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I reject power cables that are not bearing safety marks on the rubber plugs. I sectioned some of the rejects, and the copper wire is usually undersized. The cable may seem OK externally, but weight is mostly due to plastic/insulation. I believe this is related to increasing cost of copper...

A Dell T20 microtower server with Xeon processor (NOT the cheaper Pentium G models). It has the latest Intel Xeon integrated triple output full-hd graphics and runs any desktop OS flawlessy. Street price is lower than the Dell web site price, at least here, and it fits your budget. Fans are very...

My thoughts: - Passwords should be revealed  by explicit, voluntary action from the user only. A visible by default password field is not safe. On most applications, there is a "reveal password" button or checkbox next to the password field. I would stick to this widely accepted industry...

A 64 Mb OVZ VPS works just fine as personal PPTP or SSH VPN, DNS server, uptime monitor. After installing a minimal Debian template, no special precautions are needed.  It can be used to host many further services, but with limitations. 

The order link for BLUE0 (october offer) does not work anymore, and I don't see a new link on the web site. The smallest VPS is BLUE0.5.

The SD81 firmware on that drive model is affected by the infamous bug that bricks the drive after 320 logged events on a internal firmware table. Details and the fix are here:  http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/ If the drive has failed by this bug...

As notFound said, diet is higly subjective. I don't believe on a generic diet that completely changes the food choice one is used to. The diet is not something that need to be followed for a while to fix the weight problem, then back to "normal". The key to weight control is a sustainable food...

I believe that the urge to own a gun is mostly a USA thing. It probably makes perfect sense on that framewok, but it is not a global issue, not in my country at least. Most of the world seem to cope fine without widespread gun adoption. I live in Europe, near the shooting range of my town. I see...

I use a Windows VPS as remote desktop, to check web sites speed and functionality from the location of the targeted audience. I tried a Linux desktop, but VNC and x2go are far worse than the latest Windows RDP protocol. Beside that, most people use Windows on their PCs, so the test is more...

The laser mouse suggestion is good. Even the cheapest Logitech LS1 mouse tracks perfectly over a glass or metallic surface. At the office, I am about to start the annual search for the best monthly or weekly desk pad. Suppliers usually give them for free as marketing material. Some pads are 120...

It is mandatory to check the configuration on the controller BIOS config screen before importing and committing the changes. If a disk is missing, you can turn off the server and check the cable connections. If the replacement controller is reused from another server, I usually erase the...

In the basement, togheter with some 8'' floppy drives and a few odd things such as the Ericsson Portable computer with 7'' plasma screen and built-in thermal printer. In a previous house, I filled the garage with (working) datacenter junk at the point that the car could not enter anymore (2 DEC...

About 20 years ago I saw a lot of projects to harvest energy from the telephone line on electronics magazines. Of course, this is not autorized by the telephone operator. The line voltage should never drop under 40-45 volts to avoid interference with the phone service. This usually means that...

It is a faulty row driver chip or a bad bonding between one of the row buffer chips and the LCD ribbon connector (the internal ribbon, not the one that connects the panel to the monitor or PC mainboard). A temporary fix is possible: open the panel and apply pressure over the folding section of...

I am searching for a new chair since the beginning of the year and the Aeron is the recurring suggestion. I plan to buy this chair on a internet shop that is now offering a 25% rebate on the standard price. The Hermann Miller product configurator lists 3 sizes (small, medium and large). I am 170...

I ordered july 25th during the morning and the server has been activated yesterday at 18:00. They are slowly keeping up with the orders. According to Oles (Octave Klaba) tweets, OVH will clear the backlog by the last week of september at most. This is their plan, and no amount of complaints on...

I have both the Arduino Uno and a couple of Raspberry Pi's. Both boards are fun to use, but lately I use the Raspberry Pi almost exclusively. My projects needs the ethernet interface: the Arduino ethernet shield is somewhat expensive and has limited capabilities; the Raspberry Pi has a far worse...

The first one in the family was a Commodore 64, but I started to use a computer more often with the Commodore Amiga. I built a dial-up 300 baud modem and used it to connect to the local university System 370 IBM mainframe, borrowing the account of a friend. The mainframe operating system was...

Yes: should a failure happen, the Kimsufi server could remain offline for a relatively long time. OVH will put the ticket on the lowest priority queue. The VPS is on a shared infrastructure; any failure will impact a large number of customers, and therefore will hopefully be solved in a short time.

I dumped my home UPS because power outages are extremely rare and the UPS would be the weak point. Sourge protection devices and a well mantained electrical switchboard are more useful here. I experienced this myself a few years ago, during a storm, when a lightning discharged on the roof of the...