Search found 1160 matches

by Quickfoot
Sat Sep 14, 2019 10:48 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: BMW - extended warranty?
Replies: 28
Views: 2749

Re: BMW - extended warranty?

It's VERY uncommon to have the amount of warranty work done on a vehicle, the main problem with modern vehicles is actually the infotainment system. If you are having 10K of warranty work done on a vehicle at 90K miles that's a huge indicator of very poor quality with the vehicle.

In the early 2000's average vehicle longevity reached 200K miles. Today even budget sedans should on average get 200 to 250K+ useful miles out of them and trucks are closer to 250 - 300k+. There are certain brands such as Dodge / Jeep that have very poor reliability but even they shouldn't be having that type of problem at 90K miles.
by Quickfoot
Sat Sep 14, 2019 9:23 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: BMW - extended warranty?
Replies: 28
Views: 2749

Re: BMW - extended warranty?

The problem with CPO warranties is the odds of using a CPO warranty is almost zero. I bought a CPO 5 series and purchased the warranty, cancelled it two months later and got a refund on the warranty. The problem with extended car warranties is anything major that's going to fail will do so under factory warranty, once you are out of factory and under extended warranty you don't have enough time for major components to fail before the extended warranty is expired. The days of major problems at 100K miles are long behind us, 100K is just breaking a modern car in. This is also why a LOT of car manufacturers offer 100K powertrain warranties, Ford expects the Focus to go 250K miles without a major power train problem. They can offer 100K warrant...
by Quickfoot
Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:05 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: BMW - extended warranty?
Replies: 28
Views: 2749

Re: BMW - extended warranty?

The problem is that’s a sample of one where you happened to get “lucky” and recover your premium. No modern car engine should need replacement under 200k, BMW has higher than average reliability. Extended warranties almost never pay out and when they do you almost never recover your premium.
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:21 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Laptop for aging parents
Replies: 43
Views: 3565

Re: Laptop for aging parents

I would absolutely not recommend an Apple laptop. They used to be king for quality but they lost that status about 4 years ago. Apple laptops have had persistent quality issues as a result of their design for the past 4 to 5 years. Apple has denied there are problems, refused to do repairs under warranty and there are several class action lawsuits against them. Apple now places 4th to 5th for quality but charges two to three times more. IPhones are a good value, their laptops are not.

For the general population that’s mostly going to use it to consume websites you cannot do better than a chromebook. They are stable, secure and perform better than laptops twice or three times their price.
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:19 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Laptop for aging parents
Replies: 43
Views: 3565

Re: Laptop for aging parents

I would also suggest a chrome book. The amount of transfer is determined by how much they use it and what content they consume. The right question is “is 5 to 10 gb enough for the way they will use it?” If they are just going to browse web pages then yes. If they are going to stream video for hours at a time probably not.
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 8:14 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: How old is your cellphone?
Replies: 168
Views: 13356

Re: How old is your cellphone?

It’s about 6 months old, iPhone XS. I got the xs because it has an extremely good LTE modem that’s better than the XR and I hotspot you my laptop a lot. We will be passing on the iPhone 11 but I will likely get the 12 due to redesign and 5G.
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:25 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Mortgage refi - pull cash out?
Replies: 25
Views: 2315

Re: Mortgage refi - pull cash out?

Pulling cash out to invest isn't a horrible idea as long as you can carry the mortgage in the case of job loss and recession. Where I have a problem with people pulling cash out is when it's to buy something they couldn't otherwise afford, my brother in law pulled cash out to buy a truck he wanted but couldn't afford. For most people paying off their house is a poor investment. Historically houses provide ~ 4.5% annual growth which can be as low as a 1.5% real return. Having a paid off house is a lot of net worth earning very little to no return. With dollar discounting and inflation mortgages today are just not that expensive to carry. I tell people it may make sense from a peace of mind aspect to pay off a house but if you have an interes...
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 12:21 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Home upgrade question
Replies: 19
Views: 2394

Re: Home upgrade question

In our area it's actually not legal, finished basement does not add to the square footage of the house. There is a separate field that tracks unfinished / finished basement square footage but finished basement is treated as a lower class of square footage. Finished basement can increase the value of the property but not at the same rate as traditional square footage (it's about 1/2).
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:22 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Credit Score Jump With Student Loan Refinancing
Replies: 4
Views: 687

Re: Credit Score Jump With Student Loan Refinancing

Take a look at what impacts a FICO score at https://blog.myfico.com/5-factors-determine-fico-score/ Your score likely will drop back to what it was and possibly even a few points lower. #1 The new lender does a hard pull of your credit, hard pulls can account for 10% of your FICO, how much a single pull impacts your credit will depend on how many hard pulls you've had over the past 2 years. Unless you've had a lot of pulls it should just be 3-4 points. #2 The new account might lower your average age of accounts, also a large factor in FICO #3 The balance of the new loan will be high compared to borrowed amount, this affects your score even with installment loans #4 The increase in debt My credit score didn’t go down when I got a mortgage. G...
by Quickfoot
Fri Sep 13, 2019 11:12 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Home upgrade question
Replies: 19
Views: 2394

Re: Home upgrade question

Forever houses are very rarely forever. If you do the work make sure you keep your receipts and related documentation, work like this increases the cost basis of your house which minimizes capital gains in the case of appreciation > 500K. Seems crazy but our house will appreciate 500K in less than 8 years because of the region we live in (not CA).
by Quickfoot
Mon Sep 09, 2019 4:54 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: I'm gonna need a bigger TV...
Replies: 36
Views: 5372

Re: I'm gonna need a bigger TV...

Don't worry about an extended warranty on a TV, electronics that are going to fail typically fail within the first 90 days. The repair rate on electronics past a year is almost zero so 2 and 4 year warranties really don't matter.

You do not need a $2,500 tv to watch sports, any modern 4K TV from any major brand will have a perfectly fine refresh rate, there just isn't a huge difference on panels anymore. Samsung makes good panels, Best Buy's store brand TVs are also really good.

Samsung smart TV are exceptional, responsive with good features and the new ones have an Apple TV app.
by Quickfoot
Mon Jul 22, 2019 2:13 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Enhanced Multi-factor authentication for Vanguard
Replies: 9
Views: 1798

Enhanced Multi-factor authentication for Vanguard

Mulfi-factor authentication has come up a few times regarding Vanguard, their default implementation is a text messaged based authentication which is better than no MFA but has several areas of attack, most notably it isn't terribly hard to get a cell phone provider to active a new SIM and hijack a number.

Vanguard also supports hardware key based multi factor authentication, specifically the Yubikey 4 and 5. I have the Yubikey 5 setup on my account and it works great. With Yubikey you want to make sure you get TWO keys so if one is lost, damaged or stolen you can still login and remove the other Yubikey.

Vanguard's guide for setting up a security key is at https://investor.vanguard.com/security/security-keys
by Quickfoot
Thu Jun 27, 2019 10:14 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Fuel type for 2 month car storage
Replies: 36
Views: 2895

Re: Fuel type for 2 month car storage

Chevron puts a fuel stabilizer in their gas already which allows it to be stored for up to a year. Cheap gas doesn’t have fuel stabilizers added. For 60 days it shouldn’t matter for much longer than that you want a stabilizer to prevent fuel breakdown, this breakdown will happen whether or not it has ethanol.
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:53 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?
Replies: 60
Views: 7599

Re: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?

The default magnetic mount does use a screw, you probably could improvise an adhesive mount rather than using a screw. Thread on adhesive mounting of Arlo cameras: https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo/What ... /td-p/7198

Depending on climate you can use 3M Commander tape, it isn't super good in hot climates.

The most secure mounts will involve screws.
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:32 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?
Replies: 60
Views: 7599

Re: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?

Arlo Pro cameras store to the cloud and will also write to local storage. If someone is cutting your power or jamming wifi you have much larger problems than your cameras and keeping them online with local storage isn't going to help you. I'd actually prefer the video go to the cloud, it prevents them from stealing the local storage and destroying the video evidence. If you want to maximize reliability of wifi cameras you can put your wifi router / modem on a UPS and use cameras with battery or put the A/C outlets on UPS as well. It's reasonable to put the router / modem on UPS but I wouldn't worry about putting the outlets on UPS.
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:23 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: 50 or 75 gallon water heater?
Replies: 67
Views: 15031

Re: 50 or 75 gallon water heater?

Also you don't need to choose between thankless and a tank water heater, you can get a water heater booster which is a small on demand water heater that is installed on the out valve of your water heater, when it detects that your water temperature drops below a threshold it will kick in and give a boost to your water heater. Hot water boosters can increase available hot water by ~ 50% so using it with a 50 gallon heater gives you 75+ gallons of available hot water at a much more consistent temperature and lower operating costs than a 75 gallon heater.

https://www.rheem.com/innovations/innov ... r-booster/
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:20 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: 50 or 75 gallon water heater?
Replies: 67
Views: 15031

Re: 50 or 75 gallon water heater?

In addition to larger tanks you can also run the heater at a higher temperature, that results in using less hot water because you don't need as much of it to get the desired temperature. Do be careful because too high will produce scalding water on the hot setting.

Like a previous poster said a 50 gallon water heater does not support 25 minutes of hot water at 2 gallons per minute, the reason for that is as soon as hot water starts coming out of the water heater cold water starts going in, that lowers the temperature of the water so you effectively have less than 50 gallons of hot water. A high recovery rate helps but you still will run out of hot water in less than 50 gallons.
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:52 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Purchasing home with less than 20% downpayment experiences?
Replies: 59
Views: 6004

Re: Purchasing home with less than 20% downpayment experiences?

I was wondering, for those of you who purchased a home with less than a 20% downpayment, what was your experience like? Did the costs end up being higher than you anticipated? Were there hidden issues that you did not foresee?? Were your rates higher as a result? And would you recommend it? I am considering purchasing a home for less than a 20% downpayment, but I want to know people's thoughts on it before further considering it. Look at credit unions. We did a 400K loan with 8% down, local credit union loan that they do not sell and they offered much lower PMI rates, we got 3.99% with 4.05% APR on a 30 year term. PMI is less than half the normal rate. Be aware of what your options are to drop PMI, houses are still expected to appreciate p...
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:50 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Investments for Children - equity percentage
Replies: 11
Views: 728

Re: Investments for Children - equity percentage

I did 80% equity, 20% fixed income, I actually reviewed performance at least once a month, more when there was volatility. I WANTED volatility to help my children become comfortable with normal asset valuation changes.
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:43 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?
Replies: 60
Views: 7599

Re: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?

Another thing to consider is wifi coverage, a single wifi router is unlikely to provide strong enough through wall signal for a large house. My house is 3000 sqft and I use a 3 node Velop mesh wifi network, excellent in house signal but well insulated exterior walls drastically cut down wifi strength. If I were NOT using mesh I would not be able to use wifi cameras. You may also need to use a wifi extender if you have a particularly far camera, I put one on an exterior wall to push the signal through the wall most efficiently.
by Quickfoot
Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:17 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?
Replies: 60
Views: 7599

Re: Anyone buy Security Cams from Costco?

I have 5 Nest exterior cameras installed at my house, they are outstanding cameras but require power, the benefit is they record 24x7 not just when they detect motion. I've also used Arlo Pro cameras they are very good but don't record unless they detect motion UNLESS they are connected to power. I've used them with the Arlo solar panel which works well to keep batteries charged, the cameras discharge down to ~ 94% charged in heavy motion areas and back up to 100% by end of day.
by Quickfoot
Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:37 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Costco Visa credit limit
Replies: 48
Views: 9121

Re: Costco Visa credit limit

I have both those cards and ~ 10K limits on each, which is significantly lower than most my other cards (Chase gave me >30K on both Marriott and Hyatt). There must be something else going on, if you are wanting higher limits maybe look at cards from other companies.
by Quickfoot
Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:56 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Where do I buy term life insurance? What are the best companies?
Replies: 14
Views: 4633

Re: Where do I buy term life insurance? What are the best companies?

I've used ReliaQuote to buy 3 policies; it lets you adjust coverage and terms and see the resulting premium for multiple companies in real time.
by Quickfoot
Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:42 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: You May Never See Your Grandchildren Again
Replies: 83
Views: 16685

Re: You May Never See Your Grandchildren Again

Fear is an extremely effective short term motivator; unfortunately it tends to be used to manipulate people into making poor choices. This is one of my worst fears for my wife if I pass before her. Think I’ll leave instructions for our investments and point her in the direction of this forum. I'm 38 and have an end of life document complete with investment instructions for my wife (along with the password to my LastPass). I just told her to put life insurance proceeds in Vanguard's tax managed balanced fund and take out up to 5% per year on my birthday, tax deferred goes into Wellington. I don't like the 4% + inflation model, too risky and I'd rather let amounts float and returns self adjust for inflation. Neither of my parents hit 40, both...
by Quickfoot
Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:37 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: How long have you been unemployed?
Replies: 97
Views: 14108

Re: How long have you been unemployed?

38, I work in information technology (20 years now) and I've been laid off twice but never missed a day of work. Both times I was laid off another team heard I was available and created positions to hire me.
by Quickfoot
Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:12 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Do you regret taking a pay cut for quality of life?
Replies: 68
Views: 15318

Re: Do you regret taking a pay cut for quality of life?

One thing to consider is if you move to a lower cost of living area you can take a pay cut on paper and maintain effectively the same quality of life or sometimes even increase it. Many people that live in HCOL areas like the bay area, LA or NY believe they can't leave those areas but they can. Decreasing commute is also important, people with > 40 minute commute have significantly higher divorce rates and mental health problems. The unfortunate thing is the lack of money can make you unhappy but once basic needs are met increasing money doesn't significantly increase happiness. Below ~ 50K a year increasing money does have a direct effect on increasing happiness because stress is reduced, after around 50K the effect rapidly decreases and r...
by Quickfoot
Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:02 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: What to do with old unused laptops?
Replies: 17
Views: 2334

Re: What to do with old unused laptops?

There are also organizations that will take older but not broken computers and repair them and then donate them to families in need. They tend to be local organizations. BestBuy / Staples and other companies usually have "recycling" programs as well. There have been numerous reports that recycling is basically a fraud, most often it winds up getting dumped in the landfill. Smash the hard drive with a hammer. Then throw them away. You know 'recycling' means they get shipped to China or India where little children melt the precious metals from the motherboards in their kitchens? (Not joking - I'd post pictures but I'd probably get banned...) There are actually domestic companies that recover electronics from domestic landfills now a...
by Quickfoot
Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:42 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Do you regret taking a pay cut for quality of life?
Replies: 68
Views: 15318

Re: Do you regret taking a pay cut for quality of life?

runner3081 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 11:38 pm
Quickfoot wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 11:15 pm Quality of life is important, money won’t make you happy. You cannot be miserable at work and happy at home.
Maybe, maybe not.

Work is trading time for money. I am okay with that. Doesn't impact home/family life.
Yes working is necessary, but being unhappy or miserable at work has a profound effect on human life, from quality of relationships to lifespan.

The idea that work doesn't impact family life and that family life doesn't impact work has been firmly disproven, this is why employers offer Employee Assistance Plans. It simply isn't possible to be unhappy in one major area of your life and be happy in others.

Improving quality of life at work has a corresponding effect on both longevity and life happiness.
by Quickfoot
Sat Jun 01, 2019 11:15 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Do you regret taking a pay cut for quality of life?
Replies: 68
Views: 15318

Re: Do you regret taking a pay cut for quality of life?

Quality of life is important, money won’t make you happy. You cannot be miserable at work and happy at home. Ten years ago I took a 20% pay cut going from a very large megacorp that could best be described as dysfunctional and borderline abusive to employees to a non profit that truly valued its employees. I don’t work for the non profit anymore but it changed what I look for in a company. Now I make significantly more money than I did at the megacorp and work for an amazing company.
by Quickfoot
Fri May 31, 2019 11:31 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Getting out of timeshare
Replies: 13
Views: 3247

Re: Getting out of timeshare

My grandmother just got out of a timeshare with deed in lieu of foreclosure. In her case she hadn’t been able to pay the yearly membership for a number of years. Your options typically are to sell it to someone (this can take take a long time), pay fees to get out or let them get close to foreclosure which Is stressful, harms credit and not a great way to go.

If the fee is really as low as you say I’d just pay it and be done with it.
by Quickfoot
Fri May 31, 2019 11:01 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: How to save on prescription drug costs?
Replies: 60
Views: 6328

Re: How to save on prescription drug costs?

treadingwater wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 7:42 am Ask your pharmacist if the prescribed med has a similar generic drug that has a mechanism of action like the brand name drug with similar effectiveness. Ask your Dr to change the order to that generic.
You can go beyond generic and ask for different medications. Most insurance plans have websites or apps that will tell you how much the prescription will be through their coverage, you can also use the goodrx app and your plan's formulary at your appointment to ask the doctor prescribe a medication that is the lowest cost. In our case we had to go from a time release formulation to a twice a day formulation but it dropped the cost from $200 a month to $15.
by Quickfoot
Tue May 28, 2019 1:50 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: House not selling
Replies: 138
Views: 14215

Re: House not selling

You will be better off taking it off the market for a couple weeks and relisting. That will get you the initial burst of people seeing the property again and allow you to avoid a long price cut history which indicates a seller under pressure. A lot of people get automatic email alerts when matching properties are listed.
by Quickfoot
Mon May 27, 2019 5:23 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Using blacklight for cleaning
Replies: 13
Views: 1716

Re: Using blacklight for cleaning

Blacklight seems like a solution in search of a problem. There has been a trend over the past 15 years or so for people to try to live in microbe free homes; this isn't healthy. Use quality cleaners and clean on a frequent enough schedule and you should be fine. If you can't see it, feel it or smell it then you are probably fine. DO use proper disinfects in the kitchen and bathrooms, note that to kill some bacteria you will need to let the cleaning / disinfecting agent stand on the surface for a period of time, if you spray it on and immediately wipe it off you have NOT disinfected the surface. Cleaners have instructions on the label for how long they need to remain on the surface to disinfect. Disinfect sinks and counters and anything that...
by Quickfoot
Mon May 27, 2019 1:48 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Anyone have success getting their company to amend its 401k plan?
Replies: 8
Views: 767

Re: Anyone have success getting their company to amend its 401k plan?

I was actually able to get my last company to make Vanguard funds available in our 401k and then also to move our entire plan to Vanguard and get access to institutional funds.

Any time you are talking to management you need to help explain why it is important to the company, how it helps reduce risk and how it can help them attract and retain talent. Unless it's an extremely simple and cheap change they are not going to make a change because you want them to if it will primarily benefit you with little or no benefit to the company.
by Quickfoot
Sun May 26, 2019 2:39 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Extended auto warranty - who to buy from, if you want to
Replies: 40
Views: 3714

Re: Extended auto warranty - who to buy from, if you want to

The problem is with modern automobiles the power train is extremely unlikely to have any major problems during the term of either the factory or an extended warranty. Modern cars can easily do 200K miles, trucks last longer and can do 250K+ miles before having major power train problems. If there ARE major power train problems they are likely to surface quickly during the original manufacturer's warranty. Extended warranties on automobiles and electronics are cash cows, they have extremely low payout rates and even where there are payouts people usually don't receive enough benefit to repay them the premium. Of course dealers will do everything they can to scare you into buying an extended warranty, they will even tell you how much warranty...
by Quickfoot
Sun May 26, 2019 1:48 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Extended auto warranty - who to buy from, if you want to
Replies: 40
Views: 3714

Re: Extended auto warranty - who to buy from, if you want to

The only extra offer that's really worth it is GAP insurance, it is already included in leases but is not included in purchased vehicles. It is especially important to get GAP insurance if you are buying a new car because you will have negative equity as soon as you close or a used one and will have negative equity due to your trade in. If you are buying a new car and want an extended warranty get mechanical breakdown insurance through your insurance company, Geico is one company that offers it. It is much cheaper than buying an extended warranty through the dealer. When you buy extended warranties at the dealer 99% of the time you are purchasing it from a third party company, not the manufacturer. They do pay out but they are almost never ...
by Quickfoot
Thu May 23, 2019 9:41 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Is the housing market starting to collapse?
Replies: 122
Views: 15494

Re: Is the housing market starting to collapse?

It's more than likely not going to collapse, it will likely gradually slow until inflation makes prices more reasonable. Very unlikely we will see anything like the 2008 collapse again in our lifetimes. Sales are down but so is inventory and starts in most places, makes sense sales would be down when there's little to buy. Values have increased sharply but they've really just recovered from a decade of little to no growth and wound up where they would have been if 2008 hadn't happened.
by Quickfoot
Wed May 22, 2019 8:52 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Another Honda maintenance thread
Replies: 44
Views: 5036

Re: Another Honda maintenance thread

Dealers make most their money in service, with modern fluids you do NOT need to change them more frequently than manufacturer recommendation. People that change transmission fluid every 15-20K miles aren't necessarily hurting anything but they aren't helping anything either. Car maintenance has essentially become superstition with a LOT of wasted money on "preventative" services that have no value.

If you are worried about the maintenance being off just make a note when you should get the transmission serviced and take it in at the appropriate time.
by Quickfoot
Tue May 21, 2019 11:17 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Another Honda maintenance thread
Replies: 44
Views: 5036

Re: Another Honda maintenance thread

Save yourself a lot of headache and just follow factory maintenance. 200K miles is NOT a lot of miles to put on a modern car, Ford expects a Ford Focus to not need ANY major power train work until 250K miles with normal factory maintenance.

With computer enhanced manufacturing and tight tolerances and improved synthetic oils and fluids you do NOT need to perform excessive maintenance on a car to get to 200K miles. If you don't get to 200K miles on a modern car with factory maintenance you also aren't going to get there with more frequent maintenance.
by Quickfoot
Tue May 21, 2019 9:53 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Computer speed question which computer is faster and why?
Replies: 22
Views: 2202

Re: Computer speed question which computer is faster and why?

i7 and i3 have many iterations. Here's a comparison of like chips respectively. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-8700K-vs-Intel-Core-i3-550/3937vsm632 SSD drives are really fast and can make booting 20-40 seconds instead of 3-5 minutes. But after the boot, you are not going to enjoy the SSD performance as much as the i7 performance. I would opt for the faster cpu and add an SSD or just speed along without it. That's actually not true, a modern I3 is going to more than meet the needs of the vast majority of computer users. Anything that touches the storage system (which is a lot) will be faster. For most people having an SSD will result in a computer that "feels" much faster than one with a faster CPU but a trad...
by Quickfoot
Mon May 20, 2019 5:48 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Do handymen typically guarantee work?
Replies: 20
Views: 1945

Re: Do handymen typically guarantee work?

Parts snapping / breaking generally mean you overloaded it, or have a poor quality product unless the handyman supplied or recommended the product I wouldn't expect them to cover the cost of fixing it. Coming out of the wall or other installation issues could be a reflection on the quality of their work (say they missed the stud and a TV fell off the wall) and is something you could reasonably expect them to fix. It depends on the handyman and their marketing. Part of it comes down to legal liability. If you would be likely to win in small claims court you can expect they'll probably fix it free of charge, if it's a simple or low cost fix they will likely fix it free of charge regardless as a sign of goodwill and to avoid a bad review. If i...
by Quickfoot
Mon May 20, 2019 1:12 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?
Replies: 15
Views: 2337

Re: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?

Make sure you have good wifi signal, wifi performance drops quickly as signal strength drops. The chromecast ultra costs a bit more but it has an ethernet port so if you have ethernet near your TV it may be worth getting.

You can also get an ethernet adapter for the standard chromecast at: https://store.google.com/us/product/eth ... t?hl=en-US but that's going to put the cost very close to the Ultra and the Ultra has other improvements as well.
by Quickfoot
Mon May 20, 2019 12:15 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Dealing with construction noise
Replies: 27
Views: 2275

Re: Dealing with construction noise

No different than moving into a subdivision that isn't built all the way (which we did in December). Subdivisions have noise restrictions so they are only allowed to work during certain hours. Keep your windows closed and use headphones as necessary, I use my Sonos sound system a lot too. I'm a data professional / cloud specialist and also work from home full time. Construction noise really isn't that big of a deal, working at a coffee shop is more noise.

If you really need to get out libraries,hot desk / coworking companies and coffee shops are always good ideas though many of them will be more loud than just staying at home.
by Quickfoot
Mon May 20, 2019 11:46 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?
Replies: 15
Views: 2337

Re: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?

No wireless screen mirroring technology is going to keep up with face paced videos. The problem with wireless HDMI is HDMI is inherently high bandwidth (18 gbit/s), it is better to use something like a Firestick and connect that to your TV HDMI port, then setup a media server (you can get them free) on your laptop and have the Firestick connect to the media server over wifi. That will result in good quality video with no choppiness (assuming you are doing something like streaming H264 or H265 files from your laptop). The reason for that is the video is streamed from your laptop to the firestick as a compressed video file and then from the firestick to TV in HDMI protocol. Best case scenario is using the Firestick to replace the laptop comp...
by Quickfoot
Mon May 20, 2019 10:22 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?
Replies: 15
Views: 2337

Re: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?

No wireless screen mirroring technology is going to keep up with face paced videos. The problem with wireless HDMI is HDMI is inherently high bandwidth (18 gbit/s), it is better to use something like a Firestick and connect that to your TV HDMI port, then setup a media server (you can get them free) on your laptop and have the Firestick connect to the media server over wifi. That will result in good quality video with no choppiness (assuming you are doing something like streaming H264 or H265 files from your laptop). The reason for that is the video is streamed from your laptop to the firestick as a compressed video file and then from the firestick to TV in HDMI protocol. Best case scenario is using the Firestick to replace the laptop compl...
by Quickfoot
Mon May 20, 2019 10:12 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?
Replies: 15
Views: 2337

Re: Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter Alternative?

All my Smart TVs have built in wireless display technology. The problem isn't MIcrosoft's adapter, it's what you are doing with it. The adapter is meant to be used for things like slide presentations, software demos, etc and NOT streaming video. Nearly all wireless display protocols have problems with video, this includes Airplay. If you are wanting best quality you are going to be better off going over a HDMI cable. HDMI 2 offers 18 gigabits / second of video bandwidth, no wireless display technology is even close to matching that (even the best WIFI taps out around 500 mbit/s during practical use or 36 times slower and that's if you get 100% of the bandwidth) If you are dedicated to wireless make sure you have good wifi signal close to yo...
by Quickfoot
Sat May 18, 2019 10:49 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Tired of a reel mower
Replies: 42
Views: 4814

Re: Tired of a reel mower

I have the 80v Greenworks mower and it does a fantastic job cutting. I actually was able to mow my lawn 4 times before charging with the 4ah battery. It does ramp up and down based on density of the grass but that hasn't been a problem.
by Quickfoot
Sat May 18, 2019 9:34 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: When to buy a vacation home
Replies: 26
Views: 4004

Re: When to buy a vacation home

In my opinion you'd be better off doing VRBO or AirBNB during the times you can get away, lower risk and you aren't locked into one location. LIke another poster said values plummet during poor economic times and can take longer to recover because the primary demand isn't as a primary residence. It is tempting to see them as an investment but it's more gambling / speculating than investing. If you have extra money there are better ways to deploy it or enjoy it :). A similar example my wife wanted to buy wave runners, we do have a ton of fun on them but to make buying them worth it vs renting we would have to go to the lake every weekend in the summer for 4 years. We aren't likely to do that and would also incur storage and maintenance costs...
by Quickfoot
Sat May 18, 2019 6:02 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: When to buy a vacation home
Replies: 26
Views: 4004

Re: When to buy a vacation home

Vacation homes generally aren't good ideas financially. Occasionally they make sense but keep emotion and desire out of it and make sure you are looking at it logically. How much do you want every vacation to be to the same location, how about your family?

Most often people are better off renting than buying vacation homes. There is too much risk and not enough use to justify them.
by Quickfoot
Thu May 16, 2019 2:46 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Logistics of splitting tuition costs with child
Replies: 79
Views: 5356

Re: Logistics of splitting tuition costs with child

Ultimately if they have 100K debt from a bachelor degree they went to the wrong school. A lot of the problem these days is students see college as an experience rather than education. They will go spend 120K getting a bachelor degree when they could spend 40K on a comparable program from a different school.

Teaching children to make wise choices is the ultimate parental responsibility. Parents should not jeopardize their financial stability or retirements to provide for colleges that are over priced. There is a huge difference between want and need and our society has lost touch with that distinction.