Using generative AI to zoom in and enhance something is no longer the sole domain of Photoshop and bad CBS detective shows, it’s now on device in the two latest Pixel phones.
Being as this is Google, the option to use Zoom Enhance is rolling out and there’s no good way to force it to work. I highly suspect the role out is both anti-needs based, and based on who’s been a critic of Google in the past, because as with other updates it’s not on my device nearly a week after announcement.
Once it rolls out it appears it will show under the Tools section of Google Photos.
On a side note I went to the Play Store, manage apps and devices and was assured there were no updates available and given no option to check for updates. Clicking Manage, then selecting Updates available allowed me to refresh and surprise surprise 19 updates were there. So don’t believe you’re completely up to date because Google is telling you you are.
I am highly looking forward to the horrors of Google’s AI Zoom Enhance – because you know it’s going to be as amusing as Photoshop’s generative fill failures.
This year will see the release of the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold as well as a range of accessories involving new watches and earbuds.
While the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is eye catching, the price tag just hurts. The rest of the phones are, by specs, a decent upgrade from the 8 series, and the satellite SOS is a feature I’d love so have in my back pocket but man.
The zoom enhance looks like it’s going to be great, I could put that to use every day.
But here’s the kicker – it’s just not enough of an upgrade over my currently great Pixel 8 Pro to ease $1799 out of my hands (the Fold) even with an estimated $699 trade in on my phone.
They also include a Gemini Advance for a year and 2TB of storage… a 239 value… what… ok that intrigues me. $200 store credit on Pixel 9 Pro or Pro XL. Which would lock me into their ecosystem further.
Man their larger phones are pricy this year and their biggest hurdle to me upgrading has been placed by Google by having a really good Pixel 8 experience (with Assistant).
Maybe once they have the Gemini experience not feel like a totally chopped up barely working Assistant I’ll look at it, but I generally felt the Tensor chips for AI purposes barely got used, and generally performed slower than my old Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.
No hate, just not enough bait to lure me this time, and too many half finished Google projects sitting on the 8 that were rolled out half ready for me to be enthused at a hardware upgrade dedicated for Gemini and AI when it barely functions as an Assistant replacement.
TL;DR The FTC has banned fake reviews and testimonials. Businesses can’t buy, sell, or create fake reviews. They also can’t suppress negative reviews or mislead consumers about the authenticity of reviews. Violators could face hefty fines.
The final rule covers
Fake or False Consumer Reviews, Consumer Testimonials, and Celebrity Testimonials
Companies buying positive or negative reviews
Insider Reviews and Consumer Testimonials must be disclosed
Fake testimonial websites
Suppressing negative reviews such as what happened to us with Wonder Weeks.
Fake social media indicators
As I regularly get and turn down cash offers for reviews (and then see them elsewhere,) and have noted that Amazon is a vast wasteland of bought five star reviews, it’s nice to see something being done. Even if I don’t expect the FTC to actually do much about it.
The rule comes into effect 60 days from when it was passed, which appears to have been today. Oddly no date in the text that I can find.
I am hoping the review landscape can cast off the garbage heap AI reviews and your neighbor who is willing to lie for $5 back via PayPal for a five star donation.
I have four networked Dreo devices running in two locations and none of them would work today. I’ll point out the solution here was to unplug them, plug them back in and they functioned properly again.
I have two in my bedroom that run at night in natural mode and move the cool air from the AC that’s placed badly/the only place it could be over to my bed. As part of my morning wakeup I generally have the fans shut down (using Google Voice,) so that I’m not blasted with cold air first thing in the morning. Today nope.
Went into my Dreo app after two or three attempts to shut it down and the Dreo app could not control either fan, nor my tower fan/air purifier at work. I bravely braved the slightly chilled air and pressed the power button on my Dreo Air Circulator and nothing. Would not shut off.
Pulled the power cord and decided I would look at that later. The Dreo mini fan near my bed wouldn’t shut off either but I couldn’t get to the cord without moving the bed so it’s just going to run today.
I got into the office and pressed the button on the tower fan, it was refusing to turn off either. The dreo tower fan at work is used to cool off a server due to the AC freezing one side of the room and there simply being no real air circulation. I tried everything I could think of before pulling the plug, plugging it back in, and it once again returning to normal and being controllable in the app as well as the controls on the fan.
I suspect a firmware update probably caused the temporary de-smartening of the devices, but it’s something strange to note.
I did not see if anything was up with the BaristaMaker or the two not smart air purifiers we have at work, but I don’t assume there is.
If you were a supporter via Patreon thank you very much. It’s been running in the background for the past year or two that I haven’t even touched but I don’t feel at the moment I’m producing enough content to warrant subscriptions and I’ve not been able to really deliver on anything much the past year with the health fun.
Side note on the health fun – 6 month checkup went well.
With Apple coming out with a 30% chunk into the billing and Patreon’s processing overhead and my availability – yeah… many many thanks to the people who supported but I’m not going to have people spending half to pay me on a subscription when I can’t guarantee content or offer anything.
Side note, after deactivating the page I have zero idea where the money went. If I manage to get any of it (roughly three years of donations) I’ll do something interesting.
If for some reason you’re still subscribed and donating, please discontinue. I’ve done what I could to shut the thing down and now that it is I seem to have no tools I can access and a couple of hundred sitting in limbo.
I’m just cut and pasting the press release, I’m still trying this out and through no fault of the BaristaMaker I have I have not reached artistic talent yet.
Press release follows:
DREO Unveils BaristaMaker Milk Frother with 30% Off for Early Backers
DREO, a leading innovator in smart home technology, is thrilled to announce the launch of its latest smart kitchen product, DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother. Building on the success of DREO ChefMaker, which was the top 1 Kickstarter kitchen project, DREO is launching the BaristaMaker Milk Frother with Kickstarter again to show its appreciation for early supporters with Super Early Bird offers. DREO BaristaMaker, the world’s first professional smart milk frother that can craft latte art directly with all types of milk, from dairy to plant-based, is now available with an exclusive Super Early Bird offer—up to 30% off the suggested retail price of $99 for the first 24 hours.
Unlock Barista-Quality Microfoam at Home
DREO BaristaMaker is the world’s first professional smart milk frother that can craft latte art directly with all types of milk, from dairy to plant-based. It is set to revolutionize home coffee preparation, offering barista-quality microfoam at the touch of a button. Combining advanced food science with expert barista techniques, DREO BaristaMaker creates silky, dense microfoam ideal for latte art and creative drinks. With a patented impeller combo design and tailored multi-stage algorithms, it mimics the precision of professional frothing processes. This versatile device offers multiple foam options, perfectly froths both dairy and plant-based milks, and is an excellent companion for powdered drinks like matcha and hot chocolate. Additionally, it doubles as a stainless steel pitcher for easy pouring, ensuring an exceptional experience every time.
Proven Excellence and Early Success
Since its debut in mid-July, DREO BaristaMaker has garnered glowing reviews from industry experts and coffee enthusiasts alike. Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion; Anthony Douglas, the 2022 World Barista Champion; and Dale Harris, the 2017 World Barista Champion, have all tested the frother and awarded it a perfect 10/10 rating. They will serve as ambassadors for the BaristaMaker and the DREO brand, with more barista champions expected to join. Industry experts who have had the opportunity to experience DREO BaristaMaker firsthand have expressed high levels of satisfaction with its innovative features, intuitive design, and ability to create micro-foam for latte art and creative drinks. The reviews of this impressive machine have been overwhelmingly positive.
DREO BaristaMaker has also been a hit with consumers, with over 10,000 community users expressing interest in the product and eager to be among the first backers to receive it upon the commencement of the Kickstarter campaign.
Don’t Miss Out: Limited-Time Offer
“The Kickstarter community has been instrumental in driving our innovation forward, particularly within DREO’s kitchen category,” said Joshua Gunn, VP of North America at DREO. “The success of our ChefMaker campaign in 2023, which raised $1.7 million, is a testament to our commitment to bringing cutting-edge technology into the homes of early adopters. With DREO BaristaMaker, we’re not just launching another product; we’re setting a new standard for home coffee creation. Our 30% Super Early Bird offer is our way of thanking our loyal backers and inviting new supporters to join us in shaping the future of coffee technology.”
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother is available on Kickstarter from August 13th at 8:00 EST, with the Super Early Bird offer running for the first 24 hours. Kickstarter backers will receive the first batch of shipments as of the end of September, right after the Kickstarter campaign finishes. They will experience the fun of latte-art making like never before. Following the initial shipment to early supporters, the product will be available to the general public from October onwards. DREO Kickstarter early supporters who join the DREO community now could win a grand prize worth over $3,200 and enjoy a $15 storewide discount by signing up on dreo.com.
Be part of the future of coffee technology—back DREO BaristaMaker on Kickstarter and secure your 30% discount before it’s gone!
ABOUT DREO
DREO is a pioneering smart home technology brand that redefines the way we interact with our homes. With a unique philosophy that brings cutting-edge technology and elegant design to the air comfort and smart kitchen segments, DREO has become the choice of over 10 million happy users. Our ultimate ambition is to inspire simple yet extraordinary home experiences through modern and sustainable innovation.
*Based on Stackline data for Amazon U.S. Retail Sales of Tower Fans from Jan 2022 – Dec 2023.
A few weeks ago my Vizio sound bar started sounding wrong. I usually had it turned up to 32 and now I was having to set it at 40+ to hear anything and this was causing issues because it was bugging the kids. Shows sounded booming, people speaking sounded like they just weren’t there.
I rebooted and removed power from both the TV and the sound bar. In the past there have been updates that have caused issues but no… went into the sound bar config with the Vizio Mobile app and noticed one of the speakers just wasn’t working. The other was, but it seemed pretty weak to me.
A couple of minutes of moving the couch around and moving everything on the couch arm to the floor and I had found one of the cables was severed… CATSSSSS!!! The actual cable was oddly not an audio cable I’ve run across before but was simple and I was able to easily strip, move the wires, and strip an internal cable and tie it to the other and viola! Speaker was back up and running.
But the audio on one of the speakers was still incredibly muted. I swapped cables with the one I had repaired and the speaker was now fine meaning that it was probably the cable itself… I traced every inch of the cable until I found what I believed to be the source – an indent probably from CATSSSSS!!! and ended up cutting it and splicing it there and bam – things were working perfectly.
I went to move the couch back into position, my Leatherman multi tool on the arm, my Leatherman no longer on the arm, and my Leatherman accelerating at 32f per second right toward my Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite which I’d carefully placed on the floor so it wouldn’t drop off the couch arm. I use this tablet to do most of my reading and, well, crack. It didn’t appreciate the falling Leatherman.
I needed desk space badly as my desk of hobby/actual work was completely claimed by the A1 Mini and the AMS Lite doohicky sitting next to it. Together they were taking about three horizontal feet of desk space and I didn’t have six inches of desk I could see that wasn’t 3D printer related or not easily accessible.
The red thing is the riser in play.
The windows in the background need replaced, not cleaned (seal broken) which was supposed to have been done months ago – that’s water damage.
I checked the options for compacting the printer and they were wall mount, which was rated “probably the best option” by several people I don’t know, and adding a riser to place the AMS directly over the A1 Mini.
Before I go too far into this story I’ll mention I’ve run two perfect prints and my table does not appear to be shaking around as much, but this may be hopeful thinking.
The print lasted somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 hours – I was out of the office, looked in on Bambu Studio, and there was a printed riser just hanging out living its best life. I got into work today and that was no longer the case – at some point after printing it decided it was going to detach from the plate and make a run for it.
No damage noted I set about removing the printed supports and installing it on the machine. It’s pretty evident what you need to do – remove a top of pole screw, when you remove said screw the top comes off, there’s a plate in there with 3 screws that can be removed with the tools that shipped with the printer, remove that and set the 3 screws aside, and get to screwing them in.
I unloaded all my spools from the AMS because I suspected it was going to be a pain to mount with the spools on, and proceeded to mount it with no real issues. The tubing looked like it was not going to work any more as it was now pretty darn high, but worked fine.
Loaded up, two perfect prints in and with about two feet of additional desk space I’m enjoying it.
I’ll update if I end up with any sub par prints in the next bit, but the added weight seems to have caused the unit to travel less.
Oh yeah, while I cannot find this at the time I’m writing this I ran across a video yesterday while looking for a solution that said that the main problem with this was not being able to access spools 3 & 4 easily. The unit with spools weighs something like 2 fat guinea pigs, just turn the unit if this is a concern.
There have so far been very few AI innovations that have me excited, but Google has claimed they’re bringing Gemini AI to your Nest cameras to give you the ability to query them for events, and be alerted more intelligently.
The examples given were being alerted the dog is digging in the garden and asking if the kids left their bikes in the driveway, but the implications of what this could do are by far the most interesting AI use case I’ve encountered.
One can imagine a near future where you can say Hey Google, what was my kid wearing when I took her to school? When did a dog poop in my front yard? Where did I leave my keys? Did I come in with a coat last night? And many other things and get actually useful answers.
As an exhausted parent a few years ago I would have killed sometimes to know what my kiddos were wearing when we went to school so I would know whether or not I was getting everything when I picked them up.
Just knowing when people came and went from your house has an amazing array of useful (and some scary) uses as I live with two tiny amnesiacs who can’t remember which one did a chore, or what day their friend came over, or who left the door open, etc. I ended up putting cameras on the doors to try and solve some of this and by golly Gemini might be able to make them even more useful.
There are a host of other enhancements including a redesigned Google Assistant for the nest devices, but I’ll hold my excitement for that for when it rolls out.
Now if they could just add a walkie talkie or intercom feature that is NOT the broadcast feature so that you don’t have to scream to be heard across a house when there’s a device right in there, we’d be talking major advancement.
Hell, I’d let it listen in to our conversations at this point just so I could show my kids a transcript of them saying they would take the damned trash out.
The fourth generation of the Nest Learning Thermostat was announced and is available for preorders.
The new Nest Learning Thermostat features a new display, a new interface in the Home app, and a lot of saying it’s packed full of AI.
You can customize your display now… that’s kind of cool
Having recently suffered through an AI-driven thermostat that couldn’t understand that I was on chemo, had lost all my hair, and just wanted to set and maintain a temperature above 62 in the winter, let me tell you how well the AI worked previously. Not very.
A “not smart” mode is not listed, but one can hope there will be ways to just lock the temperature and get around all the smart controls when you need to just set it and forget it and maintain. We can also hope that Google Location Services that work with the Home / Away assist will be fixed at some point and I won’t have to keep turning on the AC when Kim gets home because her phone only works 1/3rd of the time for home/away assist.
The new design looks nice, but in the end it’s a thermostat you can control based on a number of conditions and I don’t see a lot of reason to be excited.
The new Nest Learning Thermostat is available to pre-order in Silver, Black, and Gold for $279.99 in the Google Store.
Meet the smartest Nest thermostat yet—an evolution of an iconic design, reimagined from the award-winning original, and built with over 12 years of expertise...
Google’s web based Home implementation evidently now requires passkeys. Passkeys are yet another hurdle to prevent hackers from gaining entry to your stuff and involve a second factor of authentication, in this case my Pixel 8 Pro and a thumb print.
Something happened when I attempted to use my phone as a passkey and that is it failed. Failed hard claiming it was not near the computer I was using, and I had to repeat the steps and pay attention.
The passkey request on your phone is that something has requested access, you have no options but to tap the box and then it asks for your thumbprint or other unlock – at no point on the passkey screen I was presented was there an option of “hell no, this isn’t me.”
I attempted to recreate the steps because, well, I wanted either a screenshot or a picture of what was happening but my computer that I am posting this on now has an inability to send a passkey request using Edge (Chrome has its 24 hours token so that’s not happening again.)
Stuck in a waiting for phone to respond / phone doesn’t have a request loop
The inability to trigger a request for a passkey unlock concerning enough, but there being no clearly labeled what is requesting this is more. As a note there is a site name listed (google.com) I managed to force using a QR code to passkey unlock as it would never actually do anything.
There’s just a standard looking fingerprint unlock with small text saying something wants to identify me. No method visible to not validate and move on.
Pretty sure this lack of text to let people know their account is going to be accessed somewhere else is going to come back and bite someone on the butt.
“What? oh ignore that just unlock your phone and tell me what you see…” $15,000 later…
Would really love to see a more verbose implementation that includes “you’re unlocking your account to a different device, do you really want to do this?” message – or something similar.
XTAR is a company that deals in USB rechargeable batteries among other things. In this case they asked if I was interested in reviewing their 4150mwh AA batteries and giving them a review. I agreed, but as these reviews take time, this is a running review of how they work for me.
TL;DR – running review last update August 5, 2024
In the past I had three USB rechargeable brands in a row that were, to put it nicely, not what was advertised. Each was filled to the brim with 5 star reviews talking about how much people were going to save but never any follow ups other than that they stopped working a couple of months in.
But, I tried USB rechargeable back in the early days, and also some relatively early consumer rechargeables, and my experiences were the same – worked for a couple of months and then I had spent $20 before they broke to replace $5 worth of standard batteries.
My experience with one USB rechargable battery manufacturer also showed me that attempting to get any after sale service (for 4 out of 8 batteries) was not worth it.
XTAR contacted me and asked if I wanted to try their 4150mwh USB rechargeable batteries and I figured why not? I’d love to see if rechargeable batteries have reached a point where they actually will pay for themselves, power my devices properly, and last as long as a normal.
What was in the box (August 5, 2024)
I received one XTAR Wall Adapter which is a Qualcomm 3.0 USB wall charger, 4xAA batteries and a charging dock for them.
While I don’t think you require the USB wall adapter, you do apparently require a USB output higher than my standing desk was providing and unfortunately I don’t have the specs on it handy at the moment. Batteries appeared to be charging and then the unit would shut off. Plugged it into the charger they sent and it seemed fine.
I believe the batteries were sent in a nearly charged state as charging did not take long. Only thing to really note here is that the indicators for charging (red) or charged (green) are difficult to discern at an angle.
Now to put them in things and see how they work…
On of my biggest gripes with rechargeables is that the ones I’ve had last about a week and are dead, so here goes… 2 in my utility flashlight, 2 in a kid’s toy. Flashlight light appears as bright as using my Amazon Basics AA batteries.
Today was an interesting day – as I may have mentioned I’m printing up fast removable suite number signs as a work project using a Bambu A1 Mini. Today’s task was to get our logo and a quick left/right directory for an elevator in which you’re given a quick orientation for which way to go when you exit the elevator.
The difficulty was our logo’s font does not exist, it was designed by an artist sometime in the 80s or 90s and we have a couple of high resolution files but no vector graphics. So my challenge was take a high resolution image and turn it into a sign with directional indicators to be placed in an elevator.
I decided I was going to use MakerWorld’s Make My Sign (free) for making this thing which did everything I needed it to do except provide arrows and turn a PDF the size of Rhode Island into an SVG.
For the arrows I just googled “left arrow emoji” and “right arrow emoji” and cut and paste them in a text box because that looked perfect. Placed white text on a dark background and I had everything I needed except our logo.
The task of turning a PDF image into an SVG involved me cutting the logo in Windows using windows-shift-s and pasting it into an MSPaint document, saving as a PNG, then going to PNGtoSVG.com (also free, no registration required, no emailing of link,) and playing with simplifying the logo from multicolor to 1 or 2.
Downloaded the SVG, imported into Make My Sign, resized, positioned, and printed.
Now it’d be really cool if I showed you what I made, but I’m not entirely enthused at the prospect of broadcasting where I work to the world (you can find it easy enough,) so I’ll just throw in the image of the Pocketables printable logo I made while attempting to figure out all the steps required to make my project work.
I don’t think the bluish part was thick enough, but for a simple little logo it’s done the job (this is not the one I did for my work)
Fun times. As a note I have printed several suite numbers with the removable contraption but this one was fun and made me a wee bit giddy printing up my company’s logo. Yeah I’m boring.
On August 13, 2024 DREO, the manufacturer of many of my favorite air-moving devices, will move into the kitchen space by moving air into milk and the like to froth it. The official kickstarter date is the 13th of August and for pre-order start the 15th September on dreo.com and some retailers.
Armed with a touch screen, a heating element, and magnetic driven frothing blades the BaristaMaker makes the perfect froth for drink art, and generally adds to any regular coffee to punch it up a notch.
We received the BaristaMaker a few days ago and have incorporated it into our coffee rotation, which is only a few cups thus far so bear in mind this is not a review of how it performs over time.
We’ve thrown 2%, oat, and soy milk at the thing and in each case ended up with a fairly frothy foam. With the oat milk I had already poured it in on the milk frothing impeller and discovered you can hot swap without your fingers touching the oat milk. Magnetic impellers are something new to me and appear to make cleanup a breeze.
I do hope to have more of a review near release date, but I am attempting to not waste milk, oat milk, soy milk, etc. This means with my and my wife’s coffee intake we’re using it about three times a week. We have thus far just progressed into coffee art but nothing to write a blog about yet. I can make a couple of lines and Kim was able to make something resembling a shrub.
While our art skills need upped, I suspect this is entirely on us and not the foam quality produced by the DREO BaristaMaker. I’m enjoying our coffee drinks about 20% more as it stands, the froth combines with Kirkland’s Finest coffee and some simple syrup to produce something I would not have an issue paying for at a coffee shop.
Anyway, hopefully by the time it’s out I’ll have more of a review. Problem with not drinking huge amounts of coffee after my surgery and not wanting to waste milk have slowed said review down.
Below is the press release, and feel free to ask me any questions while I continue to use the BaristaMaker
DREO Unveils BaristaMaker: The Ultimate Smart Milk Frother for Perfect Latte Art
Clifton, NJ – July 25, 2024 DREO, a leader in smart home innovation, proudly announces the launch of the DREO BaristaMaker, the most professional smart milk frother capable of creating latte art with all types of milk. This revolutionary device is set to take home coffee making to the next level, delivering barista-quality microfoam at the touch of a button.
With a unique blend of food science and barista mastery, DREO’s new milk frother allows coffee lovers to achieve the most exquisite frothy milk at home effortlessly. This new milk frother is the culmination of extensive research and a patented propeller technology meticulously designed to replicate the technique of professional baristas. After thousands of simulations mimicking the frothing process of expert baristas in their R&D kitchen, DREO has developed a milk frother capable of emulating the froth quality found in commercial coffee shops, surpassing the capabilities of most traditional, off-the-shelf home frothers with unmatched froth quality and texture.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter from 13th August and for pre-order from 15th September on dreo.com and trusted retailers including Amazon and select authorized partners.
Stunning Microfoam for Latte Art
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother creates 0.5mm micro-bubbles, producing silky, shiny, dense microfoam similar to that found in coffeehouses. DREO has developed a patented impeller tip that precisely controls the direction of flow. Traditional disc tips may not always move the milk in the right direction, but BaristaMaker’s impeller blade ensures that the milk is consistently directed to the center for continuous mixing. As the milk is drawn to the center, DREO’s specially designed micro-level screen transforms normal-sized bubbles into rich, dense microfoam during the multi-stage frothing process.
DREO has also created a multi-stage milk frothing program that replicates each frothing step used by an expert barista with a high-pressure frothing wand. It starts by quickly heating the milk to the perfect temperature, creating the right balance of texture and flavor. Next, it mixes air into the milk to create larger bubbles by increasing the speed of rotation. Once enough foam has formed, it slows down the speed, directs the milk to the center using the impeller, and meticulously transforms these larger bubbles into dense, silky microfoam.
Compatibility with Plant-Based Milks
The popularity of plant-based milks has grown significantly in recent years due to dietary preferences, lactose intolerance, and environmental concerns. Recognizing this shift, DREO developed BaristaMaker to ensure it could produce perfect microfoam with both dairy and plant-based milks, bringing versatility and superior performance to a wide range of users. DREO’s food scientists carried out in-depth analysis of the protein and fat content of these milks from a range of different brands and developed a special algorithm that adapts to these different types of milk and delivers consistently high-quality frothing performance. Whether you’re a fan of almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, or coconut milk, this amazing machine can froth it all to perfection.
Versatile from Frothing to Stirring
BaristaMaker offers multiple frothing settings, allowing you to choose from microfoam, thick foam, and cold foam, depending on your preference and the type of beverage you are making. This versatility ensures that you can enjoy a wide variety of coffee styles at home. In addition to coffee, BaristaMaker is an excellent companion for powdered beverages such as matcha, hot chocolate, and other specialty drinks. Its frothing capabilities enhance the texture and flavor of these beverages, creating a rich and satisfying experience every time.
Designed with the User in Mind
BaristaMaker includes a professional stainless steel pitcher and is dishwasher safe. Its user-friendly features ensure that you can concentrate on enjoying your coffee without complicated settings or difficult cleaning procedures.
Endorsed by Media Enthusiasts and Barista World Champions
On the 16th of July, DREO hosted an exclusive media event in New York City, where media partners from top-tier media outlets got a hands-on experience with BaristaMaker. The media partners were impressed by its innovative features and intuitive design, as well as its ability to create micro-foam for latte art. And they’re looking forward to publishing dedicated reviews of this impressive machine!
DREO is proud to announce partnerships with three distinguished baristas: Anthony Douglas, the 2022 World Barista Champion; Dale Harris, the 2017 World Barista Champion; and Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion. These renowned experts will serve as ambassadors for BaristaMaker and the DREO brand, showcasing the technology and exceptional results of this groundbreaking product.
Anthony Douglas commented, “If I’m focusing purely on the quality that I get from the BaristaMaker it would have to be a 10 out of 10. It’s the best milk I’ve experienced and it’d be pretty hard to top.”
Availability and Exclusive Kickstarter Offer
“It is an invitation to elevate your coffee making experience and bring the art of perfectly frothed milk to the consumer. We believe that great frothed milk should be accessible to everyone and BaristaMaker is our way of making that possible. Going forward, DREO will continue to invest in and develop new technology within the coffee category and revolutionise the home beverage experience,” said Joshua Gunn, VP of Sales at DREO.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter starting August 13th, with a Super Early Bird offer of up to 30% off the suggested retail price of $99. Don’t miss out—pre-orders will open to the wider public on September 15th. Plus, by joining the DREO community, you could win a grand prize valued at up to $3,200! Be part of the coffee revolution. Support us on Kickstarter and be among the first to experience the future of frothed milk!
I’ve got my A1 Mini at work because 1) I’ve got a large work project I am doing on it 2) I have no space at home, and 3) every time that printer is printing I am sneezing. So I use it when I can be in another location.
I started a print on Friday with some brand new PLA from Bambu labs. I had printed a few things earlier in the day and had no problem but then one of the projects I downloaded from Maker World printed so weirdly I aborted it (globs, not sticking to the surface.) I was in a rush and closing down the software and accidentally chose to update preferences and now I get spaghetti.
Womp womp. The above spaghetti is off of a spool which was not the new spool and had been nothing but working prints until I accidentally updated something.
I highly suspect I managed to break the settings on a project, but yeah now I’m trying to figure out how to fix this. Fun time since it’s not at my house and I can’t clear the plate to fix until tomorrow.
So I now know spaghetti detection is not implemented yet on the A1 mini…
Oddly not seeing a lot of help when I’m searching this up other than delete a profile, log back into the program, and do not sync cloud profiles.
Will reveal the amazing solution when I find it. At a little over a month this is the first challenge I’ve faced made more of a challenge by being 8 miles away from me at the moment.
Fix appears to have been close Bambu Studio, open it, log out, log back in, do not sync cloud values and settings. I’m at 3/4ths of an SS Benchy with the new filament and no evident issues.
That said, the spaghetti I was printing up there appears to have been fine through about a quarter of the print and then the base was flung off the textured plate. I now have questions about whether this may be an issue of the print piece not being centered more than a bad setting.
But all appears well with the world at the moment… which is nice because I actually lost sleep trying to retrace my steps
Other possibility is a Dreo fan I recently reviewed was running at an odd number, may have been blowing on the unit and cooling the front of the plate down which is where all my fails seem to have occurred. I suspect Google Assistant misheard something and set it to Tornado.
With the world’s eyes on France for some reason this week, Withings has decided to get into the game by launching the Withings Health Games, a two- week challenge encouraging people to go for a medal in their health journey.
The games run until August 11, 2024 and pit Withings users against themselves (and possibly others) using an Acti-score… want a gold in dishwashing? Might be yours for the taking. Bronze in dog walking? You can do better.
Due to some other games going on in my life I managed to miss this announcement and the Withings games have been going on for a couple of days. So catch up!
The Withings Health Games should appear in your Withings app and probably require one of their amazing watches, which I highly recommend.
While we have wired file exploring on all versions of Windows in use today, and a clunky phone integration, but a new method will appear (if you want it,) and wired or wireless and allow you to move files from or to your phone even if it’s sitting on a wireless charger in the living room (or sitting in the car) directly from Windows File Explorer.
It’s currently available only for the Windows Insider crowd, but will probably filter to Windows 11 main soon enough.
Not world shattering, but does mark the final days of plugging a phone into a computer to move off 200 gigs of photos.
There have been third party methods of doing this in the past, but this is the first MS attempt and is one of the few of MS’s new everything-in-one-OS strategy I appreciate.
If you already know how, skip. Nobody’s forcing you to read. For those who don’t know how to share a Wi-FI AP and Password without trying to run through “Lowecase T as in Tom, the number 1, two hash marks, an elephant emoji, and the word COW all in lower case, 2444666668888888” there’s a freakin’ easy way to share on Android (probably iOS too but I am sans i-device at the moment).
Swipe down, choose internet, locate the Wi-Fi you want to share, open it up via the cog, choose share, you may be prompted to verify that it’s you sharing this, and a QR code will be produced.
Simply have the person who needs it open their camera app, point it at your QR code, and they should get a prompt to join a Wi-Fi without being prompted for a password. If for some reason the process fails, you at least have the password up on the screen and they can type it in.
Should you want to print up a QR code that does similar so your guests don’t have to deal with a complex password when joining your network, we have a tutorial on how it needs to be formatted here if using a QR Code generator and text input, or you can go to any QR Code generator on the net and do it for free. I would personally advise setting up a guest network and giving them access to that Wi-Fi rather than your home secure network, but you do you.
Also if using QR code generators on the internet, there’s zero reason to sign up, pay, etc. Don’t be scammed. I am not putting a link to a QR code generator in this article, so do not email me asking if I would insert your QR code generating website ;)
The story part about why I’m writing this article and includes references to my ancestors mostly omitted, but I did have to share Wi-Fi networks quite a bit recently and it seemed nobody knew that you could just open the camera app, look at a QR code, and it would trigger a Wi-Fi connect.
Last month I picked up a 3D printer, the Bambu A1 Mini. My plans for this are to design two items that simply do not exist, and a project for work. For the moment I’m learning quite a bit and printing up fidget toys and waiting on some black filament for the work project.
So far I’ve had no major disasters, a couple of minor printing errors that I believe were due to shaky table and badly positioned trash bucket, and have been impressed at the point I’ve stepped into the game it appears really user friendly. I guess going on for the past 40 something years have given it a pretty good head start for me.
I had a short vacation during this time, so there’s only a couple of weeks of me playing with the thing but man, the A1 mini has been a really good experience thus far.
A coworker is going to be bringing in another 3D printer that was abandoned by his kids because it was too hard to learn and we’re going to see if his kids just had a problem or if the thing really is that much harder. Supposedly was a good printer, but I’m new to the game so just taking that on what was told to me.
If you’ve ever been curious about it, Bambu’s entry price wasn’t bad, and I’ve so far printed up enough toys to probably have offset the price.
Now my task is to see whether I can actually create what I want to build and it be useful. One of my personal tasks unfortunately requires more print space than I can get with the A1 Mini, so I’ve got to figure out a way to print it in parts and while that doesn’t seem that difficult it’s something I had not factored into my near-impulse buy.
What I am have invented is going to make life slightly better for people in a couple of highly specific situations… if I can figure out how to print a medium sized build on a mini sized printer.
Or maybe it’s crap, but I can probably tell within the next week or two.
Man, I wonder what I would have done when I had more than 5 minutes between interruptions.
XTAR is a company that deals in USB rechargeable batteries among other things. In this case they asked if I was interested in reviewing their 4150mwh AA batteries and giving them a review. I agreed, but as these reviews take time, this is a running review of how they work for me.
TL;DR – running review last update August 5, 2024
In the past I had three USB rechargeable brands in a row that were, to put it nicely, not what was advertised. Each was filled to the brim with 5 star reviews talking about how much people were going to save but never any follow ups other than that they stopped working a couple of months in.
But, I tried USB rechargeable back in the early days, and also some relatively early consumer rechargeables, and my experiences were the same – worked for a couple of months and then I had spent $20 before they broke to replace $5 worth of standard batteries.
My experience with one USB rechargable battery manufacturer also showed me that attempting to get any after sale service (for 4 out of 8 batteries) was not worth it.
XTAR contacted me and asked if I wanted to try their 4150mwh USB rechargeable batteries and I figured why not? I’d love to see if rechargeable batteries have reached a point where they actually will pay for themselves, power my devices properly, and last as long as a normal.
What was in the box (August 5, 2024)
I received one XTAR Wall Adapter which is a Qualcomm 3.0 USB wall charger, 4xAA batteries and a charging dock for them.
While I don’t think you require the USB wall adapter, you do apparently require a USB output higher than my standing desk was providing and unfortunately I don’t have the specs on it handy at the moment. Batteries appeared to be charging and then the unit would shut off. Plugged it into the charger they sent and it seemed fine.
I believe the batteries were sent in a nearly charged state as charging did not take long. Only thing to really note here is that the indicators for charging (red) or charged (green) are difficult to discern at an angle.
Now to put them in things and see how they work…
On of my biggest gripes with rechargeables is that the ones I’ve had last about a week and are dead, so here goes… 2 in my utility flashlight, 2 in a kid’s toy. Flashlight light appears as bright as using my Amazon Basics AA batteries.
Today was an interesting day – as I may have mentioned I’m printing up fast removable suite number signs as a work project using a Bambu A1 Mini. Today’s task was to get our logo and a quick left/right directory for an elevator in which you’re given a quick orientation for which way to go when you exit the elevator.
The difficulty was our logo’s font does not exist, it was designed by an artist sometime in the 80s or 90s and we have a couple of high resolution files but no vector graphics. So my challenge was take a high resolution image and turn it into a sign with directional indicators to be placed in an elevator.
I decided I was going to use MakerWorld’s Make My Sign (free) for making this thing which did everything I needed it to do except provide arrows and turn a PDF the size of Rhode Island into an SVG.
For the arrows I just googled “left arrow emoji” and “right arrow emoji” and cut and paste them in a text box because that looked perfect. Placed white text on a dark background and I had everything I needed except our logo.
The task of turning a PDF image into an SVG involved me cutting the logo in Windows using windows-shift-s and pasting it into an MSPaint document, saving as a PNG, then going to PNGtoSVG.com (also free, no registration required, no emailing of link,) and playing with simplifying the logo from multicolor to 1 or 2.
Downloaded the SVG, imported into Make My Sign, resized, positioned, and printed.
Now it’d be really cool if I showed you what I made, but I’m not entirely enthused at the prospect of broadcasting where I work to the world (you can find it easy enough,) so I’ll just throw in the image of the Pocketables printable logo I made while attempting to figure out all the steps required to make my project work.
I don’t think the bluish part was thick enough, but for a simple little logo it’s done the job (this is not the one I did for my work)
Fun times. As a note I have printed several suite numbers with the removable contraption but this one was fun and made me a wee bit giddy printing up my company’s logo. Yeah I’m boring.
On August 13, 2024 DREO, the manufacturer of many of my favorite air-moving devices, will move into the kitchen space by moving air into milk and the like to froth it. The official kickstarter date is the 13th of August and for pre-order start the 15th September on dreo.com and some retailers.
Armed with a touch screen, a heating element, and magnetic driven frothing blades the BaristaMaker makes the perfect froth for drink art, and generally adds to any regular coffee to punch it up a notch.
We received the BaristaMaker a few days ago and have incorporated it into our coffee rotation, which is only a few cups thus far so bear in mind this is not a review of how it performs over time.
We’ve thrown 2%, oat, and soy milk at the thing and in each case ended up with a fairly frothy foam. With the oat milk I had already poured it in on the milk frothing impeller and discovered you can hot swap without your fingers touching the oat milk. Magnetic impellers are something new to me and appear to make cleanup a breeze.
I do hope to have more of a review near release date, but I am attempting to not waste milk, oat milk, soy milk, etc. This means with my and my wife’s coffee intake we’re using it about three times a week. We have thus far just progressed into coffee art but nothing to write a blog about yet. I can make a couple of lines and Kim was able to make something resembling a shrub.
While our art skills need upped, I suspect this is entirely on us and not the foam quality produced by the DREO BaristaMaker. I’m enjoying our coffee drinks about 20% more as it stands, the froth combines with Kirkland’s Finest coffee and some simple syrup to produce something I would not have an issue paying for at a coffee shop.
Anyway, hopefully by the time it’s out I’ll have more of a review. Problem with not drinking huge amounts of coffee after my surgery and not wanting to waste milk have slowed said review down.
Below is the press release, and feel free to ask me any questions while I continue to use the BaristaMaker
DREO Unveils BaristaMaker: The Ultimate Smart Milk Frother for Perfect Latte Art
Clifton, NJ – July 25, 2024 DREO, a leader in smart home innovation, proudly announces the launch of the DREO BaristaMaker, the most professional smart milk frother capable of creating latte art with all types of milk. This revolutionary device is set to take home coffee making to the next level, delivering barista-quality microfoam at the touch of a button.
With a unique blend of food science and barista mastery, DREO’s new milk frother allows coffee lovers to achieve the most exquisite frothy milk at home effortlessly. This new milk frother is the culmination of extensive research and a patented propeller technology meticulously designed to replicate the technique of professional baristas. After thousands of simulations mimicking the frothing process of expert baristas in their R&D kitchen, DREO has developed a milk frother capable of emulating the froth quality found in commercial coffee shops, surpassing the capabilities of most traditional, off-the-shelf home frothers with unmatched froth quality and texture.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter from 13th August and for pre-order from 15th September on dreo.com and trusted retailers including Amazon and select authorized partners.
Stunning Microfoam for Latte Art
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother creates 0.5mm micro-bubbles, producing silky, shiny, dense microfoam similar to that found in coffeehouses. DREO has developed a patented impeller tip that precisely controls the direction of flow. Traditional disc tips may not always move the milk in the right direction, but BaristaMaker’s impeller blade ensures that the milk is consistently directed to the center for continuous mixing. As the milk is drawn to the center, DREO’s specially designed micro-level screen transforms normal-sized bubbles into rich, dense microfoam during the multi-stage frothing process.
DREO has also created a multi-stage milk frothing program that replicates each frothing step used by an expert barista with a high-pressure frothing wand. It starts by quickly heating the milk to the perfect temperature, creating the right balance of texture and flavor. Next, it mixes air into the milk to create larger bubbles by increasing the speed of rotation. Once enough foam has formed, it slows down the speed, directs the milk to the center using the impeller, and meticulously transforms these larger bubbles into dense, silky microfoam.
Compatibility with Plant-Based Milks
The popularity of plant-based milks has grown significantly in recent years due to dietary preferences, lactose intolerance, and environmental concerns. Recognizing this shift, DREO developed BaristaMaker to ensure it could produce perfect microfoam with both dairy and plant-based milks, bringing versatility and superior performance to a wide range of users. DREO’s food scientists carried out in-depth analysis of the protein and fat content of these milks from a range of different brands and developed a special algorithm that adapts to these different types of milk and delivers consistently high-quality frothing performance. Whether you’re a fan of almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, or coconut milk, this amazing machine can froth it all to perfection.
Versatile from Frothing to Stirring
BaristaMaker offers multiple frothing settings, allowing you to choose from microfoam, thick foam, and cold foam, depending on your preference and the type of beverage you are making. This versatility ensures that you can enjoy a wide variety of coffee styles at home. In addition to coffee, BaristaMaker is an excellent companion for powdered beverages such as matcha, hot chocolate, and other specialty drinks. Its frothing capabilities enhance the texture and flavor of these beverages, creating a rich and satisfying experience every time.
Designed with the User in Mind
BaristaMaker includes a professional stainless steel pitcher and is dishwasher safe. Its user-friendly features ensure that you can concentrate on enjoying your coffee without complicated settings or difficult cleaning procedures.
Endorsed by Media Enthusiasts and Barista World Champions
On the 16th of July, DREO hosted an exclusive media event in New York City, where media partners from top-tier media outlets got a hands-on experience with BaristaMaker. The media partners were impressed by its innovative features and intuitive design, as well as its ability to create micro-foam for latte art. And they’re looking forward to publishing dedicated reviews of this impressive machine!
DREO is proud to announce partnerships with three distinguished baristas: Anthony Douglas, the 2022 World Barista Champion; Dale Harris, the 2017 World Barista Champion; and Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion. These renowned experts will serve as ambassadors for BaristaMaker and the DREO brand, showcasing the technology and exceptional results of this groundbreaking product.
Anthony Douglas commented, “If I’m focusing purely on the quality that I get from the BaristaMaker it would have to be a 10 out of 10. It’s the best milk I’ve experienced and it’d be pretty hard to top.”
Availability and Exclusive Kickstarter Offer
“It is an invitation to elevate your coffee making experience and bring the art of perfectly frothed milk to the consumer. We believe that great frothed milk should be accessible to everyone and BaristaMaker is our way of making that possible. Going forward, DREO will continue to invest in and develop new technology within the coffee category and revolutionise the home beverage experience,” said Joshua Gunn, VP of Sales at DREO.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter starting August 13th, with a Super Early Bird offer of up to 30% off the suggested retail price of $99. Don’t miss out—pre-orders will open to the wider public on September 15th. Plus, by joining the DREO community, you could win a grand prize valued at up to $3,200! Be part of the coffee revolution. Support us on Kickstarter and be among the first to experience the future of frothed milk!
I’ve got my A1 Mini at work because 1) I’ve got a large work project I am doing on it 2) I have no space at home, and 3) every time that printer is printing I am sneezing. So I use it when I can be in another location.
I started a print on Friday with some brand new PLA from Bambu labs. I had printed a few things earlier in the day and had no problem but then one of the projects I downloaded from Maker World printed so weirdly I aborted it (globs, not sticking to the surface.) I was in a rush and closing down the software and accidentally chose to update preferences and now I get spaghetti.
Womp womp. The above spaghetti is off of a spool which was not the new spool and had been nothing but working prints until I accidentally updated something.
I highly suspect I managed to break the settings on a project, but yeah now I’m trying to figure out how to fix this. Fun time since it’s not at my house and I can’t clear the plate to fix until tomorrow.
So I now know spaghetti detection is not implemented yet on the A1 mini…
Oddly not seeing a lot of help when I’m searching this up other than delete a profile, log back into the program, and do not sync cloud profiles.
Will reveal the amazing solution when I find it. At a little over a month this is the first challenge I’ve faced made more of a challenge by being 8 miles away from me at the moment.
Fix appears to have been close Bambu Studio, open it, log out, log back in, do not sync cloud values and settings. I’m at 3/4ths of an SS Benchy with the new filament and no evident issues.
That said, the spaghetti I was printing up there appears to have been fine through about a quarter of the print and then the base was flung off the textured plate. I now have questions about whether this may be an issue of the print piece not being centered more than a bad setting.
But all appears well with the world at the moment… which is nice because I actually lost sleep trying to retrace my steps
Other possibility is a Dreo fan I recently reviewed was running at an odd number, may have been blowing on the unit and cooling the front of the plate down which is where all my fails seem to have occurred. I suspect Google Assistant misheard something and set it to Tornado.
With the world’s eyes on France for some reason this week, Withings has decided to get into the game by launching the Withings Health Games, a two- week challenge encouraging people to go for a medal in their health journey.
The games run until August 11, 2024 and pit Withings users against themselves (and possibly others) using an Acti-score… want a gold in dishwashing? Might be yours for the taking. Bronze in dog walking? You can do better.
Due to some other games going on in my life I managed to miss this announcement and the Withings games have been going on for a couple of days. So catch up!
The Withings Health Games should appear in your Withings app and probably require one of their amazing watches, which I highly recommend.
While we have wired file exploring on all versions of Windows in use today, and a clunky phone integration, but a new method will appear (if you want it,) and wired or wireless and allow you to move files from or to your phone even if it’s sitting on a wireless charger in the living room (or sitting in the car) directly from Windows File Explorer.
It’s currently available only for the Windows Insider crowd, but will probably filter to Windows 11 main soon enough.
Not world shattering, but does mark the final days of plugging a phone into a computer to move off 200 gigs of photos.
There have been third party methods of doing this in the past, but this is the first MS attempt and is one of the few of MS’s new everything-in-one-OS strategy I appreciate.
If you already know how, skip. Nobody’s forcing you to read. For those who don’t know how to share a Wi-FI AP and Password without trying to run through “Lowecase T as in Tom, the number 1, two hash marks, an elephant emoji, and the word COW all in lower case, 2444666668888888” there’s a freakin’ easy way to share on Android (probably iOS too but I am sans i-device at the moment).
Swipe down, choose internet, locate the Wi-Fi you want to share, open it up via the cog, choose share, you may be prompted to verify that it’s you sharing this, and a QR code will be produced.
Simply have the person who needs it open their camera app, point it at your QR code, and they should get a prompt to join a Wi-Fi without being prompted for a password. If for some reason the process fails, you at least have the password up on the screen and they can type it in.
Should you want to print up a QR code that does similar so your guests don’t have to deal with a complex password when joining your network, we have a tutorial on how it needs to be formatted here if using a QR Code generator and text input, or you can go to any QR Code generator on the net and do it for free. I would personally advise setting up a guest network and giving them access to that Wi-Fi rather than your home secure network, but you do you.
Also if using QR code generators on the internet, there’s zero reason to sign up, pay, etc. Don’t be scammed. I am not putting a link to a QR code generator in this article, so do not email me asking if I would insert your QR code generating website ;)
The story part about why I’m writing this article and includes references to my ancestors mostly omitted, but I did have to share Wi-Fi networks quite a bit recently and it seemed nobody knew that you could just open the camera app, look at a QR code, and it would trigger a Wi-Fi connect.
Last month I picked up a 3D printer, the Bambu A1 Mini. My plans for this are to design two items that simply do not exist, and a project for work. For the moment I’m learning quite a bit and printing up fidget toys and waiting on some black filament for the work project.
So far I’ve had no major disasters, a couple of minor printing errors that I believe were due to shaky table and badly positioned trash bucket, and have been impressed at the point I’ve stepped into the game it appears really user friendly. I guess going on for the past 40 something years have given it a pretty good head start for me.
I had a short vacation during this time, so there’s only a couple of weeks of me playing with the thing but man, the A1 mini has been a really good experience thus far.
A coworker is going to be bringing in another 3D printer that was abandoned by his kids because it was too hard to learn and we’re going to see if his kids just had a problem or if the thing really is that much harder. Supposedly was a good printer, but I’m new to the game so just taking that on what was told to me.
If you’ve ever been curious about it, Bambu’s entry price wasn’t bad, and I’ve so far printed up enough toys to probably have offset the price.
Now my task is to see whether I can actually create what I want to build and it be useful. One of my personal tasks unfortunately requires more print space than I can get with the A1 Mini, so I’ve got to figure out a way to print it in parts and while that doesn’t seem that difficult it’s something I had not factored into my near-impulse buy.
What I am have invented is going to make life slightly better for people in a couple of highly specific situations… if I can figure out how to print a medium sized build on a mini sized printer.
Or maybe it’s crap, but I can probably tell within the next week or two.
Man, I wonder what I would have done when I had more than 5 minutes between interruptions.
One of the recurring scams you’ll run across on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and anywhere where a scammer can operate is the free PS5 or free high end notebook. Substitute any free item really, the scam is the same.
There’s usually a backstory on the gaming systems about how either their kid died and they want someone to get enjoyment from the thing, their kid is terrible and they want them to suffer. The backstory on the notebook is usually cheating husband/wife/whatever and now it’s time for revenge in a fashion in which you actually are agreeing to be part of an illegal transaction (you can’t give someone else’s stuff away, that’s called stealing).
But illegalities aside, you know it’s a scam but what is the scam?
Comes down to it costing $20 or so to ship because even though they’re local somehow this laptop, gaming system, etc requires shipping and possibly an insurance fee against damage and you have to pay it to the scammer. Now, $20 or so for mailing doesn’t seem like a lot for them to gain, but they’re doing it to a whole lot of people simultaneously. Quite often you’re paying a compromised Paypal/Venmo/cash app that the owner isn’t aware yet they’re involved in scamming people.
In my neighborhood we had people offering to purchase homeless people’s identity for use on Cash App / Venmo / etc to use as a “legitimate” looking cash app tunnel for a few hundred dollars. It’s fairly easy to get a formerly legit identity and when you go after the person, well, they sold that to someone else and what are you going to take from them?
Short of it becomes are you going to spend 8-12 hours fighting with PayPal or Mastercard over being scammed $30? File a police report? At least some people are not, saying something to the effect of they didn’t get that much and I’ll be smarter in the future, and thus we have a thriving scam running barely checked until the end of time.
It falls under Advance Fee scams although that page (run by the US govt evidently,) doesn’t address it exactly.
There’s a Monty Python scene where there’s a man saying he’s not dead yet while two other people are arguing about whether he is and that’s what this feels like. Not dead, just busy, learning new things, and still recovering from that surgery.
I had a meeting with a Crowdstrike representative about a month ago, told them many times our office was not a candidate but they wanted me to view a demo and I was like ok… you’re supplying wine but it’s not happening. Decided against them for reasons that totally have to do with me foreseeing Friday’s disaster. I kid, just was not for us, but yeah bullet dodged.
Been chugging along with the Bambu A1 Mini with a work project and also working on designing my fridge condiment stacker I came up with in 2020 as a way to free up about a foot of storage space in a fridge by storing certain shaped condiments at angles. Will it work? Not a clue.
I have no big plans for the site, but I am dropping the theme and will be dropping our ad network at the end of this cycle. Ads have become more problematic than profitable lately.
On that note, I am probably going to shut down the forums in the next couple of months. Nobody uses them and the primary activity I see there is spammers spamming unsuccessfully. I was never a member of the Pocketables forums when they were popular, coming from G&E after the merger when the commentary had died down significantly, so they’re not a thing for me – if you use them for reference I suggest archiving them.
To chase the algorithm I am probably going to start removing content that’s just terribly outdated and serves no purpose. Much of this is decades old Apple related that for some reason gets an insane amount of bot traffic.
Had more to write but got to pick up a vehicle and drop my dad off at a doctor’s appointment
Have you ever wished you could create your own cell phone company similar to Mint Mobile or Ting and just call it “TMobile sux” with T-Mobile doing all the towers, maintenance, billing, and day to day operations? Well that’s happening with T-Mobile’s “Your Name, Our Wireless” service.
It looks like from the description that they handle pretty much everything and you slap some words and a picture in and they handle the rest from billing to tech support and a web portal to mange customer data.
I highly suspect we’ll see branded political MNVOs being sold soon enough, as well as plenty of deceptively named services, although I suspect that’s against their terms of service although I would love to see a couple called Better Than Verizon and AT&T Can Suck It Mobile before the whole thing implodes with small timers setting up MNVOs.
I can’t see this being anything but a dumpster fire waiting to happen. It’s like this was presented to a board room and someone said “Why now?” and someone else said “Brilliant… YNOW… YOUR NAME OUR WIRELESS” followed by ca-ching sounds while throwing paper.
I will be surprised if many popular musicians didn’t have an MNVO by the end of the year.
I gave the kids a week to pack and come up with any tech requests they needed. All they needed really was headsets and a portable batteries or two and they could be through the airline portion entertained. They couldn’t find any of these which is strange because I’ve given each of them three headsets and they stole all of my portable batteries.
Balanced rocks in water. Not sure if this was done by my wife or by the people who were balancing rocks before we got there. Outskirts of Olympic National Park.
I learned that my AOHI Magcube for some reason fell out of every bottom outlet I plugged it into in Oregon and Washington. I do not have that problem in any outlet I tested it in in Tennessee and can only assume that the age of the places I was staying probably had something to do with it.
I took 3 power cables for four devices, of those 2 power cables two went bad in my bag. I used to be the person who wondered what people were doing to their power cables to destroy them and now I’m getting USB-C cables with no apparent damage getting slow <1amp charging.
I got to drive one of the sportier 2024 BMW models as a rental because Enterprise Rent-A-Car was out of the family wagons we wanted. After a week with it I have enough tales for an article, which will be forthcoming probably. BMW’s offline navigation occasionally wants you to drive through someone’s yard is one of the highlights.
You can’t get your cell phone to focus and take a picture in the time a whale is up. Just put it on video or drop the camera.
When roaming into Canada for the first time on T-Mobile you’ll get a text telling you you’ve got 5GB of data included with your T-Mobile plan.
If two people on the same T-Mobile tower choose to navigate to the same location chances are there will be two different results from Google Maps. My result of course took us through a 50 minute traffic jam caused by a stalled car.
No matter what I set my Nest thermostat to do it would override me eventually and I’ll wake up to an alert that my house was getting hot from another device I have that monitors temperature among other things.
I got tricked by Google Ads when I was attempting to install Parking Kitty and instead clicked their advertised content. Really don’t know how that happened but it did.
Learned that playing music on a child’s profile there’s no way to keep it playing through the night if they have a downtime. I’d add 24 hours and the phones would lock at midnight or so and kiddos would wake up. Both listen to music or white noise on their Google Home devices so this was a change we expected would be manageable via their phones. But I don’t trust either of them with an unlocked phone after bedtime, so problems all around.
I will probably never purchase a Sony TV and sound system. Inlaws got one and man… from motion smoothing on everything to boomy echoing on the sound system everything felt like I was sitting outside of a drive-in theater trying to watch the movie listening to some dude’s car stereo from half a mile away. Their biggest complaint is turning it off evidently involves exiting whatever app you’re in, going to the home screen and then pressing power. I thought I turned it off one night and nope, it was still on.
I’ve reviewed a few solar panels in the past but the EBL 120W panel is the first I’ve run across that you can bend when mounting. The flexibility allows for mounting along curves of vehicles nicely, but could probably be utilized for making sure a portion of the panel is facing the sun all day.
I can’t call this post much of a review because I don’t cover solar much, it appears it just works, and seems well built. If you’ve ever read my reviews you understand this is problematic. A thing that works and doesn’t have a couple of things it need right off the bat, sounds like I’m selling something.
You can bend slightly further than this but not without some force
Bending aspect aside, it’s a fairly standard solar setup. I never quite got it to reach 120 watts while I was testing, but I neared it. Overcast, muggy, humid weather stopped it short. I attempted to test against a 100 watt solar panel I have, results ended up being similar. Unfortunately I don’t have an artificial sun to test with so I’m going to say it did what it claimed it would
On a bright and sunny day I almost filled this battery (not included) from dead
The unit comes with some straps for temporary mounting, but no adapters for tiny little batteries like pictured above (I have a few for this purpose.)
During testing nothing came up except for some overcast days. It’s survived a couple of storms and is plugging along as expected. This is a weird review because I always find something to pick on even if I like a product, but other than the flexibility there’s not a lot different between this and every other solar panel I’ve encountered.
At this point I do not have anything against it. It just seemed to work and has some potential I can’t exploit as nobody has given me an RV to test it on (anyone want to send me an RV?) so I will be attempting to plug it into my house and save a dime a day in electric / perhaps chain it with the other two similar but foldable solar panels I have sitting about.
A while back on Vine I’d picked up a tablet of remarkable minor problems. One of them being that the USB port only worked on the most antiquated chargers I had. I had never investigated setting it up for ADB as this was my for my kiddos on managed accounts and hidden behind a password. Secure enough for a kid’s tablet.
The device developed a little crack from a drop, which was no big deal, it was still usable. I attempted to instill the understanding of the need for a password as I assume (erring on the side of caution) managed accounts have some of my information. Even if they don’t I want my kids to have a lock on their phones so if they lose them someone else can’t make calls to <pick country that would cost a lot to call> or be used to call in fake emergency services calls. Simple security.
The tablet’s main user decides what she’s going to use as her password. Yay! Then she figures out how to set the wallpaper on the lock screen so it shows her her password in case she forgets it. Boo!
And then someone steps on the tablet.
We were left with a tablet that the touch screen was completely unresponsive. I attempted to get into the bootloader, nope, attempted adb, nope (didn’t even recognize it,) even looked up the part for the screen and it was more than the tablet was worth.
Exhausting all methods I knew from my ROM flashing days I resigned myself and went into the Google Family Link program and chose to wipe the tablet as there was no saving this beast.
And nothing happened.
Nothing.
The tablet was connected to our Wi-Fi, powered on, I could lock and unlock it from Family Link, but the wipe and erase function straight up did nothing. We waited hours. I repeatedly wiped and erased remotely. I made the unit beep for it’s location and to verify that it was getting commands. But it never wiped the tablet.
I spent about two weeks attempting everything I could think of, bearing in mind my rooting days were about 3 phones behind me, and I couldn’t even see that anything was connected when I plugged the tablet into my computer. There was only power drain. Never anything.
Then again, might not be anything if ADB was never turned on… but I couldn’t turn it on. The only thing I didn’t try was a USB Keyboard and mouse and I would have needed a USB-A to C adapter which have gone off somewhere to hide for a decade.
Deciding this was a gaping glaring security risk it was time to take the mini sledgehammer to it. I whacked it in a bag hard enough to pop the screen off the back, gently removed the battery as I didn’t want to let the magic smoke out, and went about destroying the storage.
That accomplished I felt it was now safe to recycle the rest.
I may have been a bit paranoid thinking her managed account could somehow come back to bite me, but let’s put it simply that I don’t want to find yet another zero day in which a compromised child account manages to gain access to an adult’s OAUTH2 tokens or some such.
After the destruction we went over security measures once again and that making the lock screen wallpaper be your password was a bad idea.
The stepping on the tablet, it’s an accident and why they got an inexpensive device. Next one I will make sure to add some sort of remote access app for times when this happens as evidently I can’t trust Family Link to do it.
I thought about taking some pictures, but I didn’t really like the destruction. I didn’t want to do this, I just wanted to recycle the thing, but it’s somehow tied to my Google account, however minutely, and I just watched my accountant’s digital life go down in flames due to a scam app, so not really willing to risk it.
Hi, I’m Paul and I recently discovered I needed to make a few things that apparently don’t exist at the moment. Now, the journey to making those things isn’t this article, this is just about setting up the unit, my first tugboat, and my first print on the first 3D printer I’ve ever had access to.
TL;DR – total noob vs well planned out device
After discussing in the discord channel that I was looking for a 3D printer Bambu Labs was mentioned and I went on to watch a few videos discussing why the A1 Mini was not terrible. I was more interested in the “meh, get it” reviews than the vast majority of the reviews out there saying that it was great. Even people with the absurd systems tended to think at least it was a great starter printer and all around probably pretty decent.
I checked the rave reviews after this and decided that if I had checked them first I probably would have wandered off due to built in positive commercial blocking.
So I decided to order the Bambu Lab A1 Mini Combo and 3 spools of Filament due to there being an anniversary sale (still going on) and that I thought I was ordering 4 spools… eh, my bad.
I placed the order, and maybe two days later I had the spools and notification that the A1 Mini Combo had shipped.
What happened next, only UPS knows as they took possession of it and then it sat with the status “emergency situation or extreme weather” for several days. I wasn’t in a particular rush as I didn’t have the place set up for it and I had a vacation I had to attend to, but Bambu Lab had done their part and I contacted them the day UPS released it and gave a date for delivery.
I wanted to devote 3 hours to setting it up and a first print, so it sat for a few days until I could do this. Based on the pictures I have from unboxing to printing my first tugboat was an hour and 13 minutes. This included several minutes in which the printer went through an initial calibration and noise testing and otherwise did things it will probably not do on a routine basis.
I was a bit surprised at the packaging and setup process. The packaging seemed overkill and includes having to remove 4 screws and an arm that exists solely to prevent movement. This encased in foam, cardboard, etc. I’ve got a trash can full of half recyclable materials here. Maybe better safe than sorry.
Attempting to pair the printer to my Bambu Handy account had some bumps… seems like I had some minor issue creating the account where it would just sit and spin for a minute before giving me an error message and then disappearing. That either cleared up or I chose to log in using Google, I can’t remember which.
My first print started and after gazing at a print head printing stuff for suitably long enough I returned to another project. Things seemed to be going along well so I left it unattended until I heard a weird noise, turned around, and most of the printing part of the unit was off of a table and about to throw itself to the floor.
I didn’t know what to do at this point other than grab the not-hot and not moving parts of it and move it back to the table. As such I believe was the creation of the issues with the back of the boat and at least one line on the front. The unit was not in a stable enough position and was shaking itself silly.
I decided to do a second print and was informed there was an error and that I needed to do run a self test. Wish I’d taken screen shots, but I ended up having to Google it and whatever it did took less than a minute and as it finished I was informed there was a firmware update and chose to take it.
After the firmware update and issues I didn’t have enough time to do a second print that day – it was now saying it wanted me to oil the Y access and I saw no printed documentation for that. Figured I would do that in the morning and print up something one of my children wanted. I did not want to run another print unattended because 1) I had not oiled it yet and wanted to make sure I did everything properly, 2) I did not want to come back to a printer on the ground.
A quick and easy lube later I printed my first Axolotl (highest rated in the Bambu Handy app, I have no idea how to link it yet.) With the printer positioned in a much more stable location and using a different filament I had no visible printing issues like I had previously with the boat.
I fully realize at the end of day 2 I have only reached the point of printing other people’s stuff, but with the time I have been able to devote to it that’s where I expect to be.
My goal tomorrow is to take a logo for my work with a font that does not exist and print up a small door plate. This is going to be interesting because I see how to do it if you have the font, but many moons ago (sometime in the 90’s) work’s logo text was designed and drawn and as such I have PSDs, PDFs, but no fonts.
So far I feel like I’m on a guided adventure with the Bambu Lab A1 Mini Combo… there was the thrill of setting it up, the boat which was there waiting for me (assuming on the SD card,) my first error and having to figure out how to get the printer to do anything (if you say I need to run a self check give me a button to run a self check people,) a requirement for lubricating the Y access after the first print, and who knows what the rest is going to bring as I have grease as well, and a couple of tools that have not be used or referenced yet.
I’ll probably end up shortly making some drawer organizers and lock pick holders because I’m cool like that.
Anyhow, just a story of my first two days… I’m on print #3 now and may trust the unit now that it’s positioned better to print something when I am not in the building.
Had an interesting thing happen earlier in the day and that is that every time I opened Chrome my camera notification came on.
I’ll save the long an unnecessary SEO improving pages of why you should be scared of the camera kicking on…
I killed all my chrome tabs, killed chrome, and every time I would come in the camera notification would kick back on.
Earlier in the day I had accessed a web page sent by car insurance people that had me line my car up and take pictures of some damage, and I highly suspect that was where this started as I had to answer yes to allowing Chrome to access the camera to take photos.
Why Chrome kept accessing the camera even with all the tabs closed, I don’t know. It has no need for it other than to report body damage to my car.
There seemed to be no extensions running, no weirdness, but no matter what I do the camera active icon pops on when opening chrome. To disable / calm my paranoia down, I went into app permissions and revoked the camera permission I had granted it earlier in the day and now things are back to normal.
Or my phone’s been hacked because T-Mobile wouldn’t get me the critical firmware update until yesterday.
Whatever the case, the fix appears to be to manually revoke permissions.
The Invoxia GPS Tracker pro is a small rechargeable tracker that works up to three months between charges over cell towers to pinpoint an item’s location. In the event of loss or theft of a vehicle that is being tracked they’ve included a scannable data sheet that an authority can scan and have details of the vehicle currently being tracked.
The connection to the cellular network is a subscription, so there is an ongoing cost but unlike a Bluetooth tracker this will work and report in whether there are iPhones or Androids nearby. The location update frequency can be cranked up to every 30 seconds in the event the object being tracked is actively moving, or the GPS can phone in any time it detects it’s being moved and you’ll have a device that lasts several months on a charge.
Alternately you can simply attach it to a USB in your trunk, or off of your motorcycle battery (some equipment required) and never think about power again.
While there is an around $9 a month charge for the LTE connectivity, the question becomes how much is what you’re tracking worth? Bluetooth trackers work on the kindness of nearby phone strangers, and simply getting a stolen vehicle off the beaten path can defeat them. With an LTE tracker you have to go a bit further and locate an area with no cell towers, or have a quite detectable and illegal cell phone jammer.
The base GPS Tracker Pro is $99 and the monthly service is $8.95 a month or $6.25 a month prepaid/long term (according to Amazon product description)
There’s a proximity radar in the app for when you’re in Bluetooth range to make the unit beep and find it so if you’re close it can get you closer.
You can configure alerts for movement, which I believe would be extremely useful if you’ve got this in a motorcycle and are not on said motorcycle. I will never forget informing a new rider that if you park a bike outside overnight the bike faeries come and escort the bike away. The only issue with the Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro is it’s large enough to be easily spotted in a bike’s trunk.
Nitpicking the Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro
The first thing that comes to mind with this is the theft report form – this is something that’s mailed to a police officer most likely and allows the officer to see via QR code where the tracker is currently reporting it is. Most notably missing useful information here is vehicle identification number, color, perhaps a picture of the vehicle, and contact information beyond name and email.
Thieves swap plates, but they’re probably not going to paint the vehicle and disguise the VIN
It’s a good start, but they need to talk to a police officer or someone who’s ever had their vehicle stolen.
The next thing in a similar vein is that the tracker is portable and you can swap it between vehicles or maybe just throw it in a bag for travel. I’d assume the ability to switch what you’re reporting stolen on the fly might be useful.
Next – it’s 2024, use USB-C already… the Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro has a Micro-USB connection. Come on man. A whole continent told Apple to get with the program due to cable waste already. No more Micro-USB.
There is no option to update more frequently when plugged in. This makes tracking a delivery driver less useful as they may make a stop, deliver an item, and be off before the tracker updates. If you’re paying the cell company charge for service, might as well utilize it when the device has an external power source.
And finally – for a brief time on the Invoxia website, this page in particular, there existed an article that I am told was for the wrong device. They have since removed this at my noticing, but it indicated you could send a help cry by pressing a button. Unfortunately the button is only for resetting the device, but it does seem that the software could be easily modified to report to the app when the tracker had rebooted as a backup emergency button.
Wrap-up
While I have done some nitpicking, overall this works well for a movable rechargeable tracker that stands alone. The app needs a little work, but it’s quite close to being everything I think it needs to be and I suspect they will keep working on it as long as people keep purchasing their products.
The Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro is available on Invoxia’s website and Amazon. The Amazon link is a tagged link, should you not want us to make a commission on sales just go to Amazon and search for it yourself.
GPS Tracker Pro
The Invoxia GPS Tracker Pro is a LTE-enabled tracker that does not rely on a network of strangers to locate your tracker, just a cell signal.
Ugreen has released a 48,000mAh (153Wh) portable power bank with 300 Watt peak output, 3 USB-C ports (one bi-directional) and two USB-A which looked to be the perfect travel companion for a weekend family getaway, so that’s how I tested the unit during 10+ hours of driving and two nights away from a wall-outlet charger.
TL;DR – performed as advertised, have some notes
The UGREEN power bank also sports a little flash light on the side that might be useful in a camping or roadside breakdown with low, high, and flashing, but I didn’t find anything particularly useful about it on my trip, which I guess is a good thing.
I was expecting a higher phone usage than normal, mostly due to taking pictures and video and bored kiddos on the rather un-scenic highways and did a quick bit of math to see what we would need. My Pixel 8 Pro was sporting a 5050 mAh battery, my wife’s Samsung Galaxy 21 Ultra and my oldest’s came in at 5000 each as well, and my old Note 8 had (I believe) a 3300mah battery. From drained to full for the entire family should have been 18,050 mAh give or take. I expected roughly two and a half charges for all our devices based on the mAh rating.
You’re laughing at me at this point, I know. The Pixel 8 pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G both list a 19.25 Watt Hour battery, and the Note 8 is showing 12.71Wh. 70.4 Watt hours total. I should have been expecting slightly over two charges for everyone but I had my eyes on vacation.
I had planned to exit the house with everyone’s phone charged and hit the road for three days and use nothing but this 48K mAh power bank. I woke up to a mostly dead phone on the day we were leaving, 3 actually… ok no problem – I plugged the input line into my car and plugged the two USB C ports into my kid’s phones and watched as the unit went from 100 down to 96 and then back up to 100 over the first day of driving. Mine slowly charged in the wireless cradle, and off we went.
Set up in the hotel I went to charge three phones for for the night and woke up the next morning and two were charged. My Pixel 8 had not charged much, it shut off for adaptive charging that night and did not kick the charging back on when it was supposed to. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and went to eat the delightfully terrible hotel breakfast and came back to a mostly charged phone.
The second day we managed to drain everything other than the battery. Someone had impacted my car in a parking lot, phone calls, videos, and a very long call in a very little service area and just a whole day of looking up places, driving to them and enjoying… and two kids playing Roblox during the boring moving parts meant 4 dead phones on night two.
I woke up to a fully charged phone family and the UGREEN Power Bank claiming it was down to 26%. This was more use than I expected. It had been in the 70’s the night before and now was 35% down. By this point we were at a good 6 phones charged, and that night with dead phones my phone and my wife’s took the last 26%.
The last day of our three day vacation we woke to a completely drained power bank. Plugged it in the car, headed back toward home, and by the time we got home 6ish hours of driving later (different route,) the UGREEN 48000 mAh power bank was full or close to it again.
Other than forgetting that you go by wattage and not mAh this went about as expected with us using and receiving about the expected charge.
The unit fast charges, super fast charges, and probably does some other nifty speed charging tricks, but it delivered the 153 expected Wh give or take, and was a device power station for four people who were taking photos, syncing to the cloud, using data in the middle of nowhere.
Re-reading this at this point I realize this sounds like a fairly device centric vacation. It wasn’t other than Google Maps, and my calls and documentation of the damage to my car.
UGREEN 48000mAh shortcomings?
The lack of plugs or any way to charge this built in feel like an oversight. Just a little wall port charger that can attach and you’d have a complete little travel buddy. As it stands if you walk out with this and forgot to charge it it’s a lump.
While all the fast charging speed options are cool, I do wonder if this had the ability to switch into slower charging mode if less power would be lost to heat. Not that there’s a lot of heat with these.
Wish there was a “display off” button for when you’ve got it on the nightstand for charging everyone’s phones. It’s possible the one button on the front does this, but as it annoyed me awake and tapping things blindly didn’t turn it off I don’t know. (This is on me, not on them)
Overall
Appeared to do exactly as advertised in terms of Watt to Watt transfer. Fast charged what could, and looked neat while doing it.
However, at nearly $1 per Watt Hour current pricing on Amazon, the unit feels a little overpriced. Then again, I’m pretty cheap.
Ugreen has released a 48,000mAh (153Wh) portable power bank with 300 Watt peak output, 3 USB-C ports (one bi-directional) and two USB-A which looked to be the perfect travel companion for a weekend family getaway, so that's how I tested the unit during 10+ hours of driving and two nights away from a wall-outlet charger.
Product Brand:
UGREEN
Product Currency:
USD
Product Price:
139.00
Product In-Stock:
InStock
Editor's Rating: 4.2
Pros
Delivers expected Watts
Fast charging
Carrying handle
Cons
Price
Would have been nice to have a way to charge it built in
When you dial 911 for an emergency several things happen with your phone, and one of them is that call blocking and screening gets disabled in case an emergency operator needs to get in touch with you.
At 7:45 today I called 911 as there was a truck bed tool box in I-440 in the middle of the slow lane near the bottom of a bridge over I-65. Now, had this been anywhere but 440 I might have attempted to tackle this myself, but the speed limit here is 55 which meant the slow morning traffic was probably doing 70+ and I had no interest in being squished at high speed. I had also moved to a different lane and was well beyond it before I would have been able to stop, but that’s another story of inertia.
Made a quick call to 911 to get someone with blinky lights out there and after that hung up. All was well until I got my first spam call of the day. Now here’s the thing, with the Pixel 8 I’d pretty much forgotten about telespammers so I manually hit call screen and they refused to answer. Shortly thereafter I got another unknown caller, similarly not blocked or screened, and then another, and at this point I went to investigate.
One of the many notifications I had from the time I placed that 911 call was that call blocking was disabled. I didn’t catch that until two+ hours after the 911 call by going into my historical notifications. I must have dismissed it without seeing it, but it’s there under phone notifications.
In the interim I had rebooted the phone and at this point no unknown number has called so entirely unknown if it’s working correctly post-reboot but will know shortly.
I’ve called 911 many times in the past for road issues that would kill someone, this blocking staying on for any amount of time is new to me. The only difference is newer OS and that I hung the phone up rather than the 911 operator (the call was done).
Unfortunately I can’t trigger a telespammer to test this out and I do not know how to make it so my phone re-screens a caller… my office phone goes straight to ringing. So we’ll see if a reboot fixed it soon I guess.
A reboot did indeed fix the issues. I had to wait until I actually got some telespammer calls to determine that however.
Today was an interesting day – as I may have mentioned I’m printing up fast removable suite number signs as a work project using a Bambu A1 Mini. Today’s task was to get our logo and a quick left/right directory for an elevator in which you’re given a quick orientation for which way to go when you exit the elevator.
The difficulty was our logo’s font does not exist, it was designed by an artist sometime in the 80s or 90s and we have a couple of high resolution files but no vector graphics. So my challenge was take a high resolution image and turn it into a sign with directional indicators to be placed in an elevator.
I decided I was going to use MakerWorld’s Make My Sign (free) for making this thing which did everything I needed it to do except provide arrows and turn a PDF the size of Rhode Island into an SVG.
For the arrows I just googled “left arrow emoji” and “right arrow emoji” and cut and paste them in a text box because that looked perfect. Placed white text on a dark background and I had everything I needed except our logo.
The task of turning a PDF image into an SVG involved me cutting the logo in Windows using windows-shift-s and pasting it into an MSPaint document, saving as a PNG, then going to PNGtoSVG.com (also free, no registration required, no emailing of link,) and playing with simplifying the logo from multicolor to 1 or 2.
Downloaded the SVG, imported into Make My Sign, resized, positioned, and printed.
Now it’d be really cool if I showed you what I made, but I’m not entirely enthused at the prospect of broadcasting where I work to the world (you can find it easy enough,) so I’ll just throw in the image of the Pocketables printable logo I made while attempting to figure out all the steps required to make my project work.
I don’t think the bluish part was thick enough, but for a simple little logo it’s done the job (this is not the one I did for my work)
Fun times. As a note I have printed several suite numbers with the removable contraption but this one was fun and made me a wee bit giddy printing up my company’s logo. Yeah I’m boring.
On August 13, 2024 DREO, the manufacturer of many of my favorite air-moving devices, will move into the kitchen space by moving air into milk and the like to froth it. The official kickstarter date is the 13th of August and for pre-order start the 15th September on dreo.com and some retailers.
Armed with a touch screen, a heating element, and magnetic driven frothing blades the BaristaMaker makes the perfect froth for drink art, and generally adds to any regular coffee to punch it up a notch.
We received the BaristaMaker a few days ago and have incorporated it into our coffee rotation, which is only a few cups thus far so bear in mind this is not a review of how it performs over time.
We’ve thrown 2%, oat, and soy milk at the thing and in each case ended up with a fairly frothy foam. With the oat milk I had already poured it in on the milk frothing impeller and discovered you can hot swap without your fingers touching the oat milk. Magnetic impellers are something new to me and appear to make cleanup a breeze.
I do hope to have more of a review near release date, but I am attempting to not waste milk, oat milk, soy milk, etc. This means with my and my wife’s coffee intake we’re using it about three times a week. We have thus far just progressed into coffee art but nothing to write a blog about yet. I can make a couple of lines and Kim was able to make something resembling a shrub.
While our art skills need upped, I suspect this is entirely on us and not the foam quality produced by the DREO BaristaMaker. I’m enjoying our coffee drinks about 20% more as it stands, the froth combines with Kirkland’s Finest coffee and some simple syrup to produce something I would not have an issue paying for at a coffee shop.
Anyway, hopefully by the time it’s out I’ll have more of a review. Problem with not drinking huge amounts of coffee after my surgery and not wanting to waste milk have slowed said review down.
Below is the press release, and feel free to ask me any questions while I continue to use the BaristaMaker
DREO Unveils BaristaMaker: The Ultimate Smart Milk Frother for Perfect Latte Art
Clifton, NJ – July 25, 2024 DREO, a leader in smart home innovation, proudly announces the launch of the DREO BaristaMaker, the most professional smart milk frother capable of creating latte art with all types of milk. This revolutionary device is set to take home coffee making to the next level, delivering barista-quality microfoam at the touch of a button.
With a unique blend of food science and barista mastery, DREO’s new milk frother allows coffee lovers to achieve the most exquisite frothy milk at home effortlessly. This new milk frother is the culmination of extensive research and a patented propeller technology meticulously designed to replicate the technique of professional baristas. After thousands of simulations mimicking the frothing process of expert baristas in their R&D kitchen, DREO has developed a milk frother capable of emulating the froth quality found in commercial coffee shops, surpassing the capabilities of most traditional, off-the-shelf home frothers with unmatched froth quality and texture.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter from 13th August and for pre-order from 15th September on dreo.com and trusted retailers including Amazon and select authorized partners.
Stunning Microfoam for Latte Art
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother creates 0.5mm micro-bubbles, producing silky, shiny, dense microfoam similar to that found in coffeehouses. DREO has developed a patented impeller tip that precisely controls the direction of flow. Traditional disc tips may not always move the milk in the right direction, but BaristaMaker’s impeller blade ensures that the milk is consistently directed to the center for continuous mixing. As the milk is drawn to the center, DREO’s specially designed micro-level screen transforms normal-sized bubbles into rich, dense microfoam during the multi-stage frothing process.
DREO has also created a multi-stage milk frothing program that replicates each frothing step used by an expert barista with a high-pressure frothing wand. It starts by quickly heating the milk to the perfect temperature, creating the right balance of texture and flavor. Next, it mixes air into the milk to create larger bubbles by increasing the speed of rotation. Once enough foam has formed, it slows down the speed, directs the milk to the center using the impeller, and meticulously transforms these larger bubbles into dense, silky microfoam.
Compatibility with Plant-Based Milks
The popularity of plant-based milks has grown significantly in recent years due to dietary preferences, lactose intolerance, and environmental concerns. Recognizing this shift, DREO developed BaristaMaker to ensure it could produce perfect microfoam with both dairy and plant-based milks, bringing versatility and superior performance to a wide range of users. DREO’s food scientists carried out in-depth analysis of the protein and fat content of these milks from a range of different brands and developed a special algorithm that adapts to these different types of milk and delivers consistently high-quality frothing performance. Whether you’re a fan of almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, or coconut milk, this amazing machine can froth it all to perfection.
Versatile from Frothing to Stirring
BaristaMaker offers multiple frothing settings, allowing you to choose from microfoam, thick foam, and cold foam, depending on your preference and the type of beverage you are making. This versatility ensures that you can enjoy a wide variety of coffee styles at home. In addition to coffee, BaristaMaker is an excellent companion for powdered beverages such as matcha, hot chocolate, and other specialty drinks. Its frothing capabilities enhance the texture and flavor of these beverages, creating a rich and satisfying experience every time.
Designed with the User in Mind
BaristaMaker includes a professional stainless steel pitcher and is dishwasher safe. Its user-friendly features ensure that you can concentrate on enjoying your coffee without complicated settings or difficult cleaning procedures.
Endorsed by Media Enthusiasts and Barista World Champions
On the 16th of July, DREO hosted an exclusive media event in New York City, where media partners from top-tier media outlets got a hands-on experience with BaristaMaker. The media partners were impressed by its innovative features and intuitive design, as well as its ability to create micro-foam for latte art. And they’re looking forward to publishing dedicated reviews of this impressive machine!
DREO is proud to announce partnerships with three distinguished baristas: Anthony Douglas, the 2022 World Barista Champion; Dale Harris, the 2017 World Barista Champion; and Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion. These renowned experts will serve as ambassadors for BaristaMaker and the DREO brand, showcasing the technology and exceptional results of this groundbreaking product.
Anthony Douglas commented, “If I’m focusing purely on the quality that I get from the BaristaMaker it would have to be a 10 out of 10. It’s the best milk I’ve experienced and it’d be pretty hard to top.”
Availability and Exclusive Kickstarter Offer
“It is an invitation to elevate your coffee making experience and bring the art of perfectly frothed milk to the consumer. We believe that great frothed milk should be accessible to everyone and BaristaMaker is our way of making that possible. Going forward, DREO will continue to invest in and develop new technology within the coffee category and revolutionise the home beverage experience,” said Joshua Gunn, VP of Sales at DREO.
DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter starting August 13th, with a Super Early Bird offer of up to 30% off the suggested retail price of $99. Don’t miss out—pre-orders will open to the wider public on September 15th. Plus, by joining the DREO community, you could win a grand prize valued at up to $3,200! Be part of the coffee revolution. Support us on Kickstarter and be among the first to experience the future of frothed milk!
I’ve got my A1 Mini at work because 1) I’ve got a large work project I am doing on it 2) I have no space at home, and 3) every time that printer is printing I am sneezing. So I use it when I can be in another location.
I started a print on Friday with some brand new PLA from Bambu labs. I had printed a few things earlier in the day and had no problem but then one of the projects I downloaded from Maker World printed so weirdly I aborted it (globs, not sticking to the surface.) I was in a rush and closing down the software and accidentally chose to update preferences and now I get spaghetti.
Womp womp. The above spaghetti is off of a spool which was not the new spool and had been nothing but working prints until I accidentally updated something.
I highly suspect I managed to break the settings on a project, but yeah now I’m trying to figure out how to fix this. Fun time since it’s not at my house and I can’t clear the plate to fix until tomorrow.
So I now know spaghetti detection is not implemented yet on the A1 mini…
Oddly not seeing a lot of help when I’m searching this up other than delete a profile, log back into the program, and do not sync cloud profiles.
Will reveal the amazing solution when I find it. At a little over a month this is the first challenge I’ve faced made more of a challenge by being 8 miles away from me at the moment.
Fix appears to have been close Bambu Studio, open it, log out, log back in, do not sync cloud values and settings. I’m at 3/4ths of an SS Benchy with the new filament and no evident issues.
That said, the spaghetti I was printing up there appears to have been fine through about a quarter of the print and then the base was flung off the textured plate. I now have questions about whether this may be an issue of the print piece not being centered more than a bad setting.
But all appears well with the world at the moment… which is nice because I actually lost sleep trying to retrace my steps
Other possibility is a Dreo fan I recently reviewed was running at an odd number, may have been blowing on the unit and cooling the front of the plate down which is where all my fails seem to have occurred. I suspect Google Assistant misheard something and set it to Tornado.
With the world’s eyes on France for some reason this week, Withings has decided to get into the game by launching the Withings Health Games, a two- week challenge encouraging people to go for a medal in their health journey.
The games run until August 11, 2024 and pit Withings users against themselves (and possibly others) using an Acti-score… want a gold in dishwashing? Might be yours for the taking. Bronze in dog walking? You can do better.
Due to some other games going on in my life I managed to miss this announcement and the Withings games have been going on for a couple of days. So catch up!
The Withings Health Games should appear in your Withings app and probably require one of their amazing watches, which I highly recommend.
While we have wired file exploring on all versions of Windows in use today, and a clunky phone integration, but a new method will appear (if you want it,) and wired or wireless and allow you to move files from or to your phone even if it’s sitting on a wireless charger in the living room (or sitting in the car) directly from Windows File Explorer.
It’s currently available only for the Windows Insider crowd, but will probably filter to Windows 11 main soon enough.
Not world shattering, but does mark the final days of plugging a phone into a computer to move off 200 gigs of photos.
There have been third party methods of doing this in the past, but this is the first MS attempt and is one of the few of MS’s new everything-in-one-OS strategy I appreciate.
If you already know how, skip. Nobody’s forcing you to read. For those who don’t know how to share a Wi-FI AP and Password without trying to run through “Lowecase T as in Tom, the number 1, two hash marks, an elephant emoji, and the word COW all in lower case, 2444666668888888” there’s a freakin’ easy way to share on Android (probably iOS too but I am sans i-device at the moment).
Swipe down, choose internet, locate the Wi-Fi you want to share, open it up via the cog, choose share, you may be prompted to verify that it’s you sharing this, and a QR code will be produced.
Simply have the person who needs it open their camera app, point it at your QR code, and they should get a prompt to join a Wi-Fi without being prompted for a password. If for some reason the process fails, you at least have the password up on the screen and they can type it in.
Should you want to print up a QR code that does similar so your guests don’t have to deal with a complex password when joining your network, we have a tutorial on how it needs to be formatted here if using a QR Code generator and text input, or you can go to any QR Code generator on the net and do it for free. I would personally advise setting up a guest network and giving them access to that Wi-Fi rather than your home secure network, but you do you.
Also if using QR code generators on the internet, there’s zero reason to sign up, pay, etc. Don’t be scammed. I am not putting a link to a QR code generator in this article, so do not email me asking if I would insert your QR code generating website ;)
The story part about why I’m writing this article and includes references to my ancestors mostly omitted, but I did have to share Wi-Fi networks quite a bit recently and it seemed nobody knew that you could just open the camera app, look at a QR code, and it would trigger a Wi-Fi connect.
Last month I picked up a 3D printer, the Bambu A1 Mini. My plans for this are to design two items that simply do not exist, and a project for work. For the moment I’m learning quite a bit and printing up fidget toys and waiting on some black filament for the work project.
So far I’ve had no major disasters, a couple of minor printing errors that I believe were due to shaky table and badly positioned trash bucket, and have been impressed at the point I’ve stepped into the game it appears really user friendly. I guess going on for the past 40 something years have given it a pretty good head start for me.
I had a short vacation during this time, so there’s only a couple of weeks of me playing with the thing but man, the A1 mini has been a really good experience thus far.
A coworker is going to be bringing in another 3D printer that was abandoned by his kids because it was too hard to learn and we’re going to see if his kids just had a problem or if the thing really is that much harder. Supposedly was a good printer, but I’m new to the game so just taking that on what was told to me.
If you’ve ever been curious about it, Bambu’s entry price wasn’t bad, and I’ve so far printed up enough toys to probably have offset the price.
Now my task is to see whether I can actually create what I want to build and it be useful. One of my personal tasks unfortunately requires more print space than I can get with the A1 Mini, so I’ve got to figure out a way to print it in parts and while that doesn’t seem that difficult it’s something I had not factored into my near-impulse buy.
What I am have invented is going to make life slightly better for people in a couple of highly specific situations… if I can figure out how to print a medium sized build on a mini sized printer.
Or maybe it’s crap, but I can probably tell within the next week or two.
Man, I wonder what I would have done when I had more than 5 minutes between interruptions.
One of the recurring scams you’ll run across on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and anywhere where a scammer can operate is the free PS5 or free high end notebook. Substitute any free item really, the scam is the same.
There’s usually a backstory on the gaming systems about how either their kid died and they want someone to get enjoyment from the thing, their kid is terrible and they want them to suffer. The backstory on the notebook is usually cheating husband/wife/whatever and now it’s time for revenge in a fashion in which you actually are agreeing to be part of an illegal transaction (you can’t give someone else’s stuff away, that’s called stealing).
But illegalities aside, you know it’s a scam but what is the scam?
Comes down to it costing $20 or so to ship because even though they’re local somehow this laptop, gaming system, etc requires shipping and possibly an insurance fee against damage and you have to pay it to the scammer. Now, $20 or so for mailing doesn’t seem like a lot for them to gain, but they’re doing it to a whole lot of people simultaneously. Quite often you’re paying a compromised Paypal/Venmo/cash app that the owner isn’t aware yet they’re involved in scamming people.
In my neighborhood we had people offering to purchase homeless people’s identity for use on Cash App / Venmo / etc to use as a “legitimate” looking cash app tunnel for a few hundred dollars. It’s fairly easy to get a formerly legit identity and when you go after the person, well, they sold that to someone else and what are you going to take from them?
Short of it becomes are you going to spend 8-12 hours fighting with PayPal or Mastercard over being scammed $30? File a police report? At least some people are not, saying something to the effect of they didn’t get that much and I’ll be smarter in the future, and thus we have a thriving scam running barely checked until the end of time.
It falls under Advance Fee scams although that page (run by the US govt evidently,) doesn’t address it exactly.
There’s a Monty Python scene where there’s a man saying he’s not dead yet while two other people are arguing about whether he is and that’s what this feels like. Not dead, just busy, learning new things, and still recovering from that surgery.
I had a meeting with a Crowdstrike representative about a month ago, told them many times our office was not a candidate but they wanted me to view a demo and I was like ok… you’re supplying wine but it’s not happening. Decided against them for reasons that totally have to do with me foreseeing Friday’s disaster. I kid, just was not for us, but yeah bullet dodged.
Been chugging along with the Bambu A1 Mini with a work project and also working on designing my fridge condiment stacker I came up with in 2020 as a way to free up about a foot of storage space in a fridge by storing certain shaped condiments at angles. Will it work? Not a clue.
I have no big plans for the site, but I am dropping the theme and will be dropping our ad network at the end of this cycle. Ads have become more problematic than profitable lately.
On that note, I am probably going to shut down the forums in the next couple of months. Nobody uses them and the primary activity I see there is spammers spamming unsuccessfully. I was never a member of the Pocketables forums when they were popular, coming from G&E after the merger when the commentary had died down significantly, so they’re not a thing for me – if you use them for reference I suggest archiving them.
To chase the algorithm I am probably going to start removing content that’s just terribly outdated and serves no purpose. Much of this is decades old Apple related that for some reason gets an insane amount of bot traffic.
Had more to write but got to pick up a vehicle and drop my dad off at a doctor’s appointment
Have you ever wished you could create your own cell phone company similar to Mint Mobile or Ting and just call it “TMobile sux” with T-Mobile doing all the towers, maintenance, billing, and day to day operations? Well that’s happening with T-Mobile’s “Your Name, Our Wireless” service.
It looks like from the description that they handle pretty much everything and you slap some words and a picture in and they handle the rest from billing to tech support and a web portal to mange customer data.
I highly suspect we’ll see branded political MNVOs being sold soon enough, as well as plenty of deceptively named services, although I suspect that’s against their terms of service although I would love to see a couple called Better Than Verizon and AT&T Can Suck It Mobile before the whole thing implodes with small timers setting up MNVOs.
I can’t see this being anything but a dumpster fire waiting to happen. It’s like this was presented to a board room and someone said “Why now?” and someone else said “Brilliant… YNOW… YOUR NAME OUR WIRELESS” followed by ca-ching sounds while throwing paper.
I will be surprised if many popular musicians didn’t have an MNVO by the end of the year.
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