Robbie and Jeff set out to answer the question of whether a Raspberry Pi SBC can host a powerful Minecraft Server, and the results are astounding! With Robbie's installer, a Raspberry Pi 4 is configured as a game server, and they'll put it to the test by having their kids join (8 players total). Join us to learn how to setup the server and see how …

2020 has been a heck of a year. Let's just take a deep breath as a community, and spend some time together, reminiscing about the changes around here, and where things are at as we plan to hit the ground running in 2021. Robbie and Jeff sit in our festive Studio E in front of the warm glow of the green screen, and welcome comments and questions fro…

Robbie has finally pulled the filled-to-the-brim spinning hard drives from our data server and replaced them with enterprise SSDs. Does it make a difference? We'll chat with Mark Noland from Kingston to help us understand our benchmark results. Jeff, Bekah and Robert are all here too! Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view…

As an old school Vic 20 fanboi, Robbie's given to liking the new Raspberry Pi 400. After all, it's a full computer inside a keyboard, just like the old days of Commodore and Amiga. But this time, it's got 4 GB RAM and a 1.8 GHz clock speed. Let's get a look at the device, and stick the new Ubuntu 20.10 on there to see how it plays video. We'll also…

Henry shows us how he uses his quadcopter to take hundreds of pictures of real-world buildings, which he then stitches together to create 3D objects. Those can then be imported into Unreal Engine or Blender, or even printed on a 3D printer. Robbie will demonstrate the latter. Bekah's also here with the news, and Robert presents an overview of Ether…

Robbie and Jeff get an early look at 3D printing with the Ender-3 V2. Robbie assembles it, and shows off some of his early prints. As this is our last episode before Halloween, we'll also dive into some spooky features: Robbie turns Jeff into a Zombie using AI, Bekah writes a spooky ghost story based on true events, and Robbie and Jeff take a tour …

Whether you're hoping to give yourself extra privacy while moving about the web, trying to access services that aren't available in your area, or if your IP address is blocked by the provider, a proxy is every nerd's go-to. But using a free proxy can be unreliable ... or even dangerous. That is, unless you run it yourself. This week Robbie will tea…

It's time to put "lucky" Season 13 behind us and kick of Season 14. But we'll freshen things up with a new theme song remix, improved audio on our mics, and more camera angles. Bekah's here with the top news stories this week, and Robert's got the Crypto Corner to tell us what's up with the cryptocurrency market. Read the complete show notes, comme…

As "lucky" Season 13 comes to a close, Robbie takes us through installing Debian 11 (Bullseye) on a Pinebook Pro. We've also got our hands on a die-cast 10-inch model of The Orville ship, which is available now at comic book stores and online. Robbie will get into the box and take a look at this stunning set piece. Robert has cryptocurrency news an…

After three false starts, Robbie and Jeff decided it wasn't meant to be. But they made it to the studio in spite of the technical difficulties amidst our pandemic-time growing pains. So a quick hello, and then it's straight to the news. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obtain links from this episode at h…

Robbie and Jeff sit down for a chat about how the pandemic has forced the Internet infrastructure to change rapidly, and what we can expect. Plus Robbie shares how he's learning to 3D print even without a 3D printer, and the guys offer an easy-to-grasp explanation of what 2FA is, and why it's important. Bekah has our week's tech news stories, and R…

As Robbie works hard toward getting Studio E fully operational, ameriDroid's 3D printer came in handy and provided a novel solution to get cables from one room to the other. We also give away a gift card and chat about a dangerous app idea. Bekah's here with the news, and Robert will help us make wise crypto investment decisions. Read the complete …

Robbie wanted a clock for The Bridge that not only offered more functionality, but also looked super cool. So, he began development of a program to be that clock. Will a Raspberry Pi suffice? Robbie and Jeff catch up about how things are going around here, and discuss a nightmare scenario where Microsoft breaks Outlook around the world and Twitter …

Jeff Weston returns to us this week! In our first-ever "Crew Conversations" special, Jeff and Robbie are put head-to-head to share two topics each that interest them. Jeff speaks about Chromebooks and Minecraft on Raspberry Pi, where Robbie talks about his dream of 3D printing technology and a homemade pan/tilt Raspberry Pi HQ Camera. We've also go…

This week we knock out the next three segments of our MikroTik router series. Robbie will show you how to update your router firmware, set a static IP address in your DHCP server, and configure a custom DNS server such as a Pi-hole as your network default. We've also got a viewer question about failed microSD cards, Bekah's here with the week's tec…

The Category5 Community Coffee Break is more than 64 episodes in since the pandemic hit, and it's a great place to come together with other community members and hang out, sharing about the tech (and other things) that occupy your time. Robbie also takes a crack at replacing the decrepit cooling system in his Lenovo ThinkPad, but finds the headers …

This week, Robbie sets out to assemble a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8 GB RAM in an Argon ONE case, which proves to be a gorgeous SBC-powered computer. But he'll also dig into the Argon ONE code and find out what makes it tick. Bekah's here with the latest news stories, and Robert's got the Crypto Corner. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this …

Rocco (BigDaddyLinux) pointed the Linux Spotlight at Robbie this week, and we've got a short preview. Robbie will show us what it takes to get an operating system "installed" on a Pinebook Pro SD card, and why you might want to, and we'll also get a beginner's rundown of how to use GitHub. Bekah's here with the latest tech news, and Robert returns …

For the first time, we open our MikroTik router series up to viewers for questions and comments. Robbie also addresses a couple of the major issues affecting the latest run of Pinebook Pro laptops, and shows a web service that provides a fun yet functional typewriter simulation. Bekah's here for the news, and Robert joins us with Crypto Corner. Rea…

On this week's show, Robbie teaches us how to setup a guest WiFi connection on our MikroTik router that cannot access our internal network resources, such as network shares or smart devices. Plus, Bekah's here with the tech news stories we're following this week. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obtain l…

Robbie's digging through boxes before the show to ensure we can broadcast from our new studio. We'll chat about how things are progressing with our new space. We'll also get a look at setting up port forwarding rules in MikroTik routers, and Bekah returns with the news stories we're following this week. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate…

Robbie gets things rolling in our MikroTik router series by starting at the beginning: Bridging our modem and setting up MikroTik as a new gateway for our network. Bekah is on the newsdesk, Robert has a great list of recommended cryptocurrency podcasts and YouTube channels, and we'll learn a little more about where things are at for Category5 follo…

Robbie's been doing a lot of work in the production room, and the servers are really noisy! So we'll set out to reduce the noise by replacing a fan in our backup drive. After that, listening to music is much more enjoyable, so we'll look at a fun way to tune in to radio stations from around the world. Bekah's got the top stories in our newsroom, an…

As Robbie continues to work hard to establish a functioning studio space during a pandemic, he'll broadcast from The Bridge--our production studio--this week. We'll discuss MikroTik routers as he introduces our upcoming series on configuring these powerful yet inexpensive SOHO routers that pack all the enterprise features at 1/10th of the price. Be…

Category5 is back and broadcasting from its new studio, but who could have predicted a global pandemic occurring during our downtime as we prepared to move? Robbie is joined by Tom Costantino (Co-Producer, The Orville), Brandon Fayette (VFX Supervisor, The Orville), Sasha Rickman (Co-Host, Category5 Technology TV), Bo Lechnowsky (Founder/Owner, ame…

Having held our first Kickstarter Zoom group chat earlier that night, this is the followup conversation as the first one didn't record (supremely exclusive)! We're getting everything packed up, and it's coming along. We'll show you the difference in the size of Studio E, and talk about our insurance. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate th…

In a surprise turn of events, our landlord is re-claiming our rental space and has demanded we vacate effective at the end of the month. We never saw this coming, and it has caught us unprepared. We need your help. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obtain links from this episode at https://category5.tv/sh…

We often hear the question: Why do hackers hack? A lot of times, the answer is simple... it's for the money. But in the case of TheCanadianHacker, he wants to warn people about the exploits that exist on their network before some other hacker uses it with malicious purposes in mind. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view p…

We may not think twice about buying a can of compressed air to clean our computers, electronics and camera lenses, but John W. Scherer has a better solution; environmentally, safety-wise, and even quality-wise. We'll also chat about what the on-air team uses instead of Windows 10 on their own personal computers. Read the complete show notes, commen…

Jeff shares a USB charger that lets us charge up to 6 phones at a time, Robbie's got a cool Linux application that runs web sites as if they're apps, and Sasha's got the week's tech news. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obtain links from this episode at https://category5.tv/shows/technology/episode/642/…

The first batch of Pinebook Pro ANSI (US Keyboard Layout) Linux laptops has shipped. At just $200 and coming with Debian Linux pre-installed, we really want to get a close look at this groundbreaking daily driver of a laptop from Pine64. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obtain links from this episode at …

Robbie visited Raf Bivar at ESET Canada's head office in Toronto to discuss the current threat landscape, and what businesses need to know to protect their data in 2020. We'll also check in on Robbie's weight loss progress as he uses tech to guide his food decisions. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obta…

Robbie's solo again this week, and it's a great opportunity to geek out in the Linux terminal! So let's learn to trace vector paths on raster images and create a doorbell system that performs any action as soon as your staff approach the building. We'll do all this from within the Linux terminal. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this e…

Happy new year 2020! Robbie has come up with a novel goal for the new year: To educate himself about his health. The hope is to use this information to achieve weight loss and better long-term health, without ever having to really focus on the mundane and often unachievable specific goal of weight loss. And what's more, his budget is just $100. Sas…

In light of the winter storm, the team has the week off - but Robbie was already at the studio when it was called, so he's got this! Time to get started on our custom NAS solution, and Robbie will get into the Linux terminal, how to work with external drives, and how to use--and understand--mount points. Read the complete show notes, comment or rat…

We polled the community and it's been decided: USB 3.1 Rev 2 for our external storage. We'll share a bit more about the decision and what's to come. We also have an Amazon Fire 7 Tablet and determine if you can get standard apps like YouTube or Chrome installed - and if you can use Google Play to do it. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate…

PHP isn't limited to web services: Robbie will show you how to run your PHP scripts as command line apps on Linux. We'll also discuss the difficult decision between connectivity and future speed when looking at external storage, and how a VLAN could help protect Sasha's privacy on a shared Internet connection. Read the complete show notes, comment …

It's hard to believe, but Unreal Tournament GOTY is 20 years old. It holds a special place for Category5 since it was UT LAN parties where Robbie and Jeff got to know one another all those years ago. We'll also look at the Amazon Echo Flex - a brand new version of the popular Alexa smart home device that plugs directly into a wall socket and featur…

Our viewer community came together to contribute toward a needed broadcast system replacement. With the added help of Kingston Technology, Gigabyte and NVIDIA, we're ready to build our shiny new i9 9900k PC to use for live broadcasting and editing the show for release. We can't thank you enough for pitching in! This week, we'll go through the build…

Dan Khasis, CEO of one of the world's biggest logistics software companies, Route4Me, joins us to discuss the technology that drives an industry that we don't always think about since it tends to happen behind the scenes: supply chain and fulfillment. We'll also look at an immensely powerful portable USB charger and a way to enjoy your Keurig witho…

Enjoying our music and videos depends a lot on finding the right set of headphones, but it's not always easy to know from an online shop which is going to be best suited for us. The Category5 team compare 5 sets of Bluetooth headphones and discuss their opinions of each to help you get an idea for which may be the one for you, or the person on your…

Tired of your Raspberry Pi frying SD cards? Want your Pi-based server to keep running in a power outage or when unplugged? We'll look at what is perhaps the ultimate smart UPS for Raspberry Pi to solve these issues. And since we're soldering headers for the GPIO, we may as well learn a quick trick to make your soldering just a bit easier. Read the …

With a little soldering, we're prototyping a thermal imaging scanner which allows us to visualize thermal data. We'll be using it to see how various cases and coolers affect the thermal footprint of various single board computers, but the options are endless. With this device, you can see heat. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this epi…

This week, Tom Costantino (Co-Producer) and Brooke Noska (VFX Producer / Co-VFX Supervisor) from The Orville chat with us about the tech they use behind the scenes to make their TV magic, and how the evolution of technology has impacted the way sci-fi is produced. Read the complete show notes, comment or rate this episode, view pictures and obtain …

By now, we've all heard of Amie DD's Tesla hack: she implanted her car's RFID chip in her arm. Category5 cuts deeper to find out just what makes Amie DD tick. Discover along with us that she's much more than just green hair and tattoos: Amie's a thoughtful and creative maker with the tools and skills to bring her visions to life. Whether cosplay, c…

Imagine stock images of models who aren't really people. We're not judging: we actually mean AI-generated fake people who can be used as stock images! We'll show you how to get your hands on 100,000 such images for your project. We'll also take a look at a USB temperature sensor that lets you measure the ambient or surface temperature, providing JS…

We've all heard that the Raspberry Pi 4 gets hot, and that when it does, it throttles. While surprisingly we couldn't get it to throttle in our quick test, we were certainly able to get some heat. But we'll add a case from Eleduino that reduces the temperature by at least 20 degrees C and looks good while doing it. Read the complete show notes, com…

Sick of stu-stu-stuttering video and slow file transfers on WiFi? Edgewater Wireless CEO, Andrew Skafel joins us to speak on how their revolutionary new WiFi technology is about to shake up the wireless industry. We'll also fire up the flux capacitor and show you how to go back in time in the Debian Linux repositories. Read the complete show notes,…

Anoosheh Oskouian, CEO of Ship and Shore Environmental Inc., joins us to talk about how her company is making a difference now, and for future generations by greatly reducing the air pollution generated by factories of all sizes. We'll also check out a new and exciting way to check the weather in your Linux terminal, and of course, Sasha has the la…

Did you know Robbie and Jeff met when they worked at a radio station, and Jeff later sang on one of Robbie's CDs for his band? Not only will we reminisce about the past, but we'll also plan for the future with a RAID-capable USB 3.1 Rev 2 enclosure for M.2 drives. We also have a nifty USB tester that will tell us how many amps our Raspberry Pi is a…