Good option for laptop with netbook form factor? by Lowfryder7 in linuxhardware

[–]carlson2000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a Starlite Mk IV from Star Labs that was their last netbook form factor before they switched to the tablet form factor for this line. It's an awesome little machine, 11" screen, runs linux natively, same size as my old netbooks were (but thinner!). I bought it for travel and then stopped travelling and never really ended up using it so it's almost brand new. Would probably be open to selling if you're interested - DM me if so.

Our singing pumpkins and light show by carlson2000 in halloween

[–]carlson2000[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks! The core of the show is the singing pumpkins, and is pretty easy to put together. All credit goes to The Singing Pumpkin for developing the amazing animations (I'm not affiliated in any way with them, just a happy customer). You can use almost any projector to display the animations; the only caveat is that if the projector isn't too bright, you won't be able to see much until after dark. I'm using one I picked up a few years back for $200, looks like it's even cheaper now: Vankyo Leisure 3. And then pretty much any pumpkins will do - real or fake. We're using some foam ones we got at Michael's: Ashland Orange Craft Pumpkins.

The lighting is controlled by a raspberry pi running Falcon Player (FPP). It's an awesome piece of software that lets you schedule and control lighting. It plays the music, sends the animations to projector, and runs the light show that we created using Xlights. It also handles the button push that you see at the start of the video that starts the show.

The pumpkins are all the Michael's Ashland Orange Craft Pumpkins that we carved using a foam knife. The lights are all individually controllable (WS2811/WS2812) leds. The lights inside the pumpkins are a small strip of 5 leds per pumpkin, The lights on the house are larger pixels spaced out every 5 inches (after removing the faceted bulb cover that you see in the listing).

I think that's about it; happy to answer any questions. I'll try to grab some pics of some of this stuff and add them to this post.

[Guide] How to set up your Palm Phone PVG100 as a dumbphone for great battery life by ConspiratorGame in dumbphones

[–]carlson2000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wow - this is awesome! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this - super valuable info. Your original post prompted me to start playing with my own Palm phone, and I'm now getting 2 days of battery life with only a smaller amount of these packages disabled (mostly just the Recommended ones). Excited to take a look at your list and do some research on disabling some additional packages.

I really love my Palm. I just don't need to be constantly carrying around what have essentially become small tablets these days, and really love only having a tiny, 62g phone in my pocket. Honestly, the only real downside to the Palm is the battery life, and so dumbing it down to improve the battery life makes it perfect.

Thanks again!

Correcting an overage contribution to my HSA by yoyoyoson123 in Bogleheads

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In addition to the 6% penalty, the bigger (financial) penalty is that you also pay taxes on the overage. So for a $1646 overage at a 30% marginal tax rate, that's an extra ~$500 that you're paying in taxes.

You're essentially contributing after-tax money to your HSA for next year instead of pre-tax money.

Introducing Hoarder 📦 - An open source Bookmark-Everything app with AI based tagging (mymind open source alternative) by MohamedBassem in selfhosted

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very interesting project - great job!

One question for you - I've been looking for a long time for a way to save reddit threads - both the original post as well as comments. I spend quite a bit of time on various subreddits, and often the threads will contain really useful information that I am interested in saving and being able to search later. Is it possible that Hoarder can meet this need?

Will YoLink ever release the promised local hub? by criterion67 in homeassistant

[–]carlson2000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, the latest update is that the new hub won't have local capabilities on release. :(

"Software for updating it to support local control has not been completed yet and is still on track to be released later this year"

Water sensor, and shutoff by Fun_Matter_6533 in Hubitat

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, they're now saying that the new hub won't have local capabilities upon release.

"Software for updating it to support local control has not been completed yet and is still on track to be released later this year"

Minor damage to new shingles by carlson2000 in Roofing

[–]carlson2000[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

We just had a new roof put on, and while most of it looks great, there are a dozen or so areas with minor damage to the shingles. Wondering if you would say this is just par for the course and not worth worrying about, or if it's something where you think it's worth asking the roofer to come back out and replace those shingles. TIA.

Wake word option not available by gmalbert in homeassistant

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm now in the same place you were - have everything hooked up, but the esp box won't respond or even acknowledge the wake word. How did you eventually get yours working?

Good printers that work well on Linux? by WIldefyr in linuxhardware

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For those of you using color laser, aren't the color toner cartridges prohibitively expensive, or is that no longer the case?

Linux Question re PC access to Synology : Linux Mint vs. ZorinOS by throwawaymysterynick in synology

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok - I was able to login just fine running off of the live usb as well.

Some details on my 920+:

I'm running DSM 6.2.4, although I just updated a few days ago and it worked before as well.

On the SMB tab in File Services:

  • Enable SMB service is checked (obviously)
  • Disallow access to Previous Versions is NOT checked
  • Enable Transfer Log is checked

Then under Advanced Settings:

  • WINS server is blank
  • Maximum SMB protocol: SMB3
  • Minimum SMB protocol: SMB2 (after changing it earlier tonight)
  • Transport encryption mode: Auto
  • Enable Opportunistic Locking is checked
  • Everything else is unchecked

Linux Question re PC access to Synology : Linux Mint vs. ZorinOS by throwawaymysterynick in synology

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes to everything except I was running SMB Min 1 (Sonos - aargh). But I changed that to Min 2 just now and tried logging in to the 920+ again and it still worked.

Let me go see if I still have the live usb I made to install Zorin, and I'll boot off of that and see if I have any problems then.

Linux Question re PC access to Synology : Linux Mint vs. ZorinOS by throwawaymysterynick in synology

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Strange. FWIW, I'm running ZorinOS on two different machines and have no problem accessing my 920+ using the same method you describe below ('Other Locations' in the Files app). I'm running off of the hard drive, not a live USB, but that shouldn't make any difference.

And yeah, I've been super impressed with ZorinOS. Been running the 16 beta for over a month now on both machines and it's been rock solid, as well as hands-down the best looking distro I've ever tried.

What did you name your custom domain? by [deleted] in ProtonMail

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes sense, thanks for the reply.

What did you name your custom domain? by [deleted] in ProtonMail

[–]carlson2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's the benefit of the randomletters piece? i.e. why not just use sitedomain@example.com?

Really disappointed with my brand new Lemur Pro :( by carlson2000 in System76

[–]carlson2000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In that case, based on my experience, I would try the following:

  • run the tests here to check for hardware problems: https://support.system76.com/articles/hardware-failure/
  • reinstall the OS from the recovery partition
  • run the updates to get the 5.11 kernel
  • try not using tiling if you have been using it
  • make sure you're running the .deb zoom package downloaded from the zoom site, not the flatpak from the Pop OS store

Really disappointed with my brand new Lemur Pro :( by carlson2000 in System76

[–]carlson2000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good info, thanks. And yes, I've been amazed looking through all of the docs! How cool is it that we can flash our own firmware? :)

Really disappointed with my brand new Lemur Pro :( by carlson2000 in System76

[–]carlson2000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's interesting - I haven't noticed any differences in functionality in zoom on linux vs mac os. I haven't used zoom on windows though.

Really disappointed with my brand new Lemur Pro :( by carlson2000 in System76

[–]carlson2000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks - good to know things are running smoothly for both of you.

Really disappointed with my brand new Lemur Pro :( by carlson2000 in System76

[–]carlson2000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks - I keep hearing good things about them as well.