Here is a list of things I do at the start of each new year:

1. Archive my prior-year’s Gmail (all of these take a while, depending upon your inbox).
• Search on the prior year’s email using the expression, after:2016/12/31 before:2018/1/1
• Select ALL, and apply the label OLD INBOX
• Select ALL of the emails meeting the above 2 criteria.
• Archive them, and viola! Your inbox now only has emails for 2018.
2. Change Passwords
• This can be as simple as adding 18 or 2018 or something for the new year somewhere in your password.  For example, change PassW0rd to 20PassW0rd18.
• To check the strength of my passwords, I like to use both:
• http://www.passwordmeter.com/, e.g.,
• password scores 8%
• PassW0rd scores 56%
• 20PassW0rd18 scores 100%
• I’ve capitalized various letters and replaced o with 0, which you can also do to i/1, e/3, s/5, t/7, b/8, g/9, for example.
• If you want you can also then spell out the numbers, e.g., zero or z3r0 to result in 20PassWz3r0rd18 (also 100%).
• https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm (there are a lot of these out there), using a brute force “Offline Fast Attack Scenario”, which is one hundred billion guesses per second):
• password could be cracked in 2.17 seconds;
• PassW0rd could be cracked in 37.66 minutes;
• 20PassW0rd18 could be cracked in 10.43 centuries; and
• 20PassWz3r0rd18 could be cracked in 2.48 million centuries.
• You can see the difference adding 2018 to PassW0rd decreases “crackability” (aka, improves strength) from minutes to centuries.  If I replaced the 1 with a !, it would also improve the strength. (e.g., 1/!, 8/$)
• 20PassWz3r0rd!8 could be cracked in 1.49 billion centuries.
3. Review my cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive & OneDrive) and auto-subscribed services (Hulu, Netflix, etc.) for cost and consolidation.
4. Obtain copies of my Free Annual Credit Reports.
5. Prepare to file my taxes using Turbo Tax Online for the first week in Feb.

So I’ve been experiencing a burning smell in the cabin of my car and had my mechanic take a look at it when he did a Service Level A. He showed me the two places the leak was coming from and quoted me $640 ($520 in labor and $140 in parts) to repair from a quote he did the prior week on the exact same job — he said it was very common. The oil drips onto a heating element that causes the burnt oil smell.

I opted to pass for the time being and did some research.  Apparently I had to replace the (1) PCV Valve, aka Crank Case Ventilation Valve, and (2) large Expansion Plug.

To replace (1), I watched this video.
To replace (2), I watched this video.

This video showed replacing both.

I bought the parts from Amazon for a grand total of $40.

For (1) I ordered, URO Parts 272 010 0631 Crankcase Vent Valve from Amazon and it worked like a charm.  Great product.  See this link.

For (2) I ordered, the Dorman 917-127 Camshaft Housing Plug Assembly that included 1 large and 2 small expansion plugs, but I would NOT recommend this product.because the smaller plugs popped off easily. The larger one stayed just fine and luckily the smaller ones did not need replacing so I kept the originals. In the future, this is fairly cheap, so I think I’d buy original equipment.

Pictures are below. The whole thing took about 1 hour and struggled with the bottom T30 screw, but all in all, proud of the work and the burning oil smell is gone.

(engine with covers off and leaks identified)

(the PVC Valve and one of the smaller Expansion Plugs)

(the larger Expansion Plug and other smaller Expansion Plug)

For my birthday, I bought myself a Raspberry Pi 3, Mobel B, Starter Kit from MCM Electronics (www.mcmelectronics.com) that included the Pi, an 8G SD card, power supply and a see-through plastic case.

First project: http://makezine.com/projects/send-ticket-isp-when-your-internet-drops/

Pretty cool set-up.  Played around with GitHub.  Pi is now plugged directly into my cable modem and I remote into it, when I need to.  Below are Google Charts depicting my monthly speeds.

I pay for 50/50 on Frontier Communications (nee Verizon ViOS). The BLUE color is download and the RED color is upload. The chart graphs hourly speeds as determined by http://www.speedtest.net.

Let me know what you think!

Nov 16	Ping (ms)	Down (Mb/s)	Up (Mb/s)
Monthly	20.684	51.921	35.846

16DEC	Ping (ms)	Down (Mb/s)	Up (Mb/s)
Monthly	19.259	54.367	41.905

I like DIY projects… plumbing, electrical, computer, etc. One that I’ve taken up recently is replacing the RUSH (fiber or paper) on my kitchen chairs.  It’s tough getting the right supplies, knowing which size rush you need (5 or 8, in my case — fyi, the width measurements are in 32nd’s).