Category Archives: Videos

I test out the USB ports on a couple of Addtam power strips, then for good measure I take them apart and lecture everyone about the importance of non-shite power strips. How fun?

I wanted more control over the lighting in my basement “studio”, and decided to invest in a few dimmer/switch packs as well as a USB rack-mount DMX controller.

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: https://youtu.be/OEDxgZwiUgg

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.