[Dave Rice]

Hell yes, The Poco F3. I have the 4G version, as do wife and son, best phone I’ve owned.

POCO F3 5G – Smartphone 8+256GB, 6,67” 120Hz AMOLED DotDisplay, Snapdragon 870, 48MP Triple Camera, 4520mAh, Night Black (UK Version + 2 Years Warranty) £250 at Amazon

[Dave Rice]

I really don’t have any issues with Bitlocker, often using it on USB drives, it’s the fact that it was done behind my back and I didn’t get a chance to save the key before it was needed.

I checked the Lenovo Ideapad I set up for his Mrs, which would have been an ideal candidate, and it was untouched. I couldn’t delve too deeply as this was a remote session. It maybe that aimed at “home” use the TPM wasn’t enabled and on our business orientated Thinkbooks it was. Whatever, I am now forewarned.

I don’t know what’s up with my customers, one of them has bought  Surface 8 and I had issues logging into his MS Account, so it set up a local account and Bitlocker looks like this:

But it is Windows 11 and not 10. I hate it already, if I wanted a Mac UI I’d buy a Mac. The onscreen keyboard drives me nuts, so much so I put AnyDesk straight on it and have been remoting from my own machines to set it up. It really needs that expensive add-on keyboard IMO.

The key components are identical to my Thinkbook:

i5 1135G7 , Intel WiFi 6 AX201 and the 512GB version of the 256GB SK Hynix (although not in M2 format) and benchmarks identically. There is clearly an Intel hardware “pack” for this level of performance as the Ideapads are the same. So he’s paid twice the £ to have it in a tablet format, but the build quality is outstanding and the screen is magnificent. It is a bit heavy for a tablet though.

 

[Dave Rice]

I’m not getting paranoid about Kaspersky just yet, but it has crossed my mind. I have a large 20 seat family version which makes it complicated, maybe at renewal next January. I rarely use Malwarebytes now as KIS seems to pick everything up just fine.

BTW Avira is now owned by Norton but I don’t know if they’ve changed the interface. For small businesses I have found Norton to be pretty damn good, very much changed from the bad old days, with enough customization as you really need.

However the charity can get cheap BitDefender Gravityzone licenses and that really is something else. It’s very much like the corporate grade AVs I used in the past. I can set up different policies for different scenarios and it’s totally over the top outside of a bigger business environment, but the depth of the activity reports is outstanding.

From those reports I can see that the “traditional” virus just isn’t an issue any more, I’ve not seen an attack across 10 devices in nearly 5 years. The main threats come from browser vulnerabilities and phishing attacks, which we’ve reduced to zero via educating the staff.

It’s Ransomware that is the big threat and that’s evolved itself preferring the threat of public disclosure rather than encrypting files. It’s firmly aimed at the bigger business who can pay, they’re not interested in your photos of your mum (or your old man).

If I ditch KIS it will be very reluctantly. I need to think about 15 – 20 devices and McAfee is very much in the running, which may surprise you. I really don’t take much notice of the artificial AV “benchmarks” and McAfee is a very different beast after Intel bought it (now sold again). It’s the whole package vs ease of use vs value for money that I look for now.

[Dave Rice]

No need, it’s built into the CPU and just needs turning on in the BIOS.

It’s only at clean installation time that it auto-encrypts the drive. On a third party site I’ve read that with a local account it’s supposed to encrypt the drive but not arm it. Sounds like rubbish to me. How can you encrypt a drive but still read it until you flick a switch? It’s encrypted or it isn’t. I’ve found a warning on the Lenovo site but it’s in the “Why has this happened to me?” section rather than if you buy a system from us then this will happen so do that.

[Dave Rice]

I trust the Americans about as far as I trust the Russians and Chinese. I had a real eye-opener when working in the Defense industry and the willingness to nick our commercial secrets never mind anything else. You did not take a laptop through customs. Let’s not forget the The Iran–Contra affair in the dodgy dealing stakes either.

Will the Conservative party and the City rid themselves of Russian money? Not a chance. I see Rees-Mogg is up to his armpits in it, except of course it isn’t his company where it’s dealings are concerned but it is when it comes to pay day. And there’s Boris £160k tennis match in 2014. The sound bite denials from that are very familiar to those being given today, being exactly the same.

[Dave Rice]

I still think the W11 requirements are pants.

One thing I’ve learned, the hard way, is that since build 1703 MS automatically encrypt your drive(s) if you have a TPM. If you log in with an MS account it saves the key to your account, if you don’t you’re on your own but there are no warnings whatsoever.

The CAD Lad with the R9 Thinkbook did the right thing and let the Lenovo Vantage software update his drivers including the BIOS. Unfortunately it wiped the TPM (not supposed to but I have seen it before) and on the next boot it asked for the key to a drive neither of us knew had been encrypted.

I set up Acronis to image the system drive daily so there is a backup, but I fear one of two things:

• The D: drive is also encrypted so I’ll not be able to get at the backups
• It will restore C: in an encrypted state.

It’s in the workshop to be looked at tomorrow and I think I’ll be flattening both drives and starting again.

Thanks for that Teefs, 32″ is too much for me so I’ve ordered my tried and trusted BenQ GW2480 24 Inch  with speakers. I’ll try that bleed test software.

This new laptop great, almost set up, just a few more software licenses to transfer and backups to set up and it’s done.

[Dave Rice]

A new record for me, Crucial P5 Plus Gen 4 £66

As I’d hoped, this Mid January to Mid February has been very busy with labour intensive work (it usually is) meaning I’ve earned enough to replace my 5 1/2 yo Lenovo V110 laptop.

There are some cracking Lenovo deals about at the moment, and this one caught my eye  Lenovo ThinkBook 15 G2 Intel Core i5-1135G7 Iris® Xe Graphics 8GB RAM 256GB SSD Windows 10 Home 15.6″ at Box, £505 after cashback. and £69 for a 3 year onsite warranty.

I’ve spend another £100 on an extra 8GB ram and that P5 which has brought me up to a spec the same as the £830 Ryzen 7 version (probably a bit better). The original SSD is no slouch, about half those benchmarks, but I really needed 512GB and the P5 is a no-brainer. I have put the original drive in the second M2 slot but it’s hobbled by being Gen 3 so I may swap it out for one of the cheap M2’s mentioned above.

The Thinkbook is designed as the poor mans Thinkpad. The build quality is there but the materials are not quite, but flipping heck they’re right up there and as good as you’ll get at this price (the screen is aluminium, the bottom ABS).

It has Type-C charging and a Thunderbolt port next to it that also takes charging, so you can be using your fast USB Gen 3.2 device or your Thunderbolt and still be plugged in. One of the two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports is always on so you can charge your phone while the laptop is off. Wi-Fi 6, 802.11ax 2×2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.1 + Gigabit Ethernet port.

With a headphone socket, an SD card reader and fingerprint sensor in the power button it really has everything. Best laptop I’ve ever owned by a mile. Treated myself to a Logitech MS mouse too as this all has to last me 5 years and will probably be my last work purchase. Along with my Ryzen 5 3600 desktop (needs a new IPS monitor), I think I’m done. Ha ha. Not a chance.

[Dave Rice]

Been there with my ankle, they waited 19 years to replace it due to my age. Things were so bad I had to hire a scooter to go shopping with the family. But there are no second shots with an ankle, it’s a one time replacement only, so I can see why.

That was 10 years ago and it’s transformed my life beyond all description, both in mobility but especially the lack of pain. Unfortunately the ankylosing spondylitis is undoing that but hey ho. I get x-rayed annually and the replacement still looks like the day it went in.

[Dave Rice]

Yes I saw that too, not good news.

Sale on Amazon, Samsung T7 Portable SSD Mettallic Red 1 TB £99

read/write speeds up to 1. 050 MB/s or 1. 000 MB/s with USB 3.1 Gen 2

[Dave Rice]

I have two, both TP-Link, and have used the one that comes with Three.

If you are going to use a Three sim get the bundle, it’s a nice piece of kit. Or if you want to stay independent, the HUAWEI B311 2020 (same as the previous Three hub and very good too) £63 Amazon or the TP-Link TL-MR6400 £75 Amazon or TP-Link AC1200 4G £99 Amazon

I have the MR6400, the antenna are for 4G, not the WiFi, but the WiFi still has a very good range. The key to this is location, location, location. My 4G signal varies greatly throughout the house, and due to roof clutter the best signal isn’t where you’d expect it. But of course the beauty is you can move it about.

The way mobile broadband deals with IP addressing (rapid changes of shared addresses can play havoc with PC based online banking, although phone apps don’t mind. Solved with a VPN, the free one with Kaspersky does fine.

The downside is the same as always with mobile, variation in speeds and latency. At times my Smart TV would just give up if other people were using the internet heavily too. As usual it’s the evenings that are the worst.

So before committing I recommend you do some proper testing using your phone and speed test in different locations and different times of day. Also you’ll need the sim flavour you intend to use, no good testing on GiffGaff and going to Three.

Put it this way, I have not ditched my fibre and am seriously considering going to a 300mbps Voom cable line. I will be waiting for 5G before looking again, but keep the Three Sim going for emergencies for myself and my customers. It kept a mate going for the 3 months he had to wait for BT  and it worked just fine for them and their BT TV.

[Dave Rice]

The CAD boys are at it again, just setting up a new Gen 2 Thinkbook.

AMD Ryzen R9-5900HX 3.3GHz, 32GB DDR4 (16GB soldered so max 48GB), 1TB SSD M.2, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6GB, 16″ WQXGA IPS, Windows 10 Pro

I’m sure you’ll not be surprised to learn it’s basically the Legion in tough clothes and no flashy bits. The build quality is just superb. Fair play, they have included a 1TB WD Blue SN730 which benchmarks within a whisker of the SN570 he’s bought as a second drive. So top spec all round. If you haven’t seen the reviews of the SN570, it’s the 3rd Gen NVMe to buy review and sees off many 4th Gen.

Needless to say it eats for breakfast tasks like installing Office. He got 25% +£150 off which is a huge £££ saving.

At the same time his Mrs pointed out her laptop was literally held together with duct tape so he took advantage of a sale of  3rd Gen Ryzen Ideapads £350 after a voucher for:

AMD Ryzen™ 5 3500U, 14″ FHD (1920 x 1080), TN, 4 GB DDR4-2400 MHz (SODIMM) + 4 GB DDR4-2400 MHz (Soldered), 256 GB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe, W10 Home S

For some reason they’ve chosen a short 2242 M2 SK Hynix 256GB NVMe even though it will take 2280 drives. Benchmarks OK, 2,500 MB/s read and 1,700 MB/s write and it fairly flies along. Even though it’s a TN screen it’s very nice, until you see it next to the Thinkbook 🙂 But for £350 it’s a fantastic bargain and everyday tasks don’t trouble it a jot.

One annoying thing, there’s room for a 2.5″ drive – they used to come with spinners – but they’ve removed the SATA socket and drive mounting holes. How bloody stupid is that! Even dafter, they’ve left the silver foil heat shield in the top chassis.

He brought his Synology DS214play round to speed up the data transfer and it literally died on my bench, so there’s a new DS220j chassis arriving tomorrow. I put the drives into a DS214 chassis I have and Synology Assistant dealt with the migration to the different hardware, I should be able to do the same trick with the 220j. I’m currently backing up the important folders though.

He is now “fecking skint” and he’s not had my bill yet…

[Dave Rice]

GParted is for when the going gets tough, it’ll sort anything out, but of course can get you in trouble just as quick!

[Dave Rice]

Part Two. I’m going to need some sort of caddy which can easily swap out the M2 drives. The Fideco enclosure mentioned above is incredibly robust, perfect for the work bag, but also incredibly fiddly.

You put a threaded donut shaped nut in the end of the drive and then insert in a bolt to hold it down. The problem is the drive naturally wants to spring up, the nut wants to fall out and the bolt is tiny. You need three hands and I had to get the Mrs to help. They do provide spare bolts as if you drop one it’s gone forever.

I found this enclosure for £21 that’s tool free for standard 2280 drives but has got the same internals, which I know are OK.

Couldn’t be easier, and whilst it looks good it’s all plastic and I don’t think would last long in rough and tumble of the work bag. But that won’t be it’s job, it’ll not leave the work bench.

To test it I used one of the first cheap M2 drives I bought some 18 months ago. The price hasn’t changed but the speeds of cheap and cheerful certainly have. This seems truly dreadful now.

[Dave Rice]

Useful.

[Dave Rice]

When you think this volatile vs persistent you can see that unified memory is indeed getting closer.

The 4 screens are purely for real estate. They will be in a 2 x 2 formation and I’m going to leave the stand to him (fat chance). I’ve picked Viewsonic IPS monitors as their menu buttons are on the back (as opposed to under the bezel) so we can get them tight up against each other. I’ll try and get some photos when it’s finished.

[Dave Rice]

OMG this is insanely quick.

[Dave Rice]

Well it’s built, Windows goes on tomorrow.

[Dave Rice]

Delivery today, the customer decided to buy the bits themselves to make the tax easier (apparently there is a 130% allowance this year) and he decided that he wanted 64GB of ram. Just as well I didn’t mention 32GB modules or I think we’d be at 128!

[Dave Rice]

I am at the mercy of Hikvision, or Dahua or whoever as Onvif doesn’t get me access to the proprietary smart features these cameras provide.

For most of the larger commercial jobs I’d be using an NVR and for domestic / small commercial these days it’s SD cards and Android / Apple apps. Whilst the Legion has an NVR in the office, I’ve been using a decent Android tablet as the monitor behind the bar for getting on for 2 years. Of course they have first class WiFi there 🙂

So PCs don’t really feature any more.

[Dave Rice]

Thanks Ed, all good information.

I still only have 1 rig capable of taking W11, the R5 3600. I’m loathe to upgrade as it has my CCTV “CAD” software installed and if that needs an upgrade that’ll cost me £500+.

I have a 12 month old A320M motherboard with 8GB of ram and spare SSDs, but no CPU. It seems that I will never be able to buy a CPU for it now, which pisses me off mightily. I feel that AMD have totally left us out to dry, but that’s another rant.

My laptop is a 5yo 6th Gen i5 with 12GB of ram, SSD and TPM and still quite capable of running my business, if a little less snappy than the R5 3600. But MS have decided that it’s for the scrap heap.

My VM server is an 8 core FX8350 with 16GB of ram and several SSDs + a 2TB spinner but no TPM. I can happily run 4 W10 VMs plus the host W10, but again it’s not acceptable.

When W11 is unavoidable I’m going to be sending a lot of stuff to landfill. Yes it’s all quite capable of running lots of Linux based solutions, shame no-one wants them.

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