TOTW #14: Cable Winding

Instead of two separate tips this week, here’s one that applies to both computers and multimedia.

A Better Way to Coil Cables

We’ve all been frustrated by knots and twists in cables, rope, hoses, or extension cords when trying to undo a wrapped coil.  Fortunately there is a way to wrap the cables/rope/hoses so that they don’t get all tangled.

The problem comes from what happens when you coil up a cable in the first place.  For each loop in the coil, the cable is twisted one time around (unless it is rolled up on a spool).  By the time you get to the end of a long cable, that is a lot of twists, and because the force they create within the cable has to go somewhere it usually ends up in twists and knots. 

To prevent this from happening, you can wrap the cable in such a way that every twist that is added is also negated with a twist in the opposite direction.  It is a little hard to explain, but I’ll attempt it anyway.  Here are the steps:

1. Start with the end of the cable in your hand.  To make the following steps easier to describe I’m going to assume the cable is in your right hand, with the end facing away from you.

2. Grab the remaining portion of the cable (let’s call it the “tail”) with your left hand, palm downward.  Bring this hand straight over to your right hand, palms facing each other.  This creates a loop with the tail on the outside of the bundle.

3. For the next loop, grab the tail with your left hand, this time with your palm facing upward. Give your left hand a clockwise turn so that your palms are both facing the same direction (toward the left), and add the newly created loop to the bundle.  The “tail” will be coming from inside the bundle, between the existing portion of the bundle and the new loop you just created.  This will undo the twist created in step 2 because it adds a twist in the opposite direction.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have reached the end of the cable.

It is a lot harder to describe than it actually is to do.  But what you’ll end up with is a bundle of cable that won’t knot up.  And when you need to un-wind it, just grab one end and throw the bundle; it should come undone very neatly.

This technique also drastically reduces the amount of damage that is done to cables and ropes from being wrapped in a twisted fashion.  They’ll last a lot longer and look a lot better.

Here are some sample videos I found on the Internet demonstrating this technique:

http://www.viewdo.com/now_viewing.php?id=266
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqbYyaUY5Sk

And some pictures:

http://www.techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/flipcoil/howto.html

Convenience

I have to laugh a little bit inside whenever I see the word “convenience” used somewhere these days. Or maybe cry. It seems that some people using it seem to misunderstand its intended definition.

For example, in two of the Little Caesars stores running our POS software, they don’t accept credit cards for payment. Instead they accept debit cards. A sign listed on their window, another on the counter, and yet another on each register says, “For your convenience there is a $1.50 fee for debit card transactions.” I’d like to know in what universe it would be convenient for me to pay an extra $1.50 for a service offered for free just about everywhere else.

Another example at a bank… “For your convenience we will be closed on Columbus Day.” That isn’t the least bit convenient for me; in fact it is quite the opposite; it is a wasted trip if someone doesn’t know it is closed, and forces them to come back another day.

What’s next? “For your convenience we will be performing a full frontal lobotomy on you when you go to bed tonight.”

The other kicker is from web sites that sell tickets to various events, like movies and concerts. There is a “convenience fee.” What is that about? They’re charging us more money because it is more convenient for both them and me? What kind of screwed up logic is that?

In conclusion (as if this is a formal paper, heheheh) whenever the word “convenient” shows up anywhere now it sets off alarm bells. Unless the word has been redefined as “another way to empty your bank account” without informing either myself or the fine folks at Merriam-Webster. To those that have redefined this word in this way, here’s another word for you: bogus.

P.S. Reminder: Movie night featuring Iron Man is tonight at 8:30pm.

More Pet Peeves, a Dead Battery, and a New Sofa

Pet Peeves, part II

Its really annoying too me when people can’t seam two get there spelling write on some very common words.  It really isn’t that hard too keep them strait.  Yet these words are interchanged all of the thyme. ***

• They’re, Their, There: They are, belongs to them, and a place.  They’re going to get their books over there.
• Here, hear: This place, listen.  You can hear the ocean from over here.
• You’re, your: You are, belongs to you.  You’re going to get in trouble if you don’t clean your room.
• Too, to, two: Also, a preposition or part of an infinitive, and a number.  I’m going to get two ice cream cones, too!
• Its, it’s: belonging to it, it is.  It’s a shame that the groundhog saw its shadow.
• Pitcher, picture: Liquid storage device, photograph or painting.  If you take my picture, I’ll make you a pitcher of lemonade.
• Who’s, whose: Who is or who has, possession.  Who’s going to do whose dishes?

Also:

• Further vs. farther: In addition to, more distance. * Further more, the concert is farther than I want to drive.
• Then vs. than: part of a conditional phrase or indication of time, used when making comparisons (often accompanies more, less, or fewer).  If you get me a soda then I will give you more jellybeans than Jimmy.
• Affect vs. effect: verb, noun.  ** Will the effect of a declining stock market affect my pay raise?
• Please don’t bear testimony or speak in the name of my son.  I don’t have one, and even if I did, I don’t think I’d want anyone speaking in his name without consulting me first.

* Except when used as an adjective, either further or farther can indicate more time or distance. Farther always indicates distance (think: ‘more far’).  ** In most cases the way we use the words today; affect is also used rarely as a noun, and effect as a verb.  But those cases are very rare. *** There are nine spelling errors in the first paragraph of this post.  How many did you catch?

Battery Dies, Finally!

The battery on my razor finally died today.  So it lasted for four months on a single charge.  Amazing.

New Sofa!

It sounds like we might have more people coming for movie night this week than I originally thought would be able to make it.  So I accelerated part of my living room makeover schedule slightly and bought a sofa last night to create tiered stadium seating.  I picked it up this afternoon and it’s now sitting on a temporary platform until I have the time to build and carpet the real one.  With the addition of this sofa, I should have comfortable seating for around 14-15 people easily, more if we all pretend to be good friends.

Movie Night Begins – This Friday: Iron Man

Even though the Living Room isn’t quite done, I think I’d like to start doing movie nights beginning this week. 

This coming Friday (Oct 24th) we’re going to watch Iron Man at 8:30pm.  In glorious full high definition, on a huge projection screen, with full 7.1 surround sound.  :)  It’s going to be an amazing movie watching experience!!!

For this first movie-going experience, it’ll be Bring Your Own Snacks.  We’ll figure out some other arrangement for food later.

Hopefully I’ll get to a point where I can start doing movie nights regularly (weekly?).   I’d like to finish the room upgrades before it becomes that regular, but it is in my plans to do so.  Stay tuned.

If you don’t know where I live and want to come, email me (movienight@djmail.org) and I’ll give you the address and directions.

I have also created a facebook group where I will post updates on what is playing and when.  For automatic notifications please join the group.

Living Room Update II

The painters are gone; they have “done their job.”  Or so goes the theory.  I’m still not impressed, but we live with what we got.

I’ll just start with the pictures. Click to enlarge.  Pardon the mess; it’s still very much a work in progress.

It looks a lot different, doesn’t it!  The white walls are quite a change over the hideous wallpaper.  I still would have preferred tan walls, but I wasn’t the one paying the painters, so I can’t complain too much.

Those of you that have been here will notice that there is a large piece of furniture missing.  I got rid of my desk.  One whack with a sledgehammer and it fell to the floor in two large pieces.  (It was too big to get out the door, so it had to be broken up.)  Breaking the rest of it up was really easy, and we were able to fit the whole thing in the garbage cans.  Good riddance!  Now I just need to figure out where to put everything that was in and on it (that’s what’s in the boxes).  The monitors, one professional inkjet printer, and the speaker system are all still available for the asking.

So this leaves me the opportunity to build a platform behind the couch to setup a second tier for the home theater… pseudo stadium seating!  I don’t know when I’ll get to it, but I hope it’s sooner than later.  I’d like to start doing movie nights regularly and I can only seat so many people with the existing furniture arrangement.  Keep your fingers crossed that I’ll find the time and resources to get it done quickly.

TOTW #13: Start Search & Spotlight; Organizing Photos

Computer Tip: Start Search & Spotlight

Here’s a tip for finding programs and files faster on Vista and OS X.  Sorry, XP users; there is no easy equivalent feature for you without add-on software.

In both Windows Vista and Mac OS X there is an easier way to find your programs and files than navigating through your Programs menu or the Finder.  Use Start Search or Spotlight instead.

In Windows Vista, click the Start button (or press the Start key on your keyboard) and begin typing part of the name of the program or file you are looking for.  Windows will search for any matches and place them in the Start menu.  You can either click on the one that you want, or use the arrow keys and Enter to select one from the list.  I use this method exclusively for finding programs in Vista because it is much faster than clicking All Programs and finding what I want there.

Most Mac owners already know this trick, but just in case you don’t: In Mac OS X, click the magnifying glass in the upper right of the menu bar, or press Cmd + Space, and begin typing the name of the program or file you want.  Then, just like in Vista, click on the one you want or use the arrow keys and Enter to select an entry in the list.  Spotlight search results can be customized under System Preferences to include or exclude the various types of files on your computer, and to change the order in which they appear. 

Multimedia Tip: Organizing Photos

If you have had a digital camera for a while I hope by now you’ve come up with a system that makes it easy to go back and find your photos.  Trying to manage one large folder with hundreds or thousands of files sure isn’t easy.

With the tens of thousands of pictures I have taken in the last few years I had to come up with an efficient method for cataloging images.  So here’s what I’ve come up with.

Inside my Pictures folder I have about a dozen major categories… People, Places, Events, etc.  Inside each of those folders is a subfolder with the name of the person/group, place, event, as well as a date.  Then within that folder I might break things up even more.  So if I had been taking engagement pictures for Tim & Angie, the folder would be People\Tim & Angie – May 2008\Engagement or something like that.

Using that system I can always very quickly find the images that I want.  I have seen some people organize their photos solely by date, which might seem logical, but in the long term it gets hard to remember when a given event took place, or the day you took photos of your cousin Harry.  But if I do want to search by date, I can just use my computer’s search feature to look for the month and year as part of the folder name.  Easy as pie.

There are some software programs available that are designed to help organize photos, and some are very good.  But in my experience most of them start to choke on large numbers of images, so personally I have given up on them.  But no matter, the system of using folder has served me very well for a decade.

Pet Peeve

I’m not sure I understand the need for web pages to automatically play music while visiting.  Most site visitors are usually not on a given page long enough to listen to a whole song (or even enough of it to be interesting) so every new page results in the music starting over or a change of song at every click.  Anyway, most of the time while I’m browsing the web I either have the TV or my own music already on, resulting in an acoustical landscape wasteland.  And none of the sites that do this allow me to turn the music off permanently.  Argh.