Blade Archives - The Silicon Underground

Strip insulation from thin wires

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 11:00:39 +0000

A longtime reader asked last week how to strip insulation from thin wires–really thin wires. That’s a great question. I used to use wire wrap wire to build my own computer circuits, and garden-variety wire strippers don’t do the job.

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How to fix a garbage disposal

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 11:00:20 +0000

If your garbage disposal quit suddenly, don’t fret. We’ve all been there. There are three common ways to fix a garbage disposal and none of them require any special tools. Reset it You should always try the simplest fix first.

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Oil for under your mower deck

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:00:00 +0000

Someone asked me to recommend oil for under your mower deck. If you’re not familiar with this trick, it’s a good idea to oil the underside of your lawnmower deck to keep grass from sticking to it. This helps keep

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Wiring an old house for Ethernet

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 11:00:59 +0000

Wiring an old house for Ethernet can be challenging but offers real benefits. Wired Ethernet is faster and more reliable than wireless, so devices that have a wired connection can take advantage of it. Having wired connections also allows you

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How to winterize a lawn mower

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 11:00:53 +0000

It’s very easy to winterize a lawn mower and I definitely recommend doing it–nothing gums up a mower like sitting in a garage for five months with a full gas tank. Taking fifteen minutes out of your day sometime in November can

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Bash is worse than heartbleed! Oh noes!

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:00:35 +0000

A really bad remote code execution bug surfaced yesterday, in Bash–the GNU replacement for the Unix shell. If you have a webserver running, or possibly just SSH, it can be used to execute arbitrary code. It affects anything Unixy–Linux, BSD, Mac

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Scratchbuilding, Marx-style: Finishing the roof

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 11:00:55 +0000

This is a continuation of something I wrote well over a year ago detailing how I build Marx-style boxcars out of simple materials. Train season is starting up again soon, so it’s about time I finished this story. Once the box

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How to open a D-Link GDS-2205 5-port gigabit switch

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 11:00:33 +0000

I have a D-Link GDS-2205 switch that I picked up cheaply. It turned out it was cheap because it didn’t work. But I thought I’d try to open it and look for bulging capacitors, since that’s a common problem with

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Analysis: Samsung “green” memory

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:13:09 +0000

I was at Micro Center today, picking up CD jewel cases and USB flash memory and a cheap USB game pad. And to buy a little extra time–I had one son with me and the other was home napping–I wandered

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How to lower your train accessories into your table

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 13:58:33 +0000

One of the first articles I remember reading in a train magazine (I don’t remember if it was Classic Toy Trains or a competing rag) was titled “Put your accessories in pockets.” Basically, it advocated cutting holes in your table,

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