Author: WebLuke

Laptop with Screen and Code

Do you need a laptop still?

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on Do you need a laptop still?

I question some times after having an iPad with the keyboard and using it for almost all of my fieldwork doing IT support and Network Management. The systems we used ether had useful apps or were almost fully web-based. It was also effortless to pack the iPad with a cellular data connection no matter where I was going.

But it the question gets more challenging when you need to do work on older technologies and systems that still don’t get that most people live in a web browser and apps. Phone systems, old routers, servers, or things that need more coding. That’s where you need a laptop when in the field.

I could argue that if you have a desktop system, you could get away with just the iPad if you worked with modern equipment. But if you need a desktop for work, why not only have the laptop with a dock and nice monitors. It gets complicated, right.

I will have to say my setup as a small IT support and Managed Network technician I need it all. My home desktop is what I use to provide support for my clients, configure systems and servers, develop code for websites and software, and use for entertainment such as videos and games when not working. Now my laptop is useful for on-site doing work on the older equipment, network scanning, and things I need a good keyboard for. The tablet seems to tie everything together, now more than when I was working with others. The there systems make it so I can do work in any setting.

While my laptop is aging because it hasn’t been used much, I have kept it update and upgrade. It leaves me saying, “wow, it still works great” and not having a justification for a replacement. When I got it for school 7 years ago, I made sure I was getting something good, but never thought it would have worked out this long.

So my advice would be to get a reliable laptop you can do everything your work or entertainment needs can afford. If you do need a desktop, you may still need a laptop to meet your mobile needs. Finally, an iPad or tablet can be much more useful for work than just entertainment.

Another note about laptops is that many workplaces no longer get desktops, just USB 3.0 docks with monitors and a laptop. It makes even more sense to do this so your workers can be remote at any time with all of their systems and files. Also, don’t cheap out on computers. They are tools for your employees you are paying a lot of money to, which makes it possible for them to do the job you ask of them.

Anyway, this was some thoughts on laptops. I hope to keep doing these types of posts on this site. If you need help with your network or IT systems or even new laptops, check out my IT business at Grand Junction Computers.

What A Year So Far

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on What A Year So Far

Wait its already the end of August? I didn’t even get my 2020 beginning of the year random update post in! What a year so far! So crazy and almost too crazy like there’s an election they need to cause problems with.

Lots has happened with me too, work was great doing managed IT services and working at a wireless ISP, then BOOM world shut down, clients freaked and I was out. Still doing some IT services on my own and was able to spend the summer with the kids. Now its time to get more going.

So what am I working on, well more IT services though my own name, Grand Junction Computers. Next, I am working on computer tutorials for Programming, IT, Computers, Networking, Cabling, and Tech. I have a good list of programming things to keep me busy with them for a while. I also want to start some kind of current events vlog or something will see what that turns into also. Finally I have a few ideas for programs or services, along with a few games that could keep me going.

The goal is to make enough money that just comes in from projects or services I can keep making more. If it goes good enough I would like to find some land and document building a house on it, but that’s the long term goal. Lets see how crazy they get once the elections are over and we can accept that a virus is not the worst thing to happen to us, and most of us have probably all gotten it. Who knows I may actually post thoughts here more, or not.

Welcome to 2019

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on Welcome to 2019

It is a new year and I am not going to start off saying, “I should blog more” because well I don’t end up doing that. I will say that in 2018 I nuked my FaceBag account and am done with social media, not that I had much love for it in the first place. When sites like Twitter and Facebook started to get popular I always though of it as being kind of lame. I continue to promote the idea that if you want a place for your content, then have your own website, control what and how that content is posted, and be in control of it.

One cool thing about my current work is that I get to do some traveling around the country. According to my spy device, Google says I have traveled 14,390+ miles ~ 57% around the world. That wasn’t to many trips, just a few back and forth. So for 2019 I do hope work sends me more places, but I want to get out more this summer and do stuff around the Rocky Mountains. That gets us to the next point.

A few years back Steve Gibson from GRC and Security Now podcast, did a lot of research and started living a low carb life. I tried it at the time and felt great, was not hungry, and lost some weight. But because if your doing it alone its hard, and our food system is based around carbs and sweets to the most part it is hard to say on it. I also went to school and gained a lot of weight because I was sitting at a computer a lot. Now the old lady found out about Keto and got hyped, so we are now 1.5 months into eating low carb together, we had some problems during the holidays but carbs make us feel sick now. So already losing 25lb I am planning on keeping up the way of eating and working to get healthy. I hope by summer to have gotten down some more weight and just feeling better so I can get out more.

Other things for 2019 is that I am starting to get a list of both Blog post ideas, Tutorial ideas, and Projects I want to create. If I can get even half of the posts done by summer that would be cool, like I said at the top, I always say I want to post more but don’t end up doing it.

Anyway, have a good year, work on making yourself, your family, your community, your country, and your world better by focusing on things that can actually help.

If you want to support my site, I never expect anything, I have setup a Bitcoin Wallet as something fun to mess with, the address is on the side or use this 19YduiFxtDh6h4ALG5vgaqkoh1ZBrtjyJm

TRUMP @WAR – Full Documentary

Posted on | by WebLuke

Just wanted to put this here. I think it’s important that all watch it, it doesn’t matter what your political ideals are, this Documentary shows what is really going on. The media hates to bring light to any thing that President Trump does that is positive to the citizens of the United States or even the World. He has a great record of making things better but you have to look past the media with their millions of dollars coming in from political campaigns, special interest groups, elites, and people out of touch with what is needed to be done to keep our country moving in a positive direction.

Below is the YouTube copy of the Documentary. I am amazed that they have been able to keep it on that site with the growing history of censorship of the big tech companies who calmed to support a free and open internet as long as it kept their sites on the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s9ejkYkb88

To find more out about this Documentary visit their website at https://trumpatwar.com 

Take the hour and a half to watch this. If it dose not awaken some thoughts of what the media and politicians are up to in pushing violence and misinformation in a negative way towards Trump and his supporters than you must really be asleep.

New Keyboard Test Post

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on New Keyboard Test Post

So I got a new keyboard, so far its working great. It’s a Corsair K70 LUX RGB with Cherry MX Brown switches. I was thinking what should I do to test out typing, and boom here is a blog post.

I did some gaming on it earlier and it was great, and I was doing great in the game. The RGB lighting is kind of cool but if you’re not doing something that takes a lot of paying attention to the screen you end up noticing a rainbow of colors over the keys. I know I can switch it to all kinds of things but this was fun for the first night.

When typing so far I have done good at hitting the correct keys and the feeling of pushing down the keys is good, I almost need to have a lighter touch. There is a good amount of that mechanical sound that you know when you are typing. But not so much its annoying. If it was in an office and you did typing or coding next to people it could be a problem. I would also guess because of the frequency of the sound a phone or VOIP call would pick up every key stroke.

I plan on using this one in my home office where I don’t care about sound so much. I had a Dell Alienware keyboard that was not as noise, but had decent switches. They don’t give you a brand so who knows what they are, the only thing I could find was they were like the Brown switches by Cherry MX. Because that keyboard isn’t that loud and I want something better for typing and coding at work I will take it in and use it there.

Other than the normal spelling mistakes I have been able to type out things fast and with good accuracy in this post. If you do lots of typing a good keyboard could improve productivity and just make it nicer to type. There are quieter keys, and other companies who make keyboards with these switches, so if you wanted something more “professional” you could get one of those for less because the RGB is not something you really need. ~600 Words in about 10 minutes with some time to think and look at the other keyboard is quite good.

Who needs social media

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on Who needs social media

Who really needs social media? Why do we put up with the collection and selling of our activity data? It’s been documented over and over that we are a product to sell. Obama was cheered on that they scraped all of Facebook’s data to use it for political use, now a company used Facebook data users agreed to give them, and purely because Trump’s campaign used this company people are losing their minds.

Get off social media, find content with real value, and do your own research. If you have something to say, write a blog on a site you control

Broke The Blog

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on Broke The Blog

So I thinking “I haven’t logged in to my blog in a few I should see if it needs updates” then I was getting errors with some cache plugin or the built in one, not really sure but I was also having problems connecting to DreamHost sites at work and then all I could pull up was a white page for everything. Of course WordPress has had many “White Page” errors some have to do with plugins, others with memory, or database problems. Ether way you get no error message even with error reporting on. Finally traced it down to just needing to disable the WordPress cache in the config and everything came back up, with a few problems with my Theme, just had to reinstall it and now its back.

I would love to dump WordPress, but it just kind of works. I did lose some of my interest in blogging, its not the “cool thing” for a lot of people. But I think I want to get back into it. I also have noticed that since most of the “how to sites” no longer link to my post on how to fix handbrake and they just took my steps almost word for word, traffic is way down to the site. So moving the important posts to something new wouldn’t be too bad they would get re-indexed and still show up when people look for them.

This could be a good opportunity for me to take some of my CMS tools I have build for my works site and move them into my site. No more broken WordPress, with its vulnerabilities and slow performance. But its a lot of work getting my system built up and not as just drop in some images and bang out a few paragraphs when I want to add something. The text input isn’t too bad, but I haven’t built a great solution for uploading images and files just things that get a simple job done.

Another thing about building my own solution is that I like using PHP and MySQL, and that is what my CMS starter code is in. But I would like to learn ASP.net Core and build a site with it, but my hosting is LAMP. Anyway I will just leave it like it is and hopefully get motivated sometime to make something new. At least start posting once a week would be good.

Wait has it been over a year?

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on Wait has it been over a year?

Wow it looks like it has been over a year and I once again have had nothing good to say on my blog! Not sure if that is good or bad, I probably share too much stuff on Facebag but meh, it takes 2 seconds as I scroll through stuff and find it interesting or informative. The political climate has changed and normally rational people are losing it, and big tech companies would rather see themselves implode over identity politics then just make cool stuff with the world’s data. But that’s not why I write on here, it’s mostly a public spew of something’s happening to me or what not.

This new keyboard is super easy to type on but it needs a wrist wrest, let’s see if it feels better with just the old one propped up, humm yes but not as easy to move my fingers to the keys. BRB off to Amazon…

Amazon what is this a baguette wrist rest!

There the black normal one looks ok will see.

So I did start a new job doing IT, web work, and other programming. It kind of gets all the areas I am good at into one so it keeps me interested. They also have sent me on a few business trips and that has been fun because I get to see some places I probably would have never visited and get paid to do it. Another good thing is it’s in the town I have lived in and would have never though they existed but boom there it is so that’s cool. Just past 6 months so I am a permanent employee so it’s going good.

I was all interested in getting an Amateur Radio Licence but it was kind of off-putting being around the guys who do it, as most are old and just want to do contacts and can’t really get into messing with radio tech so that’s kind of lame. I think I will still go for my General licence so I have a large set of frequencies to work with, and now that I have good money coming in I could get some equipment.

My grandpa turned 90 a few months back, that’s a long time! We had a little party and all hung out with him on a long weekend and that was good. I think a thing that has kept him going was staying active, getting out and doing things, living a clean life, and keeping positive. It’s amazing to think all the things he has lived through and still have been just young enough to have missed some of the bad things. He was in World War 2 but was training after Europe was liberated and was going to get shipped to the Pacific but was probably saved by the dropping of the bombs and the end of the war. He ended up spending his time in the service helping guys get home so that’s still a necessary task. Because he and my grandma grew up after the great depression they were very frugal and did some good investments, resulting in an active retirement from a bank locksmith.

Any way I am working hard at a new job, still need to finish my degree, just some pesky math classes getting in my way but I will try to do them around working. I also haven’t don any robotics or programming things in a while so I probably should do some of that, along with reading since I really haven’t had time or willpower to do much of that after a full day at work. I think I will be starting to plan out a new computer build soon. The new generation of processors are out, and a lot of things are down in price due to some economic booming and I actually have some money haha. Humm those guys I worked for last winter still owe me a few thousand… Anyway say no to Socialism and work hard and enjoy the rewards.

ARRL Request to Contact Your US Senators Supporting the Amateur Radio Parity Act

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on ARRL Request to Contact Your US Senators Supporting the Amateur Radio Parity Act

Dear ARRL member,

I am writing to you today because we are at a crossroad in our efforts to obtain passage of The Amateur Radio Parity Act.

Our legislative efforts scored a major victory in our campaign when The Amateur Radio Parity Act, H.R. 1301, passed in the House of Representatives yesterday, September 12th. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where we need every Senator to approve the bill.

You are one of over 730,000 licensed Amateur Radio Operators living in the United States.  Many of you already live in deed-restricted communities, and that number grows daily.

NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL HAMS TO GET INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS!

  • If you want to have effective outdoor antennas but are not currently allowed to do so by your Home Owner’s Association, SEND THESE EMAILS TODAY!!
  • If you already have outdoor antennas, but want to support your fellow hams, SEND THESE EMAILS TODAY!!
  • If you want to preserve your ability to install effective outdoor antennas on property that you own, SEND THESE EMAILS TODAY!!

We need you to reach out to your Senators TODAY!  Right away.

Help us in the effort.  Please go to this linked website and follow the prompts:

https://arrl.rallycongress.net/ctas/urge-senate-to-support-amateur-radio-parity-act

Thank you.

73,

Rick

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Rick Roderick, K5UR
President
ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio®

Writing Code

Posted on | by WebLuke | Leave a Comment on Writing Code

At this point in my degree I have finished all my Computer Science course and am just left with some math and science classes, so close to the end yet a little bit left. I would consider myself a well-rounded coder with experience writing simple console apps, to websites, to complex website content management systems, to Windows apps that use databases. I have participated in robot challenges, startup competitions, added and worked existing code for production applications, converted vital databases, and worked as a group to develop web applications.

All that being said I find the act of writing code for an application fun and exciting at times. You have to figure out the problem, find ways to deal with data, and then output something useful. This can be a challenge at times because there is never any two problems the same, yes there are things you can reuse but almost never has someone written code to do exactly what you are doing. I think that’s part of the reason I enjoy it.

But some times you have to be in the right place to really let things come out, environment can have an effect on distractions, comfort, availability of resources, alertness, and even mood. Another thing that seems to drive some coding is truly having something you want to work on, I have had lots of things that were interesting to me, but I didn’t have the drive to work on them when given the opportunity. I have also found I want to work on something but don’t because other things come up. This doesn’t mean when I need to get things done because I have responsibilities to get it done or there is intensive to do so that I can’t or don’t always find a way to get what I need to do done.

I guess what I am saying there is times when it is easier because I am really interested in something or I want to solve a problem, and I can buckle down and get lots done in a short amount of time. Writing code is a real mental process, you have to think about logic, how things are given to you, the users, the task to solve, and how to get it all done. You can get stuck in your mind working on the problem and it will stick with you night and day until you solve it by writing the code. Sometimes it seems like your avoiding the problem but it will be stirring around in your mind.

Starting to ramble now, I guess what I am saying is that I have found something that can really drive my brain to solve problems, and keep me interested. I just now have to finish up classes and see what opportunities come my way to give me a place to use my abilities and enjoy doing it. I think it is closer than I even know but that wait is what makes it hard. Every thing I get involved with I do see some value in helping me see more of the world both in code and with others. That’s all for now, I shouldn’t blog so late at night…

PS: WOW my number of visitors has dropped over the past year, Handbreak must have passes its usefulness and I really haven’t been adding much content but once every 6 months. I should (like I always say) add more posts, guess I should actually try that with code blog posts.