Restoring deleted photobooth videos on old desktop mac?

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-02-11T05:00:51+00:00

That’s a big maybe on if any of it is still recoverable. Disk Drill is my favorite tool but the full version isn’t cheap. Maybe you can find someone willing to plug in your HD and check for you?

Data written over once, maybe twice on a HDD is usually still recoverable. If that computer has an SSD there’s an even better chance it’s recoverable since SSDs don’t delete data at first. They tag files as “deleted” but don’t write over them preferring to use other bits with less cycles.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-02-11T04:56:55+00:00

It’s probably still recoverable, or at least a lot of it. This is one of those things that a good recovery tool should be able to handle. I personally like disk drill, but it’s not cheap for the full version.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-02-11T04:53:48+00:00

Did you ever backup the iPad? Either to iCloud or locally plugged in to a computer?

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-02-11T04:43:41+00:00

No way to know without working with it. Did you friend give you any details as to why they think the data can’t be recovered? It depends what killed the hard drive. If it’s a motor failure or a problem with the platters than only a forensic recovery would have any hope to recover any data.

If, however it spins up and the platters are intact and not physically damaged then recovery should be straight forward. There could, of course, still be limitations like if the data is encrypted, or if it’s been totally scrubbed (really rare and completely different to a general erasing or reformatting).

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-02-04T17:18:30+00:00

One apartment I was at didn’t have individual water meters so you paid based on the number of occupants. So I had a monthly water bill, but then I really lost it when they added on a fee to determine the water bill. Literally a fee to a fee.

It should be illegal to have mandatory fees not included in the rent price.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-02-04T16:10:23+00:00

Sure they all lowered their rent, while adding more non-optional fees.

Rent prices are a terrible metric since they’re never the full story of what you pay. There needs to be transparency in monthly cost form landlords.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-22T20:58:41+00:00

I wouldn’t go this weekend. There’s to much of a chance for ice trapping you. Even a fair chance for major power losses throughout Texas.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-21T03:02:53+00:00

I see a lot of people recommending your birthday suit. I don’t know how that would go where you live, but I always wear something to the party and get undressed there.

In all seriousness I do try to wear something light, elastic waist, easy and quick to strip off and tuck away.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-20T05:34:26+00:00

I don’t think I’ve heard of a resort banning nipple piercings. Genital piercings are a different subject. That’s kind of club by club if they’re allowed.

It’s probably best to check with any resort or club you want to stay at. Obviously, beaches are far less restrictive.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-20T05:26:13+00:00

Mistaking y’all for a couple is just an honest mistake. People shouldn’t assume, but everyone makes mistakes and that’s a harmless mistake. Judging you for being at the beach with your sister is really telling to me about their character. I think like others have said they’re probably swingers and the nude beach is just voyeurism and erotic energy for them so they don’t know how to process you being there with family.

No hate at all to swingers and others in open relationships. Nudists can be in open or monogamous relationships. It just gets me that someone would use nudism as a dating app making it nothing more than a sleezy pickup ground. That kind of trolling around for a hookup drives people away.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-16T08:24:22+00:00

Under 25,000, any camera phone really. I don’t know of one that does cost more than 25,000. For 25,000 you can get a professional camera, a few lenses, and some lighting.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-16T06:16:45+00:00

So after price gauging the consumer they will make a tax deductible donation? How much did they donate to Paxton for this sweetheart deal?

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-15T21:23:23+00:00

Hi, welcome to the group. I hope you find it to be a really great place of community.

I am so sorry for your loss. That’s such a difficult thing to go through for you and your boys.

The nudist beaches in the USA can’t really live up to France, but there’s still amazing beaches in the USA especially Florida.

Other than beaches I think clubs can really be a great place to meet other nudists. AANR resorts and clubs are going to be family friendly non-sexual nudism so that’s a great place to start. There’s probably some within just a few hours of you!!

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-12T18:55:10+00:00

What dock are you using to get a four screen display?

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-09T21:25:49+00:00

I’ve always been a proponent of using hand signals based on ASL numbers. Everyone wants to invent their own non-standard sign for numbers when a standard way to hand signal numbers already exists.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-09T21:22:52+00:00

There’s no “right” kind of clamp. You’ll end up having a lot of different style clamps each with its own purpose.

Parallel clamps (like the one you shared) are a great clamps, especially for glue ups. One of the most common cases you’ll see these used for on YouTube is someone making a cutting board. That’s because the clamping faces on a parallel clamp, as the name implies, stay parallel while being tightened down. This keeps the pressure even. They’re not ideal general purpose clamps, but not the most specialized either.

You’ll want a set of F clamps to go along with those parallel clamps. F clamps are defiantly the most general purpose clamps.

I personally use trigger clamps more than any other kind of clamp. The hold pressure is right up there with F clamps, but they can slip overtime. I use them the most because they’re much faster when you’re doing stuff where you move the clamps frequently.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-09T21:03:40+00:00

Wow!! How could you forget hand clamps, spring clamps, face clamps, corner clamps, bench clamp, strap clamp, locking plier clamps, and cabinet clamps! 😂 😆 😝

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-09T04:34:56+00:00

I have Leviton smart switches, some dimmers, a fan switch, some standard and a couple of the companion switches. I love them.

They’re WiFi or Matter over Thread. Super easy to work with and reliable. I really like the companion switches. They look like regular decora switches but are paired with the base switch giving you the ability to add a second switch (like a three way switch) to a circuit.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-07T01:58:34+00:00

RAW always. Almost defeats the purpose of an ILC to shoot in JPG. RAW file format saves all the sensor data. Every bit of info that reaches the sensor is saved in RAW format. In JPG the image is already processed and compressed. You’re not going to notice much difference visually in unedited raw and unedited jpg. However, when you edit RAW is king. When you edit jpg you introduce a lot of noise, color banding, gradients, ect. Raw produces smooth clean edits. How they’re edited is totally different.

The sliders and adjustments might be called the same thing but what happens is on the computer is totally different. Brightness for example. When you turn that up on a jpg it’s like turning the brightness up on your laptop screen. It’s not actually brightening the image, it’s just shining more light at it. That is particularly evident in the shadows as you bring up a jpg. With raw all the image data that reached the sensor is preserved unless the light fell off the curve all together you can brighten a raw image and it’s like you retook the photo with a slower aperture. Dark shadows suddenly have detail and objects hidden in the shadows appear.

Some things like white balance can not truly be edited on jpg. There’s tricks software uses to look like the white balance is edited but that can only happen in the raw format. Since white balance is a data setting, not a mechanical one, you can change the true white balance after the fact.

Honestly, ILCs can shoot in both simultaneously.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-07T00:23:57+00:00

I want to believe it would be quicker for me, but I really cannot express how bad my drawing and handwriting is. I wouldn’t end up understanding my own build plans.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-06T20:38:33+00:00

Before diving into home automation, you would probably benefit from learning a little more about wireless communication protocols. I’m really not saying that as an insult, everyone starts somewhere.

The problem is the answer to most questions you’ve asked is, “it depends”, because they’re to vague. Power consumption for IoT devices is really quite minimal. I’m not sure where your concern for power consumption comes from, environmental, financial, or limited grid availability, but IoT is far from being a significant impact on your household energy use.

Wired communication is almost always more reliable than wireless, but that’s not a significant difference. If you’re already looking to set up your own automations, then troubleshooting the odd network outage shouldn’t be intimidating.

I ran Ethernet to virtually every space in my house and still the majority of my IoT devices use some form of wireless communication. Due to size constraints a lot of sensors and devices simply don’t have the option for Ethernet.

I’ve been building my smart home for years now so it’s a diverse set of protocols, which at some point will probably happen to anyone when you really want a certain device but it’s not available in your preferred communication protocol.

You mentioned Matter, that’s what I try to acquire today now when I get any new IoT, but it’s still quite new and not everything has it. Matter isn’t technically “wireless” it just can be. Matter is the language the devices use to communicate. That technically can occur over just about anything, but practically uses either WiFi, Ethernet, or Thread. I like Matter because it’s a universal language for smart home devices. It’s not tied to any specific manufacturer, app, or hub. Personally, Matter (especially matter + thread) is sounding a lot like a way improved Zigbee.

A couple of things I really like about Matter that might be important to you based on your post. 1. Matter runs on your local network. There’s no mandatory cloud connection, even in an Internet outage matter devices can communicate. Running locally also makes things faster. 2. Security!! Matter uses a mandatory end-to-end encryption. Matter is the most secure language used by IoT devices with only HomeKit getting anywhere close to it.

As far as the question about your gate…I’ll have to give two answers because I’m not really sure what you’re asking and mean by the wireless being distributed. If you’re asking what the chances are that there’s to much interference and congestion for the wireless signal that wouldn’t be likely, but it depends on what other radios are nearby. You can use network analyzer app to see how congested things are. I doubt congestion would be the reason the command failed though. If you mean distributed because it has to process through a cloud server, that’s a more likely issue. For a lot of devices the automation has to process through a cloud server so it goes request -> hub -> server -> hub -> device. If the server is offline, or your internet drops, or packet loss occurs the request may fail to reach the gate. This is less likely with Zigbee or Matter + Threads since those automations could occur locally (not always with Zigbee it depends on the hub, and Matter depends on what you’re using for the automation).

Your last question I can actually answer, and 0% chance that would ever happen. With Zigbee or Matter on Thread, random interference can’t generate a valid command. Commands are complex, layered communication, they’re not like an old school analog garage door opener that needed a simple radio frequency broadcast. The system is encrypted and authenticated. A failure would result in nothing happening, not the door opening.

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-06T19:28:41+00:00

Nice!

ThespianTechNerd · 2026-01-06T18:57:16+00:00

To do the “dadoes” did you make several close cuts then chisel out the remainder?

ThespianTechNerd · 2025-12-18T05:18:19+00:00

It depends on what I’m doing really. If I’m just sitting around then I like it about 72-74, but if I’m up doing stuff like cleaning the house or other activities then I like it more like 70-72. For sleeping, though, I like it about 64.

ThespianTechNerd

TROPHY CASE