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Build Log: Miter Saw Station (Mk II)
I built a pretty basic miter saw station at the last house. Revisiting this a few years later, I set out to rebuild the miter station as I had originally hoped. Check out this build diary to see this build come together.
Guide: Video Encoding, Part 2 - Deep Dive
In the previous post, we laid the groundwork for how the encoding process comes together, This week we'll put all of that to use and dive into which codec and configuration might be best for long term archival. H264? H265? AV1? GPU? CPU? What settings?
Guide: Video Encoding, Part 1 - The Basics
Every year, new cameras and phones come out, all promising to make it easier to capture sharper, brighter - better video. By far and large, manufacturers have delivered on this promise to make it easier to capture high quality video - anyone can pull out a smartphone and start rolling 4K footage. The downside is that all of this incredible footage has to go somewhere! This post lays the groundwork around video encoding before I can talk about ways to make your limited storage space go further.
Meatballs with Coconut-Lemongrass Sauce
If you like your meatballs on the softer side, these meatballs are perfect for you. After the initial sear, these are effectively steamed in broth and all of this is served on a bed of rice making for an easy, filling meal.
Salmon en Croute
Delicious, healthy, filling and most importantly, deceptively easy to pull off, the salmon en croute is sure to wow your taste buds without working up a sweat.
Fixing the Problem with Recipes
Ever get annoyed at how recipes in cookbooks or on blogs can't just give you the recipe without first making you trudge through paragraphs of boring drivel? Or how you constantly have to scroll back and forth between the instructions and the ingredients list? This irks me enough I want to make a better template to start from.
Weekend Getaway to San Francisco
I took a 4000-km weekend getaway to San Francisco to get engaged. I rented a camera and a couple of lenses and we took some photos while we were there.
Build Log: Convertible Picnic Table
When we moved from our previous place, we were unable to take the picnic table I had built with us. This time around, I'm going to make a picnic table that can easily convert to a pair of seated benches. Check out this build diary to see how this went down.
Guide: Getting Better Video Calls
Building Skype Station was the easy part - getting value out of the equipment takes a bit more trial and error. In this post, I talk about three common mistakes holding your video call or streaming setup back.
Build Log: Skype Station
Like many people working remotely, my wife needed to be able to have video calls. We settled on using a part of a spare room to be converted into a dedicated video-call space. In this build log, I focus a bit more on the equipment that make this a possibility.
Build Log: Mini Network Rack
With the wall-desk builds out of the way, the next step is to wrangle all of the network equipment into a rack and get the cables tidied up. Compared to the desk-builds, this project was a walk in the park.
PC Specs: Siren
The second wall-desk that I built for my wife's station came together much more easily than the first. This was partly due to lessoned learned during the first build still fresh in my mind but also because the docking requirements were much simpler. In this post, we'll take a look at this PC which happens to be my previous computer.
Build Log: Wall-Desk for Nicole
After building a custom wall-desk for myself, my wife wanted one too. Luckily, this was always part of the plan and the two wall-desks were meant to be built as a pair. Drawing on fresh experience and fewer docking requirements, this second wall-desk came together much more easily.
PC Specs: Fury
In my previous post, I documented the undertaking of building a Wall-Desk to act as a giant docking station for my PC. In this post, we'll take a look into the PC that inspired that amount of effort
Build Log: Wall-Desk Mk I
Laptops have docking stations allowing them to connect to permanently available infrastructure (monitors, speakers and the like) -- why not desktops? For a few years now I've considered the idea of building a custom wall or desk where I could 'dock' a PC tower. In this build log, I tackle my most-involved project ever, turning my desk into a docking station.