Tactical-Tech

Tactical-Tech: Tech-Notes

Online Suppliers

07 December 2012

Nothing brings a wider smile to a child's face than waking up on Christmas morning to a stocking full of VGA cables, 66 punch down blades, and BNC adapters! OK, maybe not. But, just in time for the Christmas shopping season, I have compiled a list of my top suppliers that I use to get the best prices on cables, tools and general computer accessories. These are the first websites that I go to when resupplying my shop or procuring equipment for a project. Most of these just give you the best prices on common cables. Honestly, that gold plated "Extreme" resolution coaxial cable that cost $40 at radio shack is going to give you the same quality picture as one that cost $2.50 online. Others just provide specialized products that aren't always easy to find online.

So, when you finally get that Google TV box that you've always wanted since a couple weeks ago, and you realize that you need an HDMI to RCA adapter with a 6 ft component cable to reach the back of your CRT Magnavox, you'll be equipped with the best and cheapest resources on the web.

Fried Turkey How-to and AAR

24 November 2012

Fried turkey taste like bacon flavored turkey. No kidding, once you've tasted fried turkey, you'll probably never care to eat a baked turkey again. This is my second year frying a turkey. Most of what I learned last year I forgot this year, and to make matters worse, I lost the instruction manual for my turkey fryer. However, these notes and AARs will likely help me remember what I need to do to make a fried turkey for next year and improve on the process. I decided to post so you (the reader) can have a consolidated fried turkey how to.

Microsoft Excel Basics

22 November 2012

I first started out in IT as a platoon RTO. Part of the job involved doing the PSG admin work; rosters, statistics, maintaining the weapons MAL, etc. The vast majority of the work was done using Excel, which, at the time, I knew next to nothing about. Work that now takes me a couple minutes would take me about an hour because I didn't know anything about functions. This video contains all the stuff that I know now that I wish I knew back then.

It will cover formatting a spread sheet, several functions (which I unwittingly refer to as "equations") and touches on pivot tables and charts.

Turn a Life-Gear Glow Light White!

18 November 2012

Problem: Ever tell a new guy to go to the COMMO shop and get some chem light batteries? Ask them now, they'll likely come back with some minicell batteries, which is what powers Life+Gear's Glow Light. The Glow Light is essentially a battery operated chem light and it makes a great light weight light to run with when it's still dark outside. Problem is they don't make white lights which happens to be the only type of Glow Light my unit allows us to run with.

Solution: Each light, regardless of color, has a white light in the flash light end. So buy one in your favorite color (they don't make them in multicam unfortunately), unscrew the glow end, take out the light module, flip it around and put it back in. Easy day and now you'll have a white glow light that you can run with.

Logon Scripting 101

17 November 2012

Download the class here

A logon script is a script that runs as soon as a user logs on to their computer. You can use it for a wide variety of tasks, but I primarily use it to map the user's networked drives, printers, and a couple other tasks to keep the user from asking their help desk tech to do it for them. Logon scripts can get fairly elaborate depending on how much you want to automate, but with this attached power point (meant to be used for teaching a class), we concentrated on the basics. This class is also good for those wanting to learn the basics of VBScript and batch files. All text in green is operational code that can be copied into notepad, saved as a .VBS or .BAT file and used to for testing.