Gateway is back exclusively at Walmart. How do their offerings hold up? Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
When I saw that the Gateway brand of computers was making a return, it brought back nostalgic images of those cow-print boxes and logos the company was known for back in the late 90s/early 2000s. It was kind of exciting seeing a such an iconic brand from back in the day making a return. Acer ended up acquiring Gateway in the later 2000s and today the brand is back exclusively at Walmart. However, my excitement was short-lived when I took a deeper look into their offerings. The specs were a bit different than the original article from Walmart had stated when I read it a couple of weeks ago and most of the offerings are a bit disappointing. RAM and storage on a majority of the laptops lean towards the lower end, and I am skeptical that Windows 10 will run well on only 4 GB of RAM. The tablets are also a bit short on RAM with just 2 GB; less than what my phone has. A couple of the offerings caught my eye even though the specs aren’t optimal. Let’s take a look:
The Ultraslim series offers a 16 GB model with an Intel i5 processor which doesn’t seem too bad for $479. The only downside is that it doesn’t have a dedicated graphics processor, so gaming and other graphics intensive applications might not run optimally on this laptop. Other than that, this one should run most basic applications and Windows 10 with no problem. The other unit I took a closer look at was the Ultraslim with the Ryzen processor for $349. The downside to this laptop is that it only comes with 4 GB of RAM, which I think is a bit on the low side to run Windows 10 and gaming on this laptop is going to be out of the question. Other than that it seems to be a great value. With these specs, it would be a perfect machine to throw Ubuntu on or to use as a cheap second computer.
Now, I understand that Gateway isn’t trying to offer high-performance machines, but the hardware on most of their offerings seems unbalanced. Enough RAM but not enough storage, or dedicated graphics but not enough RAM. If you need something cheap, a Gateway might be your thing but if you need something that is inexpensive, good quality, and offers great value, think about getting a Chromebook or another brand of laptop that fits your needs.
Do you remember Gateway PCs? Remember back in the early 2000s the PCs with the Holstein cow themed logo? Well Gateway is back with a new line of budget-friendly laptops and tablets available exclusively at Walmart. They are offering an Ultra Slim series and a Creators series for laptops, as well as a 2-in-1 and a couple of tablets. I’ll be taking a closer look at these soon to see if they’re worth looking into. At first look, the laptops and 2-in-1 look promising but the tablets seem a little underpowered. Check back soon for my take on these new budget-minded tech offerings from Walmart!
The Brandy Manhattan is popular in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to this website.
The Manhattan is another classic cocktail favorite of mine that many will recognize from the AMC series Mad Men. It is a rather boozy drink made with Whisky (preferably rye whisky), sweet vermouth, bitters, and garnished with a maraschino cherry. As you know, I like to keep it low-carb so I drop the garnish and substitute dry vermouth, which in turn makes it a Dry Manhattan. I also don’t have whisky available, but I do have brandy, so for this Low Carb Happy Hour I’ll be making a Minnesota/Wisconsin favorite, the Brandy Manhattan.
2 oz. Brandy
1 oz. Dry vermouth
2-3 Ice cubes
Dash or two of Angostura bitters
Put the ice into a cocktail shaker and add a dash or two of bitters, depending on how you like your Manhattan. Add the brandy and vermouth and shake until extra chilled. Let rest to let the bubbles dissipate. Strain into a cocktail glass, preferably chilled. Enjoy!
The Raspberry Pi 3 B+ is possible, however, the performance boost is slight.
If you read my earlier article on overclocking the Raspberry Pi 4, you saw how easy it was to crank the speed up to the max. Commander Pi made it super simple to change settings and get that clock speed up! Unfortunately, TwisterOS is not recommended for the Pi 3B+ and may not even work (I haven’t tried it on the 3B+ at all, but it probably won’t work correctly), so I just edited the settings in the config.txt file using nano. It’s a little bit more involved but not much more difficult. At first, I tried to do 1700 MHz with no success and dialed it back to 1600. That was also a no-go, so I dialed it back another 100 MHz. Success. The GPU was raised to 600 MHz and I also did a slight OC of the RAM. Here are the settings i used:
arm_freq=1500
gpu_freq=600
over_voltage=6
temp_limit=80
sdram_freq=600
sdram_schmoo=0x02000020
over_voltage_sdram_p=6
over_voltage_sdram_i=4
over_voltage_sdram_c=4
total_mem=1023
hdmi_drive=2
Overall, I would have to agree with Hayden James’s article Stop trying to overclock the Raspberry Pi 3 B+. The 3B+ is nearly at its upper limit so I could only get a 100MHz boost from it, which probably won’t give any significant performance gains. Also, the 3B+ gets fairly hot under load even at stock speeds so I recommend passive and active cooling in the form of heatsinks and a fan. A regular 3B might be a better candidate for an overclock, essentially turning the 3B into a stock 3B+. The 3B+ probably will benefit from a GPU/RAM overclock but the CPU might best be left alone. The 100MHz boost probably isn’t going to do much performance-wise and when I tried to go higher than that, Raspbian refused to boot. The 3B is going to be a better candidate if you can indeed boost it to 1500, which I still need to try.
If you have a 3B+ overclocking isn’t totally out of the picture. GPU and RAM can still be overclocked and might give a slight performance boost but overall the model 4 will give you the best overclocking bang for your buck.
My storage situation on my PC is a mess. I probably should just get a new drive or two and start with a fresh install, but right now I don’t have the time or funds to properly set up my storage system to my liking, so I’ll have to deal with it for the time being.
Right now I have about three drives in my PC: an SSD and a couple of HDDs. One of them has two partitions, the other just one. No real order to it all, just a random bunch of drives that hold my data. JABOD is what they call it I think. Not great, but it’ll do for now.
I’ve done some manual cleanup on the drives, removing large files I don’t need and attempting to get rid of files from old Windows installs. The only thing is, you can’t delete all of the files in the Windows.old folder. The Windows.old folder contains a bunch of system files and other stuff from your old Windows install. If you try to manually delete them, Windows will throw you a “Trusted Installer” error basically telling you that you can’t delete them. If you upgraded to Windows 10 from 7 like I did, you’ll have a Windows.old folder hanging around somewhere just in case you want to roll back to 7. Seeing that 7 is out the door and no longer being supported by Microsoft, I figured it would be a good time to just get rid of those files. A podcast I was listening to mentioned the Disk Cleanup app, so I did a little research and ran across an article recently on how to delete those Windows.old files. Time to fire it up and free up a little space!
The app took a little bit to launch and I had to restart it since you will need to run it as administrator to delete any previous Windows installs. After I did that I checked in Windows Explorer to see which drives had Windows.old folders. My C and D drives both had previous Windows installs on them, so I ran it on both. I selected the drive, made sure everything looked okay and set it in gear. A dialog warning appears to make sure you definitely want to delete those old installs. Click yes and be prepared to wait a few minutes.
In total I freed up a modest 38.6 GB of space on both drives, 13.5 on the D, 25.1 on the C. Not much, but it might let me install another game or two or a few apps. Even though I didn’t save much, I thought Disk Cleanup was a handy tool to get rid of those pesky ‘undeletable’ files that throw the “Trusted Installer” warning when you try to just throw them in the Recycle Bin.
If you’re running low on storage space on your PC and upgraded to 10 from a previous version, now might not be a bad time to run Disk Cleanup to free up some space. Just keep in mind that once you delete those files, there’s no going back to 7 or 8, so consider making a USB restore stick just in case something goes wrong in the future. Once you do that, free up some space and enjoy a few extra gigs of storage!
Replacing the battery on the Moto G3 is a bit difficult but possible.
I’m a big fan of squeezing every possible moment out of my technology. I don’t get a new smartphone every year and don’t run out and buy the newest graphics cards or other hardware for my PC. My PC can play all of my games (although some on low settings) so I haven’t been compelled to upgrade any time soon. I expect my tech to give me at least five years of solid service before I need to upgrade. After that, those devices become a bit antiquated and it often shows. But even though the hardware is old, these devices still can be useful. A smartphone battery might need replacement, but a lot of these devices can be used a few years longer. A smartphone could turn into a fun project given some time and a little effort. I have an old Motorola G3 that might fit the bill on such a project.
Many years ago, I was given an old HP Pavillion PC that someone was getting rid of after upgrading. I upgraded the RAM and installed a few games to play. It was a pretty low end machine and my main machine was a Powermac G4 MDD, so if I wanted to, I could use it as a project computer. After giving me a couple years of solid service, it was showing its age, and Windows XP was no longer being supported. I heard a lot about a popular Linux distro called Ubuntu and decided to install its Xfce variant, Xubuntu.
It was easy enough to install, although I remember having to manually install drivers for the wireless NIC I was using. The lightweight desktop OS was able to squeeze another couple of years out of the old HP. I also remember trying to get it on an old iMac G3 PPC, although the install wasn’t as successful as the HP install due to the PPC chip architecture. Overall, it was a fun experience to install and use an OS that wasn’t Windows or Mac OS.
Fast forward to today, a couple months ago I upgraded my phone from a Moto G3 to a Nokia 6.2. The old phone was still good, it just needed a new battery so I picked one up and gave the installation a shot. Unfortunately, it was a bit difficult and the little clip on the ZIF slot popped out and I might have compromised the screen cable a bit. Whoops! Anyways, I picked up a replacement screen in hopes that that will remedy the issue. Lets hope it does. More on that later.
The phone is still good, but it is stuck on Android 6, which is no longer supported with updates. No good. I did a little digging and found an alternate OS called Postmarket OS that sounded promising for the old phone. After I get the phone up and running again I’m going to give an install a shot and test it out. I do believe it is confirmed to boot on the Moto G3, so I have high hopes!
If you’re into tech, don’t throw your old technology in the recycling bin, give it a second chance! A lot of old tech is still useful if you put a little effort into it and with a little creativity, you can give that old device a few more years of life or even integrate it into a project. The possibilities are endless!
The Raspberry Pi 4 survived a 2 hour long stress test at 2100 MHz.
Overclocking a computer is always something I’ve been interested in. Who doesn’t want to get more out of their hardware? The only hold back for me was the possibility of messing something up and ending up with a dead machine, not to mention the extra wear and tear from the added heat, which in turn shortens its life. That said, I just put the idea of overclocking to the side since my PC worked fine and the performance was decent. If I had a second computer that I didn’t need to worry about I could do it! Well, now I have a brand new Raspberry Pi 4 4 GB and an ArgonONE case with a fan to try it out without too much worry! I figured a Pi would be the perfect computer to try out an overclock project. Let’s crank it up!
I started out thinking about cooling: I would need a good case with a fan for this to work optimally. I did a bit of research and found a good article on the subject over at the MagPi and chose the ArgonONE case for my project. It gave great performance for the price and it had a sleek design so I bought one to try it out for this project. It even came with a power adapter so I didn’t need to buy one separately.
Next I actually needed the Raspberry Pi. I chose the Raspberry Pi 4 4 GB model for the project. I was considering using the 8 GB model, but that model was out of stock, so I opted for the 4 GB model instead. Along with the Pi, I needed the proper adapters to work with my old trusty VGA monitor. I already had the VGA to HDMI adapter but I needed something that would work with the Pi 4’s microHDMI ports. I did the silly thing and bought a bunch of cables. Was it miniHDMI or microHDMI? I wasn’t sure so I picked up a few. All I really needed was a microHDMI to HDMI dongle. Luckily cables are inexpensive and you never know when you might need one to connect a device, so the extras will get stashed away until I might need them.
Speaking of the monitor, I found a great deal on a refurbished HP 17” VGA monitor at my local MicroCenter. I figured it would make a good display for various Pi projects and so far it performs well. I might consider getting another one if I need another larger display for a project.
One more item I needed was a good SD card. I always get the best class 10 card I can afford. Luckily SD cards aren’t overly expensive and are pretty easy to find. I usually use SanDisk Extreme or Ultra cards, which have worked well in the past for me and haven’t caused any issues so far.
Finally, I needed something to log the temperature data. Fortunately, there is a great tutorial on how to write a temp logger script that will graph your data and save it into a .csv file so you can review the data in a spreadsheet. The tutorial can be found here. And before I forget, I used TwisterOS and the preinstalled Commander Pi for the OS and overclocking utility. You can get the latest TwisterOS image here. By the way, you might have to manually install the newest version of Commander Pi. The instructions can be found here.
After I had all of the necessary items together, it was finally time to put it all together and crank up that clock speed! First, I formatted the SD card and installed the Twister OS image on it. Next up was putting together the ArgonONE case.
The case was fairly easy to put together. Put the thermal pads onto the designated areas, attach the daughterboard to the Pi, put in a few screws and it’s all done. The daughterboard is a nice feature that puts all of the ports on one side and adds a power button. The aluminium chassis and overall design of the case makes it one big heatsink. Crank up your processor and put your hand on the ArgonONE to see what I mean. The case will be warm to the touch from the Pi heating up. Another nice feature of the Argon is the software you can use to control when the fan fires up.
After everything was all set up and ready to go, it was finally time to crank up the clock speed on the Pi. Before I found the stress test script I did some “normal use” tests where I opened several Chromium tabs, ran some YouTube videos, and fired up Minecraft Pi to see how everything worked.
When I was done with that I cranked the clock up to 2100 MHz and ran the same tests for about ten minutes. When I put my USB stick in to save the log data, the Pi started to act a little wonky, so I dialed it back to 2000MHz. That was before I found the stress test script.
Once I found the script, I put it to use right away. I ran it at 2000MHz and it passed fine. I was willing to let it be at this point, but I slept on it a few days and decided to bump it back up to 2100MHz. I ran it again and it passed. So far I’ve been using it often and haven’t had any issues with the USB stick when I last attached it to the overclocked Pi and the overall stability seems fine so far.
The ArgonONE case did a great job of keeping the case cool. My most recent stress test I did was just over two hours long (Not a few minutes like the article over at PiMyLifeUp claimed). Throughout that test, the Pi never got above 62 degrees C and the average temperature hovered around 57 degrees C. Pretty good performance from the ArgonONE case/fan, I would highly recommend getting one if you plan on overclocking your Pi, or if you just want a cool looking desktop case. They’re around $25 at most retailers online which is a great value for the performance it offers.
Overall, I had a great time overclocking my Pi and TwisterOS makes it so easy with CommanderPi. I’ve already turned up the clock on my Ubuntu Pi (CommanderPi doesn’t work on Ubuntu unfortunately) and plan on overclocking my Pi Model 3s as well! Grab a Pi and try it out!
If you would’ve asked me about 5 years ago whether or not a Chromebook was a good buy, I might’ve laughed and told you to get a Windows machine. That definitely is not the case now, and might not have been the case back then, but after purchasing an HP Chromebook recently and using it for over a month, I can honestly say that a Chromebook is a capable machine that can handle a variety of tasks.
In the past, I contemplated getting a laptop for productivity on the go when I was away from my desktop. I looked at the lower-end laptops that were around $400-$600 and was less than impressed by the reviews and specs. Most had aged hardware that would be obsolete by the time I opened it up, and many reviews made me question the quality of the machines so I put off the idea of getting a laptop for a while.
Now, about ten years in the future, I pulled the trigger on purchasing a Chromebook. I needed something that was in the $400-$600 range, and after doing a bit of research, a Windows machine was off the table. A decent machine capable of running Windows 10 would’ve set me back at least $700-800, and I wasn’t about to extend my budget just to get a Windows compatible machine. Before I made the purchase, I stepped back for a moment and asked myself “What do I need this machine for?” I needed something that I could use to surf the web, check email, watch videos, listen to music, use office apps, edit HTML/CSS/JS, and maybe a few other things here and there. Thankfully, after digging a bit, I found that a Chromebook could do all these things. Email, audio/video, and web surfing just needed a browser and Google Docs is a capable office suite with everything I’d need. All I needed after checking those boxes was an IDE to edit code in. Well, problem solved, because the Linux-based Chromebook can run Linux apps (in beta) or you can even install a desktop environment such as LXDE or Xfce. The Chromebook was it. I made the purchase and waited a whole month for my Chromebook to arrive. It was totally worth the wait.
I set it up, put it in developer mode and installed the Xfce desktop. It was pretty painless to install, but one downside is the ugly screen that appears whenever you restart (this happens when the Chromebook is in Developer Mode). Not a huge deal, but whenever I end up restarting and seeing that screen, I need to remind myself to hit Ctrl+D so I don’t end up hitting the Spacebar and lose everything. Having the ability to switch desktops using a keyboard shortcut was amazing. Most apps ran well on the Xfce desktop, but a couple were kind of glitchy, notably VS Code and Chromium. All of the other apps I tried worked as expected. Geany is my standard IDE when working on Debian-based distros like Raspbian and Ubuntu, so I installed that as well as Sublime and both worked great. I also installed GIMP for editing images and that worked fine as well. The Chromebook was more than enough to suit my needs.
The HP Chromebook 15 I decided on was the basic model without the touchscreen. After reading many articles before my purchase, I wondered if I would regret not getting the touchscreen. Thankfully, I didn’t regret my decision as the touchpad works just as well for me. The touchpad seemed a little touchy at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly. The keyboard is nice, full sized, and backlit. There’s even a number pad. The 15.6 inch screen is very nice, maybe a little dim at times, but still good quality for the price. As for the specs, the model I bought came with a dual-core Pentium Gold running at 2.3 GHz, 4 GB RAM, and 32 GB of storage space that can be expanded with a microSD card. It comes with the standard ports, the aforementioned microSD slot, a USB port, a 3.5mm audio port, and two USB type C ports are available. The webcam worked fine for video conferencing (I tested it out with Google Meet) but it isn’t the best camera for pictures at around 1 MP. The hardware specs don’t seem like much, but I haven’t experienced any lag or slowdown while using it, so far it has been adequate for what I use it for.
Overall, for around $400 the HP Chromebook 15 can’t be beat. It does everything I need without breaking the bank. If you’re on the fence about buying a laptop, or just need a new computer, go for a Chromebook. They’re capable machines that can do quite a bit and the value is second to none.
It’s Friday again, and that means the end of another week. This week I’m feeling like unwinding with another summery drink. Margaritas are always a summer favorite and the Tommy’s Margarita is another twist on the classic recipe.
The Tommy’s Margarita is nearly the same as the classic recipe with the exception of the Triple Sec. Agave nectar replaces it in this recipe, but we’re doing a low-carb version so I substituted sucralose and a little bit of water to replace the agave syrup.
The Agave in the recipe is meant to highlight the flavors of the tequila rather than the citrus flavors of the lime and Triple Sec. The sucralose should add the same sweetness as the agave without detracting from the flavor of the tequila. Let’s get to mixing!
My twist on a Tommy’s Margarita
Juice of one small lime (about 1-1 ½ ounces)
2 oz Tequila (I used Teremana)
1-2 teaspoon sweetener to taste
½ oz water (to make up for lost volume of agave nectar)
2-3 ice cubes
Put the juice, tequila, sweetener and ice in a shaker and shake well for about 10 seconds. Let rest then pour or strain into your drinking vessel of choice. Enjoy!
Why do I like the Raspberry Pi? A couple of my biggest attractions to the Raspberry Pi are its price and small form factor. Why these two attributes? I’ll explain.
Back in the day I used to collect old computer parts to play around with and the collection quickly grew out of hand. Sadly, I had to bring a lot of that hardware to a local electronics recycler. It was just taking up too much space and at the time, I didn’t have a lot of free time to do anything with it. But I still wanted some computers that I could mess around with that I really didn’t need to worry about breaking. I remember a while back hearing about this tiny project computer called the Raspberry Pi. So I bought a Pi 3 and messed around with it, installed Raspbian and RetroPie, played some games, and played around with Raspbian a bit. Later I tried out OSMC and played around with its media center capabilities. I thought it was great to have a little computer for under fifty bucks just to knock around on. It didn’t have a huge footprint and I could have several without worrying about cluttering up the place. Now I have three Pi and plan on getting a fourth to test a case and the overclocking capabilities of a Pi 4.
Now I know today standard PCs come in smaller form factors and there’s something called a NUC that is smaller than the towers of yesteryear, but I still like the Pi to experiment on and just have fun with. It’s a great value for a tiny computer that can do almost anything.
Benny's Bits and Bytes 