The Major's HomeGeneral Happenings

Roomba Repaired

Sat, 14 May 2011 23:06:00 GMT

Our 2nd Roomba 535 started spinning in circles a couple of months ago. After a little research, and a copy of the service manual, it seemed the left IR bumper sensor had failed.

The Roomba thought something was always in it's way on the left. I found a replacement board on-line for $15 (that tiny green thing a little bigger than my index finger's nail.)

After a lot of disassembly, I got to the old one and desoldered the very small wires attached. I have never soldered something this tiny before, but got the four wires in place and soldered on the new board. Reassembled, held my breath, and tested. Our Roomba is resurrected!

Social Bookmarks :

Do It Yourself

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 23:00:00 GMT

"You no help me now...I say screw you Jobu. I do it myself." That is one of my favorite quotes from the movie Major League. Pedro Cerrano, having stuck up for, prayed to, and even made offerings of rum to his deity in an effort to hit the baseballs pitched to him, finally gives up and does it himself.

In much the same way I've reached the same realization with little widgets I enjoy on my computers and webpages.

First, it started with something called Konfabulator, later purchased by Yahoo! and rechristened Yahoo! Widgets. It would put, well, widgets on your desktop and blend them in with your background. Working in an office without windows, I would constantly be looking at my weather widget to see what the current weather was and what the forecast was so I could plan my day/evening/weekends. Yahoo! abandoned it and the application became fairly broken in the last Windows/Mac OS release. Yes, I'm aware of the Weather Dashboard Widget in OS X, I hate it and truthfully, I really can't be bothered to enter Dashboard and wait for it to refresh.

Next came something called Recent Tunes. Those that have visited this page, my Signat-url page, or have me on your instant messenger list know that I'm a big music fan and like to post what I'm currently listening to. It adds a small amount of flair to these pages/software that I like. Recent Tunes monitors iTunes while it is playing and will send data about the current item to your webserver in various ways and with various options so that you can, in turn, add what you're listening to on your website. Very nice, I think. Naturally something so useful was abandoned years ago, but it still worked with the latest Mac OS, albeit in PowerPC code using OS X's Rosetta. That legacy code is gone in the next version of Mac OS X and Recent Tunes will finally be laid to rest by me.

I'm no master programmer by any strech of the imagination, but I know enough about scripting languages to be clever, even dangerous. So I wrote my own replacements for these. And they have more functionality, too.

My weather widget lives on my desktops, updates automatically, has a day and night mode that activates at the daily sunrise/sunset times throughout the year, it is complete with accurate representations of current moon phases. It has full graphic representation of the current weather and forecasted weather, additional data like humidity, wind speed and direction, UV index (day mode only, obviously), severe weather warnings (in bright red text to get noticed), and forecasts. Plus, my data source of weather data has even more information that I'm not currently using but can add if I wish. In addition, a smaller, more limited version is in use on my websites now too.

My iTunes continues to publish its data to my pages, but with a script I wrote myself that polls iTunes. For now, it mimicks what Recent Tunes did for me, but my options are now limitless since I can really script it any way I want. I can control the data that gets uploaded to my server in virtually any way I want... pure text, html, or graphic images for album covers. I can even have different sets of data to use on different pages to create different looks. If that still isn't enough, I can tweak it even more.

I'm tired of wondering if some coder out there is just going to get bored with the software he or she shared with the world and just walk away. I'm now looking at what other little utilities, widgets, or gizmos I have in my computing life that I can recreate and, most importantly, recreate better for me. Not only that, it's mine and I don't have to be subject to someone's whims about its future. I wrote it, I understand how it works, and I can fix it if it breaks. Like anything else I put my mind to, I'm only going to get better and better at this the more I work with it.

Cerrano had it right, I say to those abandonware programmers, "screw you. I'll do it myself."

Social Bookmarks :

Christmas 2010

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 20:29:00 GMT

The Christmas 2010 Photos are up for display. This year featuring photos from Rachel & Samantha who got a couple of simple digital cameras from Santa. It's interesting to see things from their prespective...

Social Bookmarks :

Christmas 2009

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:04:00 GMT

All of the holiday photos from 2009 are in the Photo Albums. Have a look! I've also updated several other sections while I was at it.

Social Bookmarks :

Master Lock Rocks

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:19:00 GMT

Unlike my Time Warner experience, my communication with Master Lock was outstanding to the point they have a lifelong customer for any lock needs I will ever have.

In June '09 I purchased a set of three vinyl-coated weatherproof locks for our pool gates, we only needed two however the convenience of the same key set plus a spare lock was a bonus.

About 30 days later the first lock failed with all loss of the ability to turn the key. Last week, the other two followed suit. This lock set was only about $20, but darn it, I expect things to last.

I called Master Lock to see if something could be done and explain the situation. I was on hold for less than 30 seconds, and the lady the answered knew the model number of my lock by description only. Further, I learned that all their locks carry a lifetime warranty. Without skipping a beat she took my name, address, phone number and informed me three new locks are on the way.

All of this with no questions asked. I didn't need a receipt and I didn't need to send the locks in as "proof" they were broken. Thank you Master Lock.

Social Bookmarks :

Happy Birthday Rachel & Samantha

Sun, 17 May 2009 13:53:00 GMT

Birthday party pictures are up in the photo albums for anyone interested!

Social Bookmarks :

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 12:58:00 GMT

I'm a little late to the party on this, but I'm glad I discovered Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It seems during writers strikes, Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly fame is not idle. Done on a shoe-string budget and released on the web only, this 45 minute 3 act musical is hilarious. You can watch it right on-line at the above address too.

A DVD is in the works as well as a sequel. You can also purchase it on iTunes (the video as well as the soundtrack, which is also fantastic, BTW.)

Social Bookmarks :

Fan Edits

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:46:00 GMT

Recently, I've been checking out the fan edit community. These are fans that are otherwise unhappy with a movie in it's original form or even a Director's Cut. These folks love their movie of choice and re-edit it such that it's seamless, professional, and ready to burn back onto DVD. While not a movie critic by far, I've watched the following as an owner of the original:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The 5th Kind Edition. The fellow that did it put in every cut scene, deleted scene, and other material back into the movie. At a whopping 2 hours and 48 minutes, it is quite a ride with every bit of back-story back in it. If anything is bad about it, it's almost too long.

Dune The Alternate Edition. This is a re-cut of the original 1984 version with deleted scenes as well as scenes from the Extended Edition back in. I've always been a fan of this version of Dune, but found it lacking in certain areas. No more! A lot of the back story and scenes from the book are included making it a much better flick. 2 hours and 43 minutes of coolness.

Star Wars Revisited. This is the grand master of fan edits. While not longer than the original, the creator redid most of the special effects, and fixed a ton of continuity errors and nitpicks totaling 156 changes in all. Oh, Hans shoots first! Need I say more? He's currently working on The Empire Strikes back and I, for one, start drooling when thinking about it.

Social Bookmarks :

Roomba Revolution

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:54:00 GMT

Based on a trustworthy recommendation and some research, we purchased a Roomba, made by iRobot. It is quite possibly the most useful gizmo we've ever purchased. This little robot vacuum is a wonder. It is about 15" round (a good size dinner plate) and about 6" tall. It can do almost everything your normal vacuum does for cleaning a floor, and here's the list of what it can do above and beyond that:

Because it is basically a 6" roving disc, it can get into plenty of places that your regular vacuum can't easily. Under the bed, in and around tight spaces, and under anything taller that it's height.
It has really decent edge cleaning. It has a brush that sticks out of the right hand side that spins and knocks debris in front of its main pickup. Part of its algorithm is to detect edges and run that "sweeper" along them.

On top of that, it is really quiet. If it's in the same room as you, turn up the TV an extra notch. You'll never know it is in the same room as you.

With the included "Lighthouses" is virtual wall mode you can confine it to areas where you don't want it to go, or put them in lighthouse mode and they'll keep the Roomba confined to the first room for about 35 minutes, then allow it into the next room you want cleaned for 35 minutes, and so on.

Cleaning it is a snap, and even with a shedding dog, emptying is only needed once per run. I suspect as we will eventually schedule it to clean automatically, emptying will be every few runs as it will stay on top of the build up. Oh, and when it is done it homes in on it's recharge dock on the floor and starts to charge itself for the next day. Groovy.

Social Bookmarks :

Dead Wipers

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:43:00 GMT

I'm driving home from work this Friday and about half way home my windshield wipers start going slower...and slower...and stop. I'm pretty sure my wiper motor is dead. Time for a trip to Potsdam Tire & Auto to get what I'm sure will be at least a couple hundred in repairs done! If it were Christmas I'd put a new wiper motor on my list!

Social Bookmarks :