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Re: Buying a house - Any books that I should get? - 4 years ago

QuoteGGD What value does the lawyer add, and what sort of issues do they tend to catch? When we bought our place here in NJ, the previous seller held to none of the agreed-upon terms in the offer - timing-wise, what he was going to correct, etc. We thought he may have been trying to frustrate us enough such that we'd back out and he'd be able to re-list and get a higher price. Our attorney tal

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Buying a house - Any books that I should get? - 4 years ago

This seems not so common in the midwest, but out here in the MidAtlantic you don't do this sort transaction without using a real estate lawyer.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Cat owners, has anyone ever seen a claw (toe?) like this? (Not gross) - 4 years ago

One of my cats has those outgrowths from a couple of her pads, though not as severe. I forget what they're called, but my vet said they're harmless.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: White elephant gift suggestions? - 4 years ago

Squatty Potty! (does that qualify as potty humor?)

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: how do I download a license for 1Password 6? - 4 years ago

I'd just email them, like they ask you to on that page.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Format flash drive - 5 years ago

FAT

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: I bought a new (older model) MacBook Air, $200 off - 5 years ago

I'm with you on not the newest model, but why not just get a new battery?

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Amplifier suggestions - 5 years ago

If you're looking for new, I'd probably go with the Harmon Kardon HK 3700.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: turn, turn, turn?!.....Shinola Turntable.... - 5 years ago

There are much more expensive turntables out there. VPI's most expensive turntable is $40k.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: What is one product everybody uses incorrectly ? - 5 years ago

Many shampoos. Q-tips.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: What are the "Bose speakers" of other product lines? - 5 years ago

Monster cables. Beats headphones. Though they've gotten a little better.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Used car advice? . . . - 5 years ago

Mileage and how it was driven more than years, but I'd stick to less than 10 years or 100k miles. I bought a 9-year-old Honda CRV with 60k highway miles only driven on the weekends in 2009. Still have it and now have 170k miles on it - with original clutch no less. Mechanic says it'll go to 300k.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: RING Doorbells... Anyone using them or another brand? - 5 years ago

I have a Doorbell Pro, installed it mostly to use as a security camera - wasn't looking for a connected doorbell, but wanted a front door security cam (fair amount of packages stolen from stoops in my hood), so this killed two birds... I have an old house, and even though my existing transformer measured fine, I ended up having to replace it as well as my chime to get everything to work 100%.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Recording a phone call? - 5 years ago

TapeACall

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Bulk email: how to send and how often? - 5 years ago

Mailchimp or similar.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: I admit that I am somewhat overwhelmed by technology. Gym + Apps + iPhone + Apple Watch + more apps and I am lost - 5 years ago

This is why I put on a pair of running shoes, step out the door and time myself with my 20-year-old Timex watch.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: RAID backup education. - 5 years ago

If you have a RAID and corrupt data gets written to it or the controller goes bad or..., both drives are f**ked and you've lost your data. This is why you'd still need a backup to a RAID. RAID is for redundancy, not backup. Please don't think that just because you've got two mirrored drives, that one is a backup. I made this mistake many many years ago and learned the hard way.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: RAID backup education. - 5 years ago

RAID is not a backup. RAID is for redundancy and uptime. If you have a RAID, you should still be backing it up to a separate system.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Post your favorite photo - 5 years ago

These are a couple I made a number of years back. Seems you can't embed from dropbox, so here are links: Do Not Enter Farm Car

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: does your company match 401(k)? - 5 years ago

My employer (a non-profit) matches my contributions up to 4% of my salary.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Noise cancelling headphones - 5 years ago

Noise isolation > Noise canceling A passive pair of in ear monitors will give you the best sound, but only you know if having something jammed in your ears for some amount of time makes sense for you. I'd recommend the Shure SE535 which you can find for about that much on ebay. Custom is even better in terms of convenience. Etys are nice but know they require a deeper insert in the ea

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Network backup for 10 users... How would YOU do it? Server? NAT? TimeMachine? - 5 years ago

FreeNAS likes lots of RAM. Or at least more than you probably have in any older unused machines lying around. TimeMachine setup on FreeNAS is a breeze these days. The interface isn't as pretty as QNAP or Synology, but not a biggie.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Network backup for 10 users... How would YOU do it? Server? NAT? TimeMachine? - 5 years ago

I use a homebrew FreeNAS that I back up about the same number of Macs to via TimeMachine. Any modern NAS architecture will support TimeMachine. FreeNAS needs pretty beefy hardware. QNAP or Synology or even Netgear would get the job done. The one thing about all of this is TimeMachine: if the hard drive really goes down and you can't boot the local machine, you're talking about having to put

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: solar panels orientation - 5 years ago

Assume you've used this tool?

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Helicopter thing - 5 years ago

It's Fleet Week.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Hot water heater-suggestions? - 5 years ago

Geez, I think I paid about $800 for fully installed with disposal.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Hot water heater-suggestions? - 5 years ago

In 2014 I replaced the 15-year old natural gas water heater that was in the house when I bought the house. At the time it seemed like tankless only makes economic sense in certain circumstances, and since I'd have to make significant exhausting and feed changes to go tankless, I opted for another 'normal' water heater. As I understand it there are only a couple major manufacturers, which make mos

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: 30 TB SSD - 5 years ago

Duh, you have to buy two so you can make a backup.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Let's have a discussion about vinyl records - 5 years ago

I'm not really in to them, but the physicality of it certainly lends to a different kind of listening experience. And certainly vinyl does sound different. Better is another question.

by Bixby - Tips and Deals

Re: Dependability, flash drives? - 5 years ago

They'll work until they don't.... Also they'll generally be slower than other drives. All the flash drives I've owned generally don't seem to last nearly as long as 'normal' drives. Maybe that's because they get tossed in pockets or bags, maybe it's because they're made with cheaper components, etc. When they do fail, they tend to go into 'read only' mode, so for a backup this might be an o

by Bixby - Tips and Deals