Category Archives: Gadgets and Tech

Surface Pro 3 dual monitor dock, w/Gigabit Ethernet

Accell just released a cool new dock intended for the Surface Pro 2 and Surface Pro 3. However, the dock should work equally well with any laptop/tablet that has a Mini DisplayPort 1.2 MST capable port and USB 3.0 port. The DisplayPort portion of the dock uses MST to act as a hub for connecting (2) DisplayPort monitors, while the USB 3.0 port handles Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 hub duties. Overall you get a pretty nice docking solution compared to the other

Download wrench.nc for Carbide3D Project #1 – Wrench

I could not find the wrench.nc referenced in the Carbide 3D tutorial. It did not come with the Carbide software download and it was not linked in the tutorial that I was reading. Thankfully, I did finally find the download link! http://carbide3d.com/files/wrench.nc The relevant section of the tutorial: The Nomad 888, as well as most other CNC machines, runs files called gcode. Gcode is a format that goes back decades to the original CNC machines in the 1960’s.  Gcode is basically

Google Find My Phone (even if Device Unavailable)

Google has been adding more action oriented features to their engine. One of the most useful is “find my phone”. If you have an Android phone you can try finding it here: https://www.google.com/search?q=find+my+phone Also, even if the map/screen says “Device Unavailable” you may still be able to “Ring” the phone… this will ring the phone for 5 minutes and this is exactly what I did this morning to find my phone (which was hiding in the covers) ;-).

Fix Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 scanner power problem [SOLVED!]

Q. Hiya. I have a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 scanner for my Mac and it will not power on 🙁 I checked the power supply and it is a really expensive scanner, do you know how I could go about repairing it so it will power on again? -Shirley Barnes A. Hi Shirley! I know something you can try. I have the same ScanSnap ix500 for my PC and the scanner has a small button/switch that is normally recessed, but it

Fix Dell XPS 13 5GHz wifi speed issues [SOLVED]

When I first connected my Dell XPS 13 to my ASUS router I was quite impressed by the 893Mbps connection speed. However, a few days later and I could not even see the 5GHz wifi network. 🙁 I was stuck at 144Mbps and not loving it. After experimenting with the drivers, I determined that an automatic driver update had effectively disabled the 5GHz capability of the internal wifi card and that by reverting to the original (stock) Windows 8.1 driver