How to paint baseboard trim white

How to paint baseboard trim white

My friend just bought a new house. And let’s just say the previous owner didn’t take very good care of it. One of the problems he noticed, once he fixed other problems, was beat up baseboard trim. The easiest thing for him to do is paint it. Here’s how to paint baseboard trim white.

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Commodore 64 replacement rubber feet

Commodore 64 replacement rubber feet

It happens on all old computers, and even some not-so-old computers. The rubber pads that sit on the bottom of Commodore 64s to protect the desk surface and keep it from sliding around can fall off, liquify, or otherwise go missing. But even though the last ever C-64 was built sometime in early 1994, you can still get Commodore 64 replacement rubber feet. Here’s how.

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Rebuild machines without making duplicates in Qualys or Tenable

Rebuild machines without making duplicates in Qualys or Tenable

My friend does vulnerability management for a company that likes to rebuild machines instead of patching them. I don’t judge; that’s how I wanted to patch machines when I was a sysadmin but I didn’t have fast enough storage. But if you do this, you’re liable to end up with duplicate machines in your reports. One unpatched, and the other one (hopefully) patched. Here’s how to rebuild machines without making duplicates in Qualys or Tenable.

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Refurbish a vintage ball mouse

I wanted a mouse for my IBM 5170 and my 386DX-33 systems, but both of them need a serial mouse. I mean old school RS-232 serial, not USB. Finding a serial optical mouse isn’t easy. Plus I wanted something that would look the part. I got an early 90s Microsoft mouse that matches the end of the 286/386 era, and a Logitech C7, but both worked badly. So I had to learn again how to refurbish a vintage ball mouse.

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Led vs lead past tense

Homonyms are terrible things in the English language. One example is led vs lead. Which one is past tense?

If I say “Past Tense Zeppelin” and it means something to you, I just answered your question. If that doesn’t help, I have a story for you to help you remember, and it involves a hard rock band.

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Choose your passwords carefully

Choose your passwords carefully

I participated in a brief discussion on Twitter the other week about being careful how you choose your passwords. Passwords can and will show up in places you don’t intend. When that happens, you don’t want it to cause a problem. Here’s what happened to me once when I didn’t choose a password carefully.

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How you view message headers in Outlook

How you view message headers in Outlook

Viewing message headers is helpful for troubleshooting, and also making sure you’re not getting phished. Microsoft moved things around in recent versions of Outlook, so here’s how to view message headers in Outlook–the current version.

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What happened to Faraday Electronics?

What happened to Faraday Electronics?

Faraday Electronics was, for a brief period of time, a leading maker of integrated chipsets for XT-class PC clones. But if you’re fixing an old XT clone and need a Faraday chip, they can be hard to come by. Knowing what happened to Faraday Electronics can help you in locating spare parts.

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What does the Qualys cloud agent do?

What does the Qualys cloud agent do?

If you work in a corporate environment, there’s a chance you see something called the Qualys Cloud Agent running on your computer. And information about this mysterious agent can be hard to come by? What does the Qualys cloud agent do? How does it work? I’m glad you asked.

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Windows Zip folders slow? The fix.

Windows Zip folders slow? The fix.

The other day my son was working with a Zip file and getting frustrated. He was trying to delete a large number of files from it, and the CPU went to 100% usage and never finished. Here’s how I got him around the problem of high CPU usage with Zip files, or Windows Zip folders being slow.
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