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Classic HP 260 G2 DM Mini Computer

I’ve got this little habit of collecting various older computers and rebuilding them to modern standards. I mostly concentrate on boxes produced between 1999-2007, but a few weeks ago I happened across this HP 260 G2 Mini computer.

Sure, it’s not exactly vintage, but it caught my eye due to it’s size and power. When I say power, I’m talking about power in it’s class. This thing sports a snappy little Intel Pentium CPU 4405U and runs out at 2.10 GHz.
Anything running less than 2.00 GHz is really sort of a dog in my opinion, so I outfit the units with new motherboards, processors, and other what-nots.

At any rate, I upgraded the operating system from Windows 10 Pro, to Windows 11 Pro. Short of not having the required TPM 2.0 that Windows 11 might require, the operating system does everything that it’s supposed to do. This little mini came with 4GB of RAM, which I promptly upgraded to 8GB. The 500GB HDD has plenty of room as well.

This thing has everything that a mid-range notebook might have, right down to the built-in wireless networking card, the Bluetooth, and the HDMI port on the back.

I like the fact that it’s so small. I never really ever get anything like this in my little shop to repair, so for now it’s somewhat of a novelty. While doing my research on this little computer, I became a little more interested in the mini’s in general.

I went to Amazon and discovered that there are mini’s that are way more powerful than a lot of the full sized towers and laptops that are in circulation now.

For instance. There’s a Beelink SER Mini PC AMD Ryzen 7 3750H 4C/8T Windows 10 Pro Desktop Computer for right around $600 bucks. Considering just how small my overall work area is, it might be something I could be interested in at a later date should the notion suit me.

This little HP 260 G2 DM holds it’s own for it’s size. Sort of like a lower to mid-range notebook, but my HP Core 2 Quad is still much faster than this. Not real sure what I’ll do with this little box. I may sell it, or keep it. If I ever did decide to use it in any capacity, I’d have to get into the habit of keeping my desk pretty much free of the clutter in order to prevent it from being perpetually buried in the mess.

For as old as this unit is, and the fact that I didn’t really have to upgrade anything but the operating system and the RAM, I think I’ll hang on to it for a while.

Thanks for the read.

Happy Trails.

Drink store bought milk? Well check this out

Processed milk contains numerous chemicals that can, and often times do, effect your health. Treated milk contains the hormone IGF-1 and has been proven to be a major cause of breast, colon, and prostate cancers.

Milk bought from the grocery store also contains Anti-inflammatories like (niflumic acid, mefenamic acid, ketoprofen, diclofenac, phenylbutazone, naproxen, flunixin, diclofenac), and Sex hormones (17-beta-estradiol), and Anti-fungal drugs (triclosan).

It doesn’t stop there.

Store bought milk also contains, Antibiotics (florfenicol), Steroid hormones (17-alpha-ethinylestradiol), and Anti-malaria drugs (pyrimethamine).

A little something to think about the next time you tank up on milk from the grocery store.

It’s hard to think of people just being simply lactose intolerant when we find all of these other chemicals in milk.

Keeping print media local

And so here it is Saturday.

Upon after cruising around on the interwebs today, I was reminded that since this is the Saturday right after black Friday, we are all being reminded to shop local.
Shopping local is a good thing I think. Keeps the money in the local community.

While I was going along being reminded to shop local today, I couldn’t help but think about the current demise of our local print media.

I for one, am not real excited about the Great Falls Tribune building being put up for sale. The Tribune has been a pretty much local mainstay for over 100 years here in Great Falls. The building itself is a landmark that has bore witness to Great Falls coming into it’s own.

I can’t, in good conscience, consider the Tribune to be any more local than the New York Times is. No physical presence in Great Falls to me means, no local paper.

So we all shop local today … But how many of us are consuming local *print media? Sure, we know that print media has sort of gone the way of digital these days, but local is what it is. I write this blog locally, because, I’m in Great Falls of course.

Thinking locally, I set about to adding locally/regionally owned news print/digital media to this site today. News and info that’s written and edited from towns and cities in the area that actually exist in the places it professes to be from.

I thought about writing this post today after I had added those local news links, but I was sort of putting it off … that is, until I saw David’s post about the Tribune graphics dept being located somewhere in Arizona.

I don’t know about any of you, but I’m gonna bet that The Independent Observer doesn’t farm out it’s graphics dept in such a fashion as this. I’ll just bet that there’s a guy … in Conrad, Montana … banging away on a keyboard … locally.

At any rate … you can see the links I’ve added in the right side bar of this page.

Thanks for the read.

Happy Trails.

John Adorney – Always

John Adorney is an award-winning composer and producer whose five solo CDs, Beckoning (1998), The Other Shore (2002), Waiting for the Moon (2004), Trees of Gold (2006) and The Fountain (2009) have garnered glowing reviews from around the world.

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The Orchard Music (on behalf of Eversound); Warner Chappell, UMPG
Publishing, LatinAutor – Warner Chappell, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., Adrev

You can learn more, and discover the new music of John Adorney by visiting his website https://www.johnadorney.com/

38th Annual Christmas Stroll – Great Falls

I remember back in the day when I was telling my soon-to-be wife all about Great Falls. (she was from Texas)

When I got to the part about the Parade of Lights and the Christmas Stroll, she sort of looked as if she didn’t believe me. I mean, C’Mon, “… who in their right mind is going to run around town in temps as cold as 20 degrees, and wind blowing 20 miles per hour?”

This is what we do in Great Falls … Once you start milling around on Central, and start bumping into friends and neighbors, you sort of forget about the cold, and start having a bit of fun.

These videos are from a few years ago at The Stroll … As you can see, the fun was being had by all.

Polar Plunge from the 2019 Christmas Stroll
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Date & Time:

Celebrate the season with the 38th Annual Christmas Stroll in Downtown, Great Falls on Friday, Dec 3, 2021 from 5 – 9PM along Central Ave.

The theme for 2021 is “All is Merry and Bright” Come enjoy family activities, food vendors, Santa, and much more.

This is an event for the entire community — Bring the whole family to enjoy the holiday season.

This year’s Christmas Stroll Button is designed by Sheree Nelson and will be on sale at various locations downtown soon.

Sourced — Event by Destination Downtown Great Falls