CMDottie Company

12/22/2025

For those looking to move online photo libraries off. This is a great addition to every self-hosting home lab.

Self-hosted photo and video management solution. Easily back up, organize, and manage your photos on your own server. Immich helps you browse, search and organize your photos and videos with ease, without sacrificing your privacy.

11/11/2025

Stress testing your RAM is vital. In my experience, it's the most statically unfriendly component in a PC. I like to run the test over night.

The rule of thumb, "It only takes 10% of what you can feel in a static shock to damage an integrated circuit."

When installing RAM I always make sure that I am at the same charge level as the PC I am working on. Some like to use a static strap. I just grab the case metal before I touch RAM. I'm also very careful about where I touch the RAM, never on or near the gold contacts.

11/09/2025

Many of you know I've been a bit under the weather for the past few weeks. Yesterday was the first time I could do some work. So...

First fire up. Lights are working. No beeps. No errors from the motherboard. Now I need to find a monitor.

10/21/2025

I've been building PCs both professionally and personally for almost 4 decades. I can still remember watching FutureCrew's Unreal demo on the first VLB cards. A lot has changed over the years. But one thing that hasn't is the anxiety felt right before first power up.

10/11/2025

I've been bored lately, so, I'm building a PC. This will be my first beta test PC. I'm looking to gather benchmark data primarily. But once I'm finished gathering my information, this PC will be available for sale.

Due to the overclocking ability of this machine there will be 0 warranty! You need to be an enthusiast. Your barrier to entry is the ability to contact manufacturers for warranty support and prepare the device for RMA. I will never overclock the machine, but you can if you want. I will burn-in this machine for 96 hours. You will receive a report of this burn-in success.

- Liquid cooled AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
- 64gig DDR5
- ASRock X850E Taichi Lite Motherboard
- PNY 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD
- Gigabyte Windforce 16G GDDR Nvidia RTX 5080.
- Plenty of glowie ARGB.

I know I know, I wanted to include the RTX 5090, but that alone would add $1500 to this build. If you'd like that machine send me a DM, we can work on a solution.

But, another 5080 would make this a fantastic offline AI machine.

10/01/2025

SECURITY & PRIVACY AWARENESS!!

When you use this app you're giving it the right to impersonate you (see below). They will basically own your voice. And since the company is so small, who knows what happens to your voice recordings if it fails. It is scary the amount of fraud that could be generated by this. They could literally impersonate anyone over the phone to their own family, "Grandma, I'm stuck in Miami, can you wire me money?"

I don't recommend using this app. If your children are using this app, be aware there could be fraud calls. Have a code word that you use with your family. Don't share it over text, email, social media, or phone. Awareness is 90% of the battle.
..

"...worldwide, exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free, fully paid right and license (with the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to sell, use, host, store, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform (including by means of a digital audio transmission), communicate to the public, reproduce, modify for the purpose of formatting for display, create derivative works as authorized in these Terms, and distribute your Recordings, in whole or in part, in any media formats and through any media channels, in each instance whether now known or hereafter developed."

A new call recording app is gaining traction for offering to pay users for voice data from calls, which is sold to AI companies.

09/21/2025

Multi-factor authentication (MFA).

MFA was created in order to solve two problems, the use of simple passwords and the reuse of passwords. If a username and password is something you know, MFA is something you have.

A bad guy can steal your password from across the planet. But if they also need a code from your phone, or a device in your pocket, the break-in just got a lot harder.

Here are the MFA types you’ll most often see, from weakest to strongest:

1. Security questions (or Three questions): The weakest option. Answers can be guessed, found on social media, or brute-forced. If you’re forced to use them, don’t answer truthfully. Treat them like extra passwords.

2. Email codes: A one-time code gets sent to your inbox. The problem is you don’t fully control your email account. Your provider does. If an attacker gets into your email, every login tied to it is exposed.

3. SMS or Text Message: It beats email, but not by much. SMS isn’t always encrypted. Criminals can also pull off SIM-swap attacks by tricking your carrier into moving your number to their phone. It should only be used if it’s the only option available among the weaker methods like email or security questions.

4. Authenticator Apps: Apps like Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy, or Aegis generate six-digit codes that rotate every 30 seconds. Much stronger than email or SMS. Still, if you type your code into a fake site, an attacker can use it right away.

5. Biometrics: Fingerprints, face scans, or iris recognition. This is “something you are.” Biometrics are usually tied to unlocking a device or used with passkeys, not as a separate MFA step. They’re convenient, but not foolproof. And unlike passwords, you can’t change them if stolen.

6. Hardware Token: The strongest option. Devices like YubiKey or Token2 plug into your computer or phone and require a tap to log in. They resist phishing, replay attacks, and SIM swaps. The only real weakness is sloppy habits, like leaving the key plugged in or losing it without a backup.

The best practice is, once you've set up a stronger MFA method, go into your account settings and turn off weaker ones like email and SMS. Leaving them active just gives attackers another way in.

Even better, if a site offers passkeys, use them. Passkeys are more secure and more convenient than passwords plus codes. I’ve covered them in detail in a separate article, but the takeaway is simple. When passkeys are an option, they should be your first choice.

09/21/2025

Passkeys

I recently told a story about a client who lost his inheritance. The cause was a reused password, but the ultimate root cause was the website dump.

When a site gets hacked, the bad guys steal the username and password database. That list gets dumped to the dark web for anyone to grab. From there it doesn't take much for the bad guys to crack many of the passwords. And once yours is cracked it can be tried at you bank, your email, anywhere.

Passkeys was created to solve that problem. They remove the website from the responsibility of maintaining user passwords. Even if a site gets hacked, the dump it will no longer contain the easily crackable passwords.

If passkeys are available for any of your online accounts, use them. You'll be more secure.

09/21/2025

Weak and reused passwords are currently the most common form of account compromise.

Years back, a client of mine showed up in a panic. His inheritance account had been drained to zero. Luckily, we caught it in time to reverse the transfers. Another day and the money would have been gone forever. (And no, FDIC doesn’t cover that kind of fraud.)

The cause? A reused password. Even after all the security training reminders, he was still using the same credentials everywhere. Hackers took one of the countless leaked site dumps, brute-forced the passwords, and eventually landed on his bank account.

You don't have to use this one, but please use a password manager.

Bitwarden is the most trusted password manager for passwords and passkeys at home or at work, on any browser or device. Start with a free trial.

08/31/2025

Cyber hygiene is important.

🔒💻 How can you actually protect yourself from scammers and hackers? Cybersecurity expert Pierogi from Scammer Payback reveals the #1 most effective way to ...