Synology with Plex Media Server Unable to Browse Folder

So you have a Synology NAS. Great!

If you are like me who thinks that the Video Station from Synology isn't good enough and uses Plex. Fantastic!

However, if you like to have more function for the Plex Server such as RBAC (Role base access), live streaming of shows from Plex, etc. you might have to get a Plex Pass (their membership program). 

They come in a monthly, yearly and lifetime. You can check it out here. If you are not in an hurry, wait for Black Friday which falls on the 4th Friday after Thanks Giving every November. This year it falls on the 24th Nov 2023. That is when you might likely get a 50% discount off the lifetime Plex Pass which I got previously many years back. Trust me its worth it.

For Synology, you can just download the Plex Server binary here, and use Package Center to manually install it. Do choose the right package depending you are on the old DSM 6.x or new DSM 7.x.

So once you have Plex setup, you will want to map your existing Movies, Photos or even TV Shows folders. However, you might end up not able to let Plex Server browse it. Here is why.

Plex create a system, internal user, "PlexMediaServer". You will need to grant this user to permission to your media folders.

Hope this helps in case you encounter the same issue like me. I do forgot about this critical step all the time. So am recording this down for my future reference. :)

Ubiquiti Camera with Synology Surveillance Station

With the new software update in Ubiquiti, all support for RTSP is just secured using RTSPS. Synology Surveillance Station has always support on Ubiquiti Cameras via RTSP, with this new update, you might have a challenge to add any Ubiquiti cameras into Synology.

With much research, I finally manage to locate a post that goes into that detail in on discussion in Ubiquiti community.

With the new RTSPS in Ubiquiti Protect, you will get an URL similar to the below:

rtsps://x.x.x.x:7441/aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ?enableSrtp

What you should do is convert the above by removing the "s" from rtsp and change the port number from 7441 to 7447 and lastly removing "?enableSrtp" in your URL which will looks like below:

rtsp://x.x.x.x:7447/aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ

Using the above amended URL, you can then add it as a User Defined camera into Surveillance Station in Synology.

Sell your own car in Singapore

I own my first car and was loving it. Nothing really major happen. But my family has expanded over the last 4 years and my current car isn't sufficient to meet the demand.

When I was exploring to trade in when I do a purchase a new car. However, the trade in prices was not fantastic and you do not have an overlap time to at least give you sometime to settle down the new car while able to drive your old car.

So I went to explore some of the dealer brokers such as Carro, motorist (not onemotoring), SwiftQuote by Carousell (previously OneShift), Quotz by SGCarmart and lastly Platinum Motoring. I also put up in Carousell to try sell my car on my own at the same time. From there I got one dealer who did consignment for my car and posted as premium post on SGCarmart. Carousell do provide you all the documents and steps to sell your own vehicle if you manage to find a direct buyer. Check out the article.

In Carousell, I received a lot of consignment and I did allow one to post on my behalf. However, there was no response from any buyer from them. At the same time, I also receive offers from some dealers.

Platinum motoring didn't response to my request when I sign up. Possibly they only take in certain model of cars.

Carro response fast however they have the worse quote and doubted me when I did have an offer higher by a dealer in Carousell.

Motorist as usual response with 2 days. I have been getting a quote from them over the year and they often just follow up and I can see the price has either go down or up depending on the COE.

SwiftQuote came back with a "OK" price however, I was waiting for all to response.

Quotz after I send my car for assessment after paying a fee of SGD38 (promotion price offered SGD10 using referral), they will post all the pictures and report into their ebidding system. You will then received the link to view the live bidding. It runs for 2 days and on the last day cut off time at 12pm, they will offer you the price that was highest bid and you get to decide if you want to accept the offer within 2 days. I was given the highest price by them. Also happen to saw a friend who have wrote a review for them, I though why not give it a try.

From my car distributor where I got my new car, the highest they could give me was slightly less after pushing them hard for highest. However, that has not include assessment.

After all the quotes I have received, eventually I accepted the offer from Quotz. Here are the few reasons:

1. Price is final as assessment is already done no more low ball unlike the rest.
2. If buyer pull out after the acceptance, Quotz will still honour the deal.
3. You will be given up to end of month to submit your car, given enough time for me to transit such as detailing of the car or installing dashcam etc. I have to provide at least 1/4 tank of petrol and not drove more than 80km per day.
4. If a higher price is offered by others, you can redeem from Quotz SGD100 for price competitive.

All in all, the experience was great. Upon accepting the offer, Quotz will provide you initial deposit of SGD1000. And transfer the rest once the car is submitted via Cashier Order if you arrange to transfer the car during weekend or PayNow during weekday. PayNow only apply to a certain limit.

Check out their FAQ in their website.

Checklist

1. If you have pay off your car loan, make sure it is cleared from onemotoring status. Can check by trying to do a transfer to see if any financial status remains.

2. Remember to remove everything from your car. Arm rest compartment, glove box and car boot.

Lastly, once everything is completed, you can leave them a review on their Facebook page and you will be credited with $5 in return.

Update 8th Feb 2024

Of you keen to try them out no harm booking an appointment and decide yourself.

https://www.quotz.com.sg/referral?ref=MFpidWFVdTJscDE0YVpEakFyNHBBQT0

Update 9th Nov 2021

As my loan status hasn't untagged from my car, I was only able to do my transfer 1 week later. I still see my car at Quotz. I am suspecting, my last offer was from Quotz themselves. Since 5 mins before the ebidding time it was about 5k lesser than my offered price. And upon 12pm, it changed. Nevertheless, it was something I was comfortable with.

Remember to check your receipt for assessment if you are having the promotion price. I was charged $38 instead of $10 and only discover when I saw my bank statement.

Sony WF-1000XM3 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones Review

Today I am writing a review on Sony WF-1000XM3 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones which I have purchase in Dec 2019. Having used it close to six months now, I would say it is a fair headphones. Definitely not the best but an average headphones pricing at SGD349.

Let's list down some of the features when you want a wireless headphones to help in your daily work.

• Build quality
• Sound Quality
• Comfort
• Noise Cancelling
• Bluetooth connection stability
• Microphone
• Hear through mode (able to hear outside sound together)
• Multi-device connections
• Ease of use of the earphones
• Ease of use of the app

Let go through go through each item and put a score to it.

Build quality 8/10

The build quality of the headphones are good. The case however get easily scratched with its smooth metallic painting. The plastic quality and build does not make the earphones looks cheap in any way. The case looks good but since it get scratch easily, you might end up getting a silicon case to cover it completely. Guess what, there are plenty of design for them.

Sound Quality 10/10

Sony being a music device manufacturer, it didn't fail in this category. If they do, I think they cannot be still in the market till date. Every song you play you can hear and enjoy good quality playback. You can also adjust the EQ in the app. This is where they excel.

Comfort 8/10

For the comfort level, there are multiple size of silicon tips for the ear bud. So you can choose what that fit you most. In fact, the right one would be one that stuff in your ear and hold it there without dropping. I have no problem wearing it for long period of time. However, it can still slide off for me with some heavy head movement. If they were smaller like the Jabra close to your ear, it could be less weightage to drop off.

Noise Cancelling 8/10

It has the usual noise cancelling. Of course since it is a in ear device, it cannot isolate the sound completely like an over ear headphones does. In this case, it serve it's purpose.

Bluetooth connection stability 2/10

This is what ignores me most. And just do a google search, you can find a lot of forum discussion. Pairing a device is fine and works seamlessly. However, the pain comes when you are in a call and it start to end you call abruptly. 

The next ignoring thing is when you are in a call or music, the left ear piece will lose it connection with no sound. Workaround is to place it back to the case to disconnect it and take it out again. This can happen anytime, and many times. Next the connection is not stable, even with the right ear still having sound, it still will disconnect on and off and connect back by itself.

Now this is the part, whether its first time connection or re-connection, there are chances that the connection will end up with lots of white noise. You will have to place the ear piece into the case to disconnect and wear it back again. Every incoming call will be in white noise more than half of the time especially using one side of the ear piece.

So other than pairing is seamless nothing else solve the rest of the issues. Whether is it a firmware upgrade or a service center repair. These things keep coming back.

Even their WH-1000XM3 headphone suffer the same fate if you google it around. Seems like Sony doesn't learn and just create one wireless headphones from their over-ear headphones and inherit all the same issues.

Even my Huawei FreeBuds which cost half the price works better.

Microphone 4/10

If you are in a quiet place, your other party will hear you loud and clear, however when your background start to have some noise, the other party will hear them very clearly. The microphones seems to pick up all the sound in your background include your voice. This is not a very smart microphone intelligence build in.

Whether on a PC or a mobile phone, it happens.

Hear through mode (able to hear outside sound together) 5/10

This feature in Sony is called Ambient sound. So yes it does have that capability. I really like that however it has an auto mode which fails big time. Often than not, I rather activate as and when I need it.

Multi-device connections 5/10

Yes it can be paired to multiple devices but it can only be connected to one at anyone time. This is something I thought could be improve. My Bose headset can at least do it with two at the same time. Jabra can do the same as well.

Ease of use of the earphones 4/10

Sony try hard and include more function but the hardware has only one touch surface. This results in trying to create function by tapping once, twice or thrice. It get so complicated that half the time I can't remember what each does. Including new functions is great but when you didn't device the hardware to be part of it, it makes memory skills requirement a must.

One thing to note, you are able to use one earbud and that is the only right side allowed.

Ease of use of the app 7/10

The app is nicely done. Not the best, but once you use it enough you will get to understand how to use it easily. I didn't put a very high score for this is because, firmware update via the app is really slow. No matter the connection speed of the data you are on.

Finally verdict, would I still pay the same price to get this Headset if given a choice? The answer would be No. The usability is very important as a wireless headset and since this is not even meant for sports and price as much as those on the market with water resistant ability, it is not worth. I am doubting to get another Sony headphones till they resolve the major usable issues.

If you add the wire and remove the mic, the headphone is perfect but not at this price.

Update 4th May 2020

Having turn off DSEE HX mode to test out the connection. Will update in a few days.

Thomson Medical Center for Baby Delivery Review

This is a personal experience as a first-time parent walkthrough.

Seeing most of my friends delivering in Thomas Medical Center (TMC), and have a great review so we decided to have ours at TMC.

We sign up a package at one of TMC seminars at Raffles City with TCM Herbal Care, Single-Premium, Confinement food since our gynecologist practice at TMC, so why not?

TMC isn't the newest hospital from the car park which is always full to getting around the hospital isn't easy.

Day 1 - 11pm

On the day of admission, during admission, I was informed that renovation work is done at one of the rooms. I wasn't even informed that that room was next to ours. Great information handling there.

I was given a season pass parking ticket. Which was told to use it when exiting to register for my car. The iPad that was at the admission counter, shows an app to register the season parking ticket that was issued so as not need to do the above mentioned, the app was not applicable for Singapore location. I wonder if TMC has even tested it before even provide such information and service.

The HRMS system was not able to process my information twice after asking for my information twice, they end up with paper and pen process. In the world of technology, I am amazed at how TMC has leverage on technology or even at all. 

Day 2

My wife was transferred from the observation room followed by the labour ward all this in your delivery suites. The nurses take the turn to come in to check on her every few hours. I was with her throughout the 24 hours of labour. I fell asleep and woke up to discover the pee bag leaks until the whole floor was wet and dirtied our bags and luggage. As a routine, what did your staff came to check every few hours and not see that the pee bag has leaked? If it was a few drops I can understand they missed it. How did it end up the whole floor? When was the last check I wonder? When I walked out of the labour ward, the display of each ward with which gynecologist was filled with MS Window prompt window errors. What a high tech hospital!

After more than 24 hours, my wife delivered, we were moved to her room. 

Day 3

Upon reaching the room, realize that the ward has two sections and we are located in the 2nd section where there is only a nurse manning the reception. There are at least 5 wards. The section we are at can be access any time any day unless the other section which will be lock by an entrance door during non-visiting hours.

Isn't that great? Yes, great if your friends keep coming visiting and also allow all the advertisers from baby hand mould to confinement food, to baby photography, etc seller to enter the ward.

The room next to us was having the renovation, there were people walking in and out and talking at the corridor. Follow on there is the Texas Instrument industry-grade air filter clearing the air due to renovation. As my wife is a light sleeper, these have completely ruined her rest throughout the stay.

When in the room, the staff asked my wife to attempt to pee and let them know once she did. After she is done, we informed the staff, they mention they need to check why didn't we inform them when attempting? After this, they place a measurement tray on the toilet bowl and ask my wife to pee into it next time so they can check. What on earth is that? Ain't you suppose to place that when you ask my wife to attempt the first time? Why did this tray come about only now?

My child was sent to NICU. I was told I can make a trip down to view him. I make a trip down to visit him at around 10am. The staff at NICU told me they will be expecting me at 11am for NICU orientation. TMC, am I hearing or seeing things wrongly. Why is such information only passed to me when I am physically present and not mentioned when you told me my child is in NICU. If I wasn't there, so I will miss that orientation or you will ask me back another day (hopefully).

During the NICU orientation, I was told I am able to check the interim cost for NICU at the admission counter. I headed down at around 7PM to ask for the estimated cost. The staff there responded to me after trying to find the paperwork that they were just about to call me. Seriously from 10am to 7pm, you do not want to contact me. So you intend to contact me past 7pm or 12 midnight?

Day 4

From my friend who also signed up the Herbal Care, he was told the TCM practitioner will come to see my wife. We do not know how this going to work so I went to the staff counter at the room, they told me I need to call. So I went down to the registration counter and was told after 10 mins after trying to find out what the TCM Herbal Care I signed up, told me I need to call up TMC TCM at Paragon. Why were we not informed during the signing up of the package? We last check at the registration counter a few weeks ago, the staff told us they have all the details not to worry, yet when we asked, no one knows what is happening? TMC, is your system even integrated. It seems like information is all over the place. I thought this would happen in a community hospital but they do much better in this area than you. As a first-timer, I am completely lost in navigating your hospital disparate system.

We were asked if we wanted to attend a class by your Lactation consultant at 11am. We went and was told we will be given alcohol swaps and cotton cloth for bathing.

Day 5

Discharging day, I told the staff at the ward reception we will be leaving for lunch since the discharge time is between 11-12pm. The staff told us we will receive an SMS for the payment. I left to keep things in our car. My wife was given the tub and the nursing bag upon leaving. My wife has done a C-section. Why when I mention at the counter, things ain't hand to me first and you expect a C-Sect patient to carry all these? 

My wife asks the staff regarding the alcohol swap and the cotton cloth and was told, the cotton cloth is not given.

I headed down to the class which was held and asked, was told by the Lactation consultant the cloth is not given. Great job done, I must be hearing things yesterday with the rest of the patients. The cloth is not important its the message been given to different departments is completely inaccurate.

We then have to go to the baby gift shop to process our confinement food after reading the notice at the information counter. We were also not told how to do it.

After this whole experience at TMC, I realize that you do provide me a D.E.L.I.V.E.R brand promise:

Delight - You must be delighted never fail to provide great disappointment without meeting expectations for your customers.

Empathise - the only staff that I remember was May Lee, who with patience and without agitation walk me through my registration regardless of system error and with a customer call who cut her off when she attended one in front of me. And the only staff I remembered by name. She even remembers me the next day when I walked past asking how was my wife. You should instill such staff attitude to all your staff. The other staffs that did a great job are the nurses in NICU angels, the Lactation consultant, the doctors, and TCM practitioner. Anything outside is all disappointment services.

Learn - Learn from other government hospitals how they operate. Does a private hospital such as TMC, be the same or worse off standard than a polyclinic?

Innovate - Your technology to serve your customer are completely old dated and not relevant and you should have an integrated systems not disparate system with wrongly provided information without even testing yourself.

Value-add - Definitely the price I paid for does not justify the service we received. The Value Add lesson from lactation and feeding is appreciated.

Empower - TMC did empower the knowledge gain was your class by a Lactation consultant during the stay and from the NICU staff.

Respect - I hope you respect this feedback and strongly do something about it.

In summary, the class by lactation was well received. The handling briefing upon discharge in feeding and changing the diaper by the NICU staff was great. The staff, May Lee, who handled my admission has a fantastic attitude. Confinement food is excellent.

Any other hospital services did not meet up to expectations.

The person who was very busy during this whole stay was me, not any staff or any people involved. Should TMC pay me for doing all the work myself?

Lasly, I was asked to do a feedback form at NICU and was told that was for NICU. However, the headed was a default TMC feedback form. They were trying to cover up your feedback for NICU for their servicendelivery as a hospital. How scheming is that?

Update 31st Dec 2019

Have you been to a Polyclinic in Singapore? If you do then you know seeing a doctor take hours. This applies the same.if you are seeing any Paediatrician Doctor (PD) at TMC. In fact, do you know in Polyclinic, newborn priority is much faster than you seeing a PD at TMC and at fraction of the cost and even free for mandatory jabs for Singaporeans? Shocking truth.

Update 7th Jan 2020

Is TMC a nursing friendly hospital? With so many mothers and babies in and out we would thought TMC is nursing friendly. Sadly to say, TMC is not. In fact, the whole hospital only have one nursing room at Level 3 and only accessible via one lift lobby. The nursing room can only fit two person at any one time.

Huawei Mate 30 Pro Side-loading Google Mobile Services

Recently Huawei has released its latest Mate 30 Series handset. As usual, their camera has always kept to its utmost quality and a reason I have been following closely.

As many have tried searching around, the way to sideload Google Mobile service isn't very direct and yes you do need some technical knowledge to do it. The original method of doing via one website has been discontinued but a backup of it has been floating around.

I have chanced upon and got hold of myself the phone and did my workaround.

Firstly, I followed the guide from here, and I must say it pretty decent and we have a fellow fan who blogs about a more detail method here.

I have created a backup for Windows and Mac with the APKs and a file to the APKs in case you do not need those provided or you choose to download the latest. Download here.

Since there are so many guides out there, I am just going to give you the gotcha as I did reset my set up three times to get it correctly. Especially if you are using Whatsapp backup to Google Drive and your contacts are also sync to Google.

1. Start with a brand new setup with stable internet WiFi.
2. Restore from HiSuite, once you have done that, restart your phone. Do note that your Folder that your point needs to be at least two-level to the backup files.
3. After you import all the APKs, on the phone and INSTALL ONLY, remember NOT to open any of them. You would only need Google Framework, Google Play Services, Google Play Store, Google Contact Sync. Google Device Policy is only needed if you use GSuite. I have placed the links to the APKs in the file in the zip. You can also download the latest or anytime you update Android OS and Playstore doesn't work.
4. For those Google services installed, you got to change all the permission and allow everything in the permissions.
5. Restart the phone after doing the above.
6. Run the LZPlay Tool, the one with the Purpose G icon and choose "Activate". Do not proceed further as it is normal to see a list of exclamation marks. Quite the app.
7. Restart the phone.
8. Sign in to your Google account via Google Play Store.
9. Download Contacts, Calendar, Drive, GMail, Maps, YouTube, and any Google Apps (if you play games, Google Play Game)
10. Change permissions for these apps especially for Contacts, Drive (you need this for Whatsapp restore), Calendar to Allow.
11. Open Google Contact and check that you are able to sync down your contacts. If it doesn't you will have to redo the above by resetting your phone.
12. Once when that is done, you can check the rest such as Calendar, etc. If you run the LZplay Tool, you should see fewer exclamation marks.
13. Now you can start with third-party apps such as Whatsapp.

Optional
If you are worried about the LZPlay tool. You can actually uninstall it. To do so follow the below:
1. Go to Settings
2. Search for Device Administrator
3. Enter into it Find LZPlay app, deactivate Administrator
4. Uninstall the app.

Hope this works fine for you.

Smart Home Part 1: Selecting a Smart Home Controller

It's been two years since I have moved into my new apartment. I took the effort to plan and design my home automation system. Saving big dollars from those that provide the services.

The total material I calculated, cost me about SGD$5,000. But it is worth it. Having to integrate it with Amazon Alexa and Google Home, everything is almost complete.

I have not been updating this blog much as I am busy with my life and having another technology blog going one as well.

Now I am going to start a series of Home Automation series articles to help those who are planning to start this journey decide on their own.

I am an IT professional and do not co-sell or own any Smart Home company. What I share here is my own journey and advice to those who intend to do it yourself. I can try to answer as many questions as I may but I do not guarantee you a solution. Some have asked me to provide my service, but it needs some help from your electrician or interior designer who you are working with. I, myself cannot complete without working with these people.

First stop, selecting a Smart Home controller. Before you start with your Smart Home planning, you need to choose a smart home controller. There are many controllers on the market and there are many pros and cons to the one you picked.

I started off with Vera Plus. This is what I call a cheap man solution. I didn't want to spend too much on my automation. Later on, I needed more to be work on. I started to write the LUP code which Vera use to program more complex logic. It didn't work that well. In the end, I switch out from Vera to Homey.

So what do you look for in a controller? It will depend on what device do you want to integrate with.

What are the things you want to control with your smart home? E.g. lights, switches, motors, aircon, etc.
You need to decide what are the items you like to control. As the controller that you choose must be able to work with all these devices or support these devices. Smart Home controller typically support a few protocols (just like your Wifi signal at home use to have B, G, and now N). The most popular ones will be Zwave and ZigBee. Some also support RF, Bluetooth, etc. The devices that support such protocols ranges. They may be available in Singapore or you would need to import them e.g. Amazon. Also, there is two frequency that these protocols runs on, mostly US and EU. The official one that is supported in Singapore is neither. Surprisingly Singapore uses Korean frequency. The among of device would be so limited. However, I started off with the UK so I just stayed with it. Choose the protocol that supports the devices you want to control then find the right controller.

Do you need to integrate with Voice systems like Google Home and Amazon Echo?
If the above is yes, make sure you check out the controller that support either one of them or both. I started with Vera Plus which only support when you run a bridge to integrate them. However, the bridge is no longer needed using the latest firmware from Vera for Amazon Echo and Google Home has also stopped allowing the bridge. In such, my voice command ended up with Amazon Echo and no more with Google Home.

Where do I start and which device manufacturer for devices I want to control do I look for?
This is a good question. I often ask my friends to start with On/Off switches to control lights. So I do not use expensive light bulbs such as Philips Hue but rather use the normal LED lights and have the switch to control it. But, do note that if your lights are dimmer lights, do get a switch that supports it. Also if you choose to use back your normal switch due to most reason as it looks good or fit your home, you can purchase a switch module to make those switches smart. E.g. are Fibaro Zwave modules. This includes motor roller switches for blinds or garage doors, dimmer lights, etc.

Where do I start?
Do your research. What devices do you want to control? Are those controlled by infrared (IR), Radio frequency (RF), Zwave, Zigbee, Wifi, etc.? Decide on one that can do the majority of your device and see if it can integrate to complement those that can't to start doing. Giving you an example, for my TV and Media player, I use Logitech Harmony Remote/Hub, this control all my IR device and it can integrate with Vera Plus as Vera wasn't able to do IR. Currently, have switched to Homey.