Welcome to Ember Networks, my online blog on technology, the world, and life in general. We all take on a lot of different roles throughout our lives and have to learn to navigate the world. Our parents, siblings, friends, schoolmates, teachers, and co-workers have always provided us with plenty of bits of input throughout history. …
It has been 25 years since an event of significant magnitude shook the world. 25 years since 8:46AM, September 11, 2001. And for any of us that were old enough to have been watching any of the news that day or were anywhere near the site, it is almost certain to be a memory that …
The Initial Challenge A long time ago, I set up a home media system that includes a TV antenna and a couple of network-connected digital tuner boxes. I integrated this into my Plex and Emby setups so that within those systems I could access live programming and record it. I started with just Plex and …
What’s a DTC? If you’ve ever owned a car, driven a car, or have been around people that have owned or driven them, you have probably heard of the Malfunction Indicator Lamp (MIL, also known better as the Check Engine Light or CEL) and Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC, or sometimes just “code”). What are these …
NAS Is Everywhere! It seems like, everywhere I turn, I’m reading about how people need a NAS and why it’s so important. Many companies sell enclosures with their own software: QNAP, Synology, and Asustor are just a few names you may come acrcoss. Open Source software like FreeNAS, UnRAID, NAS4Free, or Open Media Vault can …
A short while back, I wrote a number of posts that were focused on getting control of your personal finances. In one of those posts, I described the idea of spending money as a way to save money. Think of this post as a real-world follow-up to that with a concrete, simple example. Spending to …
Up-level your virtual meeting skills!
It has been just over a year since the world I knew was turned on its head and seemingly changed forever. Vaccines have been developed and rolled out with a large majority of the population of the US at least being eligible to receive them, retail has largely been able to operate through most of …
Bitlocker has its benefits and its issues. This write-up covers the specific problems I encountered when attempting to encrypt a virtual hard drive of a Windows 10 guest on XenServer. What is Bitlocker? Bitlocker is a built-in full drive encryption utility that is part of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It affords you the ability …
Up to this point, everything has been focused directly on reducing spending and saving money. In this article, we’ll look at things from the other side and explore how spending money can save money. Cooking Are you cooking and eating at home more? Great! One of the best ways to keep this going is to …
Welcome to the next step in improving your financial health – learning the art of saving up before you make a purchase! WARNING: There are some very direct statements in this article that may offend some. They are honest and direct, though. The more offended you get, the more you may need to keep reading. …