Month: February 2012

The difference between local and traveling train shows

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

Last Updated on September 29, 2019 by Dave Farquhar

I took my family to a train show–The Great Train Expo–this past weekend. I’ve been going to shows for about 8 years or so, and while we had fun, I ended up not spending any of the money I brought with me. At least not on myself. I think I have an idea why. There’s a difference between local and traveling train shows.
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Studying for a certification?

Dave Farquhar security

Studying for a certification? Here’s a useful site: http://www.techterms.com/quiz/

They post a new tech term every day. You may not necessarily see questions just like them on any given certification, but they’ll help you keep your vocabulary current. Understanding the questions is more than half the battle.

Lake Forest Pastry Shop, and other old St. Louis bakeries

Dave Farquhar St. Louis , , ,
Lake Forest Pastry Shop, and other old St. Louis bakeries

Last Updated on October 20, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story this week about vintage baking. It profiled Chris Leuther, an area baker with 30 years in the business who collects old bakery equipment and recipes from long-gone, but beloved and not-forgotten bakeries such as Lake Forest Pastry Shop.

The money quote: “I’ve worked in a lot of bakeries and talked to a lot of bakers, and when it comes right down to it, so many of these places worked from almost exactly the same formula… A lot of times different places made exactly the same cake. It seemed special because it made a special memory — but that’s all it is, a memory.”

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And now Intel’s teamed up with Sandforce

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , ,

Last Updated on April 3, 2025 by Dave Farquhar

Intel’s new SSD 520 uses a Sandforce controller. Very interesting. Both Tom’s Hardware and Anandtech  have reviews posted.

So you’ll have Sandforce performance, hopefully coupled with Intel reliability. That’s the theory. They aren’t shipping yet, and you’ll pay a premium for the Intel name.
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Proper care of digital flash media

Dave Farquhar data recovery

This is inspired by a comment I received a couple of days ago. It’s one of those questions that if you know to ask, you probably already know the answer. But I’ll say it anyway.

No, it’s not OK to staple an SD card, a compact flash card, or any other kind of flash media to an envelope, a piece of paper, or anything else.
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What I would say to someone starting to study journalism today

Dave Farquhar Journalism , , ,

One of my former classmates sent out a query, asking what we’d tell someone who was thinking about studying journalism today. Predictably, a lot of people wrote “Don’t do it!” or “Newspapers aren’t hiring anyone,” or something similar. I never had time to change careers; my IT career essentially started a week after I started taking journalism classes and I was working full-time in IT a good three months before the dean of the school shook my hand and gave me my diploma.

Although I’ve had to explain my education virtually every time I’ve been interviewed for a job, I don’t regret it.
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Open-source licenses, the CISSP, and the real world

Dave Farquhar Copyright, security , , , , , , , ,

Last Updated on July 14, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

You may have a question about open-source licenses on your CISSP exam. I don’t remember the specifics and wouldn’t be able to repeat them anyway, but I had a question on my exam where knowing the differences was helpful in finding the right answer.

And I had to deal with an issue this past week involving open-source technologies where the licenses made a big difference.

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Time to make a new rule for work

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , ,

I propose a new rule. I think it’s a very modest and very reasonable proposal. It has two parts.

1. No meeting can last longer than 6 hours (the length of the CISSP exam)

2. Material presented in said meetings may have no more than 250 items (the same number of questions in a CISSP exam)

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My first experience with data recovery

Dave Farquhar data recovery, War Stories , , , ,
My first experience with data recovery

Last Updated on March 23, 2022 by Dave Farquhar

It was 1997. I was working my first full-time  job, and my phone rang with my first crisis.

“What happened to the K drive?” the caller asked.

I glanced over at my network drive cheat sheet, which listed all of our shares and what server they were on. In those days, most of our servers still had 300-400 megabyte drives and that meant every file server hosted, at most, a couple of shares. There was no K drive on our list. I was afraid this was about to get interesting. Read more

How I remembered how to negotiate

Dave Farquhar Saving money

My wife found a dining room table she really liked on Craigslist. But the logistics of me picking it up just weren’t good because I’m going to be really busy the next few weeks. If I couldn’t get it done on Sunday the 29th, it wasn’t going to happen.

The deal ended up falling through because I couldn’t get enough cash on a Sunday, and they wouldn’t take $400 in cash and a check for the rest because everyone knows everyone on Craigslist is a scammer (I’m paraphrasing, but he pretty much told me that only scammers use checks). I won’t have time any other day this week, and next weekend I’m taking my boys to a train show (you gotta keep your priorities straight, you know). But as it turned out, it’s probably for the best anyway.
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