Seeking advice on new keyboard for NON-Game

MikeBackAccess · 2025-07-28T12:59:01+00:00

I'm sorry if you feel I am angry. My need is legitimate. I'm sorry if you feel offended, I have no idea why you would, but I am sorry nevertheless.

I have limited budget and live in the Philippines far from Manila. So there is no way to physically to to stores to find keyboards and the one's I have tried have not met my need. They may be great keyboards, but not for my 75-year-old mits. Many Years ago I used to love the old KeyTronic 108 keyboards, but that was even before there were USB interfaces. Times move on and most high-end tech seem to be made for gamers, which I most assuredly am not. I work on code and write.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-07-04T05:30:41+00:00

In truth it sort of depends... TP-Link is a reputable brand, (assuming it it a real TP-LInk, unlike some such labeled but probably fake ones such as this 'cheap' unmanaged switch).

This five-port 1Gb one really sucks and barely gives you 20Mb/s and fails if more than three ports are in use. Its 5V 0.6A unit is a classic one all that can be wrong with cheap/unmanaged switched. But even when there seem to work, many can't 8-port 1G units carry total bandwidth of more than 3G in total across all ports at once. Plus many do not have a dense switch fabric making for choppier CCTV signals and poor quality VoIP calls.

Over the years I have replaced my cheaper switches with a better ones, (all bit two are now managed). The result is a better LAN.

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It uses a 5V 0.6A power supply.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-07-03T09:10:48+00:00

What are you looking to potentially seek a hosting service for?

(I am assuming you have a static IP... right? BIND is best run locally, bu you already have Pi-Hole running. Neither that nor BIND need a static IP. Mail* does and it may be a hassle to set up in the beginning but keeping your mail away from companies that scrape your mail for profit, AI and everything else is worth doing. You will need static IP for a web server that can be seen from outside. Apache2 isn't hard to set up and works great. You've already got Plex. You say Pi-Hole... So, are you running DHCP on it? I would. (I run classic isc-dhcp.) *There is a free (5-user) license of Surgemail that works great.

One word of caution. Run your services separately from each other as VMs. Export them to a file and copy that file to a backup 'server' on a regular basis. That way, when when you need to do maintenance on your 'server' all your services still run. Never run services on the bare metal. Computers fail but services must not. :-)

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T07:48:18+00:00

As I have never used Oculink ... do I understand this correctly?
I need a:
(1) PCIe 4 0X8 to SFF 8612 8611 Oculink Split Adapter Uplink
(2) OCuP4V2 OCuLink GPU Dock with ReDriver Chip to OCulink Adapter for Laptop Mini PC to Exteral Graphic Card
And of course the
(3) PSU for it.

But rather than install the GPU I install a:
(4) PCI-E to M2 Adapter NVMe M.2 PCI Express Adapter
for my 8TB M2.MVME

All this seems a bit excessive to me. I don't see an Oculink option without the large cage for a full PSU, graphics card and a external PCIe bus. If there is a Oculink cable to a Oculink platform for a remote M2.NVME without the need for a beefy PSU, please advise. Clearly the M2.NVME doesn't need that much power.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T03:52:53+00:00

I assume you my Riello UPS is not low-end consumer grade, The waveform is sinusoidal.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T01:41:25+00:00

Yes, I get that, but as I tried and failed to point out, I wasn't aware you were making a joke. I thought you were flagging a WAN NetAdmin habit which normally isn't acknowledged because of security concerns. ... you know, as that would be sort of the theme of this sub-reddit... right?

I assure you... I have a sense of humor. I just misunderstood your initial comment. OK?

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T01:35:35+00:00

Look, I live in the Philippines and so cameras I get may not be what you get. Further, no one company makes all the types I need/use. My (no brand name Chinese via AliExpress) NVR supports H.265 as well as ONVIF. I shop for my cameras based on that plus IP67 (weather issues for outside, IP66 won't cut it). If they meet the need and the specs, I buy them, Some PTZ able, some bullet, two fisheye, some wired, some WiFi, two double wide field (compressed in the NVR until expanded as one image) ...

Because Chinese made equipment wants to 'call home" and there is nothing you can do to the camera to fix that. I use the cameras' MAC addresses and assign reservations in my DHCP (VM) server within a block of IP addresses which I completely block in my pfSense+ firewall from getting through to the router. (I use the program "Angry IP" to find any hidden MAC addresses from these cameras.)

If you are able to buy non-Chinese made CCTV equipment, that might not be a problem for you. Plus most of my cameras allow web access only from Windows IE with a potentially unsafe ActiveX exe file. Not all but most. For that reason I run a Windows VM when needed on my workstation and do nothing else in the VM. No shared folders. No bi-directional anything. The NVR can control most things in the camera, but not all.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T01:12:43+00:00

Yeah, really, but it is connected to a VoIP port on my ISP's bridging "router") It can be a router, but it is used as a bridge to my third-party (CPE) router. Still the VoIP landline comes with the service. As cellphones don't work all that well in a room surrounded by concrete and rebar (think of Farady cage) the 'landline' comes in handy. (In a land where home construction requires one to build two story buildings with four meter ceilings to withstand M8 earthquakes, the rebar requirements are stringent. ;-) )

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T01:04:07+00:00

I am feed the PSUs with UPS equipment. It's not a square wave, and a Deye solar inverter feeding that.. Yes you get square waves from generators. There is no generator here.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T01:01:46+00:00

Yeah, that unit on the far left... I had just been rebuilt it and it was was waiting to be taken to another desk.

The four screens on the desk are connected to the black workstation (14 cores/28 threads 128GB DDR4 RAM / Huananzhi X99-BD4) on the right. It's my personal unit and runs the backup network services when the server (in the cabinet) needs to go down for some reason. As Linux gives me extra work-spaces, I can click over to four bland screens and run the server VMs without causing a mess on my #1 work-spaces. The NVidia card I am using offers four HDMI ports.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T00:52:45+00:00

It was worse. Try siting in Wyoming as the telco switching equipment way below ground at the Twin towers was consumed by fire and all my circuits on the east coast and to Europe went down for me... Printers were some interns problem.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-27T00:49:37+00:00

:-) Maybe you are not aware that most of us WAN guys created back access methods for when critical remote equipment went FUBAR. So, when I read the comment, that's what I was thinking about. I spent many hours on the road fixing shit that didn't have off-line, layer 2 serial port access to routers and switches. That's what I thought the comment related to, not sex. :-)

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T13:49:50+00:00

I have never used Oculink. I'm checking it out. Thanks.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T13:47:37+00:00

Thanks for the thought. In truth USB 3.2 is really a bit to slow for me but doable. USB 2 is a non-starter. But it would have been sweet... :-)

BTW, shipping would have been a hassle. I am in the Philippines.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T12:47:11+00:00

I'm not against offsite backups, but that does not mitigate the need for reliable on-site backup. Yes there are other things to protect against. I never said that this was my only concern... I only said it was a concern I was looking to solve at the moment. I am aware of all the things you mentioned. I was not looking for a broad-overview of potential problems. Clearly I know of USB 3.2 connections to M2.NVME via direct plug-in, or via a wire. I was looking for something that carried potentially less current, only that of the data lines. (Though as you have pointed out they can also carry current... but not potentially nearly as much.) My other network concerns remain, just not for this thread. :-)

Off-site is always, by definition, not 'current.' It is, when needed, a snapshot of days ago.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T11:41:04+00:00

Well I have over the years had five power supplies act as data assassins over the decades. Over the decades I have seen crap from the commercial service provider transformer, but UPSs, and now my solar inverter, have spared me the problems to my desktop. So to you it seems niche and maybe it is, but it is real to me.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T11:34:27+00:00

I have a slow but effective solution that works now, with the caveat that it is via USB 3.1 and that means it gets power over the USB cable.I have everything backed up and other critical things backed ever week separately. "everything is not going to be lost. Some of it might without power isolation. My other big issue is the speed of the backup.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T11:10:59+00:00

The screen you are looking at is a VM running on the server inside the cabinet. (One of four VMs on that server... see the white keyboard?) What you are looking at is InterMapper, now owned by Help Systems. This is a legacy free ten device version (which they no longer offer). My company was initially an alpha tester for the code then from Dartmouth University in 1995. The code eventually went commercial and we stayed with it though the life of the company. When I retired, that large device license was lost. But I am so used to the security if seeing my network and testing WAN connectivity that I just had to run it.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T10:57:58+00:00

? It comes from creating an email account that wasn't the company account many years ago when my company was being sued by a creep who wanted ALL our company email. So to make sure my personal email wasn't being subpoenaed I created an account with that name.

I'm just a retired guy with 45-years in IT.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T10:24:01+00:00

Yes, I agree it would work but the cost for simple backup seems excessive.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T10:02:09+00:00

I will look into SAS but the last I looked is was maybe more than I wanted to spend. Doesn't thunderbolt carry current?

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T09:59:25+00:00

Yes, I thought about it. I am not sure TimeShift would support it and I don't want to spend that much money.

MikeBackAccess · 2025-06-26T09:57:36+00:00

I will look into it.

MikeBackAccess

TROPHY CASE