TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

I had to drill some mounting holes in a stainless steel tray I bought.  It was harder than I thought. Here's what worked, in the end: Use cobalt bits.  Home Depot sold some cobalt bits my Milwaukee called "Thunderbolt" that were expressly stated to work well on stainless and iron.  They did the trick for me where gold titanium bits just dulled and broke. Use a slow drill speed.  The second-slowest speed on my 18V cordless did well.  I tried high speeds, and they just made the drill bit tip cherry-red, melted and useless. Use moderate pressure. Drill straight down.  Drilling on an angle makes it more likely you'll bust the bit off. The above notwithstanding, I found a little bit of wiggle on the drill helped the bit gain some bite.  YMMV.  I wouldn't do this on thicker metals. Use a nail or something to dent the metal where you want to start.  The "Thunderbolt" bits did a good job of staying put to start, as long as you went really sl...

Having had my stand set up for a week or so, I do like it. The weight-assist mechanisms are set to the stiffest possible setting at the factory.  However, you can crank them down to minimum without bother.  The mechanisms never become loose or floppy, and it's designed so you can't accidentally unbolt anything. My 19/22/19 setup does just fine at minimum stiffness.  It doesn't sag or move around on it's own. The final height of my monitors did change, but after the first two hours I stopped noticing.  So by the next day you'll have forgotten anything was different. Overall, I would recommend this unit.  It is well made and does a good job. It's a good price - comparatively speaking, of course.  I spotted a comparable system at a local shop for $1800 with monitors - that's $600 per monitor, well over what each of those 23" LCDs are worth.  Granted, it looked totally slick, used a different mounting system that guaranteed perfect alignment of...

-------------------------------------------------------- Please donate to assist in the Japanese disaster.  Visit http://disasterjapan.wordpress.com/ for a list of reputable agencies that make a difference. -------------------------------------------------------- Two-plus weeks on, and the ludicrous media hysteria around Fukushima is finally starting to die a painful, gasping death. We also start to see the occasional rational analysis of the entire affair: Your Man In Japan Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes (The Register) Fukushima scaremongers becoming increasingly desperate (also The Register) Unfortunately, these are still few and far between. As horrible as it may seem, one wonders what would have happened if all the affected nuclear reactors had simply been destroyed. More lives would have been lost.  But they would only be a small fraction of the total lives lost, and probably wouldn't even be remarked upon by the mainstream media. The ...

Using the same Samba share, Windows XP would delete read-only files, and directories with read-only files in them.  It would, of course, prompt you with a "Are you sure you want to delete the read-only file" message. Windows 7, for some unfathomable reason, did not do this with the same Samba share.  Instead, it came up with a very irritating message that said "File access denied", "You need permission to perform this action" message.  It would not progress past that. This affected file moving and (I think) copying as well, in at least a few cases. The simple fix, of course, was just to clear the read-only flag on the file and re-attempt, in which case Windows 7 will delete it quite happily.  This is stupid, however - W7 should behave like XP, and just bloody well do it if I want it to. Thanks to this post , written by some other poor schmuck with the same problem, I found my solution: In smb.conf: [global] map readonly = no delete readonly =...

Windows 7 x64 doesn't ship with the driver for the 2600n, and won't recognize it if you try and add it. If you try to get the driver for the 2600n from the HP website, you will find on run that it asks you to plug in the USB cable - which this printer does not have.  Good one, HP. However, for some reason, running the package up to the USB connection and hitting 'cancel' installs enough stuff for Win7 to correctly identify the 2600n. So, the recipe is: 1.  Download the latest driver from the HP website. 2.  Run it. 3.  When it asks you to plug in the USB cable, hit "Cancel" and quit. 4.  Go to Control Panel / Devices and Printers and run Add Printer. 5.  Select Network Printer, then IP address, and type in the correct IP for your printer. 6.  W7 x64 should correctly recognize the printer at this point, where previously it did not.

I've mounted my existing dual-monitor setup on my Ergotron.  Everything pretty much went as expected. The tipping hazard mentioned by others is real, but is not necessarily a given.  If you have relatively small side monitors, the unit won't tip over.  Put monsters on it and all you need are a few books to brace the unit while you mount monitor #3. Because I have mismatched monitors, the bezels do not perfectly line up.  Part of the problem is the depth (thickness) of each monitor is different.  If you have a thicker monitor in one position, the bezel will be closer to you than the bezel of the neighboring monitor. This didn't bother me - I kind of expected it - and like most other reviewers don't even notice it when using the system.  If you're a perfectionist with unrealistic expectations, trust me - you'll get over the "problem" in no time. The spring-assist mechanisms in the unit are very strong, and were set to maximum from the factory.  M...

To go with my new workstation I invested in a Ergotron LX Triple Display Stand (#33-296-195).  It seems expensive, but given what you get it really isn't. I will post some pictures eventually.  To get an idea of the size of this thing, watch the YouTube video here, courtesy of motherboards.org . Obviously it's large, so one significant concern I had was how (or if) it would fit on my desk.  Unless you have a deep 'boss' desk, you might be restricted as to the total depth you have available. As you can see in promo pictures, the stand has a foot, a post, an arm, and a mount that joins the arm to the post.  In my case, the size and positioning of the mount was important, because I wanted to put a shelf behind the stand. A few points that may be helpful on this stand: The stand will need to be about 9-1/2" away from the front edge of your desk, minimum.  Otherwise you won't really have enough space to make a standard keyboard work. The mount sticks out...

Ever since the nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station No 1 began, the entire news media has been in an absolute frenzy. And yet, for all of the improvements in the 'information age' - with updates happening in real time from the far side of the world (to us) - there is so little actual information.  The news sites talk, babble, scream, moan, and publish endless one-liners from so-called "experts" that range between guarded optimism to predictions of total apocalypse.  And yet they say nothing, all the while trying to generate excitement about their meaningless utterings. The causes are many.  Certainly Tokyo Electric Power has not been saying a whole lot to reporters.  And why should they?  Do they not have enough to do without further goading the media machine?  Like talk to the IAEA, which they can (and should) be doing better?  Or maybe devoting every second of time towards pursuing every possible, potential solutio...