Long night, Last day

Last night I spent a good portion of my night doing more troubleshooting of streaming multiple people via Skype.  In order to do this I used my work laptop in another room to simulate a remote session while hosting on my main workstation as I normally do.  I employed Cindy to be my remote tester.  The issue I was trying to solve was the audio from the remote person not being audible when streamed to YouTube.

So I did dozens of tweaks and tests, without success.  It should be a pretty straight forward process but it is made less so by the current iteration of Skype, which is now a built in part of Windows 10.  It seems that unlike most software which becomes better over time, Skype has become worse, behaving in inconsistent ways which make troubleshooting very tedious.

I did about 10 test streams to my channel.  Finally I got one where I could hear audio on both sides.  I documented how I had Skype and my streaming software configured.  I also installed the older version of Skype which seemed to lack some of the bugs I was experiencing with the new Windows 10 version.  I plan to do a few more tests just to verify I have the issue figured out over the long weekend.  I also toyed around with my new Yeti mic and discovered it does not appear to be working correctly.  I had no patience left to try to troubleshoot that as well but it’s on the list for the weekend as well.

So as I said, I have a long weekend ahead since I took tomorrow off to add to getting Monday and Tuesday off for Christmas.  As is always the case I have a lot of stuff to accomplish during that time.  Ironically, none of it is really Christmas related since I have my shopping wrapped up (pun intended), unless I have a last minute impulse buy for someone.

Tomorrow I am targeting to be chicken outbuilding construction day.  I want to build a long but narrow pergola style shelter that is moveable as well as affix roof panels to the playground structure to give the hens more places for shelter.  Ever since we blocked access to under the coop I can tell they are unhappy, even though it’s for their own good.  Tomorrow will not be an ideal day for the work as it is forecast to be extremely windy, after an unusually strong storm for this time of year is supposed to blow through today.

Other tasks this weekend include normal weeding/pool maintenance, a Prius oil change, 3D stand assembly, further live stream testing and a trip to the office to a do firewall upgrade on Monday.  Of course there will be time for fun as well, such as getting out to see Aquaman and the actual Christmas festivities themselves.  As always my goal will be to hit that elusive perfect balance between accomplishment and relaxation.  I hope all of you that take the time to read my stuff have a great Christmas season!