Category Archives: tech tips

Family and fishing photos with the Google Pixel XL

The Google Pixel XL is a simply amazing photographic device when it comes to quickly capturing the moment. The following three photos showcase some very difficult lighting scenarios which the Pixel handles with aplomb. The sky, water, and people are all in focus and well exposed with minimal blown highlights and shadow depth is retained as well. The first two family photos have a filter applied for punchier color, the last fishing photo is straight out of the camera and

Who are Intel’s Super Seven? [SOLVED]

Have you heard the phrase “Super 7” or “Super 7+1” mentioned in a tech article about Intel? If so, you may be wondering who or what exactly the Super Seven are 🙂 The Super 7 are not superheroes but rather a set of companies that are very important to Intel. Currently, as of 2017, the Super 7 are: Google (USA) Facebook (USA) Amazon (USA) Microsoft (USA) Baidu (China) Alibaba (China) Tencent (China) AT&T (USA) *new to the list in 2016 These companies

Fix bad sound on Lenovo ThinkPad [SOLVED]

If you read my blog you probably know that I am a big ThinkPad fan. Lenovo has continued the classic IBM lineup and now there is a ThinkPad for almost any taste. My current favorite is the Lenovo ThinkPad T470. This 14″ beauty is nearly perfect for work and travel. However, from the factory it does suffer from a (fixable) issue that seems to plague many modern ThinkPads… terrible sound!  Specifically, the sound is extremely echo prone… After listening to

Subtitles in VLC on Android TV [SOLVED]

Until today, I have always had trouble with .SRT subtitles when watching videos on my Android TV device (the awesome NVIDIA Shield TV). The subtitle option was always greyed out and there was no way to load subtitles (even if they had the same filenames etc.) 🙁 The issue appears to be related to watching videos over SAMBA and launching VLC via an app like ES File Explorer. In those instance VLC will not be able to locate the subtitles…. Thankfully, there is a

Garmin Forerunner 230/235 wrong time?! [SOLVED]

Garmin Forerunner 230 5:55:55

My wife’s Garmin Forerunner 230 recently started having some time issues. Specifically, showing the wrong time 🙁 First I tried setting the time manually and that worked until her next Bluetooth sync, then it seemed to get the incorrect time again. Eventually, the following worked to fix her watch time permanently: set the time back to Automatic make sure GPS is enabled* (and GLONASS for good measure) make sure the watch gets a GPS lock to sync the time *Enable GPS:

Best Ethereum mining GPU [Sep 20th, 2016]

Currently, as of September 20th 2016, the best GPU for mining Ethereum is the AMD RX 480. The criteria are cost, hashrate (in MH/s) and power usage. My current top pick is the Sapphire Radeon NITRO+ RX 480 8GB model with 1342 Mhz core clock speed, for approx 27-29MH/s. At current rates this $279 card should mine about $750 USD of Ethereum a year. 4GB or 8GB? 4GB models of the RX 480 offer a lower initial cost, but resale value

Lenovo X230 Memory Upgrade to 16GB [HOWTO] [VIDEO]

[Scroll to the bottom for a quick video of the upgrade process!] The Lenovo X230 (and its predecessor the X220) are absurdly easy to upgrade. Here is the X230 memory upgrade process: Power off laptop (fully OFF, not hibernate) Remove battery Remove two screws from memory access panel Remove existing RAM by releasing retention clips Securely install new upgrade RAM Replace cover & screws Replace battery and power ON! For the upgrade, I chose Crucial’s excellent 16GB DDR3 RAM kit