fractalbrothers, you dig?

Disassemble and Repair D-Link DCS-5300 DCS-5300g

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:06:00 +0000

How to disassemble and repair the signal wires in a D-Link DCS-5300g or DCS-5300, and possibly other models:

Disassembly

1) Remove these rubber feet, there are 3 screws to remove.

2) Pry loose the bottom cover, but be careful as to not scratch the PCB under it. Sorry bad focus.

3) Remove the gilded nuts on the antenna connectors

4) Now you can carefully lift the round end of the PCB, about 1/2 inch, pull it a little bit toward the round end, and then lift up on the square end. It will seem like the green EXT I/O connector is getting stuck, just lower the round end a little bit, and it should be able to clear the hole. If you tilt the PCB too much, it will not clear the hole because of the plastic screw post next to the EXT I/O connector.

Now that you have the bottom part open you can troubleshoot whatever you need to here. In my case I need to troubleshoot a connection issue with the CCD, you see the four thin wires going up behind the top (motor controller) PCB, that is for the CCD and the Mic. The other set of 4 is for the up/down motor. Those get worn out over time because they are so flimsy. I will be replacing them with wire from a cat-3 cable.

5) There is a small screw on the rotating camera casing, remove that and the back cover pops off. Now you can see the camera pcb and the other end of that flimsy 4 pair.

6) Remove both ends of the flimsy pair gently and carefully using needle nose pliers, Do not pull on the flimsy wires. Rock the connector side to side longways rather than pulling hard.

Repairing CCD video/Microphone wires

7) Now. to test continuity, My multimeter has an audio tone continuity test mode which I will use, if yours doesn't have that, you can just use Ohms (Ω). I am using a thumb tack connected to an alligator clip connected to negative for one end so i don't have to hold both ends, which would be pretty awkward. Then I just jam the thumb tack into the hole on the flimsy connector, and test the other end with the positive (+) probe. Polarity doesn't matter when testing continuity of course.

8) Now, In my case, pin 3 (counting from the red wire) is bad, but I will go ahead and replace both CCD wires since they are all stupidly skinny and ridiculous and will probably fail in the future if I don't. I'm not gonna worry about the mic wires because in my application the mic is not needed, but if you use the mic you should replace those too. Remove the two screws on the motor controller PCB. Remove the connector with the white wires from the motherboard (lower) PCB. Separating it completely will make it easier to work with both parts. Now is a good time to start heating up the soldering iron too.

9) Cut about 8 to 10 inches of cat3 or cat5 cable (or whatever thin cable you decided to use, old IDE ribbon cable would work fine too, if you pull apart the wires). Pull some single strands out of the outer insulation. Pre-strip about 1/4" from each end of the lengths of wire that you are using so that you don't have to strip them once they are threaded through the camera housing.

10) Lift up the motor controller PCB and thread the wires through the turret, it was easier for me to go through the bottom, and grab them with needle nose pliers when they poked up to the top. I was stupid and didn't strip the wires beforehand, but i went ahead and wrote it up above so that you would.

11) Now, If you haven't yet cut pins 3 and 4, do that, and leave about 1" to 1.5" of wire to work with, I stripped it with a box cutter because im an idiot, but if you have a better solution (wire strippers) that is recommended. Again strip about 1/4".

12) Optionally, put a bit of that heat shrink stuff on each side to shrink over the soldered wires, it works a little better than electrical tape, and you can use the soldering iron to shrink it.

13) Twist the wires together like so, and solder them. I am not going to go into detail about soldering because that is outside the scope of this tutorial. There are plenty of good tutorials out there on how to solder, including videos.

Smaller heat shrink would be better because you could wrap the wires individually, I should have done that instead, because I had to tape one wire to keep them separated. But this is the only size I had.

14) It is always a good idea to test continuity again after soldering the wires. You can also turn the unit on to test it, you don't even need to reconnect the motor controller to test. Just connect both ends of the video/mic cable, connect A/V using the camera's included video cable to a video source, connect power. Voila. Follow the disassembly steps backwards and it's like new.

15) On re-assembly, make note that the antenna connectors have one flat side, so if they don't go in easily, don't force it, align it so the flat side is toward the inside of the unit.

16) On re-assembly, When putting the main PCB back in, make sure the little wires are all out of the way of the screw posts, just wiggle it a little and it will pop back in. Make sure and put the square side in first, putting all the external connectors through the holes, before pushing the round side down. The screw posts have to go into the PBC and be flush with the bottom of it.

Now if you feel so inclined, bill your client an extra $5 or $10 and donate it to me by clicking on the paypal donate button disguised as a dollar!

Large Hadron Collider fires first beam of protons

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:40:00 +0000

The first beam of protons was fired inside the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva today. Let's hope that they didn't create any micro black holes that will swallow the earth.

Seriously though, I'm hoping that some major scientific breakthroughs happen. Perhaps they will unlock the secret of free energy, or wormhole travel, or levitation. Seriously.

Don't let your car fall into disrepair.

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:51:00 +0000

Why? Because you will get pulled over way more than you want to be, as I've learned tonight. I got pulled over for the millionth time for having a tail light out - except this time they weren't working at all.

Lesson learned? Stop Jerry rigging (sorry for anyone named Jerry) my tail lights, and fix them permanently.

At least I got a warning, because the cop was a cool guy.

If Photoshop CS3 crashes when you hit file > open

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:41:00 +0000

This bug was quite annoying for me, since I thought Photoshop had hanged upon hitting file > open. The dialog would appear for a split second then disappear. Subsequent attempts to hit file > open (or double clicking on the gray background) would not work. However, Photoshop was not unresponsive in task manager. Then, I found the solution (thanks to a user named Dave Milbut on the Adobe forums) - Simply hit escape after Photoshop seems to "hang", and try clicking file > open again. Works like a charm! Turns out, the open dialog is off the screen, despite not being visible on my other screen - because it is actually still inside the Photoshop window.

Happy photoshoppin'!

How to Get Cheaper Domains at Godaddy.com

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:27:00 +0000

If you're like me, and you are sticking with the world's largest registrar - godaddy.com - for all of your domain needs because of their reliability and reputation, but you are also disappointed with the price increases on all of their domains - there is a way to get them cheaper (sometimes).

Go to retailmenot.com and search for "godaddy.com"
Try the coupon codes! I got 2 .com domains for $7 rather than $10 a year. Not bad!

One other way is to wait for sales. Godaddy has good sales every now and then, like $1 .info domains. I missed out on that promotion but I'm sure it will come around again.

Save 10% at GoDaddy.com - World's No.1 Domain Registrar

Go Daddy $14.99 SSL Sale!

Want to get better gas mileage? How to hypermile

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:31:00 +0000

With gas prices on the rise, one thing that is at the front of everyone's minds is how to get better gas mileage. Hypermiling is the solution to squeezing that extra bit of fuel economy out of your vehicle. Hypermiling is actually fairly simple - it mostly requires a little bit of responsibility and patience.

How to hypermile

Don't drive. When you can avoid driving, ride a bike or walk. It is more satisfying anyway, and you will lose weight by burning more calories - also important in hypermiling (read on).
Ease up on that lead foot. That lead foot will get you in trouble both with the fuzz and with your gas mileage. Gradual acceleration and braking can save you up to 60% on your gas bill (although this is probably extreme). Engines generally are not at peak efficiency at full or high acceleration, and more energy is lost through heat with aggressive braking.
Time lights and traffic to avoid slowing down. As mentioned in #2, braking causes loss of energy (stored as momentum) in the form of heat. Also, once you are stopped or slowed, having to re-accelerate expends more fuel.
Make sure your tires are aired up. Under inflated tires can cost you up to 5% fuel economy. When looking for your car's correct tire pressure, don't look on the tire itself - that is the maximum pressure for the tire. The correct tire pressure is indicated either in the car's manual, the driver's door pillar, the glove compartment door, or the gas tank door. Keeping your tires aired up will also extend their life.
Get rid of unnecessary weight. Are you hauling around your entire wardrobe, your rock collection, a keg of beer, your bike, and school books from classes you dropped last semester? Remember, for each 100 pounds of stuff you haul around, you lose about 2% gas mileage. Going back to the end of #1, losing some pounds yourself could save you some green. Also, if possible, only fill up the tank enough to get the job done - carrying around the extra fuel adds considerable weight to your ride.
Don't let your car idle excessively. Idling obviously will get you zero miles per gallon, so it doesn't make much sense to do.
Coast down long mountains, hills, and downhill roads. I don't recommend turning your engine off, but coasting will save fuel by idling rather than keeping the engine revved, and moving close to the same speed. Do be aware though that it is sometimes more safe to keep your vehicle in gear while descending a steep road. Safety comes before hipermiling!
Turn the air conditioner off (you pansy). The air conditioner compressor sucks a lot of power out of your engine. You will feel a noticeable drag when the air conditioner is turned on while driving. That means you are nerfing your fuel economy.
Do scheduled car maintenance. Changing your spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap/rotor (if you have one), fuel filter, changing your oil, oil filter, and changing the air filter (along with the other things I missed) will all help you get better gas mileage.
Aerodynamics. If you can fit your stuff in the back, leave the top carrier at home. Also, try to find a bike carrier for the back of your vehicle rather than putting them on top. If you have a truck, leaving the bed gate up actually will save you more gas than putting it down - mythbusters even verified this. A bed cover will get you even better mileage.
Find the best deals on gas. Go to gasbuddy.com to find the cheapest stations in your area. Also, wal-mart and sams club have discounts if you use a gift card to pay for gas. Additionally, you can save even more with certain credit cards, some offering 5% back on fuel purchases. This is definitely worth doing your due diligence on. Don't, however, be an idiot and drive 50 miles to get gas that is 5 cents cheaper per gallon.
Drafting behind semis. Despite the naysayers, and a quite retarded post at treehugger, drafting does safe fuel (think Tour de France). They even admit so in their article, quoting mythbusters results: a 20% increase in gas mileage at a distance of 100 feet. At 10 feet, a 45% increase can be achieved, but that isn't really a safe distance to follow an 18 wheeler. I verified that this works by saving almost exactly 1/4 of a tank of gas from my house to Dallas, Texas, where it normally takes about a full tank for the trip (one way). At $60 per tank, I can save up to $30 round trip. That's like 300 packs of ramen noodles. Note: make sure and be extremely alert for the truck braking so you can brake safely and get out of the way if necessary.

Happy hipermiling!

dug up: interview with Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve Software

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Back in April 2004, myself, my brother, and some friends decided to interview Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve Software, on the phone. We had somehow acquired Newell's home phone number, and we were all sort of zonked (or, at least I was), so we decided to wish him a happy 4/20. I recently dug up the transcript (written on a napkin) of our conversation:

wife: hello?
LC: May I speak to Gabe Newell please?
wife: Just a second...
Gabe: hello?
LC: Hi, this is Jeff Johnson with losercoalition.net, and we just want to wish you a happy 4/20.
Gabe: happy 4/20?
LC: yeah, a happy 4/20!
Gabe: ok...
Gabe: hey what was the name of your website?
LC: losercoalition.net
Gabe: Who's your friends? In the background?
LC: that's Austin, Chuck, Brittany, Jerrod and Tommy.
Gabe: cool, alright.
LC: well I'll let you go.
Gabe: ok, bye.
LC: have a good one.

My awesome beyond the rhetoric (michaelkwan.com) "Make Me Laugh and Win a Box of Cool Stuff" contest entry

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:45:00 +0000

Contest is here.

LOL!

Investing tools I use every day

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:30:00 +0000

Every day I go through my stock checking routine, which varies from day to day depending on what computer I am on. Here are the tools that I use:

Sogo Elite - This is my broker and trading platform. Sogo Elite (by SogoTrade, formerly SogoInvest) is Sogo's advanced trading platform, which is still lacking if you are a really serious trader, in which case you should go to a direct access broker with a more featured platform and level 2 quotes. However, Sogo Elite has all the features I need, like real time level 1 data, charting, and the most popular indicators such as MACD, RSI, and Stochastics. You can execute orders from the platform as well. One other reason I use Sogo is because of their dirt cheap trades. Check them out to learn more.
Zecco - This is my backup broker. I use Zecco because it is very cheap (if you maintain a $2500 balance, you get 10 FREE trades per month, otherwise trades are just $4.50). Zecco has a nice web interface and is usually very fast as far as trade execution. I've entered some pretty bizarre orders, sometimes well below the bid, with an AON (all or none) order, and got a fill with Zecco when I couldn't with my other broker. Plus, you can trade OTCBB and pink sheet stocks with Zecco. Check them out!
Think or Swim paper money - Think or Swim's popular trading platform is available for free to use with their paper money program - a simulated trading environment. Along with being able to test strategies without taking on any risk, you can use their real time data, charts, and other tools all for free. The platform is exactly the same as a real account. The charting in TOS is great because you can annotate and draw on charts, which allows you to easily define channels and patterns, as well as support, resistance, and trend lines. You can also set up fibonacci lines very easily. TOS paper money is easily worth getting just for that one feature alone.
Bigcharts.com - very nice charts here, and you can save your preferences to a cookie so you don't have to set them every time (this includes chart line style, indicators, color scheme, time window, etc)
Yahoo finance - I use Yahoo Finance for company news. Every now and then I will use their charting as well.
stockta.com - Excellent website for stock technical analysis. Type in a stock symbol and instantly see all resistance/support levels as well as bearish/bullish sentiment for the overall stock for the short and long term, as well as sentiment according to each of the popular indicators.
stockhouse.com screener - an outstanding technical screener for finding stocks based on technical rules such as candlesticks, moving averages, and abnormal volume.

There are many more resources that I use, but this list could easily get way too long. If you have any tools or resources that you use every day, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Adsflip versus Spottt - how do they compare?

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:23:00 +0000

I use both Spottt and Adsflip on this blog, because they are free banner exchanges - which means free traffic. The traffic is far from great, but I wanted to share my results with both:

So, in an Adsflip Spottt comparison, it looks like they are roughly the same. It should be noted that I am using the same ad image for both exchanges.

Like I said, nothing spectacular. If I start getting more organic traffic in the future (which isn't happening now because google isn't indexing my pages, for some reason ... very odd, considering blogger is owned by google!) I will probably ditch both services for advertising that would be far more useful considering the limited amount of real estate on the blog anyway.

How to disable animations in firefox

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:44:00 +0000

There are several ways to disable animations in the firefox browser, whether it is an animated gif or a flash animation.

How to block .gif animations

In order to temporarily disable .gif animations, simply press the escape key while you are in the browser window.
In order to permanently disable .gif animations, you will need to open the firefox configuration file. To do this, type about:config into the address bar. Then, look for “image.animation_mode”, double-click it, and type none.

How to block flash animations

To disable flash animations, you will need to install the flashblock firefox extension.

Try it out!

Buying a phone on ebay? Read this first!

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:47:00 +0000

If you are considering buying a phone on ebay, there are several things to consider before making the purchase. One consideration is whether or not the phone has water damage. The motorola razr and other phones (check your model) have a water detection sticker that turns red (or perhaps another color) when it is exposed to water, meaning that water at least got inside the battery compartment.

Ask the seller whether or not this sticker, if the phone as one, is activated. I made the mistake of buying the phone in the photo and it died soon after I bought it. Whether or not this was because of water damage, I don't know, but it would have been nice to get a refund for the phone in hind sight. Most sellers will likely exclude this information if the phone still works, thinking that their customer won't notice.

Weird entrecard screen

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:06:00 +0000

When I click on a link, a lot of the time I will middle-click on it in Firefox, to open it in a new tab. Well, I accidentally hit the middle-click (the button under the scroll wheel) to drop on someone's entrecard, and this is what opened in the new tab.

When the button says "thanks", it is inside an iframe with the background image the yellow button. So when it is opened in a new screen, the yellow button background just fills the entire screen. Fun.

Sweet! Google charts API

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:59:00 +0000

As a nerd, nothing fascinates me more than a shiny new API to play with (it's right up there with linux powered toasters) . Well, the Google charts API might not be that new, and as a nerd, I probably should have known about it sooner. Hey, It's new to me, OK!? Don't ruin it for me!

Here is my "hello world" pie chart example:

and the code that produced it:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:90,10&chs=250x100&chl=Beer.|Food.&chco=fff7c2,71613c

The Google charts API offers several types of charts:

Line charts

Your basic line charts, but with the ability to either specify x and y values or coordinates.

Sparklines

Little bitty line charts, that seem to be inspired by the Sparkline PHP Graphing Library.

Bar charts

Pretty cool bar charts, horizontal or vertical, multiple data series, etc.

Pie charts

2d or 3d

Venn diagrams

These are cool. The colors of the different sections will automatically blend colors in the intersecting areas.

Scatter plots

Points are coordinates on an x and y axis, and a third data set can be specified to change the size of each point.

Radar charts

Like a line chart, but points are drawn between the center and perimeter of the chart area.

Maps

Print maps with the ability to highlight regions.

Google-o-meter

A dial-type meter where the dial points at a percentage specified (0 is all the way left and 100 is all the way to the right)

Each chart type includes the ability to change attributes of the features such as their labels, colors, and styles. Cool!

Facebook and the monetization dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Weird. Two Facebook posts in a row. Anyway, CNN Money reports, "[Sheryl] Sandberg, 38, is in charge of helping the Valley's most popular startup grow up. Over the past four years, Zuckerberg has built the social-networking site he started in his Harvard dorm room into a 550-person business that sprawls across seven buildings in downtown Palo Alto." The article continues, "Even though Facebook is seen as the embodiment of Web 2.0, it has the quintessential Web 1.0 problem: No one has figured out how to make real money off it. Facebook pulled in revenues of just $150 million in 2007. In short, Zuckerberg et. al have yet to hammer out a business model. Oh, that."

Facebook is facing a serious dilemma. At a mere $150 million dollars a year in revenues, Facebook can only afford to pay its employees enough to buy Mercedes, and not Maseratis. The answer? Sheryl Sandberg, some important lady from google, is going to find an innovative way to monetize Facebook put bumper pages with large annoying ads on them, forcing you to click on the "skip this ad" link and inundate us with a billion true.com ads.

Facebook is an Israeli national security threat, or stupid soldiers?

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:34:00 +0000

(via CNN) Apparently, some dumb Israeli soldiers are posting pictures of themselves on Facebook carrying classified equipment, and thus compromising Israeli national security. However, calling Facebook a "security threat" is like saying that the spoon gave Rosie O'Donnell a large rump. It's also like making cantennas illegal in some areas, because they might allow people to access unsecured wireless networks.

The title of the CNN article should read, "Israeli officials: retarded soldiers are a national security threat".

Best game ever made is now on iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:43:00 +0000

(via PMP) Quake 3 Arena has yet to be matched (some will argue I know) by any first person shooter game on the market as far as speed, multiplayer gameplay, and overall FPS experience. Rocket arena was my forté.
Now, Quake 3 has been ported to the iPhone. Movement is triggered by the iPhone's accelerometer (you have to physically tilt and rotate the iPhone). Personally I think this is super cool, and I can't wait to see if they add the ability to strafe jump. I would buy an iPhone right now when it's 100 bucks on eBay (just wait!)

My trusty canon A70 finally bit the dust... or did it?

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:24:00 +0000

The camera I use in situations where things getting beat up is a likely possibility, i.e. snowboarding or midget tossing, finally bit the dust after something like half a decade of use. Actually, it didn't really die, the CCD just went out, rendering the camera useless, and merely showing black and white flickering on the screen when in shooting mode. But - alas - there is hope! Perhaps my trusty canon powershot A70 shall live once more! Apparently there is a recall on the CCD chip on this camera and a bunch of others. Rad! In fact, my brother got his fixed not too long ago and so did my mom. So I actually knew I could get it fixed, I just wanted you to think that my poor little camera was gone for good.

Give JJ a Nintendo DS!

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:18:00 +0000

Want to make a kid's day? JJ, to the right, wants a Nintendo DS for his birthday. All you have to do is sign up with Gamefly here and become a paid member for 1 month. You can cancel your subscription before the month is over if you like, but hopefully you will be hooked by the time the month is up!

Starting at $8.95/mo. Gamefly delivers games directly to your door, and you can keep them for as long as you want. With over 5,000 titles to choose from, free shipping and returns, and no late fees, Gamefly is simply the best valued video game rental service for your money.

Once you are signed up, you can also refer 5 people and get a free Nintendo DS or a 6 month subscription to Gamefly, whichever you prefer.

Best April Fool's tech prank: Super Pii Pii Brothers

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Wii + Pee + whack-a-mole = Super Pii Pii Brothers! ThinkGeek says, "Sounds easy eh? Well the toilets open and close whack-a-mole style and occasionally the stray cat or other cute critter pops up. Spray a cat for extra points. Get too much pee on the ground and your game is over. With realistic fluid dynamics for the pee and over 100 different bathrooms from bars and palaces to automatic Japanese style toilets you'll be entertained for hours. And wait until your friends see the multi-player mode with dueling pee streams..."

Given Japan's frequently strange products, this is actually fairly believable, despite it being an April Fool's joke. I bet some Japanese company will come along and actually make the game now.
April fools runner up (because it had me fooled for a second): Geeks.com's retinal scanner (no website, sorry, it was in their newsletter):

Google's April Fool's joke this time around was pretty lame. "Virgle: the adventure of many lifetimes", a Mars colony, is being established because we evil humans have filled every "nook, cranny, and subdivision" of earth, while "raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels." (Apparently so much so that the earth is completely uninhabitable [gasp!]) Sorry Google, but the environmentalist nutjobbery kind of diminished the humor.

Get a bluetooth headset for 98 cents!

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:08:00 +0000

click to enlarge

Thanks to gadgetspire.com for their original post on this deal. You can get the Soyo Freestyle 500 bluetooth headset from buy.com for $.99 if you use google checkout as your payment method and you are a first time google checkout customer. After noticing that the google checkout coupon gives you $10 off of any purchase using google checkout, you may end up looking for something a little less lame. I couldn't think of anything I wanted at the moment so I went ahead and got this headset. After all, the list price is 70 bucks, so if you really need to replace your bluetooth headset after swimming with it in a hotel fountain, this is the cheapest way to go.
So by now you are probably wondering why the title says you can get this thing for 98 cents. Well, I used my PayPal debit card to pay for it, knocking 1.5% off in cashback savings - bringing the total down to an astounding 97.5 cents. There, I told you my secret. I use my PayPal debit card for almost everything, because I can link my back account to the card, and use their free backup funding - so I never have to carry a balance in my PayPal account. Interested? Go get yourself a PayPal business account (it's free) and sign up for the card (and don't forget to add a checking account, backup funding, and sign up for PayPal Preferred Rewards to get the cash back). Note - new Preferred Rewards accounts get 1% cash back instead of 1.5%, like me, Because I rule (and PayPal is stingy).

Buy the Soyo Freestyle 500 bluetooth headset here.

nVidia's GeForce 9800 GX2 is stupid huge

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:53:00 +0000

This PS3 brick nuclear weapon GeForce 9800 GX2 is stupid huge. It does however pack a mean punch, with 256 total cores clocked at a whopping 1.5ghz.

The good thing for me, though, is that now the 8800 series goes way down in price. Thank you, wonderful rich people, for paying the R&D premium for me!

graphics tablets - alternatives to Wacom

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:28:00 +0000

Any seasoned graphic designer, digital artist, and illustrator knows the value of having a graphics tablet. But what if you don't want to spend tons of money on one? Wacom, the industry standard, does represent quality - but you will pay a premium for the name "Wacom", just as you would pay more for an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt simply because of the brand.

I'm not saying you never get what you pay for. However, in this case, I have noticed no significant quality difference between a Wacom tablet and the lesser known brand that I use: LaPazz. Sounds lame, but it is a great tablet, and buying one instead of a Wacom 8"x6" tablet could save you up to $220. Check it out!

Specifications of the LaPazz WP8060:

8" by 6" size
USB interface
1024 pressure sensitivity levels
2000 LPI resolution
100 RPS report rate
Supported in Windows 98SE / 2000 / XP / Vista

Other alternatives:

8" x 6" tablets:

Genius MousePen 8x6"
Pablo 8x6" graphics tablet
Adesso Cyber Tablet 8x6"
Uc-logic 3d Graphics 8x6"

Other sizes (larger than 8x6"):

Genius G-Pen F610 6x10"
Adesso Cyber Tablet 12x9"
Penpower Tooya Pro 12x10"
Adesso Cyber Tablet Z12 10x6"
Adesso widescreen slim tablet 12x7.25"
Adesso CTZ12A 10x6"

hostmonster.com web hosting review

noreply@blogger.com (the fractal brothers) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:24:00 +0000

Ok, I know what your first impression here is, that I'm just another affiliate marketer trying to make a quick buck on the interwebs. But seriously, if you made it to this sentence, i've got a fairly good chance of convincing you that hostmonster is the best bang for your buck as far as affordable web hosting goes.

If you are looking for a host, I will assume you are an intelligent human being and know what a good deal looks like. Here are hostmonster's features:

1.5 Terabytes of storage (1,500 gigabytes)
host unlimited domains
unlimited email accounts
15 Terabytes (15,000 gigabytes) of transfer per month
SSL, FTP, Stats, CGI, Ruby on Rails, Perl, PHP, MySQL (100 MySQL databases)
Microsoft front page extensions
Free domain forever!
Free site builder
Best support in the industry

More features can be found at: http://www.hostmonster.com/hosting-features.htm

Of course, it's natural to be skeptical. However, of the several hosts I've used in the past, hostmonster is the best. Here's why:

A polite human being always answers support questions.
They are very reliable - I've never had a single problem with uptime.
Cheap! You can't beat the kinds of features that are offered for $6.95 per month. (note: this price is if you purchase 2 years in advance*[see below]. The thing is, even though you pay for 24 months in advance, if you need to drop your hosting for whatever reason, they will refund you a prorated amount for the unused time. So it is advantageous to go with the 24 month contract despite the larger up-front cost.)
Very fast. I was surprised to have very snappy uploads and downloads for this price.
A child company of an established web hosting provider - bluehost.

Definitely check them out. You won't be disappointed. I won't lie to you. This is an affiliate link.

* 24 month price : $6.95 / mo.
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Envision EN-7220 19" LCD Disassembly / Repair of bad capacitors

noreply@blogger.com (volto) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:10:00 +0000

If your Envision monitor (or any other monitor for that matter) comes on for a split second,
and then turns off, or cycles this process repeatedly, you may have a case of capacitor plague, or bad capacitors.

Now, before you tear apart your monitor, consider these points:

Is your monitor under warranty?

Are you comfortable with soldering, and taking stuff apart?

Ok, if you have considered the above points, and you are still ready to continue, I disclaim any responsibility for whatever happens to you,
your family, your pets, your property, or your sanity.

Disassembly

You do not need to remove the stand for this operation. Start by prying off the front cover (silver on this monitor). Do not
attempt to pry at the holes on the black plastic like I did. Pry between the silver and black and the front will pop right off like shown.

Now remove these screws. Make sure you get them all, when they are all out, the entire metal assembly comes out, just pry at it with a screwdriver, there are plastic clips all the way around holding it in.

I forgot to take a picture of this step, so I drew it. Just remove that one screw and the cover will slide back like shown.

Now carefull unplug everything going to the power inverter PCB, unscrew it, and remove it.

Repair

Now you can desolder and replace capacitors detailed C922, C925 (16v 1000uf), C924, C926 (16v 470uf), and optionally C223 and C201 (25v 150uf)... I didn't replace the last two because my supplier didn't have them in stock, and it may not be immediately necessary, as mine were'nt physically damaged yet. Not all your capacitors may be visibly damaged, but if they are available, it is a good idea to replace them out of good measure, especially if they are the same brand as the faulty one(s).