Pete's Write

So, when we entered 2023, suddenly, my mail and calendar no longer worked for my work mail as it kept asking for my password. After a clarification call to the IT support, I was informed that my workplace decided that the older operating system (OS) on my iMac was no longer acceptable, and I had to upgrade to OS 11 and higher, i.e Big Sur and up. I was worried about this, as I have been using the current system for ages, and it has served me well. Furthermore, it might break some of my apps, or worse make the entire interface unfriendly. Now, given that it's a Mac, I thought, well, that should not be the case, so I decided to do some backups, wisely as it turned out, on my Time Machines (TM) first. I'm not the devil may care, throw caution to the wind type, so I did three back ups. I was tempted to cut it short, and just rely on one, but this caution proved to be justified ... Some background, I use a 2015 Retina 27" iMac, with a hybrid drive that I event...

It has been more than a decade since my first Haiku fan and my review: Choosing a Haiku Fan And I have followed up with another  Mounting a Fan and Using more than one Fan Since then, I have gotten more fans, so I have at least one of each generation. They are a thing of beauty, but nothing lasts forever.. However the one that broke down first was the newest one I have, which is just coming to three years old. Now, most of the time, the motor last pretty long, and even the remote sensor works fine. However the power supply is the weakest link here, and it's not something that's plug and play.  The motor can also give issues less frequently, and you can hear it give out, or the ball bearings can wear out, but these give warning. If you have a sudden failure, especially if there is a thump or pop, then it is more likely to be the power supply.  So unless you are really handy and competent, you will definitely need to reach out to the local tradie or technician for help....

Some background: I have loads of data, I have photos, music, data from work etc, so I decided, having a NAS (network access storage) will be useful. There will be data stores, a Time Machine for my Mac, and I will also let my wife use it. With a help of a buddy who kindly dropped by, I got my Synology set up today.. Initially there was a bit of a scare as I couldn't find my HDDs haha He also suggested to avoid using all the HDD from the same batch, just in case there are manufacturing errors. So I am doing a 8+8+8 and later on as 12 TB in a four bay Synology DS920+, all Red Plus There are no screws needed, you unpacked the HDDs, there's a latch for each bay, you remove the sides, slot in the HDD, then place the plastic sides back. It only goes in one way, so you can't really make a mistake. Which bays get used first is fine. The initial steps were intuitive enough, you go to the "Find Synology" link, which quickly finds the 920+, and that's the easy part. Howe...