David L. Farquhar, computer security professional, train hobbyist, and landlord
A common question is whether transformers for vintage American Flyer, Lionel, and Marx are interchangeable, and what to do if a transformer won’t work.
The simple answer is, yes, a train from one of those makes will run on a transformer from any of the others. They all ran on 0-24 volts AC.
There are two caveats. Read more
I guess it’s not exactly obvious, to someone looking at a Commodore 64 or 128, how a modem plugs in. Commodore modems plugged into the port on the far right hand side, looking from the back. If the port is labeled at all, it will be labeled “User port.” Although it had other uses, that port was used for modems far more than for any other purpose.
They used the modems to call a BBS, and what they did on the BBS wasn’t always legal. But that’s another story.
A frequent complaint I see about the Plasticville buildings that people have been using with Lionel and American Flyer trains for more than a half century is that they don’t stay together well. This especially seems to be a problem with the modern reissues. Maybe the old molds are starting to wear out after all this time. Gluing Plasticville is an option. But here’s how to make Plasticville stay together without glue.
There is a cheap, easy, and non-permanent solution. Put a dab of Tacky Wax the size of a small pea on each corner. Usually one on the top and bottom where two pieces meet is sufficient. You can also use a couple of dabs on the bottoms of the walls to hold the building in place on non-carpeted surfaces. And when you want it gone, just roll it off with a finger when you disassemble the building. That means it won’t harm the value if you use it on collectible vintage Plasticville pieces.
Even though it’s non-permanent, it’s resilient. If you take your buildings apart at the end of the Christmas season, you can leave the wax on the pieces and it will work again next year. You may just have to tweak the placement of the wax a bit.
Tacky Wax also works well for holding figures in place. I’ve never had a passing train knock over a figure held down with it.
A 1 oz container goes a long way. I bought a single container and after I finished tacking down everything that isn’t supposed to move on my 8×8 layout, I still had some left over. The figures held strong for a couple of years. When the occasional figure finally does get jostled enough to fall over, I can just put it back. Usually I don’t even have to add more wax, and it will stay put for another couple of years.
I hope you found this helpful. If you like Plasticville, maybe these tips for cleaning it will help you too.
I’ve seen and heard a growing concern over the phenomenon of “Leavers”–young adults who leave Christianity. This month, even Christianity Today is talking about it. That’s not really anything new. Growing up, I heard more times than I could count in confirmation class and theology class that some of us would walk away once we graduated. What’s new is the percentage of those who are leaving, and how few ever come back.
Reasons vary. Sometimes it’s Christian beliefs getting in the way of how we want to live. Sometimes it’s the church hurting us. Sometimes it’s a combination of both. By all rights, I should have been one who left and never came back. The reason is in the article, but I think it’s glossed over. Read more
Several people I know have started blogs lately. Conversations with them have reminded me of a few things. I’m far from an A-list blogger, and was never anything more than an E- or F-list guy. At my peak, I got about 2,000 page views per day, but I’m a ways from that now. All I can say now is that I’ve been doing it 11 years. Some people have been blogging longer than me, but not a lot.
Oddly enough, 11 things about blogging came to mind. One for each year?
PC Magazine’s editor in chief wrote a long column late last week talking about his weird computer problems and a Quixotic quest to fix them. Among other things, his antivirus wasn’t working, and Windows wanted to be activated and wouldn’t let him. He thought he had a virus, but all his scans came up clean.
It turned out his computer thought it was 2013. The date and time were right, but the computer was trying to live three years in the future. Read more
Sometimes, Google Chrome uses too much disk space. There’s an easy explanation for it, and there’s also an easy fix to reduce Chrome’s disk usage. Here’s how.
When Chrome updates itself, it doesn’t always delete the previous version(s). If you have a 3 TB HDD, that doesn’t matter much, but if you have an SSD, it sure does. Especially if you have a 120 GB or smaller drive, which many inexpensive systems do.
Read more
Let’s talk about wiring tricks for Lionel Fastrack. Specifically, let’s talk about making your own Fastrack terminal sections instead of buying them.
It’s a good idea to run wires to your track every so often. The rules vary. I’ve heard every 3 track joints, starting over after each switch. I’ve also heard every 3-4 feet. Regardless of who you believe, the single drop you’re probably using is inadequate. Adding extra drops will cause your train’s speed to remain a lot more smooth and constant.
Fastrack terminal sections–the sections that come with wires attached from the factory–are expensive. But any section has the terminals on the underside of the track to add your own wires; you just need the connector. Read more
AC adapters inevitably break or get lost. That means you have to replace them to get your devices working again. But a lot of people don’t know how to do that safely. Here’s what you need to know when you need to substitute AC adapters.
This is important. Getting it wrong can damage your equipment, the adapter, or both. The damage can be immediate, or it can appear over time.
The specifications for your AC adapter (also not affectionately known as wall warts or power bricks) should be printed on the old one, and hopefully on the device too. If you lost the adapter and the specs aren’t on the device, try a web search on “ac adapter specifications” and the name of the product.
It used to be you could take the device to Radio Shack, and $25 and five minutes later you had a good replacement. Today you might try Batteries Plus for a similar experience. But if you’re willing to do the legwork yourself, often you can find a close-enough match for closer to $10.
So, with all that said, here are the handful of things you need to know when you’re shopping for an AC adapter. The specifications don’t have to match exactly, but you have to know when you can cheat and when you can’t. Read more
Sometimes your antivirus will tell you that you have host hijacks or host file hijacks, but not elaborate on how to fix them. Some people charge way too much to fix them. Here’s how to fix host hijacks or host file hijacks for free.
A former classmate’s computer suddenly stopped letting him get to search engines. Aside from that, his computer appeared to be normal.
Fortunately he had some antivirus and antispyware software installed, so he was able to run it and get a relatively clean bill of health, but he still couldn’t use Google or Bing or Yahoo.
One of the pieces of software he ran mentioned a host hijack or hosts file hijack, but didn’t offer to clean it up without ponying up some serious bucks.
That was enough to tell me how to clean it up though. You don’t have to buy anything. Read more