This is becoming somewhat of a tradition… I’ll point you toward a Tom Hollingsworth post and then figure out what I want to look back on a year from now. As long as Tom’s okay with that, I am too.

This year, Tom’s New Year’s post is about content. He seems to think 2019 is the King of Content. I’m not really sure what that means, but seeing as my blogs seem to be alternately seasonal (with most rsts11 content in the winter/spring and rsts11travel in the summer/fall), I’m hoping to get a more balanced content load out there for you this year on both blogs.

You can see the new year’s post for rsts11travel, my travel-themed blog, over on rsts11travel of course.

Looking back on 2018

Looking back on rsts11 for 2018, our top-viewed posts were a bit surprising to me.

• Number 5 – What’s a commodity server? Why should you want one?
• Number 4 – First Look: Checking out the “antsle” personal cloud server with the followup on Xeon-D models also worth a second look.
• Number 3 – Cisco UCS for beginners – an end-user’s overview (from 2014, before I went to work for Cisco!)
• Number 2 – Weird Stuff Warehouse closed this weekend and similar news from HSC here
• And our top-viewed post of 2018, which surprised me, is
  Five fun and useful uses for an extra PCI slot.

Last year I hinted at an update on the Microserver Gen 8 from HPE, which got part one posted last month and a second part coming this week. There was also a projection of a cryptocurrency mining write-up, which happened in March. Since that post, most cryptocurrency prices have sunk to record lows, but they may finally be recovering. If you have been mining the whole time and didn’t have to pay (much) for your electricity, things are looking up.

I also looked at the NetBeez monitoring service, on the basic level and with an upgraded agent device,  just about the time they discontinued their free service tier.

I also took you through several options for keyboard cases for the 12.9″ iPad Pro, eventually coming back (spoiler) to the Zagg SlimBook, currently slashed to under $70 on Amazon. Unfortunately, I had to replace my second one under warranty again, with the same developing defect in the hinge. On the upside, Zagg’s warranty service is pretty quick and painless.

I’ve since grabbed a 10.5″ iPad Pro with the SlimBook for that tablet, and while it’s definitely smaller (of course), it has a holder for the Apple Pencil, and the hinge seems to be more failure-resistant. At some point I will probably switch over.

Looking forward to 2019

In the last month, I’ve acquired some NBase-T/10GBase-T equipment, including a PCIe NIC from Aquantia (AQN-107 gaming edition), a Thunderbolt 3 network adapter from StarTech (TB310G), and an economy managed switch from Netgear with multigig ports (MS510TX). There will be some testing going on with those items in the next month or so.

I’ll be covering some interesting travel tech, most likely over on rsts11travel. A few chargers and battery packs have come into the shop lately, as well as some coffee-related gear, and I’m actually pretty happy about a couple of those for various reasons. With Apple getting more into USB-C and a lot more laptops supporting Power Delivery as well, you may be overdue for a new charger (like the 45W Gallium Nitride charger from RavPower ($55 at Amazon) or their 45W car charger for $20). I plan to have a few options covered before the North American conference schedule heats up.

I’d be really happy to have a story on a new junk shop opening in the Bay Area, with Weird Stuff closing last spring and Halted coming down to its last week or so in business, but I have not heard of any prospects, and I’m not ready to move beyond ecommerce and flea markets for my own junk shop yet.

Also, I’ll be trying to keep updates flowing through the rsts11 and rsts11travel Facebook pages, as well as the rsts11 and rsts11travel Twitter feeds, especially for quick tips and pointers that may not warrant a full blog post. You’ll also see these updates on my own Twitter, Gab, and Minds pages.

Invoking Bartles and Jaymes (again)…

As always, I appreciate my readers’ support in any form. Comments and feedback here, on Twitter at @rsts11, or Facebook at @rsts11 help me target and track coverage for the blog. Buying things through my Amazon links (like a QNAP 10GBE NAS or a tin of Stroopwafels, or pretty much anything through an Amazon link on the site), or taking advantage of other referrals listed on the support-us page can help fund acquisitions for review, cover the minimal ongoing costs of the blogs, and maintain respectable caffeination levels along the way.

Where do we go from here?

Let me know what you’re looking for from rsts11 this year. Would you watch videos, and if so, what sort of content are you looking for? Maybe you want more product reviews (retail and enterprise?), or system and solution builds?

If you’re a vendor or reseller who’d like me to review your products, please get in touch. I’ve done a couple of posts like this in the past year or so thanks to vendors who had some extra pieces of equipment available.