The end of another Labor Day weekend and another summer. Time sure flies.
Saturday night I went to the range with my father, brother Josh, and Judith. This was J.'s second time ever. I let Josh handle instructing J.; he formerly held NRA pistol instruction certification but let it lapse. Anyway, this time she used my dad's 50th Anniversary Ruger Mark II .22 autoloader, which she liked much better than my S&W Model 18. At 21 feet she's able to keep almost all of her shots on a 9" pie plate, which is doing very well for someone just starting out. I'll be picking up a Ruger for her sometime soon.
I brought my Springfield 1911A1 and Browning High Power Practical. I had two new Chip McCormick Shooting Star mags to try in the 1911 and two Mec-Gar 15 rounders for the BHP. The CMC mags worked fine but I found that one of my old CMCs was causing last round failures-to-feed. Rather annoying.
The Mec-Gar mags worked perfectly in the BHP, as expected. They came with some sort of sticky preservative on them though which seemed to persist even after I wiped them down with FP-10. This caused the BHP's trigger to be absolutely awful -- heavy with a lot of creep (the mags affect the trigger pull in the BHP due to the magazine safety). After getting home I wiped the Mec-Gars down with Hoppe's No.9 and using some Flitz, polished the point on where the magazine release bears. This improved the trigger somewhat but I really need to remove the magazine safety.
Sunday I took some time and primed 100 .38 Special cases and set up my loading dies to seat and crimp Speer 148 grain hollow base wadcutters. I used my RCBS hand priming tool to prime the cases and I'm not sure why, but 5 of the primers got mangled in seating. I shot WD-40 into the cases to kill the primers then decapped them. It may be that the Federal primers are towards their maximum acceptable size while the primer pockets in my Winchester brass were a little tight. In the past I've used a Lee Auto Primer and never run into this. I plan to get the cases loaded sometime during the week using a light charge of Bullseye and the aforementioned Speer wadcutters, for nice .38 target loads.
I spend most of yesterday outside doing yard work. We had a small pine tree planted in a half barrel off the back patio, the top of which was getting too close to some wires. Removing it gave me the chance to try out the Gerber Camp axe I bought awhile ago at REI. It worked well. Before chopping down the tree I sharpened it using my belt sander, which I clamped upside-down to a folding workbench. I also used it to sharpen a machete and a tomahawk. Aside from the pine tree I bundled up a number of branches that were laying around so that I can dispose of them, and cleaned up our back patio which was covered with leaves that blew down when Ernesto came through over the weekend.
I still didn't get a chance to test the slimjim antenna I constructed on Friday, but hopefully soon.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Friday, September 01, 2006
Yaesu FT-7800R Remote Mounting
I took today off to make this a four day weekend.
Yaesu sells a kit to allow you to mount the detachable face of their FT-7800R mobile 2M/70cm transceiver on your dashboard, while the rest of the radio is placed out of sight under a seat or in your trunk. The remote mounting kit is basically two cables, one to connect the faceplate to the radio and one speaker wire. Even though I use my FT-7800R as a base radio, I wanted to do something similar to free some desk space. The only problem is that Yaesu wants about $65 for the kit, which IMNSHO is ridiculous.
Thankfully, the Yahoo Groups FT-7800R mailing list to which I subscribe supplied the answer. The cable to connect the faceplate to the radio body is nothing more than a flat 6 conductor telelphone cable terminated with RJ12 plugs. Unlike a phone cord, the Yaesu cable needs to be wired straight through, not crossed. So, today I picked up an appropriate cord and some RJ12 plugs. The cord was already terminated so I had to replace an end. Instead of the $65 I spent about $12, split evenly between the cord and the package of RJ12 plugs, the unused portion of which I added to my network cabling kit.
I moved the radio to the top of my gun cabinet and attached the faceplate which incorporates the controls to Bagend's monitor with some double-sided Velcro tape. The setup is a big improvement. If I buy or make an extension for my headphone cord I'll be able to move the radio a little further over to the other side of the room. The other option I'm considering is putting the radio and power supply on a shelf above and behind the monitor.
Another ham radio related project I did today was to make a 2M Slimjim antenna, based on plans I found at Ham Universe. Rather than the copper pipe construction described at HU, I used the ground wire from some Romex in my electrical parts box. Last year I made a J-Pole from it and it worked great. Since the wire isn't rigid, I taped it to a piece of 5 foot long 3/4" PVC water pipe, with the coax cable fed through the bottom and out through a hole I drilled in the side of the pipe at the feed point. I drilled another hole up near the top and looped a cable tie through it so that I can hang it. I hope to try out the Slimjim with my VX-5RS over the weekend.
Yaesu sells a kit to allow you to mount the detachable face of their FT-7800R mobile 2M/70cm transceiver on your dashboard, while the rest of the radio is placed out of sight under a seat or in your trunk. The remote mounting kit is basically two cables, one to connect the faceplate to the radio and one speaker wire. Even though I use my FT-7800R as a base radio, I wanted to do something similar to free some desk space. The only problem is that Yaesu wants about $65 for the kit, which IMNSHO is ridiculous.
Thankfully, the Yahoo Groups FT-7800R mailing list to which I subscribe supplied the answer. The cable to connect the faceplate to the radio body is nothing more than a flat 6 conductor telelphone cable terminated with RJ12 plugs. Unlike a phone cord, the Yaesu cable needs to be wired straight through, not crossed. So, today I picked up an appropriate cord and some RJ12 plugs. The cord was already terminated so I had to replace an end. Instead of the $65 I spent about $12, split evenly between the cord and the package of RJ12 plugs, the unused portion of which I added to my network cabling kit.
I moved the radio to the top of my gun cabinet and attached the faceplate which incorporates the controls to Bagend's monitor with some double-sided Velcro tape. The setup is a big improvement. If I buy or make an extension for my headphone cord I'll be able to move the radio a little further over to the other side of the room. The other option I'm considering is putting the radio and power supply on a shelf above and behind the monitor.
Another ham radio related project I did today was to make a 2M Slimjim antenna, based on plans I found at Ham Universe. Rather than the copper pipe construction described at HU, I used the ground wire from some Romex in my electrical parts box. Last year I made a J-Pole from it and it worked great. Since the wire isn't rigid, I taped it to a piece of 5 foot long 3/4" PVC water pipe, with the coax cable fed through the bottom and out through a hole I drilled in the side of the pipe at the feed point. I drilled another hole up near the top and looped a cable tie through it so that I can hang it. I hope to try out the Slimjim with my VX-5RS over the weekend.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Camino
I've been running Camino 1.0.2 for the past few days on my iBook. In the event you're unfamiliar with it, Camino is a native Aqua app but uses Mozilla's Gecko HTML engine.
When I last tried it out over a year ago, Camino was not ready for daily use and I saw no reason to switch from Firefox. That's changed. Although it still doesn't support Firefox extensions (and AFAIK it never will) it's stable and fast. Firefox of late has really become sluggish on any platform, which lead me to start using Opera and Safari more. Both are fine browsers but because Camino uses Gecko, it renders more pages without the little quirks you run into with Opera or Safari.
Camino is worth a try if you're running Mac OS 10.2 or later.
When I last tried it out over a year ago, Camino was not ready for daily use and I saw no reason to switch from Firefox. That's changed. Although it still doesn't support Firefox extensions (and AFAIK it never will) it's stable and fast. Firefox of late has really become sluggish on any platform, which lead me to start using Opera and Safari more. Both are fine browsers but because Camino uses Gecko, it renders more pages without the little quirks you run into with Opera or Safari.
Camino is worth a try if you're running Mac OS 10.2 or later.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Rally Point 8/25/06 AAR
Yesterday was the latest Rally Point Shoot, held at the Langhorne Rod & Gun Club north of Philadelphia. We had about 35 - 40 folks show up. Thw eather worke dout well -- about 80 degrees and overcast, perfect for shooting.
I brought along my Springfield M1911A1 Loaded, Ruger 10/22, Colt AR-15A3, and Arsenal SA-M5.
The last time I shot the Springfield was back in March and it was giving me failures to eject, with many spent cases getting jammed between the breech face and the barrel hood. I am pleased to say that I fired 82 rounds (50 Rem-UMC and 42 Federal AE) through it yesterday with no malfunctions. I am pretty sure that my March problems were due to the magazines. Then, I used a couple mags which came with the pistol. Yesterday I used two stainless steel Chip McCormick Shooting Star 8 rounders. I'll be getting some more of these.
Accuracy at 50 feet was good, too. Before my hands got tired from the .45 recoil I was able to keep all my shots inside about 3 - 4" offhand. A better shot would get tighter groups but for me that's not bad.
I put 100 - 120 rounds of CCI Subsonic HPs through the Ruger 10/22, through both a factory mag and a Butler Creek Hot Lips 25 rounder. The CCIs are accurate, reliable, and quiet.
Later I moved to the big bore range and took out the Colt and Arsenal. Incidentally, if you show up at one of these shoots you'll get to see a lot of cool toys. I saw many AR-15s (one with a can), several AKs, a few Garands, an M-1903 Springfield, a few FALs, an an M-1944 Mosin-Nagant carbine. There was also a suppressed Savage 110 in .308 which sounded like a .22 when it was fired.
I only ran 40 rounds through the Colt, on which I'd mounted my new Hakko scope. I need to zero it at 50 yards to get it on paper before shooting it at 100 yards again.
The Arsenal SA-M5 got a workout. I put 160 rounds through it -- 120 Wolf 55 grain JHP and 40 Federal American Eagle 55 grain FMJ-BT. It prefers FMJ ammo. I had 3 or 4 instances of the JHPs getting hung up on the breech when trying to feed into the chamber. Pulling back the bolt and releasing it allowed them to feed. The steel cased Wolf gave no problems with extraction or ejection, which is as I expected. AKs are designed to siphon a healthy amount of gas from the barrel to cycle the action under adverse conditions, so ejection was vigorous.
Before shooting the brass cased Amercian Eagle ammo, I cleaned the chamber with some FP-10 on a couple of patches. Steel cased ammo does not obturate as well as brass cased ammo, so it dirties the chamber more quickly. I've found that shooting brass cased ammo after steel cased can cause intermittent extraction problems.
The magazines I used in the AK were Bulgarian 20 rounders. They functioned perfectly and since they don't protrude as much as 30s, are much better for shooting from the bench. I plan on picking up a few more of these.
I was impressed with the K-Var handguards on the rifle. I got the gun good and hot but they stayed cool. The built-in heat shields work.
Before leaving I wanted to run a couple of patches through the bore. Like a dumbshit I put a couple of .35 caliber patches on the loop of my Otis cleaning kit and got it good and stuck in the throat of the bore, which is of course .22 caliber. I couldn't push it out. This morning when cleaning I figured out how to get it unstuck: unscrew the cable from the tip then push the loop back out with a cleaning rod. It popped back out of the chamber with just a little bit of pressure. Whew!
I brought along my Springfield M1911A1 Loaded, Ruger 10/22, Colt AR-15A3, and Arsenal SA-M5.
The last time I shot the Springfield was back in March and it was giving me failures to eject, with many spent cases getting jammed between the breech face and the barrel hood. I am pleased to say that I fired 82 rounds (50 Rem-UMC and 42 Federal AE) through it yesterday with no malfunctions. I am pretty sure that my March problems were due to the magazines. Then, I used a couple mags which came with the pistol. Yesterday I used two stainless steel Chip McCormick Shooting Star 8 rounders. I'll be getting some more of these.
Accuracy at 50 feet was good, too. Before my hands got tired from the .45 recoil I was able to keep all my shots inside about 3 - 4" offhand. A better shot would get tighter groups but for me that's not bad.
I put 100 - 120 rounds of CCI Subsonic HPs through the Ruger 10/22, through both a factory mag and a Butler Creek Hot Lips 25 rounder. The CCIs are accurate, reliable, and quiet.
Later I moved to the big bore range and took out the Colt and Arsenal. Incidentally, if you show up at one of these shoots you'll get to see a lot of cool toys. I saw many AR-15s (one with a can), several AKs, a few Garands, an M-1903 Springfield, a few FALs, an an M-1944 Mosin-Nagant carbine. There was also a suppressed Savage 110 in .308 which sounded like a .22 when it was fired.
I only ran 40 rounds through the Colt, on which I'd mounted my new Hakko scope. I need to zero it at 50 yards to get it on paper before shooting it at 100 yards again.
The Arsenal SA-M5 got a workout. I put 160 rounds through it -- 120 Wolf 55 grain JHP and 40 Federal American Eagle 55 grain FMJ-BT. It prefers FMJ ammo. I had 3 or 4 instances of the JHPs getting hung up on the breech when trying to feed into the chamber. Pulling back the bolt and releasing it allowed them to feed. The steel cased Wolf gave no problems with extraction or ejection, which is as I expected. AKs are designed to siphon a healthy amount of gas from the barrel to cycle the action under adverse conditions, so ejection was vigorous.
Before shooting the brass cased Amercian Eagle ammo, I cleaned the chamber with some FP-10 on a couple of patches. Steel cased ammo does not obturate as well as brass cased ammo, so it dirties the chamber more quickly. I've found that shooting brass cased ammo after steel cased can cause intermittent extraction problems.
The magazines I used in the AK were Bulgarian 20 rounders. They functioned perfectly and since they don't protrude as much as 30s, are much better for shooting from the bench. I plan on picking up a few more of these.
I was impressed with the K-Var handguards on the rifle. I got the gun good and hot but they stayed cool. The built-in heat shields work.
Before leaving I wanted to run a couple of patches through the bore. Like a dumbshit I put a couple of .35 caliber patches on the loop of my Otis cleaning kit and got it good and stuck in the throat of the bore, which is of course .22 caliber. I couldn't push it out. This morning when cleaning I figured out how to get it unstuck: unscrew the cable from the tip then push the loop back out with a cleaning rod. It popped back out of the chamber with just a little bit of pressure. Whew!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Busy Monday
Yesterday I took off so that I could take my Expedition into the shop. When I had it in for an oil change last month I asked my mechanic to take a look and see why it sounds like there’s a hole in a part of the exhaust system. Well, there was a hole in the left exhaust manifold. Due to the fact that unscrewing a 9 year old manifold may result in broken bolts, which in turn would require removing the engine to get the manifold off, he wouldn’t do it. So, it’s at a local Ford dealer. While there I’m also having them add refridgerant to the AC system, lubricate the drive shaft, and do some front end work.
It’s going to be a big damn bill {sigh}. Unfortunately I can’t afford a new vehicle so I have to sink money into this one. Our next new vehicle will probably be for Judith because her ’99 Nissan Sentra is small. At least the dealer paying for a rental car for the day or two I’m without my truck.
While I was home I worked on my next article for Techbuilder.org. I’m using my old Dell Latitude CPiA as a test bed, so I loaded FreeBSD 6.1 onto it. The install went very smoothly. I did have to go back and install a new X server – the framebuffer server – to get the GUI working.
Since the box is cramped on disk space (5.5 GB) and has a slow processor (P-II/366MHz) without much RAM (128 MB) I’m using FVWM as my window manager. It’s got a few more features than the default TWM but doesn’t kill system performance like KDE or Gnome. The heaviest desktop I’d use on this hardware would be XFCE.
Once the article is available I’ll post a link.
Finally, I received two new antennas that I ordered last week from Gigaparts. The first is a Comet SMA-24 2M/70cm for my Yaesu VX-5RS HT. The MFJ 1720S 2M/70cm/6M that I’d been using worked OK but made the radio really top heavy. I couldn’t just site it down without propping it up on something. I was also worried that it was putting undue strain on the SMA connector.
In contrast to the MFJ, the Comet SMA-24 is a very thin and light whip that allows the radio to sit on a flat surface without tipping over. It doesn’t work for 6M but for an HT that’s not a problem.
The Comet is very whippy. Above the base, the antenna wire seems to be coated with a rubber layer with a small nub on the tip. Once it starts moving it takes awhile to stop. To give it a little more rigidity I put a piece of heat shrink tubing on it down near the base, and to prevent poking out anyone’s eye I added a small flag of orange duct tape to the tip.
I also got a Diamond MR77 mobile antenna for my truck and field ops. The MFJ 1729 I bought last year vibrated into unusability in short order. The MR77 is a mag mount antenna for 2M and 70cm, with a PL-259 (UHF) connector on the end of the coax cable. I have a UHF-to-SMA adapter cable for use with my VX-5; the FT-7800R has an SO-239 on the back. Before I put this on my truck I’ll probably seal the antenna/base junction with liquid electrical tape to keep our moisture. I noticed that water did get into the MFJ mag mount and when I disassembled it I saw some rust.
So far I’ve used the SMA-24 for listening but not transmitting, while the MR77 is still in the packaging. I’ll post reports once I’ve had the chance to use them for a bit.
It’s going to be a big damn bill {sigh}. Unfortunately I can’t afford a new vehicle so I have to sink money into this one. Our next new vehicle will probably be for Judith because her ’99 Nissan Sentra is small. At least the dealer paying for a rental car for the day or two I’m without my truck.
While I was home I worked on my next article for Techbuilder.org. I’m using my old Dell Latitude CPiA as a test bed, so I loaded FreeBSD 6.1 onto it. The install went very smoothly. I did have to go back and install a new X server – the framebuffer server – to get the GUI working.
Since the box is cramped on disk space (5.5 GB) and has a slow processor (P-II/366MHz) without much RAM (128 MB) I’m using FVWM as my window manager. It’s got a few more features than the default TWM but doesn’t kill system performance like KDE or Gnome. The heaviest desktop I’d use on this hardware would be XFCE.
Once the article is available I’ll post a link.
Finally, I received two new antennas that I ordered last week from Gigaparts. The first is a Comet SMA-24 2M/70cm for my Yaesu VX-5RS HT. The MFJ 1720S 2M/70cm/6M that I’d been using worked OK but made the radio really top heavy. I couldn’t just site it down without propping it up on something. I was also worried that it was putting undue strain on the SMA connector.
In contrast to the MFJ, the Comet SMA-24 is a very thin and light whip that allows the radio to sit on a flat surface without tipping over. It doesn’t work for 6M but for an HT that’s not a problem.
The Comet is very whippy. Above the base, the antenna wire seems to be coated with a rubber layer with a small nub on the tip. Once it starts moving it takes awhile to stop. To give it a little more rigidity I put a piece of heat shrink tubing on it down near the base, and to prevent poking out anyone’s eye I added a small flag of orange duct tape to the tip.
I also got a Diamond MR77 mobile antenna for my truck and field ops. The MFJ 1729 I bought last year vibrated into unusability in short order. The MR77 is a mag mount antenna for 2M and 70cm, with a PL-259 (UHF) connector on the end of the coax cable. I have a UHF-to-SMA adapter cable for use with my VX-5; the FT-7800R has an SO-239 on the back. Before I put this on my truck I’ll probably seal the antenna/base junction with liquid electrical tape to keep our moisture. I noticed that water did get into the MFJ mag mount and when I disassembled it I saw some rust.
So far I’ve used the SMA-24 for listening but not transmitting, while the MR77 is still in the packaging. I’ll post reports once I’ve had the chance to use them for a bit.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Truck fun
My '97 Expedition has been in need of a trip to the shop for awhile now. According to my regular mechanic, there's a small hole in the exhaust manifold which is the source of some loud noise while the engine is running. I've also heard a couple of loud clunks which sound like they're coming from the transmission, so this morning I stopped putting off the inevitable and made an appointment to take it in on Monday.
If the bolts securing the manifold to the engine block break while trying to change it, the engine will probably need to be removed to get them out, so he won't do it. I'm going to take the thing into a local Ford dealer, which I'd rather not do but it seems to be the best option right now. Tomorrow I'll try to hose down the bolts with Liquid Wrench to minimize the chance that the break off on Monday.
{sarcasm}I can't wait to see how much this costs.{/sarcasm}
If the bolts securing the manifold to the engine block break while trying to change it, the engine will probably need to be removed to get them out, so he won't do it. I'm going to take the thing into a local Ford dealer, which I'd rather not do but it seems to be the best option right now. Tomorrow I'll try to hose down the bolts with Liquid Wrench to minimize the chance that the break off on Monday.
{sarcasm}I can't wait to see how much this costs.{/sarcasm}
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Monday update
Saturday we schlepped up to Nutley, NJ (within sight of Manhattan) for a birthday party for one of Judith's cousins. The most direct route is to take the PA Turnpike to the NJ Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway. We hit traffic on the way up, but big sections of the southbound NJ Turnpike were parking lots. So, we took an alternate route home.
Instead of taking the Garden State to the NJ Turnpike, we got off the former at I-78W and took that west to US-22, across the Delaware into PA, until we got to the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike, I-476. Then 476S to the Norristown interchange and home. Mileage-wise it was probably longer but it took us the same amount of time as the trip up and the drive was much nicer.
I'd planned to go to the range yesterday since the weather was beautiful, but instead got the bug to organize/clean up my office. It's gotten extra cluttered of late to the point where it was bugging even me.
I put a lot of old documents -- ATM receipts, charge slips, old pay stubs -- through the shredder, then installed about ten feet worth of shelf space. This allowed me to get the coffee cans holding empty brass, along with other miscellaneous stuff up out of the way.
The shelves are nothing fancy, just 1x8 pine boards held up with braces and screwed into studs. Since my office is also the laundry room I don't worry about cosmetic details in there.
During my Lowe's run to get the shelving, I spied a few items on closeout that I snagged. They had a Nite Ize Multi Pocket belt pouch which should hold my Yaesu VX-5RS radio along with a few other items. Then there was a Lansky-type knife sharpener, and a butane torch with soldering tips. The knife sharpener should help me retouch the edge on my Benchmade Griptilian, which is made from rather hard steel. I worked on it a bit with my Arkansas stone and didn't make much progress. The only soldering iron I have is pretty cheap, so the torch should come in handy the next time I want to make an antenna.
Instead of taking the Garden State to the NJ Turnpike, we got off the former at I-78W and took that west to US-22, across the Delaware into PA, until we got to the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike, I-476. Then 476S to the Norristown interchange and home. Mileage-wise it was probably longer but it took us the same amount of time as the trip up and the drive was much nicer.
I'd planned to go to the range yesterday since the weather was beautiful, but instead got the bug to organize/clean up my office. It's gotten extra cluttered of late to the point where it was bugging even me.
I put a lot of old documents -- ATM receipts, charge slips, old pay stubs -- through the shredder, then installed about ten feet worth of shelf space. This allowed me to get the coffee cans holding empty brass, along with other miscellaneous stuff up out of the way.
The shelves are nothing fancy, just 1x8 pine boards held up with braces and screwed into studs. Since my office is also the laundry room I don't worry about cosmetic details in there.
During my Lowe's run to get the shelving, I spied a few items on closeout that I snagged. They had a Nite Ize Multi Pocket belt pouch which should hold my Yaesu VX-5RS radio along with a few other items. Then there was a Lansky-type knife sharpener, and a butane torch with soldering tips. The knife sharpener should help me retouch the edge on my Benchmade Griptilian, which is made from rather hard steel. I worked on it a bit with my Arkansas stone and didn't make much progress. The only soldering iron I have is pretty cheap, so the torch should come in handy the next time I want to make an antenna.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Craigslist
I've been amazed at the amount of interest I've been getting for the ads I placed on Craigslist for the items that didn't sell at our yard sale last Saturday.
Sunday morning I put up an ad for the crib and changing table, tandem stroller, and three balloon strollers. As I mentioned on Monday I got the first reply in less than five minutes. That woman came over shortly thereafter and bought the balloon strollers and a couple of toys.
Sunday afternoon I got a couple of emails expressing interest in the tandem stroller. After emailing pictures I got one "no thanks" and it looks like the other person may come over sometime today to buy it. If she doesn't, yet another woman emailed me this morning requesting pictures.
Lesson learned: Craigslist is a great place to sell baby stuff once you're finished with it. Adding pictures to an ad will help quite a bit. Any future ads I place will incorporate pictures, which I'll host using my free Photobucket account.
When you consider that posting in Craigslist's "For Sale" classifieds doesn't cost a cent, this is an especially good deal.
Sunday morning I put up an ad for the crib and changing table, tandem stroller, and three balloon strollers. As I mentioned on Monday I got the first reply in less than five minutes. That woman came over shortly thereafter and bought the balloon strollers and a couple of toys.
Sunday afternoon I got a couple of emails expressing interest in the tandem stroller. After emailing pictures I got one "no thanks" and it looks like the other person may come over sometime today to buy it. If she doesn't, yet another woman emailed me this morning requesting pictures.
Lesson learned: Craigslist is a great place to sell baby stuff once you're finished with it. Adding pictures to an ad will help quite a bit. Any future ads I place will incorporate pictures, which I'll host using my free Photobucket account.
When you consider that posting in Craigslist's "For Sale" classifieds doesn't cost a cent, this is an especially good deal.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Productive Weekend
It was a productive weekend.
Saturday morning we had a yard sale. We advertised it as running from 8:00 until Noon, but the early birds came out. I sold my copy of MS Streets & Trips 2004 at 6:45 AM, just as we were putting things out!
Saturday afternoon I had a site visit at a long-time client. She uses Quickbooks to keep her business's books and for invoicing, and just upgraded to QB2006. Since the upgrade it's been running really slow on her PC and another PC in the office.
It looks like QB2006 is a resource hog. Her PC is a 2.53 GHz Pentium IV with a gig of RAM and not too many other programs running. The other PC is similar. Hey, Intuit, this isn't Photoshop, how about not turning your programs into bloated pieces of crap like Symantec does with everything they publish?
Aside from looking over her PC and making sure it wasn't infested with anything that would cause a performance hit, I also updated their W2K3 file and web servers, and their Linux mail server.
The mail server is on SUSE 9.0 Pro running CommuniGate Pro. It's a bit long in the tooth and becoming hard to support due to a lack of updates. I am going to prepare a proposal for a replacment, based on my TechBuilder.org article about building a mail server with FreeBSD, Postfix, Dovecot, and SpamAssassin. It should perform better and be easier to support once it's setup.
Yesterday I put an ad of Craigslist for the crib, changing table, and strollers that didn't sell on Saturday. Within 5 minutes of placing the ad, I got an email from a woman nearby who just found out she'll be raising a niece's 18 month old. She came over a little while later and bought three umbrella strollers and a few toys. Another woman setup a time to come over tomorrow to look at the crib and changing table. Hopefully, she'll buy the set and then we'll only have to get rid of a double stroller.
I wrapped up the weekend by joining in the MARC Sunday night club net.
Saturday morning we had a yard sale. We advertised it as running from 8:00 until Noon, but the early birds came out. I sold my copy of MS Streets & Trips 2004 at 6:45 AM, just as we were putting things out!
Saturday afternoon I had a site visit at a long-time client. She uses Quickbooks to keep her business's books and for invoicing, and just upgraded to QB2006. Since the upgrade it's been running really slow on her PC and another PC in the office.
It looks like QB2006 is a resource hog. Her PC is a 2.53 GHz Pentium IV with a gig of RAM and not too many other programs running. The other PC is similar. Hey, Intuit, this isn't Photoshop, how about not turning your programs into bloated pieces of crap like Symantec does with everything they publish?
Aside from looking over her PC and making sure it wasn't infested with anything that would cause a performance hit, I also updated their W2K3 file and web servers, and their Linux mail server.
The mail server is on SUSE 9.0 Pro running CommuniGate Pro. It's a bit long in the tooth and becoming hard to support due to a lack of updates. I am going to prepare a proposal for a replacment, based on my TechBuilder.org article about building a mail server with FreeBSD, Postfix, Dovecot, and SpamAssassin. It should perform better and be easier to support once it's setup.
Yesterday I put an ad of Craigslist for the crib, changing table, and strollers that didn't sell on Saturday. Within 5 minutes of placing the ad, I got an email from a woman nearby who just found out she'll be raising a niece's 18 month old. She came over a little while later and bought three umbrella strollers and a few toys. Another woman setup a time to come over tomorrow to look at the crib and changing table. Hopefully, she'll buy the set and then we'll only have to get rid of a double stroller.
I wrapped up the weekend by joining in the MARC Sunday night club net.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Success
Success! Tonight I was able to get onto the MARC Monday night net using my newly-mounted Comet GP-3 antenna and Yaesu FT-7800R. I was transmitting at 20W and hitting the 145.130 MHz repeater located in Paoli, PA. Net control NT3J reported that my signal was clear, though not quite full quieting. Shortening my feed line may help that. I'm not going to bump the transmit power up to high, since they are hearing me clearly.
Earlier, I was able to hear a net being run out of South Jersey, but on 20W they couldn't hear me. They run the net every Monday at 2000 Eastern, so I may try again next week and bump the power up to 50W, the maximum the FT-7800R will transmit on 2M.
Earlier, I was able to hear a net being run out of South Jersey, but on 20W they couldn't hear me. They run the net every Monday at 2000 Eastern, so I may try again next week and bump the power up to 50W, the maximum the FT-7800R will transmit on 2M.
Beds, radios, and Japanese food
We had a productive weekend.
Saturday I drove out to Lancaster and picked up the bed we ordered a week previously for Amanda. This was one of those times I was glad to have a full-size SUV. This week I'll take down the crib and changing table in her room and put the bed together. Hopefully we'll get someone to buy them next Saturday when we have a yard sale.
Yesterday my friend who's an electrician came over to replace a couple of dimmer switches with regular pole switches, swap out an old two-prong outlet for one that's properly grounded, and finally get my Comet GP-3 2M/70cm ham antenna mounted on my roof.
I have the antenna attached to a 5 foot mast attached to my chimney using a Radio Shack chimney mount. The chimney is in the middle of my roof while my office, where my radio shack (so to speak) is located is on the ground floor at the left front of the house. After securing the coax to the antenna's SO-239 connector and sealing it against moisture with liquid electrical tape, we ran the cable across the roof, and secured it to a downspout with zip ties. There's a soffet overhang outside my office window so we tucked a few feet of the cable in there for extra support, and left the remainder coiled on the window sill. I plan to make a pass-through bulkhead to secure in the window. I'll cut the excess cable (it's a 100 foot line) and put on a new PL-259 so that it can attach to the bulkhead, then use a SO-239 coupler to attach the inside line to the outside line.
I really didn't want to get involved with poking a hole through the cinder block wall, so the the bulkhead will provide an easier to work with solution.
I only had a few minutes to play with the new setup after we were done. I was able to hear the Holmesburg Amateur Radio Club's rebroadcast of "This Week in Amateur Radio" very clearly. This is transmitted from the HARC WM3PEN 2M repeater located on top of a dorm at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously I was able to hear that repeated but not as clearly as with the new antenna mounted up high. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be listening or interested in chatting on the MARC WB3JOE repeater when I transmitted.
I am optimistic that with the GP-3 now up on the roof, I'll be able to get some good use out of my Yaesu FT-7800R.
Finally, last night we went with my MIL and Judith's aunt and uncle to Sagami on US-130S in Collingswood, NJ. It's a Japanese restaurant, though it's a sit-down type of place rather than teppanyaki. The food was excellent. It's BYOB, so Judith's aunt brought a bottle of sake. Unfortunately it had gone bad and was now only useful for cooking. What's nice is that Sagami traded us some good sake for the bottle, so we had an appropriate beverage to enjoy with the meal.
Saturday I drove out to Lancaster and picked up the bed we ordered a week previously for Amanda. This was one of those times I was glad to have a full-size SUV. This week I'll take down the crib and changing table in her room and put the bed together. Hopefully we'll get someone to buy them next Saturday when we have a yard sale.
Yesterday my friend who's an electrician came over to replace a couple of dimmer switches with regular pole switches, swap out an old two-prong outlet for one that's properly grounded, and finally get my Comet GP-3 2M/70cm ham antenna mounted on my roof.
I have the antenna attached to a 5 foot mast attached to my chimney using a Radio Shack chimney mount. The chimney is in the middle of my roof while my office, where my radio shack (so to speak) is located is on the ground floor at the left front of the house. After securing the coax to the antenna's SO-239 connector and sealing it against moisture with liquid electrical tape, we ran the cable across the roof, and secured it to a downspout with zip ties. There's a soffet overhang outside my office window so we tucked a few feet of the cable in there for extra support, and left the remainder coiled on the window sill. I plan to make a pass-through bulkhead to secure in the window. I'll cut the excess cable (it's a 100 foot line) and put on a new PL-259 so that it can attach to the bulkhead, then use a SO-239 coupler to attach the inside line to the outside line.
I really didn't want to get involved with poking a hole through the cinder block wall, so the the bulkhead will provide an easier to work with solution.
I only had a few minutes to play with the new setup after we were done. I was able to hear the Holmesburg Amateur Radio Club's rebroadcast of "This Week in Amateur Radio" very clearly. This is transmitted from the HARC WM3PEN 2M repeater located on top of a dorm at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously I was able to hear that repeated but not as clearly as with the new antenna mounted up high. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be listening or interested in chatting on the MARC WB3JOE repeater when I transmitted.
I am optimistic that with the GP-3 now up on the roof, I'll be able to get some good use out of my Yaesu FT-7800R.
Finally, last night we went with my MIL and Judith's aunt and uncle to Sagami on US-130S in Collingswood, NJ. It's a Japanese restaurant, though it's a sit-down type of place rather than teppanyaki. The food was excellent. It's BYOB, so Judith's aunt brought a bottle of sake. Unfortunately it had gone bad and was now only useful for cooking. What's nice is that Sagami traded us some good sake for the bottle, so we had an appropriate beverage to enjoy with the meal.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Rally Point Shoot 8/26/06
TheRallyPoint
Date: Saturday August 26th,, 2006
Place: www.lrgc.org in Southeastern Pennyslvania (just North of Philadelphia)
Time: 9am-5pm
Rally Point events and socializing will be going on at the:
Pistol range: 15yds-25yd
Pistol/rifle range: 50yd
Big Bore rifle range 100yd-200yds
2 fields for shooting trap
Food and drinks will be available.
For Directions http://www.lrgc.org/html/location.html
Admission is $15
Sponsors: Will be announced in a few weeks.
TheRallyPoint event tends to be informal, and there will be plenty of time to socialize, but since the www.lrgc.org is very big, we decided to join forces with http://www.rwva.org/ to further our cause. We will be having a Mini-Appleseed clinic
http://www.therallypoint.org/forum/index.php?topic=648.msg3821#msg3821
Training: NRA Certified Firearms instructors will be available to instruct new shooters. If you have friends or family members that want to learn how to handle a firearm, please help further our cause and invite them to come out. This is a family friendly event.
Competitions are only a short part of the days events and are separate from the Mini appleseed clinic. The big bore (100y / 200y) will be open from 9am-5pm for open shooting, and the smallbore/pistol range will be open after the appleseed program is done.
Competitions: Rifleman survival competition, shotgun competition
Theme: Rifleman boot camp. Bring out your favorite rifle and practice with others. If you have something unique to add to the Rifleman firearm theme, please let us know what you are bringing.
Please note:
There are sponsors for this event that are contributing to the event and helping to keep costs down, please do not show up and open up a store front on the firing line and start selling things. If you have something of value to the members of TRP please contact me first. If you are interested in sponsoring future TheRallyPoint, please feel free to contact me.
Secondly, The board at LRGC asked that we not allow the buying and selling of firearms on their property. These shoots look like gun shows, but we do not want to bring in unwanted attention. Feel free to network and build friendships, but please do the transfering of firearms off LRGC's property.
Meet us at TheRallyPoint!!
Date: Saturday August 26th,, 2006
Place: www.lrgc.org in Southeastern Pennyslvania (just North of Philadelphia)
Time: 9am-5pm
Rally Point events and socializing will be going on at the:
Pistol range: 15yds-25yd
Pistol/rifle range: 50yd
Big Bore rifle range 100yd-200yds
2 fields for shooting trap
Food and drinks will be available.
For Directions http://www.lrgc.org/html/location.html
Admission is $15
Sponsors: Will be announced in a few weeks.
TheRallyPoint event tends to be informal, and there will be plenty of time to socialize, but since the www.lrgc.org is very big, we decided to join forces with http://www.rwva.org/ to further our cause. We will be having a Mini-Appleseed clinic
http://www.therallypoint.org/forum/index.php?topic=648.msg3821#msg3821
Training: NRA Certified Firearms instructors will be available to instruct new shooters. If you have friends or family members that want to learn how to handle a firearm, please help further our cause and invite them to come out. This is a family friendly event.
Competitions are only a short part of the days events and are separate from the Mini appleseed clinic. The big bore (100y / 200y) will be open from 9am-5pm for open shooting, and the smallbore/pistol range will be open after the appleseed program is done.
Competitions: Rifleman survival competition, shotgun competition
Theme: Rifleman boot camp. Bring out your favorite rifle and practice with others. If you have something unique to add to the Rifleman firearm theme, please let us know what you are bringing.
Please note:
There are sponsors for this event that are contributing to the event and helping to keep costs down, please do not show up and open up a store front on the firing line and start selling things. If you have something of value to the members of TRP please contact me first. If you are interested in sponsoring future TheRallyPoint, please feel free to contact me.
Secondly, The board at LRGC asked that we not allow the buying and selling of firearms on their property. These shoots look like gun shows, but we do not want to bring in unwanted attention. Feel free to network and build friendships, but please do the transfering of firearms off LRGC's property.
Meet us at TheRallyPoint!!
Friday, July 28, 2006
New Blogger Template
Hope you like the new look. I decided it was time for a facelift. The old template was looking kinda grungy and wasn't compatible with Safari. This one renders a lot better in Safari. Unfortunately, the Blogger posting page still doesn't work 100% with Safari, so I'll likely keep posting from withing Firefox.
Reconfiguring How I Do Email
Last night's fireworks finally provided the impetus for me to change how I get my email. I've been running mail.building-tux.com as an IMAP server on e-Smith SME server for a few years at home, but have been looking to move to a platform that isn't so old. One of the things I was considering was to stop hosting my mail at home entirely, and instead use pair.com's server, which is where www.building-tux.com is hosted.
Being in a real data center, Pair's server is a lot less vulnerable to power outages and surges. They provide webmail access using Squirrelmail, so even if I'm without my laptop I'll be able to access it from any Internet connection. Pair's spam filtering is quite good; I noticed that when they made some upgrades to it last year the amount of spam I received in my davemarkowitz.net account plummetted. Finally, not running a server 24x7 will save on our home electric bill.
So, I setup a mailbox at Pair and reconfigured the DNS records for building-tux.com. I'm now using POPS (POP over SSL) to retrieve email for both building-tux.com and davemarkowitz.net. My mail client is Apple's Mail.app.
I like Mail.app's interface and how it integrates well with iCal, the OS X Addressbook, and Spotlight. Mail.app sucks for IMAP but according to friends who use it for POP, it's good at that.
Tonight or this weekend I'll configure Mail.app to connect to my old mail server while I'm local, and I'll copy down the messages I have in IMAP folders. Then I'll be able to retire the old box.
Being in a real data center, Pair's server is a lot less vulnerable to power outages and surges. They provide webmail access using Squirrelmail, so even if I'm without my laptop I'll be able to access it from any Internet connection. Pair's spam filtering is quite good; I noticed that when they made some upgrades to it last year the amount of spam I received in my davemarkowitz.net account plummetted. Finally, not running a server 24x7 will save on our home electric bill.
So, I setup a mailbox at Pair and reconfigured the DNS records for building-tux.com. I'm now using POPS (POP over SSL) to retrieve email for both building-tux.com and davemarkowitz.net. My mail client is Apple's Mail.app.
I like Mail.app's interface and how it integrates well with iCal, the OS X Addressbook, and Spotlight. Mail.app sucks for IMAP but according to friends who use it for POP, it's good at that.
Tonight or this weekend I'll configure Mail.app to connect to my old mail server while I'm local, and I'll copy down the messages I have in IMAP folders. Then I'll be able to retire the old box.
Zap!
We had an electrical storm blow through last night and had one bolt of lightning hit fairly close. This morning when I went downstairs for breakfast I noticed that a couple circuits blew. Aside from the refrigerator, my Vonage router got fried. I tried a hard reboot but only the power light comes on, I get no link light from either the modem or the switch connected to the LAN side.
I'm a bit surprised that the Vonage Linksys box got zapped because I have an APC PNET Ethernet surge protector between it and the modem, and both boxes get their A/C from an APC BackUPS 650. Before leaving for work I took the Vonage box out and threw an old Cayman 2E-H in its place, hoping to at least restore Internet connectivity. No dice, I think the PNET got fried, too.
After I get home tonight I'll see if I can get the Cayman online if I plug directly into the modem. I know the modem itself is online because I was able to poll it from the office using our NMS (it's nice to work for your ISP as an engineer :-)). If the Cayman doesn't work it'll give me an excuse to install the Netscreen 5GT demo unit I have at home.
We'll still receive calls if anyone dials our home number because we have Vonage configured to forward calls to Judith's cell phone if the VOIP line is down.
I called Vonage tech support from the office. I think I was speaking to someone in India. I explained the situation and while the tech sounded sympathetic, he couldn't send me a new router without me in front of it to troubleshoot. I understand having a script to adhere to but when the damn box won't come up, it's time to bend a little. At my insistance, he transferred me to a supervisor, who (a) sounded like he was actually in the US, and (b) agreed that a new router is warranted. So, Vonage is shipping us a new box and we should get it Monday.
ETA: It turns out that not only was my Vonage router fried, so was the uplink port on my Netgear 8 port switch. I did get back online with the Cayman, which just needed some reconfiguration, and determined that my APC PNET Ethernet surge suppressor was not affected. The surge must've come through the power line, not the cable line.
I'm a bit surprised that the Vonage Linksys box got zapped because I have an APC PNET Ethernet surge protector between it and the modem, and both boxes get their A/C from an APC BackUPS 650. Before leaving for work I took the Vonage box out and threw an old Cayman 2E-H in its place, hoping to at least restore Internet connectivity. No dice, I think the PNET got fried, too.
After I get home tonight I'll see if I can get the Cayman online if I plug directly into the modem. I know the modem itself is online because I was able to poll it from the office using our NMS (it's nice to work for your ISP as an engineer :-)). If the Cayman doesn't work it'll give me an excuse to install the Netscreen 5GT demo unit I have at home.
We'll still receive calls if anyone dials our home number because we have Vonage configured to forward calls to Judith's cell phone if the VOIP line is down.
I called Vonage tech support from the office. I think I was speaking to someone in India. I explained the situation and while the tech sounded sympathetic, he couldn't send me a new router without me in front of it to troubleshoot. I understand having a script to adhere to but when the damn box won't come up, it's time to bend a little. At my insistance, he transferred me to a supervisor, who (a) sounded like he was actually in the US, and (b) agreed that a new router is warranted. So, Vonage is shipping us a new box and we should get it Monday.
ETA: It turns out that not only was my Vonage router fried, so was the uplink port on my Netgear 8 port switch. I did get back online with the Cayman, which just needed some reconfiguration, and determined that my APC PNET Ethernet surge suppressor was not affected. The surge must've come through the power line, not the cable line.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Browsing with Opera 9 and del.icio.us
I've been spending a lot of time this week in Opera 9 on my iBook. I still use Firefox, but it seems to be getting slower lately. I removed several extensions in an effort to strip it down but it remains slower than Opera, or Safari for that matter. Opera allows you a lot of flexibility in configuration, and as you can see below, I have it fairly stripped down to make the most efficient use of my iBook's 1024x768 screen.
Most of the sites I visit are rendered OK in Opera, although Blogger's image upload feature seems a bit borked. After uploading the image from my Photobucket account, instead of the thumbnail, the full image is shown in the Blogger compose window. So, in order to finish this post I had to login using Firefox. Weird.
In tandem with using Opera I created an account with del.icio.us, so that I can store bookmarks online and not have to worry about whether I have them synced across my various computers. It'll take a little while to populate my del.icio.us account but this looks to be a very handy way of bookmarking sites.
Most of the sites I visit are rendered OK in Opera, although Blogger's image upload feature seems a bit borked. After uploading the image from my Photobucket account, instead of the thumbnail, the full image is shown in the Blogger compose window. So, in order to finish this post I had to login using Firefox. Weird.
In tandem with using Opera I created an account with del.icio.us, so that I can store bookmarks online and not have to worry about whether I have them synced across my various computers. It'll take a little while to populate my del.icio.us account but this looks to be a very handy way of bookmarking sites.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Google Toolbar Phishing Scam
I just got an HTML formatted email which read as follows:
The message was purportedly from "Google Updates" and the subject line is "New Google Toolbar Released."
Naturally, the hyperlink for the URL in the message was not toolbar.google.com, it was something else.
This is a nasty bit of phishing since so many people have the Google toolbar installed.
(Google Toolbar logo)
Take the power of Google with you anywhere on the Web
Google Toolbar Gets Personal
Users Can Now Customize their Search Experience with Latest Version of Google Toolbar
The beta versions of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Google Toolbar for Firefox are currently available in more than 16 languages. Both versions of Google Toolbar - Standard and Enterprise - run on Windows XP and support Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher.
More information on the new versions of Google Toolbar is available at http://toolbar.google.com/.
The message was purportedly from "Google Updates" and the subject line is "New Google Toolbar Released."
Naturally, the hyperlink for the URL in the message was not toolbar.google.com, it was something else.
This is a nasty bit of phishing since so many people have the Google toolbar installed.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Eudora Not Good for IMAP In My Opinion
Well, I gave Eudora another shot as an IMAP client. Actually, two shots.
On my iBook, Eudora 6.0.2 repeatedly crashed when trying to sync with my mail at davemarkowitz.net. On Bagend, running XP Pro, Eudora 7 was atrociously slow in syncronizing with mail.building-tux.com, which is on the same 100BaseT LAN.
Back to Thunderbird it is.
I keep toying around with going back to retrieving my email via POP3, using a client on the iBook. I do like Eudora's interface and feature set, and in the past I ran it for awhile on Windows. It worked well as a POP client, good enough that I might be tempted to go for the paid version. It stores email in standard mbox format, so migration to another MUA is pretty straightforward. I once migrated from Eudora to KMail without to many issues.
I need to think about this some more.
On my iBook, Eudora 6.0.2 repeatedly crashed when trying to sync with my mail at davemarkowitz.net. On Bagend, running XP Pro, Eudora 7 was atrociously slow in syncronizing with mail.building-tux.com, which is on the same 100BaseT LAN.
Back to Thunderbird it is.
I keep toying around with going back to retrieving my email via POP3, using a client on the iBook. I do like Eudora's interface and feature set, and in the past I ran it for awhile on Windows. It worked well as a POP client, good enough that I might be tempted to go for the paid version. It stores email in standard mbox format, so migration to another MUA is pretty straightforward. I once migrated from Eudora to KMail without to many issues.
I need to think about this some more.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
CCNA Training This Week
I'm in a "Introduction to CCNA" all this week, hence the light posting. It's being held in our Mt. Laurel, NJ office. So far so good, and while much of this is review, I've learned some shortcuts for subnetting which make it easier. The follow-on class, "Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices," is going to be mostly new material. The instructor isn't sure if he'll be able to get that in-house, or if he'll have to send us out to one of our training partners. ICND is going to require real equipment to break work with, so if he can't get the necessary gear in we'll go to the partner.
Regular work does go on, however, so I've had to jump on a few conference calls. Monday's and Tuesday's were after the class was done for the day, but I had to cut out for an hour this morning to be on another call. We have a high profile customer for whom it looks like we'll be replacing the LAN the we installed with better equipment, and upgrading them from a cable modem to a fiber Internet connection. My background in optical networking is going to be useful in this project.
Regular work does go on, however, so I've had to jump on a few conference calls. Monday's and Tuesday's were after the class was done for the day, but I had to cut out for an hour this morning to be on another call. We have a high profile customer for whom it looks like we'll be replacing the LAN the we installed with better equipment, and upgrading them from a cable modem to a fiber Internet connection. My background in optical networking is going to be useful in this project.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
