3-2-1 Go: A Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing Foolproof Backups
With the large amount of digital data that people consider important, safeguarding your critical data against catastrophic loss is more important than ever. Whether it's a natural disaster, hardware failure, or a cyberattack, the potential for data loss is large. Protecting precious photos, financial documents and other personal or business data is extremely important. Implementing a robust disaster recovery plan with a layered backup strategy is essential to ensure your information remains secure and recoverable. In this blog post I cover...
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Geek Chic Eyewear: My Optometrist Saga, Eyewear Collection & More
Welcome to the fourth installment of the "Geek Chic Eyewear" series, where I share my personal journey through the world of eyewear and optometry. This series aims to provide a comprehensive look into the technical aspects of eyewear, focusing on frame selection and lens materials. Having navigated the complexities of vision correction—from LASIK in my twenties to dealing with presbyopia in my forties—I've gained insights that I hope will assist you in making informed decisions about your eye health and...
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Geek Chic Eyewear: Optometry Tools, Eye Health and Insurance
This is part 3 of the "Geek Chic Eyewear" series and it covers the role of advanced optometry equipment, eye health, eye insurance tips and more. The post first examines Zeiss tools like the i.Profiler Plus, VISUPHOR 500, VISUFIT 1000, and i.Terminal 2. These devices enhance vision assessments: the i.Profiler Plus uses wavefront technology for accurate prescriptions, while the VISUPHOR 500 digitizes the subjective refraction process. The VISUFIT 1000 and i.Terminal 2 provide detailed 3D measurements to ensure proper eyewear...
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Geek Chic Eyewear: Understanding Lens Materials and Designs
In Part 2 of my "Geek Chic Eyewear" series I will delve into the various len materials and designs. While frames (covered in Part 1) play a significant role in the aesthetics of your eyewear, the quality of the lenses is paramount. Poor-quality lenses can severely detract from the overall functionality and satisfaction of your glasses, regardless of how stylish the frames may be.This post will explore topics such as single vision lenses, progressive lenses, lens tints, lens coatings, and computer glasses....
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Geek Chic Eyewear: A Comprehensive Guide to Frame Selection
Welcome to my "Geek Chic Eyewear" series for finding the perfect pair of glasses. The series is designed to offer educational insight from a technology standpoint. Even if you don't currently require vision correction, it's likely that you will as you reach into your 40s. Yes, those "dreaded" reading glasses that "old" people need. Or maybe you just want quality non-prescription sunglasses. Either way, I've got you covered!  Although the topic of eyewear diverges from my usual smart home and other...
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Essential Tips for a Stable Matter over Thread Network
Matter over Thread (MoT) is a recent addition to the smart home ecosystem. Unlike more established protocols such as ZigBee and Z-Wave, MoT is still in its early stages and may present some challenges. This post will outline several key areas to consider for maintaining optimal Thread network stability:Matter Multi-Admin GotchasThread and Wi-Fi RF ContentionThread Border Router UpdatesSystematic Network TroubleshootingMatter Device FirmwareBy adhering to the recommendations in this post, I have successfully scaled my MoT network from 25 to nearly...
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Proxmox VE 8.3: Windows 11 vGPU (VT-d) Passthrough with Intel Alder Lake
Interested in sharing your Intel Alder Lake GPU between multiple Proxmox 8.x VMs? This post covers configuring Intel vGPU virtual functions on Proxmox 8.3 using an Intel 12th Generation CPU (Alder Lake) with Windows 11 Pro 24H2. I will walk you through the Proxmox 8.3 kernel configuration, modifying GRUB, Installing Windows 11 Pro, and then setting up the Intel graphics inside Windows. I've completely updated the content from my Proxmox 8.0 vGPU post which appeared on my blog back in...
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Aqara U200 Thread/Matter/Homekey Smart Lock Impressions
Thanks to kickstarter a few weeks ago I got my Aqara U200 Matter over Thread smart lock with Apple Homekey support. I've been waiting a long time for a smart lock to support the full feature set that I wanted. The primary features I wanted were Matter over Thread (not Wi-Fi or Bluetooth), Apple Homekey, fingerprint scanner, and no hub required. So many smart locks these days rely on Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth, require the use of a hub, or don't support...
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Home Assistant: The Ultimate Light Automation Blueprints
One of the most common automations that people use probably use Home Assistant for is lighting. Several months ago I stumbled on an amazing collection of Home Assistant blueprints by community member Blacky (Craig Black). They do more with light automation than I ever thought possible. The best part is that his blueprints are free (but do support him with a donation), and entirely configured via a nice GUI. No YAML or Node Red is needed! At first you might think lighting...
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6 GHz Wi-Fi: Are Your Devices ready for Standard Power?
The 6 GHz Wi-Fi spectrum is complicated, and introduces the new concept of Lower Power Indoor (LPI) and Standard Power (SP) transmit modes for access points (APs). These are two different maximum power transmit modes for APs. SP is required outdoors, and can also be used indoors as well. SP mode requires the use of Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC). AFC's go live date was spring 2024. The Ruckus R770 is one of the first APs to gain AFC (and thus SP)...
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