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OctoPrint is an excellent piece of software. Out of the box it provides users with a ton of functionality. However, due to its open source nature and its flexibility, many have extended its functionality by creating plugins. With that in mind, let's cover some of the plugins that I feel are the best plugins for the platform.

For those of you looking to up your 3D Printer game, there aren't many upgrades better than adding an OctoPrint to your setup. Like your friend Aladdin, it's a whole new world. To make the experience even better, you can upgrade your OctoPrint with a Hyperpixel4 and subsequently run Octoscreen for the ultimate 3D printing Experience.

I don't know about you, but I tend to work from a number of different computers, most of them Windows. Well, when the time comes that I have to either migrate system settings or configure a new device, Putty settings is always something that seems to get lost in transition. With a little search and destroy, I found a way to easily migrate your Putty Session list for import on another device.

It seems that the weird and strange issues always find their way into my system builds. Recently, a Windows Server build was recognizing my SSD drive as a standard hard disk drive. For some, this may not be an issue as the read/write performance is still there. However, for those that dig a little deeper, Windows will try to use the standard "Optimize" for the drive on a regular basis, something you should not do to an SSD.

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 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?

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.

Recently, I have been experiencing some strange issues with the Thecus W5000 that we had reviewed some time ago. The NAS is fantastic; and what it does, it does well, given the limitations Microsoft has put on the OS. Lately, things have been a little wonky though. The NAS goes offline intermittently, it becomes unresponsive to remote control requests, etc. In an effort to renew my love for the W5000, I decided it would be high-time I started poking around a bit to see if I can uncover the culprit and resolve the issues.