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DIY: SharkBite Fittings Make Adding a Check Valve Easy
If you’ve read any of my previous plumbing DIY posts, you know I’m a fan of SharkBite slip-fittings. Yes, they’re more expensive than standard copper or CPVC fittings, but their primary benefit is how...
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Adding Astronomical Clock Functionality to an Original Lutron HomeWorks System
When my primary residence was built in 1998, the builder installed a Lutron HomeWorks whole-house lighting system. Basically, it’s a set of three panels (one on each floor) that can control all the...
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How to Calibrate a Hygrometer (Humidity Sensor) using the Salt Test
“It’s not the heat… it’s the humidity that gets you.” Not only is that true for personal comfort, but even more so for important items that need to be kept at a specific humidity (like cigars at 70%)...
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Product Review: Western Humidor Caliber 4R Digital Hygrometer and Thermometer
I recently purchased a dehumidifier to place in my gun safe (product review is coming), but I wanted to make sure it was doing its job properly. The only way to ensure that is to test the humidity...
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Product Review: Remotely Controlling an Electric Water Heater with a Leviton...
One of my favorite features of my Ecobee WiFi thermostats is the ability to heat or cool a location so that it’s nice and comfortable by the time we walk in the door. For example, our furnace and heat...
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Product Review: Save Money with a Gas Water Heater Timer
I own a whopping eight water heaters between five houses: two at the main house, two at the Utah house, two at the cabin, and one at each of two rental houses. The cabin and one of the rental houses...
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My Favorite Zend OPcache Status Scripts
When I upgraded to PHP 5.5, I also said goodbye to my beloved APC cache (which never let me down) in favor of Zend OPcache, because it’s already part of the PHP package. Back when I used APC, one of my...
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Fraud Alert: Mark Raider of Rogclassics in Ely, Nevada is using my Ferrari...
Earlier today, I received the following email from someone who is not named Bob, but that’s what I’ll call him to protect his privacy: Steve, Did you recently sell an F40? Or are in the process of...
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Rant: Why is there no libbsd for CentOS 7?
CentOS 7 was released recently, and so I fired up my build VM so I could attempt to build the OpenDKIM package for submission to EPEL. But the compile barfs on strlcat/strlcopy, because RHEL/CentOS...
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Resize a Fedora, CentOS, or Windows Dynamic Guest Virtual Disk (VDI) in...
Here’s the scenario: you’ve set up Dynamically Allocated Storage for the hard drive on your Guest VM in VirtualBox and you’ve run out of space — even though your Actual Size is smaller than the Virtual...
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Product Review: Traeger BBQ 400 Select
I’ve been a “big stainless steel natural gas” barbeque grill guy for a long time. I’ve owned everything from entry-level Nexgrill units, to mid-level KitchenAid grills, all the way up to the big-daddy...
View ArticleTraeger Zinc to Stainless Steel Hardware Cross Reference
If you own a Traeger smoker grill, chances are you put it together yourself — using the hardware kit provided by Traeger. To save money, the majority of the nuts, bolts, screws, and washers in a...
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Product Review: Brake Performance Front Rotors for 2008 Cadillac Escalade ESV
If you do a Google search on “Escalade warped rotors,” you’ll quickly find lots of stories from Cadillac Escalade owners complaining about their front brake wear. It’s easy to understand why. These...
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My Favorite BBQ Accessories
This year has been one of the best summers I can remember in Seattle. The weather’s been perfect, and I’ve been able to relax — which includes working on a bunch of projects around the house (don’t...
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Getting Rid of Moles: What Works, and What Doesn’t
Like a lot of guys, I take great pride in my lawn. I like it green, flat, fertilized, and weed-free. Because I have an irrigation well, I’m able to water my lawn all summer long and keep the soil...
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What Hacked Nude Celebrity Photos Can Teach Us About Privacy in the Digital Age
There is no such thing as privacy Another day, another story about nude photos of celebrities being hacked and posted online. I won’t mention the names of the celebrities in this most recent round,...
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New ecobee3 thinks it’s time to leave the Nest
While the Nest smart thermostat has fans of Apple-inspired designs swooning, it wasn’t the first smart thermostat. Toronto-based ecobee is actually the pioneer in this industry, and had two iterations...
View Articleecobee3 First Look and Unboxing Video
I’m still tinkering with the new ecobee3 smart thermostat, and will have a full review posted soon. In the meantime, you can check out my initial reaction in this unboxing video (in TWO parts): Part 1:...
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ecobee 3 Review
In 2009, Toronto-based ecobee released the very first “smart” thermostat and called it, not surprisingly, the “ecobee Smart” (see my original review of the Smart from 2010). Since then, they’ve...
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How to Install an ecobee3 Smart Thermostat
So you got your hands on an ecobee3 smart thermostat, and instead of reading through the installation manual (which is actually pretty good), you came to the Internet to figure out how to install your...
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