Author: Dave Farquhar

Atari 2600 vs 7800

Dave Farquhar Retro Gaming
Atari 2600 vs 7800

The Atari 2600 and 7800 are directly related. After the Atari 5200 flopped, Atari needed a better successor to take over for the aging 2600. So the Atari 2600 vs 7800 is a natural comparison. Let’s look at the improvements the 7800 had over its predecessor, and why it wasn’t able to match the 2600’s runaway success.

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How long for caulk to dry before painting?

Dave Farquhar DIY
How long for caulk to dry before painting?

How long does it take for caulk to dry before painting? It depends on the formulation of the caulk, so the right answer the last time you did a project may not be the same as this time.

Paintable caulk is ready for paint in about 30 minutes. Other types of caulk take considerably longer, from 24 hours to as much as 10 days.

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Median vs mean vs mode

Dave Farquhar security
Median vs mean vs mode

I do a lot of statistical analysis in my day job. Though my job title is no longer security analyst, I literally analyze computer security issues and make recommendations for a living. You couldn’t study information security when I was in college, because the field barely existed then. My formal training is in journalism. But my journalism degree means I have more formal training in statistics than most people I know. So let’s look at median vs mean vs mode, and when to use each of them.

Median, mean, and mode are three different approaches to trying to answer the same question. Out of all the numbers you collected, what is typical?

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Ryobi battery won’t charge? Two possible fixes

Dave Farquhar DIY
Ryobi battery won’t charge? Two possible fixes

I hate when this happens. I’m at the end of a project, I take the battery out of whatever Ryobi tool I was using, put it on the charger, and get that infernal flashing red light. Why are Ryobi batteries so bad? Here’s what to do when your Ryobi battery won’t charge.

Sometimes your Ryobi battery won’t charge just because it’s too hot. Other times it’s because it’s discharged too far, in which case, you may be able to jumpstart it to bring it back to life.

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How to backup a WordPress site

Dave Farquhar Wordpress
How to backup a WordPress site

It’s a good idea to periodically back up your WordPress site. That way, if something unexpected happens, you can recover. You should also back it up prior to major upgrades. Here’s how to backup a WordPress site, quickly and easily, at little to no cost.

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Commodore 1571 disk drive

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing

The Commodore 1571 was Commodore’s successor to the notorious 1541 disk drive. It addressed many of the shortcomings of the 1541, partly because Commodore had more time to get it right this time. It was the same color and style as the Commodore 128. And they worked as well together as they looked together. It was a high-end drive, but I hesitate to call it Commodore’s top-end 5.25-inch drive. I’d give that distinction to the SFD-1001.

Commodore introduced the 1571 in 1985 at a price of $299 US. It was a double-sided, double density 5.25-inch disk drive that was faster than the 1541 when you used it with the 128, and maintained good backward compatibility with the 1541 when needed.

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Can you paint semi gloss over flat paint?

Dave Farquhar DIY
Can you paint semi gloss over flat paint?

The only thing worse than painting is unplanned repainting. So it’s good to ask questions first. One good question is this: Can you paint semi gloss over flat paint? Let’s explore.

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Limit CPU usage in MariaDB

Dave Farquhar Wordpress
Limit CPU usage in MariaDB

I use an SEO plugin called Yoast. I’m not exactly enamored with it, but I’m also not sure I can switch to something better. One reason I’m not enamored with it is its high CPU usage. I had to fix it from the MariaDB side. Here’s how I figured out how to limit CPU usage in MariaDB.

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Retrobright with sunlight and no chemicals

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Retrobright with sunlight and no chemicals

I heard earlier this year that you can retrobright without chemicals, using only sunlight. I haven’t heard of a lot of people trying it. But I had a yellowed disk drive, and it’s summertime, so I decided to give it a shot.

A few people experimented with retrobright without chemicals in 2019, then the idea kind of faded away. I decided to try it, and found it works surprisingly well.

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Is investment property tax deductible?

Dave Farquhar Landlording
Is investment property tax deductible?

I’m a landlord, so I can vouch that there are certain tax advantages to investment property. But it can be a bit complicated. Here’s one question that isn’t as straightforward as it sounds: Is investment property tax deductible?

You can’t write off the purchase price of your property on next year’s taxes. What you can do is depreciate the costs of the property over a span of 27.5 years, so that’s why I say the question of whether investment property is tax deductible isn’t a simple yes/no question.

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