Another problem with SMR is that some RAID systems can kill them in a matter of days. Read the fine print of your raid system's supported disks section to see if SMR is supported.

Drobo systems, for example, don't support SMR.

So, for example, recently we purchased three new Seagate 8TB Barracuda drives to add to our Drobo system. Within three days two of the drives had completely failed and the third was flashing up warning lights leading to an urgent purchase of non-Seagate drives to replace it.

Checking with Drobo and SMR drives aren't supported - are these SMR drives? I checked the online support sheet for the drive, no mention of SMR.

I emailed Seagate and they claim they don't even know!

"Thank you for contacting Seagate Support. "Typically"the new Barracuda over 8 TB uses SMR, we do not have access to this kind of information, so I can't confirm this."

But more digging revealed they are SMR.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataH...

All three drives were returned to the dealer and a full refund received.

Since then I've been using Toshiba disks without any problems.

The images in the article indicate that the phone seems to detect which side is facing up when in a horizontal position and only light up that side.

The real smarts would be when the phone whether the phone would be able to detect which side to light up when in a vertical position. This is conceivably doable using face detection and/or hand orientation detection, but it might be tricky to get it right.

I use AccuBattery on my non-rooted, vanilla Android phone to trigger an audible alert whenever my phone hits 80% charge, so I can (usually) disconnect it. It's a Nexus 6P, still on its initial battery and still lasting the full day with light use.

I had an optical mouse (Golden Image GI-6000) on my Amiga that worked on a surface of hexagonally positioned dots. Unlike the Sun mice it could work at any angle, the Sun mice had to be aligned horizontally and vertically with the mat.
I had a postscript file of the dots which I could print out and use the mouse on any piece of paper (even found one on google today https://www.qdev.de/downloads/files/GoldenImageMousepad.png) so I wasn't limited by the mat surface or size, but seriously who needed an A3 sized mouse surface? I reckon my current mouse working area is smaller than the pad I used back then.
The sun mice had two bits of felt underneath them, which made them feel sluggish across the metal surface, I once ripped the bits of felt off the mouse to improve its feel across the mat to discover the mat was scratched beyond functioning, a few months later.
The GI was as light and responsive as any optical mouse today. I was a bit ho-hum, when these were released,since they wouldn't work without a pad on my desk anyway.
I'd already given up on ball mice and had a dual wheel Honeywell mouse which still worked better than those first pad-less optical mice, which again was light, responsive on most surfaces, and didn't require constant cleaning.

My brother-in-law has an old iPhone 5c which he can't get into - the iCloud account is clearly still set to one of his Email addresses (he owns hisname.com and even the obfuscated version with first and last letters are the right ones) but password reset emails never arrive. I've encouraged him for a year now to come with me to the nearest Apple store and get their help but could not promise they'd manage it, and he's never had the spare time between work and kids. But if they can definitely do it (once convinced of our bona-fides) then that's more of a reason to make time to go, and not just let this slab of glass depreciate any further!

The exact link I was going to post... hmph.

Max Headroom predicts the future again!

The data from each CPAP manufacturer is locked-in to their ecosystem. Often the only way for users access their data is upload it to the manufacturer's system. This means that if you change manufacturer, then you can't take your old data with you. Even worse, sometimes the manufacturer also lock-in the user to their agent where the user needs to visit the agent to get a detailed report to provide to the sleep physician.

Guess I'd have to take the body out first.

Back in the 90s I worked as a field tech for PC hardware - everything from printers to laptops to monitors. Name brands like Dell, HP, Apple, and so on. I had manufacturer training courses and was supplied with the special tools, and special phone numbers for support.

I was never told to look for those stickers, which often appeared across seams you'd open if you needed to access the devices. They were never mentioned once. I also did not have any way to even get hold of them if I wanted to replace one after destroying it myself during authorized warranty service.

So, there's that.

Yes, I'm sure there's a public wifi just in reach called "NotMI5Honest" that he could use.

Perhaps it's time for Ecuador to start charging him rent.