Year: 2024

  • iPod PSA if you need a new battery

    On the picture you can see my Apple iPod Video 5th generation with the screen cracked. That happened when the original battery, which is located behind the screen, started to expand. It applied enough pressure on the screen to break it. So, if you know that your iPod needs a new battery, you should replace…

  • How to fix Nest temperature sensors when stop following zone schedule?

    In my house we have a Nest thermostat with three zone sensors. Because the thermostat is in a hallway, which hardly gets any traffic and thus not representative of the temperature in the rest of the house, we opted out to place sensors in the rooms which are most utilized. The sensors make both the…

  • Sony NEX-5 does not record audio when filming

    I recently bought an external microphone for my Sony NEX-5R. More specifically, the ECM-SST1 microphone with a proprietary connection! When I first connected it, and tested with it there was no audio with the video clips. I thought that I might have received a defective unit, so, I tested with internal microphones. Same situation. It…

  • Sorry – not sorry

    Today is July 4th, a holiday in the USA, and a day off for many people who live here. I was shopping at a big box store this morning and at checkout the person ahead of me told the cashier – I am sorry you have to work today. If that was a sincere pity,…

  • Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

    I am watching the Nintendo Direct presentation and there is new Legend of Zelda game coming out in September. Not a remake, not a remaster, but a brand-new game. I can hardly get through the trailer. I am just yelling – when and shut up and take money.

  • Empty space is distracting

    Every once in a while, I see people on Twitter and YouTube show off their minimalist desks. Today I saw someone, on Twitter, show their big acrylic desk with just a PC, pair of speakers, io devices, clock and a water bottle. By my count, there were less than 10 objects on that big desk.…

  • Fixing Fallout 4 constant crashing on Xbox

    Both my son and I play Fallout 4 on the same Xbox One S. For years we have been suffering short play sessions caused by the game crashing and being set back hours because of game save files becoming corrupted/obsolete. Well, we finally figured out the problem, and after fixing it we can now play…

  • Anker charger Specifications tests

    I recently bought an Anker charger to charge a battery when I travel. While looking through the enclosed user manual I noticed on the specifications page efficiency results for active and in-active states. I thought it was kind of interesting that they performed these tests and provided these data in a four-page manual. One side…

  • Ads and paying customers.

    Enabling ad-blocking via OpenDNS has made such an improvement to my browsing experience, especially on sites where I spend money on, like eBay. As a user, with an established buying history, who regularly shops on the site, I shouldn’t have to keep seeing ads, including the in-house ones. Ads are always last to load, and…

  • Cloudflare, DKIM, and 1024 vs 2048-bit key length.

    I recently had to configure a domain in Google Workspace to process mail with Gmail. To authenticate messages and avoid SPAM filters I had to configure DKIM by generating a key and then creating a DNS record to store said key. The DNS record is of type TXT. The value of a TXT record has…