DrkLrdChckls

A couple of our internal apps stop working. I inform IT, they put the updated apps into our internal app store. I download them and check that everything works. I notice that one of them has trouble logging in, so I restart my phone and everything works fine after that. Given the hiccup and knowing the complete lack of tech affinity among my coworkers, I decide to write a short guide on how to go about downloading and installing the apps in question with plenty of screenshots and mention that in order for them to work properly again, they might have to restart their phones too. I send an E-Mail to everybody in my department with all the information. A couple of minutes pass and someone asks me for help with the steps I clearly outlined in that little guide. More people come by asking for help doing the things I outlined in the guide. One person managed to nuke her enrollment in our corporate MDM entirely. I reevaluate my will to live and question why I even bother writing guides for people who are either too stupid to follow them or too disrespectful to put in the effort before consulting me.

I got this off eBay. Mostly as a joke.
Well they're here and making a stack on my desk. I got a bonus 8th one too!
 
However I can't currently power them all. I don't have enough power cables.
So I purchased these along with some 18awg wire (collectively the ATVs draw 0.4 amps from the wall).
Going to create the most cursed power cable of all time. Probably going to make a rackmount shelf for them all too (that's why I got the C14 connector, for my PDU)

Windows 8 pro never opened 

I opened it to make sure it really was never opened, and it was indeed never opened until I opened it

 
put it right here next to windows vista 
like two good friends 

Two good friends who are equally shit

Indy

After really extensive repairs the Quaderno lives and is fully working, albeit with a slightly damaged LCD...
 
Now to back up the HDD contents... seems my only option is interlink, so first try to find out why it doesn't work. Well the COM port is disabled by default in the BIOS, and while I've seen the full BIOS setup page once I can only get it to show me the time/date adjustment... No manual around unfortunately, so got stuck until I thought of looking for BIOS combos for other Olivetti machines, but that gave me a result, Shift-Ctrl-Alt-Del and it worked.
So then install DOS 6.22 from floppies on another machine with an easily accessible drive slot I can throw a fresh CF in and take >1h to transfer 18MB...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After dealing with the issues plaguing my current PC I decided that an upgrade that wasn't from ebay was on the cards
 
Asus TUF F15 FX506HC
intel core i5 11400H
8GB DDR4 RAM
512GB M.2 SSD
RTX 3050 4GB
 
And even though it's hampered with RAM in single channel and a 4GB graphics card, it t-bagged the HP Z210 with its i5 2400, 16GB DDR3 RAM and a GTX 1050Ti in the FFXIV endwalker benchmark by almost doubling the final score by getting close to 12k (it also does good in the actual game getting nearly 100fps in a non crowded area).
 
Upgrades will be coming once I can figure out how to deal with one temperamental screw.

My new main/daily driver PC
 

Got a 'broken' Zenbook Duo for cheap, basically the lowest end Duo (10510U/MX250) but for basic tasks it's great and everything seems to work great under linux (except the NVMe drive likes to disconnect randomly causing issues but SATA M.2 drives seem to work, idk if it's the drive itself being borked or just linux things)

It was listed with keyboard issues and non functioning second screen (liquid damage) but after getting it the second screen worked fine so all it needed was a keyboard.

I will say repairability is awful though, between having to pry out glued in rubber stoppers to unscrew the bottom and the 65 screws to remove the keyboard it's pretty awful xD

Built it on Christmas actually.
Looks too nice to be in my house 😔.

Gainward gtx 670 phantom
Needs a good cleaning and repasting 
 
 

My latest tech purchase: A Powzan KB770 keyboard. I wanted a quiet, backlit, mac compatible keyboard that wasn't too expensive. I couldn't find much info on the product or company, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. Though the backlight could be better.
 
Also the first thing I own with RGB.

New desk

I did not check what size it’s depth was beyond being 78” long

and yeah it’s pretty fuckin massive, I can put several laptops on it while my desktop is on it 

You either buy your own tech to review until you're big enough for companies to send you things to review, or you apply as a reviewer to an already established media outlet.

Im already selective about what I subscribe to. The issue is, prices keep going up. Things that shouldn't have subscriptions have subscriptions. Like cars have subscriptions. Software of all types now has subscription's when a few years ago you just bought the new version when you needed the newer features. Not everything needs a subscription or needs to have a subscription only option. Which is my point. 
 
Also when people dont feel there is value in the subscriptions they will get the content others ways. WHen all the content was on Netflix for example piracy actually dropped. Now these services all got greedy, piracy is going to make a comeback. Sure there are the people who will pirate to just pirate. But then there are those who either cant afford the subscription or those who feel there's not enough value in the subscription. Youtube Premium for example I feel at $11.99 it doesn't have enough value. At $5.99 I feel there's more value there. My friend subscribes to Youtube TV, why isn't a premium sub included? Because of greed. Companies are pricing themselves out of business. Its kinda like how GPU sales have dropped, because people A) Dont want to support the greed. B) Dont see the value in the new products. C) Dont have the money due to inflation. 

Following would be my demands to make ads acceptable enough that I'd uninstall adblock:
 
For web content:
Ad is inline with content and does not obscure content Ad is clearly an ad, and does not try to represent itself as something it isn't e.g. fake download buttons No animation, video, sound, new windows or similar unless explicitly interacted with. Mouse over events does not count as an interaction Site's promoting their own content also counts in this e.g. "before you leave, please subscribe", or video that is not related directly to the page contents. For video content:
Has a big skip button with no delay to activation. Skipping removes all ads in the current sequence, not just the playing one Audio level is matched to surrounding content For all adverts:
Ad is relevant to the site content. In case of sites with highly diverse content, it should be relevant to the page/content it is displayed near No ad tracking beyond if an advert is displayed or clicked. No cross site user tracking or profiling. No misrepresentation. That is displaying anything that intentionally makes you think it is something it is not, even if it is technically correct.  
Chances of all above happening: exactly 0%. 

If you are selling it, remove the existing hard drive and sell it without one.
 
If you are recycling it, same.
 
Keep the hard drives as long as possible, in general, as that prevents your data from ever ending up in someone elses hands. If you are wanting to sell the drive used, then you will want to use software to do a "military grade wipe" aka DOD wipe. 
https://www.killdisk.com/dod.htm
Take note of the footnote


Note "sanitize" is always "destroy" or "degauss"
For hard drives only, "overwrite" is sufficient unless the information is secret. 
 
That tells you everything. So Degaussing would destroy a hard drive (it would likely cause the heads to be ripped apart, (where as tape and floppies are bare magnetic media))
 
At any rate, it IS sufficient to erase a drive by overwriting it three times with different data unless it is a SSD.
 
SSD's can be erased in an instant, even by accident. These require using a BIOS feature to do purposely, and is costly to the wear on the SSD.
 
My personal recommendation is "people are a little too obsessed with what people do with used computers" and your best bet is to remove the drives and dispose of them separately, years later once any data on it is already stale enough to be useless (such as credit card information.) You can always plug the drive back into your computer with a USB chassis if you need to personally rescue data, but you can dispose of the drive alone at any time.
 
On the flip side of that, if you are trying to sell a "working" computer to someone you know, then I would forgo the "sanitize" and just reformat the drive and install the OS again. But selling it on ebay or such I would not include the drives in the same listing, just to ensure that someone doesn't grab it and immediately unformat/undelete the drive.
 
 
 

A complete system buyer would expect a working system ready to use. So with at least an OS drive. A PC without drive may also considered non functioning.
 
Tinkerers are more likely to just want parts. As others said, parts may be easier to sell for a bit more $. All depends on what you have.
 
Really, a secure erase is safe enough to sell the drive. The NSA may have capability to read data (or may not), but they can get access to any Internet connected PC anyway. So it is moot to worry about extremely sophisticated data thieves. 8 passes of secure erase and fresh OS installed would make reading any old data impossible short of some space alien technology.

If you are paranoid about it, selling it without the drives or with a new cheap drive seem like a reasonable options to me.

Some do, I have a few friends that actively hunt like that.  Most do as @RONOTHAN## said, then they have parts to get rid off that basically offset any gains they made 😛
 
 
I just know that the term "side hustle" just means "fucking job", and I already have a 40-50 hour job.  Don't need another 🙂
 
 

I more do the opposite, find complete towers for a good deal and part them out for a profit. It's a bit more consistent to make money off of in my experience since most people expect a deal for selling all components together. Downside to this is I end up with a basement full of computer cases that I need to figure out how to get rid of. 

My PDA arrived, DOA sadly and didn’t respond to any attempts at repair.
Its SRAM technology so there’s a chance the memory cannot be revived in any way.

I’ll keep trying some other things though.
 
So I got a different, used and working PDA and the worst modern processor ever made.

Last week I got a call from my ISP saying that I can either keep my current plan at a lower rate, or upgrade to gigabit for the same price I'm currently paying. I opted to upgrade, but I needed a new Modem for that speed, so I picked up a Motorola MB8600:
 

Context: I've been working in IT since 1998, was hired on the edge of the announced Y2K apocalypse, by a bank IT services sub-contractor and my first IT job was to drive around the Québec province and update the firmware and BIOS on old X25 gateways.
 
After Y2K I was assigned to tech support where I learned that printers suck. Not HP printers, or Canon printers or Konika, Epson, Brother, Lexmark, no. ALL printers suck. I think it's about time that the way jobs are sent to a printer is re-thought out and the printing process simplified.
 
I have NEVER in 25 years been able to state with 100% certainty that yes, this specific printer will work forever pending regular maintenance kits replacements, rollers, fresh paper and toner/ink. Never.
 
All of the printers I've ever dealt with would have "voodoo" issues. Some will print perfectly one day, be slow as nails the next day and then return back to being a print hero the day after that, for no specific reason. Same computers, same environment, same network infrastructure, same printer, same firmware, driver, etc.
 
I think it's related to solar flares.
 
Anyone else have this experience with printers?
 
My conclusion is that I LOATHE anything print related. 
 
/rant

I picked up a Dell Latitude 5400 off-lease to use as a portable replacement for my gaming laptop. I'm running ChromeOS Flex on it, and have been able to get upwards of 10 hours of battery life. I am super pleased with it so far.

Picked this little doofus up today and got it all set up. A Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3, with the ever fearsome i3 1315U, 8GB of soldered on single channel RAM, a 256GB Samsung PM991, and a shockingly nice 1080p MATTE touchscreen. I'm honestly super happy with this little guy. It's going to be replacing my Acer Aspire 7 A715-A72 which is obviously more powerful and built a bit better, however it was a bit large and the battery life on it sucked absolute chunks. Granted, this i3 isn't exactly a slouch as far as performance goes, for being a little 15w chip with 2P/4E and HT on the PC, it gets pretty close to the Acer's 8750H which was able to suck down 54w.