81–90 of 257 posts
Quality Street were wrapped in opaque paper this year. TP-Link's TL-WPA4220 powerline extenders (and presumably other models) let you turn off the status LEDs in software (there should be a list of hardware that lets you do this).
When candy companies and tech companies collude we’re really doomed.
I haven't had the IR remote complication like the article, but for too-bright-LED purposes, I use different colors of labelmaker tape (Brother TZe type) for different cases: * need blocking entirely (like on my LaserJet, and a UPS) -- black tape * too bright, but still need to see, and to differentiate colors (like on one of my living room servers) -- white tape, cut to size with hole punch * too bright for when i us…
Nail polish works just about everywhere too, lasts for years (unlike electrical tape, which is excellent temporarily), and is trivial to find. It can take a couple layers, but if you just want to dim it that can be a good thing. (edit: though I have no idea if it'll let infrared through like this post covers. I luckily haven't had any devices sharing IR windows like that)
That's a great tip! I bought an air purifier that has a very bright blue light illuminating the entire room at night. Now if only I can find a way to disable its annoying on/off chimes.
Because of course they're just on the flat top, where cats like to climb and stand.
And I’m wondering how much power is wasted by the literally billions of these status indicating LEDs…
I wonder if all the gains from phasing out incandescents have already been eaten alive from the probably 10000 leds that appear in the wake of every dying bulb? There’s an LED billboard (the reef) in downtown LA you can plainly see from Mt. Wilson 40 miles away. Throwing a stadiums worth of light all night like that to show junk no one wants to see. And they keep building more of these wastes of resources.
I think my household lighting is still more efficient than the incandescents we had when I was growing up. But there sure is more of it, in terms of fixtures as well as light output.
I haven't had the IR remote complication like the article, but for too-bright-LED purposes, I use different colors of labelmaker tape (Brother TZe type) for different cases: * need blocking entirely (like on my LaserJet, and a UPS) -- black tape * too bright, but still need to see, and to differentiate colors (like on one of my living room servers) -- white tape, cut to size with hole punch * too bright for when i us…
FWIW I bought a set of like 200 small dot stickers of diff colors, barely opaque. They’re perfect. You can stick em on and use the color system you described. Like what teachers use for small crafts and such.
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That's a great tip! I bought an air purifier that has a very bright blue light illuminating the entire room at night. Now if only I can find a way to disable its annoying on/off chimes.
I've gotta find a way to stop the touch-sensitive controls on mine from responding to cats o_o. Because of course they're just on the flat top, where cats like to climb and stand.
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Because a good number of customer service calls come from people who have a device plugged into a dead outlet. The led at least tells you the device is getting power. It can also indicate whether any internal fuses/breakers have tripped. And many manufacturers blink that one led for error codes and such. They have a purpose, and can generally be blocked by any bit of cheap tape.
That doesn't explain why they're blue - which is a much brighter and more intense LED color then green or red. The craziest one is the subwoofer my parents bought for their home theater - this is a device you would exclusively use in a darkened room while watching movies...and it has a full size eye-searing 3mm LED to indicate "power on" (it's been electrical taped over for about a decade now).
A little hax but it works Adequately.
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It made sense when HDDs were universal, it provided a quick check for a common cause of major slowdowns (you would then go hunt for the source of the IO). Also on most cases you can / could just not plug that header in. Not an option for external drives tho.
You didn’t even need a light, you could hear the disk.