Veteran software developer / sysadmin and holds a PhD in Computer Science. Avid computer enthusiast (geek) who has been dabbling with technology ever since his Dad brought home an 8086 computer.
Networking / Linux
About two years ago, I started a journey to convert the analog phone system found in my home to a sleek, modern VoIP system. There was one important requirement : the system should work with the existing phone line. That was a perfectly reasonable requirement, many providers already had that phone
Gadget & Toys
A few months ago, my brother contacted me for some help with his Nvidia Shield Tablet. Because of a bad charging port, he was unable to restart the tablet and get some of his data. Unfortunately, fixing the charging port of this model of tablet is ridiculously difficult. The frustrating
Computer
A few days ago, I learned that my best friend, known online as Blazer Falcor, had passed away. For the last 25 years, Blazer had been my tech and gaming partner in projects and games. In MMORPG, he always ended up being the tank, soaking up damage on the frontline
Computer
For the second year in a row, DreamHack was held in the Olympic Stadium, adding even more space to the bring your own computer. Fan favorite competitions returned, such as StarCraft II, CounterStrike, Rocket League and Super Smash Brother. With a prize pool of over 200'000 USD and activities around
Networking / Linux
In a Homelab, disk shelves are a simple solution to add storage to an existing server. Just add an SAS adapter for some extra external SAS ports and you are ready. On the r/Homelab sub-reddit, older disk shelves, such as the NetApp DS4243 or the Dell MD1200 are popular,
Gadget & Toys
At the time of writing this, Skylanders as a videogame property has been dead for the last 3 years, with no new games announced. With poor sales, Skylander Imaginators sent Activision a strong message that the "toys to life" market was exhausted and could not support new games. Of course,
Computer
It's easy for a PC building enthusiast to also be hoarder. So much time is spent carefully selecting components and combining them to build the perfect computer to call their own. And long after these computers have faded into performance obscurity, these enthusiast collect these prized components, as trophies celebrating
Computer
Has your Mac computer ever mysteriously shutdown? Did you ever come back to your computer and noticed it rebooted? Understanding the cause of the shutdown is the first step to making sure it doesn't happen again. When working on a Mac computer, the Console application should contain this information. Unfortunately,
Networking / Linux
It's not secret that I am a big fan of Ubiquiti hardware. I've already written about their hardware [https://www.technodabbler.com/edge-router-x/] twice [https://www.technodabbler.com/unify-ac-an-elegant-wifi-solution/] in the past. But this latest upgrade to my home network is elegant superfluousness : the Ubiquiti US-8-150W 8 port POE switch.
Computer
This year, at CES 2018, Nvidia announced their pricing for [Geforce Now for PC and Mac] (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/geforce-now/mac-pc/). For 25 USD, players would be able to rent a cloud machine for 20 hours of gaming. This price angered many in the gaming community,
Computer
Having used computers for the last thirty years, I've seen my share of disasters. The biggest impact of these incidents is always data loss : hardware can always be replaced but once data is lost, it is gone. That is why data should always be regularly backup. As such, I have
Charity
As mentioned [http://www.technodabbler.com/extra-life-2017-once-more-with-feeling/], I will be playing for Extra-Life, a non-profit organization that raises funds to develop high-quality paediatrics and to contribute to social health projects for all the children in Quebec. And it is less than 12 hours before we are live. My streaming schedule
Videogames
I've been following the Starcraft 2 professionnal scene for a few years, enough to see the game change through the release of various expansion. When I learned that Dreamhack was returning to Montreal for a second iteration, I jumped at the opportunity to attend. Lan Party Dreamhack Montreal follows the
Videogames
It's not before becoming a parent that I realised the importance of pediatric hospitals. This is why, for the second year, I will be proudly participating to Extra Life 2017 [http://www.extra-life.org/]. By playing games for 24 hours, I will be raising funds for Opération Enfant Soleil [http:
Blog
In summer of 2013, a small team a developer launched a Kickstarter [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-blogging-platform/description] campaign to create a new kind of publishing platform. Lead by Wordpress veterans, they set out to create a tool that would focus on simplicity and ease of use. Four
Legal / Scam
I've been playing around with the idea of having a newsletter for a while now. I would love to be able to send all my readers an email when I post a new article. However, in an effort to fight spammers, regulation on sending bulk emails has gotten very strict.