Adding a rich text editor to format comments and reducing the indentation is the very definition of low-hanging fruit, and while it's nice, it's not forum integration. edit: there's a fix for upvote abuse, which is really nice. A quick peek at the source strongly suggests all they did was install t...
Also the fact that "control panel" on the subscribe page (https://techreport.com/subscriptions/) is now hijacked to send me to Walmart is revolting. I think the #1 reason I never when to Toms (this is like late 90s or early 2000, whenever these sites were started) was because Tom's site h...
If you're going to call it a "grudge match" I can't resist that option. But it better end with drive failure, living up to the TR SSD endurance testing marathon. Or else the loser being stomped a la the Office Space copier. I second this thought. There can't be a grudge if something doesn...
Last Friday I pulled a busted USB port from a Smart board controller, and replaced it with one from a busted projector. It was a slow, amateur job, but it saved our district $160... (Minus my time, which based on my soldering skills means the district may have broken even. )
Worked at a university in 2002-2012 and I replaced an entire fleet of Optiplex GX270 mobo's :) Dell never admitted it, but there were rumors that over 70% of GX270 boards failed. We lucked out by having 260s and 280s - the 260s still failed, but only in the <25% numbers, not the catastrophic number...
Maybe USB thumb drives are too variable to get a good endurance test of, but how about the external SSDs? I'm looking to get one for my sneakernet, mostly because I kill USB drives on a regular basis running things from work to home. Even better if it is a cheap model - I expect Samsung or SanDisk t...
I'm not happy with the various failings between most sync programs/cloud sync apps such as Dropbox (That's 'spensive, Lucy!), Google Drive (I don't use Google anything), and MS OneDrive (which, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a proper encryption stage for the parts that live in the cloud. So I p...
There are some pretty small portable SSDs out there. They do all seem to have a short pigtail, but if you're going to do this with more than 1 image file it may be worth it. I guess it depends on how many times you're going to move these from imaged machine to imaged machine. In a different vein, ho...
Instead of looking for a workstation that can handle multiple cards, what about a server? Dell's T610/T620 is a "tower" machine that can hold 5 PCI-e cards, and you can get beefy power supplies to run it. It won't be quiet, but you can get used ones on ebay for real cheap. Looking through ...
It's likely the inside cameras are still analog, and will need a balun to connect them to modern day analog recorders: https://videos.cctvcamerapros.com/support/topic/how-to-use-cat5-cable-to-wire-analog-cctv-cameras-to-dvr Based on your pictures, the Green and Orange wires should be the video signa...
Staxrip will use NVENC as well. I briefly used it with Intel QSV, but it has the options for Nvidia. It is mostly a wrapper for FFmpeg, but it is easier if you don't want to try to learn command line. It can queue up batches or chew through folders as well. Just make sure you turn on "Clean up...
How much free space is left? In my experience old hard drives get painfully slow when they are over 90% full. Older drives can also get bad blocks which can hurt performance before the drive fails completely. Hit Win key + X at the same time, choose Event Viewer, then on the left expand Windows Logs...
I've actually had good luck with bigger HP inkjet AIOs. The Officejet Pro line, which is geared towards small businesses, not the smaller garbage. Our school district has multiple 8600s with almost no problems (user error from my boss broke one). I went out and picked up an 8610 on sale 2 years ago ...
Yeah, I get at least one email a week. I've had work quotes from New Zealand, maternity clothes orders from the UK, bank withdrawal notifications from Texas, and so on. I used to correct people, but after a year or so I got tired of it and just delete them. It might be interesting to start mapping t...
Looks like pfsense with the package BandwidthD is what you want, assuming you can set up pfsense on your own. 2 Nics, a USB drive to boot, and some patience should get you going. Last time I looked at pfsense was like 8 years ago, but I don't remember it being that hard back then.
Just as a test, load up m.arstechnica.com. My beautiful black is back, along with a readable list of news items. That, or start using the feeds instead of the main page. The old design wasn't this bad. It had 3 different layout options in 2 color schemes, and one of the layouts was a list of article...
One more question: Could you do these runs yourself? That is, would the builder let you come in before the drywallers and run some Cat6 cable to where you need it? If you're not comfortable doing this, you could even try to outsource the cable runs to someone who knows what they're doing. Even outso...
There are two things I never understood about openDNS: (1) If your ISP changes your external IP, how does openDNS know that's you? In their dash, you have to add your IP address. Do they have a client that, along the same idea of a Dynamic DNS client, updates you account's IP? If not, there will be...
The 2340DW you linked does duplexing, so all you'd lose is wired networking and monthly volume. It depends on how much you print though. How often did you change toner in the 4L? If it was every 4-6 weeks, you might want to get the bigger brother. If it was 1-2 times a year, get the smaller one. The...
Just bought 2 motherboards for laptop repairs for other people last week. One got coffee spilled on it (no power on, obviously dead right?) while the second came to me "diagnosed" as a dead motherboard. The power light came on, but no fan and no screen. Turns out the coffee laptop needed a...
I'm just gonna keep posting on this thread unless I have something really specific to speak to I think. Trying to understand VLANs and such. Due to how my switches are setup, I can clear a few on each easily for trunking (if I'm using terms incorrectly please lemme know). I'm trying to make sure I'...
January, 2016. A server in one of our remote schools was on a battery backup, and the UPS was complaining about the battery even though it had just been changed. Seeing as how this particular UPS was probably over 10 years old and too small, we decided to swap it out with a new APC 750. My coworker ...
I've used them, and I would avoid them if possible. They are slow and unreliable. Most of them cut ALL your wireless throughput in half, because they rebroadcast every packet. Have you looked into Powerline adapters? A set of those with an AP in the workshop might work too. I don't have experience w...
Looooooots of management engines baked into server motherboards rely on the Java plugin to power their remote console feature. This is gonna suck, but maybe between this and Flash dying we can finally start forcing this stuff to be only Javascript/HTML. Our 15+ year old HP and Lexmark printers aren...
I have the Toshiba Thrive, bought specifically for the USB port (and full-sized HDMI out, and full-sized SD slot). I wouldn't recommend it. Battery life is not that great, and standby life is just as bad. Performance-wise it can't play HD anything. It was a good purchase when I got it, especially wh...
Racing games pretty much require a gamepad or wheel/pedal setup. You can't play them well with a keyboard (I've tried many times). I also started playing the Lego platformer games with my kids, and those play better with a controller. Other than that I am KB/mouse all the way. I bought an F510 a whi...
I've wondered before if it would be feasible to just drill screw holes in a big piece of plexiglass/lexar for this. If you don't need expansion cards, it would be super easy. Things get a lot harder when you have to properly support extra cards though. You'd also have to get a thick enough piece of ...