This month marks the 25th anniversary of my purchase of the snewpy.com domain name. When I started this web site in 1996 the internet wasn’t very big, with only about 100,000 different domains. My site is older than Google, YouTube and Facebook, to name a few. I’ve been a blogger […]
Borosilicate Plate
It’s been over four years since I got my 3D printer, and while I’ve had some success producing the parts that I’ve needed, it hasn’t always been a consistent process. I count myself lucky that I haven’t had the myriad problems with getting prints to stick to the print bed […]
Rolling Pin Ring
My wife got a Joseph Joseph Adjustable Rolling Pin that comes with several plastic rings to allow you to adjust the thickness of dough you are rolling. It’s a clever design, but curiously the roller is sold with one ring obviously missing, so I was asked to complete the set. […]
Sweet Dreams
Let me start by saying that bed warmers always seemed like a unnecessary luxury to me. That was until we got one 10 years ago and started using it in the winter to pre-heat our bed before we retired for the evening. Once you become accustomed to sliding into warm […]
Synology DiskStation DS920+
After six years of storing files on my DS412+, it wasn’t even half full, and Synology hasn’t yet pulled the trick I now expect from all hardware manufacturers – forced obsolescence through software updates. The old Intel processor is from 2012, but it still runs the latest DSM. We’ll see […]
reMarkable 2 Tablet
It’s been almost exactly a year since I bought my original reMarkable tablet used off of eBay. It served me well, but it had a few undesirable quirks that I couldn’t get past. Chief among these was its pitiful battery life (usually only a day or two before it had […]
Hubitat Elevation
In 2013, I received a SmartThings hub (1st Generation) as a gift for Christmas. Several months later I made the decision to begin the transition from my ancient X10 home automation devices to the “new hotness” of Z-Wave and Zigbee (I still have a tote full of over $1000 of […]
Wolverine 8mm Film Scanner
I am part of the generation that spanned the digital revolution which means I have dozens of reels full of my parents’ Super 8mm film going back to the mid-60s. I have made one previous attempt to convert these old home movies to DVD, with moderate success. The quality of […]
reMarkable Paper Tablet
I have been intrigued with this gadget for over a year now when I first learned of it. It certainly seemed too good to be true, and for that reason alone I shied away from it. The retail price made it even easier to avoid any serious consideration. But because […]
Experiments in Statistical Inference
When I was in high school I took a Probability and Statistics class. My teacher had this really cool setup that allowed us to perform experiments by using a big bowl of marbles in various colors and paddles with holes in them that could be used to grab samples of […]
Linksys MR8300 Mesh Router
I wasn’t completely happy with the Netgear X4S router – it was missing a few essential features – but then I really wasn’t happy when it started factory resetting itself in the middle of the night. Luckily, it happened within 30 days of purchase, so Amazon took it back. After […]
Netgear Nighthawk X4S
The time had come to upgrade my old router (D-Link DIR-825). It had been a good performer, with excellent stability, but it didn’t have quite the necessary range (since I keep it in the basement) for our house. I also wanted to add some parental controls, and the D-Link firmware […]
Handy Andy Plying Tool
My wife is into yarn. Almost as much as I am into Legos. So there is lots of yarn around my house, and lots of tools for carding, spinning, dying, and knitting said yarn. But we didn’t have a tool for plying yarn. Until today. Now I’m not going to […]
Outdoor Garden Sink
My present to my wife this year for her birthday was to build her an outdoor sink – a place where she can clean off her garden tools and wash vegetables before bringing them into the house. We had an old washtub that we weren’t using and a bunch of […]
Poster Hangers
When I was a kid, I had some of these really cool poster hangers on my wall and on the door to my room. They had a really simple but clever design that used the weight of the poster itself and a small roller inside to clamp down and hold […]
I Want Candy
This is a really cool design for a Halloween candy dispenser that I found on Thingiverse. It took 14 hours to print, but it turned out pretty well, and works as advertised.
XBox One Vertical Stand
The Wii is starting to get a little long in the tooth, so it was time for an upgrade. My son had asked a while ago for a driving game, so when I saw an XBox One bundle on Amazon that included Forza 3, we decided to get it for […]
Topeak Bicycle Basket Latch
My wife has the Topeak QuickTrack system on her bike. She recently bought the Topeak MTX rear basket that works with the system, however, the geometry of the bike seat and basket are such that she couldn’t slide the basket far enough forward to engage the latch without hitting the […]
New Chicken Coop
Hard to believe it has been five years since we constructed a home for our first flock. Those birds developed a taste for their own eggs, and that is a very hard habit to break in a small flock, so we were forced to start over this year with new […]
My First Time Lapse
I’m spending time learning about my Creator Pro, and in the process, I’ve come across a lot of resources, including plenty of YouTube videos. One trend I’ve noticed is a lot of folks like to post time lapse videos of their printer doing its thing, so I thought I’d give […]
Ring Video Doorbell
I received the Ring video doorbell as a Christmas gift this year. Overall, I like it. However, I have a few reservations about recommending it to others. First, the price. I would never spend $200 on a doorbell, and I would not recommend anyone else do so either, no matter […]
FlashForge Creator Pro 3D Printer
Santa was kind to me this year and brought me a new 3D printer, so I’ve been learning how to use it. If you spend any time researching these you quickly learn the importance of leveling the build platform. It took me several failed print jobs to fully appreciate this. […]
Acu-Rite Weather Station
For my birthday, I had this weather station on my wishlist. It’s one of those items I would probably never buy for myself, because it’s definitely a want, not a need. But my wife got it for me and I installed it on the roof this weekend. The installation of […]
Kubb For Twenty Bucks
If you haven’t heard of the Viking game Kubb (pronounced “koob”) before, I don’t blame you — it seems to be fairly obscure. But the game sells for as much as $50 online which is crazy since you can make it yourself out of about $20 worth of wood. I […]