Category Archives: Ask J.D.

Best Electric Lawn Mower (Corded)

Ahh, yard mowing… the task that must be done but generally requires gas, noise, dirt and general unpleasantness. As such, I strive to make mowing less of a burden and more enjoyable. Switching over to electric mowers for a portion of our yard has made mowing about as good as it can get. Except for maybe a robot mower, but that will be for another post 😉 I checked out dozens of corded electric mowers and put them through their

How to cancel Amazon Music? [SOLVED]

Did you see a charge for $24.99  or $7.99 from Amazon? Did you realize you have an Amazon Music subscription or trial that needs to be canceled? You are not alone! Thankfully, it is very easy to cancel an Amazon music subscription with the official link:https://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/player/settings (additional screenshots and instructions are found below, with an additional tip to save more money!)     NOTE: you may have the opportunity to specify a reason for cancellation, if so, you may want

Discover Card 5% Cashback Calendar

Discover has some rather attractive 5% Cashback offers currently in effect: Activate to earn 5% Cashback Bonus at Amazon.com, Department Stores and Sam’s Club now through December 2016, on up to $1,500 in purchases. And a decent set coming up in 2017: Activate to earn 5% Cashback Bonus at Gas Stations, Ground Transportation and Wholesale Clubs from January through March 2017, on up to $1,500 in purchases. Unfortunately they only apply on up to $1,500 in qualifying purchases for each

X230 ThinkPad vs 2016 MacBook Pro

The new 2016/2017 MacBook Pro is a fine looking piece of machinery. It packs a legitimately high-end display into a svelte package and it also offer excellent battery life. For a graphic designer or individual that deals with an exclusively Apple ecosystem it is a splendid update to a historically solid line of machnes. However, for an attorney and IT professional dealing with legacy applications and a variety of real world situations, there are some major drawbacks to Apple’s mobile workstation.

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

Lenovo X230 RAM/SSD Upgrades, IPS LCD installation

My X220 ThinkPad has finally started getting long in the tooth. Therefore, a replacement is in order. 🙂 After perusing all the latest and greatest laptops of 2016 (XPS 13, XPS 15, ASUS, HP, etc.) I settled on the Lenovo X230 ThinkPad. An incremental upgrade for sure, but one that has left me satisfied and feeling like I am good for another year or two at the least. The price was right and the upgrade-ability of these models is superb.