David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Marx train set 9640 was an electric train set Marx that Sears sold in 1952. You may also hear collectors refer to it as Happi-Time train set 9640, because that’s what Marx printed on the box. It featured Marx’s best locomotive pulling 3/16 scale metal cars. This set marked the farewell for that locomotive, as Marx bundled the set to use up remaining discontinued inventory, to clear the way for its 1953 product refresh.
For about 20 years, Adaptec was synonymous with SCSI controllers for PCs. Their controllers were frequently imitated, and its competitors undercut them in price. But the reliability, performance, and compatibility of Adaptec products was tough to beat. So if you wanted the very best, you bought Adaptec. In this blog post, I’ll uncover what happened to Adaptec. Hint: they didn’t go out of business.
A mechanical keyboard will always be louder than a membrane keyboard because of their physical characteristics. A membrane keyboard involves a plastic tray with some keyboard sliders striking a rubber membrane to make contact with a circuit board. Mechanical keyboards almost always have a metal plate that holds mechanical switches with springs in them, so even a linear switch that doesn’t click still makes a tapping noise when it bottoms out, and when bottoming out, it can make that metal plate vibrate and make a pinging noise. Here’s how I reduced the pinginess of my mechanical keyboard.
The Marx 4338 was a low end train set that was the result of a long time collaboration between two companies who were nearing the end of the line. It was an inexpensive electric train set exclusive to W.T. Grant, which was still the third fastest growing retailer in the United States at the time.
Defense in depth is a common phrase you hear in information security. It’s also frequently misunderstood. In this blog post, I’ll provide links to a couple of examples of defense in depth, and provide some insights into the mindset. Because more than anything else, defense in depth is a mindset that takes more than seeing examples to grasp.
Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States. But not all Black Friday deals are what they first appear to be. That’s true in the case of tools. But if you know what you’re getting, they can still be fine for what they are. It’s not necessarily a case of whether Black Friday tools are any good, but rather, if they are suitable for your intended use case.
For Black Friday 2023, Home Depot offered a Ryobi combo kit for $79. It included a drill, a saw, and a work light. They billed it as a $300 value. I bought one so you don’t necessarily have to. In this blog post, I’ll tell you whether it’s worth considering.
I’ve been evaluating Zoho Manage Engine Patch Manager, and so far I like what I see. It is a capable patch deployment tool that supports Windows, Linux, and Macintosh, and crucially, it will deploy patches for third party applications, including open source applications, both popular and obscure.
Modern versions of Windows collect a huge amount of telemetry on you. But running older versions of Windows puts you at greater security risk, and running another OS may or may not always be feasible. So for those instances, it’s possible to use a hosts file to stop Windows from spying on you.
The Jetway 386WB was an inexpensive clone motherboard with an Opti chipset available in the 1989 /1990 time frame.
I’m familiar with the Jetway board because I own one, but many manufacturers in Taiwan produced boards based on the same Opti reference design. Essentially, Opti did the engineering work, and the Taiwan-based manufacturers handled production. The result was an unassuming board that provided good value for money.