Category: Tech

  • Back to the Mojo

    Back to the Mojo

    About a year ago I got a burr up my butt to learn something about FPGAs. I bought a Mojo board, and some accessories, and did some of the beginner tutorials. Really cool stuff, but I was using this well aged (read: shitty) windows PC that was pretty underpowered, and an AIO (all-in-one like an…

  • Going SSL/TLS

    Going SSL/TLS

    Recent announcements by Google that they would begin to de-emphasize search results to sites that aren’t protected by SSL/TLS encryption (that green lock you see to the left of your browser URL bar) weren’t surprising, but it was a eye opener. This site (tralfaz.com), its sister site (tralfaz.org), and the Greytbros, as well as Barbara’s…

  • Ditching Chrome

    Ditching Chrome

    Facebook is currently in deletion process. In 14 days, unless I have a moment of weakness, my account will be irrecoverably removed1. While this will be painful, it is for the better. However, there is one more goliath that I need to wean myself from. One that is infinitely more entrenched, and intertwined in my…

  • Email Clients – Redux

    Again, I find myself at a crossroads. Being a Mac person, and relying heavily on Google’s email products (I have 5 different email identities, all hosted on Google’s Gmail or G-suite apps), I must have a mail client that works well with the Google way. Alas, the built in Apple mail client is okay, but…

  • Tivo Roamio Review

    Tivo Roamio Review

    A shocking admission is that I was not an early adopter of DVR technology. I was certainly aware of the products, and the capabilities, but for some reason, I didn’t take the plunge until they had matured. The early leader, Tivo wasn’t even my first DVR, but instead, since I had Dish network, I got…

  • Sleazy Sniping Domain Registrars

    Sleazy Sniping Domain Registrars

    I have a few sites, most of them I have paid the extra bucks for the “privacy” options. But there are two that I just forgot this extra. Bad idea. Yesterday, I got in the mail two letters for the two domains where I didn’t pay for the privacy option. They were identical. They look…

  • Some Apple Grumbling

    You find flaws in the oddest areas, this time syncing with google apps contacts was destroying my battery life.

  • Why I Love my Mac

    Why I Love my Mac

    Anyone who has known me in real life, and via my vehicles on the web know that I am an Apple computer fan. And passionate for my beliefs. There are many reasons why, but top of the list is that stuff just works. Case in point, our old Epson 4490 Flatbed scanner. We bought it…

  • A month with Digital Ocean Hosting

    At the beginning of the year, there was a monstrous downtime at my host that was the final straw. I has a VPS there for a little over 2 years, and while at first it was rock solid and awesome, it had become less reliable through the summer of 2015. There were several down times,…

  • Stepping stones towards a weather station

    Continuing on the thread of projects, my ultimate goal is to build a two station weather station that has in interior display of inside and outside temperature, and outside humidity/temperature readings, ultimately logging it to one of my websites, and then displaying it in graphical form. This weekend, I got a little bit closer. I…