Short Answer: usually. Most of the time an extended warranty on IT gear (and many household appliances) is a waste of money. Here’s why: Bathtub Failure Curve IT equipment has a “bathtub” failure curve. High initial failure rate, followed by years of no issues, and then a growing failure rate as the gear wears out. … Read more
For the first time in 20+ years in IT I fell for a scam. I actually clicked on a link in a scam email. Malwarebytes saved me (it is awesome – see why here), but that was the first time I have ever clicked on a scam email link. In my defence, it was the … Read more
So I bought an Aqua Systems Electronic Digital Tap Timer at Bunnings in Brisbane (Australia). Here’s the link to the item. The main advantage of digital tap timers over the manual ones is that you can set a watering schedule lasting a week, instead of a daily schedule. I wanted my pot plants watered twice … Read more
How old is my Australian Made Beale Piano? Enter your serial number below to find out. Your Beale Piano was made sometime between 1893 and 1976. We inherrited a Beale piano and wanted to know its age. So after some digging I found a table of serial numbers and year of manufacture. Turns out our … Read more
Here’s the wiring diagrams showing the pin out for the plug and socket for the most common circle and rectangle trailer connections in use in Australia. I put this here because I had a hard time finding and figuring this out for my trailers. If you have a round connector, commiserations. Get a flat one. … Read more
Scanned User Manual I bought one of these univeral air-conditioner remote controls on ebay, and a year later I couldn’t find the manual. I searched online and it wasn’t on the manufacturer’s webpage or anywhere else. Eventually I found my copy of the user manual and the code to enter for my Samsung air conditioner. … Read more