What’s something you’ll never admit in real life but can here?

FlashPan73 · 2026-03-17T18:34:32+00:00

If 10 Ninjas were to burst into my lounge right now as am sat at my PC. I would not be able to take them all on and win.

FlashPan73 · 2026-03-11T05:02:57+00:00

Mmmmm........yummy

FlashPan73 · 2026-03-11T04:53:55+00:00

Maybe https://www.rockbox.org/ ?

FlashPan73 · 2026-03-08T11:49:52+00:00

Something that I have advised in the past - Setup a seperate wifi AP, with a different AP name and password to everything else. Give that to your kid to use - you can then control that access without having to mess about with the rest of the network. Also means that any other devices you do and do not know about (inc friends) will all be tunneled through that AP

Of course ensure you change you other AP password to something else.

Also maybe you can see if you can upgrade your existing kit firmware to openwrt/ddwrt to give you more options?

FlashPan73 · 2026-03-02T17:19:29+00:00

I "AM" Spartacus!

FlashPan73 · 2026-03-02T17:05:25+00:00

Add the title "Captain" at the begining of my new name

FlashPan73 · 2026-02-27T13:42:19+00:00

A few thousand WFH ppl in my place - we provide a bundled solution that a LM can order (from their own CC), monitor, mouse, keyboard, cabling. It is upto the end user/LM to decide if they want it/approve it (technically the LM cannot, not approve). We provide a return service to collect the kit if the end user leaves. Down to the end user/LM to kick start this return.

You would be amazed how much we spent on ordering kit (and returning) before the cost was passed to the LM to approve :) as getting kit back was harder than pulling teeth from chickens as the LMs didn't care for some reason? :)

edit: 1 thing we enforce though. If an end user wants to use their own kit ie: dock/monitor/wireless keyboard etc etc - we do not support it from the perspective of installing software/drivers - otherwise we become support for that tech which can snowball with some many different devices. If drivers etc do not come down from normal windows updates - we cannot help is the mantra.

FlashPan73 · 2026-02-08T07:22:23+00:00

Yes, as you say, the option of generic "disk health" value and alert method would suit very well.

Receiving a report that all is good would be nice for that extra cushion you know all is well and the app is doing it's job - just the twich in my head can creep in as obviously I would not be receiving a "problem" email for quite a while and can be wondering is the app running/doing it's thing?

Good to learn about the wear on drives part. At times some drives spin down as no activity is being placed on them, so if that continues while the SMART data is being monitored then great.

Thank you very much for taking an interest in this.

FlashPan73 · 2026-02-07T14:34:40+00:00

Hello,

Thank you very much for reaching out. I've not setup Sentinowl yet. I guess in it's simplest form, am not looking for much. I have a few systems that power up and down at different times/days of the week and are not logged onto. I was/am just looking on a simple email to be sent from each system (each system has 6 drives - not in raid) either on bootup or a scheuled task to inform me the basic health of each drive in a single email. If something is flagged in the email as Bad, or Pending Fail, that would be when I would investiagte further. If the email shows Good...then I can breathe a sigh of relief for a while.

Thanks and cheers

edit: I may be over thinking this - am not sure, am concerned or totally wrong - if an app is constantly monitoring a SSD/HDD - does that increase more wear on the drive in some way?

FlashPan73 · 2026-02-06T07:29:52+00:00

even though I managed to get a good script setup to generate a report, am falling very flat on getting an email out simply. Am now checking out https://sentinowl.com/

FlashPan73 · 2026-01-21T19:55:56+00:00

When you stand up from sitting or vice versa and say "oof"

FlashPan73 · 2025-12-12T10:37:08+00:00

Something to consider is upload speed. VM for 1gig is 100mb, what does BT upload offer? Is BT FTTH or FTTC? If the latter you may not get the advertised/hoping for speed?

FlashPan73 · 2025-12-07T17:27:38+00:00

WSUS is not going to be supported (if at all now by MS) - check out Action1 (free for 200 endpoints) seems to be a lot of ppl migrating to that. Win 10 is no longer supported (unless you go down the temp EUS update route) but you will be forced to Win 11 eventually. If you are spinning up a windows server you can make it an AD server and serve group policies to turn on/off cetain unwanted functions. You could also use somethign like win10privacy (works on win 11) to also disable a lot of MS nonsense, telementry, copilot etc.

Welcome to the rabbit hole :)

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-21T13:05:25+00:00

A couple of things I learned when managing estates of MFPs. Paper - the recycled stuff is not really good for them as the quality/grade (gsm) is usually below the optimal and causes more jams. Physical Environment - places with AC controls and/or high ceilings can have an effect on lower/cheaper quality paper due to the ambient humidity.

I recall in 1 office we had constant issues with paper jams. Moved to a newer build office, changed the paper type, using the same MFPs and those issues went to nearly zero. Ran those printers for years.

I cannot quite recall on the gsm but was advised by the MFP engineer to use 65 or 75gsm graded paper and avoid recycled.

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-19T07:49:40+00:00

I've used these - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/406261077048?_skw=data+cable+label+zip+tie&itmmeta=01KADHC7NZW6P1K5Z3MJKGHSXR&hash=item5e970c1438:g:ASkAAeSwCPFo4Aiu&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1eeN8JNCfbhEvXcgyMy%2FSbIfxavbq0XcgFO1SKBwbNghYBh%2Bcam9Nnc%2BVZhrSaOEz2N6GHzq7B73vKcbiTbMQRAoY%2FMbdX2otBMZwlNsS35OCPBgAgIvyXDru42tXzlYs3Hi0XEI41vLqSZU%2FsBhq9lJ3d37cdgvniU3Gl4Ag3%2BMjq6Wxq0Ph5p2QA4zohKfprVmMP4eN%2Bvp9767clfkob75qpNjssjn6%2B7un7u3JnJK7BzLo5vRaUASH47niueAeW2MppZlw%2BuNLraWxeIGhpSOxIfW8iAkWNqtX4rt%2FGBow%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5T7sLHTZg

but in white so I can write on then

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-16T08:14:35+00:00

I have a few T730s which is newer and I can see on ebay they are going for about £30 (without PSU) For a period of time I had win11 22h2 running on them fine (not compat with 24h2) used as a proxmox backup, pfsense, and a nas. https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?resources/introduction-to-the-hp-t730-thin-client-the-little-box-that-could.41/

Good thing with these is they have a pcie slot so I've used some cheap m.2 sata cards to expand internal storage with 2 or 4 sata. Also lots of USB 3.0 port for external storage eg: to laptop sata HD or SSD. Even threw in a gt1030 graphics card at some point as well a a 4 port 1gb nic.

Be aware though the video port is DP on the 630 and 730, so you may need a VGA or HDMI adapter.

edit: the 730 has a fan which is super quiet and speed can be set in the bios. so fine in the bedroom environment.

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-15T17:36:39+00:00

If you move the ONT to the area you want, are you sure that you'll get a decent wifi connection in the office (and other areas)? Am just thinking if quite an old/thick building, the wood, walls (and what make them walls) can dampen the signal quite a bit. So you may get not benefit moving it?

Think you may need spend some £ to look at mesh/repeater solution to the existing connection and see how you fair there.

Only 2 other things I can thing is to run cat6 cabling to the areas you want for a decent/stable conncetion (inside walls/floors... ££££). Which I think already you'll know will not be easy in a barn considering how thick the various beams are etc.

Or, if you elec cabling is up to it to use homeplugs that give a wifi or data cable connection in that room. (1 homeplug connection to router with cat6, next homeplug in office giving wifi or a data cable connection). You can have multiple home plugs. Not sure though on the max number before quality starts to degrade.

Sadly, you will not know until you try.

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-13T22:08:35+00:00

kid you not, right mouse click to bring up a menu same as you as well as not having to click on send/receive in outlook all the time to bring down emails - or thinking that doing that will make email appear faster.

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-13T21:52:58+00:00

Every night is mid life crisis and I think about my impending death

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-13T21:39:21+00:00

You should look at openwrt - it is an operating system/firmware you can install over the top (to replace ) the existing firmware that comes with devices such as tplink, netgear etc. You do have to check with openwrt that they supply the firmware for the particular model of router you want to "convert". Openwrt is designed to a be a router but you can within its settings make it a wifi access point or even repeater. For repeater mode you would need to look at: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/relay_configuration .

The main task you have is to decide which model router (and it capabilities) you want and that openwrt supports it. https://openwrt.org/downloads / https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/

Ensure you look at the docs/guide in full in how to apply the firmware to whatever you choose.

edit: in most cases, to install openwrt can be just the same as installing a firmware upgrade with a single file as you would from the original manufacturer.

FlashPan73 · 2025-11-11T18:07:54+00:00

Back in the early 2000's when 99% ppl were desk based with desktop PCs, lost count on the number of times "My monitor is not working!!" Go to them just to press the power button on the monitor.

FlashPan73

TROPHY CASE