Mining cryptocurrency has become something of water cooler talk at the job, it's what some of us talk about in social circles, and it is the craze that so many of us have been hearing about in the news. There is no doubt who the current cryptocurrency king is, it's Bitcoin, but that doesn't mean there aren't other worthy coins out there. There are the likes of Dash, Etherium, Litecoin, Zcash, and many more, but for me... it's Monero.

For geeks like me, having a server rack in your basement is just about one of the coolest things you can have. In our last server build, we went the rackmount way, leaving the full towers far behind. This route just gave us more from the platform. With that though, having a rackmount server sitting on a table in the middle of the living room or basement isn't the best, nor the brightest idea. However, most server racks are just too big to be useful in a home and building one takes a lot of effort. Enter the Norco C-24U cabinet.

There had been a long period where I was looking at making everything small. NAS were the primary means of storage, and miniITX platforms had started to make themselves available throughout my home. Unfortunately, I started to realize that instead of a small number of small systems in and around my home, I had a large number of small systems. That includes NAS and storage devices as well as playback devices. With that, I instead started on a journey to build a single big storage platform. When SilverStone caught wind of this, they thought they had the perfect case for my big storage needs. Enter the RM420.

There are a lot of things Windows Server does well. However, coming off of the NAS environment, there are a lot of things that it doesn't. One of these is a simple method for web access to various files and folders, along with the ability to share them via user login or simple url. Until recently, there had been only one real player in this space, OwnCloud. I had fiddled with the product for some time, but features were slow to show and it just didn't work the way I had been hoping it would.

Having my latest server build running on the Windows Server platform, there are a number of things that I have found to become a bit more difficult than I am used to. Not only have I switched to Windows as the platform, I am using Storage Spaces. This in itself is a departure from my comfort zone and has presented some scenarios that I wasn't quite prepared for. Like trying to remove a disk that Windows, for some reason, wants to keep.

It comes as no surprise to my friends and family that the time has come for me to set aside some of my storage devices and server builds of the past for something bigger and better in 2017. Over the years, we have embarked on a couple of projects related to building a NAS and piecing together a 40TB server using parts left over. This year, I have decided that I would go a few steps further...I decided that this build would last more than just a year. With that said, I started to scour the web for components and started planning the next CODServer, but why?

NAS are evolving faster than many segments of the computing world. Today, there are more NAS makers than you can shake a stick at, and all of them are on a mission to produce a product that will find its home in yours. asustor is no stranger to the market, and they have been quietly making some of the best NAS available today. While doing so, they have been keeping the costs down, the features rich, and the evolution moving forward. Recently, ASUSTOR launched their AS3102T 2-bay NAS with 4K capabilities and a Celeron processor, but will it be enough to capture our attention and deliver results that you, the consumer, are looking for?

Face it; we all love gadgets. I love them more than most. I have been running a lot lately, training, competing, etc. While running with my phone is an option for training; running long distances with my phone isn't. Additionally, running through the muck and mud with a phone strapped to you is just asking for trouble. I set out on a path to find the OCRADDICT's dream companion, a GPS training watch that can handle all the things we throw at it... and more. That means it needs to be durable, waterproof, include GPS (duh), and provide the functionality to track and improve my training.

Let’s face it, we love showing the world what we have or have accomplished.  For those of you that own a GoPro, this task has become much easier to accomplish than others fumbling about with their camera phones while trying to find the finish line, navigate an obstacle, or flying down a mountain with fiberglass strapped to your feet.  While wearing a GoPro, …

If you didn't know, not only am I an OCRADDICT, but I am a geek as well (really kind of an Uber Geek). Having said that, I look for metrics and analytics on just about everything I do and work with. While training for the next event, many of us are looking for a way to tack our activity and improve our training but don't have an unlimited budget for things like GPS watches and dedicated activity trackers. Although those gadgets are great training tools, many of us don't need look much farther than our cell phones. Enter MapMyRun.