WP-Mix

A fresh mix of code snippets and tutorials

Category Archive: Uncategorized

Posts on miscellaneous topics

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Affinity Photo: Transparent Gradient

I switched from Photoshop to Affinity Photo several years ago. Although the overall image editing process is very similar to Photoshop, there are some things that Affinity Photo does differently. For example, doing a simple gradient transparency. Seems easy but it took me quite a while to figure out how to do it. So am […]

WP-Mix Celebrates 11 Years

Celebrating 14 years online! WP-Mix launched back in 2012 as a simple code snippets site. It’s just a place where I can stash and share useful code snippets and tutorials. There are over 400 published posts and another 300+ draft posts. I could publish all those drafts “as-is”. But a lot of them are just […]

Mac Terminal Change to Directory on External Drive

Here is how to cd (change directory) into an external drive using Terminal on Mac computers. The trick is knowing the name of the drive and where it is located. On Macs, all connected drives (including hidden drives) are mounted/located under the /Volumes directory. So we can use this information to get the names of […]

Fix Database Won’t Start Error for MAMP Pro

I use MAMP Pro for some of my local pet projects and development. Normally it works great, but the other day I couldn’t get MySQL started. It kept crashing during startup. This post explains the related errors and how I managed to resolve the issue and get MAMP working again.

Google Search Engine Alternatives

Google is the Web’s #1 search engine, hands down. But not everyone is in love with it. Fortunately, there are plenty of decent alternatives for those who wish to diversify their search results. Here is a list of the top alternatives to the Google search engine.

Batch Rename Files on Mac

This is especially useful for those bulk photography missions, where you’ve got folders of hundreds of generic useless file names that were created by a camera or mobile device. This quick tutorial explains how to easily batch rename all the files contained in any folder. All that is required is Mac’s built-in Finder app.

Coda Tip: Fix Reverse Publish Not Working

Another mystery solved! For several years now, I’ve used Coda for coding, SFTP, and related tasks. Downloading files from the server is a common task, but for some reason you always have to click “Reverse Publish Selected Files” several times before the download will start. It’s not a big deal, but I’ve always thought it […]

Set Firmware Password on macOS

Own a Mac? Prevent thieves from wiping your hard drive by setting a firmware password. Especially useful if running any sort of anti-theft or tracking app. Setting a firmware password for macOS is straightforward, requiring only three steps.

Remove .DS_Store in macOS

I would give my left testicle to stop macOS from creating .DS_Store files in every freaking directory on the system. The stupid files have been driving Mac users mad for years, and apparently there is no end in sight. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to remove them.

Moto G Directory Paths for Images and Media

One thing about Android devices like the Moto G, it can be challenging to locate your images, photos, videos, and other media files. To help save time, I’ll be updating this post with new file paths as I discover them. These paths specifically are for the Moto G, but they’re probably the same on other […]

Chrome Extension Icons Missing from Toolbar

I recently upgraded Google Chrome browser to version 52 point something or other, and noticed that all of my extension icons suddenly were missing from the Toolbar. Apparently Google decided to “hide” them all in the Chrome settings menu.

Monitor File Changes via Cron

Monitoring any changes made to your files is a super-useful security technique. Lots of applications, including forensics, diagnostics, and being cool. Here is a quick way to set it up directly via simple cron job.