Author: Dave Farquhar

Wire a bathroom fan and light on one switch

Dave Farquhar DIY, Landlording
Wire a bathroom fan and light on one switch

Sometimes you need to wire a bathroom fan and light on one switch. Code often requires a fan in bathrooms these days, but you may only have one switch. Or maybe you have two switches but just want one switch to run both. Fortunately it’s easy to do. Here’s how.

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Whatever happened to Dr. Thomas Pabst?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Whatever happened to Dr. Thomas Pabst?

In 1996, Dr. Thomas Pabst, a German MD then living in England, created a web page where he talked about motherboards, video cards, and a then little-known phenomenon called overclocking. Dubbed Tom’s Hardware Guide, Dr. Pabst’s hobby site spawned a long list of imitators, creating a new industry: PC hardware enthusiast sites.

In 2006 he sold the site and walked away.

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How to avoid cleaning Lionel track

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , ,
How to avoid cleaning Lionel track

For some people, the only enjoyable part of cleaning Lionel track is arguing about how to do it. The rest of us don’t even enjoy that part. Recently I unearthed a decades-old secret that mostly eliminates the need to clean track. Sound too good to be true?

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Convert a list of hostnames to a list of IP addresses

Dave Farquhar security, Windows , , , , , ,

I had a client with a huge list of hostnames that they needed to convert to IP addresses so they could scan them. That’s common. I used to have a Windows batch file to convert a list of hostnames to a list of IP addresses, so I dug it out of my archives. This uses ping but isn’t like a ping sweep; they knew the machine names but their tool needed IPs.

I used the file to resolve lists of machines so I could load them into a centralized logging or vulnerability management system. This client had the same need and nobody there had a similar tool. So I shared mine with them. And I present it here so I won’t lose it again, and if you need it, you can use it too.

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History of overclocking

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , ,
History of overclocking

Overclocking didn’t start in the 90s, and it wasn’t limited to PCs either. Here’s a history of overclocking from a guy who did it some, and talked to guys who did it a lot in the 80s.

I don’t recommend overclocking, and today Microsoft can prove it’s a bad idea. But overclocking has a long and colorful history. It’s less common than it used to be, perhaps. But it’s not completely extinct.

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Repair Lionel ZW binding posts cheaply

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , ,
Repair Lionel ZW binding posts cheaply

If your Lionel ZW or VW transformer lights up and hums but doesn’t output any voltage on one or more of its pairs of binding posts, there’s a good chance one or more of the binding posts is bad. It’s possible to repair Lionel ZW binding posts cheaply.

By far the most failure prone part of the Lionel ZW and VW is the binding posts where the wires connect to your track. Fortunately, there’s a workaround that works sometimes. But if you want something better than a workaround, a proper repair is cheap and not difficult.

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Fix gaps in vinyl tile or planks

Dave Farquhar DIY
Fix gaps in vinyl tile or planks

Sometimes, no matter how careful you are in cutting, measuring, and placing peel and stick vinyl floor tile, you end up with a gap somewhere. Fortunately, there is a pretty easy way to fix gaps in vinyl tile or planks.

This trick also works to disguise the edges if your floor turned out not to be perfectly flat and a little bit of a vinyl floor tile’s edge shows.

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Keep Marx sliding couplers from hanging up

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Keep Marx sliding couplers from hanging up

In Marx’s cheapest sets, it utilized cars that had sliding couplers with only a twist holding them in place. The end of the coupler had a couple of tabs, and a twist secured them without any additional parts.

The problem is, sometimes this twist catches the slot wrong when going around a turn and gets stuck. Then the cars derail as the train comes out of the curve. That’s probably not what you want.

Here’s a cheap, easily reversible modification to keep them from hanging up.

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D-Link vs TP-Link

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , , ,
D-Link vs TP-Link

If you’re looking for the pros and cons of D-Link vs TP-Link, I have experience with both and I’m glad to share it.

D-Link is a well established brand. Founded in 1986, it started doing business as D-Link in 1994. It’s been around a long time. If you’ve been involved with computers for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of it.

I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of TP-Link. They were founded in 1996 but if you were buying their stuff before 2005, you’re well ahead of me.

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Find capitalized words in Libreoffice or Openoffice

Dave Farquhar Software ,

Sometimes you need a way to find capitalized words in Libreoffice or Openoffice. This can make it easier to figure out if the word needed to be capitalized, in the case of a poorly written or edited document. Then you can make a decision whether the capitalization was appropriate.

Another time you would need to find capitalized words in Openoffice or Libreoffice would be when you’re creating an index. I’m sure there are others.

It’s easier than it sounds.
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