TR Forums

The Egg wrote:

ludi wrote:

Are they Dell?

Yeah, but I don't think they came with any media. The recovery partition of course wouldn't be accessible with the original drive removed. Does dell allow downloading of install media? Pretty obnoxious that MS makes you jump through so many hoops. Glad they changed it with later versions.

Don't you still have the drives? Just fire them up and use one of the free applications floating around the web to grab it from the original installs.

DancinJack wrote:

The Egg wrote:

ludi wrote:

Are they Dell?

Yeah, but I don't think they came with any media. The recovery partition of course wouldn't be accessible with the original drive removed. Does dell allow downloading of install media? Pretty obnoxious that MS makes you jump through so many hoops. Glad they changed it with later versions.

Don't you still have the drives? Just fire them up and use one of the free applications floating around the web to grab it from the original installs.

I've got dozens of keys, but they're all OEM. The download site requires a retail key.

Good, I was hoping you had Dells. You can often find the Dell Win7 recovery media discs online for cheap (it doesn't include the key, it just rebuilds the Dell image). But I think I still have access to a small stash of OEM discs that can be used to rebuild Dell systems provided you have keys or the systems are digitally authenticated. Check your PMs.

Can you just clone the old drive's?

The Egg wrote:

I have the joy of having been tasked with getting three older Haswell/Broadwell laptops ready for use. First thing I did was swap all their 5400rpm mechanical drives for SSDs. We're still on Win7 Pro at work, but I figured they would simply reactivate upon install without issue.

No such luck. I can't even get ahold of install media. Apparently Microsoft requires a product key to download install media for Windows 7, and also won't accept OEM keys. I have tons of OEM keys, but no retail. I also don't have Win7 Pro physical media (but lots of Home). Suggestions?

YGPM

Forgot to mention, I made stuffing waffles last weekend, based on the discussion in this front page thread. Mixed some crumbled pork sausage into it, and some eggs to help bind it together. Came out pretty good, but a little dry.

My wife's suggestions were to mix some actual waffle batter with it instead of the eggs (to make them a little moister), and "stuffing waffle benedicts" (top with poached eggs and sausage gravy). Sounds like a delicious heart attack on a plate to me. I'll post an update if/when we do v2.0.

I found a block of locally made 7 year sharp cheddar in Wisconsin. I'm planning on using most of it to make a cheesy pasta. At this point I like cheeses so sharp that I wonder if I would like some of the stronger types of cheeses that are generally ignored.

On that note, an extremely sharp parmesan was the strongest thing I've tried so far. It was overwhelmingly potent, couldn't even think of a good way to use the flavor.

Heiwashin wrote:

I found a block of locally made 7 year sharp cheddar in Wisconsin. I'm planning on using most of it to make a cheesy pasta. At this point I like cheeses so sharp that I wonder if I would like some of the stronger types of cheeses that are generally ignored.

On that note, an extremely sharp parmesan was the strongest thing I've tried so far. It was overwhelmingly potent, couldn't even think of a good way to use the flavor.

What about the "blue" cheeses (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Blue Stilton)? They can be pretty potent. I love them, but I seem to have a slight allergy to them, so I need to stop eating them when my lips start to itch.

just brew it! wrote:

Forgot to mention, I made stuffing waffles last weekend, based on the discussion in this front page thread. Mixed some crumbled pork sausage into it, and some eggs to help bind it together. Came out pretty good, but a little dry.

I also didn't mention it, but we did this and I did the maple syrup thing and it was amazing.

just brew it! wrote:

My wife's suggestions were to mix some actual waffle batter with it instead of the eggs (to make them a little moister), and "stuffing waffle benedicts" (top with poached eggs and sausage gravy). Sounds like a delicious heart attack on a plate to me. I'll post an update if/when we do v2.0.

Now that's a whole other great idea.

just brew it! wrote:

What about the "blue" cheeses (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Blue Stilton)? They can be pretty potent. I love them, but I seem to have a slight allergy to them, so I need to stop eating them when my lips start to itch.

Yeah, aged cheddar is wonderful, but those blues step into the holy crap is this actually cheese territory. Be careful though if you use them, they can overpower virtually anything else really easily, but boy are the delicious sometimes.

edit: also, do you guys use the words stuffing/dressing interchangeably? or do you actually mean stuffing rather than dressing? Not criticising one way or the other, just curious.

DancinJack wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

What about the "blue" cheeses (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Blue Stilton)? They can be pretty potent. I love them, but I seem to have a slight allergy to them, so I need to stop eating them when my lips start to itch.

Yeah, aged cheddar is wonderful, but those blues step into the holy crap is this actually cheese territory. Be careful though if you use them, they can overpower virtually anything else really easily, but boy are the delicious sometimes.

edit: also, do you guys use the words stuffing/dressing interchangeably? or do you actually mean stuffing rather than dressing? Not criticising one way or the other, just curious.

I call it "stuffing". To me, "dressing" is a liquid you put on salad. But it is one of those things that (I assume) depends on what part of the country you grew up in.

just brew it! wrote:

I call it "stuffing". To me, "dressing" is a liquid you put on salad. But it is one of those things that (I assume) depends on what part of the country you grew up in.

Yeah, the three of us around right now (You, Ben, me) are all Midwest boys so I assume we're all the same (I also grew up calling it stuffing regardless if it came from a boxed Stove Top, cooked in a casserole dish, or inside the turkey) but there is definitely a difference and I confuse people sometimes when I called it all stuffing rather than dressing. Odd world we live in.

I haven't really tried any of the blue stuff. I'll have to see if I can find some of those.

DancinJack wrote:

Yeah, aged cheddar is wonderful, but those blues step into the holy crap is this actually cheese territory. Be careful though if you use them, they can overpower virtually anything else really easily, but boy are the delicious sometimes.

Époisses de Bourgogne. A cheese so stinky that FRANCE bans it from puiblic transport.

just brew it! wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

What about the "blue" cheeses (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Blue Stilton)? They can be pretty potent. I love them, but I seem to have a slight allergy to them, so I need to stop eating them when my lips start to itch.

Yeah, aged cheddar is wonderful, but those blues step into the holy crap is this actually cheese territory. Be careful though if you use them, they can overpower virtually anything else really easily, but boy are the delicious sometimes.

edit: also, do you guys use the words stuffing/dressing interchangeably? or do you actually mean stuffing rather than dressing? Not criticising one way or the other, just curious.

I call it "stuffing". To me, "dressing" is a liquid you put on salad. But it is one of those things that (I assume) depends on what part of the country you grew up in.

It should be called stuffing.

Captain Ned wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

Yeah, aged cheddar is wonderful, but those blues step into the holy crap is this actually cheese territory. Be careful though if you use them, they can overpower virtually anything else really easily, but boy are the delicious sometimes.

Époisses de Bourgogne. A cheese so stinky that FRANCE bans it from puiblic transport.

Hell yeah! I'd love to try it.

Heiwashin wrote:

I haven't really tried any of the blue stuff. I'll have to see if I can find some of those.

Plain ol' domestically produced "blue cheese" is available at most grocery stores. Good with crackers as a snack, or melted on burgers. Seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing. IME there aren't a lot of people who are just indifferent to blue cheese.

just brew it! wrote:

Heiwashin wrote:

I found a block of locally made 7 year sharp cheddar in Wisconsin. I'm planning on using most of it to make a cheesy pasta. At this point I like cheeses so sharp that I wonder if I would like some of the stronger types of cheeses that are generally ignored.

On that note, an extremely sharp parmesan was the strongest thing I've tried so far. It was overwhelmingly potent, couldn't even think of a good way to use the flavor.

What about the "blue" cheeses (Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Blue Stilton)? They can be pretty potent. I love them, but I seem to have a slight allergy to them, so I need to stop eating them when my lips start to itch.

There used to be a cheese seller at the weekday Chicago farmers' markets who sold fantastic aged cheddars, ranging from 1 to 10 years. Loved that guy.

My favorite blue is d'Auvergne, which you can sometimes get in grocery stores around here. For exceptionally stinky blues, my all-time pick is Cabrales, which I've been eating since back when it came wrapped in leaves. When you unwrap it, the smell is strong enough to drive other (non-blue cheese-eating) people out of the room. It tastes glorious.

And while I love blue cheeses (which many people shun on account of the mold), I have never tried casu marzu, nor do I have any desire to do so.

Wikipedia (casu marzu article) wrote:

Because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves for distances up to 15 centimetres (6 in) when disturbed, diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping.

Oh, and a pro tip regarding any kind of intentionally moldy cheese (blue. Brie, etc.): Make sure they are double wrapped when you put them in your fridge, and don't re-use a knife you've used to cut them on other cheeses without washing it first. Otherwise the mold will start to colonize your other cheeses...

I guess I'm going to try reinstalling pfsense on the router. When pfsense says not to leave or close the page pfsense really means it even if it's just downloading packages.

Redocbew wrote:

I guess I'm going to try reinstalling pfsense on the router. When pfsense says not to leave or close the page pfsense really means it even if it's just downloading packages.

lol nearly 2019...

Redocbew wrote:

I guess I'm going to try reinstalling pfsense on the router. When pfsense says not to leave or close the page pfsense really means it even if it's just downloading packages.

I despise fragile software update procedures. I have also been tasked with fixing them (to make them less fragile) at multiple previous jobs, so I've seen up close and personal some of the ways developers screw them up.

Unfortunately, I think most developer organizations do not put their "A Team" on writing the software updater. Given that the software updater is the mechanism you will be using to undo all of your other mistakes, this really needs to change.

Yeah... and of course it has to happen when things are super-busy. I had been losing the connection for 30 seconds or so here and there throughout the last couple days, and pfsense needed an update anyway. The inevitable happened, and after some profanity I swiped the secondary router and reset it to defaults as a replacement. The nice thing about living alone is that nobody complains when you need to hack out a part of your home network to replace another part.

FWIW, in those situations, I pull the tab out of the current window and let it be its one. That generally lets me do other work while things get underway.

Probably the worst was the device where the update strategy was basically "Hey, let's read the replacement firmware image from this really flaky memory card slot, start overwriting the working firmware image as we go before verifying we can read the entire new image, and implement absolutely no recovery mechanism for when the update inevitably fails and bricks the device. Sorry, you need to disassemble the device to extract the circuit board with the damaged firmware and RMA it."

RMAing the entire device was a non-starter, as it weighed a couple hundred pounds and was semi-permanently attached to something else which weighed several tons.

When the existing firmware upgrade module was given to me to fix, there was literally a comment in the existing code which said "Here there be dragons, rewrite this sh*t!"

just brew it! wrote:

RMAing the entire device was a non-starter, as it weighed a couple hundred pounds and was semi-permanently attached to something else which weighed several tons.

Like an A-10??

Captain Ned wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

RMAing the entire device was a non-starter, as it weighed a couple hundred pounds and was semi-permanently attached to something else which weighed several tons.

Like an A-10??

No, different job. For the A-10 the FRU containing our firmware was a roughly 3 lb box mounted in the side console of the cockpit, which could be swapped out by undoing 4 captive fasteners and a couple of cables. I also wrote the code to handle the in-place firmware upgrades the first time around (instead of having to fix someone else's mess), so it generally tended to work.

Paid time off is a wonderful thing.

I've only been at work once in the last week.(That was on Wednesday.)

I don't have to be back until next Monday.

Well that was easier than I thought it would be. For some reason I remembered installing pfsense as being hard. After the install it asked if I wanted to drop down to a shell to make any manual changes, and then asked again before rebooting. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd see while installing Win10, or even Ubuntu.