TechFriday: New display “want” vs what I am “buying”

| September 1, 2023

Samsung announced another “high screen real estate” monitor for those who like to plaster a lot of content on a single screen … or more that likely, play games … but besides ogling this massive 57 inch wide display, it is definitely not something I need these days. There was once a time that I […]

High CalendarAgent CPU use on Apple MacOS Catalina 10.15.3

| February 12, 2020

Here’s a tech tidbit for those noticing a high CalendarAgent CPU demand on your Apple Macintosh computer. For me, the process cranked up the CPU to 60-70% trigging high fan speeds and this process continued without finishing. I noticed slightly sluggish behavior AFTER a recent MacOS software update, although might have happened prior to that? […]

Tech Friday: Growing pains with “person detection” AI at Wyze

| November 29, 2019

With the advent of decent quality inexpensive home security products and cameras, it has never be easier to keep an eye on “motion” that happens around a business or home. The key for most of us is to find the least expensive quality “small” product … in our case the Wyze cams have beat out […]

Guest post: Monitoring Remote Locations #DIY – by Jeff Pitts

| June 6, 2017

One of the fun areas of IT that has been growing in recent years is the “maker community” of products for do-it-yourselfers. These devices range from the Raspberry Pi, Pi Zero, Photon, Arduino, etc. The movement is bringing electronics to those of us that have that tinkerer mindset, but it also extends the opportunity to […]

Monitoring Inverter and Battery with an inexpensive shunt

| September 7, 2016

Instead of spending a lot more dollars on an expensive monitor (like the LINK 2000-R and Xantrex Inverter that we have on Encore) for a battery bank powering a back up inverter when I add our new grilling, greenhouse, generator and porch space, I’ve added a cheap $18.75 shunt and meter from Amazon. I’ve used […]

Setting up the Raspberry Pi as a security monitor

| January 15, 2016

We’ve had a professional security system in the house for years, but I’ve always thought it would be nice to make a homemade version for the detached garage/pool house – might be a perfect Raspberry Pi project? The first step was to see just what kind of wifi signal was there, considering the tiny $10 […]

Brightness settings on iMac with a second display

| December 29, 2015

How do you control the brightness on Thunderbolt connected secondary monitor without any physical controls? This took me a few minutes to figure out … so its worth archiving as a tidbit. When your display desktop is at a premium, or you are running virtual operating systems, having a second monitor is a real plus. I added a secondhand 27″ Mac Thunderbolt […]

Checking your engine oil with Lubricheck … hopefully

| May 20, 2011

I’m posting Kickstarter link for a device designed to check the quality of engine oil. It is called Lubricheck and I’m hoping that someone reading this with engineering thoughts on how realistically accurate the device might be? I’m a mileage oriented oil changer, but with the price of synthetic oil, diesel oils and just plain […]

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog