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Review: Asus RT-BE86U WiFi 7 Router

Posted in Products with tags on January 23, 2025 by itnerd

What if I told you that I have come across a WiFi 7 router that is both fast and fully customizable? By fast I mean that it is capable of above gigabit speeds over WiFi. And by fully customizable I mean that you can tweak it to match your use case. You’d likely say that I am crazy. But I am not. Meet the ASUS RT-BE86U WiFi 7 Router:

Compared to some routers that ASUS makes, this router is pretty understated. There’s no RGB and only a handful of LEDs which you can turn off if you need to, and the styling isn’t over the top. That means that the wife approval factor will be high if you put this in your house. In fact, my wife saw it and said that “it doesn’t look nearly as gamerish as their other routers.” I should note that the antennas are removable and have a standard connector. Which is handy if you need to replace them.

ASUS has cleverly added the words “WiFi 7” to the venting on the back. Which by the way, there’s a lot of venting on this router. In terms of connections, you get three 2.5 Gbps ports, a 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps which depending on the situation can be used for WAN access. A tip of the hat to ASUS for providing such fast ports as that’s a form of future proofing this router. A USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 are present for things with external hard drives and printers on the right, on the left is the reset button, power connector, and on/off switch.

On the left is a WPS button.

On the right is the button that turns the front LEDs on and off.

In terms of bands, here’s what you get:

  • 2.4GHz: up to 1032 Mbps
  • 5GHz: up to 5764 Mbps

Now some of you are likely saying “where’s the 6 GHz band?” The fact is, you don’t need that band to do WiFi 7 as the WiFi 7 standard can take multiple bands and put them together to get crazy speeds. That functionality is called MLO and you can read about it here. Also, omitting that band likely helps to keep the costs down. Another thing to point out is that a router with Wi-Fi 7 generally improves speeds across all bands. Finally, there’s only a handful of WiFi 7 devices out there at the moment. So for most people, having no 6 GHz band is a non issue.

Setup is easy. You can use the ASUS app to set things up. Or if you’re like me, you can use the web interface which gives you way more options to play with. Most people should go the app route as that’s the easiest path to getting this working for most people. If you own another ASUS router, you can also back up the configuration from that router, and load it into this one and be up and running in minutes. For my testing, I set it up as a new router with the default settings.

In terms of speed, well let’s say I was impressed. Let’s start with its ability to deal with a PPPoE connection. Which is what ISPs like Bell or Distributel offer its customers. This is important to yours truly as most consumer routers have huge problems dealing with PPPoE traffic, resulting in speed being left on the table because the router can’t handle it. That’s not the case here. My connection is apparently 1 Gbps downstream/750 Mbps upstream via a fibre link and this is what I get over my Asus ZenWiFi XT8:

Now this is what I get with the ASUS RT-BE86U:

In short, ASUS has clearly built a router that is built to handle the most demanding connections. And a PPPoE connection would qualify as demanding because of the overhead that PPPoE has.

But the speed doesn’t stop there. I did a speed test from my iPhone 14 Pro standing about 10 meters away. Yes, this is a WiFi 6 device. But it will illustrate something that I said earlier, which is WiFi 7 improves speed on all bands. In this case the 5 GHz band. Once again I will start with a speed test from the ASUS ZenWiFi XT8:

Now let’s look at the speed test from the ASUS RT-BE86U:

What this means that even if you don’t have a single WiFi 7 device in your home, you will get better performance on WiFi. I’ll go one step further. I have a Mac mini with the M2 Pro processor. And that Mac has WiFi 6E. Let’s see what speed you get from the XT8 for starters:

And now from the RT-BE86U

The Mac mini on WiFi 6E came close to maxing out my connection. Thus I believe you can call this router fast on all fronts. And if I had a faster Internet connection, I would see faster numbers from all my tests.

Now ASUS could have stopped there. But there’s a number of things that I would like to point out that add even more value to this router beyond speed:

  • You can use the 10Gbps as the WAN port, or switch the WAN port to the 2.5Gbps port. Whatever port that is the non-WAN port will function as a LAN port.
  • You can use the router in a dual-WAN setup so that you have access to more than one Internet connection. Either to combine the links or have a backup Internet connection on standby.
  • You can use the USB port as a third WAN source to host a tethered smartphone or cellular modem for emergency situations.
  • It supports AI Mesh which allows you to create a mesh network with one or more supported ASUS routers.
  • It has built-in Parental Controls and online protection as part of their AiProtection suite that is supplied by Trend Micro. This suite is free forever which is a significant difference between this router (or any ASUS router for that matter) and other brands of router which make you pay extra for this functionality as part of a subscription of some sort.
  • For a limited time you can get a complementary twelve month or six month NordVPN subscription when you buy an ASUS router. More info here.
  • Though it’s not advertised as a gaming router, it does have a broad amount of gaming specific features that will make gamers happy.

There’s one other thing that I’d like to point out. ASUS routers are very customizable. If I need to tweak a setting, I have the ability to do so. That’s something a lot of consumer routers do not let you do because they hide so much of what you can do. This level of customization is great for advanced users like me as there have been times I have had to use a really obscure setting to fix an issue with a unique WiFi device. Or using a router like this with Distributel fibre internet service which requires the router to be set up to use VLAN 40 to connect to the Internet. All of that means that you can use this, or any other ASUS router in more unique use cases where other brands of routers would fail in.

MSRP is $409.99 CAD. Now that I will admit is more expensive than its competition. But here’s my argument on that. If you combine the performance that this router has, the extra value that I outlined in the bullet points above that doesn’t cost you anything extra, and the fact that you can customize it six ways from Sunday for whatever unique use case that you have, this router is a winner. Take a good look at it if you want to dip your toe into the world of WiFi 7.

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Follow Up Review: BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX Gaming Monitor

Posted in Products with tags on December 29, 2024 by itnerd

I’ve had a number of requests to do a follow up review of the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX Gaming Monitor to find out if I still had positive feelings about it. Well, the short answer is yes. The long answer is a bit more complicated. Let’s start with the fact that the get the most out of this monitor, you need to update the firmware. BenQ has shipped five versions of their firmware according to their US website. But in reality, they got a sixth one that they haven’t documented anywhere except in this Reddit thread. While that’s an area that they clearly need to improve upon, their firmware have improved in areas like the USB hub functionality, display flickering. The latter I noticed if I was going from a really dark screen to a light one. The other thing that I should point out is if you use the KVM functionality, you should apply the KVM fix as that fixes a very persistent issue that has been around for users since day one and is described in this Reddit thread. Now I never noticed this as I don’t use that functionality, but I am glad that BenQ has addressed this.

Now one side effect of the firmware updates is that this monitor now seems to support EDR which is Apple’s implementation of HDR. In short, EDR or Extended Dynamic Range is a holistic approach that gives developers and content creators a clear-cut idea of how to achieve the best HDR results on Apple hardware, software and services. The main advantage of this is that this display seems to behave like Apple’s own monitors like the built in XDR display on my MacBook Pro where HDR content can be side by side with SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) content and both look perfectly fine. That’s another huge plus for this monitor.

Is there anything that I would change? Well, if BenQ is reading this, I would like to have the next iteration of this monitor support 10Gbps USB-A and C rather than the 5Gbps that it supports now. That would make it better for people like me who use this monitor as a USB hub.

I’m pretty happy with this monitor and I look forward to using it for years to come. Or whenever Apple decides to put out a monitor that supports ProMotion or Variable Refresh Rates and HDR. Whichever comes first. Until that monitor appears, this one will be on my desk.

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My 2024 Home Office Setup

Posted in Products on December 26, 2024 by itnerd

It’s been a couple of years since I last did an overview of my home office setup. And since then, I’ve made a fair amount of changes that I would like to cover here. Now unlike the last time where I pretty much blew up my home office and did it from scratch, this is more of an evolution. Let’s start with the cable management.

Underneath the desk I use a combination of stick on cable clips and cable raceways to keep all my cables under control. I also moved the power bar that was on the left leg of the table to underneath my table. Then I route a few small power bricks that power some items on my desk along with the power brick for a wireless charger that is built into my desk to it.

That results in the only two cables being visible. A Thunderbolt 4 cable at the top and a power cable for my desk phone at the bottom. The former is like that to accommodate the desk moving up and down as it is a standing desk. More on the desk later. I really want to do something about the white wall as I’ve repainted it a year ago and it’s looks like this. But I am still trying to work out what exactly to do.

All of the cables route down a stick on cable raceway on the right side of the desk.

Then they get bundled up and plugged into an APC BackUPS 600. In my condo, I have UPS units all over it to protect my various electronics as a UPS or Uninterruptible Power Supply will keep your gear running if there is a blackout thanks to the built in battery. Plus it will protect you from power surges (too much current) and sags (too little current) thanks to said battery. It also has a USB-A cable that connects to your computer so that if the UPS needs to shut down your computer due to a power event, it can use that cable to send that command to your computer. Though I should point out that UPS based shutdown doesn’t work on portable Macs. Which is still fine for me as it still protects my gear. The white cable is the power bar that you saw earlier. I don’t plug the power bar into the UPS as you should never do that due to the fact that it can confuse the UPS and not deliver the level of protection that it should.

On the back of my monitor stand, I am using a bunch of stick on cable clips to keep the cables under control. On top of that, there’s a USB-A hub on the back to plug all my gear that does USB 2.0 speeds into so that I can feed one cable to one of the USB-A ports on my monitor. There’s a second USB-A port on my monitor that has a memory card reader plugged into it as it runs at USB 3.0 speeds. That way all devices can run at the best speed possible. I will touch on the gear that is plugged in here in a moment.

Moving up is a Gry Mattr Three Drawer Cabinet that I got at Staples. On top of it is a plastic tray from Amazon and most of my every day carry stays in here when it’s not in my pockets. I can push it out of sight, but still have easy access to it. And as a bonus, none of these items occupy any desk space which reduces clutter on my desk. There’s a second smaller tray from Amazon which holds my AirPods Pro, the Taotronics SoundLiberty 79, and the Creative Outlier Air V3 earbuds along with the receiver for a set of over the ear headphones that I will touch on later.

On the left is an Alex drawer from Ikea. I used to have a pair of Ikea Kallax shelves with drawer inserts. but I gave one to my wife and got the Alex drawer instead. You can see the other one just to the left of the drawer unit. The Alex drawer holds more stuff, and at the same time it opens up space for this.

I now have my desk phone along with my 16″ M1 Pro MacBook Pro located here in clamshell mode. After 2 keyboard replacements under AppleCare, I didn’t really want to have a third one. Thus I have reconfigured my desk to allow me to use an external keyboard. If you look at the right corner of the MacBook Pro right next to the speaker, there’s a cable clip where I put the Thunderbolt cable that connects the MacBook Pro to my Monitor. It’s a single cable connection that supplies power and connects all my desktop gear to my monitor as the monitor acts as a USB hub for me. The MacBook Pro sits in a Ugreen Laptop Stand that I have stuck double sided tape to it as a means to ensure that it doesn’t move.

Above all of this are a pair of hooks which are attached via 3M Command Strips where I store this Panasonic headset for my desk phone on the left, and the HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Wireless Headphones that are intended for gaming, but I will sometimes use for Zoom or Teams calls.

Now we get to what’s on top of my desk. I use the Apple Magic Keyboard With Touch ID And Numeric Keypad along with the Apple Magic Trackpad which has a decal on it to break up the all black theme that I have going on here. Even though I have been known to swap the track pad out with the Kensington Pro Fit Ergo Vertical Wireless Mouse from time to time, I keep coming back to the trackpad as I find the trackpad to be easier to use for me. I also use a generic wrist rest from Amazon to ensure that I don’t get carpal tunnel syndrome. Above that are a pair of Creative Pebble Pro Minimalist 2.0 Speakers which are plugged into the audio jack at the bottom of the monitor. You can’t see the speaker cable in this picture, but I will show you how I hid it from sight in a moment. Also on the desk is an Apple Watch charger that’s mounted to this Spigen stand that sticks to my desk without using adhesive. Besides that is an Apple MagSafe adapter that is in a Elago MagSafe Stand that also allows my iPhone to work in Standby Mode. I do have to admit that the white cables from both of those items bug me. Thus I wish that Apple would make them in black or grey to complement my dark themed setup. To the right of that is a Ugreen memory card reader that comes in handy whenever I have a need to do something with a memory card. The problem with having a black desk is that it picks up fingerprints and dust is an issue. To mitigate some of that, I got this desk mat from a Toronto company called Uncrowned Kings. It’s made of vegan leather, it doesn’t move around on the desk, feels very upscale, and best of all only cost me $21 CDN on Amazon. Unfortunately the company doesn’t seem to be around anymore.

To hide the speaker wire so it is not visible, I swapped out the stock cable from the speakers with this one which is a flat 90 degree angle cable. If I didn’t tell you that it was there, you would never have known. Which means it serves its purpose well.

On the right side of the the desk, I have a number of items. The bottom right corner has an InvisQi wireless charger which is placed under the desk so that I can charge any wireless device that I need to without having a charger take up space on my desk. Behind that, I have a holder for my pens and other items, and my Ember Mug 2 for coffee, A new addition is this desk shelf from Ikea which has everything from Apple Watch bands to random cables in it. You might note that I have a mug in the shelf. That’s the original Ember mug that I got a few years ago as I got the grey one because it holds more coffee. But I keep the black one around in case I really need a coffee fix and the grey one hasn’t been washed or is being charged. I also have a red stapler which is a bit of a shoutout to The Office along with a notebook and some coasters.

Now onto the star of the show which is my BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX Monitor. It’s marketed as a gaming monitor, but with the fact that it can be used as an USB hub, and has really great HDR performance on top of really great colour accuracy, I bought the review unit that I was sent and have been happy ever since. Instead of using the stand that came with it, I use the Vivo Monitor Mount which takes up very little space on my desk.

On top of the monitor is the Logitech For Creators Litra Glow which acts as a key light for Zoom and Teams calls where I need to be on camera, and the Kensington W1050 Fixed Focus Wide Angle Webcam which is a very good 1080p webcam. Both of those are plugged into the USB hub behind the monitor that I showed you earlier. On top of that, I used double sided tape to mount the camera to the Litra Glow light so that it is a single unit that is easy to adjust when required.

The most important part of an office setup is the chair. And in my case, I am using  the ergoCentric tCentric Hybrid Task Chair. Now this isn’t a cheap chair as this particular one cost me $971.50 CDN when I got it. But it’s worth every penny as it is the most comfortable office chair that I have ever owned due to the broad range of adjustability that it offers. Along with the fact that when my back issues act up, I can sit in it, work comfortably and feel marginally better as it is adjusted perfectly to take the stress off my lower back. Take it from me, if there’s one item that you want to spend money on, it’s your chair. Finally there is the desk itself. This is the FlexiSpot Electric Height Adjustable Standing Desk which has the ability to raise or lower at the push of a button. That means that I can dial in my perfect position that is ergonomically correct.

The last item that I want to touch on is lighting which is taken care of via a pair of GE Cync Full Colour Direct Connect Smart Bulbs which are Matter compatible. Meaning that they work with any smart home ecosystem. I use them with Apple HomeKit and dialled in a number of settings to easily increase of decrease the amount of light that I need.

The rest of my home office has remained the same. As in the same networking gear, the same charging station, and the same pegboard from Ikea that I had in my last setup. Thus validating that this latest iteration of my home office is an evolution and not a revelation. I’m open to suggestions as to how that I can make my setup even better. If you’ve got suggestions, please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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Review: Targus 15-16 Inch Classic Laptop Backpack

Posted in Products with tags on December 25, 2024 by itnerd

This year I needed to replace my laptop bag which I had used since the mid 2000’s and has served me well along with a backpack of the same age that briefly replaced it. I wanted something compact but would not only fit my 16″ MacBook Pro, but would also fit my tech sling. After some research, I settled on something that wasn’t flashy as I didn’t want to stand out with something that would attract attention. My choice was the Targus 15-16 Inch Classic Laptop Backpack, as it had all the space and features that mattered to me.

It has a very classic look to it so it fits my requirement to not attract attention.

On each side is an expandable section for water bottles. I tend to use those for compact umbrellas if I am going out in the rain.

On the back there’s a strap that allows me to slide it over the handle of rolling luggage. That way I am only rolling one thing through an airport. The back along with the shoulder straps have a lot of padding and some mesh to make this backpack comfortable.

The front compartment allow me to put things like a pen, notepad, or whatever else I need to carry with me on a daily basis. There’s also a strap for keys that you can’t see in this picture.

The rear compartment is padded and easily fits my 16″ MacBook Pro along with my tech sling. Plus there’s a couple of pockets for anything else that I might need.

One handy feature is that the rear compartment has zippers with loops in them so you can lock them using a TSA lock for example. That’s a handy feature.

The build quality of the backpack seems very good as I didn’t find anything to complain about like loose threads or stitching that wasn’t quite right. Now I will admit that this backpack might not be the choice for those who need to carry anything and everything as the capacity is just 19L. But for me, this will work because whether I am going across town or on a flight, anything that I need will fit without an issue. I picked this up on Amazon for $61 CAD which is a killer price for a quality backpack like this one. You should have a look at this backpack if it fits your use case.

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Review: Ford BlueCruise

Posted in Products with tags on December 12, 2024 by itnerd

I’ve written about Ford’s hands free driver assistance feature called BlueCruise before. But I was intrigued by it to such a degree that I approached Ford for the opportunity to try it out for myself. Ford not only said yes to that, but they gave me this to drive for a weekend:

This is the Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle. I’m going to do a full review of it in the coming days. But for right now, I’m going to focus on BlueCruise.

What BlueCruise is designed to do is to allow the car to “sort of” drive itself in certain situations. Specifically, you have to be in what Ford calls a “Blue Zone” which is usually a divided highway that Ford has mapped out and is known to the car via having it downloaded to the car. More zones are being added all the time, so if your highway isn’t on the list, it likely will be soon. Another requirement is that the lanes on said highway need to be clearly be seen by the car’s cameras. Finally, the car via cameras inside the car need to be able to see your eyes so that it can confirm that you are paying attention to the road. That’s where the “sort of” part comes in because the car is basically driving under your supervision.

If you look above the pony on the steering wheel, but below the screen behind the steering wheel, you’ll see a rectangle. That’s where the cameras are located.

Here’s what you do to activate BlueCruise. Assuming the preconditions for BlueCruise to be available are there, and the screen turns blue and lets you know that you’re in a “Blue Zone”, hitting the cruise control button should activate it. And the first time that I tried it, it did. Then it started to complain that I wasn’t paying attention to the road that had a few beeps accompanying that message, and about a minute later the system shut off and the car beeped a lot. My wife was in the car with me at the time and it freaked her out. And this didn’t help her anxiety about being in a car that had this feature. I pulled into a parking lot and readjusted my seating position which was a tip that Ford had given me the day before via a briefing that covered BlueCruise and the Mach-E. I normally have a very upright seating position because I have a dodgy back. But I changed my setup so that I was lower than normal, and I was reclined slightly. After doing that, BlueCruise worked without an issue because it could now see my eyes.

Here’s a video that my wife took of me using BlueCruise for the first time and being completely hands free:

By the way, my wife wanted my hands on the steering wheel because she was super nervous about me driving hands free. Which I get. But we tested this out on a 218 KM drive where 85% of it was on highway 401 or highway 427 and it worked flawlessly. There were a couple of times where the system had me take control without all the beeping that I mentioned earlier. The first was on the eastbound 401 just after Milton where for reasons that I can’t discern, it had me take control just before going under an overpass. Then it re-enabled BlueCruise about 30 seconds later. The second was when a transport truck was beside me and a car was two or three car lengths in front of me. Again, the system had me take control, and then when the car in front of me exited the highway, it took over again. I am guessing that BlueCruise thought that this was a dicey situation and that it might have been better if a human took control of the car. That was interesting because when we got close to Toronto we encountered some traffic and BlueCruise was able to deal with the stop and go traffic that we had to deal with for about 10 minutes. Finally, I should mention that BlueCruise can make lane changes all by itself. Simply hit the signal and the car will do its version of a shoulder check and move left or right for you.

The one thing that I did appreciate is that when I was using BlueCruise, I was actually less stressed. I am pointing this out because going into this, I was assuming that because I had my hands off the wheel and I was using the system, I was going to be on alert the entire time. But the opposite happened the more I learned to trust the system and understand how it worked. On a long drive like a road trip, I can see how this could be be serious quality of life improvement. My wife became more comfortable with me using the system as well. Though she’s stated to me that if we owned this car, she’d never use it as she wants to be in complete control of the car at all times. Which is fair and not surprising to me as she’s never used the cruise control feature of our daily driver as she doesn’t trust that either. But I am thinking that if she had some seat time with BlueCruise in what she perceived as a “low risk” situation, she’d change her mind. Another thing that might help her to change her mind is the fact that  Consumer Reports has had BlueCruise as the top-ranked active driving assistance system twice in a row out of 17 systems tested. So if it’s good enough for Consumers Reports, it’s likely good enough for you, and her.

My only gripe about BlueCruise is the fact that I had to alter my driving position to get it to work. While doable, my back wasn’t really a fan of that position by the end of the weekend. But I’m likely an edge case in that regard. Having said that, it would be nice if Ford made the eye tracking system a bit more flexible so that I didn’t have to change my position.

Ford has given you options in terms of how you can get BlueCruise:

  • Any new purchased or leased Ford vehicle will come with a 90 day trial of BlueCruise.
  • There is a one-year plan which will either be included standard or as an option based on the vehicle line and trim.
  • Starting on select 2025 model year vehicle lines, Ford customers can choose to upgrade to a one-time purchase at vehicle order and won’t need to activate BlueCruise again on their vehicle. And this activation will stay with the car, which adds value to the car.
  • You can activate BlueCruise on a month to month basis. For example, you could activate it for a road trip and then have it turned off when you get home.

And here’s a list of Ford vehicles that BlueCruise is currently available on:

  • Ford Explorer
  • Ford Expedition
  • Ford F-150
  • F-150 Lightning
  • Mustang Mach-E

My verdict is that if you’re looking at a Ford vehicle, you should try out BlueCruise. I think that once you try it and trust it, you’ll find it an indispensable aid when you’re in the car for long periods of time.

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Review: OWC USB-C Dual HDMI 4K Display Adapter

Posted in Products with tags on December 4, 2024 by itnerd

After I got my new monitor, my wife decided to claim my old monitor to add it to her desk setup. Her logic was that it both monitors were exactly the same and she could use a dual display setup as she was working from her MacBook Pro screen and an external monitor. To get some help with this, I reached out to OWC and they sent me this:

Meet the OWC USB-C Dual HDMI 4K Display Adapter. This will allow you to connect two HDMI displays to your Mac (or PC, Chromebook, Ubuntu box) as per this picture:

It supports resolutions of up to 4K 60Hz and it has a power pass through so that you can charge a laptop while having this plugged in as per this picture:

Extremely minor gripe. I would have loved to have seen an extra USB port so that I could plug in a device or a hub to truly get a one cable solution. But for those who run MacBook Air’s or other M1, M2 or M3 models (meaning not Pro or Max chips) that lack multiple display support, I seriously doubt that they would complain.

Here’s what I did to make this work:

  1. Plug it into my wife’s MacBook Pro.
  2. Plug in the monitors.
  3. Plug in USB-C power.
  4. Install the DisplayLink drivers as this is a DisplayLink product. Thus it will not work if the drivers are not installed.
  5. Done. Declare victory and have a beer.

The product has worked flawlessly since then. I also don’t notice it getting hot or anything beyond it being mildly warm. However my wife has reported two “issues” to me since it was installed. I put the word “issues” in quotes because they’re side effects of sorts of the fact that this uses DisplayLink tech. The first was that she could no longer watch Netflix on her computer via Firefox. The reason why was that Netflix likely sees this adapter as some sort of way to circumvent whatever digital rights management Netflix uses as per this. The workaround of disabling graphics acceleration or hardware acceleration depending on what platform you’re on that was mentioned in the thread from the DisplayLink forum that I linked to does work to address this.

The second “issue” was this:

My wife was surprised by this and was questioning if the DisplayLink Software was recording what she was doing as she often works on highly sensitive files on her Mac. The answer is no it isn’t recording everything she’s doing. Here’s why directly from DisplayLink themselves:

macOS Catalina 10.15 requires the user to permit “Screen Recording” in order for DisplayLink devices to work properly. The message is generated by the OS and the screen is not actually being recorded by DisplayLink. Approving it enables the DisplayLink driver to access the pixels it needs to render a mirrored or extended screens, and send the pixels over USB from your computer to the DisplayLink display. It does not send any data or pixels back to DisplayLink.

The above is also true for later versions of macOS. And is likely due to the security built into macOS that warns you about anything and everything that it perceives as a threat (and rightly so). But here’s the TL:DR. Your screen isn’t being recorded. Period. Thus you can ignore this warning and return to your normal daily activities. And if you are wondering why I am taking DisplayLink’s word for it, the reason is simple. If their software were actually recording the screen, someone would have been able to prove that by now and DisplayLink would be in deep trouble. On top of that, DisplayLink’s tech is used by everyone from OWC, Dell, HP and Lenovo. Those companies wouldn’t want to be within 100 feet of DisplayLink if they were doing something shady. Thus I am confident that there’s truly nothing to see here.

Priced at $94.99 USD, this is a great solution for those with any M1, M2 or M3 Mac (meaning not Pro or Max chips) that doesn’t support multiple displays. I got it to work without any issue, and it’s stayed working. This this is another easy recommendation of an OWC product as it’s a must buy if you fit the use case of the product.

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What’s In My Tech Sling – The 2024 Edition

Posted in Products with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2024 by itnerd

When I get a phone call from a client from a client to assist them with some sort of tech issue, I need to grab a handful of things that I know that I will usually need on a job and go. For years, I’ve sort of scrambled to find what I need on a moment’s notice. To make my life easier, I have built up a tech sling bag that has my commonly used items that I need when I go to see a client. By doing this, I simply have to do a “grab and go” and I can add it to my backpack if I need to as it doesn’t take up a lot of space. Let’s start with the bag itself:

The is the tomtoc Explorer-H02 EDC Sling Bag in the 8 inch size which has an outer compartment that holds miscellaneous items, a compartment in the back that holds one item that I will get to in a moment, and a middle compartment that holds the majority of my gear. Because it is a sling bag, it goes over my shoulder which is handy if I am just using it by itself. But it will also fit inside my laptop bag or backpack.

Inside the sling bag is this OWC Envoy 1 TB SSD which recently was added to the sling bag. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, but it is quick. That makes it ideal to travel with and use with my clients.

 The Victorinox Cyber Tool on the right the next item in my sling bag I find this to be extremely handy to do everything from open boxes to disassembling computers. Attached to that is Olight i3E EOS flashlight which makes life easier for me when I need light in a dark corner of a computer case or a room as it gets pretty bright.

I usually have a few random USB sticks with utilities on them. Such as malware scanning or unlocking utilities. But I also have a SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO flash drive which occasionally comes in handy with clients. Though with the 1TB OWC drive, I have to admit that I am rethinking whether I need to have that in my tech sling.

I’ve got an Apple AirTag in it so that if I misplace the tech sling, I can find it easily. Because I have left a customer’s site a few times without it, and then had an alert pop up on my iPhone telling me so. It’s inside a Belkin AirTag holder which makes sure that I can attach it to a loop inside the sling bag.

I have a plastic bag with batteries. Specifically some AA, AAA, CR1632, and CR2032 batteries. Because there have been numerous times where a customer had an issue that was solved by a battery, and the customer didn’t have any spare ones. Thus I cover myself for that eventuality.

I also carry a bag with some Woosh Screen shine and a microfibre cloth as I never know when I might need to clean a computer’s screen or keyboard. Be it mine or somebody else’s. This stuff works really well and it’s currently my go to for my computer cleaning needs. I also have some Q-Tips in the bag to get to those hard to reach places.

I have a small bag with a bunch of USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to USB-A adapters as they come in handy for customers who need to plug something into a computer and don’t have the right adapter.

Another recent addition to my tech sling is this Anker Ethernet to USB-C adapter that runs at 2.5 Gbps. Ideally, I would want to have a 10 Gbps adapter in my sling, but those are still pretty pricy. Thus this will work for me until prices drop.

To cover off any charging needs that I or others might have, I have a UGREEN Nexode 100W charger that has three USB-C ports and a single USB-A port. I can charge anything from phones to my MacBook Pro to my iPhone. Most of the time, I’ve used it to charge my client’s stuff quickly.

I have a variety of cables in my tech sling, starting with this Anker 100W USB-C power delivery cable for charging purposes only.

I also have an HDMI cable that comes in handy when I have a MacBook Pro and I need to plug into a projector or TV at a client’s site.

I also have a flat Ethernet cable which comes in handy when I need to plug into something using the Anker Ethernet adapter that I spoke of earlier.

The key cable that I carry is a RollingSquare InCharge XL which is my one cable to rule them all. I say that because it will cover any use case that I may need when at a client’s location as it is good for data transfer and for charging.

I also have that cable’s little brother the RollingSquare InCharge X as it it sometimes is handy to have a second cable that doesn’t take up a lot of real estate. It’s beaten up as it once was on my keychain. But it works just fine.

The second last item is this GearAid HeroClip. What this is for is to allow me to hook, hang, and carry my gear. I have it because if I have to use a public restroom, there is often no place to hang a jacket, or the sling bag, or a laptop bag. Thus making this piece of kit extremely handy. I got the large size to make sure that I could hang anything that I needed as it has a 100 pound weight limit.

The last item is this pen. Because everyone needs a pen.

So that’s what is inside my tech sling bag. This works for me, but I would be interested in hearing from you in terms of what you think I should add to it or change. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

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My Every Day Carry (EDC) – The 2024 Edition

Posted in Products with tags , , , , , , , , on November 16, 2024 by itnerd

My every day carry or EDC has evolved slightly since the last time that I covered what my EDC consists of. I’ve tweaked some of the items that I carry not only for meeting my daily needs but to add some style as well. So let’s have a look at what my EDC consists of the following:

I am still using the iPhone 14 Pro as it’s a fast phone and none of the Apple Intelligence stuff or the camera upgrades have enticed me to switch to the iPhone 16 Pro. I have a dbrand Grip Case on it and I protect the screen with a dbrand Prism 2.0 screen protector. The only thing that I have done to the phone is have the battery replaced under AppleCare when the battery health went below 80%. Now for formal occasions I have been known to switch my case to this one from Mujjo, but I might be able to get away with not having to do that as the dbrand case is something that I might be able to roll with for any occasion. We’ll have to see the next time I have to do something super formal.

I now use the original Apple Watch Ultra as that fits with the sports and other athletic activities that I do. I’ve had this for over 2 years and the battery health is currently at 94% which is outstanding after two years. While you see it here with the Apple Nike Sport band, I do have a selection of bands that I can swap to if the need arises. Including this recent addition. I’ve also customized the watch with apps that make it close to a Garmin watch as that fits with the fact that I am a very athletic person.

Next up is the Ekster Carbon Fibre Cardholder which is made of 3K carbon fibre. All the cards and ID that I need are in this slim and light package that I barely notice in my pocket. It does have RFID blocking capabilities which is a good thing. One thing that I should point out is that if I am wanting to slim down what I carry, I can switch to either this MagSafe wallet for formal occasions, or this MagSafe wallet if I am going for a bike ride. In either case, I just take my ID out and place it in the MagSafe wallet of choice and the wallet on the back of my iPhone 14 Pro.

I make sure that I know where my wallet is at all times by having this Zike Smart Tracking Card inside the wallet which integrates with Apple’s Find My network. One thing that I really like about this tracking card is that unlike a lot of them, this one is rechargeable. So when the battery goes dead, I just toss it onto a wireless charger and I get a charge that lasts about six months as opposed to having a card that works for about two years that you then have to replace when the battery goes dead.

If I want to listen to music while I am on the go, my Apple AirPods Pro is my go to as they allow you use active noise cancelling to shut out the outside world, or use transparency mode to stay aware of what’s going on around you. I have been wanting to replace them with the AirPods Pro 2 but these won’t die. They are wrapped up in the dbrand AirPods Pro Grip case to make sure that I don’t drop and damage them. I should also mention that I did replace the stock silicone ear tips with the Comply Foam Tips which not only make the AirPods Pro feel more comfortable in my ears, but they allow the AirPods stay in my ears better. They also sound better and noise cancelling works better.

When I am not driving, my sunglasses of choice are the Rudy Project Zyon’s. My wife originally got them with the prescription inserts. But she then moved onto a different Rudy Project model. Thus I took them, removed the inserts and have been using them ever since. I really like these as they provide a great amount of coverage, which means better protection for my eyes.

My keys are the next things that I grab. My keys are in a KeyPort Pivot 2.0 key holder which on the inside I have a 64GB USB stick, a multi-tool that in a pinch can open an Amazon box, a SIM card ejector tool, and a pen. Oh yeah. It also has my keys as well. One thing that I appreciate about this setup is that keys don’t dig into my thighs and they don’t jingle. I also have my key fob for my condo along with an Apple AirTag on them to find them when I misplace them. Since you can’t directly mount an AirTag to anything, I use the Belkin Secure Holder with the AirTag as it’s secure and cheap relative to the cost of what Apple wants you to pay for their products.

If I am driving I take my car keys with me as well, and they too have an Apple AirTag along with a Belkin Secure Holder on them.

The Groove Life Groove Belt is a great addition to my EDC as I can use it for formal occasions or just wearing jeans. It comes together using some really strong magnets and you feel like a superhero when you put it on. I’ll also point out that you can resize it at will which is handy as I have steadily been losing weight over the last couple of years.

The last item is some Blistex or some other form of lip protection as I get really dry lips.

That’s my EDC or every day carry. What do you think? What do you think I should add to it or change? And were you able to spot the theme? Drop a comment below and share your thoughts. In the meantime, stay tuned for a look at my Tech Sling that I carry with me when I see clients as that has a lot of interesting things in it.

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Review: GE Cync Full Colour Direct Connect Smart Bulb

Posted in Products with tags on November 13, 2024 by itnerd

For the last few years, I’ve had two of these smart bulbs in my den. But over the last week one would just randomly factory reset itself. After the third time that happened, I figured enough is enough and I replaced both. After doing some research, I finally settled on the GE Cync Full Color Direct Connect Smart Bulb. What led me two this bulb were two things:

  1. These were Matter compatible. Matter is a common standard for smart home devices. So if your smart home platform (Namely Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, or Samsung Smart Things for example) supports Matter, your latest smart home device should work. More on that later.
  2. The price which was $19.99 CDN for each bulb at my local Best Buy which for whatever reason seemed to be the only place that had them in stock.

Here’s a look at the packaging that this bulb comes in:

What’s interesting about this is that Apple HomeKit isn’t mentioned. In fact, looking around the box the only mention of Apple that I could find is a sentence where it says that it supports “Apple Home” which isn’t a thing. I guess GE didn’t pay Apple to use the HomeKit logo or something. That’s something that may dissuade less tech savvy consumers from buying this bulb unless they really take the time to read the box, or they see the Matter logo and automatically know it will work with Apple HomeKit.

Anyway, here’s the bulb:

It’s unremarkable really. But on the back side of the bulb is a sticker with the Matter pairing code and the associated QR code. So that should mean that I should be able to do the following:

  1. Screw the bulb into the light fixture’s socket.
  2. Open up the Home app and click on the “+” sign at the top right and choose “Add Accessory”
  3. Scan the Matter code
  4. Sit back and wait for it to be added to my HomeKit setup
  5. Repeat steps 1-4 for the second bulb as the second bulb as the light fixture had two bulbs.
  6. Declare victory and have a beer.

That’s not how it went down. I got as far as step three and after a couple of minutes I got an error that the bulb could not be added to HomeKit. I figured that it was a fluke so I tried it again and got the same error. Perplexed I picked up the box and read the instructions as I have to admit that I YOLO’ed things as I had made the assumption that this would be simple to add. That’s when the light bulb went on metaphorically speaking. This is a Matter device that requires a 2.4 Ghz WiFi connection. My iPhone is normally on the 5Ghz bands because I have two separate WiFi bands on my WiFi network. That’s to keep the “slower” devices on 2.4Ghz and the “faster” devices on 5Ghz. I reasoned that because my phone was on the 5Ghz band, it couldn’t talk to the bulb to connect the bulb which was on the 2.4 Ghz band. To address that, I connected my iPhone up to the 2.4Ghz band. Then tried to add the bulbs again. It took two tries for each bulb for whatever reason after I factory reset them using these instructions, but I got it to work.

This in a way illustrates the fact that smart home gear should be easy to install, but sometimes isn’t. In my case my issues were due to how my network is set up, which to be clear isn’t weird as a lot of people run separate WiFi bands as opposed to having a single network that encompasses both bands. So you think this would have been accounted for. But clearly not. And for a less tech savvy user, this might have resulted in them returning these bulbs to Best Buy. The take home message is that Matter clearly has teething pains that need to be addressed in order to make the user experience better.

Anyway in testing these bulbs, I found the response times to be quick. Be it just simply turning them off or on, changing the colour, or increasing the brightness. Speaking of the brightness, these bulbs can get insanely bright. The box says 800 lumens and I believe it. I’ve set them to 70% of that by default. But I’ve created HomeKit scenes that can boost them to full brightness or dim them to 40% of 800 lumens. In terms of colour range, that too is insane as you get a number of methods to dial in the colour of the bulbs:

I have them set to a cool white which works for my wife and I.

All of this is available in the Home app on my iPhone. But I assume that it is similar on other home automation platforms. The other thing that the Home app is supposed to handle firmware updates for these bulbs. That is a good thing as firmware updates aren’t just for functionality and bug fixes. They’re for security as well. And a lot of users don’t update their firmware leaving them open to something bad potentially happening to them.

Now I should mention that these bulbs to have their own iOS and Android app. But if you use one of the major home automation platforms, there’s no reason for you to use that app. Conversely, if you do want to use the app because you’re not on one of the major home automation platforms, setting up these bulbs and controlling them is insanely easy based on tests using a third bulb that I purchased for experimentation purposes. I didn’t encounter any of the issues that I did encounter via Matter.

So would I recommend these bulbs? They do work. The price is great. But you might have issues with the setup which have more to do with Matter than with the bulbs one suspects. So if you by them knowing that you may have to put in some more work than you planned on to get these bulbs operational, you won’t be disappointed.

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Review: UGREEN 4-in-1 USB 3.0 SD Card Reader

Posted in Products with tags on November 12, 2024 by itnerd

I am in the midst of finalizing my new desk setup having made some major changes. I’ll be sharing the final result with you in the coming weeks. But right now, I’m here to talk about one of those changes. Which is the UGREEN 4-in-1 USB 3.0 SD Card Reader/

So the reason why I need this is that I am redoing my desk setup to support having my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode. As in the lid is closed and connected to an external monitor. So I wanted to either replicate on enhance the ability to read SD cards and the like. I went the enhance route and got this at Memory Express for $22.99 CDN. One the front, there’s a Compact Flash card slot at the top and a Sony Memory Stick Card slot on the bottom. I don’t have any of those and I don’t know who else would have any of those. But if you have one of those, it’s there.

On the right side there’s a SD Card slot at the top and a Micro SD card slot at the bottom. Short of doing CF Express cards which I don’t have any, I’m covered for most situations. One thing that I should point out is that this card reader is a fingerprint magnet. Though it’s not visible in the picture, there’s also a blue light that seems to only indicate that it is plugged into a USB-A port and getting power. The light isn’t all that bright so you can leave it connected without lighting up a dark room.

In terms of performance, I plugged it into a USB 3.1 Gen 1 port that does 5 Gbps, and used a SD card that was rated for 95 MB/s read speeds and got this result:

91.14 MB/s validates that this card reader is performing very close to expectations and the card reader along with the USB bus isn’t really holding it back all that much if at all.

One cool feature is that each card slot appears to act independently. For example, if I pop in a Micro SD card and an SD card, both will appear on the desktop of my Mac and I can copy items between them. I don’t know when I would need such functionality, but it’s handy to know that I could do that if I needed to.

Honestly, I have no complaints or drawbacks about this card reader. It does the job by supporting a number of card type, it’s fast, and doesn’t break the bank. I highly recommend it.

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