David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Bad capacitors are the bane of generations of consumer electronics. They plagued early 90s Amigas and Macs, early 2000s PCs, and cheap hardware even today. So why do capacitors fail? And how can you tell when a failed capacitor is a problem?
Capacitors fail when the electrolyte dries out, or when the gas inside them builds up to a point that it opens a safety valve and the electrolyte leaks out. A good capacitor takes decades to dry out, but a cheap capacitor can leak within a few short years.
Combining cells in Excel is something we frequently need to do. And there are multiple ways to do it, depending on what exactly you need to do. One is easier to remember than the others, but let’s step through them.
I find the easiest-to-remember way to combine cells is to use the & operator with the cells you want to combine, along with any additional text. For example, the formula =A1&” “&B1 will combine the cells A1 and B1 with a space in between them.
Thanks to an embarrassing hack where someone gained access to a Twitter administration tool and used high-profile accounts to tweet out a Bitcoin scam in July 2020, social engineering has a lot of attention. But what is social engineering? How does it work?
There’s no need to complicate social engineering. It’s not something new, it’s just an old-fashioned con job in modern times, sometimes using modern technology.
There comes a time when we have to remove tape from something and don’t want to damage it. It’s not always easy, but it’s possible to remove tape residue from almost anything. Even paper. Here’s how.
Removing tape residue often requires use of several different techniques including heat and chemicals. My favorite is rubber cement thinner, as it will even remove tape adhesive from paper, but different surfaces require different options.
The topic of the dreaded job offer acceptance deadline came up in my circles this week. Unfortunately I expect these to become more common in the near future. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a red flag. Let’s look at why businesses put deadlines on offers, and what they reveal in doing so.
Job offer acceptance deadlines are a power move, intended to force an individual’s hand. But they are also a sign that the company is insecure.
Western Digital phased out its HGST brand, but you may still encounter those drives from time to time. So is HGST a good brand? More importantly, are HGST drives reliable? And can you still buy an HGST drive today?
While “Brand X by Brand Y” type brands often indicate something lower-tier, that’s not really the case with HGST. Use of a separate brand was a legal requirement, and there never was anything second-rate about HGST.
Let’s do something taboo today and talk about money. CISSP money. What exactly is realistic when it comes to CISSP salary expectations?
The average CISSP salary is somewhere around $120,000. That’s average, and CISSP covers a broad range of jobs, but keep that number in mind if someone offers you $54,000. I’ve seen $54,000 cited as the low end and that’s, frankly, ridiculously low.
I’ve seen numerous people, including vintage computer enthusiasts on Youtube, find burn marks on a Commodore 64 and get confused by them. What causes these burn marks, and why are they more prevalent on Commodore computers than Apple or IBM? The answer is simple and it’s not that Commodore owners smoked a lot more than owners of other makes.
Someone asked me last week what advice I have for new bloggers. In theory I have a lot, but let me focus most on content. Because without content, you don’t have a blog. Then we’ll touch on other subjects like SEO and monetization. But mostly, let’s talk content.
In St. Louis there isn’t a wrong side of the tracks so much as there’s a wrong side of Delmar. Delmar is an east-west drag in north-central St. Louis that separates the haves and have-nots, very visibly. The protests in St. Louis in 2020 brought this out very visibly, if unintentionally.