Category Archives: Computers

Bad Caps in Everything

Posted on July 20, 2016 by jwk

I just had a bit of a scare with my Audio Precision analyzer. The 2004-era Dell OptiPlex GX270 which drives the AP hardware decided it would refuse to power up – just flashing the “ON” light for a fraction of … Continue reading →

Posted in Computers, DIY, Electronics, Test Equipment | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Hands On with the Antumbra Glow

Posted on October 2, 2015 by jwk

Remember a few years ago how Philips paired one of their flat-panel TVs with some image processing and colored glow tubes along the sides to make your video blend into the wall behind it? I was always fascinated by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Computers, DIY, Electronics, Gadgets, Home, Internet, Toys | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Want an Acer Chromebook? They’re really cheap right now on eBay.

Posted on July 24, 2015 by jwk

Back in June, I’d picked up an Acer Chromebook CB5-311 from Amazon. At the time, it was $377 for a pretty high-end machine with 12+ hours of battery life, a quad-core nVidia Tegra CPU and Kepler GPU with 4GB of RAM … Continue reading →

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Hands On with the new Acer Chromebook 13

Posted on June 2, 2015 by jwk

I was recently in the market for a new laptop to replace my aging ProBook 4415S. It was a middle of the road HP business laptop from 2009, and over the years I’d upgraded the RAM to 4GB and installed … Continue reading →

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Screenshots from HP 3585A Spectrum Analyzer via GPIB?

Posted on January 24, 2015 by jwk

I’m wondering if anyone reading this might have some experience and could chime in. I’m trying to make my HP 3585A spectrum analyzer talk to my Windows XP laptop over GPIB (488.1) with a National Instruments PCMCIA-GPIB card. I’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in Computers, DIY, Electronics, Test Equipment | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Play Quake 1 on an Oscilloscope

Posted on December 29, 2014 by jwk

Pekka Väänänen must have been bored over the holidays, as he came up with a fantastic and fascinating new use for an oscilloscope and a laptop: playing a round of Quake on his Hitachi V-422 scope in X-Y mode.   After … Continue reading →

Posted in Computers, DIY, Electronics, Gadgets | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Stay Safe Out There [IT Safety and Security Practices]

Posted on November 17, 2014 by jwk

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, every single credit and debit card I own is being re-issued by the banks due to data breaches at retailers across the country. It’s my fault, really, for shopping at massive retailers … Continue reading →

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Destroying Hard Drives with a Drill Press

Posted on November 5, 2014 by jwk

I’ve had this stack of old hard drives lying around for a few years as drives become unreliable or I upgrade. There’s a 160GB, 320GB, two 400GB and a 1TB that failed recently. Most of them have never been even … Continue reading →

Posted in Computers, DIY | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Steampunk USB Vacuum Tube Flash Drives

Posted on September 26, 2014 by jwk

I ran across these very cool steampunk-inspired USB flash drives drives built around a vacuum tube while looking for some tube shields. They look like they’re really well built and are a clever use of an old vacuum tube. I … Continue reading →

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Important Note About “Heartbleed”

Posted on April 10, 2014 by jwk

This is a bit outside the normal repair shop posts you find here, but it’s important: A coding mistake that has existed for several years in one of the fundamental libraries used by about half of all servers on the Internet … Continue reading →

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