Odd. I remember seeing one when i was shopping on my own. i thought it was an apple brand, perhaps i was wrong and just mis-read. When i got my last office-laptop it was an option, but silly priced so i opted out to avoid getting the entire thing denied and didn't look closer at the time ( We are a PC shop, so Apple takes a bit of string pulling and i only had so many strings i could pull ). 

Now i don't see it, tho i do see they sell an exclusive 3rd party product in their store for about $350..   What i remember was also not a 'shove laptop into' like a lot of PC laptops, but a USB box that sat beside.

Fri Jun 12 2026 12:43:52 EDT from setho

As far as I know, Apple doesn't sell any sort of dock at all.....

The laptop I bought for my daughter last year (Lenovo V15, under $400) has ethernet.  The rest of us have Dells of various types (some consumer grade, some business grade) and they all have ethernet.  I honestly haven't seen a non-Apple laptop without an RJ45 port on it yet.  Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.  I'll definitely take a quick scan the next time I'm in a store that has them on display.

As for "docks" ... nobody has them anymore, because everything is thunderlightning now.  The little port bricks are now our docks.  And yes, they all have Ethernet in them.

That is what i was meaning, i guess i was a bit confusing, tho a lot of people refer to them as such.

Now, that said, at the office, we still get the 'clip it in/on' style too, for "PC" laptops.  Not real sure what to call them now.  PC is a bit too generic, cant call them X86 either now, as non apple ARM laptops ( and desktops ) do exist.. and that market is about to explode here soon. And cant really call them 'windows laptops' since aside from reloading at home, you can buy some with Linux ( sure, not a lot. but they do exist )

Perhaps just "laptop" and "Macbook" and "PoS" ( for the ones that run windows. lol )

Market is too grey these days for everything.   

Fri Jun 12 2026 17:42:11 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Hotel networks

 The little port bricks are now our docks. 

Saw an Asus Zenbook today. No Ethernet. 

I doubt the profit is as high on 'consumer models'.

We had them here a while ago, but had to ditch them since IBM set them free. "Direct" China sourced, we cant do that here. And ya, i know its all a scam since many parts come from there and Taiwan all the time, but gotta play the game at times. 

Wed Jun 17 2026 07:05:31 EDT from darknetuser Subject: Re: Hotel networks

Anything cheap and consumer-grade seems to come with... limited options. My mother got a cheap ultra-compact HP laptop for work and it came without RJ45.

Lenovos don't seem to me to be trying to catch the low end of the spectrum and in fact when somebody asks me to source an ok work laptop, I tend to grab a second hand Lenovo for the task (depending on availability). Anything they sell as a business or mid-range comeswith ethernet it seems.

You guys are killing me. I think we know how to break rules, and we all assume a lot of the general public knows too - but maybe it is just general public that knows nerds like us to guide them - and even then - it is about 20% of my non-nerd friends who come to me for advice on how to connect - almost all of them just prefer convenience. 

I always say only about 5% can get around the nonsense, and perhaps 10% more ask for our help. The others, just get in line and drink the Kool-Aid as they are told, as they dont even know to ask. "its just how things work, right?" But even at  the high end of 15%, the conglomerates ( and governments ) still win, due to the sheer numbers.

Fri Jul 03 2026 00:34:52 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

You guys are killing me. I think we know how to break rules, and we all assume a lot of the general public knows too - but maybe it is just general public that knows nerds like us to guide them - and even then - it is about 20% of my non-nerd friends who come to me for advice on how to connect - almost all of them just prefer convenience. 

 

 

Then that works for us.  The 85% are subsidizing us.  Let them pay the bills and watch the ads and cover the costs.

Its that thing my AI farm runs on, as WiFi isn't fast enough to even pretend to work ( and really even 1GB is too slow for that, but its what the boards do, so im sort of stuck )

And if you download a lot of stuff, ( like i do, often in the 100's of gigs at a time ) having real wire is good.  But ya i agree 95% of the people out there, don't need that level of bandwidth at home anymore.  5G ( both WiFi and cell ) is more than enough. 

Wed Jul 22 2026 16:23:26 EDT from LoanShark

What's Ethernet?

[Ok, I still use it for my desktop, TV(!) and all the little gadgets in my home theatre setup, but that's mostly out of habit. On the rare occasions I need it for a laptop, I've got the little CableMatters usb-c hub.

Stick an ARM board on the back of it, as a print server. 

Thu Jul 23 2026 10:48:15 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

What's Ethernet?

It's that port that my printer doesn't have ... grml

*insert image of 36 pin printer connector here*

I believe in an 80/20 rule. Everywhere I've ever been - Intel, MCI, Legato/EMC/Dell - I've worked at the big ones - and 20 % of the people are doing 80% of the work, 80% are doing the 20% of the work that just sucks but is mindless and repetitive and productivity doesn't really matter. 

You make a lot being part of the 20% - but you carry a LOT of the burden. 80% of it. 

And in that 20% top, just like the top 1% of earners - there is probably an 80/20 rule there too... there are 20% in the top that are the absolute performers... and 80% of them who are excellent compared to everyone else - but who suck compared to the top 20% in that reach. It is like fractal geometry. Get to the top 1% - and there are 20% that are Elon Musk - and 80% that are whoever else. A huge gap. 

When you realize this - it is a little depressing. Right now - I have about $380k of vehicles in my garage. It was a bucket list milestone for me most of my adult life. A big goal, right? Once I got there, all my friends have $600k - $2.5m in cars in THEIR garages. I'm the poor guy that just barely gets into the club. The problem is that your circle changes as your success changes. I like to think that my RICHEST friend - he has one Viper that is worth $750,000 - I feel like he probably has friends where HE is the bottom rung on that ladder - and he wonders what he is doing wrong. 

But most scriptures of any faith have some pretty deep insights on chasing material wealth. 

So here lately, just to make it easy on me, i switched from OpenVPN to wireguard.   I have several mobile devices, and it works fine.

But. i want to drop off a loaner machine to a relative and be able to get into it to do stuff and not have to drive an hour... So did some research on the changes to the config files to have it be actually on my network as an option, but not default.  Tested it with a VM on my desktop that only gets NAT. It seems to work, i was able to give it a real address and ssh back into it. I can still get connected via a 'nat' device too, so i didn't break anything. i dont think.. had to use WiFi, since we don't get enough cell signal here to go that route, but it did connect, i could see it in the logs on the vpn server.  Ill try it again later this week when im not home.

I know a couple of you around here do use wireguard.. so the question is,  is this going to work or am i dreaming? and will it blow up in my face later? 

I know worst case i setup a 2nd VPN server, new port ,bla bla  but if this is safe its easier and more flexible in the long run as i only have to futz with one server ( and editing 2 files to add the real IP.. )

I did see that a while ago, but from what i gathered it was a 'commercial service' so i stopped looking.  I hate to rely on others, as we all know. lol.

Thu Aug 13 2026 19:14:14 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

What you want is called Tailscale. Look it up. It's basically a control plane for Wireguard that helps endpoints find each other in exactly your situation.