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Random Musings

Category: Computers

  • Cloning an ancient laptop to new hardware requires care

    Astute readers of the headline will realize that I failed to do that… There was a happy ending though (thankfully). The past few posts have had TL;DRs up front. This time is will be at the end, so if you don’t want to follow this saga (and who could blame you!), just skip […]

  • Wireguard, ZeroTier, ControlD and NextDNS

    This will be another soul-crushing length and techie laden post, so it definitely deserves a TL;DR to let most of you off the hook early. TL;DR When using two or more services, each of which is awesome on their own, sometimes, the interactions between them are unexpected and can cause headaches (followed by […]

  • Reaction vs Fail2Ban vs Crowdsec

    This is a highly technical post that will only interest people who host a server that’s open to the Internet. That excludes nearly everyone that typically reads my blog, so I’ll start with a TL;DR so you can bug out quickly. TL;DR reaction is a relatively new system that is capable of replacing […]

  • Trigger pulled on new PC, a UM790 Pro from Minisforum

    Even shorter than a TL;DR, you can tell what machine I bought right in the title above. But, do I like it? Perhaps that deserves a TL;DR so you don’t fall asleep reading the rest of the post… TL;DR I absolutely love this mini-PC. It’s the UM790 Pro from Minisforum. I bought it […]

  • Contmeplating a new PC

    My current laptop is 9+ years old. It’s still going very strong (which is crazy), but every once in a while exhibits a potential issue (which I’ve been able to fully mitigate or correct so far). I’ve been researching, thinking and planning for what I’d replace it with for well over 6 months […]

  • Matrix, Dendrite and Element

    A more accurate headline would have been Matrix.org, Dendrite and Element.io. Even though I had intended to (and continue to intend to) blog regularly, for a number of reasons, I ended up not blogging in March at all. Don’t cry for me, it was a very good month in every other way, but […]

  • Converting Windows VM from VirtualBox to virt-manager

    This is going to be my typical long, rambling post. I might have a TL;DR section way at the bottom with bullet points that eventually worked for me, but who knows. If you don’t care about deep techie stuff, definitely just skip this post (trust me…). I recently blogged about VirtualBox and virt-manager […]

  • In Praise of the Intel Celeron N5105

    I mentioned a few times that I am in the midst of numerous technology projects. Many are interrelated and involve running virtual machines (VMs). In my post about Proxmox vs virt-manager I never mentioned the hardware that I’m currently using for some of these projects. In the past, 100% of my VM work […]

  • Acer Aspire 5 A515-43-R19L Journey

    Two posts ago I mentioned that our goddaughter donated three older laptops for me to find good homes for. In that post, I had already found a good home for the better two of them (the very next day). The third laptop was the one in the title of this post, an Acer […]

  • One Bad Cable Spoils the Bunch

    Spoiler Alert!: well, the headline is the spoiler, so the alert is too late! But, there is a lengthy sub-plot here which has nothing to do with that cable, so aside from documenting the cable saga (which you know the ending of), there was more sleuthing necessary. I’ve been a Verizon FiOS customer […]