The Lance J. Technoweb

I purchased my Apple TV on its release day, in October 2015.  It continues to serve me perfectly, after nearly 10 years of active use. Although it is decidedly not the newest model of Apple TV, it does 100% of the things I want it to do without any issues.  Sure, I'd love a more modern SoC, gigabit Ethernet, Thread support, 4k video support, etc, but honestly I am not missing any of those features, so "upgrading" it today would be a waste of money.  I did sell the original Siri remote in 2023 and upgrade to the 3rd generation (USB-C) Siri remote. The original Siri remote was working great, but I figured after 7.5 years of use, it was time to get a new remote with a new battery.  I will likely upgrade my Apple TV in the future, but I can't predict when that will be.   Due to a quirk of its release strategy, this Apple TV was discontinued in late 2022, and so it is likely to be supported for several more years. A new device would have to be a leap ahead, because m...

I ended up buying a 2013 Honda CRV and decided to replace the stock radio/CD player with an upgraded unit.  This was far easier and cheaper than I imagined, but the hardest part was selecting a unit to buy  This article covers how I made my choice.   The basic form factor for my CRV head unit Selecting a Unit The Car I have a 2013 CR/V, which is the same series of all of the CR/Vs from model year 2012 through 2016. Therefore it was important to find a radio unit that fits this model. The CRV has steering wheel radio controls, and I wanted to use them.  This uses a technology called CAN-Bus, which is kind of like USB for cars.  Therefore, a CAN-Bus capability would be able to leverage all these steering wheel features.  In addition, the CRV has a backup camera that would be nice to tie into. And of course I wanted to leverage the existing speakers and USB port. Form Factor I wanted a unit that had a big display, and I wanted a unit that was easy to purchas...

I happened upon a set of Coax to Ethernet adapters and I decided to do an analysis of them. The adapters I found, by Commscope, use the G.hn protocol.  This protocol is used for many media types, with the general idea that existing or legacy cabling can be repurposed for modern home networking. I have some existing idle Coax in the walls and ceiling of my house, so I decided to try these adapters with this legacy copper.  Testing The home coax run I decided to try is a bit more than 10 meters long. I set up two PC clients on my network, with one PC being attached to one of these adapters, which was then attached to the 10 meter long cable. At the far end I attached the other adapter, which was then attached to my primary Ethernet switch.   The coax cable was in three distinct segments, 1 meter + 10 meters + 0.5 meters, all joined together with F-style couplers.   Network tested via iPerf   Results I successfully ran four trials of iPerf3 between my two PCs,...

2001 was the year when the largest percentage of US households were subscribing to Cable TV service (71%).  Since then, the CATV subscriber percentage has fallen... and precipitously. Peak Cable wasn't in 2015.  It wasn't in 2008.  It was in 2001! What is worse, by 2023 the households subscriber number had fallen to 34.7%.  That's right, half off its high water mark.  And is has continued to plummet since then. Why have so many people left cable TV? No doubt Cable TV's continued sky-high pricing convinced a lot of people to cut the cord and instead go to streaming services.  High base prices, ever-rising special fees, unavoidable rental costs, and scam-oriented "discount bundles" have all conspired to make the typical Cable TV bill run well over $100 each and every month. The Cable TV value proposition simply failed. So what's next for Cable TV?  I suspect no resurgence and a continued slow decay.  The people who are still on Cable TV simply don't...

I've had a traditional UPS powering my network rack for a few years now, but it isn't all that efficient because it sends DC battery power to an internal AC Inverter so that it can power gear, and that gear goes around and converts it back to DC.  It seems reasonable to skip this lossy process.  Here's how I did it. Uninteruptable DC Power Supply Diagram   Backup Voltage and Power My network's gear uses various voltages: 12 Volts, 24 Volts, and 5 Volts.  So my overall goal is to have three voltages available for my various devices.  Sadly, the computer UPS market doesn't seem to want to deliver any devices to satisfy these needs... at least nothing affordable. But there is another huge industry that had this need, and that's the world of small business security.  And in particular, small apartment buildings that use electronic locks!  They don't want their buildings to be inaccessibly locked during a power outage, and so they use battery backups all th...

I often find it challenging to find specific Xfinity web pages used manage my Internet service. Here is the list of URLs that I am often struggling to find. Status, and Remotely restarting the modem      https://www.xfinity.com/support/status      Under "Internet", there should be a Cable Modem entry that says "Connected" and which has a Restart button.   Monthly Data Usage      https://customer.xfinity.com/#/devices#usage Also in JSON form at       https://customer.xfinity.com/apis/csp/account/me/services/internet/usage?filter=internet Hotspot List      https://customer.xfinity.com/#/settings/security/hotspot-devices Speed Testing This is my go-to speed testing service.  It provides a lot of great information.  It isn't a Comcast service, but it does a great job.      https://speed.cloudflare.com/       

As of this writing in the US and Canada, there are exactly 238 "Daylight Saving Time" days per year, and 127 "Standard Time" days per year.  We change our local clocks twice a year, in March and November. Very early or very late sunrises mess up a lot of people, as does the clock change. Many people in the US would like to both eliminate the clock changes and shift their time zone. People in the areas that have very late sunrises effectively want to shift the timezone boundary to the west.  This includes states like Michigan, Indiana, and Georgia, which are inadvertently in the Eastern Time Zone.  Instead, many people in these states would greatly prefer to follow the clock of the Central time zone. Similarly, many people in the areas that have very early sunrises would want to shift their timezone boundry to the east.  This includes the Northeast, which could move to the Atlantic time zone. Many states have already voted for these changes, but it takes an act of co...