBScript, calling xlApp.Quit and then setting xlApp to Nothing.

EXCEL.EXE just kept showing up in Task Manager after I quit Excel.

Ha! But if I sat around for 45-60 seconds, it did quit.

I dunno why, but I suspect that this is intentional behavior. e.g. In case you automate multiple iterations, so you don’t have to wait while Excel loads. Or maybe it is doing clean-up, or who knows what. The point is that before you say Excel.exe won’t quit, give it a minute or two and check again.

I bought “Bluetooth Earbuds Senbow APTX + Siamesed Ear Hook Sweatproof Wireless Running Sports Bluetooth Earbuds” from Amazon, on sale. The instructions are marked “Bluetooth Instruction Manual S01 Bluetooth Headset”. The instructions are almost worthless.

“The BUTTON” - There is one button on the left earpiece. I refer to it as “the BUTTON”. There are also 3 buttons mounted on the wire between the earbuds.

Power Control:

• Power On = Press and hold the BUTTON until it speaks “power on”.
• Power Off = Press and hold the BUTTON until it speaks “power off”.
• Battery Report = Tap the BUTTON briefly, while the headset is on.

Volume:

• Volume Up = Briefly tap (or repeatedly tap) the button closest to your left ear. This is button is above the others, as the wire hangs down.
• Volume Down = Briefly tap (or repeatedly top) the button farthest from your left ear. This button is below the others, as the wire hangs down.

Track Control:

• Start of Track = Press and Hold the Volume Up button.
• Previous Track = do Start of Track twice, with no delay in between.
• Next Track = Press and Hold the Volume Down button.
• Pause = Briefly tap the middle button on the wire.

Management:

• Pair = From the power off state, press and hold the BUTTON until it says it is pairing.
• Answer Call = Something to do with the middle button on the wire.

LED:

• Powered on: Blue flash every 3 seconds.
• Powering off: Single slow red pulse
• Powering on: 3 blue flashes about once a second, followed by 1 quick blue flash.
• Charging: When the LED turns from red to blue, it is fully charged.

Sometimes, IE shows a “This page can’t be displayed” error. This is IE’s all-purpose “I’m sorry, I can’t do that Dave” message. It can have multiple causes.

One cause I’ve seen more than once is an infinite redirect loop. This can be particularly difficult to recognize, if you have users trying to reproduce the problem, because they’ll reload the page again and again, trying to produce the problem. That looks a whole lot like a redirect loop, reloading the page again and again.

So if you get “This page can’t be displayed”, use Fiddler or Wireshark (or even just a server-side log, showing the full request/response content). If you see status “302 Found” returned, with a Location header of the page you just fetched, that’s a redirect loop. The browser will redirect for a while and then give up.

I’ve seen two applications which were supposed to redirect to a login page (if the user’s session expired) from the landing page and they redirected back to the landing page instead.

I’ve seen Quicken print a comprehensive report on your retirement plan, but I can’t make it work now.

This is NOT the way. It just prints a single header.

• Select the Planning tab, just under the toolbar.
• Select the Lifetime Planner sub-tab, under the Planning tab.
• In the Event Status panel, click “Your retirement plan”. (Alternate: In the “Monthly Savings Targets” panel, select “Retirement contribution”)
• Quicken will open a new window titled “My Retirement Plan”.
• Click the Print icon in the upper-right corner of the My Retirement Plan window.

You can see details on a single year:

• Select the Planning tab, just under the toolbar.
• Select the Lifetime Planner sub-tab, under the Planning tab.
• Double-click on the bar for a single year in the bar chart.

Quicken 2014 does not include support for Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSA). You want to set these up as:

• Brokerage Account
• NOT Tax-Deferred

Using Brokerage Account will let you track investments made in your HSA.

Using NOT Tax-Deferred has the disadvantage that Quicken thinks you need to pay capital gains on earnings, but if you make it tax deferred Quicken will want you to pay taxes on withdrawals in retirement. You can probably spend it all on medical expenses in your retirement, which will be tax free. (You can withdraw the funds for any use after age 65, but you’ll pay income tax on funds that are not for approved medical use.)

When I’m using a VMware HVD (VMware Horizon View), sometimes the mouse pointer gets stuck in the HVD. If my HVD is maximized, the mouse will not move to the title bar (HVD tool bar), to let me minimize the HVD. If my HVD is not maximized, I can’t move the mouse pointer out of the HVD window. The mouse pointer keeps jumping back into the middle of the HVD window.

I don’t know how to fix the problem, but a work-around is to press control-alt, to release the mouse from the HVD – just like you would do with VMware Workstation or VMware Player.

Sometimes, it won’t move within the window to where I want. To work-around that, press control-alt to release the mouse, re-size the View window (a tiny bit is enough), and re-enter the View window.