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Comment Two different stories (Score 1) 301

#1 - Many years ago I did back-office support for a point-of-sale system that was used in fast food franchises. There were three cash registers on the counter, connected via very thick cables to a DEC PDP-8 underneath. The cable lengths were limited, so the CPU had to be there. The biggest complaint from the service techs was that when some customer would spill a coke or something on the counter, it would run down through the big cutouts into the CPU. Those boxes were often robust enough to keep going, but sometimes the tech would show up after a failure and find "fur" (mold) growing in the Omnibus slots. Many of the cards came back for repair with soda stains on them, and damage from when the soda had literally eaten through the traces.

#2 - Your basic lightning strike. I had an early LAN in my house, coax based Ethernet, with one end at the dining room, cable snaking through the house, to the other end in my son's room at the other end. The Netware server was in the middle, along with my personal desktop. Lightning hit the phone line, which was connected to the dining room PC, jumped onto the coax, and fried the machines going down the LAN in descending severity. The dining room PC literally had chips exploded on the NIC cards. That one, my desktop, and the server had fried mainboards and modems, but the PC at the far end wasn't touched at all. The house smelled like burning electronics for a week. My fax machine and in-house PBX phone system were totally fried too. I boxed up all the fried parts, went to the PC dealer I worked for part-time, and said "gimme". Everyone got upgrades. Insurance paid for most of it, including a new phone system and fax machine.

Comment Re:Stop buying shit printers (Score 1) 287

Something like 20 years ago I bought a Dell 3100cn 4-color Laser. Great honkin' beast of a thing that probably cost a mint just to ship, but Dell was running a special, so it was something like $300 with free shipping. The idea was that the toner cartridges (it has 4) were proprietary and only available from Dell. Except I don't print much, so in the 20 years, I've gone through exactly three black toner cartridges and one drum, and now the carts are available third party. Except for the envelope feeder, it still works great. Support for it under Windows 10 is a bit weak, but good enough for 90% of what I print. If it dies, I'll get another laser, they're fairly cheap now. I'll never buy another ink jet unless I have no choice but to print photos. Toner lasts basically forever, liquid ink costs more than gold and dries up in a matter of weeks.

Comment Re:Now put a FLIR camera on the devices (Score 1) 190

I just had to replace my 3-year-old Note 8. I took it out of the case and noticed the battery was swelling, popping open the case in the back. The longer it was left out of the case, the more it swelled. I got a replacement under my insurance coverage ($200). My wife has an identical phone and we checked it, no problem. It could be just a normal difference, but I charged mine almost exclusively wireless, while she almost always uses a cord. The phones do get pretty warm on that charging pad.

Comment Re:Any IBM 3270 user will tell you (Score 1) 306

I use a 122-key keyboard from pckeyboard.com, it's a clone of the IBM 3270 keyboard. It not only has a semi-dedicated "enter" key (the right CTRL key), but also has an extra set of keys to the left of the main keyboard and 24 function keys up above. Problem is, I'd gotten so used to a 101 key keyboard, by the time I got this one, I couldn't re-adjust to the old layout again. I use "shift-return" for new line and "return" for "enter" when I do 3270 sessions.

Comment Re:Have a wink somewhere. (Score 1) 140

I started the smart home thing with a Wink, but after it failing and bricking itself, and having to send it back to the company to be repaired/reflashed, I gave up on it and went with Smart Things. If Samsung decides to become "difficult", I'll just go to Openhab, my son uses that and likes it a lot. The disadvantage of the non-cloud-based solutions is that they require more care and feeding than I have time for these days. Smartthings just WORKS. Mostly.

Comment TI Programmer (Score 1) 187

First calculator that did octal and hex math (also binary). Got one when they came out, cost $50 in 1977. Still have it, still works, although the nicad battery died long ago. In a remarkable show of foresight, TI made the battery pack with a standard 9V battery connector, and provided a special battery door that let you replace the rechargeable battery with a normal 9V. I replaced it with a solar powered Casio that did a bunch more stuff, but the TI still works.

Comment My son found a dog (Score 1) 130

My son (mid 20's) was out around midnight the other night wandering around our development, playing Pokemon Go. He noticed a big dog wandering around near him, and then looked up to see a telephone pole with a "lost dog" poster that matched the dog he was looking at. He called the number on the sign, and the owners came to collect the dog.

Comment Various watches (Score 1) 359

No Apple watch, I could never justify the cost.

The best watch I ever had was a Casio Wave-ceptor. It cost about $100, was solar powered, and got its time from radio signals. It never needed a battery (till it finally died), never needed setting. Unfortunately, it had this really cheap metal band that actually wore through in spots, and because it was specific to the watch, couldn't be replaced. I've still got it, it works after a fashion, but the little capacitor/battery finally needed replacing and the little buttons are all gummed up, so it's basically useless.

For quite a few years I did without a watch, I used my PDA and later my smartphone. A little over a year ago, I got an LG Android watch as a gift. I wouldn't have bought one, but I do like it. I can see my alerts while I'm driving or sitting at a restaurant without having to risk pulling out my phone when it bings/buzzes. My two sons were impressed enough with it they bought the Motorola version of the Android watch, which I actually like a bit better.

I've also got a Fitbit Flex, and that's where the conflict comes in. I LIKE the Fitbit for the exercise and sleep functions much better than the app that comes with the Android watch (and the LG watch isn't good for sleep monitoring since it needs daily charging), so I'd really rather have something like a Surge HR, but two watches? I can't wear any more stupid gadgets on my wrists, I look ridiculous enough as it is. You should see me when I go to Disney and also have to wear that Magicband. When did my wrist become valuable property?

The thing that ticks me off most about the Apple watch - and Apple in general - is that they get "credit" for developing applications and devices that were on the market for years before theirs came out. Apple watch? LG had the Android one at least a year before Apple did, but when people see my LG watch they always ask "Oh, is that an Apple watch?" I've seen plenty of Android watches around, but only one or two Apple watches. No matter, that's what people know about. Apple Pay? Google Wallet, and "Isis" ("Softcard") were out long before Apple Pay, but who got the fanfare?

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