Karl Auer's Blog

Category: Uncategorized

  • EAGTAC MX3T-C Review

    I recently bought an EAGTAC MX3T-C LED torch. This is a review of it. For technical details see http://www.eagtac.com/product/mx3t-c.

    First up, it gives an excellent light, which after all is its main purpose. The beam is very clear and clean on all settings – no dark rings or dim patches. On the brightest setting, the range is allegedly half a kilometre, and I can believe that. However, most of the time I don’t need the brightest setting; the two lowest ones are fine for my everyday use.

    The controls are simple – one button turns the torch on at the lowest setting; consecutive presses cycle through the brghtness settings (five in all). The second button turns the torch off if it is on, or on (at the brightest setting) if it is off. The second button can also be used to flash the torch – any press longer than (I’m guessing) half a second acts as a momentary on, and releasing the button turns the torch back off. Double-press it and you get a strobe light! Not that useful for me, but you never know… Finally there is a tailcap button, which works exactly like the second button.

    The build quality seems superb. The whole thing looks and feels really well-constructed, though it does take a bit of effort to get the tailcap off and on. But you want a tight fit if the thing is to remain waterproof.

    The belt holster is very solid, suitable even for wide belts, and grips the torch firmly. You would have to be upside down for the torch to fall out, and even then probably not unless you thumped the holster.

    Some niggles:

    On full brightness the body of the torch gets very hot, to the point where it becomes difficult to hold. This is a disadvantage of the short barrel, but is only an issue if you are using the higher settings for longer periods. On the lower settings the heat is no problem.

    The tailcap switch – which is probably only there so they can call the torch “tactical” 🙂 – is a bit pointless on a torch this chunky.

    Good though it is, the holster probably should have a strap so that the torch cannot fall out, even if you are upside down. And a clip as well as the belt loop would make it easier to use the holster casually.

    The torch would benefit from having somewhere to attach a lanyard – a suitable slit in the tailcap and maybe a metal loop attached where the tripod fitting goes. When holding it in your hand there is no room for anything else.

    The torch has no flat spots on the casing, so it rolls easily when put down on any surface.

    It doesn’t come with a charger; you can use any 2A USB charger though, and these days most people have plenty of those.

    These are all minor issues; overall this is a good torch at a good price. I plan on getting a small tripod so that I can use it as a floodlight if I need to.

    See also this article 🙂

  • ssh, LocalCommand, “!args”…

    Did you know that if you press “~” then C while in an ssh session, you get access to several useful commands? You can set up new local and remote forwarding, or stop existing forwarding, all while the connection is still running. From inside the session. But one little-known fact is that you can also run arbitrary local commands too.

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  • Secure passwordless root backups with rrsync

    The Problem: You need to access a remote system with rsync to back it up. But some of the files or directories you need to back up need root permissions to read. You need to automate the backups, so you can’t use a password or passphrase. But you really don’t want to allow passwordless logins to the remote, and especially not as root! So what to do?

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  • Use a Mikrotik as a wifi converter

    The situation: You have a computer with no wifi, and you have an access point. No wifi, so no Internet. Sad face. But if you have a MikroTik router with a wifi interface and a couple of Ethernet interfaces, you can set up a private Ethernet network and connect your computer to wifi through the MikroTik.

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  • Custom window management in Ubuntu/Unity/Compiz

    Someone asked on the Ubuntu users mailing list how they could set up a keypress that would resize the currently active window to 75% of its present width. It took a little thought, but eventually the tools were found…

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  • Adding a default route to a TP-Link TD-8817 ADSL router/modem

    Once upon a time l was trying to talk to my TP-Link TD-8817 ADSL router/modem. I couldn’t, but I worked out that the reason I couldn’t was because the poor thing lacked a default route. The full story is here, but this blog entry is about how I added the necessary default route. You wouldn’t think that would be a big deaI, but it turns out that adding specifically a default route to one of these units is surprisingly tricky. (more…)

  • Mikrotik plus phone dongle = instant hotspot

    I attended the Sapphire Coast StartUp Camp this weekend. At one point in the leadup to it, it seemed the venue would have no Internet access, so I suggested setting up a MikroTik router with a GSM phone dongle to provide wifii/LAN and Internet connectivity. In the end an alternative was found, but just for the exercise, our team at the camp used my new hotspot, and it worked really well.

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  • A new direction

    After much time thinking about it, I have kicked off a new business venture – Into6. The new venture specialises in IPv6 – training, analysis, consultancy, technical support, you name it. If you are interested in IPv6, do check out the Into6 website, because that is where I will be doing all my future blogging about IPv6. Over time I will move or copy the IPv6-related blog entries from this site to the Into6 site, too.

    As part of starting up Into6, I’ve also set up a Twitter account (@intosix) and you are cordially invited to become a follower by clicking on the button below 🙂 The Facebook page is pretty much a placeholder for now.

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