Gadgetory Matters or Wannna Wanna Wanna

Ok, what do I wanna?

A nice GPS unit. I want to do some geocaching and I want to record coordinates of places where I catch the biggest fish. Which reminds me, I also need some nice nautical maps. Any advice?

A pen scanner like the c-pen (not sure which one to get)

A custom surf rod and a custom fluking rod.

A La Marzocco coffe machine.

A tablet PC.

Yeah, I still remember about that pen computing post I promised. I still have not started it, but I will write it.

I have finally seen the Acer tablet, and I’ve got to tell you that it rocked. The feen of the pen is great, so is the sensitivity. The software enhances your writing so that text looks like something written with a quill pen (I think it automatically flares the letters). Handwriting recognitions seemed to be very decent. I only had a few minutes mano a machino, but I have a good feeling about Tablet PC.

Studly Matters

Brooklyn College officials like to put their full titles into the from field of the email. For instance, I used to get emails from “Alice Newcomb-Doyle, Public Relations” [..@brooklyn.cuny.edu] because I am on some email list. Well, now the name has changed into something funny – “Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Stud,” [..@brooklyn.cuny.edu]. I guess there is a character limit.

This is doubly funny, because before checking email I was playing with a stud finder device that I recently purchased from Radio Shack.

Take me out container / Take me out with the crowd

Here is something that I wanted to get for a long time. Hinged foam take-out containers.

They are easy to open, portable, don’t spoil the taste of the food like aluminum containers, don’t take up much room in the fridge.
This way I can cook enough food for a few days, put it in these containers and pop them into the fridge.

They are also good for storing fish filets :)

Great Fight With The Wall Warts and Holy Insurgency Against Wire Mayhem

Want to learn how to lower your electric bill and organize your power cords? Then .

Here is something I wanted to write up for while, but never had the time. But today I finished my book on my train ride to work, and now on my way back I have nothing to do, s I’ll write this up on my blackberry.

Remember, I used to bitch about high electric bills. Well, I think I found a way to reduce them. I found a culprit. Its name is Wall Wart. It’s also known as a power adapter, 12 volt transformer and #$%^ thing that takes up two outlets at the same time.

The sad fact is that most electronic appliances operate on a voltage that’s close to 12V. Since in US electrical grid mostly operates at 120V (a 240V line split into two) an a 120V to 12V transformer is needed.

Why isn’t there a separate 12 V line? Well, 12V electricity doesn’t travel well, so there is no way to pipe it directly from the power plant. And in any case, all the devices use current at different amperage, different jacks are needed and some devices have built in transformers. In one word – legacy issues. Two words. Anyway, back to the story. So what do I hate wall warts?

They are expensive. Did you ever try to buy a new charger for your cell phone? They cost a fortune. Without them electronics would be much cheaper.

They consume from 1 to 20 Watts in standby mode. Here is an article about that. There are between 20 and 30 wall warts in my apartment. And they are hungry.

They use up outlets.

Their thin wires create a mess, the plugs that go into the device often pop out inconveniently.

They generate heat.

They are ugly.

I hate them. I looked in vain for a universal power supply that would be able to feed all the devices, but I could not find any (same story with the personal power meter btw.)

Well, my solution is pretty simple. I went out and bought a bunch of power strips (ones with fat slots for wall warts). Then the hard part – I rounded up all the wall warts. I found a few from devices that I no longer used. Those went to my junk box.

Then I separated the wall warts that should always be on (phone and answering machine) and plugged them into their own strip. My computer and all devices connected to it went onto a second power strip. My wife’s computer and it devices went onto the third. I’ve done the same thing with the entertainment center. Tivo and cable box went onto one strip, everything else – onto another.

Whew. Now I turn off all the unnecessary devices at once. And the bill for last month was $20 lower than the one for the same month a year ago. Of course it’s not a good way to compare, but I’ll keep checking.

And if you read this far, here is a bonus rant. Did you ever try to mount a power strip on a wall? Most power strips have these nasty little keyholes on the back. You are supposed to make a paper template, screw in 2 or four screws and hang the power strip on those. There is no margin for error there. The screws must have correctly sized heads, must line up precisely, and be at the right angle with the wall. Of course, when you hang the strip it will look skewed. And when you’ll hang it straight, the screws will pop out of the sheetrock wall when you pull on it. Aaaaaaaargh.

Now to the solution. At first I experimented with drilling holes. That way I could just mount it on the wall with a few screws through the body of the strip. Well, it doesn’t work on all strips. On most I would have to drill diagonal holes or risk destroying the wiring.

The final solution is simple: I epoxy two pieces of hard plastic to the back of the strip, leaving a few inches sticking out. Drill two holes through that – and voila – instant hanging brackets.

Gender Bending Frame

I want a good digital photo frame. Not the stupid Ceiva, which requires you to buy into their crappy service and works through an analog modem (ie, even if I wanted to, I could not use it at work because we have VoIP phone system or something like that).

From reviews at Amazon:

“I knew this frame was cool when my teenage daughter was admiring a picture of herself and it suddenly changed to one of her brother. She let out a scream, and uttered a few unauthorized words.”

Now I know too. I hope she did not wet herself from excitement.

Well, I’ll probably end up making a frame out of an old iOpener or something. I also want a that 3COM net appliance for my bathroom, but that’s a different story.

Defective Detective Shops for a Pepper Mill

I am shopping for a really good pepper mill, and dammit, I can’t decide.

Right now I narrowed it down to two choices:

a) A pepper mill made by Peugeot. Supposedly Peugeot was making pepper mills even before cars. [Insert your own joke about wimpy French cars and their origins]
and
b) Turkish coffee grinder that was popularized as a pepper grinder by the Frugal Gourmet dude.

Ok, so let’s see what Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance taught me. Thinking romantically, it’s really cool that the grinder is made by an automobile company. It’s a great conversation starter (not that I need any of those). But thinking classically, a mechanism made for grinding Turkish coffee must be by it’s nature more robust, and have a much greater level of adjustment.

Like obsessive-compulsive detective Monk, I can’t decide.

Oooh, isn’t the salt pig adorable? Nah, I’m happy with the salt cellar that I have. Besides, it looks like a perfect place for roaches to camp out.

Tivo Tivo Tivo!

TurboNet card arrived yesterday. It’s an amazing feat of engineering – a tiny little custom-made ethernet card that fits into Tivo’s ISA slot and is powered by the motherboard. Install took 3 minutes (good hearted Tivo engineers included drivers for it with the latest version of software) + 5 minutes to staple cat5 to the wall. Well, and half an hour contemplating Tivo’s insides.

What am I gaining from having an ethernet card in Tivo?

Well, for one, it will not be phoning home every day. 30 calls per month at 5 cents each is not a huge saving, but I will not have to unplug the phone cord during thunderstorms.

I already had a burned out modem once. The nasty thing about it breaking was that it kept phone line “of the hook” so that nobody could call me. I had to send my Tivo to a Texan who goes by the handle Electriclegs. He figured out how to fix Tivo modems by replacing a few parts and even made a repair kit available, but I was not brave enough to solder surface mount components myself. The repair cost me $50 + shipping, but the worst thing was being without Tivo for a couple of weeks. Brrrr.

Things left to do:
1) Install bigger hard drive (not simple because I have a double drive model)
2) Mount the ethernet jack flush in Tivo’s case (cold not do it this time because my nibbling tool broke during cutting a hole for exhaust fan on my computer)
3) Install TivoWeb, other neato hacks
4) Learn to solder surface mount components, install memory kit from Electriclegs

Brooklyn College Library

Visited Brooklyn College yesterday to take a look at the newly reopened library.

Well, they’ve spent countless millions, and now the insides look like a typical yuppie apartment. Various designer chairs (mostly Aerons and some other expensive looking wooden ones) , desks. The circulation desk looks like a reception desk in a Fortune 100 company. Tons of tables with ethernet hookups. Some crappy Dells with 15 inch flat panel monitors running Win XP are available in “labs”. Lots of air conditioning ducts and eyes-in-the-sky.

Could not find any of the books that I wanted in the horrible mainframe search app (you telnet into it from the workstations). I was looking for some Lee Friedlander photography books , “The Legend of Amdahl”, some real estate books, some books about NYPD. Nada. Oh well, there is abebooks.com and amazon.com. And I have Aerons and fast network connection at home.

I thing that royally pisses me of is that they are using crappy bright fluorescent lamps. I hate those. At work I unhooked one that is right above my cube because it was driving me nuts. Yeah, spend millions on chairs and desks and install lamps that give everyone headaches.

The La Guardia reading room is gorgeous. There were some very nice black and white photos on the walls, a mildly interesting exposition of historical documents and photographs.

If I actually found any good books and did not get a headache from the lamps it would have been a great experience.

Marilyn Maye

You know what provides perfect music for coding? Sirius satellite radio. Just click on “play now” – and bam – 100 commercial free streaming radio stations. The “Pure Jazz” station is awesome! It’s all free for now and Sirius seems to have financial difficulties.. I hope they survive. I am even considering subscribing.

Just heard an absolutely amazing singer I didn’t know about, Marilyn Maye. Just for the song “Washington Square” I am going to buy a whole cd of her music, “Meet Marvelous Marilyn Maye”. Mmmm.

By the way, at least two of my coworkers did not know what “Sirius” meant and why their logo is a dog. Strange..

Ok, break over, back to coding.