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Best Hardware for the Pandemic of 2020

By | Interest | No Comments

A handy guide covering the best tech hardware of 2020 during the pandemic including graphics cards, motherboards, monitors, and more! Read all about the best hardware of the year…

Video Card
NVIDIA GTX 2070 SUPER

Hard to beat this mighty card and two of them will get you into 3090 territory. NVLink compatible they fly and for just $550 at the time of writing you can have some serious fun at 1440p and 4k! Don’t expect much above 60 fps at the Ultra settings but remember most people don’t have or cannot afford a 120hz display right now. Finally, these cards are “Upgrade Eligible” to 3080 and 3090 models at the current time. Learn more about this program here. Essentially you can pay EVGA the difference of the newer model card. Amazing offering. So buy a 2070 Super now, join the line for the upgrade to a 3080/3090 and enjoy great graphics card until then! Oh, and yes you could buy two 2070 Super, play with NVLink and upgrade both! Best of all, you don’t have to really decicde until later – maybe you like the 2070 Super enough to not upgrade when you can finally buy the 3080! EVGA Step Up Program

Motherboard
X470D4U2-2T

By far the best motherboard for a prosumer during the pandemic is the mighty X470D4U2-2T. This board features IPMI connectivety perfect to leave at home while you take off to your remote work cabin in the woods, or to keep running with dual 10 gigabit ethernet connections for a home grown VPN build. You can find these sub-$400 at the time of writing and this is well worth it for the IPMI and dual 10 GBE.

Hotspot
HTC 5G Hub

The value champion of the year! Found on eBay for $225 unlocked for any carrier – this Hub is no longer sold from Sprint but can still work on any carrier once unlocked! The devices runs full android and has a screen that is gorgeous, the processor and graphics are fast enough to watch 4k youtube. When it comes to wireless performance, the x55 chip has some of the fastest 4G speeds I have been able to find so far. Needed a sim that works with sprint/t-mobile to update the OS but after that, was still able to switch provider and use device with just about anything! The device has a speaker, usb-c, battery, and ethernet jack. It’s a truly amazing deal for the features available.

Portable Monitor
UPerfect 15″

This is the only edition that comes with a 10,000 MaH battery! Amazing product that makes it easy to plug into anything with an HDMI port even if you don’t have power for the display. The battery can even charge devices and the screen has speakers, a stand, and adjustable brightness! Considering the size, at 15″ – 4K is too small to even use on a display of this size, so stick to the 1080p model – and the one with a battery. You won’t regret it.

Phone
Xiaomi K20 Pro

4K TV
Samsung – 43″ Class 7 Series LED 4K UHD Smart Tizen TV
Samsung TU7000 / UN43TU7000FXZA

Samsung - 43" Class 7 Series LED 4K UHD Smart Tizen TV Samsung TU7000 / UN43TU7000FXZA

This TV is available for $279.99 at BestBuy and can be used as a monitor as long as you are sitting far enough back from the screen (about 4 feet).

Best FOSS 2020

By | Interest | No Comments

This is a list of the best FOSS or Free and Open-Source Software of apps that I have collected or used over the year.

DNS : Adguard-Home
Router (DHCP) : OpnSense
Firewall : OpnSense
Mail Server : Poste.io
Benchmarking : Geekbench4
Office Version : Office 2016 – Perpetrual License/No recurring fees!
Windows Version : Windows AME
Speedtest : Speedtest / Google Fiber
Virtualization : Vmware Workstation 16
Hypervisor : ProxMox
Linux OS : Zorin OS 15.3 Ultimate
Photo Editor (Linux) : snap install glimpse-editor
Monitoring : statping
Proxy : Nginx Proxy Manager

Tile Premium Review and Bugs

By | Asides, Interest | No Comments

I wanted to setup Tile with Smart Alerts so I bought premium and went to configure it on an iPhone 7 Pro with iOS 13.4

Ok so off to change the settings…

Umm – where my Tile permissions at? Let’s keep looking…

No permissions here

And no permissions here /

So where do we end up? Stuck at the First permission screen without access to the Smart Alerts. Not a good start for Premium features…

The plot thickens!

Ok, so here I have attempted to send screenshots over the premium support message number – however they haven’t appeared to enable MMS on the number (lazy) and start telling me to go fill out a form on the website. Wait a second? I thought this was premium support! So I push for an email address and they refuse. At this point I decide its time for this review.

I would not recommend this service at this time and I will be cancelling it until premium support actually means premium not go fill out the public form. They couldn’t even supply an email for contact or receive MMS so why even bother with SMS? Seems a new idea not thought through very well.

Zotac ID91 Hackintosh Yosemite Clover Install Guide

By | Interest | One Comment

This guide is written to get you up and running with the latest OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 with Clover bootloader.  I used to use MultiBeast but it took a while to learn Clover, however the advantages are worth the learning curve.  This guide should get you up and running on a Zotac ID91 – a perfect <$400 hackintosh!

Pre-Requisites:

  • Download latest OS X Yosemite on a Mac – or find it on the bitttorrents
  • 8GB or greater USB Key
  • Software:

Latest Clover bootloader from Sourceforge

1.  Format an 8gb or greater USB Key with 1 partition – GUID boot loader – and OS X Journled partition.

2.  Run the following – replacing XXX with the location of your USB Drive.
[raw]sudo /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/XXX/ –applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app –no interaction[/raw]

This will extract Yosemite onto your USB Key

3.  Install Clover – with following settings

Now we must mount the EFI Partition and add our Extensions to the 10.10 kexts folder to make things work ootb.

To mount your EFI Partition, use

[raw]diskutil list[/raw]

Determine your drive and EFI Partition and mount with

[raw]diskutil mount disk1s1[/raw]

Add the following kexts to your EFI/Clover/Kexts/10.10 folder –

AppleACPIPS2Nub.kext
ApplePS2Controller.kext
FakeSMC.kext
lspcidrv.kext
NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
Patched_10.7_AppleRTC.kext

Restart with the new USB Key

Goto Options > Binaries Patching Menu >  Kernel PM Patch and hit spacebar to enable it

Boot the installer

Format your boot drive with GUID bootloader and Mac OS X Journaled

Stuck in a reboot loop?

Remember if you restart at this point, the Kernel PM must be enabled each time – until we install Clover on the main boot drive –

Audio:

  1. Clover patched AppleHDA
    1. Download (View Raw) audio_cloverALC-100.command
    2. Double click: Downloads/audio_cloverALC-100.command
    3. Password:
    4. Confirm Codec ALCxxx: (885, 887, 888, 889, 892, 898, 1150 only)
    5. Clover/Legacy: answer y to Confirm Clover Legacy Install (y/n)
    6. Clover Audio ID Injection (y/n):
    7. Use Audio ID: x (y/n):
    8. Optional: Terminal/Terminal Saved Output
  2. Restart
  3. Verify ALC onboard audio
    1. System Preferences/Sound/Output/select audio device

Incomplete – not enabled yet.  Lookup HD4400 HDMI Audio for guides

Graphics: Intel HD4400 Desktop using FakePCIID

  • Install latest version of FakePCIID from https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-fake-pci-id/downloads
    Install both FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_HD4600_HD4400.kext in /System/Library/Extensions, /Extra/Extensions or Clover kexts.
  • Insert a fakeid and platform-id through clover configurator. 
    Devices>FakeID>IntelGFX = 0x04128086
Graphics>Inject>Intel>ig-platform-id = 0x0d220003

What is the longest lasting Thinkpad battery life?

By | Interest | No Comments

Battery Life means everything.  Without it, the party is over.

Ever wonder what model of Thinkpad has the longest battery life/runtime?

Here is the list:

X1 Carbon Touch

Up to 8.2 hours

X201/201s

  • Battery life:
    • 4-cell: up to 3.4 hr.
    • 6-cell: up to 6.7 hr.
    • 9-cell: up to 11.3 hr.

X220

  • Battery life:
    • 4-cell: up to 4.1 hr;
    • 6-cell: up to 9.2 hr;
    • 9-cell: up to 13.8 hr;
    • external battery: up to 9.4 hr;
    • 9-cell plus external battery: up to 23.2 hr

X230

BATTERY 4 cell (29 Wh) − up to 8.9 hrs 6 cell (63 Wh) − up to 9.9 hrs 9 cell (94 Wh) − up to 14.8 hrs 6 cell (57 Wh) Slice Battery − up to 24.9 hrs with 9 cell and 6 cell slice

X240

Upto 17.4 Hours (with 3 cell battery (23Wh) + 6 cell battery (72Wh))

X250

Battery Up to 20 hours and available with 6-cell Power Bridge 72Wh battery

T400

  • Battery operation (*1):
    • Four-cell Li-Ion battery: Up to 3.6 hours
    • Six-cell Li-Ion battery: Up to 4.3 hours
    • Nine-cell Li-Ion battery: Up to 6.4 hours
    • Three-cell battery Li-Polymer: Up to 4 hours

T420

  • Battery life:
    • 6-cell: up to 3.5 hours
    • 9-cell: up to 5.8 hours
    • 9-cell Slice battery: up to 5.8 hours

T440

Integrated 3-cell 23.5 Whr + (center + sign) ThinkPad® 68 Battery (3-cell 23.5 Whr) ThinkPad 6-cell 47 Whr Battery ThinkPad 68+ Battery (6-cell 72 Whr)

More than 10 hours of battery life???

T450

psref_lenovo_com_PSREFUploadFile_Sys_PDF_ThinkPad_ThinkPad_T450_ThinkPad_T450_Platform_Specifications_v467_pdf

 

The winner?  The x230 with 24.9 hours.  But the deal and steal is the X220 – now priced for around $200-300 on Ebay with an IPS display, if you can spare the 1 hour difference (you won’t even notice).  Pick one of these up before they are all gone.

Deploy Script Meteor on Modulus with Codeship

By | Featured, Interest, meteor | No Comments

Continuous Integration with Codeship.io, Meteor, and Modulus.  Follow these three easy steps to get started…

Start by signing up for a Codeship.io account and linking an active Github or Bitbucket repository. 

#1.  Setup Tests > I want to Create My Own Commands:

nvm install 0.10.33
nvm use 0.10.33
curl -o meteor_install_script.sh https://install.meteor.com/
chmod +x meteor_install_script.sh
sed -i "s/type sudo >/dev/null 2>&1/ false /g" meteor_install_script.sh
./meteor_install_script.sh
export PATH=$PATH:~/.meteor/
meteor --version

#2.  Click Deployment, “Add a Branch to Deploy”.  Be careful here, as you must manually type in  the Branch you plan on deploying to – Codeship does not autofill this, so it can be confusing.

Be sure your Deployment Branch matches the branch you will be pushing too.  Otherwise, your app will not deploy to Modulus.

#3.  Select the Modulus icon and be sure to fill in all the fields:
[raw]Api Token :

Project Name :

Url :[/raw]
#4.  Reward yourself.

VyprVPN by Giganews Server Locations

By | Asides, Interest | No Comments

These are the most up-to-date server locations for connecting to the VyprVPN by Giganews.

Don’t have an account yet? Learn more here

[tabs slidertype=”left tabs”] [tabcontainer] [tabtext]Los Angeles, CA[/tabtext] [tabtext]Washington, DC[/tabtext] [tabtext]Amsterdam[/tabtext] [tabtext]Hong Kong[/tabtext] [tabtext]London[/tabtext] [tabtext]Paris[/tabtext] [tabtext]Frankfurt[/tabtext][/tabcontainer] [tabcontent] [/tabcontent] [/tabs]

Add jail shelled FTP/SSH user on CentOS / Plesk

By | Interest, Linux | 4 Comments

The process of adding a new FTP user with SSH access to a Plesk / CentOS server is more difficult than it needs to be.  Plesk will only allow you to add WebUsers to your domains which have FTP accounts, not full SSH accounts.  Here is the quick and dirty. We want our new user to be in chroot jail and to inherit the same permissions as another user on the system.  The user will be restricted to the top level directory you define (for example httpdocs in this case).

Login as Root:

1.  [raw]cat /etc/passwd/ | grep ‘anyusername'[/raw]

This will return:

[cci]anyusername:x:10009:2524::/var/www/vhosts/anydomain.com:/bin/bash[/cci]

The first set of numbers after “:x:” is the UID or User Identifier.  We will use this in the next command to copy the same permissions.

2.[raw]useradd -u 10009 -o -d /var/www/vhosts/anydomain.com/httpdocs/ -g psaserv -s /usr/local/psa/bin/chrootsh newusername[/raw]

Replace “anydomain.com” with your domain, and “newusername” with the new user you would like to add.

3.[raw]passwd newusername[/raw]

Gives the user a password.

4. [raw]usermod -s /bin/bash newusername[/raw]

Boom! Done.

Extras:
For an in-depth discussion on working with rssh, chroot, and users – see UnixCraft

Acer Aspire 3690 Broadcom Wireless 43xx Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic

By | Interest, Sample Work | No Comments

Issue : After installing Ubuntu 9.10 wireless and wired networking are either working sporadicly or not at all.  The most vanilla solution you will find.

Target : Acer Aspire 3690-2159

OS : ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386

Hardware : Broadcom 4318 Wireless Adapter

Ensure your wireless switch is turned on in the front before reading step 1.

1.  Install Ubuntu 9.10

2.  Plug in active internet connection the Wired ethernet

3.  Run update-manager

4.  Restart after Kernel update

5.  Now with internet still plugged in, goto System>Administration>Hardware Drivers

6.  Select the Broadcom B43 wireless drive and click activate.

7.  Type in your administrator password

8.  Restart

et Voila.

Animata – Real Time Animation in SL

By | Interest | No Comments

http://animata.kibu.hu/

Video after the break!


Reverse Shadow Theatre from gabor papp on Vimeo.


Animata Jazz Pub from gabor papp on Vimeo.

“Animata is a cross-platform open source real-time animation software for live performance developed in Kitchen Budapest in 2007.

The software makes it really easy to create scenes with virtual puppets, which can be moved according to live input signals received from various physical sensors, microphones or cameras.

This video demonstrates Animata reacting to live audio input.

Credits:

Bence Samu – video, animation, programming
Peter Nemeth, Gabor Papp – programming
Janos Gardos – graphics
Gabor Csordas – sound

animata.kibu.hu”