Tuna and bread for lunch

When I was at a client’s place last week, it was very inconvenient for me to get lunch. The restaurants in the premises were closed as most were working from home due to Covid-19. Getting food meant taking a long walk to a hawker centre some distance away. So I decided to pack my own food and eat that packed food during lunchtime. And my lunch of choice? Ayam brand tomato chilli tuna and Gardenia bread. I bought these from an NTUC Fairprice outlet near my place. During lunchtime, I just cracked open the can and spooned the tuna on my bread and ate it. There was a vending machine nearby and I got myself a drink from that. So that was my lunch. It was not elaborate but it was filling and it was pretty tasty

Extron XPA 2001 power amplifier

A few months back, a client used my services to install a PA system in his office with ceiling speakers. He did have some of his own equipment though and this was one of them, an Extron XPA 2001 power amplifier. I have always loved Extron and their products, as can be seen in my Extron BUC-102 and Extron DA 6A distribution amplifier. As for Extron, they make quality stuff and this amplifier is no exception. This little amplifier is a half rack 1U, convection cooled power amplifier delivering 200 watts into a 100 volt line. It is an ENERGY STAR® Class D amplifier design. It also features patented CDRS™ – Class D Ripple Suppression technology that provides a smooth, clean audio waveform and an improvement in signal fidelity over conventional Class D amplifiers. But the main thing I love about it is that it has a high efficiency design which generates very little heat and allows the amplifier to be convection cooled. No noisy fans that get clogged up with dust.

In any case, we installed this in a 16U rack that he provided. We connected this amplifier to 04 Extron ceiling speakers, putting the wattage at 30w each. The audio sounded clear and the client was very pleased with the result. To be honest, even though this was not my personal system, I felt sad to leave it when the project ended. That is because I loved the sound of this amplifier. Maybe I might get one for myself but at present, I am still very happy with my Kramer 907 amplifier.

13A plug with power indicator light

There is a hardware shop near one of my client’s premises where they sell a whole host of electrical goods for a very affordable price. Some of the electric goods that I have been buying include this 13A plug with a power indicator light. Now these are very useful for sockets in dark places such as under a desk or in a cupboard to show that there is power running through it. I have bought about a dozen of them so far and have used them all over my house. They only cost about $1.50 each and they have been given an approval from the regulators here in Singapore with that safety mark sticker.

Crimping Cat6A cables

Crimping Cat6A cables is no walk in the park. It took twice as long as crimping a Cat5e cable. The hardest part? Trying to get the cables to fit in the tiny leader that neds to be inserted into the RJ45 connector. But practice does make perfect. The first one I did I had to do over and over again before I achieved success. I am just not happy about the finished results, even though the cables works. It just looks shoddy. But the video above helped me to do so. I was crimping Kramer BC-Unikat Cat6A cables with Kramer RJ45s. It is only a matter of time before I perfect it.

Manhole cover handles that collect water

My mother’s place has manhole covers like these that collect rainwater. As a result, they become a hotbed for mosquito breeding. The thing is, I do not know what to use to cover these manholes. Someone on the Internet suggested using candle wax. When probed further, he wrote that he boiled lots of candles, melting the wax. After that, the molten wax was poured into the holes. That sounds like a very good idea. I was actually thinking of using cement. I suppose I will have to look up the Internet on the ratio of mixing cement and water. I will then apply them to these holes.

Installing solar panels at home

Having solar panels installed in your home is a great idea. The great thing about it is that you can considerably lower your electricity bills. Mine are pretty hefty I admit and anything that can help to offset these costs will be welcome. But you need to be careful. This poor fellow in Punggol was called out for installing solar panels in his apartment. It would have been great if he did not install them in a haphazard manner as shown in the pics above. People just took one look at his install and immediately called the town council, reporting him for an unsafe install. If you live in a HDB flat, you need to get approval first before you install any solar panels. But if you live in “landed” property, you do not need such permission from the powers-that-be.

I have posted some videos from YouTube about people living in vans, transforming their vans into small homes. Most of them use solar panels to get their power. If it works for them, it will surely work for us living in normal houses. Unfortunately in Singapore, solar technology is not cheap and we do not have the wide variety that people in the United States have, or can get. So normally, people (like this fellow above) turn to cheap emporium sites overseas in China to get their solar panels. You can get some solar panels that are pretty cheap from China but as there are no whitepaper designs from these manufacturers, you are not really sure if you are getting a quality product.

So am I getting solar panels for my place? I might. It looks like a very attractive preposition. As a matter of cat, right now, I am using some decorative fairy lights outside my house that use solar energy to power them at night. It works pretty well so it looks like I might do some research on solar panels to maybe power my desk fan and computer. Hey, I am all for “greening” myself and if it helps to defray some costs, why not?

The Espresso Portable Phantom Power Supply by Zeppelin Design Labs

If you all have been reading my blog for some time, you will notice that I am an active DIY’er. I happened to come across this phantom power injector by Zeppelin Design Labs and I was thinking to myself – Whoa!

This gizmo can power any mic requiring 30-48V phantom power at current draw of up to 5 mA. It has one XLR female input to one 1/4″ TRS female output. The output can be configured for either mic level balanced signal or line level unbalanced signal. This is done by simply moving an internal jumper. This allows you to run a contact or condenser mic signal straight into an instrument amp without use of a preamp or DI box.

Great isn’t it? Unfortunately, the firm has stopped making this. But I am sure that you can get some schematics available on the Internet to make your own active DI box like this.

Mesa Paint putty filla for holes in walls and cavities

About a week ago, while I was doing an install at a client’s place, we had to lay some PVC wire casing for Cat6A network cable. After installing the PVC wire casing, there were some gaps on some parts of the wall that were not level. So the contractor used this putty filling to fill up these cracks and it worked very well. It did not take long to dry and it looked pretty good as well. I wonder…I have some holes in manhole covers in my mum’s place. Can this putty filler work on those. Time to look it up to see if it is waterproof.

3.5 inch Front Panel USB 3.0 Hub with HD Audio Mic Jack

I bought this a week or so back and it only arrived at my place a couple of days back. I needed an adapter for some unused USB 3 interface pins on my motherboard and this would have allowed me to use those pins. Installing something like this should have been very straightforward but it was not without some difficulty. First of all, one of my dump drives was was occupying the slot where this was supposed to be installed – in the 3.5″ floppy drive bay. So I had to take out the hard drive and put it some place else and that took some time. After that, I installed this front panel and plugged it in.

After all that was done, I put the side panels on the tower casing I had back again and started the computer. All was not right as my computer went into the BIOS settings. I checked my BIOS settings and noticed that the primary drive which my operating system was installed on was not being detected. So I had to open the casing again and checked. True enough. The SATA cable had been disconnected from the motherboard. After plugging it in, all was good!

The great thing about this face plate are the two audio jacks in front. I do not have a microphone with a 2.5mm jack to test it but I did hook up my headphones to them. All at once, a popup screen came up asking me what I was attaching to the jack. This is interesting, I thought. So there is a sensor of sorts that can tell what you are plugging in. Anyway, I plugged my headphones into the jack and would you believe it, the output from the soundcard was disabled when I played some music. Looks like I need to read up more on how it does that.

 

I am quite happy with these two additional USB 3 sockets on my computer. This unit is made pretty well and it cost me all of ten dollars!

Apple’s 1984 advertisement mocked by Epic Game’s Fortnite

Remember that iconic Apple advertisement from 1984 when they introduced Macintosh? Well, apparently Apple had removed Epic Games’ battle  game Fortnite from the App Store after the developer implemented its own in-app payment system that bypassed Apple’s. So in retaliation for that. Epic Games has announced that it’ll premiere a new short film within the game called Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite, in an obvious parody of Apple’s 1984 commercial. I must say that Apple is becoming what it mocked. This is the parody advertisement below: