Why I Tried tjs colfax in the First Place
Honestly, I just saw some dudes talking about it on a forum while eating cold pizza at 2am. Figured why not give it a shot since I had that busted old server collecting dust behind my fridge. Plugged the damn thing in and nearly tripped over the power cable – classic move right there.
The Actual Setup Nightmare
First off, grabbed that crusty monitor from 2012 with the flickering screen. Hooked it up to the server and got nothing but angry blinking lights. Slammed the reset button like five times while muttering swear words under my breath. Finally got some text to show up after jiggling the HDMI port sideways.
- Found the command line looking like ancient hieroglyphics
- Spent an hour Googling what “sudo” even means
- Accidentally deleted something important and had to start over
- Dropped a screwdriver on my foot during the process
Making It Do Something Useful
After three coffee cups and one minor panic attack, I got it to print “Hello World”. Felt like a damn genius. Then tried making it count my pizza slices automatically – only worked when I shoved the pizza directly into the USB port. Taped a webcam to the ceiling instead which sorta worked if I stood real still.
Got ambitious and tried connecting my smart thermostat. The server froze solid and my living room turned into Antarctica for two hours. My cat gave me that “you broke warmth again” stare the whole time.
What Actually Works
- Basic math calculations (finally replaced my pocket calculator)
- Glows blue in the dark which looks cool during movie nights
- Fan noise drowns out my neighbor’s terrible banjo playing
Epic Failure Moments
Tried voice commanding it to order tacos. Ended up buying 300 rolls of toilet paper from some sketchy website. Woke up to my phone blowing up with fraud alerts. Unplugged the mic immediately and ate sad cereal for dinner.
Biggest disaster? Thought I’d backed up everything before tinkering. Found out too late my backup drive was actually just a coaster for beer cans. Lost all my vacation photos except that blurry one where I look like a confused potato.
Overall rating? Wouldn’t use it for anything important unless you enjoy sweating and crying simultaneously. But damn if that blue glow doesn’t make me feel like a mad scientist every night!