infrastructure – Graves On SOHO Technology

Sunday Afternoon at The Micro Center

Last weekend I ventured out to our local Micro Center. I hadn’t been there for several years. It was an interesting and enjoyable experience, even if I didn’t buy anything on this occasion. In some fashion, it was a grounding experience.

I have a long relationship with The Micro Center. When I first moved here from Toronto in 1998 it was an eye-opening place. That was before Amazon.com, when computer stores were still a thing, and software was bought on floppy disk or CD-ROM. The Micro Center was a place I could go and lay hands on things before making a purchase. As a lark, one day I was there with Stella and I hugged a fancy new computer. Thereafter, she started to call it “The Michael Center.”

On Sunday, August 10th, 2025 The Micro Center in Houston was busy! It had not occurred to me that this was the last weekend before kids started back to school. It was also a tax-free weekend for back to school supplies. The place was fully of families getting things their kids would need for school.

The Lenovo Twins

I was there just to look around the place, but I really wanted to lay hands on a Lenovo T14 laptop. It’s one model in the running to replace my 2019 X1 Carbon and my aged desktop. I found a T14 there on display along side a T16. This was enough to convince me that 16” is just too big a laptop for my tastes. I wish I’d brought my X1 Carbon with me. The T14 is markedly heavier, but had a built-in Ethernet port and is vastly more upgradable over time.

I came away from the Lenovo display wanting to get hands on their P14 model, which is a mobile workstation. Sadly, such was not available at The Micro Center.

It’s really difficult to move away from the X1 Carbon. It’s basically ideal for mobile applications. However, soldered in memory means that the only upgrade opportunity is the NVMe drive.

On “Solar Generators”

Hi. My name is Michael and I am a pedant. I don’t mean to be, but it really can’t be helped.

I come to this admission when faced with an online discussion of “Solar Generators.” I believe this term arises from really poor use of language.

There really is no such thing as a “solar generator.” Except perhaps the sort of installation found in Nevada’s Ivanpah Dry Lake.

Let me break this down a bit:

Generators

Burn some fuel to create motion, which in turn creates electrical energy.

Batteries

Instrumentation Options for a Portable Generator

In various online forums, people are routinely asking for help when faced with a generator that’s being overloaded. This may be in the context of a food truck, mobile pet salon or delivering whole house backup power.

It’s believed that management guru Peter Drucker once said, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” I have been making a lot of use of that quote when offering answers to such questions. If you are placing a significant load on the generator, you need to monitor the load to know when you are nearing overload. Allowing it to overload is disruptive, time consuming and potentially dangerous. Without hard data to inform your decisions, you’re only guessing about how to address the problem.

Option #1: Built-in Load Monitoring

If you don’t yet have a generator, you might well consider instrumentation in making that choice. For example, my Harbor Freight Predator 9500 was one of the first of a new crop of high-power inverter models that became available in 2021. It does not have any built-in instrumentation. So, it was incumbent upon me to provide such capability externally.

In contrast, a bit over a year or two later a neighbor bought a Pulsar PGD95BISCO from Home Depot. This Pulsar if effectively a cousin to my Predator. They’re both made in China by Chongqing DK power machinery Co.,LTD. The Pulsar model was introduced later in February of 2023. To be competitive it has a few more features that the Predator. One of the nicer features is a built-in load meter.

The built-in LCD shows the output voltage, frequency and aggregate load on the generator in real-time. This is very handy. I wish my Predator had this feature.

Oh, bother. Where art thou? Base Power

I first wrote about Base Power back in May 2024. Inspired by Doug Lewin’s Energy Capital podcast, I signed up for the companies mailing list, in the hope of learning when they Austin-based company would be offering service in Houston. In fact, I’ve signed up twice!

We’ve received literally nothing from the company. Putting our address into a page on their web site they report “Great news! Base is coming to Houston soon! We’ll be installing in your area later this year.”

T-Mobile 5G: An Experiment with Fixed Wireless Internet Access

t-mobile-gateway-v4-front In the next few weeks we’ll crest the first anniversary of Hurricane Beryl, which had quite an impact hereabouts. In the storm we lost power for a less than two days. However, our Comcast/Xfinity internet access was out for a week. As someone who works full-time from a home office, that was a problem for me. As a contract IT worker, no internet access means no money. No buénno.

My laptop, a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen7 from 2019, has the optional 4G mobile data access module. It’s part of our Mint Mobile family plan. So, at some level I can be online with just the laptop. That provides a minimal level of productivity.

Similarly, I can tether my desktop and perhaps one or two small devices to my mobile phone. That’s ok for an afternoon, but not a good solution for a week or more.

The 4G speed test on the laptop screen reflects 4G LTE access, not 5G. Also, Mint Mobile data rates are often lower than T-Mobile’s own clients. Even though T-Mobile now owns Mint, the MVNO customers are given lower priority on the network.

Then it occurred to me that all the mobile carriers had been promoting fixed wireless service in the neighborhood. In post-Beryl Houston, power was out at our home, but not too far away there was a T-Mobile store that was open for business as usual. They had a 5G fixed wireless devices for $0 with $60/month and no contract term. It seemed like potentially a good solution. At least, there was little to risk in trying it on for size.

New Gear: JetKVM is really very handy!

Late last year I supported the Kickstarter for JetKVM. This device is a tiny little IP-KVM solution. It’s basically a refined package of everything involved in a PiKVM. Connect HDMI & USB from a computer-to-be-controlled, and Ethernet. Then the web interface on the JetKVM device allows that device to be remote controlled using just a web browser from anywhere there’s IP connectivity.

JetKVM-device-front

I had actually forgotten that I supported the project until one day a pair the wee devices arrived. It happens that I’ve been meaning to work on a KVM solution for my home office.