asty.org – Page 5 – the homepage of Chris Allegretta

Mezcla Plant Protein Bar Review

Posted on August 15, 2020August 17, 2020 by chrisa

A delicious post-workout snack, if you like peanut butter or spicy chocolate

Intro

I’ll say it up front, this it the first time I have ever been asked to do a product review rather than just yelling about something because the mood struck me.

Probably because I’ve been covering some health related items recently, the Mezcla folks reached out and asked if I could review their plan protein bars. Here’s a little secret about me: I love protein bars; I could eat them with every meal, and for that matter instead of a meal many times.

Because of this fact, I was happy to review a sample of 3 of their plant protein bars. I am always looking for as …

Qubes OS is incredible, here’s some tips and quick hacks for it

Posted on July 19, 2020October 1, 2021 by chrisa

I can’t stop thinking about Qubes OS. I really feel like it’s the most interesting innovation in OS distributions in 20 years. In fact that’s what I tell everyone who will listen when I talk about it.

Explaining Computers did a very nice intro to the operating system, which is where I heard about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWDvS_Mp6gc.

I just wanted to compile some tips and tricks I have encountered so far with Qubes:

Hardware Support (Ryzen 3000 series)

[Update: I tried out the Qubes 4.1 beta on several recent devices. If you want to potentially skip a lot of the headache mentioned below and are using newer hardware, check out that article first!]

Qubes OS is very finicky about …

Single Sided Deafness (SSD) CROS Hearing Aids Compared: Oticon Opn S2 vs Livio AI

Posted on June 13, 2020June 14, 2020 by chrisa

Plus Android & iPhone (iOS) Compatibility for each

My Background and Deafness Situation

I have been deaf on one side due to both Migraine Associated Vertigo (AKA Vestibular Migraine) and the treatment for it since around age 30. While I coped for more than decade without a hearing aid, I recently came to understand that some benefit could be had from wearing as CROS hearing aid to send sounds from my ‘bad’ side to the ‘good’ one. There are far more invasive procedures including BAHA (Bone Anchored Hearing Aids), but my right side hearing is so good that the only realistic option, aside from trying to aid the left side, was the CROS.

This leads to the question of …

I am alive btw

Posted on May 30, 2020 by chrisa

Have been working on some disability (hearing)-related posts recently and am continuing to run into new information/new products. At some point I know I need to call these things done and publish them, it’s just hard to do so sometimes.…

Sony Xperia 5 review: The next evolution of the XZ1/XZ2 Compact line, and I love it

Posted on December 2, 2019December 4, 2019 by chrisa

…and why it replaced the Pixel 3A in my pocket

I have to share this story before I start, which explains why I gave Sony the next chance to be my daily driver phone:

When my son’s old Nexus 5X broke earlier this year, I decided to give him my old Xperia XA2 phone. He is only 13 and forgetful, and of course managed to lose track of the phone awhile back. We looked everywhere for this phone, trying to call his number. It would continue to ring for three days; it did not start going to voicemail, indicating the phone had died. In an of itself this was already a decent achievement of great standby battery life.

What …

Location of ASUS C302C write protect screw

Posted on November 18, 2019January 4, 2021 by chrisa

Just a quick post since I was having trouble finding the write protect screw on the ASUS C302C. I was looking to install Linux on it via the MrChromebox firmware script, but to install the new SeaBIOS requires you to remove the Write Protect (WP) screw. To do this, you first need to unscrew all the screws on the bottom of the laptop, and an additional one which is under under one of the rubber feet (which I did not do, and subsequently ripped off the metal, per the picture).

So I’m assuming other folks will have a similar hassle finding this write protect screw. It’s hidden under a rubber cover next to the connector ribbons, so you have …