David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
If you poke around a bit, you’ll frequently find people mentioning oven cleaner as a cheap and easy way to remove unwanted logos, pinstripes, stickers, or other things from car paint. But does oven cleaner damage car paint? And what can you do to make it safe to use to remove unwanted paint and decals?
The answer is yes it can, and to minimize the damage, work slowly and maintain your patience. Here are some tricks for that.
I never can seem to find O gauge track dimensions and other key information about O and O27 track when I need to find them. So I’m finding them one last time and collecting them here. Maybe someone else can use the information.
Sometimes in the course of making a modification or a repair, you have to remove a rivet or eyelet so you can disassemble it. By far the easiest way is to drill out the rivet. So here’s how to remove rivets with a drill.
How big is a G scale train? It depends, and it also depends on whether you’re asking about the size of the train itself or the track. Let’s tackle both questions.
On30 trains are bigger than HO scale trains, yet they run on the same track. How can that be? It all comes down to scale and gauge. Here’s On30 scale vs HO scale explained.
For years, Sears sold an Atari 2600 clone called the Sears Video Arcade. But the Sears Atari 2600 clone wasn’t exactly a clone in the sense we think of it. Atari made Sears’ video game system for Sears and let Sears put its name on it. Here’s why. Read more
Cheap mechanical keyboards are all the rage these days. People will brag on Youtube or on forums about the cheap (probably tenkeyless) mechanical keyboard they found and how great it is. Read the reviews and most people are thrilled. But there’s always someone complaining that a key quit working. In this blog post, I’ll tell you what I do when a mechanical keyboard key stopped working. I’ve fixed several, and you can too.
Mechanical keyboard keys typically stop working either due to the switch getting dirty or an intermittent electrical problem. Of the two, a dirty switch is more common, and it’s easy to fix.
In vulnerability scanning, there’s a big difference in an authenticated scan vs unauthenticated. Here’s why it matters, and why you should almost always go for an authenticated scan. Using authenticated scans is a vulnerability management best practice.
Lots of people misunderstand this. To quote myself circa 2005: “Let me get this straight. I give you an admin account, and then you tell me you were able to log in?” It’s about logging in and assessing what’s wrong, not telling you we got in. Regardless of the tool you use, authenticated scans let the vulnerability scanner do its job better.
What is a health insurance certificate of creditable coverage, and why does your new insurance plan want one? The certificate of creditable coverage was a way to prevent people from abusing health insurance. Changes to health care laws after the Affordable Care Act made certificates of creditable coverage less common. But here’s how to get one if your new insurer wants one.
If you’re trying to get health insurance in between jobs, you’re more likely to need the certificate.
You may hear the words Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet thrown around a lot, and it can raise some questions. Which one is faster? Which is better? How can one compare Fast Ethernet vs Gigabit Ethernet? Despite the name, Gigabit Ethernet is faster than Fast Ethernet. Here’s why you need to care about the difference.