Tralfaz

Blog

  • Hobbyist Electronics

    I am sure I disappointed my dad growing up. He tried mightily to get me interested in electronics, even building many Heathkit projects with me. I remember an AM radio, and a few others, but for me it was boring, and as a pre-teen, I just didn’t get into it.

    He had a Heathkit oscilloscope, and had built our hi-fi system from Heathkits, among many others. We had a B&W TV that often needed new tubes, and I recall taking tubes to the tester at the local K-Mart back before it became white trash shopping. But the bug never bit.

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  • Showing its age – or is it

    My main computer since 2013, has been a rocking MacBook Air. It is the first generation of the system based on the Haswell chipset, and it has been awesome. It came with Mountain Lion (10.8), and has been upgraded thrice now, recently to El Capitan.

    When I got it, one of the huge benefits was the battery life. The data sheet said 12 hours, and it easily beat that. I often went several days between charging the battery. I think my record was 14 actual operating hours, and I still had ~ 10% of battery left.

    Of course, as time has gone on, I use it more and more, but until the upgrade to El Capitan, it was still rocking the great battery life.

    I held off on the El Capitan upgrade as long as I could, but in a moment of weakness, I hit "ok" when prompted.

    Unlike many of my friends, my upgrade went smooth and frankly, it was the easiest upgrade, and for Apple, that is saying something. Two entries of passwords (I have different iCloud and Apple Store accounts, a long story, don't ask).

    The changes were fine, no issues, and since I don't use Apple mail, there wasn't any re-index.

    However, there is a downside. The battery life seems to be about 1/2 what it used to be. Of course, the laptop is 2.5 years old, so the battery might be wearing out. But I doubt it is that drastic. El Capitan really appears to be a battery hog.

  • Project Time – Step 1 The Raspberry Pi

    A few years ago, I got a wild hair up my hind-side, and bought a Raspberry Pi to mess with. A small, fully functional computer, running a Linux variant, built around an ARM SoC, it was a pretty nifty bit of kit.

    I connected it to my monitor, wired up a keyboard and mouse, added a wifi USB dongle, and had some fun. Did a lot of learning to program Python on it.

    But then the move happened, it got chucked into a box, and ignored. With the move done, the house bought, and the project bug biting me again, I have resurrected it.

    The first challenge was to actually FIND it. Alas, it was hiding in my monster box of cables and other items. Still connected to the powered USB hub that I had for it.

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  • A “new” streaming contender – Pandora

    Early on when I began to listen to streaming music, I got a Pandora account. Probably 2011 or 2012. At first, it was the only solution, and I listened, but I found that the depth of their catalog “felt” weak. Radio stations would repeat songs often, and it just fell off the radar.

    Spotify, and then the Google / Apple offerings came along, and I was satisfied. So I seriously hadn’t even fired up Pandora in a long time. Like in two iPhone refreshes (that is 4 years).

    But, a few days ago, I was cleaning up my iPhone’s apps, and I saw that the Pandora app had just refreshed. I figured “what the f*ck” and fired it up. (more…)

  • Saying goodbye to an old friend

    Today is a sad day, but also a hopeful day. It is time to say goodbye to an old friend, my Fender Telecaster guitar. It is going to a good place, it will be under the tree for a friend’s high school aged son, who wants to learn to play guitar.

    Still, it is not without some reflection of my past, that is now going away.

    It isn’t particularly rare, or exciting. It started life as a new guitar to augment my, at the time, well aged, and slightly abused Charvel that I bought in 1986. I bought it in 2002, and it came from The Musicians Friend. A “Made in Mexico” Tele, it was a true Fender, not a Squire. At one time the “Made in Mexico” meant an inferior product, but those days are long gone. It was nearly the same quality as the “Made in the USA” version, but about 1/2 the price.

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  • Let the Holidays Commence – What to do

    Let the Holidays Commence – What to do

    Today, at noon, we started our holiday shutdown, so I am off work for a whole week. I am going to do plenty of reading, maybe some bicycling, fawn over my boys, and in general relax.

    However, I have the itch to do a project. Since our little Oregon Scientific weather station is getting a little tired, and the replacements all seem to suck, I am going to make a little weather station.

    Plenty of instructions and guidance on the web for this, but I have some learning to do first. I never really had an electronics bug. Sure, I know the mathematics, and what the components do, but wiring shit up? Not really. (more…)

  • Sick Again – A December tradition

    Last Sunday, I cold feel the start of a cold or flu in its infancy. Felt out of sorts, and funky. Got some meds and Monday, I felt good enough to go to work, assuming that I had dodged the bullet.

    Ha.

    Tuesday, I had a trip to Boston for a tradeshow, and apart from the usual dehydration of airplane travel, it was normal., almost uneventful. But at dinner, I knew something was coming.

    Not to be disappointed, about 1:00AM I was awakened with that distinctive, back of the throat pain indicative of a cold. Would it go up into the head, or down into the chest? Curious minds need to know, man. Needless to say, the 6 hours I spent on the floor on Wednesday weren’t pleasant. Since I didn’t leave home with good cold medicine, I got raped for $16 for Tylenol severe cold tablets in the hotel shop. Ouch. (more…)

  • Damn NCIS

    Damn NCIS

    Last weekend I finished the 12 seasons of NCIS that are available on Netflix. Not quite a binge watching, but a pretty addicting stretch of TV.

    While this isn’t a surprise, I often watch old TV shows and series on Netflix, I usually get to a point where I give up. Either the story line becomes tired and stale, or I get bored, and move on. Rockford Files and Columbo are two examples where I fade away after 5 or 6 seasons.

    However, NCIS was different. There are several reasons why I stuck with it (and will likely pick up the 13th season when it hits Netflix.)

    The Writing

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  • Visiting Family

    Since we moved back from Arizona last year, we are a lot closer to our families, and we need to take advantage of that. Of course Barbara has been much more proactive than myself, but that is no excuse.

    Last year we visited my sister, Tracey and her wife in their home in Mountain Ranch, California. A lovely place nestled in the hills of Calaveras county, and a modest 2.5 hour drive away (depending on traffic, naturally), and loved it. The boys did as well.

    Of course, living in the country, they have a veritable menagerie of animals. (more…)

  • Computer Repair Man

    Computer Repair Man

    Earlier this week, I got a Facebook message from my sister. Their iMac was behaving poorly, lots of spin-y beachballs (the “I’m thinking” on the Mac OS-X), so I asked the usual questions.

    • What model iMac is it? (from the about and system report)
    • How much memory is there?
    • How big is the disk, and how much is used (from DiskUtil)?

    All the standard things, but the DiskUtil reported that there was a problem with the disk, and to back it up and take it for service.

    Sigh, a failing drive. And their closest Apple store is about 90 minutes away. Rustic, rural living has a downside. (more…)