Update: On 27 July 2018 eNom support notified me by email that the issue is resolved. I tested it, and all is back to normal with DNS-O-Matic. Sometime between 12 May 2018 and 24 May 2018 the eNom dynamic DNS update mechanism stopped working. I use the very convenient DNS-O-Matic dynamic DNS update service to update my OpenDNS account, and several host records at eNom, pointing them to my home IP address. ...
Today CrashPlan, my current online backup provider, announced on Facebook of all places, that they threw in the towel, and will no longer provide service to home users. The backlash was heated, and I found the CEO’s video message on the blog post rather condescending. I’ve been a long time user of online backup providers, and many have thrown in the towel, especially when free file sync from Google and Microsoft offers ever expanding capabilities and more and more free storage. Eventually even the cheapest backup storage implementation becomes expensive, when compared to a cloud provider, and not profitable as a primary business. ...
Not too long ago I complained about Razer’s poor UX and Support, this time it is a BSOD in one of their drivers, and forever crashing Razer Stargazer camera software. I’ve been looking for a Windows Hello capable webcam, and the Razer Stargazer, based on Intel RealSense technology, looked promising. The device is all metal and tactical looking, but the software experience is so buggy, install this, install that, then crash after crash after crash. I ended up returning it for a refund, and got a Logitech BRIO instead, the BRIO is cheaper, and works great. ...
This post is just me venting my frustration at Razer’s poor software user experience, and their shoddy support practices. I’m writing this after I just had to go and find a working mouse, so I could click a button on a dialog that had no keyboard navigation support. I’ve been using Razer keyboards and mice for some time, love them, their software not so much. I had to replace an aging ThinkPad, and the newly released Razer Blade Stealth looked like a great candidate, small and fast, reasonably priced, should be perfect, well, not so much. ...
What started as a simple Mini PCI Express WiFi card swap on a ThinkPad T61 notebook, turned into deploying a custom BIOS in order to get the card to work. I love ThinkPad notebooks, they are workhorses that keep on going and going. I always keep my older models around for testing, and one of my old T61’s had an Intel 4965AGN card, that worked fine with Windows 10, until the release of the Anniversary / Redstone 1 update. After the RS1 update, WiFi would either fail to connect, or randomly drop out. The 4965AGN card is not supported by Intel on Win10, and the internet is full of problem reports of Win10 and 4965AGN cards. ...
As the saying goes, if it is not broken do not fix it, especially when it comes to firmware. I have a couple APC Smart-UPS’s at my house, same as the models I like to use at the office. I use the SMT750 models with AP9631 Network Monitoring Cards. The problem started when we had a short power outage, and the UPS that powers the home network switch, cell repeater, alarm internet connection, and PoE IP cameras, unexpectedly died. A battery replacement led to the opportunity to do a UPS firmware update, which led to an unrecoverable firmware update. ...
Amazon just notified me in email that my Associates account was closed due to not being in compliance with their operating agreement: “You are not in compliance with Participation Requirement Number 29 because purchases resulting from Special Links on your site have been used for resale or commercial use.” I have no idea how or why this happened. A couple of years ago I moved my blog from the free Blogger platform to a paid WordPress.com hosted site. About the same time I signed up for an Amazon Associates account, profiting from any Amazon links resulting in sales, hoping that the proceeds would cover the costs of WordPress hosting and domain registration. ...
In a previous post I wrote about my transition from Nest to Ecobee3 thermostats, and how the biggest benefit of the E3 was the use of remote sensors. After several months of use, winter and summer, I find the remote sensors really do work very well, and our bedrooms remain at the desired temperature, while the areas around the thermostats can be warmer or colder. But, the E3 is not perfect, there are two recurring problems; the remote sensors would report offline, and the units would lose network connectivity. ...
We’ve had a particularly warm summer, for our very moderate area, and between my wife and my parents-in-law, they were constantly changing the thermostat temperature, leaving nobody particularly happy, and our electricity consumption sky-high. I needed a better solution, I found one, but it has some quirks. I was an early adopter of the Nest Generation 1 thermostat, and when we moved to our new house, Nest was still the best available, and I installed two Nest Generation 2 thermostats, one upstairs, and one downstairs. ...
[7 years later, see update at end of post] This post is about my research into finding suitable MR16 LED’s for replacing the 50W recessed halogen lights in our house. In summary, I’ve found “ok” bulbs, not great bulbs, and you can read about the details below. Our house is about 3 years old, new construction, and one of the many decisions we made during planning was recessed halogen vs. recessed LED lighting. At the time my calculations showed the additional cost for LED lights would only be recovered in electricity cost savings after about 12 years, not worth the cost at the time. Another problem was the optical quality of the products, the near halogen optical quality LED products were ridiculously expensive, and the mainstream LED’s were of poor optical quality, and had poor dimmability. ...