David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
If you want to upgrade your PC, you need to make sure you have room to plug them in. Many upgrades, including GPUs, plug into PCI Express slots. Here’s how to tell which PCI Express slot you have, so you know your options.
You can identify your PCI Express cards visually (x1 slots are 1 inch long and x16 are 3.5 inches long), or using the command line from within Windows or Linux. The command line is more reliable and helps you identify an x4 or x8 slot with an x16 connector.
When DOS was removed from Windows depends on your perspective. For early adopters of Windows NT, it happened as early as July 1993. But for mainstream Windows use, the final removal of DOS from Windows came with the release of Windows XP.
I’ve written before about checking train transformers for safety. There’s a similar process you can use for power supplies for computers and electronics. Here’s how to check a power supply for safety.
It is important to know how to distinguish between a private vs public IP address. IT professionals and security professionals frequently have to work with them, and it is a very common job interview question, and certification question. Here are the ranges of private IP addresses, and why we need them.
Your motherboard determines how much you can upgrade your PC. It also determines what upgrades will and won’t work in your PC. Here’s how to tell what motherboard you have, possibly without even opening your computer.
You can check which motherboard you have by running a WMI command in Windows, dmidecode in Linux, or looking for visual cues on the motherboard itself.
Hardware stores sell denatured alcohol as a cleaner, a fuel, or a solvent. What does denatured mean? What’s the difference between denatured and other alcohol, such as what you find at a drug store, or the liquor store?
Denatured alcohol is ethanol, sometimes as little as 50 percent by volume, mixed with other chemicals to make it undrinkable. It has an unpleasant smell and taste, and drinking it can cause nausea, blindness, or even death.
I’ll argue with anyone that WHIP is the most fair statistic when it comes to measuring a pitcher’s success. What WHIP measures is how many base runners a pitcher allows in an average inning. It’s a pretty easy way to calculate a pitcher’s effectiveness. What is a good WHIP in baseball, then? In this blog post, I’ll explain how to calculate WHIP and what a good and great WHIP are.
I hear the argument all the time that if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have to worry about privacy. So is data privacy important? I’ll tell you why it is.
There was a very vocal element of society that was very anti-data privacy until 2021. Once the COVID vaccine was released, suddenly they became very concerned about their privacy. I hope that element of society learned some empathy from this. How they felt about their privacy is how the rest of us feel when it comes to large corporations tracking our every move.
I was watching a YouTube video where someone was talking about his new acquisition, and he commented that he thought the operating system might be too new for that PC. So I thought maybe a list of recommended operating systems for vintage PCs might be helpful.
If you shop at Home Depot or Lowe’s, and possibly other home improvement stores, you will hear or see the phrase whitewood lumber. What is whitewood at Home Depot and what does it mean?