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  • QNAP QSW-M408-4C Taredown

    I recently replaced my QNAP QSW-M408-4C with a MikroTik CRS312-4C+8XG, and I thought it would be interesting to document the taredown process. The QNAP switch has 4x 10G SFP+/RJ45 combo ports and 8x 1Gb RJ45 ports, making it a decent switch for a home lab, but I found the UI to be very over simplified and lacking in features compared to the MikroTik switch.

  • The Best Way to Stream MikroTik's Packet Sniffer to Wireshark

    While you can use udp.dstport == 37008 to filter for MikroTik’s packet sniffer, I prefer to setup the ‘UDP Listener remote capture: udpdump’ feature in Wireshark. This way you will have a clean packet capture without having to filter out unrelated traffic, with the benefit of also not spamming your router with ICMP ‘Destination Unreachable’ packets.

  • Update MongoDB for Unifi Network Application 8

    I was trying to update MongoDB from 3.6 to 4.4 since the Unifi network app supports it now, and it’ll get rid of those pesky GPG errors from APT.

  • Find 4K Native Supported SSDs

    I was recently looking for a 4Kn supported SSD for my laptop, I know it doesn’t really improve performance by a noticeable amount, I was more just looking for power efficiency, which also hasn’t really been benchmarked. So… uhh… higher number better right?

  • Force Enable VRR using EDID

    My Samsung LC24RG50 supports FreeSync, but it wouldn’t play nice with my Intel ARC GPU, so I ended up force enabling it in the EDID.

  • Using an SR-IOV Network Interface in a Proxmox LXC

    For fun I was trying to work out how I could use an SR-IOV Interface for my LanCache container. Since it would let me run it with very low disk overhead, compared to a VM, and low network overhead compared to a virtual bridge; I am aware that this probably doesn’t affect much though.

  • Docker Rclone schedule sync with cron inside container

    I was looking for a way to backup my frigate snapshots to a cloud service, and the official rclone docker container actually already ships with cron installed, so all you have to do is run the container with the command

  • Remove bad IPv6 route from a bad device on Linux

    There was a device on my network that was sending a bad IPv6 route to my Linux PC, and it was causing all sorts of issues, so while I was trying to figure out what was going on I wrote this post to help others remove the route. However I recommend using something like WireShark to find the source of the bad route, and then stopping it at the source.

  • eBay NIC Review: The Intel X520-DA1 from China

    After being unhappy with the compatibility of SR-IOV on other cheap eBay NICs, I recently bought the cheapest Intel X520-DA1 on eBay. The Intel X520-DA1 is a single port 10 Gigabit SFP+ network card released in 2011 that makes use of the Intel 82599 controller, it takes up 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes and lists compatibility for SR-IOV.

  • JGINYUE X99-D8 Dual CPU Motherboard BIOS Features

    I recently bought a JGINYUE X99-D8 to use with my home lab. However before I bought it I couldn’t find much info about it, such as if it it supported SR-IOV or even virtualisation at all. Here’s all the BIOS options that shipped with my motherboard.

  • How to update Windows Subsystem for Android from MSIX

    I just happened to realise that the version of Windows Subsystem for Android on store.rg-adguard.net has updated from 1.7.32815.0 to 2203.40000.1.0 so here’s a guide on how to update it without loosing installed apps.

  • Where you can find ARM64 LXC Templates

    I was just experimenting with Pimox on a Raspberry Pi 4 and was wondering where I could download the ARM64 LXC templates for Proxmox.

  • Things you can do with a QNAP Switch's Serial Console

    I have a QNAP QSW-M408-4C and I was wondering what the serial console port was used for, especially since it wasn’t documented anywhere. Well it turns out it’s a full TTY terminal in LEDE Linux.

  • Install the PiKVM Arduino HID on other Boards

    This is just a short guide to compiling and uploading the PIKVM Arduino HID onto other boards. I will be using the Arduino Leonardo as an example.

  • Install another OS on to a QNAP NAS

    I saw someone else on r/QNAP install Windows Server on their TS-253Be a while ago, and I really wanted to do the same with my TS-453Be, so I’m writing this guide to show others what I’ve done. This should work with TrueNAS/FreeNAS/BSD, Linux or Windows; basically any x86_64 operating system.

  • A list of Video and Image Extensions downloadable from the Microsoft Store

    I wanted to have every Video and Image Extension just in case I ever needed to use one but I couldn’t find a list online so I made one.

  • How to compile and use Facebook Research’s Craftassist

    UPDATE: These instructions are likely out-dated, and Facebook has made the instructions on their GitHub easier as well, please follow those before attempting mine.

    Facebook Research set out to create a virtual assistant bot in Minecraft and since I made this video on Reddit people have asked how to set it up, and because Facebook’s instructions on their GitHub aren’t the best I decided to write my own.

  • Intel XTU ‘Attempted to install on an unsupported platform’

    I was recently wanting to mess around with the CPU clocks on my laptop which is a Surface Book 2 using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, but whenever I tried to install it I was greeted by an error dialogue that said ‘Attempted to install on an unsupported platform’. This is how I fixed it…

  • How to install chrome plugins on Microsoft’s new Chromium based Edge

    Microsoft just released the new generation of their Edge browser which was intended to be compatible with pre-existing Google Chrome plugins, but how do you exactly do it, well that’s probably why you clicked on our website so we’re gonna tell you.

  • How to get an Xbox One Controller to work with Google Earth Flight Simulator

    Are you so bored that you decide that you want to play the Google Earth flight simulator but find out that the keyboard controls are horrible so you grab your Xbox One controller and it doesn’t work, well I have some good news for you.

  • How to program a Wemos D1/ESP 12 over TTL Serial

    I recently accidentally shorted one of my Wemos D1 minis and it would no longer be powered over 5v so the USB port was made pretty much useless so I wanted to try and get it working with at least the ArduinoOTA sketch so here is a tutorial on how to program a Wemos D1 mini over the TTL serial pins.

  • Best Australian Hosting for your location

    You should always have the nearest hosting for your target area so your customers can have fast load times. A study by the Aberdeen Group revealed that “a 1-second delay in page load time equals 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and 7% loss in conversions.”

  • How to use old Equipment with a Virtual Machine

    I have an old slide scanner that only works with Windows 98 and I was wondering if I could use it again to scan some slides and I tried using Oracle VM VirtualBox with Windows 98 to connect to it but it wouldn’t detect the scanner but then I found VMware Workstation Player and it worked great

  • How to convert a Physical Disk to a VMware VMDK image

    I was recently wanting to convert all of my old hard drives from old computers to VMDKs so that I could run the drive virtually in VMware, but I couldn’t find a way to do it so that’s why I’m writing this now.

  • How to Change the Desktop Background on a School/Work Computer

    1. Download Background Changer - Graphical Background Changer.vbs
    2. Find the Picture you want then Shift + Right Click it then Select “Copy as path”
    3. Right Click the Program and Select “Run as Administrator”
    4. Wait 5 Seconds then when it says “Enter Background Location: ” Right Click and Select “Paste” then press enter

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© Stephen Horvath 2025