Meet Steve…he’s green

We’ve been a 2 car family for some time. I typically drove the tan colored Dodge man-van and Emily drove a green Chevy Lumina. The van was fairly new but we had the Lumina for awhile…it was 10 years old and starting to get wrinkles and excess gas. I mean that…the old girl had a few dings and started smelling like gas. We did our duty and took her to the mechanic to find the gas leak problem. They spent all sorts of time (and all sorts of our money) looking for the problem to no avail. We coped for awhile but finally decided that our family going out in a fiery car crash was not the way to go (at least until I get much older).

We started doing our homework and decided we needed a few things in our new car. First, we needed space for Isaac to grow. He’s becoming gigantic with no signs of a slowdown in the near future. He wears the same size shoes as I do (he’s 9) and he’s approaching Emily’s height. I didn’t want the backseat to be too large though. Isaac will be driving before too long. Enough said. We also decided we wanted a car with all-wheel drive. Winters here aren’t awful, but we do definitely get snow and it can be a problem at times. Safety was important because we figured Isaac will learn to drive on this car. By the way, 15 year olds should not drive. It’s crazy! And boys especially should not drive until they are 30. I once was a boy and I remember some of testosterone induced stupidness of 15 to 30 year olds. Finally, I wanted a car that polluted as little as possible and got good gas mileage, etc.

We looked at the Honda CR/V, the Toyota Rav/4 and the Subaru Forester. We didn’t like any of those options for various reasons. While we were at the Subaru dealer, we spotted an Outback that was beside the Forester on the showroom floor. It looked cool.

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We decided to drive the Outback and that was all she wrote as they say.  It had all those things I mentioned above plus heated seats!  There were a few other cool features that made it even better…it is a PZEV car (partial zero emission vehicle) which means there are times when it runs that it release no emissions.  It also has a continuously variable transmission (CVT).  The details are fairly interesting but let’s just say it is heavy on cool and also enhances fuel economy.

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So we drove Steve home.  You see, like many people, we name our vehicles and this one is named Steve.  He’s green and he’s green.  We like Steve!

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And of course, in typical fashion, the man-van (Bessie) started slipping out of gear right after we trade the car.  Mind you, this is not an old van.  We bought it new and have had all of the maintenance done on it since day one.  It is a serious heap.  We’ve had one problem after another but keep thinking, “this will be it…once we fix xyz, it will be fine.”  I will never buy another Dodge again (sorry to all my Dodge friends).  We may go have a look at Steve’s twin Ronny…

13 Comments

warren, September 22nd 2009 | Tags: ,
Posted in Green, Technology

I Flipped

As I have mentioned before, I check woot.com about every day to see what sorts of things they have that I can’t live without .  The other day, they had a Flip video cam on sale for $79.99.  That’s somewhere around half what one would usually pay.  Awhile back, D.A. wrote a post over at Farm Natters where she recommended the camera.  So, woot + recommendation =  "it’s cheap and you can’t live without it".

There are a couple of really nice features about the Flip cam:

-It is very small and easily fits in my pocket.
-It uses AA batteries which I like since my previous camera is out
of commission with a bad (and expensive to replace) battery.
-It has a slick little usb connector so I can connect it straight to
my computer to download the videos.
-It takes really nice video and audio, especially for $79.99.

There are a couple of things that aren’t so nice, but are absolutely acceptable to me for the price:

-It has a slick little usb connector so I can connect it straight to
my computer.  That’s a plus but the connector is hard-line
connected to the camera (read: it is not flexible so hangs by
the connector.  It seems like it could break if I let go of it as I
download videos).
-It records only one hour of video at a time.  I am not too torn up about that as there is little worth recording that is that long I think.
-It only has 2x zoom

I just received it yesterday and it is, as D.A. puts it "hella fun" to use.  I took a bunch of silly videos including the ones below.  I’d say it is even worth paying full price for one of these cameras if you need something quick and easy to grab quick videos of the kids doing fun stuff or the goat climbing on the roof of your new car, etc.

Note:  If you have trouble viewing these videos, please let me know.  Emily said she couldn’t view them without an upgrade to her software.

11 Comments

warren, February 5th 2009 | Tags:
Posted in Technology

DIY Automatic Cat Feeder

So, our cat Mohinder is a growing boy.  He wants to eat constantly.  It’s not actually constant eating of course, but he always seems to be hungry when we want to sleep.  Madeline has become patient with our sleeping/feeding schedule but Mo is terribly persistent about eating whenever he is hungry.  Typically, he will jump up on the bed and carefully grab a bit of Emily’s hair in his mouth and gently pull it.  It’s not meanness and it doesn’t hurt, but it is annoying to be sure.  Of course, I have no hair so he can’t wake me in the same way.  On the few occasions he has picked on me, he gently nips on my nose.

Electronic parts for the automatic cat feeder As you can imagine, that has gotten pretty old so I started to tinkering.  I am going to post some ideas that I am fooling with and will show the finished product at a later date.  The basic idea I am working with is to have a digital alarm clock trigger some electronics to open a stripped down computer cd-rom tray.  I think the mechanism on a computer cd-rom is pretty nice and will work perfectly as a gate to let the cat food fall from a hopper into the cat bowl.  I started by salvaging an old cd-rom from the junk bin at the office.  I stripped all of the electronics out of it (basically, I just pulled off anything that wasn’t the mechanical stuff that opens the tray.  With a little experimentation using a 9-volt battery, I was able to find the motor that drove the gears to open the drawer.

The cd-rom motor to open the automatic cat feeder I bought a new alarm clock to trigger the electronics to trigger the motor that opens the cd-rom.  I opened the alarm clock and found the wires that connect to the speaker for the alarm.  A quick hole in the sidewall of the clock allowed me to pass the wires from a 9-volt connector to the wires that used to connect to the speaker.  I closed the clock back up and was able to measure the current in the 9-volt connector when the alarm was (silently) going off. In other words, when the alarm goes off and would normally sound the alarm, it now send an electrical pulse out through my 9-volt connector which runs outside of the clock.

The alarm clock to trigger the automatic cat feeder My plan is to have the power from the intercepted alarm signal drive a relay which allows a larger current to pass through it and a transistor.  The relay and transistor work as a basic switch to send power to the cd-rom motor.  I wired this all up last night and all of this stuff works just fine.  I am sort of experimenting now with how to get the drawer to actually deliver the catfood.  My plan is to have the drawer push open a slide or else be the slide that opens the hopper of food.  The real challenge is to figure out how to make all of this stuff cat-proof.  Mo is persistent and has a lot of free time and has gotten in to the most unusual things. Anyhow, these pics are an overview of the project, meant solely to both confuse and amaze.  I’ll post the actual schematic and the finished product another day when I get it all figured out.  Anyone have any thoughts about cat proofing stuff?

12 Comments

warren, January 29th 2009 | Tags: ,
Posted in Technology, Tinkering

Ham sandwich and a big screen tv

Geek Squad car Almost a year ago, Emily had a training where they served box lunches from Heavenly Ham.  Inside her box was an entry card for an Osacar  party prize pack. It included a big screen tv and a party tray from HH.  We didn’t think anything of it at first, but decided to enter. 

Getting our big screen tv Usually we don’t enter those sort of contests because there are 200 million people entering and someone in some far off place usually wins.  Anyhow, this time we did enter.  A few weeks later, I got a mysterious email from a HH address.  At first, I thought it was spam and nearly deleted the message.  

Picking up some Heavenly HamThe text in it was typical spam-talk, but they listed a few pieces of information that caught my attention.  We were the grand prize winners and they didn’t need our bank account or social security information to award us the prize…it must be real!  I responded and emailed back and forth with the company representative.  A few days later, we received a generous gift card to Best Buy to choose a big screen tv on which to watch the Oscars with a few friends.  

Heavenly Ham Party TrayThat’s sort of the funny part really…we don’t watch tv much.  We haven’t had cable in 14 years.  We do get antenna reception but find that there is little on worth watching.  To be fair, HH said we could spend the money on anything at BB.  Still, it was an Oscar party prize so we decided to go ahead and get a big screen tv and a surround sound system with an upconvert dvd player.  We took all sorts of goofy pictures of the buying process including posing with the Geek  Squad car, the BB sales guy, picking up the food, etc.

Heavenly Ham Party TraySo, we invited family over and watched the Oscars and had a good time.  The HH party tray was awesome.  If you’ve never had Heavenly Ham, try some…it’s a little pricey but so good.  I’d eat there every week if I could!  I especially love their ham salad.

Our Big Screen TV We still don’t watch much tv on it, but we love an occasional Netflix and it’s hard to beat the Dukes of Hazzard and Daisy Duke in big screen form!  Thanks Heavenly Ham and Best Buy!

11 Comments

warren, January 12th 2009 | Tags: ,
Posted in Fun, Technology

Honeybees under a microscope

It was pretty nice last weekend and my bees were flying around to “clear the pipes”.  In addition to that task, they also groom the hive and remove any bees that had expired.  As I watched them bring out their dead, I thought it might be cool to dissect a bee under a microscope.  I don’t have a microscope with a camera attachment though.  I am, however,  a determined and fierce cheap-skate and I have a web cam. 

I gathered a few of the recently deceased bees and dissected and mounted various parts that I thought would be cool.    It took some messing around to get the focus right, but I was able to hold the webcam to the eye piece and capture some pictures.  Have a look at the shots and see if you can figure out what the parts are in each picture.  The answers are at the end.

pics from top to bottom:
-bee knee (a joint on the bee’s leg)
-bee toes (the very end of the leg)
-bee tongue (they have several)
-bee stinger (I have seen this after being in me…you can see the barbs then)
-bee wing
-girl hair (yeah, not a beepart , but a hair from Emily…she conditions!)

7 Comments

warren, December 31st 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Bees, Nature, Technology

Browser Issues

There are tons of reports out that there is an Internet Explorer (probably the web browser you are using) exploit that allows hackers to take control of your computer, steal your passwords, take pictures of you as you trim your nose hairs and may even allow them to launch missles from silos in Nebraska.  Of course, there is always stuff going on out in the ether but this defect apparently impacts all versions of IE and there is not yet a fix.

I decided to take this as an opportunity to explore other browsers that are not currently suffering the problem.  I do not intend to bash Microsoft or IE.  Since they are the biggest player, it should not be a surprise that they get the most negative attention from the bad guys.  Still, since they have the spotlight, I think I will try to avoid some of the negative attention.

I have off and on used the Firefox browsers and the latest version mostly works pretty well.  However, firefox is also becoming more and more popular so I figure that they will soon be getting more attention from hackers as well.

I have also tried Google’s Chrome and the Opera browser by…Opera.  They are both very cool looking and sort of sexy and fringe-popular.  For now, I am planning to use chrome just because I have a chrome dome (bald is beautiful!), but I’d recommend that anyone who hasn’t tried one of these alternate browsers give one a shot.  Microsoft’s IE is still my favorite, but I don’t want to harrass any cows in the fields of Nebraska when the silo doors open.  Stuff just looks better in IE also.  There are many sites, this one included, that don’t look exactly right when viewed with non-IE browsers.  I know, people say that firefox et al.  render pages according to the standards and IE does not.  I dont really care much about the standards though, if a lot of sites I visit don’t look right.  I am using WordPress and it handles a lot of the layout issues internally so how some of the layout details of this site work are out of my hands.

Anyhow, make sure your spyware and antivirus programs are up to date, consider checking out other browsers, and think about whether you want IE or any browser to save your passwords. Bad guys are out there and my virus issues of last week are still fresh in my mind!

7 Comments

warren, December 17th 2008 | Tags:
Posted in Technology

Stuff that sucks

Mosquitos suckSo yesterday really sucked.  This post is a vent as much as anything else…so, mostly, you should probably ignore me…

I design and write computer software for a living.  I am around computers all day.  You’d think I would be somewhat immune from viruses as I mostly understand how they work and how one gets them.  Still, somehow I got a really really nasty virus on my main development machine (i.e. my bread and butter) yesterday.  I spent all day and half the night chasing down and fixing the mess that it made.  Of course, I really need to be working on the demo of the new project on which I am working.  It is due Monday.  This is not the time to be jerking around with a virus.  I don’t hate much, but I hate computer viruses and the people who create them.

I love sauerkraut.  I had some last night for supper along with some Polish sausage.  I am starting my training for the New Year’s day kraut feast.  Anyhow, about 15 minutes after eating it last night, my throat started to swell and blister.  I guess I had some sort of an allergic reaction to the kraut.  I also drank a Mt Dew with supper but I doubt my reaction was to it.  Mt Dew makes up 22% of my blood so I don’t think I suffered an autoimmune reaction.  Anyhow, an hour or so later, my throat was fine.  I still love kraut and I hate the thought of being allergic.  I will certainly try it again and soon, but I will be cautious too!  I can’t really figure it out, but I’d rather not get a trip in the ambulance over eating kraut.  I read that the Dutch eat donuts for good luck on New Years’s day so I may have to call upon my Dutch ancestry (or make some up) and cash in my kraut for donuts.  That’s a tradition I can get behind!

We also got word that our house is indeed racing down the hill to the river.  A structural engineer recommended 6 helical piers be inserted under our house.  It may take 3-4 more depending on what they find.  “Gosh, that sounds expensive”, you might say.  “You are correct!”

7 Comments

warren, December 12th 2008 | Tags: , ,
Posted in House, Technology, Thoughts

Look at my new hardware!

My new server, fresh from Fedex!Just yesterday I was commenting on how machines do not define me…but I have to admit, I do sort of dig technology too.  Just to be clear, I plan to use a lot of buzz-words and mumbo jumbo to astound you with my computer savy…isn’t that what computer people do?  Anyhow, I think there may be some interesting bits for computer neophytes as well.

I had been running this blog on an old 1.4 ghz desktop machine with 512 mb of ram and a 20 gb harddrive.  This machine was pieced together from parts we had laying around the office and was never supposed to be exposed to the public.  But, as with most computer projects, the prototype became the product and sure enough, this blog was turned on with the power and support of “ole Bessie”.    

My new server!By trade, I am a software engineer…I write computer software for a living.  I don’t know a lot about computer hardware.  I just assume the hardware works.  Asking me to choose computer hardware is like asking your autobody guy to rebuild your engine…it might be successful, but it is probably not ideal.  So, a few weeks ago, Dell had a sale on Poweredge SC440 small business servers.  A hardware friend/coworker of mine mentioned that it was a good deal and might serve as a good replacement for “Bessie”.  The sale price of the machine was $199.  I upped the memory a little and got the whole thing delivered for $252.!  It has 2 gb of ram, a dual core 2 ghz pentium processor and an 80 gb harddrive.  Ahh, much better!  So I migrated the blog from “Bessie” to “Vader” (more about that later). 

Now, let me tell you, 8 servers in a 10×10 room put off a powerful lot of heat.  Yup, I have 8 servers in my office.  My current project needs 4 servers to function.  I have a couple of extras for testing, etc.  Adding this new server raised my heat by one machine.  I am somewhat worried about going through a Bruce Banner change.  I don’t think these machines put off gamma rays, but I’d also rather not turn into the incredible hulk either.  

Inside my new server!Anyhow, migrating a wordpress blog from one machine to another is really pretty simple also.  I spent about 4 days making it complicated but it need not be.  Basically, I installed WAMP which is the webserver and database programs that run the website.  I just installed it with all of the default settings.  I did not install wordpress on the new machine.  Instead, I copied the entire WAMP directory (c:\wamp\…it includes the web server, database and wordpress files) from my original machine to the same directory on my new machine.  Restart the webserver and we’re in business.  I read all sorts of opinions on how to do backups and migration plans and how to properly sacrifice a chicken over the old and/or new servers.  I tried some of those things (well, not the chicken part) and none of those options really worked.  WordPress and WAMP will run on windows but are not really Windows-based so I figured that they probably didn’t have the invasive installation mess that most Windows programs have (i.e. I figured I would just copy stuff over and hope it works).  Sure enough, I was right!  So, after fooling around for 4 days with no success, I punted and in 8 minutes, my blog was migrated!  I don’t know if you can tell the increase in speed, but please humor me and say you can!  Wahoo!

12 Comments

warren, November 28th 2008 | Tags: ,
Posted in Fun, Technology

Solar furnace installation

Solar furnace thermostatI last posted a week or so ago about my solar furnace.  I mentioned that I needed to install the system in my window and get the fan/thermostat working.  Well, my friends, wait no longer!  This weekend I finished the installation of the solar furnace and even powered it with a small solar panel…but I am getting ahead of myself. 

Solar furnace entry to houseMy downstairs family room has 5 windows, 3 of which face southward.  A south facing panel is optimum because it gets sun almost all day as the sun progresses across the sky.  I read that 20 degrees from due south results in a 5% decrease in performance.  Luckily I have south windows but if I didn’t have due south, I would still try the furnace.  A 5% decrease would still make things interesting.   In addition to the direction, you have to consider the angle from horizontal of the panel so that it gets optimum sunlight in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky.  I have read various thoughts on the optium angle but the easy one for me to remember is “latitude + 10″.  Here in Charleston, our latitude is 38 degrees.  Solar furnace entry to houseAccording to this calculation then, the optimum angle from horizontal is 48 degrees.  Using my trusty eyeball, I leaned the solar panel along the south wall of my house and tilted it at precisely 48 degrees.  To be more exact, you should consider doing a site survey to make sure you really have things right. I will probably just mess with it until it gets the best sun. In a more permanent installation, you would want this to be much more precise. Mine is easily movable. 

Anyhow, I built a box (which I insulated) to run a warm pipe and a cool pipe through my window.  The thermostat and fan are inside the warm pipe inlet so the warm air should automatically rise and slowly flow across the thermostat.  The rise in temperature should kick on the thermostat/fan and move the air a little better through the system.  As the warm air evacuates, it will cool the thermostat and turn off the fan. 

Solar furnace entry to houseI mentioned in the last post on this topic that I could not drive the fan with a super cheap solar cell.  I was rumaging through the junk bin at the office when I found a pair of fans (actually, quite a few fans) that were lower amperage than my original one.  Anyhow, my new fan is rated at 12 volts and  0.16 amps.  I know it will run at 9 volts so I figured I needed a solar panel that would produce 1.44 watts (i.e. 9 * 0.16).  Harbor Freight sells a solar panel used for trickle charging auto batteries for $19.99.  Actually, the website has it for $14.99 but in the store it is more.  If I would have taken the printout to the store, they would have reduced the price.  Apparently the store and website are somewhat independent.  I didn’t have a printout and it wasn’t worth driving back for it so I paid $19.99.  Ok, back to the story – it will produce 1.5 watts which will run my new fan.  I don’t know if it always just produces 12 volts and the amps vary (because it produces differently depending on the strength of the sun) or if it produces 0-12 volts and constant amps, etc.  All that is to say, I don’t know exactly what wattage is driving my fan but it turns it.  Solar furnace entry to houseIt occurs to me as I write this that I should measure the output with my mulitmeter…but really, for now, I don’t care.  The fan turns fine in sun and that is my main goal.  Unfortunately, the fan will not blow the dryer vent louver open. I had planned to use a dryer vent to close the inflow when not in use.  I will have to resort to the “plastic over the hole” method I mentioned in the earlier post, to prevent back-syphoning.  And let me tell you, back-syphoning is real and a problem if you don’t deal with it…I quickly learned a lesson on that topic!

Ok, lots of words to describe all this.  The only problem is, I have not had a sunny day since I got this thing installed.  I wanted to post about this progress but I don’t have any real results yet.  I will have to post again with results.  I know it will make a difference, but I don’t know the extent.  Stay tuned!

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6 Comments

warren, November 18th 2008 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Green, House, Technology, Tinkering

ARGGGGHHHHH!

The power went out at the office sometime last night apparently which killed our internet gateway.  The blog has been down until an hour ago when I went to check things out.  The battery backup that is supposed to maintain the system on power failure had croaked and was not letting any of the servers come back up…ARGGGGHHHHH!  Anyhow, I got it all turned back on and we should be back in business.  The power company is installing an expansion on the substation nearby and I am blaming the recent power goofiness on their endeavours though I may be completely wrong.  Anyhow, sorry for the downtime…I know you were dying to read the blog.  I can hardly tear myself away from it also!

5 Comments

warren, November 15th 2008 | Tags:
Posted in Technology
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