Latest posts
- It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12May 29, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
My nephew just graduated high school, and wants a laptop. When he decides what computer to buy, price (or more precisely, value) is the most important attribute. Apple's MacBook Neo upended the 'value laptop' equation—Apple's not supposed to be both the cheapest option and the best value... but it seems like that's squarely where the Neo landed for the good-but-cheap laptop category. My nephew
- Tuning in FM Radio on a 3D Printer HeatbedMay 28, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Pooch from Repkord dropped by my studio while he was in St. Louis, and asked a simple question: Can a 3D printer's heatbed act as an antenna? A fair question, as many an antenna is embedded in a PCB these days... and the traces on a PCB heatbed like the one used in Prusa's Core One look kinda like an antenna, if you squint the right way. Really, anything (or anyone) can be an antenna, given eno
- I patched iozone for better disk benchmarks on modern macOSMay 27, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
A decade ago, I settled on iozone for disk benchmarking on all my systems. Tools like fio ('Flexible IO' tester) are a little more capable for raw disk performance testing, and other tools test network-scale filesystems better, but iozone gives me an easy overview of real-world disk performance across hard drives and SSDs, and runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux (and a smattering of other OSes). It
- News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller DevelopmentMay 22, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
On Thursday, three of the lead Raspberry Pi engineers hosted an AMA on the r/engineering subreddit. Raspberry Pi 6 One of the most interesting tidbits was on the Pi 6. Looking back at previous launches: 2012: Raspberry Pi 2015: Raspberry Pi 2 (+3 years) 2016: Raspberry Pi 3 (+1 year) 2019: Raspberry Pi 4 (+3 years) 2023: Raspberry Pi 5 (+4 years) Following that cycle, one would expect a Pi 6 3-
- Wi-Wi Is Wireless Time Sync at 1 nanosecondMay 19, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
At NAB, I found a demo of Wi-Wi STAMP, a wireless time synchronization protocol that came out of Japan's NICT. Wi-Wi stands for Wireless 2Way interferometry, and it uses the 900 MHz band for picosecond-level time sync, and mm-level distance accuracy, in a tiny box, currently the size of a smartphone. The system is still in development, but existing prototypes have 20ps of phase synchronization
- Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contractMay 12, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Last year I said I'd probably never recommend another Bambu Lab printer again. I still use my P1S, but after Bambu Lab started pushing their always-connected cloud solution as the new default: I blocked the printer from the Internet via my OPNsense Firewall I stopped updating the firmware I locked the printer into Developer mode I deleted Bambu Studio and started using OrcaSlicer I had to do that
- HomePod mini feels like magic, but it's just good timingMay 08, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Apple introduced the HomePod mini six years ago, in 2020. I'm not one into smart speakers, but the feature that made me take a closer look was their ability to form stereo pairs, without any direct wired connection. I know there are other speaker manufacturers with wireless speakers, but to my knowledge, Apple was just using AirPlay over WiFi... so how does it work? Through the magic of buying two
- SBC Clusters are a terrible value, but they're fun anywayMay 01, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Pictured above is the new DeskPi Super4C installed in an 8U mini rack. The Super4C is a 4-node Raspberry Pi CM5 cluster board that solves two pain points I had with the older Super6C. I was testing this board around the same time I helped kick off the SBCC 2026, the Single Board Cluster Competition for students. A dozen or so university teams squared off to run the best mini HPC cluster with a bud
- Raspberry Pi Connect may control Windows soonApr 29, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Support for remote controlling Windows PCs may be added to Raspberry Pi Connect, Raspberry Pi's free remote access service. When they announced Pi Connect in 2024, I speculated the service was launched in response to RealVNC's sluggish adoption of Wayland, leading to Pi users lacking a solid remote access solution after Pi OS 12 'Bookworm' was launched. The service was helpful for those who had
- New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaperApr 24, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
For years, the best way to get 10 gigabit networking on laptops was to buy an expensive, large, and hot 10 GbE Thunderbolt adapter. With new RTL8159-based 10G USB 3.2 adapters coming onto the market, the bulky adapters might be a thing of the past. Just look at the size of the thing in comparison to my Thunderbolt adapters: 2.5G and even 5G USB adapters have been out for a while, but sometimes
- An Arm Mainboard for the Framework LaptopApr 15, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Using the repair-friendly Framework 13 laptop chassis, I've tested the low-end x86 option (a Ryzen AI 5 340 Mainboard), the fastest RISC-V option (DC-ROMA II), and today I'm publishing results from the only Arm Mainboard, the MetaComputing AI PC, which has a 12-core Arm SoC and up to 32 GB of soldered-on RAM. My Framework 13 has run on x86, RISC-V, and now Arm, making it something of a 'Ship of
- Build your own Dial-up ISP with a Raspberry PiApr 03, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Last year my aunt let me add her original Tangerine iBook G3 clamshell to my collection of old Macs1. It came with an AirPort card—a $99 add-on Apple made that ushered in the Wi-Fi era. The iBook G3 was the first consumer laptop with built-in Wi-Fi antennas, and by far the cheapest way to get a computer onto an 802.11 wireless network.
- DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC marketApr 01, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Today Raspberry Pi announced more price increases for all Pis with LPDDR4 RAM, alongside a 'right-sized' 3GB RAM Pi 4 for $83.75. The price increases bring the 16GB Pi 5 up to $299.99. Despite today's date, this is not a joke. I published a video going over the state of the hobbyist 'high end SBC' market (4/8/16 GB models in the current generation), which I'll embed below: .embed-container { posit
- Bring back MiniDV with this Raspberry Pi FireWire HATMar 27, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
In my last post, I showed you to use FireWire on a Raspberry Pi with a PCI Express IEEE 1394 adapter. Now I'll show you how I'm using a new FireWire HAT and a PiSugar3 Plus battery to make a portable MRU, or 'Memory Recording Unit', to replace tape in older FireWire/i.Link/DV cameras. The alternative is an old used MRU like Sony's HVR-MRC1, which runs around $300 on eBay1.
- Using FireWire on a Raspberry PiMar 24, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
After learning Apple killed off FireWire (IEEE 1394) support in macOS 26 Tahoe, I started looking at alternatives for old FireWire equipment like hard drives, DV cameras, and A/V gear. I own an old Canon GL1 camera, with a 'DV' port. I could plug that into an old Mac (like the dual G4 MDD above) with FireWire—or even a modern Mac running macOS < 26, with some dongles—and transfer digital video
- The best laptop Apple ever madeMar 20, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Today I posted a video titled The best laptop Apple ever made, and tl;dw1 it's the 11" MacBook Air. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } I acknowledge in the video my pick is slightly
- Restoring an Xserve G5: When Apple built real serversMar 13, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Recently I came into posession of a few Apple Xserves. The one in question today is an Xserve G5, RackMac3,1, which was built when Apple at the top—and bottom—of it's PowerPC era. This isn't the first Xserve—that honor belongs to the G41. And it wasn't the last—there were a few generations of Intel Xeon-powered RackMacs that followed. But in my opinion, it was the most interesting. Unfortunatel
- Can the MacBook Neo replace my M4 Air?Mar 12, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
Many of us wonder if the MacBook Neo is 'the one'. Because I have a faster desktop (currently a M4 Max Mac Studio), I've always used a lower-end Mac laptop, like the iBook or MacBook Air, for travel. I've used MacBook Pros in the past, but I like the portability of smaller, cheaper models. In fact, my favorite Mac laptop ever was the 11" Air.
- A PTP Wall Clock is impractical and a little too preciseMar 06, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
After seeing Oliver Ettlin's 39C3 presentation Excuse me, what precise time is It?, I wanted to replicate the PTP (Precision Time Protocol) clock he used live to demonstrate PTP clock sync: I pinged him on LinkedIn inquiring about the build (I wasn't the only one!), and shortly thereafter, he published Gemini2350/ptp-wallclock, a repository with rough instructions for the build, and his C++ app
- I built a pint-sized MacintoshMar 02, 2026jeff@jeffgeerling.com (Jeff Geerling)
To kick off MARCHintosh, I built this tiny pint-sized Macintosh with a Raspberry Pi Pico: This is not my own doing—I just assembled the parts to run Matt Evans' Pico Micro Mac firmware on a Raspberry Pi Pico (with an RP2040). The version I built outputs to a 640x480 VGA display at 60 Hz, and allows you to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse. Since the original Pico's RAM is fairly constrained, you