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  1. Mercutio

    Is the formatting toolbar disabled for anyone else?

    Ah. So it is. That's weird. The formatting bar icons are all pretty low contrast and it definitely didn't register as being any more enabled than the other icons.
  2. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    Both Google and Microsoft have an OS that's essentially just a front-end for web services (ChromeOS and Windows S-Mode). Some people will always want local processing but we haven't had any major change from Windows since Windows Vista was released. The new features in Windows are generally tied...
  3. Mercutio

    Is the formatting toolbar disabled for anyone else?

    See subject. Is it just me?
  4. Mercutio

    Greyjay and SmartTubeNext

    I'm vaguely aware that Youtube is really cracking down on ad blocking so I thought I'd mention some things. I've been using SmartTubeNext since forever. It's an AndroidTV client that'll run on a Shield STB with ad blocking and sponsor blocking that works so well that my partner actually ditched...
  5. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    My impression overall is that Microsoft doesn't REALLY want to make OSes any longer. It wants to make a framework for online services and get people to pay for it to host everything. On Prem Windows Server is disappearing and I think there's a constant sales pitch for more and more things to be...
  6. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    I think I've mentioned this site before, but they've massively updated it and how it works. Ameliorated.io is a set of scripts that strips BS out of a Windows 10 or Windows 11 install to suit your specific needs. These scripts are called Playbooks and each of them removes a subset of components...
  7. Mercutio

    Web Pages

    Since LM is asking about Frontpage, I'll also mention that this works fine in every version of Word going back to at least Office 2007. You can choose to make a .HTML file or a .MHTML, which is functionally a .zip file with all the file the page needs (e.g. embedded images or fonts) in one...
  8. Mercutio

    Something Random

    You just can't catch a break, can you? Hope everyone is current on their vaccinations.
  9. Mercutio

    Something Random

    The colo rental is in my name. I only pay $350/month for 21U and I don't pay for power. Most colos charge between $80 - $100/1U.
  10. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I wouldn't be either, but I have a couple 2TB U.2 drives on adapters like that. I haven't had an Intel P4510 die yet but my experience with older Intel drives has been that they flip in to read-only mode rather than crap out entirely.
  11. Mercutio

    Hard Drive Recommendations

    I have more Seagate drives than anything else, but all of my 14TB+ drives are system pulls from enterprise product lines and I'm not picky about what I get given what I pay for them. The Seagate enterprise (Exos / Ironwolf) are a little louder but I have to be less than six feet from my file...
  12. Mercutio

    Something Random

    My datacenter is moving to Detroit at the end of the month. They've been giving me a sweet deal on my 1/2 rack rental for almost a decade and now I have to decide if I'd rather let all my stuff move beyond easy access or if I'd rather have my hosting costs more than double. Today is not a good day.
  13. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I agree that it would be really nice if Intel gave us a new high end enthusiast platform. There ARE weird adapters to run PCIe devices via m.2 slots, but that doesn't really solve the problem of not having enough PCIe lanes overall.
  14. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    You don't need a server. You just need an HBA. In the 90s, we'd run SCSI controllers so we could use Cheetahs and X15s. This is basically the same thing.
  15. Mercutio

    Something Random

    You're basically as far from me as you could be and still be in the Chicago area. It's a not-quite two hour drive from here. Woof.
  16. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I have a SpyderX something or other.
  17. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    One of the things I appreciate about the u.2 / u.3 form factor is that the drives are basically made out of finned aluminum heat sink instead of just being a bare PCB. It's also easier to get high capacity drives with better options for endurance among the u.2s than the m.2s.
  18. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Yes. I've been looking at DxO. The default "Natural" processing works pretty well for anything shot in natural light but oh boy does it ever screw the pooch on RGBW or stage lighting. I'd say it can have higher highs than default processing with Capture One but also much lower lows than Capture...
  19. Mercutio

    Something Random

    My company maintains a fax number 100% because of a dingbat secretary one of our customers uses. She's in her early 70s and she's impossible to train in any way, shape or form. Someone told her to send a particular report by fax 30 years ago and she's been dutifully printing out the report at...
  20. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Photos of human subjects can at times appear too sharp. There's a balancing act in this, but a shot at f/5.6 might not exactly be forgiving to a subject, even if that's what it takes to get a most of a person's body in focus. I find that fine grain can tone that down without much loss of actual...
  21. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Do you use LUTs or presets in processing, ever? I very often use LUTs that simulate well known medium format film stock to finish portraits. I see that DxO has a collection of those that can be purchased with DxO.
  22. Mercutio

    Streaming

    It sounds like you'd probably be served just fine by any of the above. I'm assuming the Yamaha in question is a soundbar? My preferred configuration is all devices into an AVR (Receiver) and monitor out to TV. I don't do any sound processing on any TV. My receiver is fancy enough to let me fix...
  23. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I've been using Topaz AI. Lightroom is vastly superior from a tech standpoint, but as a question of whether or not I'm willing to give Adobe a blank check to use its software for all time, the answer is no. I can get acceptable results out of Topaz.
  24. Mercutio

    mATX Rebuild

    Check you ad and/or script blocker.
  25. Mercutio

    mATX Rebuild

    PCPartPicker.com allows for searches of video cards by their length if you're looking for more options by specific length.
  26. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I've stuck with Topaz for now.
  27. Mercutio

    Streaming

    Wired/Wireless is not an issue. Rather, Roku doesn't have a native player that will accept locally stored audio or video. Apple does not have this capability either. This is super-lame if you have a collection of ripped DVDs or a music library on hand. The most common fix is to run a Plex Server.
  28. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    There's an even cheaper plan that basically doesn't have any online storage but for me the there's a matter of principle because Adobe is on the same list as Apple and Western Digital. If someone ever makes me the benevolent dictator of the world, past and present employees of those companies...
  29. Mercutio

    Streaming

    It depends. Streaming of traditional broadcast/cable TV shows means different things. Hulu (owned by Disney) has the most next-day content from traditional TV of any service. There's also Hulu Plus which does extra stuff. Peacock (owned by Comcast/Universal/NBC) has NBC content Paramount+...
  30. Mercutio

    mATX Rebuild

    Also, as of this week Microsoft is no longer allowing activations of legacy Window keys. No more using a Windows 7 or 8 key on Windows 10 or 11. Bogus.
  31. Mercutio

    mATX Rebuild

    You may find that the bang for the buck on the AMD 6700XT vs. a 4060. The 6700XT has 50% more RAM and is very slightly faster for about $20 more than the 4060. It's a tough call there, because a lot of GPU capabilities are only optimized for nVidia, but the 6700 is a slightly better general...
  32. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Maybe they'll have some extraordinary new AI DeNoise. I'd pay $300 for DxO if it means getting something closer to the thing built in to Lightroom Classic.
  33. Mercutio

    Mini PC

    It looks like the N95 and the mobile Zen 2 CPU in a Steam deck trade blows pretty well. The N95 runs on single channel DDR5 and is using 13th gen Intel cores, which I think help it a lot. They're both stuck at 15W and top out at 16GB RAM, but the little box is a bargain compared to the cost of a...
  34. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Didn't say anything about going abroad; she'll be in Boston, NYC, Nashville, Austin and LA.
  35. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    Maybe just maybe m.2 isn't the best form factor in the world for this stuff?
  36. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    That particular drive seems to have an operating temperature range of up to 70C. It's just another part to keep cool under load. I'm sure a nearly two inch tall heat sink helps a lot with that. Hope no one is sticking that thing in a laptop, though.
  37. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    She travels more than I do. In fact, she won't even be back in Indiana until the end of October and after that, not until December.
  38. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Long photo-related but mostly off-topic rant to follow My partner just moved from an iPhone 14 Pro Max to an iPhone 15 Plus, because while she is happy to get USB-C to match every other goddamned thing in the house (jokingly, the same charger as her vape), the Pro Max doesn't come in pink, and...
  39. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I'm sure I have dozens of Sandisk cards that are between 64 and 256GB. They're more reliable than Samsung or Lexar and a lot cheaper than Angelbird.
  40. Mercutio

    4K Monitor

    Anything that sells refurb / secondhand cards carries a little bit of risk, but it beats wasting $100 extra to get a new in box item that isn't worth $150 in the first place.
  41. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I can't even tell what's being advertised by that.
  42. Mercutio

    4K Monitor

    I've had very few negative experiences with second hand video cards. I know for a fact that all of the GTX1080s I passed to people during the pandemic that were definitely used as crypto mining cards are still fine to this day. It's not all horror stories. You might look on ebay for cards...
  43. Mercutio

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I do not need to explain how WD sucks. You all already know. Every time I buy a SanDisk SD card, I die a little in my soul, although ironically the SD cards are the one thing with which I haven't had a bad time.
  44. Mercutio

    Android Space Hog

    It's explicitly stuff that doesn't map well to anything else, so the OS just gives up and says "put it in that other category." If you are looking at things closely with ADB commands or a real file manager (e.g. Solid Explorer), you can get a better idea of what's going on, but that one report...
  45. Mercutio

    4K Monitor

    In nVidia-land, xx50 and xx50TI cards don't need additional power. A GTX 1050 can definitely do 4k60 and probably costs $100 or less as a refurb card. I know you're allergic to system pulls, but this is a case where using one absolutely makes sense, and no one sane was using cards that crappy to...
  46. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    Apparently, second-hand RTX 3080TIs are now a very reasonable $400 - $500. If you don't mind the power draw, that's about as reasonable as anything I can see from nVidia. The 4070TI only just barely better for $300+ more, which says nVidia is still insane, even after another round of price cuts.
  47. Mercutio

    Mini PC

    I think my Plex needs would definitely melt it, but so far it's good for Wii and Playstation 2 games, no problem. PS3 games are huge files and are probably pushing it for this hardware, but an RPi4 chokes and dies on 25 year old Nintendo games at 1080p so the improvement is substantial. My...
  48. Mercutio

    Mini PC

    I got this absolute garbage PC for about $120. It is ABSOLUTELY garbage, make no mistake, but it's am amazing upgrade from an RPi 4 for running Batocera and various game emulators.
  49. Mercutio

    I do want to buy a used car

    Circumstances being what they were, I didn't really have a choice but to get the car fixed. A cabin full of car exhaust is a great way to get rid of excess brain cells, and December in the Midwest is not really a time to try driving with windows down.
  50. Mercutio

    I do want to buy a used car

    I got it fixed same day. I tried to give them the bill for it and that started a whole stupid conflict.
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