Skype/Hangouts mute all other sound Windows 10 + Bluetooth headset

Note this tutorial is specifically for Bluetooth headset MDR-XB950BT on Windows 10. Other BT headsets may react differently to the following changes so proceed at your own risk!

A few weeks ago I updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and noticed that my bluetooth headset (MDR-XB950BT) could no longer listen to PC sounds while on skype/hangouts calls.

After some more research I noticed that it had nothing to do with which programs I was running, in fact if I opened up the Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound panel and clicked the Recording tab that would also mute background sounds so it seemed that any time the microphone was active sound was muted. After looking through tons of forum threads this is what ended up working for me:

  1. Under Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Communications make sure “Do nothing is selected” like so:
    Clipboard01
  2. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features and uninstall WIDCOMM Bluetooth Software (or any other Bluetooth Driver software you had installed). For me I had this exact version:
    WIDCOMM Bluetooth Software. Product Version: 6.5.1.5800. Product Language: /0409. Manufacturer:
  3. Restart Computer
  4. Download the latest Broadcomm Bluetooth driver for Windows 10 from here: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds031759 and install it via the downloaded executable.
  5. Restart Computer.

Now when I’m in the Sound panel and click on Recording there’s slight sound pause but then the sound resumes at a lower quality (grainier) but I can still here PC sounds AND communicate! Hope that helps :)

LoLHistory app now on iOS!

To those of you that follow this blog, you probably realized that I haven’t been posting much new content. That’s because I’ve been spending most of my time working on my latest project – the LoLHistory app. It’s a summoner lookup app that is now available for FREE for both iOS and Android. Fear not, this site isn’t dead. I’m still patching it and maintaining it as well as answering occassional comments or questions. For those of you interested in LoLHistory app I’ve added some details below :)

Here some screenshots from the latest release of the iOS version (1.3.0):

And from the latest release of the Android version (2.6.3):

Screenshot_2015-03-25-23-26-15 Screenshot_2015-03-25-23-26-19 Screenshot_2015-03-25-23-26-22 Screenshot_2015-03-25-23-26-25
You can also talk directly to the developers through our twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/lolhistoryapp
Or our subreddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/lolhistoryapp
And you can find more information on our official website at:
http://www.lolhistoryapp.com

LoLHistory Android App

LoLHistory is a new Android app I’m working on. It utilizes the RiotGames API to pull summoner data and display it on your Android device. The project is very much a work in progress with new designs and features being released at a rapid pace. LoLHistory requires no sign in and only very basic permissions so that you can enjoy it right away!

Features:

+ Recent Match History
+ Per champion stat breakdowns
+ Personal League information (rank, lp etc.)

You can get the app for free from the Google PlayStore:

Download LoLHistory now!

Current screenshots (v 1.3 July 23, 2014)
Screenshot_2014-07-19-17-23-08Screenshot_2014-07-23-10-37-17Screenshot_2014-07-23-10-37-27Screenshot_2014-07-23-10-37-36

 

I’m trying to make the app as useful as possible for other league players like myself. I’ve already picked up some great feedback and am constantly looking for more ways to improve LoLHistory. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please feel free to contact me or tweet me @alexgophermix

Pokemon on Ubuntu

Tested:

After obsessively watching some of the twitch plays pokemon stream I was inspired to play some Pokemon again. To play Pokemon on Ubuntu there are only a few steps you have to follow:

  1. Install Visual Boy Advance Express. visualboyadvance is one of the main Gameboy advance emulators for Ubuntu. Express is the visual configuration frontend you can use to customize your experience. To install it, simply enter the following command in your terminal:
    sudo apt-get install vbaexpress
  2. Get the ROM for Pokemon version you want to play. To play Pokemon using an emulator you need a ROM for the game, which is just an image of the actual game. There hundreds of sites that host Pokemon ROMs (and others) like Loveroms. The pages for these sites come and go due to takedown requests/copyright claims so linking them here is not very useful.
  3. Start VBA. You can do this either through the VBA express app icon or by entering the following command in your terminal:
    vbaexpress
  4. Switch to 128k save type (blank white screen). A lot of people have reported that starting the rom will result in a blank white screen. The fix to this seems to be changing your save type to 128k under (options>emulator>save type>flash 128k)
  5. Press Play, and load the GBA ROM you downloaded. The ROM file should have the extension .gba

That’s it! You’ve just followed the absolute basic steps needed to play Pokemon on Ubuntu. Since the documentation seems to be pretty sparse for vbaexpress here are some essential default controls:

Arrow keys - ←↑→↓
z - A
x - B
enter - Start
backspace - Select
spacebar - Speedup game
(f1-f10) - Load game save state from specified slot
ctrl+(f1-f10) - Save current game state to slot
esc - QUIT WITHOUT CONFIRMATION !!EVIL!!

Screenshot from 2014-03-09 22_21_57Screenshot from 2014-03-09 22_22_16
If you’ve followed the above steps and are still having issues running Pokemon on Ubuntu, please post in the comments below. To increase your chances of a solution being found include as much detail as possible (which version of the game you’re running, what operating system you have, what video card you have and steps to reproduce the issue). Screenshots are also very useful!

Streaming to Twitch.tv from Ubuntu

Tested:

Recently I found myself needing to stream from my Ubuntu laptop to my twitch feed. Unfortunately almost every link/code snippet I could find online was either using unsupported/deprecated code or was full of syntax errors making it unusable. I’ve put together this simple tutorial for streaming to Twitch.tv with only single script to run.

The script (updated January 25 2013):

#! /bin/bash

# streaming on Ubuntu via ffmpeg.
# see http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Screencasts for full documentation

# input resolution, currently fullscreen.
# you can set it manually in the format "WIDTHxHEIGHT" instead.
INRES=$(xwininfo -root | awk '/geometry/ {print $2}'i)

# output resolution.
# keep the aspect ratio the same or your stream will not fill the display.
OUTRES="640x360"

# input audio. You can use "/dev/dsp" for your primary audio input.
INAUD="pulse"

# target fps
FPS="30"

# video preset quality level.
# more FFMPEG presets avaiable in /usr/share/ffmpeg
QUAL="fast"

# stream key. You can set this manually, or reference it from a hidden file like what is done here.
STREAM_KEY=$(cat ~/.twitch_key)

# stream url. Note the formats for twitch.tv and justin.tv
# twitch:"rtmp://live.twitch.tv/app/$STREAM_KEY"
# justin:"rtmp://live.justin.tv/app/$STREAM_KEY"
STREAM_URL="rtmp://live.twitch.tv/app/$STREAM_KEY"

ffmpeg \
-f alsa -ac 2 -i "$INAUD" \
-f x11grab -s "$INRES" -r "$FPS" -i :0.0 \
-vcodec libx264 -s "$OUTRES" -vpre "$QUAL" \
-acodec libmp3lame -threads 6 -qscale 5 -b 64KB \
-f flv -ar 44100 "$STREAM_URL"

What do I do with this? Follow these instructions:

  1. Create twitch_stream.sh. Download the script from here or copy the above raw code and paste it into a file called twitch_stream.sh in your home (~) directory. This will be something like: /home/YOU.
  2. Create .twitch_key. This script looks for the file ~/.twitch_key from which to read your twitch key. Go to http://www.twitch.tv/broadcast/dashboard/streamkey, copy your stream key and paste it into a file called .twitch_key in your home (~) directory.
  3. Make sure you have all the necessary packages installed. To install them run the following command:
    sudo apt-get install ffmpeg libx264-dev libavcodec-extra-53
  4. Make sure twitch_stream.sh has the right permissions. From within your home (~) directory run the following command:
    chmod 755 twitch_stream.sh
  5. Start streaming! From within your Home directory where you should have both the twitch_stream.sh and .twitch_key files run the following command in terminal:
    sh twitch_stream.sh
    If you don’t run into any issues this should start streaming right away. Check your twitch dashboard to see if this is working as expected.
    NOTE – you will probably have to tweak the INRES and OUTRES to match your needs. By default the INRES is set to be your screens width. You probably want to make sure your INRES and OUTRES have the same aspect ratio.

I have also created a gist for this short script so it can be updated as needed that you can find here.

Possible Errors:

  • stream.sh: 40: stream.sh: ffmpeg: not found
    Solution – install ffmpeg using the following command:
    sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
  • Unrecognized option ‘preset’
    Solution – install libx264-dev using the following command:
    sudo apt-get install libx264-dev libavcodec-extra-53
  • [rtmp @ 0xa39a20] Server error: Authentication Failed.
    rtmp://live.twitch.tv/app/: Input/output error

    Solution – get your twitch key again and copy paste it into the ~/.twitch_key file. You may have accidentally clicked reset stream key while copy pasting it.

If you run into any other error messages or dependency issues which streaming to Twitch.tv from Ubuntu please post them in the comments below. The more detail you can include the better! For reference I tested this on ubuntu 13.04.

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