Computer and technology related topics
Ben’s Law: within a 4 hour block of time, for each unit of uninterrupted time in hours (t), the value of productivity and creativity is roughly t^2. An interruption resets t to zero. p = t^2 c = t^2 if t = 1 (1 hour of uninterrupted time) then p (productivity) = 1 and c (creativity) … Read more
FreeNAS 11 introduces a GUI for FreeBSD’s bhyve hypervisor. This is a potential replacement for the ESXi + FreeNAS All-in-One “hyper-converged storage” design. Hardware Hardware is based on my Supermicro Microserver Build Xeon D-1518 (4 physical cores, 8 threads) @ 2.2GHz 16GB DDR4 ECC memory 4 x 2TB HGST RAID-Z, 100GB Intel DC S3700s for … Read more
Living up North in the Winter we have long hours of darkness because of the earth’s tilt away from the sun. This means getting up before the sun rises, and it’s a bit annoying to be jolted awake at 6:00am by an alarm when it’s pitch black outside. Or if I wake up before … Read more
When all of your network devices lose access to the internet all at the same time regularly throughout the day, there is not much to blame other than a bad network cable to your Wireless Access Point (AP), or the Access Point itself. It wasn’t the cable. My old Cisco-Linksys E3000’s days were numbered. Skype … Read more
Why Is It Slow? When you request a website, say, b3n.org, your computer needs the IP address. So it sends out packets through your router/firewall, your modem, and out to your ISPs DNS Servers. Your ISP’s DNS server will probably have it cached, if not it queries the authoritative (starting with the Root Name Servers) … Read more
Amazon Lightsail has entered the VPS market, competing directly with DigitalOcean and Vultr. I for one welcome more competition in the $5 cloud server space. I wanted to see how they perform so I spun up 24 cloud servers, 8 for each provider and ran some benchmarks. $5 Cloud Server Providers Compared DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Amazon … Read more
Looking for a Christmas gift idea for your computer geek? Here’s a short gift guide with a few ideas I think would make great gifts. Unlike a lot of other top gift idea lists written by non-tech people just to make a sale, I’m actually a developer and these are the sort of things that … Read more
The most Frequently Asked Question from my Family, Friends, and FOAFs… Laptop Buyer: What Kind of Laptop Should I buy? Ben: Get one with an Intel Wireless card WiFi Cards Matter The first piece of advice I have is make sure your wireless card is made by Intel. Do not get anything else. You might … Read more
Phones depreciate in value fast, their useful life is less than their lifespan. Not because old phones don’t work anymore. But because manufacturers stop providing security updates after about 3 years (at best!) What If I Told You a Hacker Can Take over Your Phone with One Text… And You Don’t Even Have to Open … Read more
So, you want to hide your email from the NSA’s prying eyes? It’s impossible… but here are some steps you can use to make it harder. This isn’t theoretical. The NSA has and does intercept this traffic. Common Points of NSA Interception The NSA has unlimited resources to compromise your communications. You’re not going to stop … Read more