marcelk.org

As recently featured on Brohammas.

He gushes too much.

I did admit that intervention was needed. I have no fashion knowledge (exhibit A: the before picture).

I like this article. Nice writeup, Tony.

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/11/four-destructive-myths-most-co.html

After seeing other organizations do it differently, and in the process accumulate technical debt, I keep reinforcing with my team “slow down a bit and do it right the first time. Don’t pick up the next work item until the current one is done. Real done. This will enable us to go effectively faster in the long term.”

As I mentioned in an earlier post, for the Acura RSX Type-S, there is no real good integration of an iPod into the sound system. I had been using a cassette adapter, but the sound quality of those is so-so, and you need a separate cigarette-lighter cord to provide charging. The presence of a built-in CD exchanger prevents a simple aftermarket add-on.

After deciding to do some real upgrades, I’ve got a solution I’m happy with, it turned out to be a bit easier than I thought, and it sounds great.

First I got replacement speakers. I’ve always been a Crutchfield fan (because of their service and knowledge, not their prices), and ordered a set of 4 Polk Audio db 651s 6-1/2″ for the door and rear panels. At the time Crutchfield had the first set of 2 for $100, and the 2nd set of 2 discounted to $50. So $150 for 4 new speakers plus all the hardware and car-specific installation instructions. Wow, even with the original Acura head unit still there, the sound difference was quite large. Upon taking the original speakers out, I see that they are just cheap paper cone speakers. High end Acura Bose system? Not! If you care about sound quality at all, new speakers is the biggest bang-for-the-buck that you can do.

The speakers in the rear went in pretty easy. Just pop out the grill, unscrew, disconnect, and do the reverse with the new stuff. For the front doors, you need to remove the entire interior door panel and replace them from the inside, it’s not simple like the rear. This was probably that hardest part of the whole job. But still possible with a panel tool and some care.

The small speakers in the top of the dash really aren’t feasible to replace without taking the dash or the windshield out – I just left them there, and I get plenty of highs from the door speakers.

And I left the factory subwoofer as-is. More about that in a moment.

Lastly was a new head unit. I chose a JVC KW-KR810 for $300. Getting it installed (again, with the help of the car-specific instructions and hardware from Crutchfield) wasn’t bad. I had a hard time getting the old unit out because Acura was apparently a bit too liberal with the glue at the assembly factory. I ended up breaking the faceplace of the factory unit, after being as careful as possible. But the glue made me force it. But once that out was, the rest was straight forward.

I chose to go with the double-DIN format instead of the single-DIN. Visually, I find this fits better with the original styling of the Type-S. And since there is plenty of room to work with, might as well. In retrospect, I should have done the same with the new head unit in my wife’s Odyssey. I don’t need a little storage slot underneath the single-DIN head unit.

Frankly, one of the main reasons I chose this unit (besides the iPod integration) is because it offers custom colors in the lighting. So I’m able to maintain that even red lighting on the dash at night – it’s a total match. It allows for another color set when the headlights are off, so I can pick a nice visible white for that. My wife shakes her head at me for this, but I like maintaining the design integrity.

There is a cheaper version of this JVC unit without Bluetooth phone integration, but I chose to get this feature included. It comes with a wired microphone that I can install near the windshield visor. When a call comes in, the iPod pauses, I get the caller ID on the head unit, I push a button to answer, and the audio plays on the speakers. I find it great to not have to juggle my phone out of my pocket when getting a call. I underestimated how much I would like this. I can also make calls from the head unit with a few button pushes (it relies on remembered phone numbers, it’s not voice activated).

The other thing I really like about this unit is that the iPod controls are still active when it is docked and playing though the head unit. That means if I want to jump to another playlist or whatever, I can do that using my iPod itself, and not some menu mish-mash on the head unit.

One thing to realize about the original Acura stereo is that there is an external amp. So when connecting an aftermarket unit in to the wiring harness, the output lines to don’t go directly to the speakers, they go to an amp. So along with the head unit Crutchfield had me buy a PAC SOEM-4 interface to turn down the speaker outputs into what is suitable as inputs to the Acura amp. The external amp feeds the subwoofer, (so there are 4 inputs and 5 outputs), which may be why new head unit’s RCA outputs can’t be used.

Once the new head unit was hooked up and playing, I was surprised to hear another jump in audio quality (even from CDs). This time, I could actually hear the factory subwoofer. With the old head unit, I wondered if the subwoofer was actually hooked up. With the new head unit, no question. Boom! Hearing some real bass makes for a different listening experience. Yeah, the RSX has a lot of road noise, so it does get a bit drowned out, but that can be overcome by cranking up the volume

Another simple but nice item about the JVC head unit is two USB jacks it has. I connected the Bluetooth stub to the front USB jack, and connected my iPod to the rear USB jack. The rear USB jack isn’t reachable once the unit is installed, so I got an iPod-USB cable that I connected at install time, and snaked out the back and down the center console. This gets rid of an ugly cable hanging out the front of the stereo. And I got a black cable instead of the Apple white one, so it isn’t so obvious I have an iPod in the car. I can put my iPod in the cup holder in the center console and close the sliding cover such that only a subtle black cable is showing for just a few inches. I was able to get a black cable by buying a wall charger kit and discarding the wall charger.

There are a couple wishes I have that weren’t included in the head unit. First, when you turn the unit off, it is completely off. Not even the clock shows. I can push a button that will show the clock for 5 seconds when the unit is powered off (this is active only when the ignition is on), it would have been trivial for JVC to make this a configurable setting. It’s the only clock in the car (unlike some other cars). Second, the Bluetooth phone operation does not give you the ability to mute the microphone. You can mute the speaker output during a phone call, but not the input. That’s backwards. So, when I want to mute my phone (for example, when doing a teleconference during a traffic jam) I have to hit my phone’s mute button, which means I can’t keep it in my pocket – it has to be out and open.

It’s been about 10 months with this new system, and I still am very pleased with it. Should have done it way sooner.

Recently my VPN client was giving me fits when logged in from home. DNS resolution to my VPN hosts stopped working. After some poking around, I discovered that a workaround was to change my Windows network configuration to hardcode a VPN DNS server, instead of letting it go with the default as it had done successfully for quite a while before.

Some co-workers pointed out what the cause of the problem was. DNS requests were being incorrectly returned by my router. So when my laptop sent a DNS query for a VPN host, which my router should have responded “no such hostname on the Internet”, instead my router responded with a dlinksearch.com web page saying “Couldn’t find that hostname, did you want one of the following search terms?” So my router, instead of leaving things alone, was trying to be helpful (in the intrusive sense, not the helpful sense) which in turned confused my VPN client. The VPN client expected that a VPN hostname would not get resolved by an Internet DNS server, but here was my router trying to be helpful and breaking the rules.

This was a DLink DIR-825, which otherwise has been great. Some Google searches point me to disabling the “Advanced DNS” (cough cough) setting. Make sure you reboot the router so the change takes effect. Let’s try again.

Wait, it’s still not working? Now what is going on? Oh, now my ISP (Time Warner) is doing the same thing, trying to be helpful (in the intrusive sense) and instead of responding “no such hostname on the Internet” it is sending a web page with a list of search suggestions. Would you please stop helping and just stick to the standards?

Repeat after me: standards are for predictability in interoperability.

So back to my router configuration. Instead of accepting the DNS servers as given to me by my ISP, I hardcode my router to use the Google Public DNS servers, because they don’t try to be helpful. Reboot the router and try again.

Ah, now it works. Hey router manufacturers and ISPs, do you now see how beneficial your help has been?

I just helped my dad upgrade to a new PC. We built it from components purchased from Newegg. So now he has an old computer, which although very slow, still works. He’d like to give it to a school or other charitable organization instead of it being trashed. But of course before doing so he’d like to erase all his personal data and return it back to a factory state. After using TurboTax and Quicken and automatic email logins, you don’t want personal info left behind. Here is how to do that:

1) locate your manufacturer’s CDs for reinstalling. Assuming you bought a complete PC from a manufacturer like Dell or similar, when you first got the computer it should have come with a number of CDs for reinstalling the hard drive. You did keep those, right? If not, contact the manufacturer and they should be able to send you replacements, probably for a cost. Less-old computers may have those CD images hidden on the hard disk, with a utility to burn these CDs at home.

The most important CD is to reinstall the operating system. There may be other CDs for utilities and drivers, but with most of that newer software can be downloaded. So find the operating system CD before you do anything else. If you use Windows, you’re not going to want to plunk down $100-$200 for a replacement copy of Windows, especially for an old PC that’s worth less than that.

2) download a copy of dban: Darik’s Boot-and-Nuke. You’ll get an iso file from the web site. Then you’ll need to burn that iso into a bootable CD. Make sure that when you do that burn, you create a CD from the iso image, not a CD that has the iso file in it. Most burning software will label this something like “Create a CD from an image”, and the file selection dialog for the image file will include “*.iso”.

3) make real sure you have copied everything you need from the old computer. Since new computers typically have a way bigger hard drive than the old ones, you may just want to share the C drive on the old computer, and copy the entire old drive to the new computer over the network. (Don’t copy it into the root of the new hard drive, instead copy it to someplace like c:\Documents and Settings\myuserid\My Documents\old drive.) Yeah, 90% of that is stuff you won’t need and can delete later, but it’s safer to lazily delete unneeded content rather than explicitly copy just the needed content. It may be best to wait a month or more before erasing the old disk with dban, to give yourself time to remember everything you need.

4) put the dban CD into the old computer and boot from it. It contains it’s own stripped-down operating system that will bring you to a menu. You can wipe the old computer’s hard drive using a technique that approaches what the government considers secure. Note that simply booting into Windows and deleting files using Windows Explorer does not really remove the file data from the hard disk, it just removes the file entry from the index. This is like removing an entry from a searchable catalog in a library, but leaving the book on the shelf. If you go wandering you can stumble into the book even though it’s not listed in the catalog. Dban wipes all the shelves multiple times. It may take a couple hours to run.

5) use the manufacturer’s reinstallation CD’s on the old computer, as if you just installed a replacement blank hard drive. Your hard drive is blank, really blank. There may be multiple CD’s you need to get the OS back up and running.

6) install a free anti-virus such as Microsoft Security Essentials

7) make sure Windows Update is enabled. Look in My Computer -> Properties -> Automatic Updates. Run an update check now by opening up Internet Explorer and going to http://update.microsoft.com. Install the ActiveX plugin and download all the critical updates. This may take a while, especially if a Service Pack is included in the updates.

8 ) put on new copies of the standard stuff. If you use Firefox, download the latest instead of using whatever ancient version is on the old manufacturer’s CD. Same thing for utilities, especially Adobe Acrobat.

9) when you give the old computer away, make sure you include all the manufacturer’s CDs, so the new recipient can upgrade the hard drive if they run out of space or if the disk crashes.

10) sleep well knowing that your old computer is helping someone instead of making a landfill larger.

Several months ago my wife and I were lamenting some of the things we saw weren’t going well in our family. So after some long talks, we came up with a set of guidelines for our family that really hits the nail on the head (at least for the issues our family is struggling with). There are three parts:

Love, Respect, Kindness. The bickering, mean voices, not sharing, and general selfishness are things we do not want in our home. It really sucks the spirit out when these things are going on. And it’s not right to be nice to strangers and mean to your own family. Close quarters does uncover the flaws in people, but we are all flawed and we need to deal with it. The attitude we have can make all the difference.

Do Your Duty. It’s not fair to have 5 capable people making a mess of the house and not cleaning up after themselves, leaving mommy to do it all. Do your homework before your recreation. Many hands make a light and even load.

Play Together. We need to have fun, and we need to do some of it together instead of in isolation. We need to budget time and money for family activities, and do things we can all participate in, whether it is a trip somewhere for a couple days, a handful of milkshakes, or a board game on a Sunday afternoon. We need to have positive interaction together and build memories.

I share this in the hope that someone else might benefit from what we’ve learned, and to see if there are suggestions from others.

Having bought 4 new tires for each of my cars recently at around $700 for each car, that is something I would like to avoid needing again for a long time. So how to make the tires last long? There are really 2 things to do: tire inflation and wheel alignment.

The tire inflation ought to be checked at least a couple times a month. I just recently did this, and found one tire that had lost half its pressure, due to a slow leak. Ack! Running that low did cause some nasty wear on the outer edge of the tread. I didn’t catch it quick enough. I might suggest that you check the tire inflation at the same time you check the engine oil level. But I’d really suggest that the tire inflation is more prone to sudden change than the engine oil level, so perhaps the tire inflation ought to be checked more frequently. But a new engine is much more expensive than a new tire. Get yourself a good air pressure gauge (a round one, not a stick one), and either a stack of quarters or a small air compressor for home.

For the wheel alignment, this is something that can really only be done in a shop that has the proper equipment. Normally it will run around $60-$80 for a 4 wheel alignment. Even though the front wheels are more prone to being out of alignment than the rear ones (such as when hitting a curb while parking), you do want all 4 to be aligned, since you do have 4 tires.

Normally I dislike the subscription automotive services, but I stumbled across one I like quite a bit: a multi-year program for wheel alignment. I bought a 3-year program at the local tire shop so I can take my car in for 4-wheel alignment as many times as I want in that 3 year time period. The total cost for the program is $150 for each car. So for the cost of 2-3 alignments, I can get as many as I want in a 3 year period. I’d suggest getting an alignment every 3 months if you are on a program like this, or every 6 months (or hard curb impact) if you pay for each one without a program/subscription. So I think it is a really good deal. If a good alignment extends the life of the tire set by 50% by minimizing the wear, you can see that financially it is good deal and a worthy investment.

In our lab at work, we needed a way to schedule access to some dev/test machines, since we have more people than machines. A trivial Google search and I find phpScheduleIt. So on an existing Linux server in the lab I install an http server, MySQL, php, some Pear libraries, and the phpScheduleIt application. Follow the setup instructions, and we have a web-based scheduling application that fits our needs perfectly. It even deals with the timezone differences of our team members in Asia.

If I get time to create the LDAP authentication modifications I need, I’ll donate those back to the phpScheduleIt project.

Man, I love open source. Remember how hard this would have been 15 years ago?

My clothes dryer recently broke. It’s an electric dryer, not gas-heated. The drum would rotate, the fan would blow, but the heating element never got warm. I figured calling a repairman to come on-site would equal the cost of a new appliance. It’s a shame we make items less expensive to replace than repair. So we end up with larger landfills. Time to learn something new.

I’ve been buying Sears Kenmore appliances. I don’t think they are particularly better than the regular brands. Actually, I believe they are from the regular brands, and just rebranded as Kenmore. But what Sears does really well is their parts management.

First, they keep track of your phone number when you buy an appliance. So if you call them for service or parts, they can look up what you bought previously. They also do this through their website, managemylife.com, which also allows you to keep track of non-Sears appliances.

Second, their online parts store offers exploded diagrams of all their appliances. This is really helpful for (a) figuring out how to disassemble an appliance, and (b) finding the part number for your defective piece, and (c) listing which Sears stores actually have the part in stock so you can drive over and pick it up without paying shipping. Yes, the parts are still really expensive, but you can find them easily.

So back to the clothes dryer. The hardest part was figuring out how to open the darn thing up. The parts diagrams didn’t help a lot, but I was eventually able to locate the panel that popped off (just under the front door), and was able to figure out how to pop it off (via some really difficult latches). Once the panel was open, you’ve got access to pretty much everything.

Make dang sure you unplug the dryer from the wall. You don’t want to meet 220 volts.

I figured the heating element would be the culprit. So off to the Sears store to buy a $60 part. Bring it back home, install it, still doesn’t work. Hmm. Some poking around on the forums and there is mention of the thermal cutoff and thermostat. They are located right next to the heating element, and I can see from the wiring how they are in series with the heating element. So I pull out my multimeter and start testing for continuity. Yup, the heating element looks good, thermostat looks good, ah the thermal cutoff has no continuity. So back to the Sears store to get a new thermal cutoff and thermostat (they come bundled together) for $30. BTW, Sears won’t accept the heating element for return because it is an electrical part that I opened and tried, even if it never got power. Replace the thermal cutoff and thermostat. Since I have a new heating element, might as well put that in too. Aha, it works! Clean the inside of the dryer out since I have it open. I note that the rollers for the drum have lint on them, that is why it was thunking a bit at the beginning of a cycle. Clean lint out of the dryer vent, since that may be what caused the thermal cutoff to trip.

So I’m out $90 and about 3 hours of labor (not counting driving to the store and back). Still a fraction of what it would have cost a repairman to come on-site, and I learned something new.

Now we can work on the backlog of dirty laundry. I don’t know why everyone dislikes putting their wet clothes all over the bonus room and turning on the ceiling fan.

From a security perspective, autoplay is just a really horrible idea. You don’t want programs to automatically launch when you insert a CDROM or USB thumb drive. You should disable autoplay on all your Windows systems. All the software I install is either downloaded from trusted sites, or in the case where I do have a CDROM I just find the setup.exe file and double-click it.

Here are some simplified general instructions, and here are the official Microsoft instructions. I was able to use the general instructions for XP Pro, but needed the Microsoft instructions for XP Home.