Author Archives: Scott

About Scott

I'm a computer guy with a new house and a love of DIY projects. I like ranting, and long drives on your lawn. I don't post everything I do, but when I do, I post it here. Maybe.
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Disconnecting the Battery in a Teradek VidiU Pro (Live)

  By Scott • 2020-02-27 ,
Disconnecting the Battery in a Teradek VidiU Pro (Live) - YouTube Cover Image

I’ve been trying out different streaming tools and software lately, and ultimately I prefer the dedicated hardware approach. The Teradek VidiU Pro has been discontinued by the manufacturer, and can be had for some pretty good deals on eBay. The VidiU Pro can be used to live stream events from remote and outdoor locations using either WiFi or a connected USB cell modem. It’s also got an ethernet port (and of course a power input) for use in fixed locations. Such as my basement. The problem for me is that the VidiU has a built in battery for portable use, meaning that when I shut off my equipment at the main PDU, the VidiU stays on until the battery runs … Continue reading

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Adding a Smart Panel to the Teranex Mini (No Mic on Purpose)

  By Scott • 2020-02-26
Adding a Smart Panel to the Teranex Mini - Screen Grab

This is a quickie, wherein I swap the cosmetic faceplate on a Blackmagic Design Teranex mini converter for a smart panel. I thought it might be useful if someone wanted to check out the process before buying one. But I’ll spoil it by saying that it’s just a matter of removing the 4 screws holding on the faceplate, and then pushing the smart panel onto an edge connector that protrudes from the Teranex device.

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Building a Rig to Test AAA Batteries (Live)

  By Scott • 2020-02-13 , ,
Building a AAA Battery Test Rig (Live Stream) - Cover Image

I’ve been working on two things lately (well, more than two, but whatever): Live streaming and testing AAA batteries. The former is going somewhat OK, but I’m still trying to get the hang of it. The latter is coming together nicely. This video is me assembling a rig to test 15 different brands/types of AAA batteries: Duracell Optimum, Anker, Allmax, EBL, Fuji, Duracell Procell, Rayovac Industrial, Duracell Quantum, Rayovac Fusion, Rayovac, Eveready Gold, Energizer Max, Energizer Industrial, Maxell, and Amazon Basics. The idea being that I’ll shoot that test rig with a time lapse camera, observing how the voltages of the batteries decrease over time. There are light bulbs both to provide a visualization and as a load to deplete … Continue reading

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Outlook / Exchange Error: Network Problems or the Microsoft Exchange Server Computer is Down for Maintenance

  By Scott • 2020-01-27
ms_exchange_angry_cry

There are tons of posts about this subject, but none of them offered the very simple solution that worked for me: Make sure the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant is running on the mailbox server. We had a catastrophic crash of a VM host, on which our Exchange 2013 server was running as a guest. Everything seemed to come back up just fine, and all Outlook users were back online with Exchange, except for two. One user was running Outlook 2016 like the rest of the org, but one was running Outlook 2007 (don’t ask). They seemed to have nothing in common, but they both were throwing errors that network problems were preventing communication with the Exchange server. I did all … Continue reading

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Clone a Dynamic Disk to a New SSD in Windows 10

  By Scott • 2019-11-08
Clonezilla Vomits Feces onto Other Tools Because that's Classy

This is partially just for my own reference, so I don’t have to go down this rabbit hole again. (But I hope it helps you, too!) The Situation I wanted to upgrade the LITE-ON 256GB SSD in my trusty ol’ Lenovo X1 Carbon laptop to a snazzy new Samsung 960 EVO 2TB drive. I have a version of Acronis that came with a Crucial (or Kingston?) SSD, which has worked great in the past. The problem? There was a system reserved partition at the very end of the disk, and Acronis therefore would not proportionally scale the OS partition to fill the disk; It would only scale that system reserved partition. In a moment of errant stupidity, I said, “Ah-hah! … Continue reading

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240V is the Standard U.S. Household Voltage (Kinda.)

  By Scott • 2019-09-09 ,
240V US Electrical System

OK, So I’m Being a Bit Facetious Obviously I and most everyone else knows that the vast majority of American household stuff is powered at 120V. Almost all receptacles and (nearly) all lights in a home are indeed supplied at 120V. But! It’s not as simple as that. So maybe the video title is a tiny bit of clickbait, but it’s also more or less true. Most Americans do indeed have 240V supplied to their home, and that is the line-to-line voltage. The transformer is rated for 240 Volts with a center tap that happens to be referenced to ground/earth, and it just so happens that the potential difference between the center tap (ground) and either of the two lines … Continue reading

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Redundant VPN Tunnels via Different ISPs

  By Scott • 2019-04-23
Network Diagram or Whatever

Intro My friends will tell you that I’m obsessed with redundancy, both in life and in I.T. At home I have two main internet connections, via Altice Optimum (“cable”) and Verizon FiOS. They’re both relatively high bandwidth, and are connected to my two core routers that operate in an active/passive configuration. Basically this: O——O +——–+ / \ | |————/ O +——————+——————–| Core | / / | Optimum Router | | Router |———-O / +——————+\ ______________| 01 | \ O \ / | |————O \ \ / +——–+ / \ X Keepalived | / Various O / \ Heartbeat | O Networks / / \ +——–+ \ O +——————+/ \_____________| |———–\ \ | FiOS Router | | Core | \ O … Continue reading

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RAID HDD TCO Calculator (Total Cost of Ownership)

  By Scott • 2019-04-05
HDD RAID TCO Worksheet Sample

A while back I created a HDD TCO worksheet showing the relative costs of certain drives in no real context. This spreadsheet aims to calculate the total cost of ownership for a RAID array, which is a much more involved affair. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dM2vO08gmX3VwYyJtTE5D1Gu75TTU-nUW95j1_DVx8c/ That’s a read-only version, but you can easily make your own copy to play with: If you have a Google account and are logged in, you can just hit File -> Make a Copy.. to save it to your own Google Drive. If you hate Google sniffing into your private affairs, you can hit File -> Download As and grab a copy in the format of your choice. I hope I’ve provided enough of an explanation as to … Continue reading

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Yes, the Dell Compellent SC220 Chassis AND Drives are Generic!

  By Scott • 2019-01-18 ,
The Compellent SC220 is the disk set on top, followed by an HP D2700, an HP MSA 70, and a Dell MD1220.

I found a great deal on eBay. A Dell Compellent SC220 chassis filled with 24 x 600GB 10K SAS disks for $350 including shipping. Obviously if you’re reading this years later that will seem like a terrible price, but as of now 600GB SAS drives are selling for about $30 each (used). So it’s roughly $720 worth of drives alone. The SC220 is basically an MD1220 in sheep’s clothing (though sheep are generally naked so who knows), and those are selling for about $120. Like I said, a great deal! But there was one question that needed answering: Did the Dell-branded Compellent HDDs have some kind of special firmware that rendered them useless with a standard RAID or JBOD controller? … Continue reading