The Sect of Rama

Monday Nov 26, 2007

My 2007 Christmas Wishlist

Inspired by Skrocki's list, I thought I'd post one of my own. I'm not sharing this in hopes someone will play Santa- most of these are quite expensive- more so y'all know what kinda of stuff I'm interested in.

SteriPEN Adventurer Handheld Water Purifier. I like backpacking, and the idea of surviving major catastrophes. :) I don't like chemicals or filters that can expire. Not sure what the shelf life of the Steripen is, but I suspect its much better than the alternatives. Plus its so easy and cool lookin.
Old World style cast iron grinder. Ever since watching an episode of Good Eats, I've meant to get into making my own sausage.
Audi S5. Its hawt.
A Harris bipod, Leupold Mark 4 scope and a versatile, all-around hunting rifle equally capable of bringing down wild boar or deer. [ahem, homemade sausage] Any suggestions?
A Honda HRR216K3VXA rear-bagging mower. I'm actually pleased with my econo mulching mower for the price point, but this time of year, there are so many leaves on the ground I would love to just roll over them with a mower and have then mulched and bagged 'for free'. Plus I see myself mowing lawns for some time to come, so getting a nice mower makes sense.
Nikon 18-200VR. Allen is showing this really is a versatile all-around single lens (although the nighttime shots are curiously missing from his Flickr contributions?) Paired with one of my wide aperture lens however, this might be the only 2 lens I really need.
Aprilia SMV 750 Dorsoduro. Perhaps the first motard I like, but the maintenance schedule will likely scare me away, just like the other Aprilias.
A much larger burner and kettle for beer making. (Seriously tempted to get natural gas plumbed out to the backyard so I can quit dorking around with propane tanks too.) My 7.5 gallon turkey fryer setup is nice and portable, but the 6 gallon batch capacity means I'm brewing more often than I'd like to be. The flip side is the beer is always fresh, but at least with more capacity I have options.
Dr Suess Blue Green Abelard. Spied this in a gallery in Denver about 10 years ago and regret not getting it. Now they're selling for insane amounts I wouldn't consider paying, but it doesn't mean I still don't want it.
NEW:Rancilio Rocky doserless burr grinder.

Posted at 02:20PM Nov 26, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[3] | Permalink

Wednesday Nov 21, 2007

Props to DD-WRT

After spending way too much time debugging my router issues earlier, I postponed the upgrade to DD-WRT. Just didn't want to deal anymore, and even if it went totally smoothly, I'd still have to re-enter my DDNS, MAC address filters, etc once the firmware was replaced... or so I thought.

Tonight I bit the bullet and installed v24 RC4, expecting some pain (ahem, without RTFM first.) It was ridiculously simple! After the upgrade, the first thing I did was Google for the default admin user/pass then go to change it. After applying the changes, most of the text went to gibberish (ex: "??????Xs?/??"). Sonofa-- I knew it was too easy. Well it turns out the same page that allows you to change your user/pass also has a language selection dropdown that defaults to Chinese for some reason. Luckily, the guys who wrote it didn't do a proper job, and the drop-downs and mouse-overs on the menus were still in English, and I was able to find and revert this. Phew. Crisis averted.

So I start poking around, digging out my MAC address list from the personal wiki, and realize the MAC address list in the router is already populated with my earlier list-- they didn't get clobbered in the upgrade! Seems my DDNS settings survived also (good thing too, I never remember my password for dydns.org). Woot! I'll definitely be first in line to jump on future release candidates, now that I've learned it really is a painless process. The interface is much more intuitive, and is way more feature rich. I had no idea you could crank up the TX power so high (Default: 28, Range: 0 - 251mW). I wonder if that puts out more radiation than an old CRT. ;)

Posted at 09:13PM Nov 21, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[0] | Permalink

Monday Oct 22, 2007

Need For Speed: Cannonball Run Style

I'm a gadget and a speed freak, so this article [via Roy] on the quest to set the new cross-country speed record was a fun read:

White lines scroll through the windshield and mile markers tick past the tires as Roy flips a series of toggles on the center console, killing the brake lights (to prevent telltale flashes if he needs to slow for sudden radar), then flips a few more to illuminate the cockpit with night-vision-friendly red LEDs. The cockpit glows like a submarine at battle stations. Now Roy punches up the digital codes corresponding to the New Jersey State Police on the police scanner. The car fills with the coded squawk of emergency dispatchers, speeding motorcycles, and domestic quarrels.

A bit long, but if you hang in for the first page, you're sure to be hooked to finish it. Apparently this video inspired the driver some time ago.

Posted at 07:55PM Oct 22, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[0] | Permalink

Thursday Sep 20, 2007

Dear LazyWeb: Slow DNS Lookups on OSX

I'm running OSX 10.4.10 on a Macbook Pro that sits behind the same router as several other machines. However only the MBP exhibits delays on DNS lookups- I'm talking 5+ seconds. Whats the deal?

Posted at 11:08PM Sep 20, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[4] | Permalink

Thursday Sep 06, 2007

TomTom 510 Review

I picked up a TomTom GO 510 GPS last week, here are my early thoughts:

Apple-like packaging/setup: drop in the memory card, power it on. done.
setup asks for your language choice first, then asks if you want left or right handed. woohoo! go southpaws!
it didn't know the correct time automagically- is this not via the GPS satellites?
type-ahead suggestions for selecting cities/streets is fast- decent CPU and/or software.
route planing includes walking and bicycling routes, however the unit is fairly bulky to consider carrying in your hand.
includes a real-time traffic update *option*. you need a BT phone and paid service, or an external antenna to use it however. This wasn't a selling point for me, but it seems a bit sketchy to sell it as a feature but require additional services and/or hardware.
you can add "buddies" so you can see where each other is. makes me wonder what else it might be sending to "big brother".
it acquired 7 satellites indoors. i don't think my garmin etrex vista can lock on to more than 2 at that location.
it managed to get me to my destination and back home on its maiden voyage, but its street selections were pretty lame. in fact it sent me up a street i've driven by for over 3 years but never turned on- for a reason.
on power up, it acquires satellites again in less than 30 seconds. the etrex vista would take minutes.

So far so good, although I haven't played with the software yet, and hear its somewhat limited...

Posted at 10:24PM Sep 06, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[0] | Permalink

Leatherman Skeletool

I've got a barely used Leatherman Wave, but after reading the review of the new Leatherman Skeletool, I obviously coveted the new tool (I'm a gadget and tool junky.) Is it worth it? Well- its 2.9 ounces lighter, and looks way cooler! I have no idea why, but my favorite camera shop is selling them too. I don't think I'll be looking to replace my Wave quite yet, but the weight different is compelling.

Posted at 09:45PM Sep 06, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[2] | Permalink

Tuesday Jul 31, 2007

AirPort Extreme Update - Linksys 802.11N Fixed!

Matthew informed me there's an Airport Extreme update released today: This update is recommended for all Intel-based MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini computers and improves the reliability of AirPort connections. Given the 802.11N problems I've had with the Linksys WRT350N, I was anxious to give it a shot. (See Matthew, Igor- I don't run everything 5 revs out of date!)

Well I could be jumping the gun, but I think the update fixed the problem. I've been connected for close to three hours now with no hangs. It wouldn't last much longer than 30 minutes before the update. Looking promising!

Posted at 07:52PM Jul 31, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[2] | Permalink

Monday Jul 23, 2007

Macbook WiFi Kernel Panics, Part Deux

Re: my recent Macbook wireless woes, Matthew passed on this entry: Is your MacBook Pro giving you kernel panics when you use wifi?

[Igor: maybe all these Mac entries will steal away your informal title of the Mac Blog King. ;)]

Posted at 08:54PM Jul 23, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[1] | Permalink

Monday Jun 18, 2007

21 Years in Computing 'Advancement'

Via Roy, a 1986 Mac Plus versus a 2007 AMD DualCore.

Posted at 06:55AM Jun 18, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[0] | Permalink

Saturday Jun 16, 2007

Epson Scanner Memory Error

Just got back from dinner with some family, afterwards I planned to scan in some old photos so I'd have digital versions. The scanner was an Epson 4870, which has a full sheet scanning bed- however the photos I was trying to digitize were only about four inches square. While trying to scan the first photo, the thing kept complaining that it "could not allocate memory" and would punt. The preview thumbnail made it look like it was scanning the entire flatbed as part of the photo. A fruitless Google only turned up issues people had when moving the scanner around from one USB port to another, which didn't help in my case. We finally figured it out- by putting down a blank sheet of paper behind the photo, the scanner was finally able to detect the true edges and not try to scan the entire bed. Annoyingly easy "fix"- hope this saves someone out there...

Posted at 12:09AM Jun 16, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[2] | Permalink

Friday Jun 15, 2007

Holy Moly - Memory is Cheap!

I've finally replaced my Treo 600 with a Treo 755p. The new phone takes a MiniSD rather than SD like the old generation. When I checked out prices on Amazon, I saw this: 1G for $4.75!

I wonder how difficult it'd be to create a RAID of these cheap 1G units, for use in a PC. Given the significant price jump from 1G to 2G, it seems it'd be cost effective...

Posted at 03:09PM Jun 15, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[1] | Permalink

Wednesday Jun 06, 2007

Buffalo Terastation Power Consumption

I've finally started the migration from the old Slug- which draws about 15W combined with an external USB drive- to a Terastation. The later has 4 x 400GB drives (configured as RAID5). The Terastation draws a peak of 90W at power up, and 49W while idle. Based on those two data points, I'm guessing the typical hard drive draws somewhere around 10-15 watts. Unfortunately, the Terastation doesn't have an internal disk spin down feature while idle- you need to mount an external drive to do so. (Booo, Buffalo! Other NAS's support that feature.) Just for kicks I might stick a USB thumbdrive on the thing and measure the wattage once the disks can spin down, and kill that annoying hum from 4 spindles. Plus it'd be a great experiment in how long flash memory in thumb drives can handle repeated R/W activity from all the swapping!

Posted at 05:41PM Jun 06, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[1] | Permalink

Thursday May 31, 2007

Woot-off In Progress

Woot-off in progress. EOM.

Posted at 09:15AM May 31, 2007 by rama in Gadgets | Comments[0] | Permalink

Wednesday Apr 25, 2007

Fancy Analog Clock

First off-- ya, ya. My blog is so boring I'm writing about a wall clock. Happy? ;)

So a couple friends at work have old sk00l analog wall clocks in their offices. I've grown to rely on them during impromptu hallway conversations, to see if I'm running late for a meeting or something (I don't wear a watch.) I finally broke down and ordered one, to add to the clutter on my office walls. When installing the battery, I noticed a switch for "New-Old-Off". The instructions claim this is to have it automatically adjust for the new (or old) daylight savings time, called Set & Forget. Fancy!

The engineer in me had to take it apart to see how this works- it certainly wasn't easy to pop the back cover off- and they didn't provide any directions on how to do so. Inside was the typical clock guys you'd expect, but also a CR2032 watch battery. I'm guessing it uses the same tech as one of their other clocks, which really sucks- because... Here's the important thing: Never remove all of the batteries at the same time because the internal calendar memory (Set & Forget functions) will no longer function properly. So now I need to carefully pry off the back of this clock and replace the watch battery in a staggered fashion with the AA battery. What a royal PITA. When that CR2032 gives up the ghost, I'll be switching the DST option to off, thank you very much.

One more way a technology that was supposed to make things easier really just made things more complicated... sigh.