Hands on with Icy Dock Turbo Swap and Tech Helping with COVID-19 – HGG437

The world is a crazy place right now. To give is some normality, we did a hands on look at the Icy Dock Turbo Swap MB171SP-B. We also discussed the major events that are happening around the work with the Covid-19 virus and what tech is doing to track it and maybe even help solve the problem. I think you will enjoy the show.


Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg437

Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #437 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.

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Podcast, Home Gadget Geeks, Icy Dock, Storage, Turbo Swap, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Pandemic, Unraid

 

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Conversation 

What can we do as home geeks?

What are tech companies doing?

  • Cox is not charging for data overages for the foreseeable future so that work and school connectivity from home does not end up costing the customer extra.

Tools I am using to work from home

  • Teams
  • Powerbeats bluetooth headset

 

News

Tracking the Virus in the US

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/16/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

https://www.androidcentral.com/map-smart-thermometers-us-shows-just-how-sick-americans-are-right-now

 

Reviews

Mike is still loving the Nintendo switch. Used it when traveling for a lot of entertainment. Played Mario Kart on a roadtrip with other passengers.

Product Updates

What is next for Jim on Unraid? Update on Lancaching

 

Jim Collison  [0:00] 
This is The Average Guy Network and you have found Home Gadget Geeks show number 437 recorded on March 19 2020.

Jim Collison  [0:23] 
Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home news reviews, product updates and conversation all for the average tech guy. I’m your host Jim Collison broadcasting live from the average guy TV Studios here in a stormy Bellevue Nebraska Mike, did you guys get any pail or rain I saw not out West Mountain city. Okay.

Mike Wieger  [0:42] 
Although you know what, I’ve been in this basement for the last four days. So I really couldn’t tell you what happens above ground. We actually

Jim Collison  [0:46] 
haven’t been outside and seen the light of day and four days. So that’s not totally true. But yeah, you guys a little bit. My kids live out in Milan and they said they got a little bit of hail. So we got we had tornado warnings earlier. Today and weird first day of spring, it’s Nebraska. You know what to expect? Of course, we post the show with real class show notes out at the average guy.tv Don’t forget, you can join us live on our mobile app, head over to Home Gadget geeks.com Android iPhone, you can download that there available for you if you’re on the road, but why would you be so you could stream it from home just pretend like go out in the garage? Don’t start the car. Go out in the garage, sit in your car. Play play I think I might to get my podcasts in I seriously thinking that’s what I’m gonna have to do is is because I’ve stopped listening to podcasts.

Mike Wieger  [1:40] 
You you’ve been able to keep up? No, I haven’t because mine is a mines on the drive. I just have a routine right of what type of content you listen to in certain times I carve time is podcast if I’m at the desk, sure I could listen to a podcast. But my desk time is spent. You know if I have time for content, it’s YouTube. It’s Twitch. It’s things like that. So yeah. do a better job of just turning that on in the background, but then I’m not as engaged I want to be it’s a weird, weird time.

Jim Collison  [2:06] 
I think I’m going to start waking up early and go for a walk and get an hour, like get an hour walk in in the dark, or whatever or early done. Don’t get six feet from anybody, but just walk the neighborhood for an hour. I’m not getting any podcasts in this week. We’ll talk some more about that here coming up, but you can download that Home Gadget geeks.com if you want to listen to us to stream it. Big thanks to Ryan and Bob who joined us last week from think computers or good show. Lots of hardware. Lots of good chat these guys. I’m kind of between j two weeks ago and those guys last week Mike I am itching hard for a build like it

Mike Wieger  [2:43] 
like a new build.

Jim Collison  [2:44] 
Yeah, like a brand new replace the we talked about it towards the end of the show last week, replace the podcast you know the studio PC that’s kind of been my daily driver for about six years. Now. It’s still great and and you know it still does what I do. To do but, boy I got an itch to go NVMe and, you know, the 32 gig of RAM and build out some storage space and you know, get faster GPU speeds. So big thanks to Bob and Ryan who showed up last week. Also Big thanks to Icy Dock. I mentioned last week, they gave me some some parts to install. We have spent some time let me see if I’ve got that queued up. I don’t yet let me bring it up for you. I mentioned last week they have they sent over one of those turbo swap devices. And and you know, one of the cool thing about the Icy Dock stuff is it’s just simple like it’s drop dead simple. We realized as we were talking about the show last week, like we’ve been talking about Icy Dock for like 10 years, you know and they just keep producing some some really good when you’re thinking about the way to extend your storage or storage. They produce some really good stuff they sent over this This turbo swap device here’s a picture of it unpacked and put on the desk. I literally I’m trying to think what night it was, I think, cuz I unbox it Thursday and then I think, yeah, I had a really busy weekend. So Sunday night I was kind of napping here like my I must sound like I’m 90 years old. By the way, I’ve taken my naps, but I was napping here and I thought, I gotta put this thing in. So I kind of jarred myself awake in about in about 30 minutes, put the whole thing together. You can see that here. We it actually took so the drive that’s at the bottom of this picture. You can see I’ve got four external drives. These are all hard drive mining at this point right on burst. And I’ve got this drive sitting in this this the select some Bay that we interviewed a while ago, and I’ve been wanting to get that internally. So on this on this particular PC, this is that coolermaster case, it’s got a bunch of different It has three, five and a quarter. I’ll say it right this week. I said three now. Last week, five and a quarter inch drive bays in there. There’s, there’s three, three and three. I have this DVD drive and one of them in below that is a three day Icy Dock enclosure that’s in there. Took the hard drive out one of the interesting things in that Mike, look at that. Look at that DVD. That’s it. That’s an old LightScribe DVD writer. This is almost like finding a cassette tape in your right. You know, in your car, like where did this journey cassette tape come from? Right. And so it’s been in this box for so long, like hiding in plain sight. Yeah, I kind of thought this is kind of cool. So it went in the drawer it’ll be it’ll become part of the you know, things that you wish you to held on to so you can come back to them. So pretty cool. This was a really nice DVD writer, and I can’t tell you how many I mean, I wrote a bunch of DVDs back in the day. Again, we would never do that anymore. But this is the one you could flip over and then you could write a design on the top. So what really like leave The DVD for you. Oh, cool. Yeah, super cool. So pulled that out, took the the turbo swap put that in goes in super easy. You can see it fully installed here I didn’t even really have to pull the case out to get this thing and took the side off, put it in, inserted the drive into into the bay, kind of push it in, it catches when you do when you do it shut the door in a way you go. It’s got some interesting, which I hadn’t really seen in advance here. One it’s got if you look right here, that there’s a fan underneath it, which is cool. I hadn’t seen that at first but that is actually you can set the speed manually set the speed on the front for the fan and then next to it is power on and off. So if you want to swap this thing, you can just turn off the drive, open it up, pull it out, put a new drive in, close it, turn it on, and you’re in business, you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything with it besides that. So in in working Vincent, thanks for sending that over has been was a super easy install a great way. If I was in a situation where I needed to swap that drive out kind of on a regular basis. It worked great. And I would think when I was one, when I was writing or plotting for burst in I was perfect, you would have been perfect. And I was constantly pulling drives in and out of this. Some of those times I was putting them in burning them inside the docks, which was okay. Not really the fastest. And I could have done better than that this would have been this way you get straight access to one of the six gigabit you know,

Mike Wieger  [7:40] 
yeah, Seta ports and not over USB. And yeah, that would have been great.

Jim Collison  [7:45] 
I didn’t take any pictures of it. But I have that LSI card that I bought for 25 bucks. Thanks, Kevin. Scoot over for the recommendation. It got installed at the same time. And I didn’t I didn’t run anything to it as you see these three icy icy dock bays that are right Hear these three. So that’s a three in a two bass slot, right, they make those available. What I’m really looking at what I’m kind of keeping my eyes on is that five in three, so it’s five bays across, and it goes in a three by, you know, the two, the five and a quarter inch drive. that’ll fit and I have two bays for that. And I have eight. On this new LSI card, I’ve got eight new ports. And so there’s three drives installed in here. I’ve got four up in there, that’s seven, and I’ve got a couple that I could chuck and then really nice, they would fill up those. So hopefully, that is coming up. That’s kind of what we’re shooting for. We’ll get this running and see where things go with it. But those are kind of the those are kind of the plans. I’d love to see two Icy Dock enclosures in there on the Big Five base and to kind of make that a monster rig I think’s getting a little heavy with the hard drives that are in there. So

Mike Wieger  [8:54] 
a great way to do one raid two hour. Yeah, no, it’s been if you have the old tower that has Those you know five and a quarter inch drives.

Jim Collison  [9:02] 
This motherboard supports up to six seven say two ports. And so already there’s a bunch in there and then of course I can extend that out. The the unread box also supports six Saida, which is what was unusual so we’ll be that’s got plenty of room for expansion as well and and we’ll talk a little bit more about unraised. But thanks Icy Dock for that running well, I think in this community goes without saying they’re creating some pretty cool enclosures. And if you’re thinking about upgrading or doing some of that work along those lines, you might want to think about Icy Dock and what they’re doing. We’re kind of highlighting them through the month of March. Here in Home Gadget Geeks if you’ve got something Icy Dock that you’ve been using, and maybe you’ve been using it for a while, but throw it on Twitter and tag me on it. You can also take it to Icy Dock USA on it. We’d love to see those pictures and just thank them for kind of being the march sponsors for Home Gadget Geeks. Micro homeworking now These days, which is kind of crazy. If you’re listening to this, maybe you’re listening to this in 2022. And you’re like, oh, that was silly fools. But we are like, We’re home. Right? You’re spending some time you got a new setup. I take it.

Mike Wieger  [10:13] 
Yeah, I do. So you guys know that I talked about the the vivo kind of form monitor mount setup that I have. And we are, you know, our company is mandatory work from home at least until next Friday. So we’ll see if that gets extended. I’m guessing it will. And the interesting part for me is you know, I’ve with all my gear here, I think I was pretty well prepared to work from home, right? I mean, there are times where with kids you have to so I’ve done it before I kind of have my main workstation here. The thing I didn’t think about I still have not gone into work to get it is without a dock. You know, I really had no way because all of these Maya four monitors that plug into for display ports on my GPU, right I don’t have any sort of dock to make that work with the lab lab does have one HDMI so what I’ve done is I have my four monitors here and then To the left, I brought an OLED TV it’s like a 36 inch or whatever TV behind you a picture of yours. So when you show yours I’m actually mine’s very, almost exactly the same. Yeah, mine looks exactly like that pretty much just with the TV a little bit behind and I get the laptops for me It works great because that one TV that I have is big enough it acts it’s like having two monitors. So for me, I can do two comparison doc side by side presentations, things like that. And I so I think I was pretty well prepared. What I have noticed though, is you know, our tech department I’m sure is getting a bunch of calls but for the close friends I have at work who know I’m kind of the tech guy I’ve gotten a lot of questions like okay now like, you know, kicking my headset to work with with the video app we’re using or you know, how are you doing this or Oh, hey, my audio is always pixelated. Now why I’m like well do you have can you run an internet wire or are you praying your basement? No. So Ansel signals check your Wi Fi calling you have Wi Fi calling is turned on. So there’s been a few like Quick Tips I’ve been giving people especially for their phones especially because the cell towers Here, I’ve noticed have been a little spotty, especially for people around the country same sort of way they are, they’re getting pretty hot because everyone’s you know, doing that from home. So I’ve been suggesting turning on Wi Fi calling, running Ethernet cables, if you can, Jim, we always know that you and I love pimping using a microphone if you have one, even if it’s like a bluetooth headset, something that’s not the onboard computer, microphone and speakers, which everyone is kind of having to default to using especially when they’re not in their home office or sorry, when they’re not in the actual office, sometimes in the office loves speakers and things like that, but I’m always suggesting you know, grab something, a cheap USB headset, yes, those those ones are great. They’re a little expensive, but they’re hard to find now, like

Jim Collison  [12:38] 
if you didn’t buy a webcam and or a headset, they’re gone. Like I mean it’s they’re hard to find. Now I imagine they’ll replenish pretty fast. But But I when I looked on I looked for see 920 twos on Amazon the other day somebody was talking about this in their their hearts hard to find. So yeah, I kind of pricey.

Mike Wieger  [12:58] 
I had the camera As much just because everyone like I would be literally the only one that I’m working with that has an external nicely set up, webcam, so I’m resorting to the laptop camera, which isn’t too bad. But audio wise, I mean, I’m on calls all day. So it’s really important and everyone has noticed right? Like, Oh, your audio sounds a little bit different. I’ve been jumping across I can’t decide what I want to do. So here’s my dilemma. We use WebEx a lot, but now we’ve started moved to teams. So teams has been man just the best tool my favorite tool and we recently implemented it so it’s relatively new for us

Jim Collison  [13:35] 
what’s a Microsoft alright I know I know

Mike Wieger  [13:37] 
right? But but so was like Skype right and I didn’t like Skype. So teams the way it’s integrated everything so I my whole team is just screen sharing all the time. Hey, hopping on the video hopping on a call just starting a chat and having all however many people we need in there. It’s been fantastic. But what I had been doing for the longest time is with WebEx you can have a call your phone and so then I’d have my air pods in with them. This phone and that’s really good audio and then I don’t have to repair and pair my air pods with my computer. So that was my adult but teams obviously is just computer audio so how do I do that? So I went and I did find I forgot I had these in Eddie’s old power beats Bluetooth it’s a you know, it’s a Bluetooth speaker running headset right with a microphone on it. I’ve been really surprised I did a test recording the audio is actually pretty good on these things, especially for the microphone so not bad at all way better than the computer mic. So this is what I’ve been doing. I’ve been wearing this headset when I need to do anything on the computer. So I have this in pretty much all day. If I had if I get a phone call though, I’ll switch over to my my air pods which have been great the air pod pro have been huge at home talk about having a three year old and a two year old running around upstairs, things going on TVs and just be able to like still earbuds not big cans but then be able to do that and all sudden the noise cancellation starts. I just don’t hear any of it. It’s It’s It’s been really nice. I

Jim Collison  [14:52] 
wonder if those will now what? I wonder. I bet

Mike Wieger  [14:57] 
I bet so. Yeah, the only thing that’s wrong About the air pods for me is, you know, they’re not as I don’t think they’re as easy to switch back and forth pairing wise, you know, a lot of these Bluetooth headsets, I mean, it’s just holding down the button for a while repair it to something else. But I kind of like having one pair that’s dedicated to my computer so I don’t have to keep hearing on pairing things like that. But I tell you, Microsoft Teams has been just phenomenal. I’ve really kind of dove into we just implemented it probably a month ago, and kind of opened it up because for us all of our conversations have to be tracked and recorded for compliance purposes for FINRA, things like that. So for the financial industry, so it was just you know, getting into compliance but man the chat feature having the actual team like wiki page, we can have links there for everyone. It has been a huge wasn’t I think we got it up just in time and didn’t really realize it because WebEx First of all, WebEx you have to create WebEx accounts for people and you know, those cost money per account. So not everyone has a WebEx account list they use a lot, at least at our company, whereas everyone has Microsoft and everyone’s apart. They’re already in the system. They have Have it. So I think they implemented that just in time. I think though, a few of our teams weren’t already using it full time. And I think they are now forced to kind of trial by fire. But talk about a pretty easy to use platform. Yeah, and one that works seamlessly across iOS, the computer, Mac, you know, I think it’s on Mac, I actually haven’t looked but it’s on, it’s on my iPhone, on my iPad, it’s everywhere. So no matter where I’m at what I have, when I was traveling, it was perfect. really lightweight. I had the iPad for a lot of what I did for work when I was in California, because I worked for three days. And so whenever I was kind of mobile into a meeting, I’ll just use the iPad and worked out really really well. But what about you what’s over your setup for work from home? Have you had any like go to things you just clear

Jim Collison  [16:44] 
out? Well, you might you might notice some things have changed here. Right? The the screen or? Yeah, we move that up to look more professional when you’re eating that up a little bit over? Yeah, you know, let’s get this down. There’s a curtain here. Now the covering on this side. There’s a curtain Kind of covering the the boxes that were there I just couldn’t do since I’m full time podcasting from here. And I had really stopped four or five years ago, podcasting from home, I did it all from work. And I’m not gonna say they had some requirements, but I just felt better about it being a little cleaner for the audience and such. So I some moved some things around. Mike. There’s a big difference, though, between working from home, like, one day a week, or I’m not feeling well. So I’m going to stay home in sitting at the desk on Monday and thinking, I’m going to be sitting here for the next eight weeks. I like you just think about different you start thinking about things differently. So the setup that I ended up I showed the picture of this setup here. This was actually a couple this was the end of about three different trials of things. You know, moving the laptop in front of me moving it because it’s into the side right here. It’s sitting here in that monitor is up like that. I actually at one point, put it over here on this, so I could have a standing desk. And I thought, okay, that’s not gonna work permanently I need, you know, they need to see me this. So there was a whole bunch of different trial and error, you know, I’ve noticed a lot of my, my, you know, my coworkers are working from their bedroom or from the kitchen. That’s not, that’s not I do not, I don’t want to be in the kitchen for two months, right? I don’t want to be in the dining room, I can’t I can’t do that I wanted to be in a place that could be highly productive, that would feel good. That would be comfortable. And and that ended up this setup here kind of ended up being it now. We have teams as well. And we use zoom a lot. And I can log in and get my email online. So what I actually do is most of my work gets done on the studio PC and I just use this kind of as a second backup. If I’m trying to do some things, there’s some things I can only do like file access via VPN that’s on my laptop. So if I need to move files around or get access to those could pop over here. To get it done, but it’s been really great to actually have both I’m gonna have a hard time coming back to work when I just have one. You know what I’m just on my laptop, you know I got some I got some power here, it’s been kind of helpful. So it that day on Monday I spent a lot of time trying a lot of different configurations. And it was very different for me to think I’m going to be in this spot for a while I need to set it up for more permanence than just carrying my laptop, you know, than just sitting at the dining room table that wasn’t going to work. So spend some time actually got a hook, hooked it up into my I’ve got a shelf up here and I put the hook on the bottom. So that’s where I hook my headset to. And there are times like I can’t get teams, I can’t go team to team like me to you on teams. I can’t do that. On the web client. I have to I can schedule one and do it. But I can’t just call somebody here to get it done. So if I’m going to do impromptu calls, I just throw a headset on, jump on my laptop, talk to them that way works out.

Mike Wieger  [20:01] 
Now, could you install teams on that computer?

Jim Collison  [20:04] 
I could, but there’s a bunch of hoops I have to jump through for security purposes. Just not that willing to let work take over my life. Yeah, so it’s kind of like anything that’s beyond a web client. I’m just not interested if I if I need to do it, I can jump on the laptop and get it done and pretty be pretty good about it. So nice. Yesterday, I thought about even unplugging the laptop and sitting outside for a while. That’s the beauty of it is you can still go work outside do some of those kinds of things, but it will. It was a different thought for me. And I think it’s a good one to think if you’re going to be home for an extended period of time. You can’t do it. You can’t sit on the bed. Like that’s not. That’s not I call the guy yesterday and he was sitting on his bed and I was like, hmm, you can do this at least like Well, my wife and this is another thing. Somebody mentioned in the chat room. They were ready to work from home. but not both. Right?

Mike Wieger  [21:02] 
That’s a great point. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you’re like, I can’t imagine if Hannah was working from home too.

Jim Collison  [21:08] 
I was just talking to somebody today on a call and she was in Australia. And she’s like, yeah, I’m out here on the deck. My husband’s taking a call right now and they don’t want to hear me and I don’t want to hear them. It’s like, oh, like, yeah, now it’s like, it’s almost like a shared work environment where you have to kind of start thinking about you know, it’s gotta be okay. Gotta be able to put headphones on and get past the noise, right? You have to do some things maybe two to make a difference. So this whole experiment is kind of what I’m kind of what I’m thinking is and you’re gonna watch over the next probably six to eight weeks my hair get long and my my, my stylist called like, Hey, we’re not you know, they’re staying in business, but we’re not cutting hair for him for the foreseeable future. Like, oh, yikes. I didn’t even think about that. I didn’t even They’re so yeah, it’s the first time I ever thought you could probably go to small barber shop if you wanted to somewhere when somebody else like, I don’t know. Yeah.

Mike Wieger  [22:10] 
Same person’s done it for forever she knows it.

Jim Collison  [22:14] 
Um, ya know, right on. Ryan says four week lead time on the sea 920s and 1922 according to his source, wow, we have seen this and our church did this. In fact, my church ping me tonight right before the show and they’re like, Hey, we’re recording Sunday service tonight. Can you come down? That’s like, no, sorry. I just I can’t not tonight, not on Thursday. And we went to church Sunday and I recorded we did one service we normally do three, we did one service and just streamed it and recorded it right. This week. They’re going to pre record it and what they’ve done is scheduled everybody separate. So not everybody’s there at the same time. So like the band comes interesting there. It can only be the band right because we have this 10 Douglas County has this 10 person rule now right? No more

Mike Wieger  [23:00] 
someone’s going to edit it together or what?

Jim Collison  [23:02] 
Yeah so no no they’ll bring the band in and do the music and then they’ll leave and then pastor will come in by himself and he’ll do the message and then he’ll leave and then the you know the various the other parts need to be done separately. So it’s just interesting what we’re having to do just to get to get past this john says he’s supposed to get his hair cut today, but she canceled me. hated the Miss so close. Yeah, like now Okay, you’re probably four to eight weeks out. And just think, Mike when we restart all the services. Mark said he got his cut tonight short, in case it’ll be a while, reminded me of a day when I we got deployed as in the military. We got deployed for the first Gulf War, down to the National Training Center. We got deployed over a weekend. So like they told us Friday, we deployed Monday, no time to do anything we got down there. And we’d been we’d been there a couple days and they’re like, okay, who needs a haircut and for First Sergeant got some clippers out and we got the worst haircuts of our life. There. I’ve never I’ll never forget that. It was horrible.

Mike Wieger  [24:07] 
None of you had time to get one before you

Jim Collison  [24:09] 
left. No, no, heck no, we did. He was he was trying to make a point. But he was like, in other words, like he should have been, he should have been keeping up with this. Yeah. So the other thing of tech wise, this is thrown into it is it’s causing us to think through, we mentioned it before, you know, things like desk chairs are in high demand at Office Depot. Right? things you never thought you’d have trouble getting just some of the basic kinds of monitors. You know, monitor there’s been a run on monitors, because people were the people are home now. And they’re like, now not you and me. Yeah, not you and me for sure. And probably no one who listens to the show. But, but I worked with people who are like, Well, can I take my monitor home? I’m like, you don’t have monitors at home? No, no, they don’t have like a laptop. Or some of them are just they don’t have a computer they’re just they use their work laptop and their phone. Yep. And that’s just like wow how do you how do you do that? That’s I did this does not compute danger.

Mike Wieger  [25:12] 
Right? So did your firm like so our firm allowed people to to check out stuff through it if they needed to. They were like we really don’t want you to so if you can’t like if you can avoid it, but we will check out

Jim Collison  [25:26] 
the show those in just a second the we just said take stuff home like and self report it that you’re taking it home. When this is over, we want you to bring it back. JOHN says no, that’s that’s the one hasn’t hasn’t shown up yet. So Mark says he has spare 24 inch monitors, the not even being used. That’s our dilemma, right? We probably have too many monitors. For folks. JOHN calls it a Corona cut. So that’s this will be the coronal look going forward or all going to have super long here. By the time we’re done it, it has brought up some interesting technology things mic technology also when we think of like Cox communication our service provider has waived the fees for any overage going forward Did you ever cancel Did you get you can’t

Mike Wieger  [26:16] 
I did so it’s great i so now if you have cocs for the next few months at least call them and cancel your unlimited data service if you have that with them because now they’re not charging and there’s no end date on it for now. So

Jim Collison  [26:31] 
no, I think I saw that like may into may or something oh then a measure it’ll get extended I am sure they got so much positive run. We we as a community I got really interested in of course in the folding projects that that have gone on folding at home Rosetta, which I had never used before. And then is it blink? Bo Bo I NC?

Mike Wieger  [26:51] 
Yeah, blink is a way to fold for Rosetta. Okay, have you used the blink app to use them

Jim Collison  [26:57] 
right the client for blink and What’s funny, it was like, I installed the blank client and it brought up packets I had used when we were mining ons for GRC coin. Yeah, back in the day and I was like, Oh, I guess it didn’t clear the data from that when when we did it. kind of fun to get back into that we have a folding group and in fact, if you join us in the discord group, we have a distributed computing. What do you call it all? channel? And it’s like, unlike the old man asking us kids, how do you how do you operate this? This this thing? 243306 so if you want to join us in nads for folding at home folding at home team yeah

Mike Wieger  [27:40] 
243306 and stats are broken right now. Because so they did an AMA which the link will be in the show notes. They did an AMA someone actually posted in Discord. So I grabbed it, so thank you to whoever did that. They did an AMA today and they were asked Okay, so like compared to your normal run the mill volunteers How much did it spike during this whole chronometer? Because they’ve gotten a lot of press, a lot of big YouTubers have been going out saying, you know, you got all this extra spare computers lying around, let’s start folding at home. And they said they had a 10 x increase. So they had 30,000 volunteers normally, and they’re up to almost four 400,000 volunteers. And so that caused us some issues, though. They said their network cards on their servers that were issuing out the work, you know, to the different volunteers. They’re fully saturated. So they’re having a lot of issues right now getting worked out and also receiving back which I actually noticed, I haven’t had a project since yesterday, that just got stuck and they won’t get back to them. It’s in descending mode. So you know, there’ll be a lot of times where sometimes your your machines will sit idle and not have anything that’s normal, it’s nothing wrong with your computer, their servers are just they’ve haven’t had this much workload. So number one, they have to they have to create that work for the computer to do so I have to create the projects for the computer to do and that takes time. That’s manual time. And then number two The overload on the servers is another kind of problem that they’re running into. But they’re super happy to have it. I think they’re gonna ramp up stuff and really cool to see just like the nerds unite, it’s like, you know, it’s gonna I like it and obviously, so I’m running it full tilt on this on the rig I’m podcasting on right now. It’s using my GPU and my CPU, everything’s maxed. I can I have a meters over here, everything’s just pinned and it’s not affecting. So I think folding at home does a pretty good job of, Hey, I’ll use the spare. Like, whatever you’re using. I’ll let you I’ll let your other processes take priority. And I’ll just use the spare, which which works really well. But yeah,

Jim Collison  [29:39] 
right. This isn’t new, like we’ve been doing this for 20 years in these classes. They’ve gotten pretty good at their open source applications. They’ve gotten pretty good at fully

Mike Wieger  [29:47] 
at home is not open source. Oh, is it? No, they’re gonna be coming out. They’re coming out with an open source client, and they’re kind of excited to launch so I think that’s when things will probably get a lot better for because folding at home is relatively new when you think of the different options They’re all the other ones who they’ve been around a while. They’ve been around foldings

Jim Collison  [30:03] 
been around a while. Yeah, cuz they’re, they’re a Stanford project. Yeah. is fully at home. Berkeley is the blink.

Mike Wieger  [30:10] 
Yep. Berkeley is a blanket. And that’s the one that’s been around for forever.

Jim Collison  [30:13] 
It has we that was the original SETI. So that was at home back in that day and folding I’m, yeah, I have to go back and look at the history. They’ve been around a while. And so if you want to join us, if you got some spare CPUs today, really, this kind of, again, this reminded me of mining, like they’re favoring GPU processing, because it’s so far faster. I wonder if all of a sudden we’re going to see a six come out for the hilarious?

Mike Wieger  [30:39] 
Well, you know, he said that with this massive increase. He would, he said, The hardest thing as a scientist is to go and say, Okay, now I need to I’ve submitted it out to the distributor computing network. Now I need to wait a month, two months to get it back. Before I can know my next step. He was now I’m submitting it and getting it back a week later. It’s just that speed and he goes, that makes such a difference. You If you don’t realize the difference that makes when you’re a scientist of a week versus months before you can go on to your next step. So it really is cool to see kind of the the amplification of it over the last week,

Jim Collison  [31:10] 
I have to spare 1060s they’re actually powering my monitors right now. So I got them on medium. So they’re, they’re being utilized probably over 50% 4040 filling, you could crank it all the way. My one view is running four monitors and it hasn’t, you know, blinked, it’s just left it at this setting. It’s cranking away doing its thing, do it fast enough for me, it would get a little warm with three of those GP on a roll till Full Tilt. That’s true. So I left them so you can draw you don’t totally you can see they’re running here although I have been too worried about it during the day. This has been shutting off because there has been no packets and then in the afternoons it picks up a packet, or in this case two packets. I have two two CPUs running against this. It runs overnight so it’s actually been working really well for me, but it’s how I wake up in the morning to shut off Waiting on packets so if you want to get involved it’s actually now be a good time you’re probably not going to get 100% use from your but although they may ramp up their production because they are going to this thing they may they may ramp it up to get a done Ryan says he was folding proteins back in 2002 yeah right at the 2000 2001 2002 is when a lot of those when we first saw those so if you want to get involved that way, a great way to do it Mike there’s also an I’ll show this here while you’re talking about there’s also a twitch Let me see if I can find this guy. There’s

Mike Wieger  [32:37] 
a kernel panic on Twitch. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [32:39] 
So

Mike Wieger  [32:40] 
the guy has, you know, so he was actually the one in the AMA who was kind of talking about asking some of the questions and things so he has actually he just takes his screen and he throws it up on Twitch as a stream. So really cool way I you know, I kind of love stuff like this where people can check in mainly because it you know, gets awareness around the thing kind of people see it like oh, what Well, what is that? What can I be doing? And so this guy is actually, I was actually in his chat earlier tonight. And I was talking to him, um, he’s a former minor, minor, former minor minor, who didn’t kind of like Jim didn’t sell the cards kept him around. And now he’s been folding with them for a while. And so he said, He’s pulling about 1000 to 1500 watts depending total, which toy brings me back to the mining days. And him and I were actually joking about how cool it would be if someone figured out how to get pretty much how you could mine an all coin and fold proteins on the same process. Right? I mean, we’ve seen that before with the certain mining activities being able to be duplicated for certain things. And so if there would be really really cool kind of like a GRC coin, but you know, while you’re holding the proteins while you’re doing those simulations, to go to mining all coin be kind of interesting. But yeah, kind of a cool guy. He’s just out there. He’s just streaming it for fun so that people can go out and and see what the setup is like.

Jim Collison  [33:55] 
Get 10 people watching him right now.

Mike Wieger  [33:58] 
Yeah, I sat there for well, and he kind of fun to talk to. He’s sitting there he’s, he’s able to talk to and he’s a total he’s one of us totally. He is the the he could be a total viewer of the show because he we were talking about mining and cards and power drawn him and he really cool guy. So, if you wanna check it out, just see what it looks like you can head over to twitch.tv slash kernel panic. What is going on with the NPA ni ck?

Jim Collison  [34:23] 
Okay, super cool. I was showing my ashore my setup. And I just get I just love to watch the numbers on this thing. It would be cool. You can I think you can throw some visualizations at it as well. But it’s just kind of been fun to get back and mess with this and tweak it a little bit. One of those new things knowing you’re doing something good.

Mike Wieger  [34:43] 
Yeah, leave it up on the same thing as you do. I like watching the numbers. The visualizer i think is broken right now. It runs a demo, it doesn’t actually show what your machine is working on. But it is kind of nice. I do have my GPU kind of face a little bit more towards me so I’m get a little bit the heat coming off it which in this basement is very appreciated.

Jim Collison  [35:01] 
The let’s also let’s also look at not just the shownotes Where do they want to go with this? Oh, I wanted to talk a little bit about not rock your strengths. That was something different. I also wanted to talk about some some platforms that’s get this get kind of interesting is that have been tracking this looks funny my couple couple weeks ago, I kind of presented this to you as like, Hey, you want to talk about this young man? I think I do.

Mike Wieger  [35:24] 
I did. I was a down player who was proven very wrong very quickly.

Jim Collison  [35:29] 
Well, and whether it is or it isn’t, right. The fact is, we’re in this situation now. Right? And we’re responding to it. But out on Android Central, and I’ll throw this link in the in the show notes as well. A map of smart thermometers in the US show just how sick Americans are right now. Right. And so the the concept is based on what we’re setting our thermostats at that can you know, in a large scale that could be a predictive indicator. This headline is actually misleading in some ways. We don’t know and they don’t know We don’t have enough data to know if this is really the truth. But just it got me thinking about sensors and thermometers and some of our automation, where we’re getting this data on things that we’re doing. And could that you know, could that start being a predictive indicator we don’t here in the United States are testing is really, really poor. I don’t know if that’s gonna get fixed anytime soon, but we just don’t have a lot of kits to test with folks. Could you use home automation like to be able to start looking at some of these things whether we’re seeing higher average daily temps set on thermostat says people are cold because they have a fever? Right? Could this be a predictive indicator of that and or, or could they, you know, turning the in Florida’s case turning down the air conditioner to keep the house a little bit warmer in that? I know, what do you think is you think about, let me ask you this question. Say we could, we could based on some of this home automation data, we could start seeing pockets maybe more clearly than we’re seeing them now. Would it be worth it to be able to get that data? And have the government use it? No,

Mike Wieger  [37:12] 
I I’m gonna be the no guy. I’m always the privacy guy. And and I think that that is the, the glimmering light of what could it be what it could be used for. And then there is the million other ways that it could be used negatively. So it’s cool. It’s interesting. I won’t be signing up for that service if they want to track my stuff. Although I’m sure I do with everything I you know, I have an ego be who knows where what’s in the TLS there what’s in the TLS on the Amazon devices, so I’m sure I already gave them that authority. But if I haven’t yet, um, I wouldn’t want to

Unknown Speaker  [37:46] 
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Wieger  [37:47] 
Well, it’s an interesting just get better to actually be able to test our patients. That’s a novel concept.

Jim Collison  [37:53] 
Yeah, Joe says out in the chat room, he said he actually had to turn on his AC today because of folding and you know, We are in that weird spring spot where

Mike Wieger  [38:02] 
he’s sick. No, he’s just helping the cause

Jim Collison  [38:04] 
he’s helping folding. You know, there’s also a john hopkins site, which I actually I find much more useful. And this is actually what spurred the conversation with you two weeks ago, when I thought about this, one of the guys at work shared this to me, and it’s an attempt to get in early on, you know, and this was starting in China, there was a lot of misinformation about the numbers, where was it? Where was it really, what are the real numbers, you know, those kinds of things. And so and by the way, there are some scams going on around this map, the map got so popular, some folks kind of cloned it, and then we’re adding, you know, rants ads or something where no, it was, it was malicious in its nature. So be very, very careful. I’ve got this from Corona virus, J hq.edu, and then slash map. And, again, it’s just an interesting visualization of what is happening where it’s happening. The confirmed to the best of their ability that confirmed cases that are happening both who’s sick and and those who passed on that and then you can I think on this if you want you can start to drill in, grab this map if we want to come here to Nebraska. We can start drilling in here. We actually have a pretty small number here in the state of Nevada I imagine that will get that will grow over time. But Mike what i thought you know, when you think about public hysteria, and we kind of kicked off the show or maybe we were talking about the pre show, just all the crazy things people do, you know, run on beans and rice or chicken, whatever, right eggs. I think I think it helps to have really good information out there that people can make actionable decisions on and yeah, this could get this could be bad. I think some folks have thought like we’re trying to stop it. We’re not gonna stop it. Like this isn’t about stopping this things by slowing it down a little bit. So we can kind of handle this as it goes through. It’s gonna have some ramifications in our in our society. Do you think we’re implementing a whole bunch of tech just when you think about working from home and going to teams, and now, most businesses know they could let their people work at home and probably have them be pretty productive? Man, I’m super productive over the last four days. So productive. I had to take a nap before the show today. Do you think we’ll go back? Or do you think over the next five years we’re gonna This is gonna accelerate that trend of working from home?

Mike Wieger  [40:32] 
Ah, no, I think we’ll go back. And I think I think this will have a more profound impact than we think though I do think there’ll be a hasn’t been nice to slow down and see our family. And we kind of realized our priorities a little bit. I think a lot of companies and a lot of people started to see what really mattered to him a little bit, and especially if this gets a little more serious, if this is you know, if it gets a little crazier I think it’ll kind of change our perspective on things a little bit more. So, but I think we’ll go back, like, for me, especially, I think no matter how much we can do it, I don’t think I like it. Right. I think you being in the office or something, you know, walk down the hall and see people and, and now if they start figuring out the cost of the rent of the building is not worth it. You know, there’s more monetary stuff than that. But I still think there’s a huge I think you’re a big proponent to of being in the office. Right? It’s that I’m sat face to face time and, and I think after about two weeks of this, I’m going to go a little stir crazy, not seeing people I’m such a people person. Like I even told him I made the joke. I walked upstairs today and I had to my laptop mic. Well, I usually do a lap around the office and say hi to people about you know, once in the morning, once the afternoon so I’m saying hi to my people like this is me going on my lap, saying hi to people is kind of what I do I do to work once the morning once the afternoon just gonna stretch the legs a little bit Say hi to people, and I couldn’t do it. There’s still not enough tech. There’s not enough good ways to have that constant interaction with people right as to be very intentional here it has to be calling someone setting up a time. All of our times are still not spontaneous. At least we haven’t gotten that way yet in the last few days. It’s still Hey Scott put to put on my calendar, right let’s schedule time in Outlook. It’s not just like the spontaneous stop by their office or ask them a question where you can just call people you schedule it out still. I hope we go back. I really do now, I think I think we definitely learned that this is definitely more doable than everyone thought.

Unknown Speaker  [42:33] 
So possibly,

Jim Collison  [42:36] 
yeah, I just think it’s interesting. I don’t know where we’ll go. The future has always been one I’m not a very good you know, fortune teller. I think it’s been a good exercise. And if we survive it as a culture I think we’ll come out on the backside a little bit smarter from it and you know, I it’s just got it has some I know there’s some good things that are coming out about it, even though I’m home, I’m calling I’m actually talking to people more now. Last night when I was out on the deck, a friend of mine in Australia, ping me, and I said, I just wanna chat. And she was like right now, like, yeah, right now. And okay, and so there I was on the deck. It was dark behind me. It reminded me when we brought Edward in, you know, for

Mike Wieger  [43:19] 
yeah, oh, yeah, we had him.

Jim Collison  [43:20] 
Yep. backyard. He got all dark. I had the lights on. It was it was kind of beautiful. It was just great opportunity. You know, we’ve got all this connective technology to actually get us together even this kind of mic, kind of what we’re doing from a broadcasting standpoint, brings us together. I mean, there’s quite a few of you guys out there. We got about nine live by the way, like, like it’s on YouTube. Um, we got about nine live out there and and it’s, it’s, I don’t know, it’s bringing us even though it’s separating us. It’s bringing us together. I’ve been telling folks like, Hey, don’t make sure you don’t forget people. Like don’t don’t get isolated. There. We have ways of connecting. We’ve never been better at connecting than we are right now. We never More technology to connect.

Mike Wieger  [44:02] 
Well, and that’s true and I have a job while I’m on the phone all day, right? If I didn’t, if I was more of a, you know, behind the computer crunching out stuff and not having a need a requirement to be on a phone call every hour for the whole day, it’s gonna get really lonely. I do worry about those people, right? Like, you know, and I worry about their motivation level, right? didn’t just if they just have to wake up, roll down and they don’t interact with anyone all day. Yeah, I think it’d be way different.

Jim Collison  [44:33] 
Well, let me let me say this. I’ve been wanting to start something in the community to kind of connect us together a little bit better. So if you are thinking what I kind of want to do throughout the summer is start the Home Gadget Geeks Roundtable. And the idea is you come on the show on a Thursday night you have an idea about something specific you want to talk about. We’ve done this in the past with networking, we did it with hard drives, but be great we can do around home automation, you pitch an idea to me Alright, so if you got an idea Where you want to get some folks who want to talk about this on the show, whatever that idea is, it can be tech related, you know, our variety here what we talked about, send me an email, Jim, at the average guy.tv pitch your idea to me, I’m going to be honest, I’m not going to take them all. But I will take some and then what I will do is throw those ideas out to the community and say, who wants to help talk about this? Then we’ll put three, three or four others with Mike and I, and we’ll do a big roundtable discussion. We’ll maybe do one or two of those a month, kind of throughout the summer. So as we are going through this, I want to find some ways for us to get more folks involved and get that time put together that we’re we’re maybe spending in isolation, let’s do more things together. Yeah, I could do a live stream on Tuesday night and by the way, Christian cyber frontiers next Monday. So if you’re listening live, next Monday, 8pm central to the longest we’ve ever scheduled all the cyber frontiers ever. So it’s Thursday now next Monday, a pm I’ll post it on Twitter and stuff, but we’re going to do a few more of those. But so if you have an idea, send it to me. Well consider it pitching to the community. If I get enough folks, I want to talk about it. We’ll put a show together. And we’d like to do that as well. Mike, one more map that I found, NPR has been tracking the has been tracking this as well. And they have some pretty good details around that. Their map isn’t as high speed as the john hopkins map. But it’s pretty interesting as it talks about where the cases are going on. What’s real, real interesting, they got this kind of heat map down here by age. This is what’s interesting, right? And we know this is having a over over representative impact on our elderly, right. That’s the real concern here. We’ve got a lot of folks in the United States because our healthcare system is so good. You live maybe longer than you should sometimes when it you know, we keep people this is this is affecting them. Right. And so our loved ones our mom, my mom’s 90, and she’s I mean, she has trouble breathing. And like this is I’m kind of worried, you know, and as we look at this map, you look at this heat map. It’s a disproportionate amount towards the elderly, so we have to be careful. That’s why it’s important. And we’re doing the things we’re doing. At one point, I think in here, they have some stories, too. So npr.org and then look in their health section if you want to keep track of it. There’s real Mike, anything else you want to add in on that? No, it’s

Mike Wieger  [47:14] 
I’m just I’m fascinated by it, though. I’m just just really fast and how it’s been. It’s been changing.

Unknown Speaker  [47:21] 
Absolutely everything. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [47:25] 
What have you been doing for entertainment? For the last four days? I mean, like, what would you when you think because this is, I mentioned, like my podcasts, I gotta find a new way to listen to podcasts. Yeah, it’s changing. I think it’s kind of changing the way people consume entertainment. And I’m finding like, I’m having a hard time separating work now. Because it’s all here. And so I’m not I’m working all the time, because it’s all here. Or what are you doing for entertainment?

Mike Wieger  [47:50] 
So for me, it’s kind of a little bit of the same right so my day, you know, during the day I’m not getting too much in. So then I’m just coming home and it so my These four days have been have been pretty similar, but it is a reason I also I kind of ran out because I wasn’t listening to podcasts. I was watching more YouTube but then my YouTube YouTube will ran dry right off things so I didn’t notice in discord I started a content suggestions channel as well. And that’s literally just go out there throw your favorite YouTube channels out there. so other people can can find them. I, I put a few of those out there that I really enjoy. And so I kind of I started to run dry on YouTube because I watched a lot of YouTube. But the entertainment hasn’t been too big of an issue for me, mainly because it’s just been craziness with the boys being home right not having any school. They’re kind of thrown off from their whole routine. This is pretty much been like a weekend for them. They keep asking like what am I going back to school? Am I good? Not for a very long time. So everything just been so chaotic. I haven’t really had time to focus on it.

Jim Collison  [48:53] 
Yeah, I think it’s important. You’ll like you’ll never hear me say this again. I think it’s important that there times like this, we find ways to do those entertaining things that we like. I think I mentioned this in the pre show last night, I got a chance to enjoy a beverage and cigar on the deck podcasting with a buddy. And it was fun. It was actually really super relaxing. After a weird couple days, I think we can’t forget those moments, we still need to find ways to kind of do some fun things, whatever that is. We’re coming up on the weekend to this first kind of weekend, at least for us here in the Omaha area as this is kind of happened, you know, the beginning of the week. And I think that’s gonna be telling like, you know, I’m gonna kind of think like, Man, what do I do on a Saturday when I can’t go anywhere. Now I’m going to podcast with Dave Jackson in the morning so that’s not gonna change. But after we’re done, you know, I guess I’m gonna have to actually do some projects in the house. I have to install that. That hallway door that I have in the spare room

Mike Wieger  [49:54] 
ready. As you can see, like here your parents can make a trip up and down anytime soon because he was in Kansas City thing. I didn’t want to borrow yours. Because my wife wants me to redo the master bedroom

Jim Collison  [50:02] 
next week, or install some carpet or put in pink some things, you know,

Mike Wieger  [50:07] 
yeah, I’m still I guess when you ask that question, I guess I wasn’t even thinking about real life entertainment because it hasn’t hit me yet because I just came off of a week in California, which was a blast. And it didn’t. It was during it and it still didn’t hit me. Right. I was still out having we’re having a great time hanging out with friends. So I think you’re right this week, it’ll be the first thing where it hits me. Oh, we can’t and like even taking the kid like we take the kids. There’s like a play gym indoor area of trampolines and stuff. We take them there all the time. And can’t do that. Right. Like what do you do on to entertain the kids? Hopefully it’s good weather so I can at least I know they’re all outside.

Jim Collison  [50:45] 
I don’t think it’s gonna be I think it’s gonna be rain. We’ve had a lot of rain. And we’re I think we’re gonna have some more tonight. The, ya know, it just it it really changes our rhythm you know, with the only thing comparable and if these are not comparable. But the only thing that I can remember of like this was 911. And you know, they canceled all sporting events for the weekend. And, you know, we were like, everybody kind of got together, America kind of came together, right. And we went back to work that happened on a Tuesday. We canceled everything for the weekend, and everything got rescheduled, and we went back to life the second weekend, and games are played and patriotism was displayed. And we celebrated our first responders. And I mean, it was it was incredible, right? It was an incredible day to be a patriot here in the in the United States. But the next week, it was pretty much we were back to normal for in a lot of cases. Now. I don’t want to minimize there’s a lot of people’s lives, lots of people’s lives that were put in turmoil, including our military who were then deployed and were gone for a while. And so for them, it wasn’t right but when I think about America in general We slowly went back to normal but we worked and we you know, all these things. This is different in some regard that like we’re all thinking six eight weeks and that’s a lot like that’s as long as people are in basic training in the Army or we’re 12 now but that’s a long time like eight weeks is a long time Mike so I think we have to a couple things we have to do one we have to check on each other. So if you’re part of the Home Gadget Geeks community if you’re feeling lonely or isolated if you need somebody to talk to for God’s sakes reach out right do not do it there’s a million ways to contact us right well it’s a great way of just getting this is a perfect

Mike Wieger  [52:37] 
use case for go use that voice channel and discord anyone you guys know that’s it, it’s almost like a chat or you can just hop in there and just talk so you say hey, let’s let’s go chat in there, use chat to people if you want chat via voice. You guys can find each other in discord you guys can whatever but that’s actually a great platform, even just hearing some of you know just talking it out and having some fun conversation. So feel free guys, that those voice channels are for you guys to use whenever you guys want.

Jim Collison  [53:00] 
Yeah, do it that way. Send us an email, Jim, at the average guy.tv directs, you know, get us on Twitter, do those kinds of things. Don’t don’t feel isolated during the situation. Don’t certainly let it lead to some things continue to, you know, if you’re stuck, like, do some things like, get out there and as far as socially, get out there, and we’re here for you. So I just I want I want folks to know, like, yeah, this is a pretty unique time. Like, you know, we’ve never had, I’ve never gone through anything like this, where, you know, you’re kind of thinking like, Oh my gosh, like we could be hunkered down for eight weeks, and it could be longer. Who knows, right? I don’t wanna be an alarmist. We have no idea how long it’s gonna take. We’ll get through this, we’re going to be fine. But if you are, if you are not feeling fine, please let somebody know. By the time you’re hearing this, it’s going to be the weekend for a lot of folks. Or maybe It’s two weekends from now. Probably not too bad this weekend, Mike, but I think it’s we start getting a little stir crazy. And it’s going to get a little weird as we do and I’ll be here every Thursday, we’ll be able to document it throughout the way, right? Well, we update for our history books. Yeah, we will, we will for sure. So, one of those things kind of couldn’t have picked up a better project than unreal. Like because it’s endless.

Mike Wieger  [54:24] 
Like there’s there’s literally endless Yes.

Jim Collison  [54:27] 
You got me hooked on the land cash, kind of the land party concept right where you can you can install some software and you know, we set a big patch update for Microsoft, they kind of messed it up but we had a big Microsoft update and it caches that update in one spot and then the other PCs, holy cow that changed Mike, that changed my life. You like

Mike Wieger  [54:49] 
it? Okay, this is great because we have not talked about it since I initially said it. You said okay, I might set it up. Oh, it does Windows updates that that was the hook for you. I haven’t talked to you since you actually got it hooked up. So, yeah, I want to hear how this went for you. Yes. For me, I only have two Windows machines. One is a VM. And one is this rig I’m talking to you on. So it’s not as big of a deal for me. I look at it from a gaming perspective. I have xboxes in the house multiple and those can be hundreds of gigs of games that will cash but I don’t know how it works on the windows side.

Jim Collison  [55:19] 
Yeah. worked out really, really well. When we think about the, the productivity increase, if Seven, eight, maybe nine computers here in the house, and those, you know, it cashed at once, and then it would just pull from that cash for each time after that. And it was going so fast on some of them. I was like, you know, I would I would start the

Unknown Speaker  [55:43] 
video.

Jim Collison  [55:44] 
I know exactly like, uh, uh, you know, hey, and so it’s just different. It was it really sped things up. It was kind of cool. And then I geeked out over going into the dashboard and watching just exactly how much Speed it was pulling, or how much storage it was. So yeah, what it was storing and how it was storing it and some of those kind of things. So pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool. I want to ask you, so I’ve got that it’s working works great works for Windows. Also,

Mike Wieger  [56:17] 
we should we should mention for Android users what what you were actually were using for that? Yeah. What’s the exactly? Cash bundle? Okay. So if you go into community application search land cash bundle, I mean, Jim, at least, it was the easiest setup you could ever ask for. There’s not even any alterations you need really need to make to the template, download it, hit apply, and then go to your router, and plug in the IP address of the IP address. You gave that Docker and unread and you’re done. Five minutes, probably you could have it up and running. I’d say maybe 10 wasn’t wasn’t long at all. Yeah. And the great part is you don’t have to go programming on each computer because if you do at the router level, just send all your DNS traffic through it and then it will forward on you get to set what DNS you want to use for upstream, one dot one dot One is the default. Yeah. So that’s so for if you’re wondering what we’re talking about it not only does Windows Updates it does origin So talk about apex, we’re talking about stream. Anything from the stream library for stream games, Xbox. I don’t know if it does ps4 for sure. Xbox. Jim, I had the same thing I downloaded. I redownload excite my i’d erase one of my hard drives, or you downloaded Forza, that’s a 70 gigabyte game. And then I got the call of duty which is 100 gig. It was 170 right there that would have been doubled between my two xboxes. And it just did it once for the first one. And the second one not only was it fast, but think about how much data that’s saved. Now we just talked about cocs not charging for data overages that way Normally, it won’t be that way forever. That saved me 170 gig worth of data that’s a lot. Right. That’s more than a 10th of my overall allowance. So it’s a really cool easy Docker to to put on.

Jim Collison  [57:53] 
Really easy. In fact, I pinged you at one point I was I was working on it and there was a few questions and I pinged you and He got a few minutes, you know, like, nope. Yes. So you’re like, nope. And like, oh, okay, well, I’ll figure this out. Not a big deal. I just I was gonna I wanted to chat with you while I did this. Yeah. And that’s what’s usual you and I like to do while working on projects. Yeah, just ping questions off. You do used to do this with Christian all the time or like, you know, I’m not even talking you have the video up.

Mike Wieger  [58:21] 
You’re both doing.

Jim Collison  [58:22] 
Yeah, yeah. All right on. It’s just kind of fun. Yep. And I got to figure it out pretty simply got the DNS changed, got the thing set up did the thing of the thing of the deal and boom, boom, boom, started running it and it started cashing right away. I saw I think I saw the Xbox update come through on it. Because he got pretty big. Yep. on me. And so really, really cool. So what’s, what should I do next? This is going to become a segment here at the end of the show for the next couple weeks. Like what is Jim what should Jim do next on his unread server.

Mike Wieger  [58:56] 
So you’ve already told me that you really like you want to Plex on your Nvidia Shield. And I want to move that over to it right. I think that I mean, the next big the biggest one, and probably the one that’ll take you the most time. But just to have it in to play with it is next cloud. Okay, have you have you run a deployment of own cloud or next cloud before?

Jim Collison  [59:17] 
Well, we had him on the show. Yeah, I’ve looked at their software,

Mike Wieger  [59:22] 
even just to play with it. It would be one of those that would scratch your itch for setting something up. If you really want to get that up and running.

Jim Collison  [59:31] 
Docker VM,

Mike Wieger  [59:32] 
Docker. Okay, perfect. Yep. So it’s a Docker. So Space Invader. If you haven’t watched one of his videos, yet, you haven’t done unrated. And because he’s just the end all be all source for everything. He has a great video on how to do it. So run next cloud because what that’ll get you as well is you’ll have to install the Let’s Encrypt Docker. So you’ll get working on a reverse proxy. Right? And then you can start really pointing out Hey, because I don’t know if you really have any. For me, site counters were the only one but so you have I’d have to do anything that you would need to port forward historically, just get that all moved over to Let’s Encrypt. So this will kind of lead you to a nice path because I learned about Let’s Encrypt, and how to set it up through that video from Space Invader on how to set up next cloud. Right? So it leads you down a chain of getting all that stuff set up. Then after that you could last festal a sponsor? No. Okay, good. Well, you could ditch LastPass. And you could go self hosted bit Warden, if you want to, right. So once you get that reverse proxy really kind of opens up the door for a few of those.

Jim Collison  [1:00:31] 
Oh, that’d be good for site down. I’ve been wanting to move that over. And I may need Yeah, I run siteground on the studio PC. It’s super powerful. It kind of handles it really, really well, all those other kinds of things. I almost did site hound first on there, and then it’s only got four gig running the VM, right, which will leave it there.

Mike Wieger  [1:00:50] 
The reverse proxy just allows you to access it from a URL instead of so the reverse proxy just sits on your Android box, and then you tell it Hey, send it over to this PC. So it’ll send it over so you don’t have to move site hound. It’s literally just letting you do site hound gyms URL. COMM takes in that goes straight now and you have to port forward because the only port you’re forwarding over to that doctor is 443, or whatever you want to set up for SSL. And then that’s the only port so you never have to port forward again, you just set up a new reverse proxy thing. Use one of your URLs you have we all have like 50 of them and pointed there so I’ll hold back on my other side. I started rambling. No, keep a few right. One thing so one thing so there’s your next slide work and with that is let’s

Jim Collison  [1:01:36] 
start working on the next cloud implementation be good, it’d be a good place to to mess around with that move some files, have some things have that event. Yeah, I did reach out to them again, and to get him back on the show. So we’re working, are working on those guys. Kenny as well and I work and I’m working on the unread guest. So we’ll see if we can get we get both of those back here on the show over the I

Mike Wieger  [1:01:59] 
know the office Pro license. I never hit them up for it. And now Can I

Jim Collison  [1:02:04] 
still have I paid for the whatever? What’s the first? unread?

Mike Wieger  [1:02:07] 
Oh, yeah.

Jim Collison  [1:02:09] 
Yeah, they sent me they have a new marketing guy and he sent me some unread who have swag. I do. I do. I forgot about these. So I went all the listeners right now Mike.

Mike Wieger  [1:02:19] 
Jim joins for one day and he already got the swag right?

Jim Collison  [1:02:23] 
What do they call these badges? I don’t know stickers. There’s the pillow like the you know, they’re the Yeah, that’s a cool one. That was that was gone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So big thanks, Spencer. Spencer Jones over there line. That’s fantastic. Sent or unread. Sent, sent those over. They sent me a nice card as well. And they said we’re looking forward to having you guys on so we’ll have them I might have them scheduled. Let me look. I forgot.

Unknown Speaker  [1:02:48] 
We have them. I’m so glad.

Mike Wieger  [1:02:51] 
I was. I was I was wondering I was like this might be not something that you’re into. But I totally forgot that for Windows updates for you is huge. Yeah. Thanks. data.

Jim Collison  [1:03:00] 
I just think I need to think of a way to give those badges away. I think that’s what we need to do so because they’re super easy to send because it’s just dropped them in the mail and Do you even have stamps anymore? I don’t even know how to mail things anymore. Like, how do you do that? No. is the post office still in business?

Mike Wieger  [1:03:20] 
They still official start at No, they’re still

Jim Collison  [1:03:22] 
going. Okay, good. I don’t want starting rumors.

Mike Wieger  [1:03:25] 
I sold one of my ham radios. I know don’t all right. I sold one. Just one. I know Okay, one that I spent too much money on in the first place. I sold that one. I kept the one that was reasonable for my skill level.

Jim Collison  [1:03:37] 
Johnson mail and postage do I sent when I when I was trying to do those when Ron made those things for me? I didn’t know how I don’t even know how much postage to send. The guy in the mailroom at Gallup gave me some bad advice. And so I mailed some of those with postage too, so I apologize for that.

Mike Wieger  [1:03:53] 
I know those coins by the way. I still have them up. Right here.

Jim Collison  [1:03:57] 
I love those are so cool. No, Ron didn’t 3d printing did a great job. I appreciate those. So Alright, wait a minute. Let’s not gloss past this. You sold? Sorry, why? Why did you sell one of them? And how long before the second one is sold?

Mike Wieger  [1:04:11] 
No. The second one is kind of cool. And we use it for hunting. So when we go hunting down south, we all have them in the cars. And we do coyote hunting with dogs and we run the dogs from trucks and we all have trucks. So we go around. So yeah, there’s there’s your hc lesson today is how we hunt coyotes with hounds up here in Nebraska. Oh, um, but no. So I had that one radio that I’d spent probably too much money on. And I was like, You know what, like, I’m not getting the full use out of it. I the one I really use is my really cheap one. And so it was really just one of those, you know, this goes into the tech fund, right? Let’s beef it back up and I just bought a Nintendo Switch. So my wife is totally on board with me like getting into new hobbies as long as they roll as long as the money rolls over from one to the other to the other. So get rid of that one. I mean, it was the that was a $450 radio So it was it was pretty pricey. I mean, that’s a lot of computer parts right there for 450. So sold on him and eBay sold right away. I was really surprised actually because they paid 450 for it and you can get it new for 450. So I don’t know why but they did. So I broke even on it again. No profit. No profit. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [1:05:19] 
All right. All right. Yeah. You tried to sneak that one in?

Mike Wieger  [1:05:23] 
I did. Well, cuz you guys have been waiting for me to say like, Oh, yeah, he’s already out of Ham Radio and I’m not out of it. I knew they would think When’s the last

Jim Collison  [1:05:29] 
time you updated your website, your Ham Radio website,

Mike Wieger  [1:05:33] 
the first asset up

Mike Wieger  [1:05:37] 
Wieger Christian and he switched over to mixer I’m actually gonna switch it over to something different just like the dad nerd kind of as an overall

Jim Collison  [1:05:45] 
website for you back on the gaming thing kind of right.

Mike Wieger  [1:05:48] 
Oh, well, but I wanted I wanted a site where I could just like blog a little bit, right like about tech like anything I was thinking about just tech just like, Oh, I’m doing this this weekend. I just thought I don’t want to maybe do a full YouTube video but I want to like write about texting. pictures come back around and so i don’t know i you know me

Jim Collison  [1:06:04] 
I know I do I do yeah Haven’t we are like the there won’t be any posts on that before I delete it so we are the exact opposite it takes me forever to get into something and usually I’m about a year late by the time I finally get there right and you know I like I’m I think there’s some folks that are surprised we’re into the into unreal in this community like that was that’s that’s kind of had gone in waves of popularity and not Right, right. We’re we were early and late to the game for a lot of reasons. But yeah, so I’m always late and you are always super early, but man you flame out fast, like super fast. Just red hot, red hot, ice cold. I like it. I used to think I was that way.

Mike Wieger  [1:06:52] 
I’m one I think you’re a little bit more like me. It’s funny that you think of yourself as pretty like soda. I think you’re quick to get in. Not as good Get out. Right like you’ll jump on a new you’ll, you know, we got into mining, we’ve done a lot of things where we’ve gotten in, I think you didn’t you you’re really good at sticking with things and I have a hard time on stuff like that go. Um, you know, I have commitment issues, so

Jim Collison  [1:07:14] 
well at least you admit it.

Mike Wieger  [1:07:15] 
Yeah. I’ve been married for five years. But that’s that’s the longest I’ve done anything. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [1:07:19] 
Yeah. That’s pretty great. 31 years for me that.

Mike Wieger  [1:07:22] 
Well, you know, what’s funny, though, is he and I were talking about this actually with the anniversary thing. And I’m like, you know what, the one thing I’ve done for the longest amount in my entire life is podcast with Jim. This has been the longest running thing. I

Unknown Speaker  [1:07:34] 
have not done something weekly, for

Mike Wieger  [1:07:37] 
five, six years together.

Jim Collison  [1:07:40] 
And you’re gonna like cuz I’m not. I’m not giving up on this. No, no, no, I’m not letting you go. If you divorce, Hannah, that’s okay. I’m you’re with me. So we’re good. A lot more cigars in that case? Oh, because you know, she’s blocking me like, you know, I know convinced

Mike Wieger  [1:07:56] 
of that. I’m not it’s not true, but you’re convinced of it.

Jim Collison  [1:07:59] 
She’s is blocking me every time I try to get to you Oh Michael we need to go out of town I can just hear her no Michael we need we have a birthday party this weekend. No we have no oh, I was just gonna hang out with Jim no you can’t hang out with Jim this weekend we we are yeah that’s how it goes. That’s how it goes so well with that or remind everyone Hey a big big thanks to our Patreon subscribers you guys have been faithful through it and we appreciate that so thanks for what you do the average guy.tv slash Patreon if you want to join that team kind of just helps pay the bills and do do what we do around here appreciate you you guys for doing I just paid the taxes on that so that’s never my fun that’s never that’s that’s not the fun part of Patreon but is what we do if you want to join us in the discord group. We mentioned that a little bit earlier. The average guy TV slash discord will get you there. There’s still some conversation in the Facebook group if you want to go to the average guy.tv slash Facebook. Yeah, it’s gonna be forever before we can smoke a cigar together. I’m not gonna lie. I went to Havana. On Monday night

Mike Wieger  [1:09:02] 
it’s not a tape measure on my back pay will sit six feet apart six feet right

Jim Collison  [1:09:06] 
yeah six feet as long as we don’t judge each other Yeah, I do it anyways but

Unknown Speaker  [1:09:11] 
sure hope not.

Jim Collison  [1:09:14] 
Don’t forget you can contact the show again. Seriously, don’t don’t be isolated during this time. Lots of stuff going on. Make sure you’re staying in contact with somebody virtually that is stay in contact with someone virtually. Send us an email Jim at the average guy.tv You can find me at Jay Collison you are at Wieger tech. Right? That’s true. We your tech gets that done. Don’t forget the aggregate ITV both media and web hosting powered by Maple Grove partners. I mentioned Krishna will be on cyber frontiers on Monday. So that is the 20th and just look at Monday that starts with a three and a two you’ll get there. And of course secure reliable high speed hosting from people that you know and you trust. Visit Maple Grove partners.com. Plans start as little as $10 and he is rocking and rolling. On Maple Grove partners Don’t forget you can download the app Home Gadget geeks.com and we are live every Thursday. 8pm Central 9pm Eastern. Out here. JOHN big says he’s the only one left Facebook 8pm Eastern, not 8pm Central nine Eastern Now here the average guy.tv slash live. We’ll do some post show. Appreciate you guys in the live stream coming out tonight. With that, we’ll say goodbye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

 


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