Author: Dave Farquhar

Is Ryobi a good brand? Who makes Ryobi tools?

Dave Farquhar DIY
Is Ryobi a good brand? Who makes Ryobi tools?

The price and selection of Ryobi tools available at your local big-box store certainly is tempting. But is Ryobi a good brand? Let’s dig in.

Ryobi tools are made by Techtronic Industries (TTI), an OEM for many other brands. Ryobi tools are aimed at consumers, and designed to be equivalent in quality to Black and Decker.

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Put your blog posts on Pinterest for free

Dave Farquhar Writing
Put your blog posts on Pinterest for free

There are several plugins that put your blog posts on Pinterest and other social media, but Pinterest is always an option that costs money. But recently Pinterest made a change to allow you to send it an RSS feed. Here’s how to use RSS to put your content on Pinterest for free.

If your audience is largely female, being on Pinterest is a must. Even if your audience is largely male, being on Pinterest can be helpful, and is worth the effort, especially now that Pinterest has made it much easier.

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Marx tender values

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx tender values

I saw a complaint on a discussion board recently that someone couldn’t find straight answers in regards to Marx tender values anywhere online. Maybe my previous guidance wasn’t specific enough, so I’ll give it another try.

I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that most Marx tenders are worth around $10. Some are worth more, but that’s a fairly short list.

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Will a new Roku buffer less?

Dave Farquhar Hardware
Will a new Roku buffer less?

I get a lot of questions about Roku buffering. As time progresses, buffering becomes the most annoying thing about them, for sure. But will a new Roku buffer less?

Replacing an older high-end Roku with a new low-end Roku won’t necessarily mean less buffering. But generally speaking, replacing an old Roku with a newer version from a comparable price point to the original probably will buffer less.

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Goodwill by the pound

Dave Farquhar Saving money
Goodwill by the pound

Goodwill operates thrift stores all over the country, but most major cities have one Goodwill Outlet as well. These stores, nicknamed Goodwill by the pound, sell merchandise by weight. It’s the last stop for merchandise before being recycled.

Goodwill by the pound offers tremendous opportunity for bargain hunters with a sense of adventure. If you’re willing to dig, and fix up what you find, you can save a ton of money at these stores.

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What is MS-DOS?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
What is MS-DOS?

What is MS-DOS? I guess the question dates itself, or rather, the person who asked it. DOS is obsolete today, but was so important in the 80s and 90s that people assume you know what it was.

MS-DOS was the operating system PCs used before Windows. It was the first popular 16-bit operating system, and was the dominant operating system of the 1980s and early 1990s. It did not multitask.

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Size of the upper handle bolt for a lawn mower

Dave Farquhar DIY
Size of the upper handle bolt for a lawn mower

The bolt that holds one side of the upper handle of my push lawnmower fell out this morning. Here’s how I scrounged an upper handle bolt for a lawn mower to fix it without a trip to the hardware store.

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How to use O27 track clips

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
How to use O27 track clips

O27 track clips definitely make it more convenient to set up a loop of Lionel O27 track on the floor. But they aren’t very intuitive. Here’s how to use O27 track clips, whether they have the Lionel or Ives brand on them.

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What is DNS over TLS?

Dave Farquhar security
What is DNS over TLS?

Web browser manufacturers Google and Mozilla have been taking heat lately for wanting to implement a technology called DNS over TLS. This is an important technology, so let’s talk about what DNS over TLS does and why you need it.

An increasing amount of our communications online is encrypted, which keeps other people from snooping on what we do. Not encrypting our traffic to DNS, which is the Internet’s phone book, makes it possible to see who we’re communicating with online, even though the communications themselves aren’t visible. DNS over TLS seeks to close this huge privacy gap. When your operating system says your connection is secured, it’s only talking basic security.

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Is debt a sin against God?

Dave Farquhar Saving money
Is debt a sin against God?

I had lunch with a new friend one recent weekend. We talked about a lot of different things, but one of those things was debt. Is debt a sin against God? I know where that idea comes from. It’s something we struggled through together a bit. Here’s why I push back against that argument.

The Bible talks about money a lot, but not nearly as much about debt specifically. The Bible speaks more about the sin of pride than it talks about debt, and I see lots of pride on both sides of the debt argument.

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