The Beanster Blog

NAS4Free on Wind U123H, the old clunker stopped charging this morning. Remember NetBooks? Yeah, those cheap Intel ATOM driven mini-notebooks... Well I still have one lying around, an MSI Wind U123H. I upgraded it from Windows 7 to 10 during the free period, but since it is about 9 yo hardware it isn't running so well. I've decided to re-purpose the Wind into a NAS or Networked Attached Storage. I want to use it as a Network Backup location for both Time Machine and Windows Backup, and maybe explore Media Server functions as well. Basically, I just felt the hardware was just gathering dust and wanted to do something more. I took out the 240Gb Toshiba 5400rpm with Windows 10, and plunked in the 500Gb Seagate Momentus 5400rpm that I had lying around. I was able to finally get it installed in a USB, early this morning around 1 AM. I decided it was time to shutdown the machine and call it a night. So this morning I noticed that the MSI Wind wasn't charging, I tried ...

I'm thinking up a new project... My partner's 2012 MacBook Pro 13in aka "MD101 ", has been having constant Beach ball of Death issues for the longest time. I suspect it's bad RAM or a bad HDD. Since she will be upgrading to a different machine, I am thinking of salvaging her old machine and upgrading some components. Specifically the 500Gb 5400rpm HDD to 480Gb SSD, and the RAM from 4Gb to 16Gb. 2.5" 480Gb SSD 6Gb/s SATA3 8Gb x2 PC3-12800 DDR3L 1600MHz SO-DIMM 204 Pin CL11 True, it is an old machine but it is also one of last MacBook Pros that can be easily upgraded . With these upgrades I am hoping to have a workable machine with better performance. I am also toying with the idea of having dual storage drives (replacing the built-in SuperDrive with a second HDD) but for now I am retaining the optical drive. I plan on running both MacOS Sierra and Windows 10 via BootCamp. I have already made inquiries on the components and hope to have some id...

Microsoft Lumia 950 XL I am really tempted to get a flagship Windows 10 Mobile device (might be the last for awhile, since the rumored Surface Phone is still uncertain), I am undecided between the Lumia 950 and the 950XL both flagships would be a HUGE upgrade from my Lumia 532 . I reckon since I am not upgrading to the iPhone 7 Plus (the removal of the earphone jack really really bugged me) I can update my secondary device instead. I sold my XiaoMi RedMi 1S earlier this month and have been exclusively using the Lumia 532 as my work device. Yes, I have said good bye to Android for now, my second mobile OS of choice is now Windows Mobile 10. Even if the *new* Microsoft seems less interested in their own mobile OS, Windows Mobile still gets periodic updates. I am really happy with Windows Mobile 10 even with the so-so hardware and the sparse apps, and am curious how the OS performs on beefier specs. I am still keeping my iPhone 6S Plus as my primary, so I'd still have ...