Coming Soon – NIMBOT B21 Thermal Label Printer Review
NIMBOT B21
Coming Soon – NIMBOT B21 Thermal Label Printer Review
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Author Archives: John Hagensieker
Sculpfun S9 Laser Review
Sculpfun S9 Review
I was recently contacted by Sculpfun and provided a Sculpfun S9 laser to review.
I have owned multiple desktop lasers since they first became mainstream around 2019. Fast forward 5 years and desktop lasers are gaining in popularity. The laser side hustle is a real phenomenon and seemingly getting stronger all the time. Despite the many choices in desktop lasers, they are all fairly similar.
Typical 450nm diode module
Most machines contain a 450 nanometer (nm), 5 watt blue laser diode. That is roughly the most powerful diode on the market. Manufacturers who have 10 watt, or 20 watt optical output simply combine multiple diodes into one beam. A 10 watt laser has 2 diodes, and a 20 watt laser has 4 diodes, and so on.
Similarly, most of these devices have a rectangular frame somewhere around 350 to 400 mm in length and width. The laser head is driven by an 8 bit or 32 bit motherboard and stepper motors, and the laser is manually focused.
Since the machines are all so similar, the thing that sets them apart is cost. Many desktop diode laser offerings come in around the $500 price point. Lasers that cost less than that price point are a little tougher to find.
Enter the Sculpfun S9 at the current price of $269.99. And as a bonus, Sculpfun has provided my readers a 7% off discount code only for the S9. KJKXP7 (S9). By my calculations that makes the laser approximately $251.09. I have done blogs on budget lasers and $250 is an EXCELLENT entry level price point.
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Tasmota Light Bulb Kauf A21
Tasmota Light Bulb Kauf A21
Kauf A21
There are a ton of smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices out there. Most of them are a security nightmare to introduce into your home network. But I’ve found one that ISN’T a security nightmare. The Kauf A21 bulb with ESPHome Firmware is one such device. An ESPHome or Tasmota Light will ONLY communicate within your home network. A Tasmota Light is my personal preference for home automation.
These lights are designed to work with home automation software such as Home Assistant
If you buy a light bulb at Walmart you can control it with an app you put on your phone. And while that seems cool, it really isn’t. That app, and that bulb communicate off of your phone and contact servers outside of your home network.
IoT devices that are app controlled are a security risk. And in your quest to smarten up your home you may have several devices and several apps. Additionally, those apps want you to grant permission to use your camera (presumably to scan a QR code) and they also want location control enabled. Why does my Lifx bulb I bought at Walmart need to know where I and my phone are? Riddle me that, Batman.
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USB Data Blocker
USB Data Blocker
Road Warrior Pro Tip
How many of you will charge your phone in any provided USB jack? In the airport? Rental cars? In a hotel or coffee shop? Plugging your phone, that has your personal data in it, into unknown sources is a security risk. You NEED a USB Data Blocker.
Let’s use your car as an example. Your car has a USB port more than likely. If you plug into it the stereo head unit in it KNOWS you plugged it in and will proudly display the song you are playing or will offer to sync with your phone. You know, for your convenience . If it is your own car that is fine. If it is a rental car, that’s not so fine.
Here is how it works. The charging cable you stuck in your laptop bag or purse has 4 wires inside of it.
- Vcc Power
- Data +
- Data –
- Ground
Those two data wires will move your data whether you like it or not if the device on the other end asks for it. Enter the USB Data Blocker.
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OP25 Revisited
OP25 Digital Decoder Revisited
About 5 years ago I was DETERMINED to figure out a digital voice decoder software program called OP25. It literally took me a year to figure out how to do it. I’d work on it for a day or two then give up. Then try again a week or three later. Then one day I heard the crackle of a police call over my speaker. It was at that moment I decided to take what I learned and wrote a dummies guide about it. To this day, it is still the blog that gets the most hits, and attention. And that blog is mostly still relevant. It pretty much works in the same way.
Just last night I took my old OP25 installation and noticed that it was on Raspberry Pi OS “Buster”. I tried to upgrade it to the current distribution code named “Bullseye” and things rapidly began going south. Before I fouled it up too bad I downloaded 4 files:
- op25.sh – a script file I made to launch the program
- trunk.tsv – a file that tells OP25 what Frequency and NAC to listen to
- newbern.tsv – my local configuration for the police talk groups here
- viper.tsv – the NC statewide talk groups
I decided to start fresh and within about 20-30 minutes I had a fresh installation of Raspberry Pi OS and OP25 running. I think I can streamline my installation process a bit more.
Dislaimer
I have absolutely nothing to do with the development of OP25. I’m just the guy who wrote the dummies guide on it. And I’m doing it again.
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Network Server Apps
Network Server Apps
So you’ve either built or bought a network server. Maybe it’s a Synology or QNAP NAS. Maybe you made a server with Unraid, TrueNAS or OpenMediaVault. Or maybe it is something else. No matter what you have, you have the ability to add network server apps.
But I want to give you a thing or two to think about before you add those cool applications.
There is no doubt that adding functionality to your server is powerful, and can be very cool. But is it ALWAYS a good idea? I’d like to tell you a story about two apps that I thought were brilliant but then created some issues for me later on. Bear in mind this is just two apps, and your mileage may vary. I just want to give you something to think about.
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Mikrotik SolidRack 10
Mikrotik SolidRack 10
I recently went through a round of network upgrades and I had stuff and cables all over the place. There was a real need to get organized and to employ at least a LITTLE cable management. I also decided to run two separate networks and needed a simple way to keep everything straight. Enter the Mikrotik SolidRack 10.
SolidRack 10
Most server racks are either big, or expensive, or both. I didn’t want anything big. Just a place to mount a couple of switches that didn’t occupy too much real estate.
That is where the Mikrotik SolidRack 10 really shines. It is small, and very affordable at about $43 at Multilink. Right this second they are out of stock.
I do want to point out the obvious with this rack. There are no back legs! That is NOT a complaint. All I’m saying is this is for light duty use and you aren’t going to cram some Dell PowerEdge servers in this thing.
Okay, I will concede that you probably could do it if you hacked something up or propped up the back end of the server with a ServerBrick™ or something. But natively, it’s not meant for that and you know what I meant.
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Home Networking Upgrades
Home Networking Upgrades
This has been a lot of years coming. I’m certainly no home networking guru or sys admin, but I’ve always been a step or three ahead of the common home network setup. I have about 65 Internet of Things (IoT) devices and home automation. In my mind “automation” is the operative word. Push my doorbell, I get a text. Garage door opens, I get a text. Motion happens in an empty house, I get a text. Lights come on at sunset. .
You need a fairly robust network backing all this hardware up and MOST IMPORTANTLY you need to segregate all those IoT devices from the computers that hold your precious, personal, private data. I bought a cheap outlet to tie into my home automation. The person that did the initial hack claimed the device was transmitting data back to some server in China. Just for fun before I hacked the outlet I put it on the network and began watching the data packets flow to and from the device. Sure enough, it was communicating with a computer somewhere in China. I’m sorry, but no device in my home should be communicating with a computer offshore, unless I tell it to.
Your cameras, your IoT devices, and your other internet enabled toys should not be on the same network as your personal data.
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Anker USB C to 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Adapter Review
Anker USB C to 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Adapter Review
I recently upgraded a segment of my home network to 2.5 GB ethernet. I keep a huge folder on my laptop called “Archive” that has basically every manual for everything I own in it. Also there’s other junk in there too. It’s huge, and it takes forever to back up. In the interest of backing everything up quicker once every week or so I decided to get a 2.5GB ethernet dongle to move those files to my snazzy 2.5GB NAS. After a bit of research I settled on the Anker USB C to 2.5 Gbps Ethernet Adapter.
Anchor Arms
Sorry. Every time I see the word “Anker” my mind wanders to the SpongeBob episode where he bought inflatable Anchor Arms. The goal was to get ripped like Larry Lobster.
And such as it is with me and my network. I’m trying to get ripped backing up that huge folder quickly somehow or another.
Netgear MS108EUP Review & VLAN Setup
Netgear MS108EUP Review
And Simple VLAN Setup
2.5GB Netgear MS108EUP Router
I just built a new firewall appliance that has four 2.5GB speed ports. I attached it to a Mikrotek hap ax³ router which also has a 2.5GB port on it. Then I added in a QNAP NAS which also has a 2.5GB port on it. To hook them all up together I needed a fast switch and I settled on the Netgear MS108EUP.
You can find hardware with 2.5GP ports on it pretty easy. But you know what is hard to find? A 2.5GB network switch that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Somehow or another hardware vendors are making devices with 2.5GB speeds. Sadly there really aren’t that many switches out there to support the speed.. They went right from 1GB to 10 GB and skipped right over the middle ground.
And while you might be able to find some $100 switches, finding one that is Managed (Smart) is quite a bit trickier. A managed switch is one that can do other tasks such as Virtual LAN’s (VLAN) among a lot of other tricks. A VLAN can be used to segregate certain aspects of a network such as the establishment of a Guest Network that can’t communicate with the primary network. Or keeping HR away from the Operations Department. You get the drift.
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