Recent content by Mercutio

I had to service three Windows XP systems earlier in the week. They talk to commercial embroidery systems that don't have software that operates anything newer and won't virtualize worth a shit because of a USB security dongle, so they've just had their second whole system transfer. As...

AMD released desktop and notebook Ryzen 8000-series Pro CPUs this week. They look basically the same as the 8x00G models but AMD says they have NeuralPUs for AI workloads. I'm not sure if that's a pile of marketing or something real and useful, but it is a move forward. This might make the next...

My partner's Microsoft account is the one she made for Xbox when she was a little girl, and it's tied to just under two decades of product purchases and game achievements. Unfortunately, it's also tied to 2FA info that belongs to her dad, since six year olds generally don't have private email...

Apropos of nothing, I love it when major media sources have to report reddit and twitter users as sources for breaking news, including their hilariously inappropriate user names. We live in a dystopian media hellscape where we have to take Elon Musk's stinky poo garbage site seriously, but it's...

Aren't the 670p drives QLC NAND? Maybe not the best choice for a primary drive.

My favorite high endurance 2.5" drives are Intel S4510s, followed by Samsung 860 Pros. The 860 Pros are more or less impossible to find new, but the Intel drives are pretty easy to come by, which is one of the reason I like them as much as I do.

DRAM prices can fluctuate in a similar fashion to other memory types. No manufacturer wants their goods at their lowest prices and you must remember other times that we've seen peaks and troughs in that pricing.

SSD prices fell to historical lows last year. I'm REALLY happy I have a stack of Intel 8TB u.2 drives right now because the supply for those evaporated in late February and I know I can't afford the current generation models.

His eye socket was shattered in a fall down some stairs a couple years ago, where he was also diagnosed with dementia, along with substantial weight loss probably due to depression. He chose to retire during the pandemic and had been working on a text of personal interest, which involved travel...

Also, the phone number he provided to his Microsoft account is apparently a land line. The only progress I've made with this is that he finally did come up with the email address he signed up to use on his computer. An address he no longer has access to. I'm at the point where I've tried...

A Windows 11 horror story: I'm looking at a Dell XPS 9320 (11" 13th gen intel, just over a year old). Its owner is in early onset dementia. He can't remember his Microsoft PIN or password and his appearance has changed so substantially over the last year that he can't use his Windows Hello...

I built an application about 25 years ago that was originally created in Object Pascal and rewritten by others to be an ASP.net project. The person who did this (and prevented anyone from changing anything) just retired, so the three of us who are left are finally in the process of rebuilding it...

Until a couple years ago, I was using powershell to generate sqlcmd scripts because that was easier than reinventing the wheel with things that weren't implemented by the sqlserver module. And then I found out that the dbatools module has been around for years and did pretty much all things I...

I don't understand this "get stumped by writing" concept.

Probably, but it remains to be seen if Microsoft will allow them to operate. Supposedly, just renaming the impacted executables twice allows them to operate again, but that's definitely anticompetitive behavior.