Sep 09

My Wifes iPhone Has Been Stolen

She went to Coles on Tuesday and must have left it on the counter at the service desk for 5 minutes, and then it was gone. She contracted to Tesltra in December so she’s still got 15 months to go. Not good.

So the Nokia E71 isn’t going to cut her needs I don’t think, so onto looking for a new phone. Wow, I think the HTC Wildfire might cut it. All the features of my Desire plus more. With better talk/standby time and a smaller screen.

And A$349 for a telstra prepaid, seems like a prefect replacement.  Good as it gets rid of the stupid apple from my house.

  • Operating System: Android™ 2.1 with HTC Sense
  • Camera: 5 MP Camera with auto focus & flash
  • GPS Navigation: Yes
  • Bluetooth: Yes 2.1
  • MP3 Player: Yes
  • Expandable Memory: Up to 32 GB
  • FM Radio: Yes
  • Ringtones: MP3⁄Polyphonic
  • Hands free speakerphone: Yes
  • Network: GSM⁄EDGE: 900 ⁄ 1800 ⁄ 1900 ⁄850 MHz, UMTS: 850⁄2100 MHz
  • 3G: Telstra NextG
  • USB Connectivity: Micro USB
  • Email: Yes.  Gmail, Exchange ActiveSync, Telstra Mail.
  • Display: 3.2” QVGA capacitive touch screen
  • Memory: 2GB MicroSD card included
  • Dimensions: 106.75 x 60.4 x 12.19mm
  • Weight: 118 grams
  • Battery: HTC Battery 1300 mAh
  • Standby time: up to 690 Hrs
  • Talk time: up to 440 mins
  • Included in Sales Package: Handset, Travel AC Charger, Battery, Micro USB Cable, Data CD, Stereo Headset, Warranty Card, User guide, 2GB Micro SD card

Sep 06

Import NK2 file into Outlook 2010

I just found today that Microsoft Outlook now store the old NK2 data on Exchange 2010.  So now outlook keeps a cache file structor instead of the out NK2 file.

  1. Place the existing .NK2 file into %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook.
  2. a) If you have openned outlook already there should be some files in there already make sure your .NK2 is named the same.
    b) If you haven’t opened outlook the file need to be named the same as your outlook profile. This can be checked by

    • Press Start button and in the search field type Mail click the top result under Control Panel, Microsoft Outlook Profiles
    • Click the Profiles button
    • Ensure the NK2 file is the same as in that box
  3. Hold the Windows button on your keyboard and press R
  4. In that box type outlook.exe /importnk2 and click OK

This will import your contacts, if your keeping an eye on what’s going on, the .NK2 will stay present until outlook is closed where it will then be renamed as .NK2.OLD.

Funny, the reason I needed to research this is for some reason, outlook failed to do it the first time.  It renamed it to .NK2.OLD but the to contacts were not working.  Luckily is was a case to undo the rename, and run the command again.

Sep 01

Awesome MythTV Frontend, Acer Revo R3610

image

The best hardware for a mythtv frontend by far. It runs is NVIDIA ion chipset, so its Linux compatible almost straight out of the box. I managed to purchase Linux versions so I didn’t need to pay for Windows.

I wouldn’t doubt them to be awesome backends as well, as they have 6 usb’s and an esata port.

Aug 31

USB to fan cable

imageHere is a awesome little cable I’ve made. I changed computers as I was having troubles with the old one. When I was browsing for what I wanted the last thing I thought about was a fan jumper to plug my cupboard mounted 12 volt fan into. But fortunately I’ve been lucky my fan will run (slowly – yet perfectly) on the usb 5 volt rail.

I did do some tests once it was running. These included running and stall current draw. I found running draw was around 150ma and when I stopped the fan it registered 300ma. So all within usb’s 500ma abilities.

image

I used the pointy end of the usb cable that I had spare. I made the red and black wires longer than the others and soldered them onto 3x PCB pins. Check your fans wiring but mine was black center and red left. Now before I shunk the heatshrink I applied a small amount of hot glue on and round my work. This way when I applied heat to the heatshrink it made a tight join. I continued heating until I got it to the right size and some excess glue was expelled from the pins end.

I have heard not all fans turn on 5 volts. This one is a 90mm fan just in case you want to duplicate my results. Being that my fan is center negative if I do get the plug the wrong way around, it’s no problem. But you may need to mark yours.
[ad#leaderboard]