Apple: Give us the Mac Mini WE WANT, not what you think we want!

Apple... I just wish you would make the Mac Mini us Mac Mini hardcores want.  Notice my header pic.. this is 2018.. i have opted to run a late 2012 Mac Mini Core i5 vs upgrading to a newer Mac Mini.. why?? Because the late 2012 Mac Mini was the last Mac you could actually really upgrade on your own.  I can replace DDR3 RAM, add two 2.5" based drives (SSD, HDD). 

All this talk of a possible Mac Mini upgrade just has me bracing for major disappointment like we have seen the last 6 years.  we don't care about soldered on RAM and actually loathe that idea.  Both as a consumer and a person who cares about the environment; your soldered on, non-upgrade-able hardware is great for business but HORRIBLE for the Earth.  STOP IT!! BE BETTER!

OSMC and the new NESPI Case with safe shutdown and getting it working with a script and service! Verified!!

Yea, i'm a sucker for the Raspberry Pi3 these days and using them as mini media servers and retro gaming consoles. I had originally gotten the NesPi case that had both power and reset buttons but the buttons were hard power offs/resets vs an os initiated reboot/shutdown.  Hard powering off/resetting a raspberry pi running can correct the sdcard and basically make it not boot and require one to do the full re-install.

Enter the new NESPi case by RetroFlag (amazon link, i do not make anything on these! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BRHDVTN )

Plex Media Server - Moving your setup to a new system (same OS to OS, Win to MacOS)

Plex Media Server is a MUST HAVE software suite/service for any media junkie.  Plex is a media server that can aggregate info about your media from imdb/tvdb/plex's own metadata services and create a very nice interface to access and play said media. I'm not going to go into what plex is or why you should be using.  

So here's how you can move your library from either Win7 to Win10 (did this already once w/these notes), Win10 to Win10 (also did this with these notes) and hopefully Win10 to MacOS High Sierra (doing this right now as i write this).

How to claim your LCC (litecoin cash) after the 10:1 hardfork with a Ledger Nano S

Per my reddit post:

Here is my full method to claim our LCC for us Ledger users who had their LTC on their NANO S when the hardfork happened. I have confirmed this just tonight.

1. Before you do anything, move all coins/altcoins off of your Leger Nano S. You will pay gas no matter what you do but imo its worth it if you get more than 10 LCC out of it. I moved my ETC and ECR20 coins to a single MEW paper wallet. I used a single paper wallet due to ETH needed for gas and then being able to recover said ETH, use less ETH to move all altcoins (i had ICX, TRX, LTC, ETH and XRP).
2. For XRP i used an exchange as a temp holding place since i have a ton of XRP and well i can afford a few XRPs to keep it safe. Binance is one place.
3. LTC, i moved all of it to the LiteCoin Core Wallet for now. Be sure to encrypt and then encrypt said backup too. blah blah.. keep privatekey safe like with any paper wallet or wallet.. ;)
4. Once i moved all coins from my Ledger Nano S to paper wallets or exchanges, i then used the tool recommended: https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39
5. I then disabled all network access and ran the .html file locally. Main thing with this .html file is to set the BIP to 24 words, enter words in and then scroll to bottom that has all paths, addresses, public key, private keys.

you can use the 2nd field (address) to check if it is the LTC account/address. use the litecoinca.sh site to do this! enter the address (2nd field in web page at bottom list) into site and if you see LCC amounts, this private key is what we need later

1. Once i copied all of the keys at the bottom into a text file offline, i then went back online. My plan is to fully recreate my Legder Nano S by entering in wrong PIN to force it to reset. i did this the first time i received my Ledger Nano S.
2. I then opened up my LiteCoinCash Core Wallet and made sure it was synced. After it fully synced, go to File > Import Private Key. For the private key, i used the private key associated w/the public key i checked for LCC.
3. LiteCoinCash Wallet will then do a resync which will take 10-30mins. Once it was done, my LCC wallet now shows over 50+ LCC. Wallet is encrypted and offline until we get a Ledger LCC app (hopefully!!)
4. At this point, i plan to now reset my ledger nano s 3 times (ie set up and enter in pin wrong) and then will resetup properly as a new wallet and will move crypto back in the next month or so. i may leave my ETH/tokens in paper wallet form since well.. no more wasted ETH...

I hoped this helped out my fellow LTC #HODLERS to get some free money or $LCC... ;)

CryptoCurrency and getting into - my quick intro

So how does one get into cryptocurrency and markets? in the USA your a bit limited. The biggest mainstream exchanges are Coinbase and Binance (links are refferal links as a FYI for me!)

https://www.coinbase.com/join/530cad473b1246be7500023d
https://www.binance.com/?ref=13090080

Binance: Accepts only BTC, ETH to buy altcoins. You can buy most of the top ten coins here including Ripple (XRP), Verge (XVG) and Tron (TRX). Also you can get monero, dash, doge and others.HOWEVER, new user registration for Binance is suspended ATM due to the surge of new users. Hopefully they will reopen new user registrations.

Coinbase: You can buy BTC, BCH, LTC, ETH. You can use a bank account or credit/debit card. Credit card/debit card transactions are instant and crypto is available nearly instantly where as bank account purchases take 7 days to be available.

If i want to buy say ripple or verge, here is what i have to do:

1. buy ETH on coinbase.
2. transfer ETH to binance (there is a fee to do this!!! damn you fees!!!)
3. once transferred to binance, buy said crypto/altcoin w/ ETH or BTC.
4. either keep crypto on the currency or move it to a mobile, paper or hardware wallet.

Common Terms being used in the crypto world:

FUD: Fear, uncertainty and doubt.
FOMO: Fear of missing out
HODL: Hold on for deal life
MOON: hoping crypto takes off and hits the moon for prices!
Pump and Dump: when whale investors hype up a coin they have invested highly in to drive prices and newbs to purchase and then selling at high point to then bring the price of crypto down. XVG is a recent example but i believe the FUD around was created by the FOMO people and Whales looking to make easy money.


Long term holding: learn about how to store your currency!! you are literally your own bank. you can use paper wallets, digital wallets, hardware wallets. READ UP ON THESE ASAP; exchanges can be hacked; remember Mt Gox and the millions of BTC lost??

Taxes: OMG, this part is what will really suck. we basically have lost the like for like classifications of crypto trading and in turn have to keep records on price paid on coinbase, costs to move to binance and any possible profits/loss of ETH/BTC while crypto transfers and then the capital gains on when we cash out or sell said crypto for another... so yea!! keep records!!!

Disclaimer: this could all burst and we lose it all (very unlikely but not out of the question) so use only money you can afford to lose.

So hopefully helps you all get started. Finally, use your common sense and don't fall for the hype or FOMO. this market rises and falls... it makes millionaires in a seconds and bankrupts others in minutes. here's to us all making it big and finding out moon. ;)