How $3 saved the day

Have you ever spent an embarrassing amount of time troubleshooting your troubleshooting tools? 

Because that’s where I found myself: standing over my friends 'free tester', pushing buttons, wiggling leads, staring at it like it had personally betrayed me. No lights, nothing..—like the thing was ghosting me after just meeting it. Naturally, I assumed the worst: it’s broken, fried, cooked, done for. Time to start googling replacements and maybe explaining to my fried "you get what you pay for".

Of course, being the responsible tech I am, I did what anyone would do first—I blamed the manufacturer. Clearly, they sold me a lemon. Or maybe the universe was just out to get me. I even gave it a good “tap” (the ancient art of percussive maintenance) as if smacking it would jolt its tiny electronic soul back into existence. Spoiler: it didn’t.

Finally, after an hour of “diagnostics” (read: cursing, pacing, and flipping the power button harder), I decided to check the most advanced and complicated component of all—the battery. That’s when the truth hit me like a ton of Duracells: the tester wasn’t dead, it was just starving. A fresh 9-volt later, and suddenly it was back working. Flashing its LEDs happily, mocking me for my lack of basic common sense.

So yes, I spent a solid hour troubleshooting a tester that wasn’t broken. I had, in fact, been defeated by a battery. Lesson learned: before questioning the mysteries of the universe or condemning your tools to the scrap heap, maybe—just maybe—check if it’s power hungry. 

Because nothing says “professional technician” like forgetting to check the battery. In my defense, it wouldn't take much to include a battery status indicator ;)

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This is the kit my friend bought, I got one as well since it was less than $40 Cdn and actually pretty handy.  I literally leave in my tool box - with an extra battery  ;) Click on the image to get more info

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Check out this free guide from our friends at Netscout

From the net: Microsoft lets every Windows 10 and 11 user upgrade to Windows 11 25H2 on supported PCs

 

Windows 11 2025 Update, more commonly referred to as Windows 11 25H2, was released earlier this month by Microsoft. The company explained how easy it is to upgrade to the new version you already were on version 24H2 via an enablement package and shared a full list of new features users can expect to find on the newer version. Aside from those, Microsoft also announced some more features later including a new default 64-bit lightweight CLI editor, "Hey Copilot" voice activation input, and more.

Click the image for the full article

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Indecision - Paul W. Smith

 

It makes us uncomfortable when someone in authority changes their mind. We expect our leaders to be both knowledgeable and decisive. If your boss oscillates on key decisions, it’s difficult to work efficiently, unless of course you can somehow predict and plan for the next change (e.g., 2025 international trade policies). But decisions, both conscious and subconscious, are a big part of our daily life.

 

Before I retired from my STEM career a little over a year ago, many of my decisions felt preordained. Sure, I could choose whether to get up at 5:00 am and go to the gym and it was theoretically up to me if I should head to the office following my workout. Hitting the snooze button a few times and then calling in sick just never seriously occurred to me. The desire to stay fit and pay the bills always took priority. Since exiting the daily grind, each of my days is a clean slate, and the decisions seem to have multiplied.

 

Research by Professor Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University, an acknowledged expert, estimates that the average American makes approximately 70 conscious decisions every day (there is no scientific basis for the widely published number of 35,000 daily choices, although there are certainly some subconscious ones which are hard to count).  Nevertheless, each decision is different, and it is undeniable that we make a lot of them. And as Dumbledore advised "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities".

 

With our choices carrying this much weight, it is not surprising that Professor Iyengar and others have devoted so much effort to figuring out how we go about making them. Even our less consequential decisions, like which shampoo to buy, are scrutinized by marketing executives with hundreds of billions of dollars to spend.

 

In the summer of 2025, Talker Research conducted an online survey of over 2,000 people sampled from the general population to delve deeper into the actual decision-making process. Their data showed that 41% of Americans second-guess their important daily decisions, while 12% overthink all decisions big or small. A quarter of us are stressed out by even the simplest of choices. With this many decisions to grind on every day, it’s no wonder our stress level is rising.

 

Survey participants rated their top stressors as finances and physical health, which aligns with my reluctance to skip the office and the gym. If you hate grocery shopping (in an actual store) you are not alone - many of us experience “aisle anxiety” within 4 minutes of beginning the search for a specific product. Main concerns are listed as price and whether the product is healthy.

 

I thought of my own retirement from a 50+ year STEM career as inevitable, irreversible, and impactful, none of which made the decision any easier. My financial advisor and my doctor - both of whom rolled their eyes when I said I planned to live to 100 – endorsed the plan. The sheer number of decisions may have grown, but I enjoy choosing the next travel destination more than designing the next physics experiment. And when work is taken off the scale, the balance tilts toward life.

 

That’s just simple physics.

Author Profile - Paul W. Smith - leader, educator, technologist, writer - has a lifelong interest in the countless ways that technology changes the course of our journey through life.  In addition to being a regular contributor to NetworkDataPedia, he maintains the website Technology for the Journey and occasionally writes for Blogcritics.  Paul has over 50 years of experience in research and advanced development for companies ranging from small startups to industry leaders.  His other passion is teaching - he is a former Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Paul holds a doctorate in Applied Mechanics from the California Institute of Technology, as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Just got my internet upgraded. ooo can't wait to post this on myspace page

 Ah, the late 90s. A time when frosted tips were considered fashionable, Y2K was going to end civilization, and the U.S. Robotics 56K dial-up modem was the absolute king of the digital jungle. Forget fiber, forget Wi-Fi, heck—forget basic sanity. Back then, your best shot at “high-speed internet” was listening to a box of circuits scream like R2-D2 having a panic attack while you prayed AOL didn’t kick you off after three minutes. And yes, 56K meant 56 kilobits per second, not kilobytes. That’s right—your toaster today probably processes more data than this “cutting-edge” piece of hardware.

Here’s a fun bit of trivia: the U.S. Robotics 56K modem wasn’t technically guaranteed to hit 56K speeds. In fact, thanks to pesky things like line noise, poor infrastructure, or just the universe hating you, most people averaged closer to 40–44K. And yet, at the time, that was mind-blowingly fast. We’re talking “download a single MP3 in just under an hour” fast. No joke, a whole album was basically a summer project. Kids today will never know the struggle of secretly starting a download at midnight, only to have your mom pick up the phone and nuke your progress at 98%.

Another little nugget of wisdom: U.S. Robotics named itself after the fictional corporation from Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi stories. Very cool on paper, but let’s be honest—Asimov probably didn’t envision his futuristic company making beige plastic boxes that translated beeps and static into pixelated GeoCities pages with dancing GIFs. Still, they had the branding right. The modem did feel like a tiny robot living in your wall socket, screaming in machine language just to let you check your Hotmail.

And finally, let’s not forget the legendary LED light show. The front panel of a U.S. Robotics modem looked like a Christmas decoration designed by NASA. RX, TX, CD, OH—every tiny green light had a job, and you felt like a computer hacker straight out of “Hackers” when you watched them flicker. In reality, you were just loading Ask Jeeves at a speed slower than carrier pigeons, but hey—it was the future, and U.S. Robotics gave it to us one shrieking dial tone at a time.

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When in Doubt, Update: How a Fresh Copy of PuTTY Saved My Sanity

There I was, staring at an error message that made absolutely no sense. All I wanted to do was SSH into a router—something I’ve done hundreds of times before. But PuTTY decided today was the day it would betray me. No matter what settings I tweaked or what credentials I double-checked, that annoying connection error just wouldn’t go away. Naturally, I blamed everything else first: the router, the firewall, the universe. Spoiler alert—it was PuTTY all along.

After far too much troubleshooting, I did the one thing I should’ve done first: I checked if PuTTY was up to date. Turns out, my trusty old version was ancient—like “belongs in a museum” ancient. I downloaded the latest release, installed it, and boom—SSH connection established instantly. No errors, no drama, just smooth sailing. Apparently, the new version had updated encryption and key exchange support that the router expected.

So, if you ever find yourself stuck with some cryptic PuTTY error when connecting to your favorite network gear, do yourself a favor: stop overthinking it and just grab the latest version. Sometimes, the simplest solution really is check your software version.