David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
I’ve been building some dashboards in Splunk to make it easier to compare some things. I needed to find a way to deal with Splunk truncating timecharts inconsistently.
Splunk’s timechart option is useful for baselining. Before you can spot the abnormal, you need to recognize the normal. I sometimes monitor things using the timechart option, but sometimes Splunk will truncate the timecharts seemingly at random, so I’m not necessarily comparing the same timeframes. Read more
If you need an inexpensive DD-WRT compatible router, TP-Link is probably your best choice. But there are some big differences when you compare the TL-WR840n vs the TL-WR841n.
I’ve been running the TL-WR841n for more than two years, so I’m familiar with it. I’ve considered supplementing it with a secondary router, and the TL-WR840n was one I looked at.
Train transformers have one pair of screws for each output, which is generally enough for a simple layout, but once you have more than one accessory or building with lights in it, you’ll find it’s difficult to attach all of the wires to the transformer posts.
You can get more on the cheap by repurposing ground bus bars, intended for circuit breaker panels. Read more
As I’ve written before, Lionel 1033 transformers are well regarded because they’re reasonably high wattage (90 watts), very readily available, relatively inexpensive and pretty dependable. They really only have one design flaw: the circuit breaker. Here’s how I approach Lionel 1033 transformer repair.
The circuit breaker in my 1033 went bad a couple of years ago. I finally got around to replacing it.
After I imaged the disks from a failing Debian server to newer hardware, I got the error message ifdown: Interface eth0 not configured after issuing the command ifdown eth0. There’s not a lot of documentation out there about this so hopefully this writeup will help you if you’re getting this puzzling message.
This should be the same in Ubuntu, for what it’s worth.
I scored a Weller 8200 soldering gun at an estate sale one street over from me for a few dollars. They didn’t know what they had. I got it home and it didn’t work–it wouldn’t heat up–so maybe they knew exactly what they had. Lucky for me, it’s easy to learn how to repair a Weller soldering gun yourself.
Make sure the tip isn’t broken, then loosen the two nuts that hold the tip to the gun, then tighten the two nuts back down tightly. This breaks away oxidation and provides a good mechanical and electrical connection required to conduct heat.
I spent some time exploring HP Compaq 6910p upgrades because used HP Compaq 6910p laptops are dirt cheap these days. I picked one up for $75 as an alternative to a Black Friday cheapie.
If you look for one yourself, either look for one with a valid Windows 7 or Windows 10 license on it, or get one at a deep enough discount to make it worth your while.
Here’s what I did to turn an outmoded laptop from 2008 into something better than what I could have bought on Black Friday.
The Lionel Multi-control 1033 is a 90 watt transformer produced from 1948 to 1956. They are reasonably durable and were popular in their day, which means there are still a lot of them floating around so they tend to be inexpensive. I paid $70 for one about 15 years ago but the price has come way down; today you can get a serviced 1033 for about half that, and an as-is one for $20-$25.
Even someone who has a larger transformer or multiple larger transformers for the layout might be interested in a 1033 for the test bench, as it has all of the functionality someone would need for testing locomotives and whistling tenders.
I’ve been asked a few times now for my recommended DD-WRT settings, or at least my good-enough settings. I think that’s a great idea, so I’ll walk through how I configure a DD-WRT router. Follow these steps and I can almost guarantee you’ll have the most secure network on your block.
For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to assume you are configuring DD-WRT as your primary router.
I’ve been reviewing a lot of old content lately, and noticing that I recommended specific SSDs quite a bit in the past, and unfortunately, that information had a finite lifespan even though the rest of the advice might very well still be good. So I’m consolidating my SSD advice.
At this page, I present 10 SSDs that are selling well right now, with the most relevant stats (price, capacity, links, and worst-case performance) and anything else I might want to add about the particular drive. As the market changes, I’ll update the page, and post an update here in the blog.
What can you expect? Well, Samsung has some high-performance stuff out there right now; Sandisk and Kingston are fighting a battle for budget and upgrade dollars, and Crucial is delivering a lot of drives in between Sandisk and Samsung in both price and performance.
Even though SSDs don’t get the kind of attention they used to get, today’s drives perform better (even if ever so slightly better) than yesterday’s while delivering better value, and those are both good things.
Once again, here’s the link to this month’s roundup.