How are you today?

A collection of words that should try and describe the weblog of Rey Dhuny.

How to export individual tracks in GarageBand

  1. Solo the track you want to export
  2. Click “Share” then “Export Song to Disk”
  3. Click the checkbox: “Export cycle area, or length of selected regions (if Cycle is turned off)”

There are multiple Amazon Alexa-enabled devices in my home and they’re quite useful, however, having set a timer on one device, querying another for the remaining time informs me: No timer is set — annoying.

MPC Essentials plugin error with GarageBand 10.2.0

When trying to launch Akai Pro MPC Essentials as a plugin on GarageBand I was receiving the following error, even though MPC Essentials was unlocked and ran normally when launched stand-alone.

This software must be unlocked before you can run it

After some Googling, I found a settings file needs to be copied because of reasons:

I’m no expert but it seems professional music software is really quite awful.

Moving WordPress to a different domain

Your mileage may vary! Please create the necessary backups and test locally before doing anything on Production.

When researching how to migrate WordPress content to reyhan.org, I read the Changing Your Domain_Name and URLs section on the Moving WordPress Codex article but it wasn’t very clear.

Having mentioned this to John, he kindly pointed me in the right direction — here’s what I did:

  1. Install wp-cli on both the old and new WordPress instances (if you haven’t already1).
  2. On the old WordPress instance run wp db export (docs) to export the database as a .sql file (it’ll look something like old_site_wp_database-2018-04-09-bun3e8h.sql).
  3. Transfer aforementioned .sql file to a location on the server running the new WordPress instance.
  4. On the new WordPress instance run wp site empty (docs).
  5. On the new WordPress instance run wp db import /path/to/*.sql (docs).
  6. On the new WordPress instance run wp search-replace old.com new.com (docs).
  1. wp-cli is a really well-designed command-line tool, it made my return to WordPress a great experience. ↩

I’d subscribe to a weblog whose raison d’être was reviewing tinned fish.

App password gotcha with Google Authenticator plugin

When creating a new app password using the Google Authenticator plugin for WordPress don’t forget to click “Update Profile” after clicking “Create new password” or it won’t work.

EDIT: I’ve switched to Two-Factor. It has a better user experience and support for multiple methods of authentication.

PLUS Japan Staple-Free Stapler

I was looking for a way to attach stuff to pages in my notebook without using staples or paperclips. I came across the PLUS Japan Staple-Free Stapler which does just that!

Pulled pork

This is great served with flat breads, hummus and pickles.

Ingredients

  • Boneless pork shoulder, 1.3kg
  • Sage, handful, roughly chopped
  • Thyme, half handful, leaves removed from stalks
  • Garlic, 4 large cloves, roughly chopped
  • Pickled ginger, 1 teaspoon, roughly chopped
  • Olive oil, 1½ tablespoon
  • Cider vinegar, 1½ tablespoon
  • Vegetable stock, 300ml (or enough to fill about an inch of an oven tray)
  • Soy sauce, 1 tablespoon
  • Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon
  • Salt + pepper

Instructions

  1. Take a pestle and mortar, add sage, thyme, garlic, ginger, olive oil, salt + pepper then crush into a paste. Add cider vinegar to loosen the mixture — you don’t want it too runny as it’ll become a menace later on.
  2. Take the pork shoulder, cut off the string, unroll and rub the mixture all over the pork shoulder, making sure the entire cut is covered.
  3. Roll the pork shoulder back up and tie with butchers twine or similar.
  4. Wrap the pork shoulder in cling film (fairly tight) and leave overnight in the fridge.
  5. Preheat the oven to 130℃.
  6. Prepare 300ml of vegetable stock and add soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and whatever else you fancy (I added a tablespoon of barbecue sauce and a quartered lemon).
  7. Take an oven tray just big enough to hold the pork shoulder and add your vegetable stock mix. There should be be enough to fill about an inch up the oven tray — nothing more.
  8. Take a sheet of baking paper and place over the pork shoulder1. Using hardy catering foil, wrap the top of the oven tray twice ensuring it’s well sealed then place on the middle tray in the oven and cook for 4½ hours.
  9. Take the oven tray out, remove the foil, pour the juices into a jug and set aside.
  10. Return the pork shoulder to the oven at 160℃, uncovered for a further 1 hour or until the rind has crisped up.
  11. Remove the pork shoulder from the oven, separate the crackling (chop and eat immediately!) and leave the shoulder to rest for 30 minutes.
  12. Take a pair of forks and pull the meat apart.
  13. Skim the fat from the jug of delicious juices and pour over the pulled pork, giving it a good mix.
  1. This is to provide a barrier to stop the pork shoulder from sticking to the foil. ↩