Posts from Austin, TX
Desk Photos 2024
- 24 July 2024
Repurposed my laundry room table as my desk after selling everything I own. You can see my travel NAS on top of my UPS in the corner on the floor.
Travel NAS 2024
- 04 May 2024
Last year I made up my mind to move away from Austin and sell all of my belongings, though I swear I’m not a minimalist. This included my homelab. However I still wanted to keep my data with me and ruled out cloud storage or a simple portable hard drive. I wanted a portable NAS for resilliency and I’ve grown to like TrueNAS.
Clutch Bleeder Block Replacement
- 11 December 2022
I opted to replace the stock plastic block with an all-metal block from ECS Tuning to get rid of the clutch delay valve. After doing this mod I definitely felt a difference when pressing the clutch pedal. It feels lighter and now I understand what people meant when they say the stock clutch feels mushy.
Jack Pads
- 27 October 2022
This modification makes it easier to put my car on jack stands in my garage. It adds a second set of jacking points to the car so I don’t have to jack up the car from the opposite side when rotating my tires. It was really easy to install too. In fact I installed this kit without needing to jack up the car at all and removing the old trim pieces was really effortless.
Snapmaker Enclosure Door Reversal
- 24 October 2022
I recently moved my Snapmaker 2.0 A350T printer to another part of my home. The official enclosure has a solid panel on the left side, a large door on the right, and a smaller door on the front. These panels are only designed to be installed in one specific order and orientation.
OEMTools 24938 Gauge Mod
- 23 August 2022
I change my own oil using the extraction method. Since my oil filter is accessible from the the top of the engine bay there’s no need for me to get under the car for oil changes. One of my gripes about this method was that I didn’t know how much pumping I had to do to keep the oil flowing.
Snapmaker 2.0 A350T Teflon Tube
- 15 July 2022
I recently upgraded from my cheap and finicky Monoprice 3D printer to an expensive and versatile one (it WAS the latest and greatest for a few weeks 😭). After using it a few times I already got the modding itch.
Custom Fabricated Rack 2022
- 30 June 2022
I got a couple of items that warranted rewiring my TV cabinet rack: StarTech extenders and P-Link server rails. I inverted the extenders so I could recess the patch panel and switch, making room for the SFP modules and fiber cables. I can’t believe I can’t find any right angle adapters for the LC/UPC fiber patch cables!
HomeLink Rearview Mirror
- 05 June 2022
My 2019 Golf Alltrack SE came with an auto-dimming mirror, but I wanted the one with garage door buttons integrated in it. Since my car had the rain sensor option installed I already had power available to my mirror, so this upgrade was super easy to do. No coding was required.
Dell Rack 2012
- 21 August 2012
After over a whole year since receiving it I have finally made full use of my rack and transferred all of my computers and equipment to it.
Atrix Lapdock Other Uses
- 30 June 2012
I bought the Atrix Lapdock since I couldn’t find any sub $100 portable HDMI displays. The only affordable displays I could find were USB only. With the Atrix Lapdock and some adapters, I was able to use it as a portable display for several devices, which is great for traveling.
Desk Photos 2012
- 03 January 2012
I shamefully upgraded from my custom built dual core AMD FX-60 computer to a quad core Intel Core2 Dell computer I borrowed from work. I’ve had that FX-60 for too long and it was showing its age. Also that KVM was so horrible.
US RNS-510 Video In Motion
- 11 August 2011
After purchasing a VW 2010 Jetta SportWagen TDI with the DVD/Navigation option I’ve been searching for a way to get the head unit to play DVD video while driving so that my passengers can watch their DVDs while I drive on long road trips. I finally discovered a way to enable this feature. You will not need to purchase anything or make any prior changes. All you need is a CD-R and a CD burner.
Dell Rack 2011
- 10 June 2011
Ever since I took a Cisco CCNA class back in high school in 2002 I’ve always wanted a rack at home. I even bought one on Craigslist in 2007 for $100 but it had round holes and it was very shallow. Turns out it was meant for music equipment.
Flashing Motorola Droid to Cricket
- 08 April 2011
This guide will explain how to flash a Motorola Droid from Verizon to Cricket based on my experiences. The two (similar) guides I followed had some inconsistencies and confused me until I pieced together clues from other sources. My guide will explain the exact steps I took to get my Droid working on Cricket’s $55 Android plan.
Desk Photo 2010: Work @ Symantec
- 05 August 2010
After the office consolidated into one floor (instead of two), this was my new cubicle.
Jetta SportWagen TDI
- 03 July 2010
Sometime in September 2009, I set my eyes on a Jetta SportWagen TDI as my next car (I was then driving a 2000 F-150). On April 30th 2010 I finally committed to the vehicle and put down a deposit. On June 30th, I received my new car, special ordered the way I wanted it.
Desk Photos 2009
- 05 March 2009
After moving buildings we didn’t have offices anymore, we had cubicles. These are actually really nice cubes!
Desk Photos 2007
- 21 February 2007
I shared this office with my coworker while I was a contractor at Symantec.
Desk Photo 2006
- 26 January 2006
First year in Austin after my computer died. I was stuck using that laptop for months.
Desk Photo 2005: Work @ TISD
- 19 August 2005
This was right before I left my first job for Austin. I loved that Dell Latitude C400 laptop (my first laptop) that I bought on eBay. I think it was a Pentium 3 866 MHz. And that’s a brownie.