I had to find a usb-c to VGA cable.
Yes that’s a thing.
can confirm. I still had the old data connection cables on some of out instruments that needed converting to usb-c.
Real network engineers still use serial ports to console in.
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So the missus and I are in the market for a new laptop. Unfortunately our old one kept crashing, and then was conveniently knocked off the table killing it with merciless efficiency. We’re both not really tech nerds when it comes to this sort of thing.
Basically she wants to just be able to use Word functionality and use programs for her work so she can WFH.
I’m kinda in the same boat, but I would like to occasionally play a bit of FM or GTA/ETS when the kidds have been put to bed, so something that can run those easily would be good.
I assume I’m looking for something with at least 8gb ram, but not really sure in terms of Graphics Cards.
I’m not looking to break the bank, but probably a max spend of $1,500.
Anybody know of any good deals/specials going on?
Just off the top of my head you should be able to get a Dell XPS in that range. You can get the previous gen Macbook Air, which runs on Apple’s excellent new chips, for $1500 that can run FM.
Are you set on a laptop? For $1500 you can get a pretty decent desktop with a screen that would cover you. Then you just need to upgrade individual parts down the line, rather than shilling out $1500 each time something breaks down.
https://www.pccasegear.com/category/1411_1917/pccg-gaming-pcs/ready-to-ship-gaming-pcs
Alas, I don’t really have the space for a PC. Otherwise would be something I’d look at.
I got an asus ally recently. Portable and can be used/played hand held, or you can get a dock for it that has a hdmi and a few usb ports. Has a rouch screen and runs windows. Pretty good so far. Might be worth a look.
Anyone knowledgeable on monitors?
I splurged recently on a big 32 inch curved panel for my main monitor. I was hoping I could use my old ones as secondary monitors in portrait mode.
1 x ASUS VG278HE
1 x DELL U2410f
They’re both kind of usable with the Dell being better - but there is something off on both and I have some dim recollection of reading something once about the progressive scan still operating in the same orientation (i.e. across the screen rather than down the screen) and how that makes it feel/look weird … I don’t know if I’m miss-remembering or just making it up wholesale.
Also thinking maybe it’s about viewing angles… but both of these monitors have really good angles or windows just not scaling right at that resolution (i.e. it being flipped).
Would prefer to use my old monitors to avoid wasting money and still decent hardware but would be also be up for buying smaller dedicated portrait monitors (if such things still exist) or better suited ones that can be pivoted.
Any ideas?
If no-one here has an answer I normally go to whirlpool forums for tech related stuff like this.
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viewing angles are far worse in portrait, and if the monior isn’t designed to be in portrait, the filter on the front will make it look weird even head-on.
My son is moving into year 10 this year and they’re recommending a tech upgrade from a chromebook to a windows device.
This is what they’re suggesting: BYOD | Officeworks
The chromebook is only a year old and still seems to be in decent condition.
Is it THAT big an upgrade?
Leaving aside performance, has he used a windows machine before? I’ve never worked anywhere that didn’t have Windows as their primary OS and I think they still have a pretty overpowering share of the business OS market. Being familiar and comfortable with a microsoft environment wouldn’t be a bad thing either way.
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Did they give a reason why you should upgrade to a Windows device? Failing that, there is a possible explanation.
I dare say that the speed of the device itself isn’t a major factor for school classes, and if it is, they are blocking out a lot of families that can’t just pony up $500-$1000 for a new device. It’s more likely compatibility issues that might be a factor.
A Windows device generally has compatibility with more desktop applications. whereas a Chromebook device relies much more on web-based applications and isn’t so good with desktop applications. It’s possible the school are heavily using desktop applications for many of their classes and that’s why they’re recommending a Windows device, but I’d want to hear it from them. A “just because” would not cut it as an answer.
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Appreciate the feedback guys.
Ive contacted the school and asked a few questions to gauge their response.
I’ll let you know.
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Is he doing any IT related electives?
From the reply I received from the school, it seemed like it is partially software access and storage capacity for when they hit year 11 and 12 (for some reason they split the students 7-9 as juniors and 10-12 as seniors, he has a different tie this year too…), and also a general upgrade as most students have the same chromebook they got when they started year 7 (unlike my son, who dropped his towards the end of year 8…).
Got confirmation that he SHOULD be right with the chromebook for year 10, particularly since it was a newer model, and if anything comes up that requires an upgrade for software reasons they would let me know.
I appreciate the feedback from those that replied.
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Hello all,
Would really appreciate if anyone can help with what may or may not be a simple questions.
My son (14) is working on building an elections website (I’ll post more on it later but he’s a politics nerd and has built himself a software program for predicting results on election night). As part of this, he needs to pull data from the various Electoral commissions media feeds. QEC are first and they’ve asked him to provide an IP Address that his server will connect to them from. He is still setting this up, on what will be a permanent box inside our network. Would anyone have any understanding on the best way work out a static IP on the box that will run the page/program and be able to provide the connection info to the ECs?
I can answer some questions, and the little (bigger than me now) smartarse can probably answer more now
When you say ‘work out an IP address’ that doesn’t really make any sense, if the server he’s working on is managed by hosting company (or is an Amazon/MS/IBM/Oracle cloud box) you need to get the hosting co to provide a static IP, you cannot simply decide what it will be because public IP addresses ranges are pre-allocated.
in short, ask the hosting company to assign a static IP as part of the hosting package.
If he’s building it at home, you’re very unlikely to be able to get a static IP, you’ll have one (technically not actually a static IP) for your router but any device behind that will be using a reserved range (192.168.x.x) which cannot be used on the internet.
This is referred to as NAT or Network Address Translation, your router works out which traffic goes where. Theoretically you ‘could’ use the router IP address but I think it would not work because the API for QEC would recognise that the request was coming from a device ‘behind’ the router and reject it. (Trust me you don’t want to know about TCP/IP packet headers)
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I think he’s trying to set up his own box as a server, which I figured might be able to get Telstra to give us a static IP for our NBN modem? I’m very open to that being a silly idea and it needing to be hosted somewhere