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Thoughts on whole-home wiring for new and existing with CAT 6a/8, MOCA 2.5 and PowerLine and Wifi 6e
Well there was a day when the modern thing to do was to installed structure cabling in new construction. That is a cable bundle that included ethernet, phone and cable. That would still leave you with all kinds of wires for things like burglar alarm sensors, thermostats and door bells (and even card keys in…
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Internet Ughs. Zoom needs three steps to remove a user. Awair conflicts with Unifi over MQTT Port 8883
In this day and age some things just seem ridiculously complicated. But here are some notes Zoom subscriptions Well I’ve been trying for three months to move down a user level. It’s really impossible. If you go to billing amd choose two to one for instance it all seems to work but ona. Mobile device…
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Finally fixing a server rack, plugging in Obihai right and DHCP rogues
Well it’s been years but we’ve had an old rack that isn’t the computer standard 19” rack and in looking at the logo on the side (chatsworth rack) I couldn’t find anything about it. But one chance remark from a hime theater expert really helped me. Tom said, yes those 23 inch racks are such…
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Deep vi hacking when you have 400 files to edit with registers, macros, mksession and wv
Ok this is a truly deep post only for those who are living in vi/vim/neovim and have 400 files to manually edit (because they were idiots and didn’t use shellcheck early enough for their many random bash scripts). So if you have to do this, it rapidly becomes pretty old. You could try to write…
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Dealing with your Remote Technologies Inc RTI-8V and remote
Well we got the Logitech Harmony working fine and I’m amazed how easy it is. We also got a new RTI-8V to replace a Crestron and here are some tips: Reboot the processor. There is no way to do this other than to unplug it and then wait for a minute and then the display…
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Of weirdo 23″ Telecom vs 19″ computer racks and things
Ok, if you are unlucky enough you might have an older 23″ telecom rack. The annoying thing is that most computer components these days are 19″ wide. What’s all this then about 19″ racks? As an aside, it’s hard to believe we are using a 100 years standard set by AT&T in 1922 for racks…
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Getting rid of your cranky phone system for a VOIP PBX
If you have a business or even a large house with an old PBX from the last century, then you know how expensive and complicated it is. We have a Panasonic system and it is really complicated to maintain. There are ports that don’t work. It has proprietary Panasonic handsets and also a wireless set.…
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Speaker alternatives WISA real or dead-end
There always seem like a host standards. Right now, there is Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth. These are going to obviously be the major standards, but some new ones are emerging. For instance, Zigbee and Z-wave for low power home networking and LORA for low bandwidth networking. But one thing that is not solved are the…
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Unifi Part Deux wow amazingly easy Dream Machine and Amplifi setup plus 802.11af, at and bf madness
Ok two quick notes, this week has been mainly about broken network issues. Or rather putting as much care in the home network as that has really become mission critical. So three lessons: Wow, the setup for the Dream Machine and the Amplifi are even easier than for the Dream Machine Pro. Really hats off…
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Cooking Thermometers and Batteries too
Well I’ve had lots of different and inaccurate ones at that, but five years ago, I got a Thermopen which is expensive at $79 but as Cook’s Illustrated has pointed out super reliable and Grill Seeker too The main issue is that it does seem to chew up batteries pretty quickly particularly if you forget…
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TV color calibration and backlighting the final step to image quality
Well assuming you have a nice flat screen, how do you make sure the colors are correct. Most folks run their systems really bright and blue and a correctly calibrated system is going to a first look flat and then you will see the details. In the old days, you did color calibration with a…
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If you have an Outdoor Research Coupon rejoice!
If you are lucky enough to get a coupon for Outdoor Research, you should know it’s an awesome local firm and they have amazing stuff according to Outdoor Gear Labs (no relation except both are about well, the outdoors :-). But here are some highly rated items: Outdoor Research Helios. They make the most awesome…
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Rounding Deftech BP-3000 out with surround speakers and Atmos elevation speakers
Well, I have resurrected an old 5.1 mini speaker system (an Energy Take 5) and it sounds really great. Adding a Denon AVR-X3700H and then four NHT Atmos Mini Add-on was a great choice. by luck, these tiny little speakers fit on top of the Energy Take 5 modules and the room sounds really nice.…
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Winter time buys of Ecobee Doorbells and Outdoor speakers and things
Now that it is really fall and there is no summer left, here are some things to think about getting as winter is coming: Smart Thermostats like the Ecobee Thermostat. Right now Best Buy has them for $200 or $50 off and through the end of the year, Puget Sound Energy is offering a $75…
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More notes on shopping from Chrome using Freedom, Discover, Camelcamelcamel, Honey and Fakespot
Wow shopping the smart way has definitely gotten more complicated. But if you really want to do this effectively, a few short words on how to make sure you are taking the most advantage of the various discount programs: Use Chrome or Firefox. Sadly until Safari supports extensions properly you can’t install the ones you…
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Monitor color calibration and extending the life of my DataColor Spyder3
Ok I know this sounds little strange for an electronic gizmo, but I’ve had for 10 years, the same color calibrator. There are newer ones out there, but for a device that I literally use once a year, it seems sad to have to buy a new one. This is the Spyder3 and about three…
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Devcare a budget guide to chairs, monitor stands, monitors, great mice, keyboards, wrist rest, and mousepads
OK, as the geeks are staying home more and more, it’s way more important to have the right working environment and to make sure it is ergonomic and not going to give you Carpal Tunnel syndrome or neck aches. So here are some notes on things to get in order of importance (at last IMHO):…
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Strange pricing at Xfinity get 1Gbps and unlimited data for $90 vs $110 for 300Mbps and unlimited
Well you can see how they manage their incentives so that for now: 1. Move to 1Gbps plan for $90 on a year and you get unlimited data. Normally this is $30 a month. But if you use their gateway for $25 then you get it for free. 2. More strangely if you get the…
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Social Distancing and Indoors with better air handling with HEPA filters and Indoor Air Monitoring
Well during the summer we had our socially distanced walks and meals with 2-4 friends. That is wearing masks and at least six feet apart and outdoors as much as we could. But now that the fall is here in the Northern Hemisphere that is going to get harder and harder. So what can we…
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End of sprint @restartpartners
Been way buried this last three months doing decision making tools for https://restart.us Aka @restartpartners. Great adventure learning how to write code and get my hands dirty leading a small but amazing group. Main observations: Pandemic was great. So many great CS undergrads with nothing to do. Yet another chapter in the book about how…
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Argh beware an nVidia Shield killed my AVR
Yikes what a strange story, but we’ve been using the original NVIDIA Shield for years and suddenly, our home theater’s audio-video receiver (AVR) died. It literally wouldn’t power up and the UPS also didn’t work. Replacing the UPS didn’t help. We also replaced the receiver and the Shield actually caused the processor to hard crash…
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Stability achieved. Cut over to Unifi Dream Machine Pro happiness and do not brick your EdgeMax by rebooting too fast
Well it took all night but finally cutover from a MacBook controller to a Dream Machine Pro and I’m glad I did: Unifi and Synology becoming the Apple of networking and storage. Yes you can hack away or buy cheap consumer gadgets but they are a headache. These two companies are taking the open source…
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Adding streaming to a 4K projector
Today just about all television have a smart client that is typically Android based, this makes it easy to get the big streaming services without having to add any more boxes. But if you bought a projector that’s barebones many of these do not have anything like that mainly for cost reasons so all you…
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Managing an internal Network 2020
Well, it does seem like a network at home has gotten really complicated. Our house has over 30 different IP devices alone and trying to manage all of them is definitely not easy. Here are some notes: Moving to Power over Ethernet using 802.11af. Lots of new devices support it, in particular the Unifi collection…
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Keeping up with a sea of Machine Learning research
Wow, there is just so much going on in technology for Machine Learning from the devops of making it run to the new applications that are shipping to the core research. So how do you keep up? In the past, I’ve mainly used Medium and the Data Science posting plus TWIML as a podcast, but…
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Getting 4K HDR Atmos Content because why not?
If you spend the dollars on this expensive audio/video then you should make sure to get your money’s worth with content: UHD Bluray. Yes you need a new player for this and these disks are still the highest quality with best uncompressed video. So it is still worthwhile to buy them.Ironically, the best choice is…
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Dealing with Broadband in Seattle and paying $30 to avoid data charges. Argh!
Well we are unlucky enough to live in a part of Seattle where Comcast has a monopoly. Literally across the street, CenturyLink has gigabit fiber and about a mile away, Wave and Centurylink are duking it out. So there are three problems with getting a great price: Comcast always bundles things and they definitely do…
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The Trials and Tribulations of Windows 10, HDR and Atmos and Zoom
OK given the pandemic, i”ve been spending alot of time at home. We have a dedicated gaming 4K HDR PC that I’ve used with a 5-channel Corsair Vengeance 1500 for years, but what if we want to make this into a mini home theater and have a dual use as a zoom center. Well, with…
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Smart Scales, Blood Pressure and other connected devices
Well I’ve had really good luck during this pandemic in connecting all these health devices together, but today, my GreaterGoods Wifi Scale finally broke. It’s always been pretty flaky. The Wifi couldn’t handle special characters and now it won’t connect to Wifi and the iOS application that programs it is definitely busted. Doesn’t even render…
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Ah the joys and horrors of using Windows 10 Driver and shortcut hell
Man I had forgotten how confusing Windows can be. Having loved windows and then been a Mac user for the last 10 years, I finally have a PC that I use mainly for gaming, but since it has a huge screen, it is also useful for other stuff and heck I’m a curious person. So…