Crickets?

I don’t know what these insects are, but I am hearing them for the first time tonight in my apartment complex. They are in the little wooded area, and in the trees. They are very loud.

I also just got Google Voice. Their rates are somewhat better than Skype’s for calling to Malaysia. Google charges 3¢/minute to a landline, and 4¢/minute to mobile. Skype’s charges are 2.1¢/minute and 5.8¢/minute respectively. I think I’ll be switching to Google Voice completely since I won’t need to use client software on my mobile phone.

How Google Chrome stores passwords

Well, I’ve been a bit hesitant to save passwords when using Google Chrome because it does not ask for a “Master Password” like Firefox does. So, I didn’t know if it encrypted the stored passwords, or if it did encrypt them, where it got the encryption key from. Then I found this article which looks at the source code for Chrome on Windows to see that it uses a Windows system call to encrypt the password using the user’s Windows password. Nice.

Which means that this is one component that they have to keep re-writing on various platforms to use whatever is native. Which is probably why Mozilla went with their own scheme.

KitchenAid Pro Line burr grinder stepless mod

From a user at coffeegeek.com, a way of modding the KitchenAid Pro Line burr grinder for stepless operation, reproduced here for my convenience:

I "modded" mine by taking out the metal pieces that hold the clicker(the 1-8 settings) in their specified spaces...

If you unscrew the black knob with the 1-8 settings on it by using an alan wrench (size 5/32), you see that the only thing keeping these settings as they are is the fact that the white piece with the little indents (the white gear looking thing) has two pieces of metal keeping it in a specified location, depending on your adjustment. You can see this in the picture two pages earlier in this forum post.

If you unscrew the whole front end like you would to get at the grinders(this is mentioned in the manual under how to clean the burrs): by unscrewing the two large flat-headed screws in the front of the grinder(using a flat-head screw driver... note that you need to unscrew both sides evenly: by turning one full turn on each side and alternating, in order to avoid threading the screws), then can get at the back of the assembly for the little metal pegs that hold the 1-8 settings in place. The back of these pegs look like two little alan wrench screws, which you can unscrew using the same alan wrench you used before. Unscrew them and save the two little screw pieces, two springs, and two pegs in a ziplock bag for safekeeping. I taped the plastic bag with the (now) extra pieces in it to the bottom of the machine in the little indent.

Ok, now you can just put the whole assembly back in place(without the pieces you put in the ziplock bag). Keep in mind that the white gear looking piece is the thing that now "stepless"ly adjusts your setting. Notice that the white gear is attached to a large plastic screw-shaft? Well, adjusting the screw on the screw-shaft to the left or right is what now adjusts your grind settings to fine or large. You could, if you wanted to, leave the black plastic nobbin off the front and use your hands to adjust the white gear, but I put mine back on.

The main issue is whether adjusting the white nobbin through the black nobbin is as effective as adjusting the white nobbin and leaving the black piece off. I assume this is why someone earlier in this forum post replaced the black nobbin with a copper nobbin and someone else replaced it with a plastic piece that reconnects to the black nobbin, and someone else used some sort of teflon tape(?)? I'm mostly concerned that adjusting the setting through the black nobbin is somehow less effective. I'm somewhat concerned with the fact that this machine vibrates so much... now that I've made it stepless, will the vibration somehow rotate my setting slowly?

May 13

Today is the anniversary of the May 13 Incident, the Sino-Malay race riots which began on May 13, 1969. There was a Time magazine article about it.

New glasses, finally

Finally, they got in the tortoiseshell frames I wanted. But, they are a bit tight and pinch. I'll have to go back and have them adjusted. Or buy a hairdryer and do it myself.

Jerry Lee’s Whiskey Talking

I love this song that was on the 1990 Dick Tracy soundtrack. Here's a Rolling Stone review of the album it appeared in.

It Was The Whiskey Talkin' (Not Me), Jerry Lee Lewis

"Young Blood" (Jerry Lee Lewis)

"Dick Tracy" (Walt Disney Video)

New (temporary) glasses

Got new glasses. The black frames are only temporary while I wait for the tortoiseshell frames I really want to come in.

Fun with a Sony Ericsson W760a phone

I just switched to AT&T because T Mobile had really poor signal at my workplace. And, I got a new phone: a Sony Ericsson W760a. I love it. I’ve always liked SE’s user interface: it’s quick, and fairly intuitive, e.g. hit “C” to delete a message or image etc.

Of course, AT&T had the phone locked, preventing the use of other providers’ SIMs, as well as preventing one from downloading Java applications (games, GMail, Google Maps, etc.) and music files, and using the GPS. So, I paid DaVinci Team about $15 to unbrand the phone and flash it with the latest firmware from SE. This lets me download my own music and applications (SE has a whole bunch of free games). Plus another $45 to unlock the phone to allow using other SIMs, say if I travel back to Malaysia.

The flash and unbrand worked great, after a little chat with tech support. It released features such as an RSS feed ticker, and geolocation of photos taken with the phone. Unlocking hasn’t worked, yet: their server which generates the unlock code has been reporting as busy for the last few days.

Of course, since I unbranded it, all the settings for Internet access (a.k.a. WAP), and multimedia messaging (MMS) broke. So, I’ll outline all the things I have found out about getting the phone running again.

1. Buy some credits from DaVinci: 10 credits for flash/unbrand, and another 50 for unlocking. You will then get a download link for the software used to do the hacking.
2. Buy the DCU-60 cable to connect with a Windows PC.
3. There is a trick to getting the software to recognize the phone. The default instructions are incorrect. First, plug the computer end of the cable into the computer. Start the software. Then, while holding down the “2” and “5” keys, plug the phone end of the cable in. The software will recognize the phone and bring up a new window with options for re-flashing it.
4. Once the unbranding is done, you will want to get all the settings for the internet, MMS, etc. The easiest thing to do is to go to Sony Ericsson’s site. You fill in some information, and they upload the settings right to your phone.
5. WAP settings can be set here.
6. Email settings are here: you will have to have confirmed your access to the MEdiaNet webmail service, and chosen a username. Pick “AT&T World Net” as your service provider, “yourname@medianet.att.net” as your email address, and the appropriate password. No work. :(
7. Go through a similar process to have your MMS settings sent to your phone.

A bit long, but not terrible. While you can use other email providers, Facebook will not recognize them as AT&T. If you don’t care, you can set your phone to transmit email via GMail. And you get to load your own MP3s to use the phone as a music player (it takes Memory Stick Micro, as large as 16GB), and get dumb games like the Lightsaber game which uses the built-in accelerometer to make lightsaber swishing sounds as you swing your phone around.

UPDATE: Well, from a bit of experimentation, I figured out that AT&& MEdiaNet email strips EXIF data from pictures. So, if you would like geotags in your pictures, say to make putting your pictures on a map in Flickr easier, then you should use GMail which passes the EXIF tags unscathed.

UPDATE 2: What a mess. It was late and I was very confused. A few things:

1. MMS settings are separate from email settings. MMS will fallback to using email if you do not have an MMS proxy configured. The last step in my list above will configure MMS just fine.
2. The EXIF stripping occurs when sending an image by MMS, which is the default sending mode from the camera function.
3. All that stuff about the MEdia Net email is wrong: I have NOT figured out the POP and SMTP servers for MEdia Net. However, the MEdia Net webmail link IS correct.

Mysteriously, auto-geotagging of photos seems to have worked in ONE instance only. All subsequent pictures, while they have regular EXIF data, have no GPS data. The difference has been that I edited that image with the built-in editor.

UPDATE 3:And, I found it: MEdia Net does NOT provide POP3 or SMTP.

UPDATE 4: The phone will also do Active Sync, i.e. sync with an Outlook server. Since Google now provides this service, I can sync email, contacts, calendar, and tasks with a “push” option.

UPDATE 5: Well, I finally got the unlock code downloaded. And, whaddaya know, you also have to get the phone reactivated to be able to use it. So, that’s a total of 70 credits -- 50 to unlock, 20 to activate -- to unlock the phone. At about $13.50 per 10 credits, it cost me as much as the phone did in the first place. Of course, if I did not need to port my old phone number over, I could have gotten the phone for free from an online vendor. As it is, i had to go into a store, and the clerk was nice enough to do the phone number port from a different area code. To sum up, I recommend finding a local phone vendor who will unlock it for you. When I was in Boston, I found a kiosk cellphone vendor who offered unlocking services for $30 a go. The kiosk was in the Prudential Center.

How lenses are made

This is a TV camera lens being made.

Sigma 50mm f/1.4

Well, I've been so lax about posting here I haven't even mentioned buying a new lens before Christmas: the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM ($450 street price). Here's a review.

I got this instead of the Nikon I mentioned before mostly due to time constraints. I wanted to use the lens while I was visiting Boston over the holiday, and the Nikon wasn't yet available. I'm not sure when it will be available, actually. But, never mind: I'm very happy with the Sigma, though it's a bit of a bear to lug around. I'm glad my D40 body is tiny and light.

I used it on this set:

And here's an exploitation of bokeh:

lens, photography, sigma

AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G

Another lens to covet: The AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8. *sigh*

Last Halloween

I’m really late with this photo set. It is from a show on Halloween night at The Garage. Anyway, I thought The Dex Romweber Duo (record label site) was the highlight of the evening: gritty roots rock 'n' roll. Turns out, Dex is quite well-known. The other half of the duo is his sister Sara, who has her own long career in music. The duo’s new album, Ruins of Berlin, has been well-received in Spin.

"Ruins of Berlin" (Dexter Romweber Duo)