Anyone into Computer Keyboards / Custom Keyboards

Smoker's Lounge
#23

A light up keyboard is what determines wether or not your going to throw it at the screen when you lose, the exact opposite of destroying an ax after a winning guitar solo

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#24

Haha. I don’t ‘game’. But I do use a keyboard/computer in very dim lighting sometimes, and my eyes are getting worse. Seems like a clearly useful, if not necessary feature in that situation. I’m sure there are others, like those nice, dim “bar” lights that attach to the top of one’s monitor and shine downward.

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#25

I just piped in with my unqualified ball of assumptions, but it’s wild to see people with personal computers all decked out with such ergonomic shit built in. For games

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#26

It’s all good. I used to play on console, I think I stopped back at xbox 360. I think (most) games are just meant to sell more games now, just like (most) movies. Not interested. Even if I had the time.

That’s an interesting avatar picture. On second glance I see the breadst feeding going on…? Did your user name make you search for and find that image, or did finding that image inspire the user name?

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#27

Kind of fell like manna from the heavens

#28

Yes, I could see that they were tall so I set myself up with a cheap wooden wrist rest sized for it from aliexpress. The Keychron V3 can be set up with knob and it still has hotswap switches for much cheaper than the Q3.

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#29

Unrelated, but what’re the best options for mass multi-media storage? 5TB minimum, but I’m looking at 8TB or more realistically. I was thinking of a 3.5" HDD in an external closure.

Thanks.

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#30

I picked this up a couple days ago. I was also looking at 8tb but this 5tb was super cheap, a good brand and has a built in USB hub with 2 ports on it.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B077H6T333/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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#31

Hmm.
I have a wd elements 5tb. I like how small it is, physically. But it’s nearly full. So really, I guess I need something that is (a) larger in storage capacity (b) I need something that I can get a second of the same in the somewhat near future so that I can backup the first one.
I thought a 3TB increase (up to 8 overall) sounded reasonable…?

What do those with many, many terabytes of music, and video do for storage? Pretty much gotta have two of it, so one can be a backup, right? Unless they make/buy a NAS, right? (I barely know what a NAS even is, fyi).

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#32

I have a backup of my backup, lol. Technically I have my bulk data on 4 seperate drives so I never have to fear losing it. So many pics, videos and movies. I really bought the one I showed for the USB ports as they make.things super convenient for me.

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#33

I’m still on this…
@sfzombie13 @DougDawson @avr1 @FieldEffect – and any computer/tech enthusiasts who know. I’ve been paranoid that any day my single drive with basically everything on it will die and I will be screwed.

-Can anyone recommend a “computer stuff” forum that might be better than toms hardware forums? Or…is that a “good” one. (I’m on it, but I’m curious if there’s better). More active, more open, etc.

-I decided on, and have received a 12TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS internal 3.5" HDD. I will need another drive though, to back it up (Doesn’t have to be another 12, but at least 8, just saying). So I’m open to a 2-bay enclosure (or up to 4-bay, price dependant). I don’t plan on using raid, as I’m not familiar enough, and it adds cost and complexity I don’t really need. So I’m open to a DAS or even NAS enclosure, but I would set it up as “single drives” (which I think is different than even JBOD configuration).

-I’m stuck on an enclosure. I need some basic advice. What brands to avoid if that’s easier than what brands to choose, whichever though.
I think I’ve come to understand that most if not all of the single drive enclosures are not really meant to be left connected 24/7. They don’t have fans and most are plastic and/or have little to no ventillation holes even. I’m not opposed to getting a single, that’s what I originally intended.

-ORICO, OWC, MAIWO, TERRAMASTER, QNAP, MEDIASONIC, SABRENT. What is to be avoided. I think the QNAP is in the higher end - based on price and the sense I got from a few mentions of it.
I want to avoid something that will fail and kill the drive/drives inside; I cannot have that. I’m poor. If an “enclosure”/“caddy” failing can kill the drives inside (which I understand it can…) then wouldn’t it be possible to loose multiple entire drives should that happen (the enclosure dies)?

-I will list some models I’m currently looking at in a bit.

Thanks in advance.

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#34

List of enclosures that caught my interest so far, from amazon.ca only. Double asterisk ( ** ) after the ones I’m particularly interested in. I’d like to spend under $160 cad before tax. The 2 bay sabrent had another listing for $150 but I missed it.

OWC:

MAIWO:

TERRAMASTER:

SABRENT:

QNAP:

MEDIASONIC:

ORICO:

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#35

Hey @Nitt

This really isn’t something I know a great deal about but many of the options look like fine choices. Most of this consumer stuff is going to be pretty comparable in terms of reliability/electrical construction. They probably all use the same RAID controller/SATA bridge IC.

Personally I’d go with the MAIWO Dual Bay for $100. Looks like a decent mechanical design and good cooling.

The Orico stuff looks nice.

If you want the highest reliability tier you’ll be able to do, I’d get demo boards for reputable ICs, like the TUSB9261 paired with a decent power supply. https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/TUSB9261DEMO?qs=THnoWt2ah2C6OG3RzrkcKQ%3D%3D

I only mention that knowing you have something of an interest in DIY. Obviously that’s not as much of a plug-n-play solution but it’s all mechanical work you would have to do.

Of course, you’d have to build a case or find something you can use. But those demo boards are a good option because everything on the board is optimized to sell the parts. And the things likely to cause a failure or damage to the HDD (power supply design primarily) are well thought out with top-of-the-line components. 5V supply is of particular concern, and there are lots of ways to cheap out on that in consumer stuff. All of these adapters from USB to SATA will use a 12V power adapter (that goes straight to a 3.5" drive), and internally they have a 5V converter to power the logic and motor (of a 2.5" drive in particular). Those two supplies are the most critical to avoid damaging your drive due to any random failure.

You may consider buying a very nice 12V adapter to mitigate some risk even with a consumer-grade enclosure. But that’s probably overkill. Most common failures would not result in drive damage.

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#36

Thanks FE.
Yea, the MAIWO dual bay looks ok in regards to cooling. What do you think about that OWC one with similar form factor? I just know of OWC as a brand, I’ve bought their RAM before, for a macbook pro. Doesn’t mean it’s better, but that’s kinda what I’m trying to figure out.
I don’t like that they’re tall, as they can be more easily be tipped/knocked over. But I’m not a clumsy person. I do like the form factor of that ORICO dual bay. But I’ve seen a couple people saying they didn’t like the brand - I think they were talking about other models though, the single “caddy” type units. It’s a tough choice. I’ll probably have to choose one before the end of the day.

Thanks.

Side note: Someone else had concerns or questions about the actual orientation of the drives within an enclosure. It’s weird to me that some have them turned sideways, or upright (vertical). I’d think that “flat”, as in how you’d lay it to read the actual labels, would be best. There is a spinning disk and an…arm moving around in there…

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#37

Might as well post this here…
Where can one buy quality used phones online? Eg: Pixel phones. Anywhere?
And/or forums I could check out regarding this other than XDA.

I only say Pixel because I’m planning on installing Calyx OS, or Lineage, or something similar. But other “open” (easy to unlock bootloader, etc. etc.) phones would be ok. I’d prefer expandable storge (sd slot) and similar features, but I know things like that and replaceable batteries are being removed and/or already gone. No headphone jacks and all that shit.
I have an S7, old, broken camera, and it’s just suspect at this point.

Thank you.

#38

Looked at the product you linked. More pricey than I thougth it would be, not too much, just more than I thougth.

Well, I got the dual bay Orico I listed. I read the 1 star reviews, and there’s no way I can get past the fear they put into me.
The MAIWO single bay I received doesn’t quite inspired confidence either, and the lower end reviews say that it’s just a hot box.

This is weird to me that I can’t seem to figure where the quality brand(s) are - as if maybe there aren’t any?

What, do I have to just build a fuckin’ pc? Are the components, connections, etc. on a motherboard (or whatever - correct me if I’m wrong) just the only “high grade” or quality components available?

I can’t risk losing terabytes and terabytes of data, nor the hundreds of dollars invested in drives on some dangerously low quality garbage.

For example. I noticed that the fan on the back of the Orico doesn’t have enough holes to even allow the full diameter of the fan to exhause the air, and the way it’s located, it’s just stupid.
Had it for about a week maybe, still haven’t put drive in it. Had the Maiwo for a few days too.

#39

Well, our definitions of reliability may be quite different.

Honestly, most of the cheap stuff is fine. Reliability is a lot like anything else. It’s easy to go from NO reliability to pretty good reliability. It is considerably more difficult to go from that, kinda “consumer grade” reliability to medical/space/defense quality reliability.

It does absolutely bother me that the marketplace for common consumer items has shifted to garbage. Minimal thought goes into details of the enclosure, the interface, the software, etc. Everything is aimed at shortening time to market and lowering manufacturing cost so they can be on top of the Amazon page.

I think it probably makes more sense to have a few backup mechanisms, as you are planning. Use one infrequently, the other all the time. Even if you use cheap things one of the two will be almost doubling your chances of uncorrupted, useable backup data.

There certainly exist different grades of computer hardware, consumer and enterprise/server grade. There are still failures in higher-end equipment, it’s impossible to get past that. People specialize in reliability engineering and the statistics involved in it - very complicated and deep field.

My comments are more from the perspective of an engineer used to achieving vanishingly low failure rates through careful design and selection of components. I can look at a design and see things that are likely the first things to go, and that’s kinda what the comment about development boards was aimed at. Most of those “low hanging fruit” sort of obvious longevity improvements are already done.

Now, I kinda understand where you are coming from. I want my shit reliable too. 100%. But it isn’t worth the mental obsession diving too deep in the rabbit hole, because things ARE pretty damn reliable. It’s crazy actually.

To summarize:

  • Things are electrically much more reliable on average than 10 years ago, even on the decent consumer product level. Much of this is related to refinements in manufacturing of components and integration of semiconductors.
  • Failure is a probability density function, and at the extreme-reliability levels failures are still planned for, and happen. The simplest mitigation is redundant systems.
  • You can identify computer hardware grades by “consumer” and “enterprise” or “server” grade. It’s harder to put substance into these labels anymore because the lower-end marketing folks have caught on to that and slap it on everything.
  • I think we both have a similar disdain for poorly designed/made devices and the fact is it is harder to escape them nowadays. I don’t know what we can do about it.

That felt like a ramble with no point. I wouldn’t think too much about it. If I was trying to back up that amount of data AT WORK we’d have a few data servers, spread across town at different locations for redundancy. At home, two discrete USB HDDs.

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#40

No, I think I get the point. It’s just that I’m still going to have to “take a chance” on one of these pieces of junk to not wreck stuff.

Thanks man. Appreciate it.

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#41

I guess this is where I’ll ask anything related to PC stuff for now…

Is there a way to use my computer (internet/ethernet, wifi) to make phone calls from it to a Landline? Eg: I need to make a call to a business in the USA (I’m in canada) but they don’t have a toll free number.
I don’t mean Skype, or anything where the receiver of the call needs to have the same application/program installed. I mean just calling a Landline or cellular number from my PC using my own internet service, somehow?

If so, please share. Is this called VOIP or something? Would I need to buy software or hardware to be able to do this?

Thank you.

#42

Windows (10) file syncing (I might not be using the term correctly in this case), I need some help.

Had a “big” hdd that is practically full, call it “Drive A”. Bought a new, larger hdd, call it “Drive B”.

I made the big copy of everything from drive A, over to drive B already.

But, since then, I’ve added a few new files to drive A, and I’ve also “organized” some of the existing files on drive A (by making a new folder and putting files/folders into the new folder), and maybe even “fixed”/(changed) the file names of a few files. (I might have even added a new file or two to drive B).

How can I sort this out? I need everything on drive B. I need to not have duplicates either.

In another area of these two drives, I successfully copied data from a folder on drive A which had a couple new files, to the same folder on drive B, and the dialog box regarding duplicates (only copying different files) did the job. But I’m not sure exactly how I did it right. And it was far fewer and smaller files than then this next attempt.

Edit: I’m wondering; if you change the name of a folder or file, then the “duplicate” dialog box from copy/paste procedures probably won’t work…right. Am I looking at having to do this manually?
And how can I avoid this in the future? Some type of backup or syncing software?
And do I need to make sure I name everything (files, folders) the final way I want them before ever doing these things in the future? Because lets say you have two drives, one being a backup (B backs up A). If you want to do some “organizing” and fixing of file names on drive A (adding/removing punctuation, capitalization, etc. of files), then how is that going to effect your ability to “backup” these files/changes to drive B?

I’m confused.

@DougDawson @sfzombie13 @FieldEffect @NoCal, anybody?

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