Category Archives: Computer

Makeblock mBot Ultimate Robot Kit Review

Makeblock mBot Ultimate Robot Kit Review

Makeblock mBot

Makeblock mBot 10-in-1Robot Kit

A little over a month ago, the company Makeblock provided me their Makeblock mBot Ultimate 2.0, 10-in-1 robotics kit ($366.99) to review.  Originally, I was a bit trepidatious since the kit is designed to teach coding to teenagers or young adults.  While I am a techie, I am not a coder.

But I do love a challenge.  I have finally begun making some great progress with this kit.

Before I Begin

Before I dig in to this review I need to state something.  When I was about the age relevant to the kit recommendations I was exposed to electronics kits such as depicted below.
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Evolve III Maestro Laptop Review

Evolve III Maestro Laptop Review

I was scrolling around some tech sites and saw some discussion on an $80 laptop.  The device in question was an Evolve III Maestro 11.6″ laptop at Micro Center. Sadly, that price is for in store only and there isn’t a Micro Center anywhere near me.  Other outlets sell these, but the going rate seems to be $130 to $140.  While this laptop is appealing at $80 it really isn’t really very enticing at any higher of a price tag than that.

I managed to find one on eBay for about $65 and while it claimed to be used, it was for all intensive purposes a brand new laptop.  It still had the plastic screen protector on it.

Evolve III Maestro

Evolve III Maestro

Booted it up and it had a clean, uninstalled copy of Windows 10 on it.   But that’s not what I wanted it for.

I bought this to play around with old OS’s, primarily Haiku.  I’ve been going through a nostalgia phase and a “what might have been” phase.  OS/2 Warp, BeOS, etc. both of which were superior operating systems to Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

I found a cool installation video for Haiku on this laptop by YouTuber Action Retro.

So I set about to install Haiku on here and lo and behold……..I succeeded.

Evolve III Maestro

Haiku on Evolve III

It worked, but with a few caveats.  I must have the version 1 of this laptop as I had audio straight out of the installation.  I’ve heard that later versions of the laptop have no sound driver for Haiku.

The trackpad didn’t work and neither did the onboard WiFi.  Both were resolved by adding USB dongles for a mouse and WiFi.

Sadly that ties up both USB ports on the laptop.
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GMKtec NucBox G3 Review

 GMKtec NucBox G3 Review

I caught a great deal on Amazon for the Intel N100 based GMKtec NucBox G3.  The barebones kit is probably the best way to go at $119.  Guys like me always have sticks of RAM laying around and even NVME SSD’s.

GMKtec NucBox G3 Intel N100

GMKtec NucBox G3 Intel N100

The Intel N100 is a 4 core processor with a Turbo Boost up to 3.40 GHz.  This little box rocks.

The Intel N100 is a low wattage draw  (6 watts) chipset that tops most Celeron and Atom chips at a modest cost.  It is roughly comparable to an Intel N95 chipset.

With the NucBox G3 there are a ton of connectivity options as well.  Best of all is a 2.5 GHz Ethernet Connector.  Toss in some USB connectors and a couple of 4K, 60 Hz HDMI connectors and a 3.5mm microphone / speaker jack and you have a winner.

This is a perfect desktop machine for the kids or for the guest room.  It would be right at home in the camper as well.   It also is an economical platform for supporting that one piece of hardware that is far away from the wired network such as a CNC machine.

I slapped mine in the guest room and am in the process of bookmarking streaming services such as Sling, Netflix, Hulu, and my Plex Media Server.  That essentially is the extent of how we use a Firestick or Roku.  I can’t count the number of times that the Sling app has been non-responsive on Roku, FireTV, and LGTV.  Web steaming always seems to work.  This may be the answer.
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Building A Linux Computer For Offline Use

Building A Linux Computer For Offline Use

Linux Computer

HP 15.6″ FHD 15-ef2030tg for a Linux Computer

I talk a lot about having a computer set up for off grid situations.   But let’s build our own Linux computer that we can use both online and especially offline.  I’ll try to teach you some valuable tips along the way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the picture next to this shows Windows.  That’s a stock photo of the laptop I’m using for this project.   The HP 15.6″ FHD 15-ef2030tg.

I picked this up for a song and it was so cheap, I believe, because this is a model from 2021 that is probably the last of its stock.  It has decent specs though and this thing is IDEAL for a Linux computer.
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20 Years With Linux

20 Years With Linux

The other day I plugged in a USB GPS device that has an old Sirf Star IV chipset in it.  The serial port speed on Linux is typically 9600 baud and this GPS module had a communication speed of 4800 baud. To get them playing nicely with each other I starting to type in the command “setserial” and then it all came flooding back to me.

Sometime around 2003 or 2004 I was in Okinawa.  I think Windows XP was the thing but I probably still had a Windows ME box.  Windows 98 SE and Windows ME were AWFUL.   Windows XP was much improved but a lot of hardware support didn’t cross over in the earlier days.  So I had to keep both platforms running for a while.  Anyway, it was during this stint in Okinawa that I decided I was going to start using this thing called Linux that I was reading about in all the computer magazines.  By golly if you used Linux you were something known as a POWER USER.  I wanted to be a POWER USER too.

The most practical way to get Linux in those days and in those conditions (living on a Japanese island with slow internet) was to go to the Exchange and buy a boxed set of Red Hat Linux.  I can’t remember if it was Version 3 or 4.  It came in a big box with a gigantic book that seemed to be written for much smarter people than myself.

Surprisingly, installation wasn’t that difficult, except after I completed it, my modem wouldn’t work.   I had absolutely no idea what to do.   So I grabbed that big book and used a Windows computer that did connect to the internet to start looking for answers.  This was no easy task and it took me a day or two to figure out there was a serial port conflict.  Then it took me a day or two to figure out what to do about it.  The solution was a “setserial” command.

When I heard that modem squawk and connect for the 1st time after dozens of command line attempts, I WAS HOOKED.  I was the King Of Linux.  Since that time I have always had a Linux laptop.  And I am currently working through the 5th generation of Raspberry Pi’s.
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Using A Computer With No Internet Connection

Using A Computer With No Internet Connection

What if you woke up and there was no internet connection?

No Wifi Area Sign 2315098 Vector Art at VecteezyI have written similar blogs a couple of times in the past but like to keep it up to date as technology cruises forward or if I discover new hardware.  Just what would you do if you woke up and there was no internet connection?  This could be due to a massive telecom hack, or natural disaster, or an act of war.

Surprisingly, your computer can do quite a lot without a network connection, even if you can’t picture in your mind how that could be.  Let’s explore how we can use a computer with no internet connection.

What Can We Do With No Internet Connection?

Quite a bit actually.  Let me make a quick list:

  • GPS
  • Radio (AM, FM, shortwave, weather, air band, etc.)
  • Television
  • Monitor Emergency Communications (Police, Fire, EMS, Military, etc.)
  • Establish Emergency Communications between computer using Long Range Radio  (LoRa)
  • Track Weather Satellites and download weather data
  • Program Radios with CHIRP
  • Files such as manuals
  • Entertainment such as books, magazines, music, and movies

Let’s build our SHTF machine, shall we?
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LoRa Meshtastic And Encrypted Communications

LoRa Meshtastic And Encrypted Communications

LoRa Meshtastic

Lora Meshtastic V3 Board

If Edward Snowden taught us anything it is that almost all of our communications are simply not as private as we thought they were.  Heck, a week or so ago it was revealed that AT&T was giving cell phone data to the Department of Justice (DOJ) without warrants.   Encryption is cool and I bet if you are reading this you are in the same boat I’m in.  I can encrypt stuff but no one else I know has the tech savvy to do it.  It’s like owning one shoe.   Now a new method of encrypted communications has come along.  A marriage between LoRa and Meshtastic firmware.

LoRa stands for “Long Range” and it is a mesh network that uses low power, and wide area networking protocols.  LoRa does not require internet, wifi, or cellular and is OFF GRID.

Meshtasic firmware is Open Sourced.  That still means something these days.
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VPN DNS And Privacy

VPN, DNS And Privacy

In our current world scenario we are being spied on at almost every turn.   Home Networks are just not very secure for most people.   Solutions to harden those networks require some technical skill and usually involve additional costs. Additionally,  most people think they are too boring to be spied on.  But the reality is that we all need a VPN, and encrypted DNS.

Increasingly it seems that 1st Amendment laws regarding Free Speech are being tossed aside and so called “Hate Speech” is a crime.  Some things you read about on the internet can be cataloged and factor into your Social Credit Score.  It is darn near a crime to be a White, Christian, Veteran, and a monogamous person. Refusal to use bizarre pronouns can get you in a world of hurt in some circles.

We’re not quite there yet but things are easing towards that direction.  Additionally, your searches, your lifestyle and your opinions may well matter greatly one day.
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GL.iNet Router Review GL-A1300

GL.iNet Router Review GL-A1300

GL.iNet Router

GL-A1300 Slate Plus

Before I retired I had a job with extensive travel involved.  I would sometimes take a full sized router with me to hook up at the hotel.  Back then most hotels had an ethernet jack in the room.  I’d simply push my own wifi network to my computer, phone, and many times an audio streaming device like a Chromecast or Raspberry Pi.  Oh how I wished they would have had a GL.iNet Router back in those days.

I only found out about them recently on a Discord Forum. Some of the guys are using them for all kinds of amazing networking hacks.  Even though I barely leave the house these days I wanted to get one just to see what I was missing out on.
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QNAP NAS Review TS-433-4G-US

QNAP NAS Review TS-433-4G-US

I’ve never bought an off the shelf NAS before and have always opted to build them on my own.  There is no better resource for NAS building than this website.  I currently have two home brew NAS’s in operation but had a need for a 2.5 GB NAS for a new, faster network I was setting up.  I settled on a QNAP NAS for a couple of reasons.

Reason number 1 was that initially my 2.5 GB network was only going to be in the downstairs part of my home.  Reason 2 is because since it was downstairs it needed to be somewhat attractive to appease my wife, and something somewhat quieter than my home brew NAS builds.

QNAP NAS

QNAP NAS

After a considerable amount of research I opted to get the QNAP TS-433-4G-US.($379)

4 bays is enough for me I have four 4TB Western Digital Red drives in a RAID 5 array.

This NAS is simply for file storage and I won’t be asking it to run any media servers or anything else that might overtask it.

I have a super NAS upstairs with a Xeon processor and tons of RAM and storage with Unraid as the OS.   It does all that heavy lifting.

I do use the QNAP for Apple Time Machine backups for several Macs I have in the house.

I also run another server which is located in my back yard shed which is a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 with a SATA PCIe controller and a couple of 6TB hard drives.   It runs OpenMediaVault (OMV).

This will NOT be a technical review.  No specs, no stats.  Just me talking about whether buying a NAS off the shelf is something a NAS user would want to do or not. 
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