In my recent political post, I decided to embed an audio podcast of University of Chicago "grumpy" economist John Cochrane. Over the last 8 years I've used a number of alternative methods in html coding of players, etc. It's bad enough knowing that the source clip could be withdrawn without notice; I've dealt with Google player widgets suddenly unavailable.
It turns out the html code is quite simple (HT bloggerbuster):
<audio controls="">
<source src="http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2016/Cochranegrowth.mp3"></source>
If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element
</audio>
Substitute your target source file URL in place of the red-typed example. Where did I find the link? In Chrome, I right-clicked/copied the file link from the play and/or download links at the Econtalk webpage.
USB Flash Drives Are Getting Cheaper
I suspect years from now today's prices for similar functionality will seem expensive, but I couldn't pass up 64 GB USB SanDisk flash drives selling for under $15 at Walmart and bought 3 for my backup computers. (The flash drives come with a limited version of EncryptStick (e.g., you are limited to a single vault); you can license the full license for about $12 the last time I checked; you can also make a conventional SafeHouse Explorer install portable by copying the binary to the stick. It's not just about transferring data between computers. I've configured a number of freeware portable applications to run off sticks.
My Lazarus ASUS Went Into a Coma
There's some sort of a battery issue with my backup ASUS. I explained in a recent post that during my recent trip to Arizona, I had an issue with my primary HP laptop; I had booted up the notebook and was about to attach an external drive and make it my new primary when the ASUS went dead.
As I explained in a recent post, I saw a lot of customers reporting undoing the back cover and doing a hard reset (holding the power button for over 45 seconds) in conjunction with reinserting the battery. My brief unpleasant experience with ASUS tech support also focused on a hard reset.
I hadn't started the (fully charged) ASUS for a few days after starting it up for the first time in 2 months. I was discouraged to see it hesitate to come to life again and then a couple of brief flickers of light painting the screen. This time I held the power button for 45 seconds, briefly released and then gently touched the power button again, and the device sprang to life, as if the prior struggle had never happened. Although the laptop seems fully charged, it's clear to me the battery is a problem, but I still haven't purchased decent computer tools. Since then I've started up the ASUS daily without another. incident.
The Dreaded MS 0x80073712 Update Issue
It's truly annoying to find that the one of my PC's experiencing an issue with Microsoft's latest cumulative patch KB3194496 is my workhorse PC. It has repeatedly aborted at about 10% of the download. I still haven't resolved it as I write; the usual techniques, e.g., deleting the files stored under Windows/Software Distribution, haven't worked, and the Windows Update troubleshooter has been unable to diagnose/fix the issue (oh, it reports that it's diagnosed and fixed maybe a half dozen issues, but same old same old). If and when I fix the issue, I'll address it in a future post.
