Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

Just picked up a little Fujitsu S920 to be used for a router project. I fancy having a play around with my own router build, not sure what OS will be going on it yet.



Has a pretty good spec and ideal for what I have planned as it comes with a 4 x 1Gb card:

 

I went OLED last year (LG 27GR95QE-B) and the step up from a very good IPS monitor was ... mind-blowing.

Have fun with it!

 

I switched to OpnSense last year from pfSense - pfSense has a stupidly long release cycle. Haven’t regretted it one bit.

 

That's good to know, thank you, I shall have a bit more of a dig around OpnSense and see what's what.

I just need to sort out the other bits of kit now (I've dropped a post in the hardware boards about that bit) and then dive into the fun and games of cable routing.....

 

One other thing I would say is to label the ports on the back of the machine . You can’t plug the WAN cable into a port assigned to a LAN connection unless you reconfigure the port designations from the terminal.

I have made this mistake with a 4-port Ethernet card and spent ages trying to figure out why I couldn’t get an internet connection

 

Oh there'll be labels, I like labels...

 

I’m currently using one of the infamous/legendary Asus Q87T Thin MiniITX boards with a 4460s. Up until late last year, it was an EliteDesk 800 gen1 with an Intel-based quad gigabit card.

Not mind-blowing specs by any stretch of the imagination, but both are more than enough for my use.

 

I'm hoping to get out sometime in the next week to test a couple of new lens purchases, a Fuji 16mm R WR and a Viltrox 23mm STM ED IF.
I've also booked flights and hotel to LA for this years holiday. I've never been to the USA, so it's going to be quite an experience.

 

The Viltrox's seem to be getting rave reviews from people on the Fuji facebook group, the 13mm and 75mm especially.
I'm also travelling over the pond for the first time this year (Dallas for several hours, and Calgary for a week)

Sam

 

Recommended places to visit:-

• Universal theme park - Hogsmeade backs onto Springfield - Have a beer at Moe's!
• Warner studio tour
• Paramount studio tour
• Disneyland (needs 2 days, one for each side of the park)
• Long Beach for the Queen Mary (Eat at Parker's Lighthouse)
• Santa Monica pier
• California Science Center - They have the space shuttle Endeavour stacked on fuel tank and boosters, but the display may not be ready
• Griffith Observatory - $0.50 DASH shuttle bus from the Vermont/Sunset metro station. On the way up, you go through the BTTF / Roger Rabbit tunnel
• Hollywood & Vine (I recommend Amoeba Records if you're into music)
• Angel's Flight - It's a "cliff railway" that costs $1 to ride

I managed all that with only public transport, which sadly doesn't connect direct to the airport yet (due sometime this year), but you can get a shuttle bus to Union Station for $10, and the metro from there to DTLA (downtown LA)

 

Back to the topic - Ring are putting their cloud storage prices up by 35% per device, so I'm switching to Eufy.

• Hub (Local storage, just slot in 2.5" SATA SSD/HDD up to 16TB)
• Doorbell (2K, colour night vision, hardwire power, second low angle camera for parcel watching)
• Cameras (4k, colour night vision, built in solar)
• And an Echo Show 8 Gen 3 (now with added Zigbee/Matter/Thread for smart home stuffs)

 

Not sure if you know, but Eufy is related to Anker, whatever you may think of them. However, the Eufy customer service was atrocious when we needed them, even within warranty, basically said "Tough" and tried to charge us to have a refurb replacement sent when the robot hoover decided to rebel. Won't go near them again, but you might obviously have (had) a different experience.

 

How do you "motorise" a bazooka?

*Watches video*

Oh. Carry on.

 

Never had any trouble with Anker stuffs (so far).

 

They’ve had some exceptionally dodgy and disingenuous marketing material about whether or not they really do only store data locally. If I remember correctly, they basically lied about Eufy products storing video in the cloud; they marketed it on the fact that they offer local-only storage, but that was robustly proven to be incorrect and they later admitted it.

Deceptive marketing is one thing. But I’m starting to wonder whether I have the time and energy to keep “fighting the good fight” against: intrusive & covert data collection, intrusive advertising, tying products to subscriptions, remote storing and processing of data, etc. I’m not saying these things are ok and we should be happy with it, I just don’t think I have the capacity to keep making it a personal crusade. There are a lot of other things in my life that are, frankly, far more important to me.

 

Wow, many thanks for the recommendations IanW, there's certainly some fantastic sounding places to go, and many of these are now added to the list, thanks!

 

Exactly this.
Far more important hills to die on.

 

It’s a worthy hill to die on, and people should definitely be fighting this stuff. But after recent events, I just don’t think I have the capacity to be one of those people any more.

 

I found an easy solution that works great for myself: avoid "the cloud" and "smart devices" where possible. Sure, it'll keep some cool tech from me and it'll become harder and harder, but I feel better because I'm doing it. Vote with your wallet.