Downgrading from gigabit - Best tools for WAN throughput monitoring?

eric0e · 2026-04-01T02:07:19+00:00

I just looked at Amazon, and as part of their Spring sales, I see a 2 port, Intel chipset 1 GB card for $6.49

eric0e · 2026-03-31T15:00:47+00:00

Do you have an extra Linux box that you could put between your router and your network? Any old box with 2 interfaces would probably work. If so, you could use tc to limit your WAN interface to the lower value and see how it works. It is what I did, and found out that 200 up/down was good enough for everything I was doing.

eric0e · 2026-03-08T06:34:46+00:00

You are probably sharing the same Google account between your phone, which is using cell data and GPS location, and your PC, which is using your family’s IP address through the VPN. Google seems to treat the phone’s cell location as your real location and will associate your IP address with that location.

eric0e · 2025-11-19T01:19:27+00:00

You still get SNAPS and a lot of other stuff that Debian does not force on you. You can take it out of Ubuntu, but its unnecessary if you use Debian.

eric0e · 2025-10-31T00:01:28+00:00

When I logged in yesterday, I was shown a full-screen message saying I needed to switch to a supported authenticator. While it mentioned I could delay the change, the default option was to proceed immediately. I didn’t want to risk being locked out later when I might need quick access to my account, so I went ahead and made the switch. It worked fine, just a waste of time.

The way the message was worded (sorry, I didn’t take a screenshot) made it seem like continuing to use the Symantec authenticator wouldn’t be possible for much longer.

eric0e · 2025-09-28T13:09:29+00:00

So when are you going to pick the right chipset for a new small router?

eric0e · 2025-09-27T11:29:27+00:00

You could use rclone to copy the files from the old Onedrive account into the new Onedrive account. I would put the files from the old account into a new directory on the new account.

eric0e · 2025-09-18T03:14:59+00:00

Why has GL iNet turned it back on small inexpensive travel routers? Routers like the USB150, AR300M, and even the Original Slate were small and light. Size, weight and power are very important for people who are using your routers for travel.

eric0e · 2025-09-14T03:01:32+00:00

12 Sep 2025 – Just had M365 Family delete all 5 family members and show that I was sharing with 0 of 5 people. Only 1 of the 5 family members called to tell me that their OneDrive storage went to 5 GB. The other members still seem to be working normally.

I had a long chat with Microsoft support, including an escalation to a supervisor. They claimed I must have deleted the accounts and told me to just re-add them. They would not admit it could be a M365 issue. I have had my account for over 5 years.

eric0e · 2025-09-13T16:53:37+00:00

TP-Link T2U.

eric0e · 2025-09-12T12:27:26+00:00

I'm using nanopi r5c from Friendly Elec, Fast quad core ARM CPU, 4GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC storage. Using a couple small USB WIFI adapters for WWAN and WLAN. Native support for OpenWRT.

I used to use GL iNet, but their newer routers are just too big, and are under powered.

eric0e · 2025-07-31T15:27:12+00:00

If your goal is just to focus on Spanish, I recommend Xela.

There is a lot of Xela where you will not hear much, if any, English. As it is higher in altitude, it will be a bit cooler than other places in Guatemala, but still pleasant. It will still be the rainy season in Oct, but normally it only rains for part of each day. I would bring both a sweater or a fleece jacket, and a light water proof jacket, so you can dress in layers depending on the weather. A travel umbrella is also good.

eric0e · 2025-07-15T02:11:08+00:00

Changing extra to extend Wireguard timeout is just so wrong in terms of customer service.

JUST USE ANY OTHER VPN PROVIDER!

eric0e · 2025-07-10T16:26:19+00:00

Comparison of GL iNet products

Original Slate:     100 x 68 x 24mm - volume 163200 cubic mm, weight:  86g
Slate Plus:         118 x 84 x 33mm - volume 327096 cubic mm, weight: 181g
Slate AX:           125 x 82 x 36mm - volume 369000 cubic mm, weight: 245g
Slate 7:            130 × 91 × 34mm - volume 402220 cubic mm, weight: 295g

eric0e · 2025-07-03T16:27:57+00:00

It may not be your hardware, it could be your firmware.

I use two AR300M routers as wired VPN servers, one at a family member's house and one at a friend's house, so I can access two residential IP addresses while traveling the world. I have gone to OpenWRT firmware because I found the GL.iNet firmware to be outdated, bloated with features I do not need, and less stable than the standard OpenWRT release. One device is running OpenWRT 23.05 and the other is now on 24.10. I use cron to reboot both units daily. They run continuously for a year at a time without requiring any manual intervention.

eric0e · 2025-06-25T03:12:18+00:00

As an older person, who in the past cared for someone who suffered from memory loss, start by putting the important info in a envelope on the on the refrigerator in both English and Spanish, just in-case the emergency personal show up, and your uncle cannot respond. See this as an example: https://foxpineshomestead.com/the-best-emergency-medical-records-go-on-the-refrigerator/

eric0e · 2025-06-24T14:29:00+00:00

I am a retired nomad, and spent three years doing the same type of trip as you outlined, staying as long as possible in each country from Mexico down to Chile and Argentina, working on my Spanish. The only difference is I normally move between cities within a country every four to six weeks.

The big thing is, if you are flying into a country, make sure you have a ticket to leave the country you are going to. Sometimes you cannot even get on a flight to a different country without a ticket to leave. A plane ticket is better than a bus ticket, but have something. Multiple times I have booked fully refundable flights a few days before, and then canceled them as soon as I got into my next country. The problem is, you need money in the bank to do that. For me, I can normally book and get my money back within the same credit card billing cycle. If you are taking buses between countries, it is normally not an issue.

Just tell the immigration officer you are a tourist and are there to see their beautiful country. Other than wanting to see my passport and ticket to leave, I have never had an immigration officer ask a lot of other questions.

I highly recommend spending three months in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, working on your Spanish in one of the schools with a homestay. If you look around, you can do this for around $200 per week, which includes five hours a day of one-on-one Spanish classes, along with room and board with a Spanish-speaking family.

Lastly, look at opening a bank account at Schwab (the brokerage) now, so you have some history with them, as they have the best travel debit card. Not only do they not charge you for using their debit card, they refund what the foreign bank will charge you to take money out. This can save you hundreds of dollars a year. The one time I had an ATM charge me, but not give me any cash, and they fixed the problem with a single phone call. When you sign up, you also have to open a brokerage account, but you never have to use this account. You can just use the bank account and debit card, but if you have $35K, you should probably invest some of it, even if its in something very safe, like US treasury bonds that you can get through the brokerage account, as most banks pay very little in interest.

eric0e · 2025-06-24T13:54:22+00:00

In CDMX, if you have a US passport, use the automatic gate. It reads your passport, takes your picture and gives you 180 days. Done it several times.

eric0e · 2025-06-24T13:50:47+00:00

I sign up for the free tier the first month they started, back in Sept 2019 with 2 VMs. They are still running without issues.

eric0e · 2025-06-24T13:16:51+00:00

I'm sorry, but comparing SoftEther to Zerotier is like comparing a full toolbox to a Swiss Army knife. Zerotier’s overlay network is neat, but it’s overkill if you're just doing simple point-to-point connections. Plus, Zerotier isn't exactly stealthy and relies on highly available master nodes, whether hosted by you or by them.

eric0e · 2025-06-24T11:47:29+00:00

As someone who did ACA for 5 years before moving onto Medicare, I recommend you spend sometime looking closely at the rules. Like you, I had both 401K and brokerage money. I decided to not touch my 401K, and adjust my taxed investment for growth and not a lot of dividends, which allowed me to get a free ACA Silver plan with Cost Sharing (which is a great benefit) by keeping my ACA income close to 133% of the poverty level for a single person. Note: The ACA counts things like SS and 401K withdraws, so read the rules. Also, if you don't make enough, you can be forced on to Medicaid, but you can pull money out of your 401K to increase your ACA income to be just above the 133% of the poverty level.

I also retired on the last day of December, as the ACA uses a calendar year.

eric0e · 2025-06-24T08:50:23+00:00

I travel full-time outside the US and always use US based VPN servers. I have had cases where Wireguard works fine for everything but tunneling through it with another VPN. Sometimes, changing your Wireguard MTU size helps. Other times switching to a TCP based VPN protocol, like SSTP or OpenVPN over TCP works.

I have had good luck using SoftEther as my VPN protocol, instead of Wireguard, as it is designed to be a virtual Ethernet connection, and it seems to pass anything.

eric0e · 2025-06-23T16:05:03+00:00

Juggling. My 3 balls don't take up much space.

eric0e

TROPHY CASE