David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Cheap PCs from the 90s and late 1980s often had a digital display that indicated the CPU speed. They were kitschy, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen a brand-name PC with one, but many cheap cases made overseas had them. That meant the computers that came from the little clone shop down the street probably had them.
In late 2019, a new brand of tool showed up in Wal-Mart stores called Hart. Hart tools are cheaper than most of the big name brands, but more expensive than Wal-Mart’s Hyper Tough house brand. But is Hart a good brand? Who makes Hart tools? Let’s dig in.
The company who makes Hart tools is Techtronic Industries (TTI), an OEM for many other brands, including Craftsman and Ryobi. Post-2019 Hart tools target consumers, trying to compete with Black and Decker on price and quality.
Atari was on top of the world in 1982, so much so that the 1982 sci-fi movie Blade Runner featured it as a dominant company in 2019. But it fell hard and fast, and several times. Here’s why Atari failed and didn’t maintain world dominance for decades like we once expected.
Atari’s failure happened on two fronts, the computer market and the game console market. Atari was an early pioneer in both, but its upstart competitors ultimately understood both markets better. But in all fairness, not all of the companies that understood the market better survived either.
While investing in real estate is a common path to wealth, is buying a house an investment? Here’s what you have to consider. It’s not a simple yes or no answer.
By default, buying a house is not an investment, at least not without explicitly planning to make it one. That doesn’t necessarily mean buying a house is a bad idea, however.
For the last couple of years, in early November, retailers started carrying the North Pole Express Christmas train set, an inexpensive battery-operated train set. But there are two distinct, and very different North Pole Express sets. Here’s what you need to know.
The North Pole Express sets are made by Scientific Toys/Eztec, though the branding may or may not appear anywhere on the box. The trains are made mostly of plastic and operate on batteries, and sell at price points of $10 and $50.
The difference between SDHC and SDXC can be confusing. It would be nice if we could just buy whichever one we thought we needed, but there are differences between the two and they aren’t fully compatible or interchangeable with one another. Here’s how to know which to buy, and what other important things you may need to look for.
The difference between SDHC and SDXC is capacity. SDHC tops out at 32 GB, but ExFAT, the technology that lets SDXC go beyond 32 GB, isn’t compatible with all devices or operating systems, so you need to check compatibility before you buy.
If you run across a broken wire in the midst of a project, don’t fret. Depending on what materials and how much space you have to work with, you have several options. Here’s how to fix a broken wire.
The key to fixing a broken wire is to restore the connection, which means splicing the wire back together mechanically and electrically and insulating the joint. You can use connectors if you have room, or solder the wire if space is tight.
Sometimes you need to know the IP address of your Roku, especially if you have a complex network at home. It’s buried a bit in the user interface, but you can find it. Here’s how to find the Roku IP address.
There are several reasons to want to find the IP address. Maybe there’s a strange device on your network and you want to know if it’s your Roku. Maybe you want to set up QoS for some reason.
Setting up a Nintendo 64 wasn’t supposed to be hard, but it can get tricky if you can’t find all of the cables. Cables from some other Nintendo consoles will work, but not always. Plus, TV sets have changed a lot since the 1990s, so an HDTV won’t have all the same options as an older TV, which makes it much more difficult. So here’s how to hook up a Nintendo 64 to a modern TV, even a smart TV, and how to troubleshoot the No Signal indicator if you get one.
Cables exist to hook up your Nintendo 64 over composite video or S-Video like a VCR, or over HDMI for TVs that lack those options. If you hooked yours up and are getting a No Signal indicator on your TV, there are three possible fixes.
Lionel Fastrack is certainly popular, but tubular track retains a cult following even as others love to hate it. Let’s take a look at Lionel tubular track vs Fastrack.
Lionel tubular track was the standard on Lionel layouts for nearly a century until Lionel introduced Fastrack, a track system with integrated plastic roadbed and a wider radius. Both track systems have their uses, though Fastrack has proven immensely popular.