Category Archives: tech tips

Galaxy S5 screen repair, iheartrepair review

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In August I broke the glass on my Galaxy S5 screen and sent it to iheartrepair.com for repair. Overall the process went quite smoothly: Pros: Simple ordering process Coupon code available for discount Turn around time was quite short: 2 days for delivery 2 days for repair 2 days for return delivery Upon completion of the repair they promptly emailed photos of the device, it looked GOOD! 🙂 They carefully packaged the phone for shipping Phone was fully repaired Cons:

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BlackBerry Passport, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6 size comparison photo

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The Passport is a very intriguing device and it looks rather huge in most photos. For comparison, I wanted to see the size compared to two other rather popular phones 🙂 So, here is a visual size comparison between the BlackBerry Passport, Apple iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple iPhone 6 *photos courtesy of BlackBerry press page and Apple press page Dimensions: BlackBerry Passport 128 x 90.3 x 9.3 mm (5.04 x 3.56 x 0.37 in) iPhone 6 Plus 158.1 x 77.8

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Mini-itx AM1 gaming system w/discrete video card and DC PSU!

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Mike sent me some info and photos of his awesome mini-itx system: I crammed the AM1H-ITX along with a 5350, a Kingston HyperX 4gb DDR3-1600 stick, Slimline DVD-Rom, Microcenter house brand120gb SSD, a couple 40mm fans, and an EVGA GTX 750 2GB (non-ti) into a Travla C158 case. I’m powering it with a DC power brick (part number 316688-001 or spare 317188-001) from either a beefy HP laptop or possibly a docking station. The specs are 18.5v, 6.5a, 120 watts.

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Upgrade Yoga 2 13 to SSD

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BestBuy sells a nice Yoga 2 13 laptop at a significant discount under the traditional Yoga 2 Pro 13 laptop. However, one of the sacrifices on the lowest end Yoga 2 is that it lacks a SSD. Instead it makes due only with a 500GB HDD 🙁 Thankfully, you CAN add a SSD to the Yoga 2 Pro AND keep the HDD installed as well! All you need for the upgrade is some patience and the correct SSD: M.2 2280

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5 monitor setup

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My good friend John Odom recently sent me a photo of his current office setup: John absolutely loves his three 23″ Apple Cinema Displays. I originally had one of them in college and then added another in law school. Eventually I traded them to him for some architectural work and he recently added a third to complete his setup. The two LCD TVs in the background are for viewing live reports and surveillance cameras. Overall he has a very nice

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Intel.com driver site down with 500 error

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While setting up an Intel NUC today, I discovered the entire driver portion of Intel’s website is down. The site only lists a “500:Server Error [20-0004]” error message. This is quite a bummer as Windows 7 lacks some of the basic drivers for the NUC’s Ethernet adapter etc. 🙁 This type of outage is why I often keep a mirror of drivers. Hopefully Intel will get their site working again soon!

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ASRock AM1H-ITX DC power and discrete video card?

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The ASRock AM1H-ITX is a nice little motherboard with the bonus versatility of having a DC power jack for 19V external power supplies -or- the standard 24 pin ATX power connector. Having DC input (barrel connector) as a power option begs the question of just how much power input is supported (i.e. how many watts, or amps at 19V)? As an aside, a NUC power supply is compatible and we know they do not put out much power. Most small

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Ordering the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2)

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I received a tasty email in my inbox this morning, The Oculus Rift 2 is up for preorder!!! However, upon attempting to place my order I encountered some wonkiness in their ordering system (using both Chrome and Opera). Thankfully I eventually figured out how to place my order: After you enter your shipping/billing info, you should eventually make it to a screen that looks like a final ordering screen. But if you scroll down it looks like there no ‘order’

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