Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

driver100

henryn said:

Papa John's has been selling these for a while, they call them "Pizza Bowls".

I haven't seen a Papas here but they look good. One day I am going to try one...guess it'll have to be a Howies.

stickguy

driver100 said:

stickguy said:

laptops are cheap enough now to be like TVs. Buy whatever you like the best, and it lasts until it breaks, and you buy a replacement.

Just do what I do....if it lasts for 7 years and costs $700, that's only $100 a year. btw, if You buy a cheap one for $350, that's $50 a year. It is probably worth $50 a year more to get the better one.

if I was paying for it annually it sounds good. But different story if you have to pay the full amount up front.

Michaell

stickguy said:

laptops are cheap enough now to be like TVs. Buy whatever you like the best, and it lasts until it breaks, and you buy a replacement.

The Dell that I'm using now was bought new 4 years ago. Pretty much top of the line, and I think it cost like $1200-1400 from Best Buy. The HD froze, which is why it got handed down to me. I spent a few hundred to have an SSD installed on it, which was certainly less than a new system.

henryn

Michaell said:

stickguy said:

laptops are cheap enough now to be like TVs. Buy whatever you like the best, and it lasts until it breaks, and you buy a replacement.

The Dell that I'm using now was bought new 4 years ago. Pretty much top of the line, and I think it cost like $1200-1400 from Best Buy. The HD froze, which is why it got handed down to me. I spent a few hundred to have an SSD installed on it, which was certainly less than a new system.

SSD's can be had for as little as $25 these days. A good quality, 1 TB, NVME drive goes for less than a hundred. If you're close by, I'll clone your old drive and install the new one for $50.

qbrozen

I gave up on HP a long time ago. Used to be built like tanks but starting maybe a dozen years ago, everything I got from them was or continues to be problematic. The computers especially are so bogged down with all this proprietary garbage. Yeah, you can wipe it out and start over but I have found that often causes more problems.

qbrozen

This darn project took up much more of my Sunday than I had anticipated. All of it, actually. It is done, though. As you can see, I repurposed the gate off my new trailer since I really didn’t care for it anyway. And the ground is so darned frozen that hitting it with a pickaxe was the same as hitting granite. So I dug what I could and propped up the other side a little to meet it. Will probably have to make some leveling adjustments in the Spring.

jmonroe1

qbrozen said:

This darn project took up much more of my Sunday than I had anticipated. All of it, actually. It is done, though. As you can see, I repurposed the gate off my new trailer since I really didn’t care for it anyway. And the ground is so darned frozen that hitting it with a pickaxe was the same as hitting granite. So I dug what I could and propped up the other side a little to meet it. Will probably have to make some leveling adjustments in the Spring.

————————————————
A lot of temporary installations become pretty permanent. It seems that when something is working it takes a back seat to other things that have to be done now. In any case that looks like pretty nice “temporary installation”.

jmonroe

Michaell

henryn said:

Michaell said:

stickguy said:

laptops are cheap enough now to be like TVs. Buy whatever you like the best, and it lasts until it breaks, and you buy a replacement.

The Dell that I'm using now was bought new 4 years ago. Pretty much top of the line, and I think it cost like $1200-1400 from Best Buy. The HD froze, which is why it got handed down to me. I spent a few hundred to have an SSD installed on it, which was certainly less than a new system.

SSD's can be had for as little as $25 these days. A good quality, 1 TB, NVME drive goes for less than a hundred. If you're close by, I'll clone your old drive and install the new one for $50.

Long way from Denver to Houston, but I appreciate the offer!

driver100

I know we covered this recently but we need a new water heater soon I think.....should we go tankless?
I am off to tennis...be back later.

driver100

stickguy said:

driver100 said:

stickguy said:

laptops are cheap enough now to be like TVs. Buy whatever you like the best, and it lasts until it breaks, and you buy a replacement.

Just do what I do....if it lasts for 7 years and costs $700, that's only $100 a year. btw, if You buy a cheap one for $350, that's $50 a year. It is probably worth $50 a year more to get the better one.

if I was paying for it annually it sounds good. But different story if you have to pay the full amount up front.

Sometimes it costs less in the long run to pay more now, especially if you are buying better quality. Since they assemble and put a computer together anyway, using more expensive parts only adds a little to the final price. $50 bucks more can make a big difference, that's all I am saying.

tjc78

@driver100 said:
I know we covered this recently but we need a new water heater soon I think.....should we go tankless?
I am off to tennis...be back later.

My vote is 100% yes. Even more so in your case since you leave your home for long periods at a time. We love ours. Most nights wife, and both kids are taking showers (in separate bathrooms) while I’m rinsing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen. No shortage of hot water. We really miss the tankless at the shore and are thinking of getting one there too.

You have natural gas, correct? Answer may be different for electric. They use a ton of power and sometimes require a power upgrade.

Lastly before you take the plunge make sure your dishwasher is one that heats the water. Sometimes the new HE dishwashers don’t flow enough water to trigger the heater to turn on

stickguy

Which house?

It’s unlikely a couple in a small house will ever need extra capacity. Or that you will ever make back the significant extra upfront cost.

tjc78

@stickguy said:
Which house?

It’s unlikely a couple in a small house will ever need extra capacity. Or that you will ever make back the significant extra upfront cost.

I think just not having 40 gallons of water sitting in a tank is piece of mind when you are gone for long periods of time.

Good point though, I’m thinking 5 people versus 2

tjc78

Pretty clever these Tesla owners.

stickguy

Fun piece on the news last night of someone getting video of a lady driving along a California freeway for an extended time fast asleep at the wheel.

venture

Michaell said:

Prior to the Dell I got from the girls, I had a Toshiba laptop that I bought from Sam's Club. Had to replace the hard drive in it a few years back, but other than that it worked pretty well.

I had a Toshiba laptop that I liked. Mrs. venture must have liked it more than I did. She has it now.

With the talk about laptops, I remembered there was one here somewhere. I looked around here in my office and I found an Asus laptop. I charged it up and it's working fine.

ab348

I had Toshiba laptops at work for years and bought one for home use during that time. All were excellent. However I gather they are out of the consumer laptop business entirely and may be out of the corporate and institutional side as well now.

With the talk here and one aging laptop here at home in the office that really should be replaced I looked around online last night. No deals to be had here sadly. About 3/4 of those available at places like BB or Staples were now i7 processors so it seems the i5 is no longer so popular. Among those, the least expensive I found was an Acer at $1200Cdn with most being in the $1600 range (16GB memory and 512 SSD). The last one I bought was a Dell i5 in 2019 at around $800.

tjc78

I have a Dell i5, 16GB of RAM with an SSD for work. It does everything I ask of it.

Anything more for web browsing, and the occasional Word doc or Excel sheet is overkill IMO

In all honesty a Chromebook would suffice for most users.

If you game or edit photos/video then of course you gotta pay to play

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

This darn project took up much more of my Sunday than I had anticipated. All of it, actually. It is done, though. As you can see, I repurposed the gate off my new trailer since I really didn’t care for it anyway. And the ground is so darned frozen that hitting it with a pickaxe was the same as hitting granite. So I dug what I could and propped up the other side a little to meet it. Will probably have to make some leveling adjustments in the Spring.

You didn’t leave much room for all your JDM cars.

driver100

tjc78 said:

@driver100 said:

I know we covered this recently but we need a new water heater soon I think.....should we go tankless?

I am off to tennis...be back later.

My vote is 100% yes. Even more so in your case since you leave your home for long periods at a time. We love ours. Most nights wife, and both kids are taking showers (in separate bathrooms) while I’m rinsing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen. No shortage of hot water. We really miss the tankless at the shore and are thinking of getting one there too.

You have natural gas, correct? Answer may be different for electric. They use a ton of power and sometimes require a power upgrade.

Lastly before you take the plunge make sure your dishwasher is one that heats the water. Sometimes the new HE dishwashers don’t flow enough water to trigger the heater to turn on

Great info tjc. Yes, it is for our real home where we are for 7 months. I believe they have had them in Europe for a long time, so our Bosch probably does heat the water...but I always run hot water before I turn it on. Good point about going away with 40 gallons of water sitting there, I have thought about that.

henryn

qbrozen said:

I gave up on HP a long time ago. Used to be built like tanks but starting maybe a dozen years ago, everything I got from them was or continues to be problematic. The computers especially are so bogged down with all this proprietary garbage. Yeah, you can wipe it out and start over but I have found that often causes more problems.

Many (nearly all?) new computers are "bogged down with this proprietary garbage". The bigger the name brand, like HP or Dell, the more proprietary garbage you're going to find. There is even an open source project called (quite fittingly) "Bulk Crap Uninstaller". I prefer to do a clean install of the OS on a new computer, but I am so experienced at that I could almost do it while sleeping.

For those who are unwilling to go through the trauma of breaking in a new computer -- changing the defaults, loading their favorite software, restoring their data -- I offer a custom service. First I clone the hard drive from their old computer into their new computer, do a bit of cleanup, and then perform an "in place upgrade" to a newer version of the OS. Then go through and make sure everything still works. You then have a computer that acts like your old computer, only newer and faster and (hopefully) problem free.

This takes several hours, and it isn't cheap. But I know a lot of people with more money than free time, and they consider it a bargain. I'm still supporting a number of people who won't give up Windows 7. I try to convince them, but if they're adamant, then I can keep it running for them, and even install it on most modern hardware.

henryn

ab348 said:

I had Toshiba laptops at work for years and bought one for home use during that time. All were excellent. However I gather they are out of the consumer laptop business entirely and may be out of the corporate and institutional side as well now.

With the talk here and one aging laptop here at home in the office that really should be replaced I looked around online last night. No deals to be had here sadly. About 3/4 of those available at places like BB or Staples were now i7 processors so it seems the i5 is no longer so popular. Among those, the least expensive I found was an Acer at $1200Cdn with most being in the $1600 range (16GB memory and 512 SSD). The last one I bought was a Dell i5 in 2019 at around $800.

Looking at the low end of notebooks (under $500 US), the i3 is most prevalent. At least that is what I have found, no idea about Canada. I have nothing against the i3, the notebook I use most often for my DJ work is a Dell with an i3-1115G4 cpu. It came with an SSD and 8 gigs of memory, which is sufficient for everything I use it for. If you're trying to play games or recalculate large spreadsheets, then more would be a good idea. Notebooks with the i5-1135G7 tend to run about $50 to $100 more, and are noticeably better under load.

That i3-1115G4 is quite low end, in my opinion. But it is miles and miles ahead of any Celeron or Pentium N cpu.

stickguy

I assume my needs are pretty low level. Check email, surf the web, do stuff like online applications or taxes, and watch youtube videos. And some word docs and small spreadsheets. Pretty much it.

Oh, I have my file of music and some pictures still, but not a ton of those. About 3,000 songs in the music library, but at some point a retirement project will be to upload another 3-400 or so CDs (so 3-4K of songs)

I would assume if I don't plan more than that an i3 can keep up.

actually my current machine (running Win 10) is an i3 5020 (2.2ghz) chip, 8 gigs RAM and I guess a 512 optical HD (storage check says I am using 146 of 438 GB). Which is why I will probably just stick with a 512 SSD but up the RAM.

venture

A few weeks ago we were discussing savings accounts.

Vanguard just increased my recently opened one to 4.1%

houdini1

carnaught said:

jmonroe1 said:

@carnaught said:

Sorry man, you and I are not in the popular boys and girls crowd here 😐.

————————————————

Do you really think it would be safe to allow carte blanche access to every Tom, Dick and Harry to our club?

jmonroe

As some people say, negative attention is better than no attention 😔.


You are still "Da Man" in my book. What are you driving these days?

stickguy

venture said:

A few weeks ago we were discussing savings accounts.

Vanguard just increased my recently opened one to 4.1%

reminds me that I need to check what my VG MM account is paying. Need to go in this weekend anyway and print off tax forms. so will scope out my accounts (have avoided doing that lately!)

kyfdx

venture said:

A few weeks ago we were discussing savings accounts.

Vanguard just increased my recently opened one to 4.1%

https://www.duke-energy.com/investor-relations/individual-investors/premiernotes-investment

4.50% APR
4.60% APY

venture

kyfdx said:

venture said:

A few weeks ago we were discussing savings accounts.

Vanguard just increased my recently opened one to 4.1%

https://www.duke-energy.com/investor-relations/individual-investors/premiernotes-investment

4.50% APR
4.60% APY

Nice. I wonder why an energy company offering investments?

I didn't read the whole thing. Is your money insured? What is it...Money Market, mutual fund?? I don't think I would put 50k into an unknown entity (to me) to get that rate.

venture

stickguy said:

venture said:

A few weeks ago we were discussing savings accounts.

Vanguard just increased my recently opened one to 4.1%

reminds me that I need to check what my VG MM account is paying. Need to go in this weekend anyway and print off tax forms. so will scope out my accounts (have avoided doing that lately!)

I don't blame you. I haven't looked at mine since the market went to hell. I had to look at my nonprofit's accounts to file taxes. We lost a pile of frogs.

stickguy

I did a spreadsheet a few years ago to figure out how broke (or not) we were, as we neared 60 and really both wanted to retire! We still have a number of prior 401ks that I never got around to closing out and moving to Vanguard (I really need to get on that!) Turned out to be more than I expected, putting everything in one place. I updated a couple of times, lastly after markets went down but before the big dip.

so I have no clue what it all comes out to now, especially since we sold/bought/moved and cashed out some equity in the process! I am just afraid to find out.

kyfdx

venture said:

kyfdx said:

venture said:

A few weeks ago we were discussing savings accounts.

Vanguard just increased my recently opened one to 4.1%

https://www.duke-energy.com/investor-relations/individual-investors/premiernotes-investment

4.50% APR
4.60% APY

Nice. I wonder why an energy company offering investments?

I didn't read the whole thing. Is your money insured? What is it...Money Market, mutual fund?? I don't think I would put 50k into an unknown entity (to me) to get that rate.

Duke Energy is a utility. Like most utilities, they have a large amount of debt of various maturities. ($66 Billion, more or less) GE Capital used to have a similar product for individual investors. The investor is loaning Duke Energy money. Northern Trust administers the product for Duke. It is not insured. It isn't much different than a money market from Vanguard or Fidelity. It's unlikely that money is insured, either.

Duke happens to be my local electric/gas utility. But, they're a huge public company based in Charlotte, NC. It's not much different than investing in corporate bonds. Except it's liquid, with no trading necessary.

explorerx4

Vanguard's Cash Plus accounts are FDIC insured up to 250K.

cdnpinhead

That i3-1115G4 is quite low end, in my opinion. But it is miles and miles ahead of any Celeron or Pentium N cpu.

You are clearly the expert in this field on this board. You may have held forth on this in the past, but what are your thoughts related to giving up WIN10 for WIN11? I don't sport a tinfoil hat, but have heard that 11 is much more intrusive into ones day-to-day operations.

kyfdx

explorerx4 said:

Vanguard's Cash Plus accounts are FDIC insured up to 250K.

Appears that is invitation only, right now. And, it's through a partner bank, evidently. Decent APY at 4.10% for FDIC insured.

explorerx4

@kyfdx,
It actually multiple banks. They send an updated list every once in a while in case you want to exclude any.

kyfdx

explorerx4 said:

@kyfdx,
It actually multiple banks. They send an updated list every once in a while in case you want to exclude any.

We have quite a bit of funds at Vanguard, but have received no invitation. But, maybe it's because we have very little cash, there.

My local bank is offering about the same return right now, on an insured account. But, I have no confidence they'll keep up with the prevailing money market rates, once the initial 3-4 months is over with.

If I'd stuck with only FDIC products for the last 40 years, I'd be considerably poorer.

henryn

cdnpinhead said:

That i3-1115G4 is quite low end, in my opinion. But it is miles and miles ahead of any Celeron or Pentium N cpu.

You are clearly the expert in this field on this board. You may have held forth on this in the past, but what are your thoughts related to giving up WIN10 for WIN11? I don't sport a tinfoil hat, but have heard that 11 is much more intrusive into ones day-to-day operations.

The default settings for Win11 send more information back to Microsoft than what happens by default in Win10. Much of that can be turned off, or "opted out". There are several free software programs that will help you to disable the so called "spying". The one I recommend is O&O Shutup

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

But the fact of the matter is this -- if your computer is connected to the internet, various companies are going to be watching what you do. Google and Facebook are much worse than Microsoft, but they all do it.

I have a few friends who are rather over-the-top about this. They run a hardened version of Unix, never connect to Google or Facebook, use a privacy enhancing browser (Tor), and take other steps.

For myself, I accept the fact that just like in Orwell's 1984, Big Brother is watching. But I don't worry much about it. I'm not saying that all of my activities are 100% above board, legal, and clean. But I'm too much of a small fry for the big players to be after me.

Just make sure that you do not download any music or movies without using protection. Really good protection. And the most important thing of all -- pay very close attention to web links embedded in emails. Phishing emails are the number one source of virus and malware infections, and have been for several years. If you receive any email with an embedded link, don't just blindly click on that link. Instead, right clock on the link, choose "copy link". Then paste that link into Notepad and examine it carefully. Very carefully.

On EDIT: It occurs to me that I didn't really address your primary question. Yes, I recommend Win11 over Win10 for most people. It will take you a few days to get used to the interface changes, but going forward Win11 is the better choice. Win11 consumes a little more space on your hard drive, and eats up a little more RAM when idle, but not very much. Performance differences tend to be negligible, most people are never going to notice any. Benchmark tests run by reputable sources show Win10 winning a few of the benchmarks, and Win11 also winning a few. But the differences tend to be in the +/- 2% range.

oldfarmer50

stickguy said:

I did a spreadsheet a few years ago to figure out how broke (or not) we were, as we neared 60 and really both wanted to retire! We still have a number of prior 401ks that I never got around to closing out and moving to Vanguard (I really need to get on that!) Turned out to be more than I expected, putting everything in one place. I updated a couple of times, lastly after markets went down but before the big dip.

so I have no clue what it all comes out to now, especially since we sold/bought/moved and cashed out some equity in the process! I am just afraid to find out.

I can chart my net worth on the back of an envelope.

Michaell

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

I did a spreadsheet a few years ago to figure out how broke (or not) we were, as we neared 60 and really both wanted to retire! We still have a number of prior 401ks that I never got around to closing out and moving to Vanguard (I really need to get on that!) Turned out to be more than I expected, putting everything in one place. I updated a couple of times, lastly after markets went down but before the big dip.

so I have no clue what it all comes out to now, especially since we sold/bought/moved and cashed out some equity in the process! I am just afraid to find out.

I can chart my net worth on the back of an envelope.

You can put a lot of zeros to the left of the decimal point if you go width wise on that envelope.

cdnpinhead

henryn said:

The default settings for Win11 send more information back to Microsoft than what happens by default in Win10. Much of that can be turned off, or "opted out". There are several free software programs that will help you to disable the so called "spying". The one I recommend is O&O Shutup

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Thank you very much.

henryn

New information on Netflix sharing:

Netflix's password-sharing crackdown is coming for more houses as we speak. A blog post from the big red streaming machine detailed the news today. Fortunately for sharers in the U.S. and United Kingdom, this new expansion does not hit those soils as of today.

Netflix's extra member pricing gets high

The fifth account management feature, "Buy an extra member" gives Standard and Premium users the ability to "add an extra member sub account for up to two people they don’t live with — each with a profile, personalized recommendations, login and password."

And while Costa Ricans would spend an extra $2.99 USD(opens in new tab) per added member, this new pricing is a bit larger. These new accounts cost "CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, Euro 3.99 in Portugal, and Euro 5.99 in Spain."

While it's too early to use these metrics to figure out what Americans would be charged for this feature, it's hard not to estimate with this data. Converting from the Canadian pricing, you see a price about twice as much as what Costa Ricans paid, at around $5.95 USD.

A chart provided by Netflix states that Premium members will be able to buy extra members, and that Standard members will be able to purchase one.

venture

kyfdx said:

explorerx4 said:

Vanguard's Cash Plus accounts are FDIC insured up to 250K.

Appears that is invitation only, right now. And, it's through a partner bank, evidently. Decent APY at 4.10% for FDIC insured.

Yes. I got an invitation. I thought it would be open by now. That was a few months ago.

jmonroe1

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

I did a spreadsheet a few years ago to figure out how broke (or not) we were, as we neared 60 and really both wanted to retire! We still have a number of prior 401ks that I never got around to closing out and moving to Vanguard (I really need to get on that!) Turned out to be more than I expected, putting everything in one place. I updated a couple of times, lastly after markets went down but before the big dip.

so I have no clue what it all comes out to now, especially since we sold/bought/moved and cashed out some equity in the process! I am just afraid to find out.

I can chart my net worth on the back of an envelope.

————————————————
Even a postage stamp can have a lot of zeros if you use a sharp pencil.

jmonroe

kyfdx

oldfarmer50 said:

stickguy said:

I did a spreadsheet a few years ago to figure out how broke (or not) we were, as we neared 60 and really both wanted to retire! We still have a number of prior 401ks that I never got around to closing out and moving to Vanguard (I really need to get on that!) Turned out to be more than I expected, putting everything in one place. I updated a couple of times, lastly after markets went down but before the big dip.

so I have no clue what it all comes out to now, especially since we sold/bought/moved and cashed out some equity in the process! I am just afraid to find out.

I can chart my net worth on the back of an envelope.

Same here... but, I track it, once per week.

Sandman6472

Love my Apple MacBook Air which I got back in June of 2019, does all I'll ever need it to do. And now with my new iPad, all set to go for many years to come.
Called Vanguard last week and had trouble getting into my old account. Had a very patient guy there help me and need to go in today to change the password and username as he had to go through the back end so I could get into my old account. Wish me luck trying to do it myself!
Did get those two CD's last week at Edward Jones, one for 6 months and another for a year. Interest was 4.66 for the shorter term CD and 4.75 for the longer one. Looked yesterday and they've already dropped a bit so glad I locked in at the slightly higher rates when I did. At least I know that the tax bill will be covered come mid-November. Also paid for our car insurance for the next year, a bit higher than expected but our insurance guy told us to stay where we are as the rates at some of the other companies he looked at for us were a lot higher! Followed his advice o we're good for the next year.
We're probably going to also do the hot water heater later on this year just not sure if we'll switch to a tankless unit or not. Usually there's only just the two of us here so don't use that much hot water. Again, our middle child mentioned she'd like to move to the Orlando area within the next couple of years which means we'll be moving within the next 3 to 5 years also. Have put on hold a few projects we were thinking of doing like redoing the kitchen cabinets, back splash & counter tops plus the master bath. We did Bathfitter a few years ago but just on the walk down shower part but saw that Re-Bath commercial and like what we saw. Also need to replace the toilet in there for one with a higher seat height. And lastly, painting of the interior and exterior. But now, all plans are on hold till we sit down & really talk about our 5-year plan.
Figure, anyone who buys our house is going to be a young family since we live on a cul-de-sac in a very family oriented city in South Florida. They'd probably want to gut the place & put their own stamp on things so might just be better to just do the painting & call it a day.

venture

We're probably going to also do the hot water heater later on this year just not sure if we'll switch to a tankless unit or not. Usually there's only just the two of us here so don't use that much hot water.

Since you don't use much hot water maybe you would be better off going tankless. That way you won't have to heat 40 or 50 gallons of water 24 hours a day.

kyfdx

venture said:

We're probably going to also do the hot water heater later on this year just not sure if we'll switch to a tankless unit or not. Usually there's only just the two of us here so don't use that much hot water.

Since you don't use much hot water maybe you would be better off going tankless. That way you won't have to heat 40 or 50 gallons of water 24 hours a day.

Most electric water heaters are on their own circuit breaker. Just flip it off.

stickguy

@kyfdx said:
Same here... but, I track it, once per week.

It would be much easier if I didn’t have to log into about 8 different sites to check balances. Who had time for that?

explorerx4

My 48 gallon gas water heater has a sticker on it that estimates the cost to be $273 for a year.
How much is a tankless going to save?
It's nice having hot water for a couple of days when power is out for an extended period.

tjc78

I don’t look at the tankless for what it saves. I like that we have unlimited hot water and it takes up virtually no space.