22 December 2015

I have just recently moved my Weather Station, which posts data to NOAA through the CWP and to Weather Underground, to a new “old” machine. I’ve tried, but the software I have is old and I cannot get all of it to play together on anything newer than Windows XP. So a friend gave me an old Dell Optiflex he had and I set it up on that. One problem that I have always had with the machines running the weather station is that occasionally, say every month or so, it gets in a twist and hangs up. The solution is simple, reboot. I could reboot daily, might be a solution if I can automate that but for now I just want to know when it has gone done. I check each morning as I get up on my way down to get coffee. If I see the red lights blinking on the 1-Wire hub it’s fine. And Weather Underground sends me an email two hours after it is down, but I don’t check email that often some days.

So I set up an IFTTT IF to monitor my email account for emails from Weather Underground with my station’s callsign in the subject. Bingo! It worked this evening just I was going out the door on some errands. I came right back in, check and found the fan running hard on the Dell and nothing blinking and rebooted. A few minutes later I got a second text from the IF saying there was an email from Weather Underground saying my station was back on the air.

We recently upgraded both our TV to a new Sony 43″ 4K HD and TiVo to a new Bolt that is also 4K capable. There are many options now for watching cable and streaming so in some ways sticking with TiVo is duplicating what we already have in the smart TV, but we are used to the way that TiVo looks for things we might watch based on what we do watch, and has them ready for us. It’s a nice filter for people who do watch a lot of TV.

Setup was easy, called Comcast and they mailed a card right away and that was easy to install but I had to get a new gigabyte switch to use in the living room so that both the TV and TiVo could have fast internet access. Sure, you can use wireless, but you want to use wired where you can, I assure you.  But much to my disappointment the next day I went to see what TiVo had captured for us and it was not there. No signal on the HDMI port. I tried a few things and then gave up and unplugged it and plugged it back in. It was back. This happened again the next day.

I called TiVo support and found it was a tricky situation to describe. What is seen on the the TV is “no signal found on HDMI port.” What the tech hears is “no signal” and wants to blame the cable company. I humored them for a while with that, particularly since I cannot reproduce this on demand. Some days it works, some days it does not. They did offer to replace it but even I agreed with them that would not likely help. It did not seem like that sort of problem.

Eventually on another call with support I got a technician who had experienced the same issue on his own Bolt. He claimed it was the TV shutting itself off, and when it did, it left the HDMI port in a strange state that the Bolt could not deal with. Now mind you, this TV has four HDMI ports, and the Blue Ray player and the cable box on other ports do not have this problem. So I say it’s a TiVo problem. So I looked up the power options for the TV and found there were three:

• Power Save – off
• Idle TV – 24 hr
• Auto Shut Off – on

Heck, I don’t have any issue with being responsible for turning off the TV so let’s go to Auto Shut Off off.

Presto! That’s it! Done!

I still think it is something Tivo should, and may well fix with a software update, but I am good for now.

All of my old fashion flashlights are beginning to fail. I have held off on new LED ones since what I have used so far have not been impressive and the buggers are expensive! I did get one 2D cell one from Maglite this past year and it is impressive. But why does it have to be so long? I am not out on patrol. My son-in-law does that.

I bought one small one of another brand at Home Depot and its OK on light output, but I hate the two step off button. When I want light I am working on something, I click. When I don’t need it anymore I will click again to turn it off. Damn! It’s still on. Then I learned that some are worse, click again and you send an SOS!

LED’s use less power, so I guess they think that the D cells are overkill. So many of them use AA or AAA’s. I have a few of those around. My experience is that you have to be very vigilant about changing batteries or else they corrode. I do not know what research on this says, but an almost fresh battery lasts many years but the more it is discharged the more likely it is to start corroding. Gimme D’s, or at least C’s. But C’s are harder to find. My flashlights spend most of their lives waiting, and they need to be ready to work when I need them.

I found a reasonable looking 2D on Amazon but I have a suspicion it is one of those click three times, two of which you don’t want varieties. And I found a 2D Maglite that is smaller, that is, shorter, but I think then you might loose the ability to focus it.

I will keep you posted.

A while back I ran across an organization in Holland that helps folks repair devices rather than throw them away. I like that idea, and have thought of trying to get such a thing started here. You need a space and some benches and perhaps access to coffee, other drinks and sandwiches, whatever, so people can drop in with a broken device or to help out those who have broken devices. And a good internet connection with laptops or their equivalent. Sure, its out there on the web, all you have to do is search. But you are still alone and perhaps your skills are not the same as others or there are some specialized tools that you need. The website of the one in Holland is repaircafe.org.

Then yesterday while waiting to get my haircut I saw an article in The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/we-need-the-right-to-repair-our-gadgets-1441737868. It hits on the same theme. I don’t buy into the manufacturer bashing quite as much as this article does, but it is true that fixing most devices today is more expensive than buying a new one. And that might not be as good as the old one. Operating repair depots is expensive, and a lot of what needs to be in the manuals is proprietary, and if you publish it, you have to live by it. Things change. Lots of our products are made in runs. They make 10,000 units and the production line is gone. But there are lots of clever folks out there that reverse engineer anything and find easy ways to repair what looks to be very complex things. But they assume no liability for it. You try it, and if it works, you are back in business. If it does not work you are no worse off that you were before. Take it to the dump knowing you tried and get a new one.