Here’s some stuff I’ve found in recent weeks that I never got around to posting, so I’ll just round it all up briefly. Read more
The world’s fastest budget PC
So, a relative’s PC was getting a bit aged, and runs Windows XP, barely, so I talked them into an upgrade. I noticed that Micro Center had HP/Compaq DC5700s for $99. They were standard issue office PCs a few years ago, and there are a lot of them in the refurb channel. We went and got one over the weekend.
“What are you going to do with that?” the sales rep asked. “We only use them as cash registers.”
“Word processing,” I said.
“You sure you want to run Windows 7 on an 8-year-old PC?”
“I wrote the book on running Windows on older PCs. Literally. It’ll be fine.”
I hate calling rank like that, but sometimes it’s what you have to do.
And really, for $99, it’s awfully good. Web browsing is plenty fast, Libre Office runs fine on it, and think about it. Windows 7 retails for $100-$109. So it’s like getting the hardware for free. Or Windows for free, however you want to look at it.
More about Pfsense, the alternative to the crappy consumer router
I spent some time over the weekend playing with Pfsense, and I can’t say much about it other than it does what it says. I didn’t throw a ton of hardware at it–the best motherboard I have laying around is a late P4-era Celeron board, and the best network card I could find was, believe it or not, an ancient Netgear 10/100 card with the late, lamented DEC Tulip chipset on it. Great card for its time, but, yeah, nice 100-megabit throughput, hipster.
If you actually configure your routers rather than just plugging them in, you can do this. Plug in a couple of network cards, plug in a hard drive that you don’t mind getting overwritten, download Pfsense, write the image file to a USB stick, boot off the USB stick, and follow the prompts. Then, to add wireless, plug in a well-supported card like a TP-Link and follow the howto. Read more
How I freshened the paint on a Lionel RW transformer
I have a Lionel RW transformer that I would like to put on Christmas tree duty next year. I had a KW on that duty last year, which is a nice transformer, but it’s overkill, and my sons find it easier to operate the whistle with a button like the RW has than with the KW’s handle.
I repaired the RW last year, but I didn’t do anything about the paint. The original paint wasn’t in too bad of shape, but it had some scratches and dings in it, as you would expect a well-loved 60-year-old toy to have. But since the paint wasn’t perfect, I could repaint it without offending anyone, which is what I wanted to do, seeing as the original paint dated to before 1978, and therefore might contain lead.
The job didn’t take long. I didn’t do a full disassembly, and I didn’t do anything resembling a professional restoration. My goal was to make the transformer presentable and safe, and I think I succeeded at that. Read more
Consumer routers are the security vulnerability of the year, so far
Today I found an article in PC World that gives a somber assessment of the state of consumer routers, like the device that probably sits between you and the Internet.
I’m glad this is getting attention. There’s a lot more to it than what’s in the PC World article, but I’ve droned enough about what’s bad about consumer routers. It’s bad now, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Kudos to PC World for providing a bit of an action plan.
What if you want to go beyond what PC World is talking about? I’m glad both of you asked. Read more
How to downgrade a Log Logic universal collector
If you’ve ever upgraded a LogLogic universal collector and had it fail to work, it’s very disconcerting to see the error message when you try to reinstall the previous version: Downgrades aren’t supported. But there is a solution if you need to downgrade a Log Logic universal collector. Read more
Why it’s a good idea to schedule your router to reboot
Many routers, notably Belkins, have a feature in them to schedule an automatic reboot periodically, usually once a week. Frequently this “feature” is there as a workaround, because something about the router’s software gets unreliable if it’s been running longer than a week. So it’s a kludge, but it keeps the thing working without a lot of effort, so the feature is there.
The respectably rock-solid DD-WRT also has the ability to schedule a reboot built in. I don’t know if it’s there to make life easier for developers, or if it’s there to deal with second-rate hardware, or if there was a time when it was necessary and they just never took the feature back out. Regardless, it’s there, though many DD-WRT stalwarts brag about never needing it because their router’s uptime is more than six years.
It’s fun to get into uptime contests, but it’s poor security. If you have a router, it’s a good idea to be rebooting it every so often, so you might as well turn on that feature, even if it costs you some pride. Read more
What am I giving up for Lent?
A longtime reader noted that many years ago, I wrote about giving up something for Lent. He expressed interest in the practice, and asked what I’m giving up this time around.
To be honest, I haven’t given up anything specific for Lent for a very long time. I’m cognizant of the season, and I’m still a practicing Christian, but I have two minds about giving up something for Lent. It serves as a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice, yes. But the tradition of using up everything you’re giving up on the Tuesday before has become rather corrupted, especially in St. Louis. Basically it’s turned into an excuse for people who have no interest in observing Lent to throw a really wild, sometimes destructive, four-day party. That, to me, is unfortunate.
I guess the other reason I don’t give up anything specific for Lent is because I gave up something for all time. Read more
Farquhar’s security New Year’s resolutions
As I mentioned in passing last week, I had a job interview at the end of the week. There was one question, near the end of the interview, that’s a fairly common question, but I wanted to record my answer to that question because I think it’s important.
The question: What do I see my next role being?
Fair question. I said I didn’t know for sure, but I knew what I have to do to find out. Read more
The side-smoking Marx 666 locomotive
One of the best steam locomotives Marx ever made was its unfortunately-named 666. I have heard, but have no way of verifying, that Marx named it that because the locomotive “smoked like the devil.” And, compared to its contemporary offerings from Lionel and American Flyer, it definitely smoked better than anything Lionel had, and at least as well as anything American Flyer had, while costing a lot less than either.
Marx also produced the 1666, a similar-looking plastic locomotive, that smoked from the sides and the top. Other than that, it’s less desirable than the 666. It’s plastic so it has that disadvantage right away–diecast metal offers a bit more presence, and since metal weighs more, it has more traction, and thus, more pulling power.
The ultimate 2-4-2 Marx locomotive would be a side-smoking 666, and it’s right there in the Greenberg guide, on page 28, valued at a $20 premium over the standard top-smoking configuration. But there’s a problem, at least from a collector’s standpoint. It never came that way from the factory. Read more