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Does the ground go up or down on an outlet?

Dave Farquhar DIY January 18, 2023April 19, 2023

Why are some electrical outlets upside down? The direction of an electrical outlet doesn’t matter to the electrons. Electricity will flow regardless of the way you mount the outlet on the wall, whether it looks upside down, right side up, or sideways. So whether the ground prong should be up or down is simply a matter of practicality.

Legally, nothing says which side of an outlet is up. But there is a practical safety argument for the ground going on top on an electrical outlet, and sometimes the direction of the outlet means a light switch controls it.

Upgrade a Debian web server to the next version

Dave Farquhar Linux January 17, 2023January 16, 2023

I’ve tended to shy away from upgrading Debian web servers in place, and I’m not sure why. Here’s how to upgrade to a newer distribution safely. I’m running the LAMP stack. The process will differ slightly with Nginx. My experience is all with Apache.

It takes around 5 minutes to upgrade a Debian LAMP server from an older version to the current version. Plan on running about eight commands; five to upgrade and three to enable the new PHP version.

Your New Year’s resolutions are shot. Now what?

Dave Farquhar Careers January 16, 2023January 25, 2025

It’s common at the start of a new year to resolve to make some changes or improvements or otherwise set some goals. And the majority of those resolutions last until sometime around January 12th. Let’s talk about why so many goals fail and what you can do about them.

Lionel TT-100 and TS-162 installation instructions

Dave Farquhar Toy trains January 12, 2023October 15, 2022

During the post-war era, Lionel supplied its dealers with adapters that allowed pre-war box couplers to work with the post-war knuckle couplers.

Lionel themselves hasn’t made these adapters for decades, but reproduction parts dealers make reasonable copies of them that we can still purchase and use today.

Gotek troubleshooting

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing January 11, 2023December 27, 2022

Gotek flashfloppy drive emulators are a popular upgrade for retro computer systems, allowing you to replace finicky and expensive floppy drives and media with flash media. The flashfloppy firmware makes the drives much more capable, allowing them to work in a wider variety of machines, and also making it easier to copy image files from a modern PC directly onto the USB stick. Usually the upgrade goes very smoothly. But sometimes the drive doesn’t work. So let’s talk Gotek troubleshooting.

The first rule of Gotek troubleshooting is cabling. When the drive doesn’t work as expected, there’s a good chance it’s a cabling issue.

Writeback vs writethrough cache

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing January 10, 2023March 3, 2025

I was fixing a PC with a fairly late 486DX2-66 motherboard in it. In checking it out, I found an interesting setting in its BIOS: I can use its L2 cache as either writeback or writethrough. But what’s the difference? What are the pros and cons of writeback vs writethrough cache?

Writeback is faster but was harder to implement than writethrough, so not all systems support it. If it’s available and your software doesn’t malfunction, use write-back.

Remembering Computer Shopper

Dave Farquhar Hardware January 9, 2023January 8, 2023

Computer Shopper was a monthly computer magazine, but it was more than that in some regards. Like the name suggests, it changed the way a certain demographic but computer. As hard as may seem to believe today, the main reason people bought it was for the advertising. The articles were good, but nobody bought it for the articles.

Lionel 6457 caboose

Dave Farquhar Toy trains January 5, 2023October 9, 2022

The Lionel 6457 caboose is a common and nearly iconic postwar Lionel car. It, or one of its close relatives, is probably the caboose you remember if you are into postwar-era Lionel.

Allsop Metal Art stand #33306 review

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing January 4, 2023March 24, 2023

The Allsop metal art large display stand #33306 is a useful ergonomic accessory for modern computers, especially laptops. But it also makes an excellent monitor riser or platform for using and displaying vintage and retro computers. Here’s a review with some tips.

Identify a cable with a multimeter

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing January 3, 2023December 17, 2022

I spotted a useful cable at a used computer store recently. I wasn’t 100% certain what it was, but I had the ability to rewire it into what I needed if it turned out I was wrong. Here’s how I went about identifying the cable with my multimeter.