New Dell Laptop!

So in April, I got a new Dell laptop - Inspiron 7415 All in One. Its a nice AMD Ryzen 5 laptop with a touch screen. I immediately upgraded the ram and SSD. Unfortunately, Dell's BIOs in this system leave MUCH to be desired.

There are no settings to boot from a USB drive, meaning you have to hack a few settings in the BIOs to get it to properly boot from USB media. Documentation for this process is almost non-existent and had to be pieced together from several articles and owner manuals.

And wait, did you want to install a distro of Linux on this machine? Well, too damned bad. You'll install Windows and Like it! Seriously, I paid $800 for a laptop that won't let me install whatever I want on it

Also, Samsung. (Sigh) Samsung is in the habit of not formatting their SSDs and this makes it difficult when adding one to a new computer. You must first, connect the drive to another computer and format the drive in NTFS, then pop the drive into your target machine and install your OS.

After two days of tweaking, I managed to get a fresh install of Windows 11 Pro back onto the machine. I also installed a fresh Office 2021 Pro onto the machine. Lastly, I installed Steam and Art Rage to take advantage of the touch screen features.

Home Technology 2021 Edition

 Last Spring, I decided to clean out all of the older machines in the home.  I tossed out my 3x HP Compaq 7900s, my 7600, and my 7800.  I pulled the internal drives and backed them up to my 6TB Home drive. Then I pulled out anything that could be used on them and tossed them into the dumpster.  I also tossed out a great deal of other older computer stuff I no longer needed.

Last month, I got rid of my Optiplex 790 by giving it to my Father in Law.  That left my HP EliteDesk 800 and ProDesk 600 and an old Dell Precision Workstation.  I still have a couple of older i5 laptops that I will eventually get rid of, but I'm having a hard time getting rid of them right now.

Christmas 2020, I bought myself and the boy brand new Dell XPS Desktops.  Gabi has an Optiplex Micro 9020 for use as the bedroom computer.  We have have the EliteDesk as the living room computer on the 48" TV.  I actually just upgraded its HDD to a Samsung 970 500 TB SSD to give it a bit more performance.  I was planning to put my last Samsung 500TB SSD into the ProDesk as soon as I get another 3.5" to 2.5" adapter.

Eventually, I would like to get rid of the HPs altogether and replace them with another Optiplex Micro PC.  Right now, there isn't much need to replace them.

Gabi still has her laptop I got her after starting at Diamondback, but I was planning to order her a brand new laptop once I pay off the two Desktops we got at Christmas.  I'm not sure what to get her, and she doesn't really know either.  So its ont he back burner for now.

I still have my two G7 laptops I bought in 2019, but am leaning towards getting rid of the 15" laptop and taking the 17" machine to work for use there.

The home network is mostly the same as before with the exception of adding an Aruba Access Point and disabling the wireless networking on my old router.  I set up two Virtual Wifi Networks for the boy to use for his computer and PS4 and another for use with our cell phones. 

All of the networks run on their own IP range and don't connect into each other, so they can remain fairly secure.  I still run occasional troll Wifi networks, but for the most part have cut them back.

We no longer run network drive, but have dedicated drives for file storage.  It was a great idea and made it possible to stream our shared movie library across the home network, but with streaming services offering most of what we want to watch, it just isn't necessary.

Meh...Browser Woes...Brave Browser

If you've seen the ads online for Brave Browser, you might get the impression that it blocks ads so that you don't have to deal with them.  Well..sorta. 

I read an article about Brave Browser a while back because I was interested in a mobile browser with AdBlock capabilities.  What I found out made it even worse than my current browser - Chrome.

Most of our current browser choices are based on The original Gecko Engine which itself was based on Netscape source code.  What we got from this was Mozilla Firefox and, eventually Chrome.  I'm gonna leave out a bunch of other browsers because there are literally hundreds if not thousands of alternative browsers out there.

The New Microsoft Edge Browser and Brave Browser are both based on Chromium - a stripped down variant of Google Chrome.

Brave Browser claims to black ads in what people would likely believe is akin to using AdBlock.  The reality is that Brave Browser doesn't really block ads, but instead replaces them with ads that benefit the Brave Browser company.  So instead of your information being sent to Google or Microsoft so that they can generate ad revenue by sending you ads content, it goes to the Brave Browser company to do the exact same thing.

In other words, you're not really protecting yourself.  You're only giving another company a source of revenue.  And that company makes a living by stripping out the ads the other companies produce and giving you their own ads.

If you're OK with this, then give Brave Browser a try.  If not, I would suggest downloading AdBlock for Google or Microsoft Edge.  I believe there are also version for Firefox and few other flavors of Browser.

Working From Home

This is week three of working from home for most of my co-workers.  Since I mostly work at Field Offices and Rig Side, I am spending equal amounts of time out in the field, working from my office, and working from home.

I bought a 49" Samsung Monitor to replace the nice Dell 27" monitor I bought last year as my work space did not have room for my three monitor setup. 

I'm trying to keep travel to a minimum, but still have duties out in the field to take care of.  Social Distancing!

I've noticed a large decrease in travel, mostly heavy equipment moving up and down I20 and very few travelers.  Most truck stops I've been to when fueling up are still serving food, despite what much of Social Media is reporting. 

Truck stop Delis have shut down self-serve areas and you have to deal directly with the deli to get food.  This does cause lines to form.  Be patient and respectful.  Don't forget to wash your hands before eating!  Many of the fast food stores do mostly drive thru and curb side pickup.  Dine-In is shut down so if you're running a rig or pushing equipment to and from the oilfield, you'll likely have to eat in your truck. 

Law Enforcement, as far as State Troopers and Sheriff's Deputies are out patrolling, so watch your speed.  I saw a big group of troopers east of Monahans with a out of state minivan pulled over.  Guys, you should probably stay at home if you don't have business in the oil patch.  This is not the place to break down during the best of times, so you really don't want a breakdown now.

Not much else I can tell you than that.  Be safe out there.

Issues installing .NET Framework 3.5 on a Windows 10 Computer

On some Dell Computers I have worked on, when attempting to download .NET Framework 3.5 components, the install program will give out an error and refuse to download the install package.  

This cannot be fixed by using the Net Framework 3.5 Offline Package.  Other install options through the Programs and Features control panel also fail, as do running commands manually.

I believe the problem is caused by the installer being unable to see the Windows Install files located in the …Sources\sxs folder that are used to install OS components.  This issue usually does not affect computers that have had Windows 10 installed manually and does not affect ALL Dell install images.  But it has become enough of a problem that I have had to create documentation to fix it.

This fix requires you to use a Windows 10 installation on an external drive.

Step 1: Plug in Windows 10 external drive – make note of the drive letter it is assigned to.

Step 2: Open Command Prompt as Administrator

Step 3: Run the following command: DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /LimitAccess /Source:D:\x64\sources\sxs

Step 4: Source: refers to where on your Windows Install media you can locate …x64\Sources\sxs folder…

Step 5: DONE!

There are some other ways to do this, as well, but this seems to work the best.  One of the fixes I have run across involves downloading the ..Source\sxs.. folder from an unknown source.  That's a good way to get a virus!

I do not believe this is strictly a "DELL" issue.  I would look for this on computers where the manufacturer has a hidden partition containing the OS Recovery.  To date, I have not had this issue with computers where I have manually installed Windows 10.

Good luck!