About ...

Originally, this website ran on a Pentium 4 in the basement of my house with something like a whopping 1 GB of RAM and a couple of 120 GB disk drives. I had DSL service at that time, which wasn't fast by today's standards - something like 384 Kbps synchronous. The price was pretty horrendous, though. Later, that changed to Verizon Fios 15/15 Mbps service. However, as of December 27, 2015, this site is being hosted on one of the virtual servers at Linode. If you are not familiar with Linode, their "Linode Cloud" servers are similar to Amazon Web Services but on a smaller scale with fixed pricing. It took me months to choose a hosting service, so if you are hunting for one yourself, give them a serious look.

Since this is a site done more or less by a single person, don't expect a lot of flashy graphics. I use pictures and draw graphics whenever they can be used to explain a point, but I'm not a big fan of unnecessary pictures used just to grab attention. Personally, I think that's a Good Thing™. I'm not paid to put anything on this site - good or bad, so what you find here is really just my personal opinions and observations.

What's Here?

Home Networking  After spending some of my free time on web boards answering questions about networking, I realized there's a need to consolidate practical knowledge about how to set up and troubleshoot small home or business networks. This section is for those who either just bought a home network or were curious about how to go about setting one up. It's hard to be thorough (a.k.a., long-winded) on those message boards. There's almost never a way to draw a picture, which often helps a lot. I also found the same questions get asked again and again. I decided that I really ought to try to pull all of that information together in one place. So I did. It started out as a small guide, but I kept thinking of more topics I wanted to cover and more problems I wanted to try to head off at the pass. It grew, and when it got to 130 pages, I decided that this was going to be an ongoing project, but I had enough to start.

Reviews  There's nothing I hate more than buying some product that's received glowing reviews only to realize that the reviewers would have hated it if they had used it more than the hour needed to write the review. The reviews in this section are things that I have used for a while in my everyday goings-on and have either come to like or hate. Some of these will be short, and some will be longer. These tend to be computer-related, but you never know.

Computer Building  There are a number of good sites that talk about building your first PC, so I won't replicate that. Instead, I'll share tips, techniques, and products that I've found helpful. I'm generally only interested in high-performance gaming PCs, so that will be the gist of this section. I'll also publish my answer to the question, "I have $___ to build a new PC. What should I buy?" The interesting thing is how different the answer is based on the dollar range.

Blog  This is where I put shorter-form posts on topics that catch my attention and, in turn, make me want to comment (or rant - possibly both).

Other Stuff Anything that doesn't fit into the other sections, but I want to share. A lot of this may only be interesting to family and friends (and even then, only if they are being kind). There are a few areas I am knowledgeable in, and I enjoy discussing and writing about them when I get the chance. Finding the time has always been the problem.

That's the high-level summary of what's here. Click any one of the menus at the top to get started.