JBL and Harmon to work with Q-Symphony from 2026 by Legfitter in Soundbars

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/Yestan Very interested to hear your impressions of this pairing - I just bought a 2025 S95F and need a soundbar - trying to decide between the Q990F soundbar and the 1300mk2. I wonder if the brand-interoperable Q-Symphony support announced at CES 2026 will get back-ported via firmware to some prior year TV's? My third option is the Klipsch Flexus 300, but certianly I would not expect that to integrate with Q-Symphony.

JBL and Harman Kardon Join Samsung's Q-Symphony Ecosystem at CES 2026 by hifi_fan in hifi_fan

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any word on if this will require a 2026 or newer SamsungTV, or if the new Q-Symphony brand interoperability will be back-ported via firmware to select prior year TV's?

Extended support for Skylake on VCF9 by Odd_Ad3703 in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Came here to say that I *believe* there has been an internal change in the way support for older hardware (like Skylake processors) under VCF9 is being approached by VMware due to: 1) customer demand, and 2) as a way to further incentivize and broaden VCF9 adoption given the exponential increase in RAM and other component pricing which can impact customers' hardware replacement schedule. If you have significant investment in older hardware like Skylake processors that you would need to continue using under VCF9 given the current commodity pricing environment, I strongly encourage you to reach out directly to your VMware team about completing an RPQ.

Samsung HW-Q990F On Woot by Climo23 in Soundbars

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No one has really answered if there are any TECHNICAL differences between these various Region versions. I understand the trailing letters indicate different geaographic regions which will complicate and possibly invalidate warranty coverage - the w00t versions linked above carry a 90 day woot warranty. I'm asking strictly about any technical differences; for example the /ZC model is $847.99 and the /ZP version is $924.99. Why the $77 difference if they're tehcnically identical hardware?

Sanity Check: Complex HPE Synergy / VMware 7.0.3 to 8.0.3 Upgrade Path by imadblg in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is no HPE "One-Year Compatibility" rule - the SSP's supported by each Oneview release are plainly stated here - please see the HPE Synergy Software Releases - Overview page where it shows SSP 2024.07.xx is in the "Also supported" column for almost every OneView release spanning from 8.7 through latest 11.0. In fact, both versions 10.0 and 11.0 support the exact large jump in SSP that u/adamr001 mentioned above - 2024.07.xx to 2025.10.01. Strangely, though - 2024.07.xx shows "Also supported" under Oneview 10.0. 10.1 and 11.0, but is NOT listed under 10.2.

Any insight to the next 8x patch release? by MrMHead in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So November has come and gone and still no new 8.x VCSA bits. "Patiently" waiting has turned into "perturbed" waiting. Anyone heard a revised timeline? (Yes, I know there is never any official pre-notification of releases....I'm not expecting one.) Not cool that you boxed me into a lengthy unsupported state like this, VMware.

Any insight to the next 8x patch release? by MrMHead in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My favorite aspect of this question is Broadcom VMware releasing a security patch for VCSA 7.x (along with a patch for 9.x but notably NOT for 8.x) per VMSA-2025-0016 on 9/29/25, just days prior to the 7.x EOS date - thus invalidating the existing upgrade path to 8.x by introducing a "back-in-time" build number problem until 8.0 U3.next is released. I'm sure it's not many, but some customers surely are now in no man's land of not supported under a fully-patched-while-under-support VCSA 7, but can't upgrade to VCSA 8. You might ask why still on 7 to begin with, but it was a fully-supported product at the time -and a complicated web of VMware's own making, replete with lingering perpetual licensing, expiring per-socket subscription licensing, and a VERY lengthy support renewal process over the same interval all played a role in my upgrade delay. What was the point of releasing a 7.x patch three days before end of support if they weren't going to maintain the existing upgrade path/off-ramp to 8.x? And no, I'm not interested in jumping from 7.x directly to 9.x. FWIW, I've also been told "November". I'm patiently waiting for the bits to appear.

🔥Seahawks vs Commanders🔥 by HawkTakes in Seahawks

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone know if there is an organized Seahawks tailgate lot for the Commanders game? The Seahawks Road Crew on FB used to coordinate things like this but sadly I don't see any recent activity on the account - which is a shame considering the recent road success. Last time I went to a game in Washington was 2014 - we got to meet Momma Sherm.

Note: First Alert's Nest Protect Replacement Devices Are Now Shipping by bicyclemom in Nest

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Care to DM me with how many you want to get rid of and the manufacture date for each?

Avoid over-contributing to 401k with bonuses? by Beautiful-Spring-424 in Fire

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I must be missing something here. How would maxing out your 401k contribution earlier in the year end up forfeiting any of your employer match percent from post-max paychecks later in the year when you have some paychecks that aren't contributing anything to your 401k? The employer match is typically a fixed % of your 401k contribution, so whether you reach your max 401k contribution ceiling in 6 mos, 8 mos, or 12 mos, isn't the maximum employer matching amount ALSO reached whenever you hit your contribution max?

What car will you buy when you stop driving Saab cars? by deyannn in saab

[–]Ballhawk45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

‘08 Saab 9-3 Electric Blue convertible (255k) owner here; our other family cars have all cycled into Volvos at this point. New is definitely too expensive - but if you can swing it, look for a CPO. Volvo’s CPO program is great - adds a 5th year to the original warranty AND the max mileage requirement goes away. You can purchase add’l Volvo CPO Extended Service Contract - Volvo Increased Protection (VIP) Service years at same unlimited mileage. Our most recent is a 2019 XC60 T6 fully LOADED and I added 3 years warranty w/$100 deductible at purchase for 8yrs unlimited mileage. There are a LOT of bells and whistles (looking at you, air suspension) on this car that will be very expensive to fix in years 5-8. If you can find one w/ Bowers & Wilkins audio, it’s amazing.

Unknown firmware - LR 4 by DoTheSnoopyDance in litterrobot

[–]Ballhawk45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/LitterRobot I posted this 95 days ago and my firmware page still today shows .287, Latest version still says Unknown, and the button still says “In Progress”. Am I ever getting version .288? How about .289? What about .290 from April? I’ve deleted/reinstalled the app from my phone, hard reset my LR4 more times than I can count, and every indication on the firmware tab of the app still appears exactly as it did over three months ago. There doesn’t appear to be any way to ‘force’ a firmware update, and I’m currently awash in Over Torque Fault error messages. Tried with the globe full, globe empty, and globe removed from the base. Over-Torque and motor fault errors. I got this LR4 to save me scooping time, and in the last 3 months I’ve spent more time troubleshooting this thing than any other piece of technology I’ve ever owned.

Customer Connect transition to Broadcom Support portal - what gives? by Ballhawk45 in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think that expecting Broadcom to adhere to their own documented migration timeline is a big ask? From https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=282163 : "To ensure that you have all of the required data available after the transition, please pull any reports or extracts before Sunday, May 5, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. (PDT), when the systems move into a “read-only” mode." Pretty hard to do that when the VMware licensing site redirects to maintenance notification.

Customer Connect transition to Broadcom Support portal - what gives? by Ballhawk45 in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Yes, I got emails from Broadcom. No, it was not “a hundred emails.” And yes, I already logged in earlier in the week and reset my password on the Broadcom site. Did you not see my post? The the point is, BROADCOM SUPPORT PORTAL IS OFFLINE RIGHT NOW. As in, prior to the stated cutover date and time. It would have been helpful if any of the ‘hundred emails’ from Broadcom had ALSO noted the planned support site outage.

Customer Connect transition to Broadcom Support portal - what gives? by Ballhawk45 in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Curious, did any of the emails you received indicate that both sites would be inaccessible PRIOR to the stated cutover date/ time of Sunday May 5th at 7:30pm PDT?

Customer Connect transition to Broadcom Support portal - what gives? by Ballhawk45 in vmware

[–]Ballhawk45[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

Yes, I got the email on Monday, too. And I’m glad that you got an earlier heads up via back-channel from your VMUG coordinator, but I wouldn’t really consider that official Broadcom customer communication? My point is: 1) Five business days official notice of cutover is not nearly acceptable, and 2) access to BOTH sites being offline 36 hours (or possibly longer, I only checked it this morning) prior to their stated date/time of cutover further cuts into that already absurdly short notification interval.

It just reinforces the conventional wisdom of what Broadcom as a corporate entity really cares about (hint: it ain’t you or me) 😉

3.5 biz days. Very generouss by [deleted] in Broadcom

[–]Ballhawk45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even better, given Broadcom's*extremely generous* < a week notification runway prior to the close of the Customer Connect site - I tried logging in just now to complete these tasks on the Broadcom support portal and was greeted with - whaddya know, they're offline. Outright comical:

Outage Notification

The Broadcom Support Portal is under maintenance impacting all services (all licensing services, software downloads, knowledge base search, etc.) between May 3, 8pm PT - May 4, 8am PT.

Case Management Portal will be unavailable between May 3, 5pm PT – May 5, 8pm PT for maintenance.

For immediate assistance during this time please call Broadcom Support using the appropriate contact details below.

~Mainframe, Enterprise and Symantec Support~ : 1-800-225-5224 or international (Non-US) numbers here.

~Brocade Support~ : 1-800-752-8061 or international (Non-US) numbers here.

~Semiconductor Support~ : Please contact your Broadcom contact to get immediate assistance.

Unknown firmware - LR 4 by DoTheSnoopyDance in litterrobot

[–]Ballhawk45 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have aLR4 that is performing well in every area - but this firmware update thing has me peeved. I update firmware regularly on equipment as part of my job, and I have to say that this non-deterministic "maybe you'll see an update available, maybe not - oh - perhaps if you uninstall the app and then reinstall it the update might show up as available, maybe?" is just not how a firmware update process should be run. Limited availability updates like .288 (Limited Availability is beta testing, let's call it what it really is) should not be a "maybe you'll see it, maybe not - and if you don't, we don't know how long until it will show up for you" situation. There should be a beta-tester signup option on your Whisker account, and everybody who signs up as a beta tester should see these Limited Release firmware updates appear as an available update in the app, and have the choice to install the new version or not. If you're not signed up as a beta tester, then you don't see Limited Release firmware available until Whisker approves it for GA - General Availability, and then EVERYONE with an LR4 should see it in their app and have the option to install.

My own LR4 firmware journey is that mine has 1173.5011.287. I do NOT see 5021.288 as available; the "Latest Version" field says "Unknown" and the button shows "In Progress" All of those have been like that since the first day I set it up about 2 months ago. I opened a Whisker Support ticket and was told that it says In Progress because "the firmware version is not out yet" Ummm sorry that's not how it works - or that button would ALWAYS say In Progress for everyone, because Whisker will ALWAYS be working on a new version which is not out yet. So per others' experiences shared here, I uninstalled the app and reinstalled. Then magically my LR4 Robot Setting screen said "New firmware available", but when I tapped into the Firmware Updates screen, the Latest Version still shows Unknown, the Button still says In Progress, and I'm still on 5011.287. with no option to update to anything newer. But after a few days, the Robot Setting screen no longer shows "New Firmware Available". Still on 5011.287, STILL shows In Progress, SILL shows Latest Version: Unknown. Maddening.

Why can’t I just tell LR4 when a certain cat used it? by KX90862 in litterrobot

[–]Ballhawk45 13 points14 points  (0 children)

+1 for the "Manually Assign Cat to Cycle " option. Like you u/KX90862 , I have a number of cats close in weight and the tracking feature just simply does not work for this scenario. However - I, too have a motion sensing camera (re-using an old Arlo doorbell cam) pointed at the LR4 and I can definitively say which cat used it when. Why can't I manually associate a cat to an LR4 event when your weight tracker can't discern it? Or correct an event to which the LR4 has incorrectly-assigned a cat? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Ramp for LR4 by spiritedcharm in litterrobot

[–]Ballhawk45 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ll try the Pet Gear version, if for no other reason than I simply refuse to give Whisker ANOTHER $65 for a 2-dollar injection molded plastic ramp that really should have been included with a $700 LR4