Bluedragon

New phone broken

Gabe — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:33:47 +0000

Lu’s phone hit the floor and the front broke.

Old iPhone repair

Gabe — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:04:43 +0000

Trying to save my old iPhone 3GS that we gave to my bro-in-law. Second time he has broken the glass. I finally got it replaced and now I see

This could be due to my repair job. While trying to separate the bracket from the unit, I pulled off a black film that goes between the new glass and something under it.

Is it toast?

Leap Frog Tag – Impressions

Gabe — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:13:24 +0000

We got Julia the Leap Frog Tag “system” for christmas.

I get it out of the box, put in batteries and try to read a book. It repeats over and over (each time I touch it to the book): have your parents connect you Tag to the computer to download more books.

So I read you have to download the audio for each book to the tag. Hrm, ok.

Come to find out there is special software (free download) to sync what books you want to the Tag (pen). It can hold ~30MB, which each book being ~1.5MB it can hold about 20 books. Luciana bought a LOT of books so we can easily fill it.

The software on the computer seems a big odd. First, you can download any/all books to your computer and apparently sync any/all books to your tag. Obviously you have to own the book to trigger the audio. But the download to computer then sync to tag is a bit weird. I guess since you can only have 20 books on the Tag at a time, I can see having them offline might be good. Oh, the bad part: It doesn’t indicate what you’ve already downloaded and what you’ve put on your Tag in one place.

Hopefully it encourages her to read, which she seems pretty interested in, regardless of the Tag.

Super Shuttle Jerk

Gabe — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:28:42 +0000

So, am I crazy or is this guy a jerk?
I scheduled a super shuttle for our 5pm flight. They tell me they will be
there between 2:05 amd 2;20pm. I think that’s kinda early, but whatever.
He gets there at 2:06pm, we aren’t ready (I broke a toe so I can’t help,
we have a 1 month old baby who decides when he wants to eat, a 4 yr old
who is semi-helpful, if she wants to be). At 2:20 he says “I can’t be
here all day, its been like 30 min.” Then at 2:40 he says “its been like
an hour.” He continues to make comments like this the entire time.
I’m pretty laid back (I let my wife yell at people cuz I normally don’t
get upset) but he was pissing me off. It wasn’t like he was nice and
then got rude, he was rude from the very first whif that we might be
late. He litterally says when he arrives and we tell him not to take
our bags to teh van because we still have to move stuff from carry-on
to checked bags: “i didn’t sign up for this.” (maybe he can make “more”
money driving more people? in a day…)

He gets on the phone with his company and asks for advice, they tell
him to charge us $15 for every 10 min past the pick up time.

My family comes out at 2:45 (i was waiting in the van with my
daughter cuz we were ready and I can’t carry jake with crutches).

If we hadn’t have the entire van rented to ourselves and wew ere holding
up other people, then I could see a problem. but we paid for teh whole
van (because of the number of people, car seats, luggage, etc).

While driving our daughter has a toddler episode because she is
sleepy and realizes she left her red shoes at home…the guy says:
“I have kids, but I’m trying to drive.” Maybe I was already biased
by now, but i don’t think he said this very nicely (I don’t think
a single word that came out of his mouth was ‘nice’, maybe it is
just the way he talks, who knows).

He drops us off and tries to get the extra money after my FIL gives
him a $5 tip (there was a $5 tip already added to the bill). We
tell him that was not disclosed at the time of the reservation and
we won’t pay it. He leaves.

I will be contacting Super shuttle about this BS, and make sure we
don’t have this guy on our return trip.

BK Chef Choice Burger

Gabe — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:37:59 +0000

Wow, that was horrible. How did they manage to make such a terrible burger?

Money Saving Switches

Gabe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:19:13 +0000

I was thinking about how long the fan can stay on in the bathroom and wondering if there was a timer.

These look very good:

http://www.lutron.com/Products/StandAloneControls/Timers/MaestroTimer/Pages/Overview.aspx

Though a little pricey at $44 each.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=202065252

Wonder how long till they pay for themselves?

NAS

Gabe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:18:33 +0000

To keep our pictures/movies/data safe, I’d like a NAS (network area storage) so that it is not connected to my PC, always on, hot swappable HDs, RAID1 (maybe RAID5).

Some suggestions from ISCA people:

http://www.thecus.com/sp_comtable.php?PROD_TYPE_ID=1
http://www.synology.com/products/compare_spec.php?lang=enu&product_id_list=66%2C64%2C63#compare_show_top
http://www.synology.com/us/products/demo/index.php
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/31356-synology-dsm-30-reviewed
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/30944-synology-ds209-and-ds209ii-reviewed?showall=&start=5

http://www.thecus.com/product.php?PROD_ID=21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

MKV

Gabe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:11:32 +0000

Arg! I got some 1080p mkv files I was trying to play on our 360.

MKV files play fine on my i7 PC using VLC (1.1.11)
360 can’t see them as ‘videos’. I add them to WMC as movies, 360 can see them, but can’t play them.
The error message:

Cannot play video
Windows Media Center cannot find the specified file. Be sure the path is typed
correctly. If it is, the file does not exist at the specified location, or the
computer where the fiel is stored is offline.

Trying some google results, I found:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021900060.html

But that didn’t work either.

Misc Links:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Troubleshoot-problems-with-a-Windows-Media-Center-Extender-device

http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/Xbox360/video.html

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/01/playing-mkvs-in-media-center.html

Water Softener

Gabe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:10:42 +0000

Our dishwasher (very nice, we bought it new when we moved in 2008) doesn’t clean so well. I guess it is because of our hard water (i’m nearly convinced, but then sometimes I think we have soft water when washing my hands, the soap won’t come off).

How many grains do we need? 3 full baths, with 2 separate water heaters…
Sounds like 30000 is for 1-4 people (with our new baby, that makes 4, but with company, we can get up to 8 or so here at once).

http://www.lowes.com/pd_63157-43353-WHES304_4294822072_4294937087_?productId=3134821&Ns=p_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr|0||p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%2Fpl_Water%2BSofteners_4294822072_4294937087_%3FNs%3Dp_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr%7C0%7C%7Cp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1&facetInfo=

$397.00 as of 10/27/2011.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_63540-43353-WHES404_4294822072_4294937087_?productId=3134825&Ns=p_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr|0||p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%2Fpl_Water%2BSofteners_4294822072_4294937087_%3FNs%3Dp_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr%7C0%7C%7Cp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1&facetInfo=

$497.00 as of 10/27/2011.

UPS – Battery Backup

Gabe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:31:54 +0000

APC is about to go on my ‘do not buy list’.
Previous UPS made the ‘hiss’ noise when the battery expands. Not necessarily APC’s fault.
Bought a new APC Back UPS XS 1300.
Less than 2 years, I am getting random reboots, events telling me the batteries are completely dead, then working normally. I’m not happy.

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