This is another backing-up-your-data rant, but even though I’m posting this second it technically comes first in the order of shooting. And I think it’s a bit more informative and organized. So if you only watch one rant about backups this year, make it this one.
Viva 2018.
I fancied buying a couple of USB cables with in-built power meters, as well as a pair of multimeters with interesting aspects. For some reason all the brand names are capitalized in real life; I didn’t do that just for the title. I’m not yelling, I promise.
Don’t let people make fun of you for wearing this not-a-smartwatch, because it’s actually pretty good. If somewhat impractical to live with.
I take a look at the HOPI-9800 from #Shenzhen #HOPI Electronic Technology, a meter that displays the supply Voltage and frequency (or “frequence”) as well as the Amperage draw, overall power in Watts, power factor, and annual power consumption.
It’s a somewhat dangerous contraption that’s not all that well put together. And I forgot to even mention the sketchy multi-national power socket.
I converted an older HP DL380 Gen8 (aka a StoreOnce 2900) from using a hard RAID controller to an HBA for software RAID. The conversion is simple, but the video is long af because I spend a lot of time discussing the “why” more than the “how”.
In this excerpt from the below video, I talk about the total cost of ownership of RAID arrays.
This describes why I created the RAID HDD TCO Calculator which helps you figure out the total cost of ownership of a RAID array, inclusive of stuff like electrical and cooling costs.
I take a look at the Teclast F7 Plus which I bought on a whim to see if a cheap laptop could compete with my similarly-valued X1 Carbon Gen 2 from 2014. Turns out it could not, except in battery life (spoilers).
I actually purchased the laptop about a year ago and started making a video about it, but the farked around without working on it in the interim. Hence, we are here now.
For some reason I did a full walk-through of the Teclast’s rather robust BIOS, which you can see here:
The reMarkable 2 hardware has a solid and pleasant feel. The software just seems to work as advertised. However, almost every feature of this product relies on a connection to reMarkable’s cloud — the future of which is uncertain, as with any smaller tech company.
I test out the new Amazon Glow device, and also completely destroy it via my incompetence.
I’ll admit I was charmed by the full-sized specs of this diminutive laptop (or netbook, as you will), and I have a thing for tiny laptops in general. So I couldn’t resist it when Banggood offered it up to me in a full-on tracking cookie assault of marketing. (That being said, I purchased it from Amazon to avoid paying duties.) It’s a solidly built little machine, and a solid performer save for one thing: It’s not what I would consider to be a gaming computer. Though it is indeed sold as one, what with it’s somewhat-included side controllers and advertising to that effect. Sure, it can play some games just fine, but without some kind of even halfway-decent (even mobile-optimized) … Continue reading
I’d been seeing a lot of different brands of rechargeable lithium ion standard-sized batteries on the market, and couldn’t decide which ones to buy. Hence, I bought many of them. Hopefully this helps you out of the same conundrum! I built a test “rig” (really just some plywood) which consisted of 5 each of milliamp-hour meters, 4-position battery packs, and 12 Ohm resistors. In all, I tested 7 brands of lithium cells, as well as 6 sets of alkaline batteries (as a point of reference for capacity), 1 set of non-rechargeable Energizer Lithiums, and 1 set of NiMH Panasonic Eneloop cells. The batteries were discharged until their aggregate voltage reached 3 (or 0.75V per cell) which I felt was a … Continue reading
