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Chores Chores Chores, and a Broken Timer Switch
Today was a “get stuff done around the house” kind of day, where I basically knocked as many items off my to-do list as possible. Among the fun stuff accomplished: I finished winterizing my chipper/shredder, pressure washer and trimmer. The chipper/shredder takes the most time, because I like to break it down, clean debris out…
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My Never-Ending Basement Plumbing Project
I’ve got this plumbing project in my basement, that I’ve been working at for what seems like about a year now. It started with my wife finding a leaky pipe. The leak was (is) at a copper tee, where a 3/4″ line branches out to 2 1/2″ lines. It was (is) leaking at a rate…
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Poor Man’s Screen Protectors
Palm (among others) sells these screen protectors for use with their PDAs. Currently, their web site lists them at $19.99 for some unspecified quantity of them. One came packaged with my E2. It’s essentially a disposable piece of plastic with an adhesive backing. You’re supposed to trim it to fit the PDA’s display, and stick…
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Softick Card Export II vs. Missing Sync Desktop Mount app
Now that I have an SD card for my Palm, I decided to try out a couple of apps that allow me to mount the card on my desktop computer. I’d like to be able to copy files (mp3s, documents, etc) directly to the card from my Linux box(es). Then, I can write a script…
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The Latest on the Calendar Project
I haven’t had much time to work on the calendar thing lately due to the holidays. That will probably continue into the early part of January, with work shaping up to be pretty busy during this time. However, a week or so ago I went ahead and sync’d my published Oracle Calendar data to my…
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The TracFone Activation Saga
My family bought a TracFone prepaid phone as a Christmas gift for my Grandmother. I got the fun job of activating it. Most of these prepaid phones are self-activated using the carrier’s web site, and TracFone is no exception. Christmas Day, around 1:00pm: Installed the SIM card and battery into the phone, a Nokia 1100.…
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Leaf Patrol
Yesterday, I finally finished up this year’s round of fall leaf removal. After 5 go-arounds with leaf removal on this property, I’m getting better at it, but the process could still stand some improvement. The bulk of the leaves fall in back of the house, with the Tulip Poplars starting earliest, and the Oaks finishing…
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Do-it-yourself DVDs: If at first you don’t succeed…
When I got my Powerbook, it came with software for creating/editing movies (iMovie) and burning them to DVD (iDVD). I already have a Sony MiniDV video camera, and several hours of footage of my now-3-year-old son. With this gear, all I needed to make DVDs, was a FireWire cable and some blank DVD media. So…
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Wiring’s done!
Subject says it all! I finished the wiring up today, installed the fan control, and replaced an outlet while I was at it. All my extra wiring turned out to be worth the effort — there’s absolutely no way I would have gotten the fan control in the wall box with all the extra wires…
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Quality time in the attic
I spent the afternoon in the attic today, and got the lion’s share of the wiring done for the fan project. Last week I fished the wire from the basement to the attic. It was pretty straightforward. Some medium-duty nylon rope was the ticket. I dropped it down into the stud cavity from the attic,…