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If you have a Dell monitor and an M-series chip from Apple, you may have encountered flickering issues with your monitor which — at times — can render it completely unusable. The issue appears to be fairly widespread and can affect a number of Dell model and Apple silicon chip combinations, and has been acknowledged by Dell. The flicker is caused by the monitors LCD panel’s Image Compensation Algorithm (ICA) function repeatedly turning On and Off. The YCbCr Video generated from the Macs is at 17Gray level, it fluctuates between 15Gary and 17Gary. Hence it is repeatedly turning On and Off, the ICA which has a threshold setting of 16Gray. ...

Installing the MySQL-Python package requires a few steps. In an effort to aid future Internet travellers, this post will document how to install the MySQL-Python package on OS X Yosemite. First, install MariaDB, the drop-in replacement for MySQL. I chose MacPorts for this task, though Homebrew would work just fine. Second, update your PATH to include the mariadb executables. Third, install the Python MySQL connector. sudo port install mariadb PATH=/opt/local/lib/mariadb/bin:$PATH pip install MySQL-Python That’s it! You should be able to import MySQLdb in your Python code and interact with your MariaDB database. ...

At VendAsta we frequently share libraries of code between projects. To make it easier to share this code I’ve developed a small package manager that downloads code within a directory from Github to be copied in to your current project. It’s a quick and dirty alternative to cloning an entire repository, grabbing the set of files you want and placing them in your project. ...

WordPress’ new TwentyTen theme is terrific. Well supported, highly modifiable, and with tons of widgets to get the exact layout you desire right out of the box. However, one thing I didn’t like too much was having a big header image on the page. I’m a bit of a minimalist so I wanted to trim down the theme by removing the banner image and the navigation bar. ...

According to Wikipedia, readability is defined as reading ease, especially as it results from a writing style. Only experience, practice, and hard work can improve a person’s writing style. Let’s increase readability in a different manner: with typography. ...