Canon MF455dw

Canon MF455dw

It’s been 9 years since I bought a new laser printer. I typically don’t replace my equipment until it’s either broken or having too many problems to deal with. My Canon imageCLASS MF4890dw has been chugging along faithfully since I bought it back in 2014 but it recently fell into that “too many problems” category: the ADF has been squeaking and jamming regardless of my attempts to clean it, replace the rollers, etc.; one of the flatbed cover hinges broke back in 2020 and while I was able to replace it, last year the plastic slot that holds the hinge in place cracked so now the cover won’t stay open on it’s own (and the hinge pops out when I open it); and finally despite replacing the toner cartridge and cleaning, it’s been printing black lines down the left side of each page. That was enough to push me over the edge to look for a replacement.

I didn’t do a ton of research this time … I have been really happy with my Canon printers so I just looked for the latest revision of what I already had. Canon’s MF450 series has a few models that are all very similar, the primary differences being the inclusion of a fax, and print speed. There wasn’t much of a price difference for the top-of-the-line model (and it was readily available) which is why after reading a few online reviews, I selected the Canon imageCLASS MF455dw.

Read more

Synology DiskStation DS720+

Synology DS720+

During my recent switch from LastPass to Vaultwarden I was planning on using Docker but then discovered my old (2014) Synology NAS didn’t have the CPU architecture to support it. I was already in the middle of one big winter break project, why not add another? Time for a NAS upgrade!

My DS214 started out with two 3TB drives, which I then upgraded to 6TB in 2018 and then 8TB in 2020 (after one of the 6TB drives started exhibiting bad sectors). I didn’t need a capacity increase again, just a hardware upgrade so I started looking at the newer 2-bay DiskStations. The end result was my purchasing the DiskStation DS720+.

Read more

Goodbye LastPass, hello Vault(Bit)warden

Unless you’re not interested in tech news or have been under a rock for the past two weeks, you’ve probably heard about the latest LastPass breach debacle. Two days before Christmas, every LastPass customer like myself received an e-mail informing us that, in a nutshell, back in August 2022 an unauthorized third-party had acquired LastPass vault backups from a cloud service. But don’t worry, they said! As long as you’ve got a strong master password, you should be fine. But not everything in your LastPass vault is encrypted, specifically URLs and now that this unknown threat actor has a list of LastPass customers, their vaults, and the URLs in those vaults, let the phishing attempts begin! Not to mention they have time to brute force the encryption on those vaults with poor master passwords. Even worse, since the initial announcement, there has been zero further details provided by LastPass, even on their own support forums (which are now full of message threads with other angry customers also leaving) and no mention of the breach at all on their homepage!

So yeah, after 12 years as a LastPass Premium/Families customer, I’ve switched.

Read more

Apple Watch Series 7

[ I’ve been slowly (hardly?) working on this post for the past few weeks, but now that we’re stuck at home waiting for Hurricane Ian to arrive I figured I should finally get it done. ]

Apple Watch Series 7I’m a long-time user of fitness tracker tech: I got my first Fitbit in 2014 (after cancelling my original pre-order in 2009), followed by the Charge 2 and Charge 4. There was a brief time when my daughter had a Charge before she just stopped wearing watches altogether. My wife, on the other hand, went through a Fitbit Flex and Alta before I got her an Apple Watch (Series 3) in back 2018 (which she still has a loves). Honestly, with all of the other Apple devices in our home, I’m surprised it took this long for me to decide to switch and back on Father’s Day (two years after getting my Charge 4), I became the owner of an Apple Watch (Series 7).

[ Of course, since I got it, Apple announced and released the Series 8 … great timing! ]

Read more

Node-Red (with Ring and HomeSeer)

“Even with my tendency to tinker, adding yet another system on top of Homebridge seemed like too much to me.” – me, two months ago

Yeah, I said that back in late May (in reference to Scrypted) after getting Homebridge set up and integrated with my HomeSeer home automation system. But here I am, two months later writing about another integration to my system. This time, it’s Node-Red.

NR is “a flow-based programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.” I had read about it on the HomeSeer forums (back when I was re-organizing my home automation setup and switched to Ring from ADT Pulse), and made some notes to look into it later as it seemed like a lot of people were using it to extend and integrate their automations with other systems. Last weekend I had some free time and decided to poke around and tinker with it.

Read more

Kia EV6 GT-Line

Kia EV6Back in March when we replaced my Highlander with the RAV4 Prime, we figured that would buy us (literally) some time for the Ford Mustang Mach-E we had on order to arrive before the late summer/early fall when we would again require two vehicles. But as the weeks passed it became apparent that the Mach-E was not going into production any time soon so we were also started looking around for my wife’s second choice, the Kia EV6.

Again, it’s not a great time to be buying a car (new or used) and we were casting a wide net, talking to local dealerships and ones as far away as Michigan looking for a) an available EV6 GT-Line, and b) the lowest over-MSRP dealer markup we could find. Luck turned out to be on our side again when one Friday evening I found a new Urban Yellow First Edition just a few miles north of where we found the RAV4 (the person who had originally placed the order for the FE apparently didn’t want it after all). We drove out first thing Saturday morning, test drove it, and decided to buy it (and we had to decide quick because when we got back from our test drive, another couple was waiting to check it out, sorry folks!). Actually finding the car notwithstanding, this was our easiest, smoothest car purchase ever, spending just under three hours total at the dealership before driving my wife’s sweet new ride home.

Read more

Homebridge (and HomeSeer)

A few weeks ago while browsing the Homeseer forums (which have been inundated with Insteon users lately, after the sudden shutdown of the service), I came across a thread about integrating Homeseer with Apple’s HomeKit using Homebridge. Everything in my home automation setup has been working fine, but I’m always looking for new ways to tinker and expand. I use HSBuddy on my iPhone to control my HS devices, but I thought it would be cool if I could use Apple’s Home app instead, which would also make it easier for my wife to use.

Read more

Apple TV 4K

Apple TV 4KBack in early 2020 (pre-pandemic!) when I left TiVo and cut the cord, I switched to YouTube TV and Amazon Fire TV Sticks as my media streamers. They’ve been working fine, but recently I’ve tinkering with integrating HomeKit into my Homeseer setup (using Homebridge, a post will be coming soon on that) and wanted to try using an Apple TV as a HomeKit hub. Thus, I’ve replaced the 4K Fire Stick in the family room with a 32gb Apple TV 4K.

Read more

FITCAMX Dash Cam (RAV4)

Hanging out in the RAV4 Prime forums over on RAV4World is dangerous: people are always posting the cool accessories and customizations they’ve made to their vehicles. Based on some threads there (and in the Facebook group), I decided to try installing a dash cam!

The recommended model was the Fitcamx Dash Cam but according to their web site (and the item page on Amazon) the current model wasn’t compatible with the 2022 RAV4. The photo they had showing the incompatible camera housing didn’t match mine though (it had vents, mine has no vents) so I sent them some photos asking if it would indeed work. They said it would, so I ordered one.

Read more

2022 Toyota RAV4 Prime

Toyota RAV4 Prime

At the end of February my (until now) trusty 2013 Toyota Highlander had a sudden and unexpected engine failure which, no longer having a working car, sent us on a stressful week and a half of decisions, research, and frustrating shopping (it is really not a good time, supply-chain wise, to be buying a new car). 

I’ve been driving Highlanders (well, two of them anyway) since 2003. Now that my daughter is off at college (and almost done, at that) I knew my next vehicle was going to be downsized: we no longer needed the cargo capacity, V6 engine, or towing capacity of a large SUV, but still wanted an SUV (or crossover). Since I am pretty fond of Toyotas (we’ve owned two Highlanders, a Camry Hybrid, and a Prius) I was already considering the RAV4 as my next car. 

I won’t go into the details of that stressful time but suffice it to say we had a stroke of luck near the end of our ordeal and wound up with our fantastic new SUV: the 2022 Toyota RAV4 Prime XSE.

Read more