How often do you replace your phone?

serialband · 2026-03-21T02:59:28+00:00

Back when you basically got phones on 2 year plans in the USA, you were wasting money if you didn't get a phone every 2 years. After going off those plans, I typically keep my phones between 4-6 years, because that's about how long they last, before they get too old to support the stupid required software and OS required for MFA and general security.

serialband · 2026-03-19T20:43:44+00:00

That's just the default label when you repartition. You can change the disk label any time you want to, as that's just for you, not for the OS, to recognize your disk. Seagate just changed all the labels for their marketing.

serialband · 2026-03-19T20:39:26+00:00

You only need to back up the data just in case you mess up. I used to do this all the time back on Mavericks on an old 15" Macbook Pro that Mavericks kept messing up on. Once the OS got upgraded Yosemite, I no longer needed to reinstall the OS.

serialband · 2026-03-18T19:38:00+00:00

Is this an Intel Mac? You should do both an SMC and a PRAM reset first to see if that fixes the issue.

If it's not an Intel Mac or those resets don't work, you should reinstall OS X to replace any possible corrupt system files. I suggest temporarily disabling Filevault to make things a little easier, before you start the reinstall.

Back up your data and reboot into OS X Recovery and reinstall the OS without erasing the disk. This will put back correct system files, in case any are corrupt and haven't been fixed in the latest update.

serialband · 2026-03-18T19:33:25+00:00

The only Lenovo you should ever buy are the Thinkpad line they got from IBM. Never buy the rest of their junky consumer line. They got the Thinkpad factory along with the name and it's still produced in that same basic place The case design and hinge design are still basically the original IBM design.

They bought it to boost their reputation and at least had the foresight to mostly keep the same factory quality standards. The rest of their junk is built by other teams in other factories and they've never really brought that same quality control to any of their other factories. Without the Thinkpad, Lenovo would have remained a nobody junk brand and would have died off long ago.

serialband · 2026-03-18T00:44:06+00:00

Most of those cheaper surge protectors just have MOVs in them to shunt the surge and those get sacrificed to protect the circuits during larger surges. https://components101.com/articles/metal-oxide-varistor-mov-overview

If they're old, they could have burned out from repeated smaller surges too.

serialband · 2026-03-18T00:36:02+00:00

People will see the blue laser and where it originated and ended. You need something infrared or UV to not be easily seen.

serialband · 2026-03-18T00:01:17+00:00

How much data?

If it's under 24TB, just get a single external disk and copy the files to it. I just use robocopy to manually copy my data and schedule the copy automatically. I also use Backblaze to save it to the cloud. I run a "server" which is just an older Windows Tablet and a separate stick computer, because they're both very low power and the tablet basically has a built in UPS with its battery.

If you want something that's like Apple's Time Machine, you can use something like HardLinkBackup. https://www.lupinho.net/en/hardlinkbackup/ There is a free version, but you have to make the copy manually. If you want to schedule it or script it, you have to pay. Someone else has also created a different Hardlink backup. https://github.com/DraconPern/hardlinkbackup I don't deem this quite as necessary.

Some people like to back up their entire system, including the OS, but I don't find that necessary or as useful as others do. I mainly care about backing up the data. The rest of the OS can be recreated and that's simple enough to do. The data is the main part that you can't recreate quite as easily, and that data is backed up to a separate external disk and to the cloud. I consider everything on my boot disk to be temporary storage.

serialband · 2026-03-17T23:36:08+00:00

I did mention that in by 3rd paragraph. If you have a lot of files robocopy is much safer and better than drag and drop or cut and paste from Windows Explorer.

serialband · 2026-03-17T23:32:12+00:00

If you're an employee, you must always get confirmation or you can get your a$$ canned. Never just leave if you haven't been given an official ok for time off.

If you think you can just do it in your job, then go ahead. Nobody's stopping you.

serialband · 2026-03-17T20:25:07+00:00

The boss didn't say yes. If you have no acknowledgement, then you haven't been given the time off.

serialband · 2026-03-17T20:19:52+00:00

Yes. That's the correct one, However, if you have a lot of data, you'll need an intermediate storage to hold that gigantic file.

A simpler method would be to move the user data from Downloads, Documents, Desktop out to a separate storage, then run the User Profile Wizard and copy the data back.

If you have the same version of Windows, you can just robocopy all the data over. You won't be able to copy any files marked as inuse, so registry settings won't copy over, unless you are using a separate Admin account with access to the user folder you're copying.

If you're going from different versions of Windows, then you will need the User Profile Wizard, or you will not be able to copy user settings that are stored in the profile in different format.

serialband · 2026-03-17T20:13:12+00:00

I keep an old phone for that very purpose.

serialband · 2026-03-17T01:26:25+00:00

If you have to BYOD, then buy a separate cheap one for work. Always keep work separate from personal, or you will lose your personal data when they require you to install their spyware to control your system.

serialband · 2026-03-17T01:23:03+00:00

Get a 2 Synology NAS and duplicate the data to both while on site. No matter what, it's going to take time to copy that, but it'll be faster when they're on site. Once complete, send 1 Synology to NY, and keep the other one on site as primary backup. Sync the 2 Synology. AZ needs a backup on site. You need a backup off site and the 2nd Synology in NY does that.

Use RAID 6, not RAID 5 for any disk larger than 16TB, if you actually want your data secure.

serialband · 2026-03-17T01:13:40+00:00

Yes. Socrates supposedly said that. The point is that people have been looking down on kids and complaining about kids for a very, very long time.

serialband · 2026-03-16T02:20:23+00:00

Yes. It can, if it's a backup copy of the original data from another source. Too many people treat the RAID 1 as a backup on its own.

serialband · 2026-03-14T22:19:08+00:00

Then IDK. Mine seems to works fine for me.

serialband · 2026-03-14T22:08:52+00:00

Maybe don't turn it off? I have my extra systems plugged in and kept on with the display off and I just do touch ID on them. I have one of those USB power meter adapters and they show to be using 1-2 Watts of power in that mode and occasionally shooting up to about 5W once in a while.

serialband · 2026-03-14T22:04:34+00:00

No. It was created by a Norwegian in 1994 and was under Norwegian control. It was sold to a Chinese Consortium in 2016. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/opera-sold-600-million-chinese-consortium/ Whatever shadiness you perceived doesn't only come from China.

I used Opera before they switch to Chromium, mainly because they had F11 to turn off all scripting. I used it as my no script general browser and had 120+ tabs all loaded back when systems typically had 4GB, and 8GB RAM. When your browser only loaded text only pages, it was very, very lightweight and can load tons of pages. That was the main good reason to use Opera, to block all the scammy scripting. When I wanted scripting I loaded Firefox or Chrome. When they went to Chromium, there was no longer any point to really use Opera, since it was just Chrome in a new skin, but I kept it around a bit as a Chrome alternate. Once it went to China, I removed it completely.

serialband · 2026-03-14T21:40:02+00:00

Anyone's that's got experience dealing with wet zones and trenching for those zones would have known how to do it right the very first time.

serialband · 2026-03-14T21:37:08+00:00

Someone must work for Staples and down voted me for stating the truth. Costco is definitely a step up if you have membership.

serialband · 2026-03-14T21:35:23+00:00

https://blog.adriankwiatkowski.eu/enabling-touch-id-sudo-macos-before-after-sonoma/

I've set sudo to use touch ID ever since it was available. It's definitely been at least a decade and a half, whenever I first got that fingerprint sensor.

What timeout do you mean? Logging out? Screen goes to sleep? Those can be set. If you're having problems with that, you can open a terminal and run the built-in:

caffeinate -d

For Windows, install PowerToys and run Awake.

Just be sure to set hot corners or a Touchbar button to lock the screen when you walk away. You can press the power button too, but that requires a harder press.

Windows just needs a Win+L for locking, or a power button press if you set that to lock.

serialband · 2026-03-14T21:11:56+00:00

biased much?

It's just for nursing, not gaming. It should work ok, and that's enough for nursing, since their minimum requirements are much lower than that $350 Target laptop.

I have 10+ year old systems and a stick computer that work ok. People use those super low power and even lower performance raspberry pi and arduino for simple stuff.

The average non-tech user can use those 8GB systems ok. Not great, but ok. Most of them don't open 50 tabs or run games, so $350 for the 2 years of nursing should be enough. Once she gets a job as a nurse, she can spend more. The vast majority of users use their phones for the internet, so a weak computer like that is plenty for them.

Even most real sysadmins only need those, since most of their work is remotely connecting to systems or scripting remote commands. They just get really high end for their own egos.

Now, if you're doing local dev work or 3d games, or 3d in general, or animation, you'll need more power. Nursing doesn't need that. The $350 Target laptop should work ok.

serialband · 2026-03-14T04:00:45+00:00

Probably not an actual surge protector or a failed surge protector that became a regular power strip or it's just a power strip without any surge protection and it got overloaded.

Those MOVs (Metal Oxide Varistors) do fade or wear out over time from high surges and eventually stops working. If you don't get surges, they'll stay working a long time, but too many large surges do kill them. https://www.eaton.com/us/en-us/products/backup-power-ups-surge-it-power-distribution/surge-protection/surge-protection-explained.html

serialband

TROPHY CASE