Author: Dave Farquhar

Windows Explorer is slow? Try this.

Dave Farquhar Windows

On older machines, and even sometimes on not-so-old machines, Windows Explorer can get sluggish, and painful to use. It may happen suddenly and it may be happening all the time. In either case, here’s how to fix it when Windows Explorer is slow.

When Windows Explorer is slow, there are several options regarding how it displays files and what it displays that you can reconfigure to speed things up. And if you’ve been working with Zip files, restarting Explorer frequently makes a big difference.

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How to keep paint brushes from drying out

Dave Farquhar DIY
How to keep paint brushes from drying out

It’s inevitable. You’re painting, and you reach a point where you have to let the paint dry, or you’re just out of time for the day. But you’re going to have to come back and paint again, so it seems like a waste to clean the brush, only to load it up with the same color paint again. Here’s how to keep paint brushes from drying out. Both during a project and at the end of the project.

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What is daisy chaining?

Dave Farquhar DIY
What is daisy chaining?

At my second job at Best Buy, we were taking out a display to make way for flashy new product that needed lots of space. That meant a new shelf layout, and new power strips. “No daisy chaining!” the manager bellowed as we plugged in the power strips. But what is daisy chaining? And is it always bad?

Daisy chaining means plugging one device into another, like tying together a garland from daisy flowers, rather than running wires all the way back to the original source. Daisy chains can be used for transmitting power, data, or both.

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Laser printer streaks and how to fix them

Dave Farquhar Hardware
Laser printer streaks and how to fix them

Laser printers tend to be fairly low-maintenance items. When they start printing streaks across your pages, that’s how you know it’s time for service. It doesn’t usually mean you need a new printer. In this blog post, I’ll tell you how to fix laser printer streaks.

Laser printer streaks usually mean the printer’s toner cartridge or drum unit has a problem. On some printers the drum unit is part of the toner cartridge, but on cheaper printers, it may be a separate piece.

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Why Amiga failed

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Why Amiga failed

I defiantly celebrated the 25th anniversary of Windows 95 by buying myself an Amiga 500. That relic from 1987 did everything Windows 95 did, and it ran an operating system that first appeared on the market 10 years before Windows 95. It was easily 10 years ahead of its time. But it flopped. Here’s why Amiga failed.

There wasn’t any single thing that brought Amiga and its parent company, Commodore, down. If anything, the Amiga is a cautionary tale of how good engineering won’t save you if you get everything else wrong.

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Commodore 1570 disk drive

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Commodore 1570 disk drive

The Commodore 1570 disk drive was an odd, short-lived product from Commodore in 1985. Like many things Commodore did that year, it solved an inventory problem for them, but can leave people scratching their heads today.

The Commodore 1570 looks like a mashup between the 1541 and 1571 drives, and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a fast 1541 designed for the Commodore 128.

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Atari SDrive Max

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Atari SDrive Max

I got an SDrive Max for my Atari 800 and I really like it. It took a little doing to get it working for me. Hopefully you won’t have the same troubles I did. If you are, hopefully what helped me will help you. Let’s take a look at the Atari SDrive Max and what it does for you.

SDrive Max is a modern storage solution for vintage Atari 8-bit computers that uses SD cards. By storing images on the card, the Atari can boot off the image as if it were a floppy drive.

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How to not drill too deep

Dave Farquhar DIY
How to not drill too deep

Sometimes when you’re working on a project, you have to drill a hole to a certain depth, and you don’t want to go completely through your workpiece. How do you not drill too deep? Here’s how.

To not drill too deep, you need to stop the drill from going any further than you want. You can use something called a drill stop to do this, or you can improvise your own with stuff you probably have in your shop.

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How to cut foam insulation board cleanly

Dave Farquhar DIY
How to cut foam insulation board cleanly

Foam insulation board claims to be easy to cut. It says right on the board, usually. But when someone saw me cutting thick foam boards in the Home Depot parking lot, he said, “You’re a braver soul than me!” In this blog post, I’ll show how to cut foam insulation board with simple and very inexpensive hand tools, and minimal mess. The best way to cut foam board even allows you to cut it right in the parking lot, so the foam will fit in a small SUV.

Thin foam board will cut with just a utility knife, but you can easily cut the thick 2-inch boards, even with just simple hand tools.

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Amiga 1080 monitor

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Amiga 1080 monitor

The Amiga 1080 monitor was the original monitor Commodore supplied with the Amiga 1000 in 1985. It’s one of only two monitors that featured the Amiga branding with the Amiga checkmark logo. Its picture quality is very good, but the monitor sometimes behaves oddly. You can fix the odd behavior. I’ll tell you how, and I also tracked down the elusive pinout for this monitor.

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