How to remove wire insulation without cutting wire

Dave Farquhar DIY
How to remove wire insulation without cutting wire

It’s hard to strip the insulation off wire without cutting or nicking the copper beneath.It’s frustrating when you cut through the wire, but nicking the wire is bad too. The danger when you do that is you weaken the wire. And then the end may snap off someday, causing a bigger problem. So here’s how to remove wire insulation without cutting the wire.

If you consistently cut through the wire, check your tool. Some wire strippers work with all types of wire, and some work with just one. If you have the kind for one type of wire, get the other one too, and learn to recognize which is which.

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O gauge curved track dimensions

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
O gauge curved track dimensions

When it comes to O gauge trains, I don’t know if there’s a more confusing topic than track dimensions. Standards, schmandards. Let’s see what I can do to de-mystify O gauge curved track dimensions.

O gauge track comes in some common dimensions, the most common being 31, 36, 42, 54, 72, and 96 inch diameters. The problem is not every track system has each diameter, and the measurements tend to be nominal, kind of like lumber.

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A Linux sudo bug

Dave Farquhar security

I had a busy day at work today, writing for my current employer about something my previous employer discovered. Qualys discovered a buffer overflow condition in sudo that, well, basically makes all your users root. I joked with one of my coworkers that Qualys could have used this to solve all its permissions problems when scanning Linux and Unix instead of disclosing this, but they did the right thing.

Most any Linux distro released between 2011 and 2020 has this flaw. So, run yum update or apt-get update to clean up those old sudos. Because we all know giving all your users root isn’t a good idea.

How often should you replace thermal paste?

Dave Farquhar Hardware
How often should you replace thermal paste?

We usually only think about thermal paste during new system builds. But you may not know that thermal paste dries out over time and needs to be replaced. So how often should you replace thermal paste? And why do you need to?

How long thermal paste lasts depends on how hard you use your computer. It’s best to replace it every 3-5 years or so, if you keep your system that long, but there are other times it’s a good idea to replace it too.

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Convert AVI to WMV for free. No fooling.

Dave Farquhar Windows

I see tons of guides out there claiming to tell you how to convert AVI to WMV for free. Then they give you instructions that don’t work before pitching you some $80 tool to do it. You can’t convert AVI to WMV with VLC, but you can do it with another free tool called FFMPEG. Here’s how.

The most reliable free way to convert AVI files to WMV for free is using a command line tool called FFMPEG. It’s not as easy as having a GUI, but it works. WMV isn’t the ideal video file format, but there are times you need it.

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O27 scale

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
O27 scale

O27 scale is something of a misnomer. If you’re looking for scale fidelity, you won’t find a lot of it in O27, regardless of manufacturer. But there are still some general guidelines you can follow.

O27 is the designation for entry level O gauge trains that are smaller and less expensive, though capable of running on the same track. But their scale can be confusing, even for experienced hobbyists.

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