slicendice

I'm toying with the idea of upgrading my aging PC and I keep seeing articles about mini PCs. I quite like the idea of having something small and compact that doesn't make a noise like a hovercraft whenever you ask it to do more than open a text file. I've been taking a peep at various mini PCs and whilst the specs look very good for the price, I'm just wondering about their long term quality. There are lots and lots of online reviews (e.g. for the Geekom A7, Beelink SER7, etc) that give glowing reports of their spec and performance...and whilst I'm sure most of them are true, I've also seen a number of reports about how the quality control sometimes appears to be a bit iffy, with unexplained bluescreens, non-functioning components, etc. Plus the after-sales support is also sometimes called into question, with some people saying they struggle to get a response from the support departments. I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with these mini PCs? And if so, are they any good? Would you recommend? Or would you steer clear?

Got a friend who's asked for help finding a broadband provider and whilst trawling through various vendors, it looks like Brysk seem to have some good options and also appear to be very well reviewed, which is something of rarity for a broadband provider. I realise they are quite new so that could changed, but I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with them? Are they any good?

Got a few to keep me going 😁

If only I lived near a farm! But they're not that common in Manchester! 🤣

If I see pallets in a skip or lying outside a house that's having building work done, I'll grab those to use (after asking!)...but usually I only use them for kindling to get the fire going as they may be treated or a bit sappy. Realise that with energy bills being what they are, demand for firewood has increased and therefore it's harder to come by for free. Checking with local tree surgeon may be a good shout...I'll have a Google, see what I can find

As winter is approaching (sorry...a dour observation, I know, but somewhat unavoidable!), thoughts start to turn again to the heating of one's home. Given the horrendous energy prices we're currently facing, I'm very glad I got a wood burner installed a couple of years ago...although fuel still needs to be sourced! So I'm trying to locate wood that I can use in order to save cash (I was recently made redundant too, so such savings may be getting more and more necessary 😬). The ideal source of wood is when trees are pruned or felled, but unless it's something that a friend or family member is doing, it's unlikely you actually get to hear about it. Does anyone know of a way of keeping tabs on when/where trees are being felled? I've created a listing on the arbtalk forum that's specifically for this purpose, but it hasn't amounted to anything.

Thanks Mort I was trying to keep costs down a bit as the Sonos stuff don't come cheap!! 😲 But that's a good point re the RAID. I'll have a poke around and see what the costs are for more bays. The drive I've got is a Seagate one and pretty much brand new (it originally came in a home surveillance NVR that I upgraded) so hopefully should do the trick.

Yep I did spend a bit of time um'ing and er'ing about the height. There's a house just down the road that had some put up just under the gutter on a single storey extension, and it would be an absolute doddle to walk up to them and simply move them so they were pointing up at the sky or give them a smack with a hammer or something. So I went for putting them under the gutter of the second storey and totally out of reach. No, it wouldn't be as easy to identify people, but tbh I don't think it would actually be that easy to identify someone even if the cams were lower...as whoever the intruder was, they'd be able to see the cams in place and would therefore have made the decision they were still going to intrude anyway, so must be pretty confident their face was suitably covered with mask, etc so as to prevent identification. And I've seen footage from a Ring doorbell where the intruders were kicking the door in, so they were literally a few feet from the camera...yet they couldn't be identified as they had masks on. I mainly wanted them in order to act as a bit of a deterrent and show that there is security in place - apparently, if opportunistic burglars are out looking for target properties and they see one house with cams fitted and one without, they'll almost certainly go for the one without. Plus it allows me to see if/when anyone does enter my property so I can keep tabs on comings and goings - the alerts are pretty good, so it will inform me if anyone has approached the house...so if it does look dodgy, and I'm not in, I can take steps immediately to try and do something about it (phone neighbour, police, etc). And if I still got broken into, it's further evidence to provide to the insurance company and police.

I'm wondering about getting a home NAS for movies and music. I've got a spare 2TB drive which will probably be plenty (certainly short term) so all I'd need would be the enclosure. It would need to hook up to Sonos (which I believe is pretty straightforward) and also my LG TV (49SM9000PLA ~3 years old) for movies. I believe the TV should be able to access the movies on the NAS if it's on same LAN (which it would be)? I wouldn't really need RAID as all the stuff I'd be putting on there would be copies of originals that I already have (mainly CDs and DVDs). Is anyone using one of these? Any recommendations? I've had a bit of a poke around and this Synology one seems to be well reviewed and isn't crazy expensive.

Thanks Steve...good to know. I think that's probably what I'll go for - I mean, if I'm going to do it then I might as well do it properly! 😉

In case anyone's interested, I ended up going for a Reolink 4 camera POE kit. The install was relatively straightforward...it was a bit grubby crawling round the loft and threading cat 6 cable all over the place, but not too bad. The kit itself was very easy to setup once wired in and it does everything I need it to. Picture quality is good and the app is excellent. I upgraded the supplied 2TB drive to a 6TB drive, so there's plenty of space for recordings. Happy to provide more details if anyone's interested.

Well, I'm allegedly hitting the big five-oh in the not too distant future, so I've been thinking of going for a home cinema upgrade (it felt like a good excuse! 😁). I've currently got an old LG system and I'm thinking of upgrading to a Sonos set, especially as they have a sale on at the moment. The two kits I'm looking at both include 1 x Beam (Gen 2) and 2 x Era 100. The one kit has the the Sub mini whereas the other has the full Sub (Gen 3). What I'm not sure about is which one to go for. My living room isn't that big (12 x 13 x 8 ft) and I've read that if your room is under 300 sq ft then the mini should be OK. But I've also read some reviews which say that, even though the mini is good, it doesn't give the same depth and resonance as the Gen 3. I do like to feel the bass in music and movies, but given it's a semi-detached house, I'm not really going to be whacking the volume way up. Does anyone have the mini? How have you found it?

Not sure I'd want to start cutting plugs off...would banjo the warranty. The gland is 12mm and the cam cable plug is 18mm at its widest, so not a cat in hell's chance of it fitting. Back to Google I guess! Must be something out there....

I'm mounting a security camera on an outside wall and have a junction box into which the cables from the camera (ReoLink) will go. Then there's a cat6 cable running from the junction box up into the loft and to the NVR. The problem is the cable glands I have for the junction box (https://amzn.eu/d/ec3K2To) aren't big enough to take the plug from the camera (see pic). Does anyone know of a way of getting a cable gland that would fit a plug of this size?

It looks like there may be an app available soon that can be used to record evidence of bad driving and speeding and then submit it straight to the police from within the app: https://www.visordown.com/news/general/speed-camera-mobile-phone-app-dashcamuk Whilst I understand the premise and that it would be good for bad drivers to be held accountable for their driving, I worry that it could just descend into a bit of a farce, with slightly petty drivers submitting footage of anyone who happens to annoy them in some way but hasn't actually broken the law. Or ranting at people who they think are driving at 71 on the motorway. Or am I underestimating the character of the good old British driver...?! 😜