I have: Car keys (2) Motorcycle Keys (3) Scooter Keys (2) House Keys (9) Work keys (11) MISC other keys that I use sometimes (20)
And more that I use less frequently.
I have multiple key chains.
What I do, is I put the most often used keys on one ring (house keys). These are the keys, that regardless of what else changes, I am going to need on a daily, or semi-daily basis.
I have a series of "Valet" key chains. This is a key chain that has two rings on it, and will seperate with the push of a button. I have the female receiver mounted on my daily key ring, and the male side mounted on the keyrings I use less frequently.
Next to my front door, I have a series of the female valet key parts hanging from hooks, and I hang my vehicle key rings from them. As I leave in the morning, I grab the keyring that is associated with the vehicle I am taking for the day, and clip it to my daily key ring.
Work keys are held on a "key-bak"retractable key chain clipped to my belt.
A note regarding ignition keys.
If you have your ignition key on a ring with a bunch of other keys, you are running a risk of injury, and damage to your car.
The added weight of a ridiculously large key wad hanging from the ignition switch will wear out the ignition switch prematurely, resulting in the switch either breaking, or just getting so worn out that you can use a screwdriver to start your car. Also, if you are in an accident and any of your keys are between you knee and the dash, those keys will be IN your knee once you stop. It hurts, trust me.
As for the other keys that are rarely used, but still important (like safe deposit boxes, storage lockers, etc.) get a key box, tag the keys individually (so you remember what they are) and hang them up. Better yet, keep them in a safe that is bolted through your floor, or at least bolted to a very large piece of furniture. (If someone won't take kindly to bolt holes in their building)
Keys left on your person are inherently insecure, so no one should really carry more keys around than what they really need for the day.
Until 6 months ago, I was managing the production floor at an electronics manufacturing company, so I know a bit about this. (I left for a better job.) What to do: 1. Open the case of the electronic device, and asses the condition of the PCA's. If the traces are corroded, you are probably too late, but you can still give it a whirl. 2. Use a natural hair scrub brush (Hog hair works really well) and scrub the surface of the board while holding the board under a stream of warm water. Tap water is OK so long as you don't have hard water. If you do, then still use warm water, but finish with distilled water. Unplug any connections, either board to board, or wire to board, and scrub and rinse those as well. 3. If there is corrosion on the board, scrub it all off, and check the integrity of the circuit traces with a DMM set to ohms or continuity. Repair with appropriatly sized wire. (appx 24 awg for signal, 18 awg for power is a good starting point.) 4. Use compressed air (make sure it is dessicated, and oil free if it is from a compressor) to blow off as much of the water as you can. 5. Place the components underneath a heat lamp, or blow the output from a space heater over the device. Let it set for a few hours. 6. Shake the device out, to make sure all of the water is gone. You should then place a sheet of ESD plastic on top to see if you get any condensation. If you do, keep the heat on. DO NOT LET IT GET ABOVE 150F!!!!! Anything above that is very bad for the solder joints and components. 7. Put the device back together. Check any moving parts for proper movement (Fans for instance). Replace if bad. Check potentiometers for function: Measure the resistance between the two outer pins. This is the max range of the pot. Now measure from one of the outside pins to the center pin. Turn the knob from one side to the other. At the extreme positions, you will see zero ohms, and the reading you got from measuring the two outside pins. Measure from the center pin to the other outside pin, your results will be exactly opposite if the pot is working properly. Replace with a pot with the same specifications if you don't get the proper results. 8. Power on the device, and check for functionality. If done properly, and if the electronics weren't wet for too long, then you should have fairly good luck with this. I have cleanded literally tens of thousands of boards this way, and it works perfectly.
Why does the data ever need to leave your building / network in the first place? You can load up whatever software they need on a machine at your location, you can inspect it for security vulnerabilities, then you can move the data onto that machine, and they can manipulate it to their heart's content over the secure VPN connection. Data never leaves your place, you don't need to deal with surly postal workers, and your company never needs to worry about getting bad press for loosing millions of SSN's. Easy.
I used to work in the IT department of a Highschool, and we came up with a great way of dealing with this issue.
In it's infinite wisdom, the school district would put the inventory barcode on the computer case, and inventory it as a computer, rather than inventory the components. So when we were done with a computer, and it was ready to be decomissioned, we would strip out the case. Everything that was usable would come out. Power supplies, NIC's, HD's, Mother Boards, etc. These would then be put into storage, and used to maintain and upgrade the rest of the computers. (Filling up RAM slots, adding extra HD's, etc.) This way, we would always have a supply of spare parts on hand in case we needed to replace a faulty component, and repair components wouldn't come out of our budget. (That way we could buy more and better new machines.) The cases would be sent to surplus.
As a side benefit, if anyone's personal machine broke down, there was a huge supply of good parts to use.
1. if you are using a car alternator that is getting it's energizer current from the grid, once the grid goes down, the alternator will start to free-spin, and won't produce any power until the grid comes back up and begins to energize the coils again. The alternator cannot produce current without a voltage source to feed the coil. (Hence why you need to let your car run for a while before removing jumper cables if you are that unlucky.)
2. If you are using a permanent magnet / solar / fusion / etc generator, then you have two options. First, have it spin a motor which spins an alternator so #1 above is correct. Second, if you can resolve a way to match the frequency, phase, and voltage, how about you just have a relay that will disconnect your power generation system from the grid every x seconds for 1/10 of a second, look for voltage on the grid, and if it is found, re-energize the relay. If you have the inverter portion stay connected, but just remove the inverter's feed, then the inverter would not need to be re-synchronized.
3. The frequency of 60 hz on the grid is maintained by computer control to ensure that all of those old AC clocks that monitor the frequency of the wall current will always show the correct time. So, you can be guaranteed that the power generation station is going to be maintaining somewhere between 59.999 and 60.001 HZ. (Give or take). If you use the GPS system as a time reference (It is governed by atomic clocks) to tie into a frequency counter, you would be able to monitor the frequency on the grid. We will assume that any inverter you build / buy is not going to be super-accurate, so the frequency will drift. If you can detect this drift, then you know you have lost your reference from the grid, and you should have the system shut off.
I work in the electronics manufacturing field, and I feel it necessary to quell some rumors here... First off, while water and electricity don't mix, water and ELECTRONICS do. Every single board my company makes is washed after the soldering process with... WATER! With RARE exceptions, every electronic device you have was washed in water. The problem comes when you have corrosive / conductive liquids (salt water, or tap water with impurities in it), or the power is still on.
In any event, the idea of waterproof electronics is decades old, and this is nothing more than a different way of doing it.
My company provides some of our products with what is called a "Conformal Coating". This is a coating that protects and insulates all of the components on the board. We currently use something called peralyne (Paralaxyn Resin) which is just a few thousandths of an inch thick, virtually invisible, and impervious to almost all known solvents / caustics. Phone makers, Apple, and everyone else COULD make their products absolutely water-proof for just a few dollars per board extra, but they don't because it is an option that does nothing but eat into the bottom line of the manufacturer.
This is a case of advertisers misinterpreting what is going on...
Ideally, advertisers should see this as a backlash against their horribly intrusive practices, and they should temper their practices. Instead, they are ramping up the annoyance levels of their ads, just so they out-flash the other ads on a page, and driving MORE people to block their ads. I wonder if one of those ads sent someone into an epileptic seizure, could the advertizing company be held liable for damages?
If there were nothing but text ads, would anyone block them? I wouldn't bother, that's for sure.
As it is, if I want to check the weather, and I don't have ad-blocker, or pith helmet running, I am inundated with horrible flashing ads, and javascript overlays.
Oh, and just for the record, I've never clicked on a banner ad in my life, so if I see your ads or not, it won't get you any more money. (I have clicked on text ads, and even bought something through one, because it was RELEVANT to what I was looking for.)
I am the product of "Teaching with Technology". Yes, I can use a computer pretty damn well, but to the detriment of never learning how to do long-division, write in cursive, learning to spell correctly, etc.
I kinda blame the math deficiencies on the fact that my math text books were co-written by Texas Instruments, and are nothing more than glorified user's manuals for their calculators. Yah, it was easy and as fun as could be expected to learn the stuff, but I never learned the background to the processes I was seeing happen on the screen. I would give my left arm to be able to go back, and learn math without a calculator. Please PLEASE don't let technology get in the way of teaching your students their core competencies.
I went out and bought my own cable modem, and then called Comcast to come and set it all up. The cable modem was also a wireless router, and that made for some fun times. At the time, the only computer I had set up was my Mac (Linux and Winblows machines were still "Somewhere" in my pile of crap) so things were a little bit fun. The tech showed up with his signal meter, and a modem. When I told him I had my own modem, he got this "Deer in the headlights" look on his face, but proceeded to check out my signal. All was well, so we plugged things in, and he made a call. He read them the MAC of my modem, and within a few moments, the modem connected up. Next came the really fun part...
The tech wanted me to pull up the IP address for my computer. I did, and it read 192.168.1.xxx. He said "Oh, well something's not right then. It should be 76.x.x.x or whatever it was. He got on his phone, and started making calls, meanwhile I started surfing the net. (Hey, I paid $30 for an install, and I wanted to make sure that I got my time's worth out of the guy.) He came back, and saw me checking my email, and said "Wait, you can't do that! It's not set up!" "Really, looks like I can" "You have the wrong IP address!" Then I pointed out to him that my computer was assigned an IP from the modem/router, and asked him if he would like me to check the IP address of the modem. It checked out, so he packed up, and left.
I ended up dropping Comcast though, my internet connection would drop every few hours, and that gets really REALLY annoying. I switched to Clearwire, and have had nothing but good luck with them.
On an interesting note RE the Firefox issue... I pay my comcast bill online (Still have them for TV). When I try to log in using Firefox, it won't process my login. It just sits there, spinning it's wheels. If I log in using Safari, it works just fine. So, that just serves to deepen the mystery. Why do they support a browser that has a much lower user base than Firefox?
Could it be that *GASP* Comcast and M$ are in bed together?
What do you know about electronics manufacturing?
1. "Higher Quality Solder" There is no such thing as "higher quality Solder". There are two industry recognized solder alloys out there. SnPb 60/40 and SAC305. SAC305 is used on RoHS compliant assemblies, and is mandated by the EU. From the photos, it is obvious to me that this solder was SAC305. (Yes, I can tell. From the side-cuts, you can see that the solder is very grainy and dull. This is the hallmark of lead-free solders.) Again, due to the idiotic RoHS legislation, manufacturers are REQUIRED to use a lead-free alternative, among which the SAC305 is the best. (The proverbial winner of the special-Olympics.)
2. "A far more substantial joint". The solder joint in the photos EXCEEDED IPC610-D Standards for even Class 3 medical devices. This is a SURFACE MOUNT DEVICE, and as such, there is no other way that you can get a more "substantial" joint, unless you went to a TH DIP package, if it was even available, and if you could even fit it into the design.
3. "Right type of solder" See number 1.
4. So no, it is NOT entirely Apple's fault. I'd bet $100 that if this chip were removed, and a new one were installed with SnPb solder, then it would not fail. Period. But since Apple isn't allowed to use the right solder, this happened. Have you ever designed something? Can you say that you tested EVERY POSSIBLE point of failure? No, didn't think so. It's because it's impossible to do.
There is a problem, and it's the knee-jerk reaction of the EU to blindly ban the one substance that has been fully responsible for allowing the computer revolution to occur.
Way to go!
Disclaimer: Both myself and one of my coworkers are IPC-610D certified inspectors of electronics. For those of you who aren't in the know, IPC-610 is the industry standard that dictates how all electronics assemblies are supposed to be put together. I spend considerable time inspecting fine pitch surface mount devices. I am also the manager of the assembly department at my company, where we make class-2 commercial grade electronics.
To say that I spend a lot of time looking at soldered joints is an understatement.
So, what's the problem here?
The Danish government is just as culpable as Apple is on this one.
The solder used in this joint is obviously (to me at least) a lead-free solder. (Lead free solders are exceptionally grainy and dull in appearance compared to leaded solder that is smooth and shiny.) The switch to lead-free solders was mandated to occur last year on July 1st by the European Union. Any electronics shipping into EU member nations must comply with this new standard, which is called RoHS, or "Reduction of Hazardous Substances". (Look it up in Wikipedia.)
Due to complexities in maintaining parallel manufacturing lines, most companies simply switched to the Lead-free solder for their entire product line. (As did my company). This means that most all new electronics you by are going to have lead-free solder holding them together.
So, why is this a problem? Plasticity. Leaded solder alloys (SnPb 60/30) are extremely ductile. This means that they will flex a considerable amount before fracture occurs. With electronics that experience heat cycles, or any kind of motion at all, this is an extremely beneficial trait to have. Lead-Free solders on the other hand (like the most common SAC305 SnAu3%Cu0.5%) are incredibly brittle. What is obviously happening here is that the heat cycling from the laptop turning on and off is stressing this solder joint, and causing the joint to fail. Had this been leaded solder, I can almost guarantee that this problem wouldn't exist.
So what does this mean? Exactly what the electronics industry has feared. The EU made a dip$#!t move. Industry experts believe that the average lifespan of an electronic device has been significantly diminished. Down to an average consumer product lifespan of 5 years. There have been early reports of serious quality problems, including SWATCH having over 10,000 watches fail within a month of shipping. You can expect to see a drastic shortening of the lifespan of your electronic goodies. This is just the beginning people. If you see a device that is labeled as RoHS compliant, do not buy it if you expect to use it for more than a few years.
I used to live in a crappy little studio apartment. It was about 550 square feet. The winter I was there, our balmy Seattle weather dropped into the teens for a lengthy period of time, yet I never turned on my heater. The heat being put out by my refrigerator and my Pentium 4 was enough to keep me nice and toasty warm. If you're really concerned about power consumption because of money saving reasons, you could always move somewhere that electricity is cheap. Here I pay about 4 cents per KwH. Nice, huh?
I partially disagree with you on topic 6... Seriously. If there is an attractive woman doing the interviews, more guys will visit. I'm not being sexist, just realistic. Also, yah, give something away. Not a stupid little pen, or other random bit of junk left over from a trade-show, but something people are actually going to want. Bring a couple cases of bottled water, or soda to give to people you are interviewing. It'll put them at ease, as well as attract more people. If you are a smaller company, make sure you have some way of making the applicant want to work for less money than one of the big companies could pay. Have a flier that details the reasons. Like the company softball team, free beer Fridays, etc.
Make sure you have some "Plants" to bring along. These are the people who will switch off standing at your booth, making it look like someone is paying attention to you. Just make sure that they know to wander off when an applicant shows up to your booth.
My first thought was that this was sheer genius. Assume for a moment that the ad company, or someone else responsible is fined for this. It's probably significantly less than what this media coverage would cost to buy outright. So even if this was not the intended outcome (which I hope it wasn't), it probably is paying off big-time. I wonder what the website hits for ATHF are looking like right now...
Reminds me of a similar fiasco back when MI2 came out, and some ad company put little music players in newspaper boxes that would play the theme song when the box was opened. Someone saw the plunger switch, and some loose wires, and thought it was a bomb. That at least seems like it could be thought to be a bomb by most normal people.
So, if the replacement MoBo costs about 4x what other boards cost, then it is likely in the multiple-hundreds of dollars to replace the thing. My suggestion would tell eMachines to go to "the hot place downstairs", and purchase a new computer from one of the larger manufacturers. You can get them relatively inexpensively, and hey, you could even get one loaded with that abomination called Vista!
On another note, you could also repair the computer, and use it to play around with Linux.
I have noticed though, that a number of the budget manufacturers don't even include recovery disks with their computers, but rather they have a "recovery partition" on the hard drive. So this is all well and good, until the HD crashes, and your recovery partition is gone.
I suppose this is just another case of "You get what you pay for".
There is no denying that "WE" (being the targets of "terrorism") have much greater military and technological might than the "terrorists". However, they are much more nimble, and through need, resourceful. By installing defense countermeasures, all we do is make them use a different strategy. The 9-11 hijackers used box cutters to overtake the planes, so we banned toenail clippers. Then some guy tried to blow up a plane by lighting his shoe on fire, so we all had to take off our shoes. Next, someone wanted to blow something up with liquid explosives, so mother's couldn't bring breast-milk on to airplanes. Now, someone is going to try and strangle someone with their pants, so we'll all have to be naked on the airplanes, or wear togas.
There is NO WAY to stop terrorists 100%. Using a million dollar laser to "blind" the sensors on a missile is our stereotypical approach to combating problems Using a 20 cent.50 cal bullet from a sniper rifle, put in the right place, is much more effective.
Why would you take a screen-capture of a post you made in a forum, unless:
a) You never did, but you instead manipulated an image in Photoshop to make it appear that you did. b) You posted something that you knew would be removed because it ran afoul of some regulation, and you wanted to turn it into a scandal. c) Were really REALLY anal about recording your every move you make on the internet so that future generations of internet users had full details of your 773t skillz.
Basically, bring it down to this. Who has more motivation in this instance? Someone with a vendetta against Apple, or Apple risking a scandal?
As the subject line points out, I am a subscriber of Clearwire. Right now, they are not broadcasting "WiMAX" in my market. Portland Oregon is the only market they are broadcasting "True WiMAX". Everywhere else it's a pre-standard roll out. The only major difference is that in pre-WiMAX, there is no protocol for handing off from one tower to another. With the WiMAX standard, the hand-off is guaranteed to function seamlessly while you are traveling 60 MPH. In demonstrations, they have been able to show that it works up on to the 100's of MPH. (On Japanese bullet trains.)
So, I've been using it for the past two months, and I feel I am in a good place to describe the level of service.
Setup:
I actually had an account representative come out to my house to check signal strength, and help me set up the service. In reality, the service is ready to go out of the box. You literally plug the modem into a power outlet, and into your router / computer, and everything sets up automatically. When you buy the service in the store, you fill in your details right there, so by the time you get your modem home, the service is all ready to go.
Speed:
I opted for the 1.5 mbps service, and frankly, I feel it is faster than my Crap-cast cable service, even though they advertise "UP TO 12mbps.) With Clearwire, they advertise 1.5, and you get 1.5, period. There is very low latency in the system.
Service:
When I signed up, I was given 3 ways to contact Clearwire. The 800 number, through the website, and the cellphone number of my account rep. If I need anything, he takes care of me. The reliability is awesome. I'm in Seattle, and if any of you saw the news reports, we had a massive windstorm last week. 100 MPH gusts, and thousands of people are still without power. My Clearwire connection never dropped. A lot of cable subscribers are still out... Other than that, I only experienced 1 service outage, that lasted for 15 mins.
Portability:
This is both good and bad. If I want to drag the modem around with me (7 inches tall, 5 inches wide, and 1 inch thick) I can use the service all over the area. Newer versions are supposed to be PC card size, but I'm not really sure that I want to have a 4 watt transmitter sitting right next to my tadpoles.
I love the service, and I just hope that they are able to continue providing the level of service that I have come to expect.
You can get a device that will monitor environmental conditions, as well as contact-closures (such as water sensors, door sensors, smoke alarms, etc. These units can generally send SNMP traps, email messages, or pages over the phone.
You can check out www.omnitronix.com as they are a supplier of these devices.
You can even wire it up as a security system that you monitor yourself.
The other thing you can do to reduce the damage they can do is to set their accounts as limited. They don't need full admin access to the computer, and if they don't have admin access, neither does the malware that they load onto it.
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I have:
Car keys (2)
Motorcycle Keys (3)
Scooter Keys (2)
House Keys (9)
Work keys (11)
MISC other keys that I use sometimes (20)
And more that I use less frequently.
I have multiple key chains.
What I do, is I put the most often used keys on one ring (house keys). These are the keys, that regardless of what else changes, I am going to need on a daily, or semi-daily basis.
I have a series of "Valet" key chains. This is a key chain that has two rings on it, and will seperate with the push of a button. I have the female receiver mounted on my daily key ring, and the male side mounted on the keyrings I use less frequently.
Next to my front door, I have a series of the female valet key parts hanging from hooks, and I hang my vehicle key rings from them. As I leave in the morning, I grab the keyring that is associated with the vehicle I am taking for the day, and clip it to my daily key ring.
Work keys are held on a "key-bak"retractable key chain clipped to my belt.
A note regarding ignition keys.
If you have your ignition key on a ring with a bunch of other keys, you are running a risk of injury, and damage to your car.
The added weight of a ridiculously large key wad hanging from the ignition switch will wear out the ignition switch prematurely, resulting in the switch either breaking, or just getting so worn out that you can use a screwdriver to start your car. Also, if you are in an accident and any of your keys are between you knee and the dash, those keys will be IN your knee once you stop. It hurts, trust me.
As for the other keys that are rarely used, but still important (like safe deposit boxes, storage lockers, etc.) get a key box, tag the keys individually (so you remember what they are) and hang them up. Better yet, keep them in a safe that is bolted through your floor, or at least bolted to a very large piece of furniture. (If someone won't take kindly to bolt holes in their building)
Keys left on your person are inherently insecure, so no one should really carry more keys around than what they really need for the day.
Until 6 months ago, I was managing the production floor at an electronics manufacturing company, so I know a bit about this. (I left for a better job.)
What to do:
1. Open the case of the electronic device, and asses the condition of the PCA's. If the traces are corroded, you are probably too late, but you can still give it a whirl.
2. Use a natural hair scrub brush (Hog hair works really well) and scrub the surface of the board while holding the board under a stream of warm water. Tap water is OK so long as you don't have hard water. If you do, then still use warm water, but finish with distilled water. Unplug any connections, either board to board, or wire to board, and scrub and rinse those as well.
3. If there is corrosion on the board, scrub it all off, and check the integrity of the circuit traces with a DMM set to ohms or continuity. Repair with appropriatly sized wire. (appx 24 awg for signal, 18 awg for power is a good starting point.)
4. Use compressed air (make sure it is dessicated, and oil free if it is from a compressor) to blow off as much of the water as you can.
5. Place the components underneath a heat lamp, or blow the output from a space heater over the device. Let it set for a few hours.
6. Shake the device out, to make sure all of the water is gone. You should then place a sheet of ESD plastic on top to see if you get any condensation. If you do, keep the heat on. DO NOT LET IT GET ABOVE 150F!!!!! Anything above that is very bad for the solder joints and components.
7. Put the device back together. Check any moving parts for proper movement (Fans for instance). Replace if bad. Check potentiometers for function: Measure the resistance between the two outer pins. This is the max range of the pot. Now measure from one of the outside pins to the center pin. Turn the knob from one side to the other. At the extreme positions, you will see zero ohms, and the reading you got from measuring the two outside pins. Measure from the center pin to the other outside pin, your results will be exactly opposite if the pot is working properly. Replace with a pot with the same specifications if you don't get the proper results.
8. Power on the device, and check for functionality. If done properly, and if the electronics weren't wet for too long, then you should have fairly good luck with this. I have cleanded literally tens of thousands of boards this way, and it works perfectly.
Why does the data ever need to leave your building / network in the first place? You can load up whatever software they need on a machine at your location, you can inspect it for security vulnerabilities, then you can move the data onto that machine, and they can manipulate it to their heart's content over the secure VPN connection. Data never leaves your place, you don't need to deal with surly postal workers, and your company never needs to worry about getting bad press for loosing millions of SSN's. Easy.
I used to work in the IT department of a Highschool, and we came up with a great way of dealing with this issue.
In it's infinite wisdom, the school district would put the inventory barcode on the computer case, and inventory it as a computer, rather than inventory the components. So when we were done with a computer, and it was ready to be decomissioned, we would strip out the case. Everything that was usable would come out. Power supplies, NIC's, HD's, Mother Boards, etc. These would then be put into storage, and used to maintain and upgrade the rest of the computers. (Filling up RAM slots, adding extra HD's, etc.) This way, we would always have a supply of spare parts on hand in case we needed to replace a faulty component, and repair components wouldn't come out of our budget. (That way we could buy more and better new machines.) The cases would be sent to surplus.
As a side benefit, if anyone's personal machine broke down, there was a huge supply of good parts to use.
Easy... (I think).
1. if you are using a car alternator that is getting it's energizer current from the grid, once the grid goes down, the alternator will start to free-spin, and won't produce any power until the grid comes back up and begins to energize the coils again. The alternator cannot produce current without a voltage source to feed the coil. (Hence why you need to let your car run for a while before removing jumper cables if you are that unlucky.)
2. If you are using a permanent magnet / solar / fusion / etc generator, then you have two options. First, have it spin a motor which spins an alternator so #1 above is correct. Second, if you can resolve a way to match the frequency, phase, and voltage, how about you just have a relay that will disconnect your power generation system from the grid every x seconds for 1/10 of a second, look for voltage on the grid, and if it is found, re-energize the relay. If you have the inverter portion stay connected, but just remove the inverter's feed, then the inverter would not need to be re-synchronized.
3. The frequency of 60 hz on the grid is maintained by computer control to ensure that all of those old AC clocks that monitor the frequency of the wall current will always show the correct time. So, you can be guaranteed that the power generation station is going to be maintaining somewhere between 59.999 and 60.001 HZ. (Give or take). If you use the GPS system as a time reference (It is governed by atomic clocks) to tie into a frequency counter, you would be able to monitor the frequency on the grid. We will assume that any inverter you build / buy is not going to be super-accurate, so the frequency will drift. If you can detect this drift, then you know you have lost your reference from the grid, and you should have the system shut off.
I work in the electronics manufacturing field, and I feel it necessary to quell some rumors here... First off, while water and electricity don't mix, water and ELECTRONICS do. Every single board my company makes is washed after the soldering process with... WATER! With RARE exceptions, every electronic device you have was washed in water. The problem comes when you have corrosive / conductive liquids (salt water, or tap water with impurities in it), or the power is still on.
In any event, the idea of waterproof electronics is decades old, and this is nothing more than a different way of doing it.
My company provides some of our products with what is called a "Conformal Coating". This is a coating that protects and insulates all of the components on the board. We currently use something called peralyne (Paralaxyn Resin) which is just a few thousandths of an inch thick, virtually invisible, and impervious to almost all known solvents / caustics. Phone makers, Apple, and everyone else COULD make their products absolutely water-proof for just a few dollars per board extra, but they don't because it is an option that does nothing but eat into the bottom line of the manufacturer.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think this goes against Google's unofficial "Do no evil" mission statement.
Thank god for Adblock...
This is a case of advertisers misinterpreting what is going on...
Ideally, advertisers should see this as a backlash against their horribly intrusive practices, and they should temper their practices. Instead, they are ramping up the annoyance levels of their ads, just so they out-flash the other ads on a page, and driving MORE people to block their ads. I wonder if one of those ads sent someone into an epileptic seizure, could the advertizing company be held liable for damages?
If there were nothing but text ads, would anyone block them? I wouldn't bother, that's for sure.
As it is, if I want to check the weather, and I don't have ad-blocker, or pith helmet running, I am inundated with horrible flashing ads, and javascript overlays.
Oh, and just for the record,
I've never clicked on a banner ad in my life, so if I see your ads or not, it won't get you any more money. (I have clicked on text ads, and even bought something through one, because it was RELEVANT to what I was looking for.)
I am the product of "Teaching with Technology". Yes, I can use a computer pretty damn well, but to the detriment of never learning how to do long-division, write in cursive, learning to spell correctly, etc.
I kinda blame the math deficiencies on the fact that my math text books were co-written by Texas Instruments, and are nothing more than glorified user's manuals for their calculators. Yah, it was easy and as fun as could be expected to learn the stuff, but I never learned the background to the processes I was seeing happen on the screen. I would give my left arm to be able to go back, and learn math without a calculator. Please PLEASE don't let technology get in the way of teaching your students their core competencies.
I went out and bought my own cable modem, and then called Comcast to come and set it all up. The cable modem was also a wireless router, and that made for some fun times. At the time, the only computer I had set up was my Mac (Linux and Winblows machines were still "Somewhere" in my pile of crap) so things were a little bit fun. The tech showed up with his signal meter, and a modem. When I told him I had my own modem, he got this "Deer in the headlights" look on his face, but proceeded to check out my signal. All was well, so we plugged things in, and he made a call. He read them the MAC of my modem, and within a few moments, the modem connected up. Next came the really fun part...
The tech wanted me to pull up the IP address for my computer. I did, and it read 192.168.1.xxx. He said "Oh, well something's not right then. It should be 76.x.x.x or whatever it was. He got on his phone, and started making calls, meanwhile I started surfing the net. (Hey, I paid $30 for an install, and I wanted to make sure that I got my time's worth out of the guy.) He came back, and saw me checking my email, and said "Wait, you can't do that! It's not set up!" "Really, looks like I can" "You have the wrong IP address!" Then I pointed out to him that my computer was assigned an IP from the modem/router, and asked him if he would like me to check the IP address of the modem. It checked out, so he packed up, and left.
I ended up dropping Comcast though, my internet connection would drop every few hours, and that gets really REALLY annoying. I switched to Clearwire, and have had nothing but good luck with them.
On an interesting note RE the Firefox issue...
I pay my comcast bill online (Still have them for TV). When I try to log in using Firefox, it won't process my login. It just sits there, spinning it's wheels. If I log in using Safari, it works just fine. So, that just serves to deepen the mystery. Why do they support a browser that has a much lower user base than Firefox?
Could it be that *GASP* Comcast and M$ are in bed together?
What do you know about electronics manufacturing? 1. "Higher Quality Solder" There is no such thing as "higher quality Solder". There are two industry recognized solder alloys out there. SnPb 60/40 and SAC305. SAC305 is used on RoHS compliant assemblies, and is mandated by the EU. From the photos, it is obvious to me that this solder was SAC305. (Yes, I can tell. From the side-cuts, you can see that the solder is very grainy and dull. This is the hallmark of lead-free solders.) Again, due to the idiotic RoHS legislation, manufacturers are REQUIRED to use a lead-free alternative, among which the SAC305 is the best. (The proverbial winner of the special-Olympics.) 2. "A far more substantial joint". The solder joint in the photos EXCEEDED IPC610-D Standards for even Class 3 medical devices. This is a SURFACE MOUNT DEVICE, and as such, there is no other way that you can get a more "substantial" joint, unless you went to a TH DIP package, if it was even available, and if you could even fit it into the design. 3. "Right type of solder" See number 1. 4. So no, it is NOT entirely Apple's fault. I'd bet $100 that if this chip were removed, and a new one were installed with SnPb solder, then it would not fail. Period. But since Apple isn't allowed to use the right solder, this happened. Have you ever designed something? Can you say that you tested EVERY POSSIBLE point of failure? No, didn't think so. It's because it's impossible to do. There is a problem, and it's the knee-jerk reaction of the EU to blindly ban the one substance that has been fully responsible for allowing the computer revolution to occur. Way to go!
Disclaimer: Both myself and one of my coworkers are IPC-610D certified inspectors of electronics. For those of you who aren't in the know, IPC-610 is the industry standard that dictates how all electronics assemblies are supposed to be put together. I spend considerable time inspecting fine pitch surface mount devices. I am also the manager of the assembly department at my company, where we make class-2 commercial grade electronics.
To say that I spend a lot of time looking at soldered joints is an understatement.
So, what's the problem here?
The Danish government is just as culpable as Apple is on this one.
The solder used in this joint is obviously (to me at least) a lead-free solder. (Lead free solders are exceptionally grainy and dull in appearance compared to leaded solder that is smooth and shiny.) The switch to lead-free solders was mandated to occur last year on July 1st by the European Union. Any electronics shipping into EU member nations must comply with this new standard, which is called RoHS, or "Reduction of Hazardous Substances". (Look it up in Wikipedia.)
Due to complexities in maintaining parallel manufacturing lines, most companies simply switched to the Lead-free solder for their entire product line. (As did my company). This means that most all new electronics you by are going to have lead-free solder holding them together.
So, why is this a problem? Plasticity.
Leaded solder alloys (SnPb 60/30) are extremely ductile. This means that they will flex a considerable amount before fracture occurs. With electronics that experience heat cycles, or any kind of motion at all, this is an extremely beneficial trait to have. Lead-Free solders on the other hand (like the most common SAC305 SnAu3%Cu0.5%) are incredibly brittle. What is obviously happening here is that the heat cycling from the laptop turning on and off is stressing this solder joint, and causing the joint to fail. Had this been leaded solder, I can almost guarantee that this problem wouldn't exist.
So what does this mean? Exactly what the electronics industry has feared. The EU made a dip$#!t move. Industry experts believe that the average lifespan of an electronic device has been significantly diminished. Down to an average consumer product lifespan of 5 years. There have been early reports of serious quality problems, including SWATCH having over 10,000 watches fail within a month of shipping. You can expect to see a drastic shortening of the lifespan of your electronic goodies. This is just the beginning people. If you see a device that is labeled as RoHS compliant, do not buy it if you expect to use it for more than a few years.
I used to live in a crappy little studio apartment. It was about 550 square feet. The winter I was there, our balmy Seattle weather dropped into the teens for a lengthy period of time, yet I never turned on my heater. The heat being put out by my refrigerator and my Pentium 4 was enough to keep me nice and toasty warm. If you're really concerned about power consumption because of money saving reasons, you could always move somewhere that electricity is cheap. Here I pay about 4 cents per KwH. Nice, huh?
I partially disagree with you on topic 6... Seriously.
If there is an attractive woman doing the interviews, more guys will visit. I'm not being sexist, just realistic.
Also, yah, give something away. Not a stupid little pen, or other random bit of junk left over from a trade-show, but something people are actually going to want. Bring a couple cases of bottled water, or soda to give to people you are interviewing. It'll put them at ease, as well as attract more people.
If you are a smaller company, make sure you have some way of making the applicant want to work for less money than one of the big companies could pay. Have a flier that details the reasons. Like the company softball team, free beer Fridays, etc.
Make sure you have some "Plants" to bring along. These are the people who will switch off standing at your booth, making it look like someone is paying attention to you. Just make sure that they know to wander off when an applicant shows up to your booth.
My first thought was that this was sheer genius. Assume for a moment that the ad company, or someone else responsible is fined for this. It's probably significantly less than what this media coverage would cost to buy outright. So even if this was not the intended outcome (which I hope it wasn't), it probably is paying off big-time. I wonder what the website hits for ATHF are looking like right now...
Reminds me of a similar fiasco back when MI2 came out, and some ad company put little music players in newspaper boxes that would play the theme song when the box was opened. Someone saw the plunger switch, and some loose wires, and thought it was a bomb. That at least seems like it could be thought to be a bomb by most normal people.
So, if the replacement MoBo costs about 4x what other boards cost, then it is likely in the multiple-hundreds of dollars to replace the thing. My suggestion would tell eMachines to go to "the hot place downstairs", and purchase a new computer from one of the larger manufacturers. You can get them relatively inexpensively, and hey, you could even get one loaded with that abomination called Vista! On another note, you could also repair the computer, and use it to play around with Linux. I have noticed though, that a number of the budget manufacturers don't even include recovery disks with their computers, but rather they have a "recovery partition" on the hard drive. So this is all well and good, until the HD crashes, and your recovery partition is gone. I suppose this is just another case of "You get what you pay for".
So, does spending time with my lady robot count?
There is no denying that "WE" (being the targets of "terrorism") have much greater military and technological might than the "terrorists". However, they are much more nimble, and through need, resourceful. By installing defense countermeasures, all we do is make them use a different strategy. The 9-11 hijackers used box cutters to overtake the planes, so we banned toenail clippers. Then some guy tried to blow up a plane by lighting his shoe on fire, so we all had to take off our shoes. Next, someone wanted to blow something up with liquid explosives, so mother's couldn't bring breast-milk on to airplanes. Now, someone is going to try and strangle someone with their pants, so we'll all have to be naked on the airplanes, or wear togas. .50 cal bullet from a sniper rifle, put in the right place, is much more effective.
There is NO WAY to stop terrorists 100%. Using a million dollar laser to "blind" the sensors on a missile is our stereotypical approach to combating problems Using a 20 cent
Something other than the truth that is.
Why would you take a screen-capture of a post you made in a forum, unless:
a) You never did, but you instead manipulated an image in Photoshop to make it appear that you did.
b) You posted something that you knew would be removed because it ran afoul of some regulation, and you wanted to turn it into a scandal.
c) Were really REALLY anal about recording your every move you make on the internet so that future generations of internet users had full details of your 773t skillz.
Basically, bring it down to this. Who has more motivation in this instance? Someone with a vendetta against Apple, or Apple risking a scandal?
As the subject line points out, I am a subscriber of Clearwire. Right now, they are not broadcasting "WiMAX" in my market. Portland Oregon is the only market they are broadcasting "True WiMAX". Everywhere else it's a pre-standard roll out. The only major difference is that in pre-WiMAX, there is no protocol for handing off from one tower to another. With the WiMAX standard, the hand-off is guaranteed to function seamlessly while you are traveling 60 MPH. In demonstrations, they have been able to show that it works up on to the 100's of MPH. (On Japanese bullet trains.) So, I've been using it for the past two months, and I feel I am in a good place to describe the level of service. Setup: I actually had an account representative come out to my house to check signal strength, and help me set up the service. In reality, the service is ready to go out of the box. You literally plug the modem into a power outlet, and into your router / computer, and everything sets up automatically. When you buy the service in the store, you fill in your details right there, so by the time you get your modem home, the service is all ready to go. Speed: I opted for the 1.5 mbps service, and frankly, I feel it is faster than my Crap-cast cable service, even though they advertise "UP TO 12mbps.) With Clearwire, they advertise 1.5, and you get 1.5, period. There is very low latency in the system. Service: When I signed up, I was given 3 ways to contact Clearwire. The 800 number, through the website, and the cellphone number of my account rep. If I need anything, he takes care of me. The reliability is awesome. I'm in Seattle, and if any of you saw the news reports, we had a massive windstorm last week. 100 MPH gusts, and thousands of people are still without power. My Clearwire connection never dropped. A lot of cable subscribers are still out... Other than that, I only experienced 1 service outage, that lasted for 15 mins. Portability: This is both good and bad. If I want to drag the modem around with me (7 inches tall, 5 inches wide, and 1 inch thick) I can use the service all over the area. Newer versions are supposed to be PC card size, but I'm not really sure that I want to have a 4 watt transmitter sitting right next to my tadpoles. I love the service, and I just hope that they are able to continue providing the level of service that I have come to expect.
You can get a device that will monitor environmental conditions, as well as contact-closures (such as water sensors, door sensors, smoke alarms, etc. These units can generally send SNMP traps, email messages, or pages over the phone. You can check out www.omnitronix.com as they are a supplier of these devices. You can even wire it up as a security system that you monitor yourself.
The other thing you can do to reduce the damage they can do is to set their accounts as limited. They don't need full admin access to the computer, and if they don't have admin access, neither does the malware that they load onto it.