Author: Dave Farquhar

View headers in Gmail to see if that mail is real

Dave Farquhar security
View headers in Gmail to see if that mail is real

For nearly 20 years, I was the guy people asked if an e-mail message they got was real. And if they were interested, I’d show them how I figured out if it was real. To do that, you have to look at the headers. Here’s how to view headers in Gmail.

Gmail doesn’t have an option called view headers–it’s called Show Original. Choosing this obscure option lets you view the headers and investigate a message.

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How many Atari 2600 games are there?

Dave Farquhar Retro Gaming
How many Atari 2600 games are there?

The Atari 2600 had the largest game library of its generation, and it wasn’t close. Other systems surpassed it, but in its time, the 2600 was king. But how many Atari 2600 games are there? Like many questions, it depends.

It’s really two questions, since some titles were released under multiple names, even though they were the same title. There were about 450 unique Atari 2600 games, but the number of variations of those games pushes the total number of cartridges much higher, around 900 by some counts.

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Lionel Scout train sets: Entry level Lionel

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Lionel Scout train sets: Entry level Lionel

“It’s a Lionel Scout,” the auctioneer said breathlessly. I walked out the door without placing a bid. If you found a Lionel Scout train set and you think you found something valuable, I’m about to dash your hopes and dreams. That’s not to say Lionel Scouts aren’t interesting. But they were Lionel’s economy sets of the postwar era.

The Lionel Scout was a low-end train set Lionel introduced starting in 1948 to compete with Marx trains. When new, a Scout set sold for around $19, or a little over $200 in today’s dollars.

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Commodore 1084 monitor

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Commodore 1084 monitor

The Commodore 1084 monitor was Commodore’s flagship monitor, a monitor that worked with everything they produced in the late 1980s, including the C-64, the C-128 in 40 and 80 column modes, the Amiga line, and Commodore’s CGA-equipped PC clones like the Commodore Colt. Its versatility makes it popular with retro computer enthusiasts today. Not only does it work with almost any Commodore computer, it also works with a lot of non-Commodore computers.

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Do blackout curtains help with heat?

Dave Farquhar DIY, Saving money
Do blackout curtains help with heat?

Blackout curtains help to keep light out, making them useful if you have a lot of light pollution at night or need to sleep during the day. But do blackout curtains help with heat? Do blackout curtains save energy? And how much?

Blackout curtains can have an R value of up to 5, depending on how you use them. Considering most windows have an R value between 1 and 5, and your walls have an R value of at least 13, blackout curtains do help with heat, and can save you hundreds of dollars per year.

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How long does oil based paint take to dry?

Dave Farquhar DIY
How long does oil based paint take to dry?

If you want a good paint job, you need to make sure the paint dries thoroughly and completely before disturbing it. So how long does oil based paint take to dry? And how long does it take oil based primer to dry?

It varies depending on the paint formula and the temperature, but it typically takes 8 hours for oil based paint to dry. The general time can range from 2-24 hours, so it’s best to check your instruction label for your paint’s specifics. Oil based primer can be ready for a topcoat within 1-2 hours, but that may or may not be what you mean by dry time.

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Baking computer chips: Fixing chips in an oven

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing
Baking computer chips: Fixing chips in an oven

Does baking computer chips fix them when they’re broken? Can you fix computer chips in an oven? The answer is sometimes. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to know when it will help, and when it does, we may not know why. But, when faced with a broken chip, we don’t exactly have anything to lose, either.

Baking computer chips does seem to fix them, at least sometimes. Whether it works depends entirely on why the chip failed in the first place, which isn’t always possible to know.

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Mizuno East-West train set

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Mizuno East-West train set

The Mizuno East-West battery operated train set has all the hallmarks of postwar Japanese trains. It’s made of tin. It runs on batteries. It was cheap. And it carries an aura of mystery. Fortunately time unraveled a number of those mysteries.

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What are mineral spirits?

Dave Farquhar DIY
What are mineral spirits?

You could be reading some DIY instructions and see something that calls for mineral spirits, or white spirit if the instructions originated in the UK. But what are mineral spirits? Let’s dig in.

Mineral spirits are a solvent sold in hardware and paint stores. They are a petroleum distillate, useful as a paint thinner, and also for thinning or removing grease and oil. In the UK it’s called white spirit, and in Australia and New Zealand, it’s called mineral turpentine.
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Does a USB hub need power?

Dave Farquhar Hardware
Does a USB hub need power?

In the early days of USB, the majority of hubs had power. Today, the market is flooded with cheap hubs that don’t have power. That raises a legitimate question. Does a USB hub need power? Why or why not?

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