Ezra Codes

Yesterday as I was about to start writing a blog post, I went to my blog (EzraHarris.com), but instead of sending me to my blog site, it redirected me to our local wifi router admin page. I was very confused because usually, to access the Router site, it would be something like 192.168.1.1 or routerlogin.com. So I tested to see if the same thing happened on another computer, it didn't.

 I had suspected it might have been because I had opened a server on my computer, and maybe I messed up the DNS on the domain, so when I try to connect to it, it sends me to the IP I put in the DNS record. So I went to Godaddy (where we manage our domains) and looked at the DNS records, and I realized that I had incorrectly created an A record that went to EzraHarris.com overlapped the previous A record that I made for my blog. The reason it redirected to my router page is that the IP address I had entered actually redirected to the router page (when in the browser) 

For a while now, I have been hosting a Minecraft Survival server with one of my friends. I used a program called multicraft to help manage my server. I was using a server jar called Spigot, and recently I had heard of another fork of spigot called Papermc. Most servers actually run Paper because it helps with a lot of bugs in normal Vanilla Minecraft Servers. For example, there are some exploits in the game, such as breaking a certain block that you're usually not supposed to break, but paper has built-in features that help prevent it.

One other thing is that the server startups are faster by about twenty seconds than when I had spigot installed. I have yet to see any faults in the PaperMC, but it is a better choice than Spigot, as far as I can see.

(to note is that PaperMC is a fork of Spigot, mainly made by the same developers who made Spigot.)

Recently Raspberry Pi launched a new product called the Raspberry Pi Pico. What's different about this Raspberry Pi is this it is a microcontroller. A microcontroller performs the commands you tell it to do, for example, you can use it with making lights or smart home or similar things, using the programming language called CircuitPython. ItIs not the same as a computer which is what most of the other Raspberry Pi's are. The Pico is basically the same as a mini Arduino. 

The day it came out, my brother (Nicholas) purchased 3 of them because they were only $5 apiece! So yesterday I got to try them out with my brother. The problem with new products is that there is very little support online about using and controlling them other than the basics of setting it up. My brother bought the Picos because he wanted to make a speedometer for his motorcycle using a magnet sensor on the wheel and a LED Bi-color 24 graph for the display of the speed (I may do a blog post in the future about it.)  We had a lot of trouble trying to get a 24 Graph bi-color led controller to work with the Pico because this item is so new there was almost no help with getting it to work. But after a few hours, we got it to work and using a breadboard, wires, and the Pico. The code we used to program the Pico is CurcuitPython.

So about a week ago my Mom bought a new computer for the business work because the old one she had been using for a while was starting to slow down. It had several problems with it, like the keys were sticking and the battery wasn't working anymore, so it would only work when it was plugged directly into the wall at all times. And when it boots up, it had to take about 15 minutes to load the sign-in screen.

She bought a new one on eBay, this one was priced around $1,200, which is probably the average price for this kind of computer (specs below) So yesterday it arrived, and I got to set it up. 

When I was setting it up, I know that my Mother wants a feature that dropbox has. When dropbox installs, you can choose two options 1: "Online Files (Recommended)" or 2: "Local Files." Local files mean that dropbox will integrate your dropbox into your files. For example, if you save a PDF, you choose which folder you would want to save. When you save the file to the dropbox folder, it uploads that file to the cloud and saves it onto your computer. Or you could choose the "Online," which is where you have to go to the website to view files and upload them there. Although when I was setting this up, it took about 4 hours for all of the files to sync with the laptop. While I was waiting for Dropbox to finish syncing, I installed the usual apps she uses, for example, Zoom, Camtasia, Microsoft Office 365, etc. So far, the laptop has not had many issues with running anything. 

Here are the specifications of her new HP Envy 2020 laptop:

• Ryzen 5 4500U 
• 32GB of RAM
• 2 TB SSD

About a week ago, I had ordered a new desktop computer, I had ordered all of the parts using PCPartPicker.com, and my brother Nicholas had picked out the parts. My current computer setup is a 5-year-old laptop with a gaming keyboard and mouse plugged in with ethernet also hooked up (Learn More), with ubuntu 20.0.4 LTS installed as the OS. I have had other computers over time, but most were old iMacs or old laptops that were too slow to use as my main computer. But my current computer is getting pretty old and cannot run some key features, so my brother helped pick out parts for a desktop. This is not going to be a pre-built desktop as most would buy. But this is going to come in with all of the parts picked by my brother. Unfourtantly this means it won't arrive with Windows 10 pre-installed, as is usually the case with most prebuilt computers. But I do have some options: I can either buy windows 10, or I can install it for free, but it won't be activated, meaning it won't have some of the features of windows 10. I may install Ubuntu, but windows do have some features that Ubuntu does not have. Here are the specs for the computer: