Month: February 2011

How to audit your PC’s software for updates

Dave Farquhar security , , , ,

Sometimes you like to use backdated software, perhaps to avoid bloatware. But perhaps you have some old software you’ve forgotten about. If you want to know, Secunia has a free product called PSI that will scan your system and alert you to any outdated software you may have. Then you can either update it, if it’s something you use and want to keep up to date, or uninstall it. Read more

How to straighten bent prewar/tinplate axles

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , ,

Last Updated on January 27, 2022 by Dave Farquhar

A common problem with prewar/tinplate cars, regardless of make (American Flyer, Ives, Lionel, Marx) is bent axles. If the car wobbles when it moves, one or more of the axles is bent.

Reproduction parts might or might not be available, so I prefer to just straighten the old ones.

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Using Robocopy to root out PST files

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , ,

Last Updated on December 4, 2015 by Dave Farquhar

So the word came out that the office is migrating to Windows 7 at some yet-to-be-determined time, but soon. It’s in testing now. (Too bad they didn’t recruit me as part of the testing team, because breaking Windows 7 is one of my superpowers.)

We’ve been told to back up our data. Lots of people are paranoid that they’ll lose their Outlook PST files, and with it, their ability to do top-drawer work. Frequently we have to search our archives to find forgotten details about old projects. It helps to make the new projects go more smoothly.

I came up with a surprisingly easy solution. It doesn’t even require admin rights–which is good. I won’t elaborate.
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State of the SSD, 1Q 2011

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

Last Updated on April 3, 2025 by Dave Farquhar

It’s no secret that I loves me some SSDs. And 2011 looks to be a good year for SSDs. Anandtech has a preview of what promises to be the fastest available drive on the market, once it’s released. It may not be at the very top of the heap for really long, but it represents the state of the art for now.

I’d rather not spoil the whole article, but there are two key takeaways from it.
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What will you do with your Freedom Box?

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , ,

Columbia Law Professor Eben Moglen has a great idea. He wants every household to have a server on the Internet.

It’s not as outrageous as you might think. The hardware exists today. and I’ve talked about it before. The Pogoplug is based on it. Right now it costs about $100. The trouble is making the software easy enough that anyone can plug it in and use it. But that can happen too, and that’s the part he wants to get done.

I can’t wait.
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Do I believe the Enquirer story about Steve Jobs?

Dave Farquhar Macintosh , ,

I don’t like gossip, and normally I wouldn’t stoop to the level of commenting on the National Enquirer’s claims that Steve Jobs has six weeks to live.

But it seems to me that a legitimate journalist’s opinion might interest someone. As someone who worked for a daily newspaper in 1996-97, I have a little bit of perspective on that.
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What happens when you put a dipstick, a screwdriver, and a SAN in the same room

Dave Farquhar War Stories , ,

It was 2007, give or take a year. I was working a shop that had a WAN connecting four data centers around the world. A couple of hard drives in a SAN at one of the remote data centers had either failed or were in the process of failing.

No problem, we said. We’ll send some drives, and we’ll send along some extras so the next time it happens, you can just grab a spare off the shelf, slam it in, and not miss a beat.

Simple, right? Well, you should never underestimate a human being’s ability to make the simple difficult.
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Wiring your house without tearing into walls

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking ,

Last Updated on April 14, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

Tearing into existing walls to thread CAT5 through them isn’t a chore that I think anyone relishes. It’s not too bad if you have an unfinished basement and can do everything in interior walls, but the further you deviate from that, the worse the job gets. One of my computers sits where it is solely because it was easy for me to get CAT5 there.

I stumbled across a novel solution to the problem. It isn’t cheap, and I want to emphasize that I haven’t tried it. But it’s possible that I will at some point. It’s called Flatwire.
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Depending on how you look at it, a free upgrade. Or bloatware.

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

Here’s a tip for those of you who own HP or Compaq laptops and netbooks. Most of these machines ship with HP Wireless Assistant, which basically does two things: display a popup telling you if your wireless network is on or off, and in some cases, enable a wi-fi on/off button on the keyboard.

But some versions of it moonlight by causing WMIPrVSE chew up 20% of available CPU power. People sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to get 20% more CPU power, so that’s not exactly welcome.
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Why publish in Classic Toy Trains?

Dave Farquhar Personal, Toy trains , , , , , , , ,

On one of the few remaining train forums where I do anything but lurk, the magazine Classic Toy Trains came up in discussion. Someone said, “It ought to call itself Classic Lionel Toys and be done with it,” and the discussion progressed from there.

Being that my next published work will be in that particular magazine, I thought I’d address some of the concerns/comments that came up.

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