As a real estate investor, I’ve had to replace many toilets. Normally, I do that while doing a complete renovation. The problem with many toilets is
the bolts to the toilet flange in the floor can get loose
the floor may not be perfectly level
These issues can cause a toilet to slide, rotate, and tilt.
Fixing a rocking toilet due to an uneven floor
After renovating many bathroom floors with both tile and vinyl, it’s unfortunate that despite a contractor’s best effort to create a perfectly level floor, a small imperfection could cause a toilet to not sit evenly on the floor. The easily way to fix this is by installing plastic toilet shims on the LOW side of the toilet. Make sure to install it on the LOW side as the weight of the toilet will help keep the shim in place.
Fixing a loose toilet due to loose bolts
The bolts that come with many toilets are usually the cheap kind. Sometimes, they work just fine, but depending on your toilet flange and toilet, they may easily become loose, which is what happened to me. To remedy this, I replaced the cheap toilet flange bolts with the Fluidmaster SetFast 5/16 in. x 2-1/4 in. No-Cut Brass Closet Toilet Bolt Kit. Price at $8, which is about double the cost of the cheap bolts, these bolts don’t require any cutting and they securely hold your toilet in place. Unlike some other toilet bolts that come with a small head, the bolt head the Fluidmaster bolt is thick and wide, so the bolt remains within the toilet flange slot no matter what.
When you tighten the acorn nut, the height of the threaded stud decreases automatically.
The yellow lock washer is thick, which holds the bolt in place vertically as you place the toilet over the bolts. This is way better other toilet bolt kits, which either don’t come with a lock washer, or the lock washers are thin and flimsy.
After trying various cameras, settings, and mounts over the years, I’ve now settled on a new set of cameras and settings for vlogging.
Insta360 X5
I use this camera with a selfie stick to capture 3rd-person 360-degree views. This is currently the latest model of the X series. I capture at 8K so when I reframe in the Insta360 Studio desktop app, I get a 4K flat video. In low-light conditions, I shoot in PureVideo mode.
When the camera is off, I just press the record button to turn on the camera and start recording. Another press of the record button stops recording and turns off the camera.
Insta360 Go 3s
I use the Insta360 Go 3s (128 GB, black) mounted to my chest to capture footage where I want to be discreet. The black color blends in well with my shirts. I mount the camera horizontally at the center of my chest right below my pecs so the resulting video is 16:9 instead of 9:16 and not too high or low.
In the Action Pod, I set the Go 3s camera single-press button setting to “Freeframe” mode so after importing the video files into the Insta360 Studio desktop app, I can set the aspect ratio to 16:9 and set the field of view to 45-degree horizon lock to keep the video mostly level. In the Action Pod, I also set the indicator light brightness to low so it’s barely noticeable from a distance.
When the camera is off and disconnection from the Action Pod, I press the button on the camera for 2 seconds to turn the camera on. The indicator light will turn solid blue.
I then press the button once to start recording. The indicator light will flash red.
I then press the button once again to stop recording. The indicator light will return to solid blue. If I’m not going to record again for a while, I’ll long-press the button again to turn off the camera, in which case the indicator light will turn off.
Note that when recording in “Freeframe” mode, the file prefix is “PRO_VID” whereas when recording in regular video mode, the file prefix is just “VID”.
It seems like there are just more and more drink options available when you visit a supermarket. And while some of them are healthy, most of them are not. The ones that aren’t contain either too much sugar or artificial ingredients like sweeteners and food coloring. For a while, I’ve been making green tea sweetened with all-natural monk fruit mixed with Stevia. The problem with that is I’m often too busy to prepare it and it takes time for the tea to brew. Fortunately, there is now both a healthy and instant flavored drink alternative called Stur.
I’ve been trying Stur now for about a week, and I’m pretty impressed. It checks all the checkboxes for a healthy drink in addition to being super easy to prepare: just get a glass of cold water, squirt the liquid into the water, and drink. You don’t even need to refrigerate the small bottle, so you can bring it with you to restaurants where you can save a lot of money by not paying a huge markup for flavored drinks.
There are many flavors to choose from. So far, I’ve tried
In this post, I’ll share my process for how to make a traditional video in Capcut. Specifically, I’ll show how to make a video that:
comprises a collection of video and image clips
has a simple crossfade (mix, fade-in/fade-out) transition between clips
has background music with a crossfade between music clips
improves audio quality
uses AI to stabilize some shaky video footage
improves the color and lighting of some clips
animates some images with a subtle zoom effect
animates some images to create rolling credits
freezes a frame in a video clip
has text overlays
Download and install Capcut
Visit the Capcut website, download Capcut and install it.
Import video and image footage
Open Capcut
Create a new project
Click the default project name at the top center and rename it to something descriptive, e.g. My Vacation
Click the “Media” tab at the top left and then click “Import” tab below it.
Click the “Import” button or drag your footage (audio, video, images) to the assets pane.
Use the filter dropdown to filter assets by type (video, audio, image, etc).
Use the sort dropdown to sort assets, e.g. by date created, etc. I find that sorting by “Time created” and “Earliest to latest” puts my assets in the order I want them in so I can just select all assets and drag them to the timeline.
Drag some or all of your footage to the timeline at the bottom
Drag the zoom slider at the top right of the timeline pane to zoom the timeline in and out.
Trim images
When you drag images to the timeline, the duration will be whatever the setting is under Options, which defaults to 5 seconds. If you want to change the default to, say, 3 seconds, go to Menu > Settings > Edit (tab) > Image Duration and change the value to 3.
Click on an image in the timeline. In the right pane, you will see various options to edit the image.
The playhead is a visual marker that indicates the current position or frame being viewed in the preview pane. Drag the playhead to anywhere above the image in the timeline. You will see a preview of the image in the center in the preview pane.
Click the play button in the preview pane to preview how the image will appear relative to the rest of the video project.
If the image duration is too short or too long, you can extend the duration by dragging the left or right edge of the clip in the timeline to the left or right. You can also position the playhead at a particular time and click one of the following buttons:
SPLIT: to split the image clip into two clips
DELETE LEFT: to delete the portion of the image to the left of the playhead
DELETE RIGHT: to delete the portion of the image to the right of the playhead
To see the duration of an image, zoom out on the timeline and look at the duration label on the clip in the timeline. For example, the image clip below is 3 seconds long.
The video clip below is 23 seconds and 8 frames long.
Trim Videos
Trimming video clips on the timeline is similar to trimming images. Click on a video clip in the timeline. You will see a preview of the video in the preview pane. In the right pane, you will see various options to edit the video clip.
In the right pane, click “Speed” to see the video clip’s duration. If you change the duration value here, the video clip’s speed will change accordingly. If you don’t want to speed up or slow down the video, you’ll need to trim the video clip the same way you trim image clips:
drag the left end of the video clip in the timeline to the right
drag the right end of the video clip in the timeline to the left
split, delete left, or delete right the video clip relative to where the playhead is in the timeline
Speed up or slow down video clips
If your video clip is too slow or too fast, you can speed it up or slow it down. As in the previous step, click the video clip in the timeline and then click the “Speed” tab in the right pane.
Speed up
To speed up the video clip, e.g, 2x for twice the speed, just drag the speed marker to the right. The duration of the clip will change accordingly.
Slow down
To slow down the video clip, e.g. 0.5x for half the speed, drag the speed marker to the left. The duration of the clip will change accordingly. Note that if your video clip was shot at 30 frames per second (fps) and you slow down the clip by 50% (0.5x), the resulting video will stutter due to an insufficient number of frames. This is why you should shoot video at a high frame rate, e.g. 60 or 120 fps, if you know you want to play it back in slow motion, which is usually done for action scenes.
If you didn’t shoot at a high fps, you can use Capcut to smoothen the slow-mo effect by either
frame blending
optical flow
The results are not as good as a high-fps video, but they’re better than without smoothening, especially using the “optical flow” option.
Add transitions between clips
There are many transition effects available. I prefer to use the simple crossfade (mix) transition, which gradually fades out one clip and fades in the next clip. To add this transition between two adjacent clips, click the “Transitions” tab in the left pane, type “mix” in the search field, and drag the mix transition icon down to the timeline between two clips. If necessary, zoom the timeline out. You’ll see a semi-white section between the two clips representing the transition. If you move the playhead to that transition area in the timeline, you can see a preview of the transition in the preview pane, showing a blending of the two clips.
If you want to apply the same transition to all clips, click one transition in the timeline and then, in the right pane, click the “Apply to all” button.
Add background music
Click the “Audio” tab in the left pane.
Click the “Import” button to import songs (MP3) from your computer.
Drag a song from the list of songs down to the timeline below the main video track.
As with still images and video clips, you can trim audio clips in the same manner.
If you want to crossfade two adjacent songs,
put the 2nd song on a separate track below the first song’s track
zoom in on the timeline and scroll to where the two songs meet
click the 1st song and, in the right pane, set a fade out duration of, say, 1 second
click the 2nd song and, in the right pane, set a fade in duration of, say, 1 second
position the playhead just before the end of the first song
preview the audio crossfade in the preview pane
Notice the black curve in the audio tracks showing the fade effect.
When you add audio or music track, if your video clips contain audio, you’ll hear audio from all tracks containing audio. If you want to mute all audio from all clips in the main track, click the audio icon as shown below.
If you want to adjust the volume or mute just a single video clip, click on the clip in the timeline, then in the right pane, click the “Audio” tab and drag the volume slider.
Improve audio quality
The audio in your video clips may contain background noise as well as vocals. To improve the audio quality, select the relevant clips and choose from the following options in the “Audio” panel.
To reduce background noise, e.g. humming or the sound of an engine, check the “Reduce noise” checkbox
To improve vocals, check the “Enhance voice” and/or “Isolate voice” checkboxes. Note that the “Isolate voice” options strips out all audio, leaving only vocals.”
To normalize the loudness of all background music clips, select all clips and check the “Normalize loudness” checkbox.
Slide the volume slider to increase or decrease the volume as needed.
Adjust color and lighting
You can adjust the color and lighting for both image and video clips individually.
Click on a clip in the timeline
Move the playhead to that clip
In the right pane, click “Adjust” > “Basic” > “Auto adjust”
Slide the “Auto adjust” intensity slider until you like how the clip looks in the preview pane.
You can also manually adjust the color by tweaking various color settings in the right pane.
I find adjusting color is especially helpful for brightening a dark image or video. Here’s how one clip looks before and after applying “auto adjust”.
BeforeAfter
Stabilize a shaky video
If your video footage was taken with a camera that doesn’t include mechanical stabilization (like a gimbal) or software stabilization, then the resulting footage could be annoyingly shaky. Capcut can try to stabilize your footage at the expense of cropping a portion of the video. To stabilize a shaky video,
click on a video clip in the timeline
in the right pane, click the “Video” tab and check the “Stabilize” option.
Animate images
For certain photos, I like to apply a subtle zoom-out animation effect to them. To do this,
click on the image clip in the timeline
move the playhead in the timeline to where the image clip is
click the up arrow key to move the playhead to the beginning of the clip
in the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics”, change the “scale” value to 200% and click the diamond icon to set a keyframe
click the down arrow key to move the playhead to the end of the clip
in the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics” and change the “scale” value to 100%
drag the playhead from the beginning to the end of the clip. You should see the image zoom out. You can also click the play button in the preview pane to preview the animation.
Playhead is at the beginning of the clipScale at 100%Scale at 100%Scale at 200%Scale at 200% with keyframe setPlayhead at end of clip
Create rolling credits
There are different ways to create rolling credits. The way I’m about to show you involves slowly animating an image’s position upwards. Therefore, you’ll need to create a tall image with the content you want in it, like this
Add this image to the timeline
Select the image in the timeline
Position the playhead in the timeline where the image is
Click the up arrow key to move the playhead to the beginning of the clip
In the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics”
Change the “scale” value until you like how the credits image looks in the preview. In the screenshot below, I set it to 500%.
Change “position” Y value to a value that moves the top of the image near the bottom of the preview pane. In the screenshot below, I set it to -3300.
Click the diamond icon to set a keyframe
Click the down arrow key to move the playhead to the end of the clip
in the right pane, click “Video” > “Basics” and change the “position” Y so that the bottom of the image is near the top of the preview pane. In the screenshot below, I set the value to 3300.
Drag the playhead from the beginning to the end of the clip. You should see the image roll up. You can also click the play button in the preview pane to preview the animation.
Freeze a frame in a video clip
Sometimes, you may want to freeze a frame in a video clip for a few seconds. For example, in the screenshot below, there’s a video clip of a vehicle moving along a road and a sign showing various destinations. To freeze the frame at the point when the sign is shown,
move the playhead to the timestamp where you want to freeze a frame
click on the video clip in the timeline
click the “freeze” button above the timeline
The video clip will be split at that point and you will see a still image of the frame added to it. You can then adjust the duration of the image. Make sure not to add any transitions between the video clip and the still image. You can group the two clips or create a component to prevent accidentally adding a transition between them.
After freezing the frame, the video clip is split and a still image of the frame is appended
Add a text overlay
There will be times when you’ll want to overlay text on a scene to describe a location or what’s happening as in the following screenshot.
To do this,
click the “Text” tab in the left pane
drag the “Default text” item to the timeline on a track above the clip where you want the text to appear
drag the ends of the text clip in the timeline to increase or decrease the duration
click on the text clip in the timeline and, in the right pane, edit the text and various other properties, e.g. background color and background opacity
in the preview pane, drag the text overlay to where you want it. you can also drag the corners to resize it.
Add a marker on the timeline or a clip
When editing a video, it can be helpful to add markers at certain points to remind you where a specific moment is. For example, you may want to align some a music clip to a specific moment. To do this,
move the playhead to the timestamp where you want to add a marker
click the marker button above the timeline
You will see a light blue marker added on the timeline.
Export your video
Click the light blue “Export” button at the top right to export the video.
Export a still image of a video clip
move the playhead to the timestamp where you want to freeze a frame.
click the hamburger menu (3 horizontal lines) at the top-right corner of the preview pane
click “Export still frames”
if you don’t want the still image added to your project, uncheck the “Import project” checkbox
Create a fast-rewind effect followed by a slow-motion effect
For fast-moving scenes, you may want to replace the scene in slow motion. One way to do this is to show the original clip (1) followed by a fast rewind of the clip (2) followed by a slow-motion version of the clip (3) as shown in the screenshot below.
To do this,
copy and paste the original clip twice and place the copies after the original clip on the timeline
click the 2nd clip to select it and then click the “Reverse” button above the timeline
Change the speed of the 2nd clip to something like 5x.
click the 3rd clip to select it and then change the speed to something like 0.2x.
When applying grout to tile, you’re supposed to wait 15-30 minutes before wiping the grout of the tile while leaving the grout between each tile. This is easier said that done. No matter how good you are, you’ll probably be left with a thin layer of grout on your tile. If you use a light-colored grout on light-colored tile, you won’t notice the haze except at certain angles in certain lighting. The haze can resemble hard water stains. If you use a dark-colored grout on light tile or a light-colored grout on dark tile, the haze is more prominent, and your tile can look dirty. See example below.
Before
You can try to scrub with soap or even a steam cleaner, but that will have zero effect. Luckily, there is an amazing chemical product that can relatively easily remove the grout haze from tile. With Aqua Mix 1 Qt. Cement Grout Haze Remover by Custom Building Products, you just mix the liquid with water, pour some one the tile, wait a while, then rub the haze off. For tougher haze, don’t mix with water. In my case, I poured the liquid at full strength without adding water into a spray bottle, sprayed the liquid on the tile, then wiped the haze off with a rag. As most comments say on the Home Depot product page, this stuff is “amazing”!
To easily remove weeds from control joints in your concrete driveway, use an angle grinder with a wire wheel. I use a 4.5″ Ryobi brushed, cordless angle grinder. Don’t use a brushless angle grinder because it can’t be used for this purpose. I prefer using a knotted wire wheel. A non-knotted wire wheel works as well, but I find it better for cleaning control joints after removing large weeds using the knotted one.
To prevent kickback, stand and drag the tool to the right as shown in the photo below.
If the angle grinder flange lock nut is stuck, use either a pipe wrench or a thin wrench to unlock it. For convenience, clamp the angle grinder to a stationary vise.
A few years ago, I flew to Korea on Hawaiian Airlines and was served a warm English muffin containing a turkey patty and egg. As cheap and simple as it looked, I wasn’t expecting much, but it turned out to be so good, I had to try to recreate it. I think I figured it out. Here’s my recipe.
Ingredients
1x English muffin (I keep the muffins in the fridge so they don’t go bad)
This is just a collection of AI tools I’ve used that I’ve found useful. With so many AI tools sprouting up, this list will likely be updated regularly as time permits.
Static websites are fast and ideal for many types of websites like blogs, marketing websites, and more. When building websites, you should always use a component-based approach for code simplicity, maintenance, and reusability. Here are a few ways to build a static website using components.
Eleventy (11ty)– Very simple and flexible static site generator that supports various template languages (Handlebars, Nunjucks, etc)
Astro– Very similar to Eleventy, with the advantage of being able to load premade components from React, Vue, Svelte, etc.
Svelte– More like React, but better. Outputs static files. Has native benefits like CSS optimizations and the ability to create interactive apps, if necessary.
The following video does a great job in comparing and demonstrating building a static site using web components and Svelte.
I recently rented out an apartment to a new tenant. I created the lease online using Zillow. While Zillow does include mandatory notices and includes a credit score and background check service, it doesn’t mention anything about recommending landlords get certain personally identifying information (PII) that can be critical in helping landlords if a tenant decides to stop paying rent.
In one of my rentals, I inherited a tenant who, after a few years, couldn’t pay the rent. Despite trying to work with her, she clearly knew that she could stay just stop paying and stay in the apartment until she is served a formal eviction notice by the sheriff. Due to court backlogs, it would be about 2 months before the sheriff could serve her, and there was nothing I could do about it. I eventually lost around $5000, but at least I was able to renovate the apartment and rent it out for $500 a month more. Nevertheless, the carelessness of the tenant, who thought she could rip me off, was disturbing, as California law is too lenient on renters. Fortunately, I found a way that could either get the former tenant to pay her debt or suffer the consequences of her non-payment being recorded in her credit history. However, you can’t report your tenant to the credit bureaus unless you have enough information, including their date of birth. Since I didn’t have all that information, I had to do some investigative work using Instant Checkmate and Ancestry.com. With Instant Checkmate, I was able to find all sorts of information about my former tenant, including the fact that she had filed for bankruptcy and had been evicted in the past. Instant Checkmate looks like a super shady website, but luckily, it’s not. With Ancestry.com, I was able to get her date of birth, which is required in order to report people to the credit bureaus. With this information, along with signed copies of the lease and other details, I used a service called FrontLobby to go after my former tenant.
FrontLobby can be used to report current tenants to the credit bureaus when they pay late or don’t pay at all. It can also be used to report former tenants.
New / Existing Tenants
If you will have a new tenant, make sure you get the following information from them before they move in:
Legal first, middle, and last names
date of birth (required in order to report people to the credit bureaus
social security number (for more accurate reporting)
email
phone number
aliases, if any.
I would make a copy of their social security card and driver’s license.
You can then inform your new and existing tenants that you will use FrontLobby to track their rent payments and to automatically notify the credit bureaus if they are late. This should make tenants become more motivated to pay on time. You can also inform tenants that if they pay on time, that could help improve their credit score.
Former Tenants Who Are Delinquent
If your tenant has already moved out and they owe your rent, you can use FrontLobby to report their debt to the credit bureaus.
FrontLobby will first email them an introduction to encourage them to pay their debt.
FrontLobby will send the former tenant up to 3 introduction emails. If the former tenant doesn’t register with FrontLobby, FrontLobby will send monthly emails informing the former tenant that their credit score will continue to be affected until they pay.
Lastly, if the former tenant still doesn’t pay, then they will get an email alerting them that their debt has been registered with the credit bureaus.
Once you activate debt reporting, you’ll see a notice like this:
