Benjamin BryanOver the years I’ve used a number of Linux distributions (and FreeBSD), these are my top 5 and how I rank them: Desktop I’m not a big fan of Ubuntu’s Unity, so Ubuntu-Gnome, Kubuntu, Debian and Fedora are my top distros for desktop choices. If you want the latest Gnome features Fedora gets them first. For KDE I … Read more
Week 1: Number of Friends: 6. (That’s probably enough) Number of Likes: 0. Species: Kind of like the Borg. I see my home, b3n.org, getting further into the distance. My blog is in one of the most beautiful locations nestled in the mountains between the Tech and Conservative Blogs, definitely more on the Tech side and well … Read more
The A.R.M. (Automatic Ripping Machine) detects the insertion of an optical disc, identifies the type of media, and autonomously performs the appropriate action: It runs on Linux, it’s completely headless and fully automatic requiring no interaction or manual input to complete its tasks (other than inserting the disk). Once it completes a rip it ejects … Read more
A cryptocurrency that’s actually productive! I came across Gridcoin (Ticker: GRC) the other day. Gridcoin helps with cancer and malaria research as well as studying astronomy and solving math problems. It caught my eye because Bitcoins and most cryptocurrencies require miners to spend a lot of computing power mining hashes that aren’t really useful. Some argue that … Read more
Idaho has been having some issues with immigration lately, my thoughts: Immigration is a good thing. It would be un-American to discriminate against any person based on his religion, national origin, ethnic group, operating system preference, etc.. We should be welcoming to all people with good character who are willing to become Americans. That is, as … Read more
I suppose sending the actual statement as an attachment in an email isn’t an option? If security is a concern encrypt it to my PGP key.
Catching up on email, I saw a Newsletter from iX Systems announcing the FreeNAS Mini XL (the irony). On the new FreeNAS Mini page it looks just like the FreeNAS mini but taller to accommodate 8-bays. Available on Amazon starting at $1,500 with no drives. Here’s the Quick Start Guide and Data Sheet. The pictures show what appears to be equipped … Read more
We’re Getting Fiber in Sandpoint! Thanks Ting! I just pre-ordered 1 gigabit up / 1 gigabit down! After years of being in the dark ages in rural North Idaho with nothing but slow DSL, high latency cable, with the only reliable option being Verizon Wireless. We now have real internet! Sandpoint is finally getting … Read more
The last few days I have been getting a lot of calls from “Unknown Caller” for which I didn’t pick up. This morning I got a call from a number in the 845 area code so I answered. It was my friendly Dell Support rep from India! Hello, this is Dell support, we detected some malware activity … Read more
Last year I started looking at 2FA (Two Factor Authentication) solutions and came across YubiKey which is a fantastic little device. I ordered a few NEOs to play with. There are several models, I opted for the NEO since it supports the most features and has an NFC chip that Android phones can use. It’s $50 on Amazon or … Read more