Having observed a recurring engine check light with code P0137 on my 2008 Camry (2.4L 4 cylinder, 2AZ-FE) that finally became a solid "on", it seemed that it was time for a repair job. In this case, P0137 identifies the Bank 1 Sensor 2 oxygen sensor as having failed. This sensor is located in the exhaust system downstream of the catalytic converter. It is quite easily accessible with the car up on support ramps by sliding under the front of the vehicle (for a DIY on a garage floor).
Several things to be aware of for this relatively simple repair:
1. let the car (especially the exhaust system) cool down before this repair
2. the O2 sensor will likely be frozen in place due to rust
--the part must be "broken loose" before attempting removal
3. you need to know if your car complies with California emissions standards
--my car is California compliant. Don't assume your vehicle is *not* just because it was not manufactured in California. This may make a difference in the part used (and see #4, next).
4. there are (at least) two Denso replacement parts, 234-4627 and 234-4260 for the California emissions version of this 2008 Toyota Camry.
--the parts are identical except for the length of the connecting wire. 234-4260 has a 3" shorter wire and so I purchased it (although both will work) for my vehicle. It's a good idea to measure this length before settling on a part. Longer wire is OK, but getting wires that are too short means having to lengthen them (there are 4) or exchange the part. Both of these parts are available on Amazon for around $53 (as of 12/01/2014).
5. a special socket (22mm) may be needed for removal and/or for accurate installation torque.
--specified installation torque is 32 ft lb. The special socket(s) can be obtained from (among other places) auto parts stores such as Advance Auto Parts as a tool kit. If you get the sensor part at a local store that carries the tool kit (that you also buy), you will typically be able to return the kit for a full refund (so it really is becomes just a loaner kit). However, the sensor will cost more locally (typically around $90 plus tax) so a plan might be to just buy the tool kit (typically $35), get the sensor from Amazon (around $53) so that you get a nice tool to add to your tool box along with the needed part, all for about the same cost as purchasing the sensor itself locally. The tool kit can probably be purchased on Amazon as well... I didn't look into that.
Step by step replacement of the Bank 1 Sensor 2 oxygen sensor:
Step 1. Disconnect the vehicle battery.
Disconnect the ground side of the battery. If you want to ensure that all (or most) stored capacitive power is removed, step on the brake pedal for a few seconds after disconnecting the battery... but this is probably not necessary. Also, if you forget to disconnect the battery, it's probably not going to hurt anything as long as the ignition is off but removing electrical power is good practice before working on an electrical component. It also has the supplemental effect of clearing the engine check codes. This means that the check light will only turn on after the repair if some other failure exists or if the newly installed part is bad (unlikely).
Step 2. Disconnect the sensor plug.
A bit of pressure from a flat bladed screwdriver tip is all that's necessary here. When done correctly (there's a small serrated section on top of the female plug, that's where the pressure is needed), there will be a tiny "click" as the male plug is released and it can then be wriggled out of its receptacle.
Step 3. Breaking the sensor free.
The first thing to understand here (based on my experience anyway) is that WD-40 will *not* do this job well (if at all). I tried using WD-40 (because I had some sitting around) and the only thing I accomplished was partially rounding the edges of the 22mm mounting nut (this nut is an integrated part of the sensor). It simply would not come off, even with somewhat vigorous tapping of the part alternated with repeated application of WD-40 over a 1/2 hour period. The solution (and this was new to me) is to create a 50-50 mixture of ATF (automatic transmission fluid) and Acetone, mix it well in an applicator type container (e.g. an oiling can) and apply it liberally to the sensor nut area. Be sure to tap (I used a punch) the sensor to help it break free. I let this soak for 15 minutes, re-applied, tapped it some more and then waited for another 10 minutes before trying to unscrew the device. I was successful using a 10" pipe wrench with added leverage from a 1" diameter pipe slipped over its handle. However, I went to the pipe wrench approach only because I'd partially rounded the corners of the nut earlier (due to it not being loosened up by WD-40).
Step 4. Install the new sensor.
Each Denso part comes with a small tube of high temperature anti-seize compound. Be sure to apply this to the threads of the sensor before installing. This will make it easier to replace the sensor at a future date, should that ever become necessary. Screw the device in and then use a torque wrench to tighten it to 32 ft lbs. In my case, I no longer had the special socket tool kit so I used a regular 22mm wrench and tightened it about 3/4 of a turn beyond finger tight. Even so, I'm a big proponent of using the correct tightening torque, so I recommend using a torque wrench with the appropriate socket. Be careful here as you may have to do a manual adjustment on the torque amount if the wrench itself is not centered over the nut being tightened (meaning that you would be applying more torque than the setting on the wrench). Now connect the sensor plug and you're almost good to go.
Step 5. Re-connect the vehicle battery.
Re-attach the battery ground and start the car. The engine check light should be gone but if it re-appears, then the engine check code should be examined to followup on the new problem. If you don't have an OBDII compliant plug in (that will communicate with your smart phone, for example) to read (and/or reset) your engine check code(s), AutoZone is one place that will provide this service for free.
Summary
While it can be a bit irksome to get this sensor out it is only a 5 minute job after the removal is accomplished. If you try to get this sensor replaced at a Toyota service center or even most local shops, you will be paying $300 or more. As outlined here, you might (and I did) save $200+ by doing this yourself. Note, of course, that your results may vary ;-) but this is a very "doable" DIY job. Good luck!
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Review of Nutrinote 2010 (Premium V.3.5.0)
I recently installed Nutrinote 2010, a diet/nutrition organizer program. Having now explored its capabilities while running it on a PC (Windows 7, 64-bit) for several days, this review outlines the results of that experience. I am using the Premium version 3.5.0 edition of the software. The review will be brief and direct, listing pro's and con's and then closing with a few summary comments.
Pro's:
1. Although the initial database is small (7,500 items), the program allows for it to grow and also allows the user to identify those nutritional components of food that are to be tracked. This database flexibility is nice and contrasts with some other programs (such as Perfect Diet Tracker) that have extensive databases but very limited (to a subset of the items on a standard nutrition label) capability to keep track of different nutrients. For example, calcium cannot be kept track of in Perfect Diet Tracker.
2. Fairly extensive analysis capability to checkout the breakdown of foods eaten as well as individual components.
3. Runs from a USB flash drive if desired. This makes for great flexibility to use the program on a work computer, or while out of town, etc., as long as any PC (apparently not with Win 8, however) with a USB port can be accessed.
4. Search function works quite well when looking for foods and the filter setting for "Favorites" is extremely useful (i.e., only foods marked as "Favorite" will be shown for whatever search string has been set).
Con's:
1. After setting up a "Recipe" (think, "typical meal or group of foods eaten together"), it's very easy to insert that into the day's food consumed, but if you have any variation(s) in the quantity of any of the elements of the meal (for example, 10 oz. of milk instead of 8 oz.), you cannot just change it in the meal foods that are available right in front of you from the entry just made. In the milk example here, you would have to add 2 oz. of milk as a separate item. Very clumsy and quite shortsighted.
2. Backup of the database is apparently allowed only to an external USB (including flash) drive. Not the neatest thing and liable to become like so many other backups... neglected. Much better would be to allow backups to any drive in "My Computer". For example, I have several network drives that are always connected when I'm at home... that's where I'd like to do backups. That way I'm not having to connect/disconnect flash drives. Result: it will be much more likely to get done. Also nice would be an "autobackup" option, especially with a network drive, that would copy the database out on a regular basis (multiple times per week). See also #4 for an additional backup option possibility.
3. Program support is sparse or non-existent, at least in my brief experience. I have yet to receive an answer to my question regarding how to make the program backup to a network drive (and I don't think it can).
4. Does not integrate with DropBox. See also #2 on this. Using DropBox would be a great way to automatically backup the database while the computer is connected to the internet, always auto-syncing when re-connecting. This would also make for a nice way to ensure current data when going from a fixed base PC to a traveling laptop.
5. Price is a bit high ($49.95). There is a (free) demo version, but the demo program is hamstrung rather than having all capabilities with a (say) 1 week time limit for functionality. There are some things you really cannot figure out if you are unable to, for example, add/edit foods in the database (and you cannot add/edit foods with the demo version).
6. The layout is a bit cartoonish looking (strictly personal preference).
7. After opening the program, dragging in its window edges to the desired size and then locating it appropriately on the screen, it is a bit dismaying to find that the program *always* re-opens in the middle of the screen and at the same fixed size as before it was set up for my screen configuration. Better for it to save the size and location information and just load up that way as long as the same size (in pixels) screen is being used whenever the program is re-started.
8. For exercise (i.e. calories burned) data entry, there is no way to enter your own calories burned value (for example, from a heart monitor calorie counting system) except by creating a completely new exercise every time you make an entry (because your monitored value entry will almost surely *not* agree with any of the canned exercise table entries from the database). A more efficient "I know the calories I need to enter for this exercise" method would be very much appreciated.
9. Although the list of nutritional elements that can be monitored in the database is extremely extensive, every element of the list (yes, including those that the user is not keeping track of) is listed and must be scrolled through, in alphabetical order, to get to the item that is to be updated. This makes for very tedious scrolling to input some of the items. An improvement would be to automatically display items selected for tracking *first* with the remaining (untracked and unused) items following.
10. When entering nutrients for a "new" food, the program requires the user to manually convert input data to grams, micrograms, etc., rather than allowing for a "percent of daily value" input (for example, if calcium supplied in a food is 35% (per the food's nutrition label), the user must first, from an independent source, look up the Daily Value (DV) for calcium (1000 mg) and then go multiply that number by .35 and enter the value in milligrams into the program's food database. It does seem better to allow for entry of the 35% value from right off the nutrition label and have the program convert that to (in this case) 350 mg. This process gets even more onerous when dealing with multiple conversion steps for such things as International Units to milligrams.
Summary Comments
In summary, this program has many good elements at its core but on a 1-10 basis (10 being best), I would have to rate it at about an 8, especially for the price. The best adjective for how it feels to use the program is "tedious"... although it basically gets the job done. Furthermore, it doesn't have the feel of being fully supported as it is not spec'd for operation on Windows 8 (although that does not mean that it won't work with Windows 8, it very well might), it is not familiar with cloud type interfaces (such as DropBox) and I've not received any response to my email support request (yet). In a more up-to-date program, I also feel that a key function like database backup would be handled more efficiently and flexibly and would not be so tightly intertwined with USB flash drive technology... especially for the price paid. Given these shortcomings, I'd estimate that this program would be much more accurately valued at a price of $20 to $30.
Pro's:
1. Although the initial database is small (7,500 items), the program allows for it to grow and also allows the user to identify those nutritional components of food that are to be tracked. This database flexibility is nice and contrasts with some other programs (such as Perfect Diet Tracker) that have extensive databases but very limited (to a subset of the items on a standard nutrition label) capability to keep track of different nutrients. For example, calcium cannot be kept track of in Perfect Diet Tracker.
2. Fairly extensive analysis capability to checkout the breakdown of foods eaten as well as individual components.
3. Runs from a USB flash drive if desired. This makes for great flexibility to use the program on a work computer, or while out of town, etc., as long as any PC (apparently not with Win 8, however) with a USB port can be accessed.
4. Search function works quite well when looking for foods and the filter setting for "Favorites" is extremely useful (i.e., only foods marked as "Favorite" will be shown for whatever search string has been set).
Con's:
1. After setting up a "Recipe" (think, "typical meal or group of foods eaten together"), it's very easy to insert that into the day's food consumed, but if you have any variation(s) in the quantity of any of the elements of the meal (for example, 10 oz. of milk instead of 8 oz.), you cannot just change it in the meal foods that are available right in front of you from the entry just made. In the milk example here, you would have to add 2 oz. of milk as a separate item. Very clumsy and quite shortsighted.
2. Backup of the database is apparently allowed only to an external USB (including flash) drive. Not the neatest thing and liable to become like so many other backups... neglected. Much better would be to allow backups to any drive in "My Computer". For example, I have several network drives that are always connected when I'm at home... that's where I'd like to do backups. That way I'm not having to connect/disconnect flash drives. Result: it will be much more likely to get done. Also nice would be an "autobackup" option, especially with a network drive, that would copy the database out on a regular basis (multiple times per week). See also #4 for an additional backup option possibility.
3. Program support is sparse or non-existent, at least in my brief experience. I have yet to receive an answer to my question regarding how to make the program backup to a network drive (and I don't think it can).
4. Does not integrate with DropBox. See also #2 on this. Using DropBox would be a great way to automatically backup the database while the computer is connected to the internet, always auto-syncing when re-connecting. This would also make for a nice way to ensure current data when going from a fixed base PC to a traveling laptop.
5. Price is a bit high ($49.95). There is a (free) demo version, but the demo program is hamstrung rather than having all capabilities with a (say) 1 week time limit for functionality. There are some things you really cannot figure out if you are unable to, for example, add/edit foods in the database (and you cannot add/edit foods with the demo version).
6. The layout is a bit cartoonish looking (strictly personal preference).
7. After opening the program, dragging in its window edges to the desired size and then locating it appropriately on the screen, it is a bit dismaying to find that the program *always* re-opens in the middle of the screen and at the same fixed size as before it was set up for my screen configuration. Better for it to save the size and location information and just load up that way as long as the same size (in pixels) screen is being used whenever the program is re-started.
8. For exercise (i.e. calories burned) data entry, there is no way to enter your own calories burned value (for example, from a heart monitor calorie counting system) except by creating a completely new exercise every time you make an entry (because your monitored value entry will almost surely *not* agree with any of the canned exercise table entries from the database). A more efficient "I know the calories I need to enter for this exercise" method would be very much appreciated.
9. Although the list of nutritional elements that can be monitored in the database is extremely extensive, every element of the list (yes, including those that the user is not keeping track of) is listed and must be scrolled through, in alphabetical order, to get to the item that is to be updated. This makes for very tedious scrolling to input some of the items. An improvement would be to automatically display items selected for tracking *first* with the remaining (untracked and unused) items following.
10. When entering nutrients for a "new" food, the program requires the user to manually convert input data to grams, micrograms, etc., rather than allowing for a "percent of daily value" input (for example, if calcium supplied in a food is 35% (per the food's nutrition label), the user must first, from an independent source, look up the Daily Value (DV) for calcium (1000 mg) and then go multiply that number by .35 and enter the value in milligrams into the program's food database. It does seem better to allow for entry of the 35% value from right off the nutrition label and have the program convert that to (in this case) 350 mg. This process gets even more onerous when dealing with multiple conversion steps for such things as International Units to milligrams.
Summary Comments
In summary, this program has many good elements at its core but on a 1-10 basis (10 being best), I would have to rate it at about an 8, especially for the price. The best adjective for how it feels to use the program is "tedious"... although it basically gets the job done. Furthermore, it doesn't have the feel of being fully supported as it is not spec'd for operation on Windows 8 (although that does not mean that it won't work with Windows 8, it very well might), it is not familiar with cloud type interfaces (such as DropBox) and I've not received any response to my email support request (yet). In a more up-to-date program, I also feel that a key function like database backup would be handled more efficiently and flexibly and would not be so tightly intertwined with USB flash drive technology... especially for the price paid. Given these shortcomings, I'd estimate that this program would be much more accurately valued at a price of $20 to $30.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Installing Photoshop CS3 on Macbook Pro, Lion 10.7.5
In attempting to install Photoshop CS3 from the standard installation DVD on my new (mid-2012) Macbook Pro (with OS X Lion, 10.7.5), I ran into an immediate error message as the DVD's setup app started executing. The error had nothing to do with the (often seen) "... install a Java runtime... ". Instead, the message I received was "photoshop cs3 Setup has encountered an error and cannot continue. Contact Adobe Customer Support for assistance."
My solution was to make an image (.dmg) file of the installation DVD on the desktop using Disk Utility (with the DVD mounted, select it on the left side of the Disk Utility window then click on "New Image" and choose the Desktop as the destination). After that, I opened the image file and executed Setup.app (in the Adobe Photoshop CS3 folder). And it installed! I expect this same issue might show up on Mountain Lion as well and, although I haven't tested it, the same solution should certainly be attempted.
This entry might hopefully be seen by someone with the same problem as I was having and, hopefully, the solution posted here will work for you. Good luck!
My solution was to make an image (.dmg) file of the installation DVD on the desktop using Disk Utility (with the DVD mounted, select it on the left side of the Disk Utility window then click on "New Image" and choose the Desktop as the destination). After that, I opened the image file and executed Setup.app (in the Adobe Photoshop CS3 folder). And it installed! I expect this same issue might show up on Mountain Lion as well and, although I haven't tested it, the same solution should certainly be attempted.
This entry might hopefully be seen by someone with the same problem as I was having and, hopefully, the solution posted here will work for you. Good luck!
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Paul Ryan for Mitt...
I just finished reading an AP news brief on the Paul Ryan (congressman from Wisconsin) selection as Mitt Romney's running mate. Of course, the Republican party (today) stands for "equal opportunity"... at least equal as long as "equality" means votes for Republican candidates. And we all now are (or should be) aware that Ronald Reagan could never make it through today's Republican party vetting process... yes, he could never be elected as President of the United States today. He would be considered waaayyyy too liberal.
So here we are with today's Republican Vice Presidential candidate hitting the ground running and saying something that immediately rung my memory bells, bringing to life a speech that has echoed through history, a speech by one of the earliest Republicans. Congressman Ryan, today, said "Our rights come from nature and from God, not government." And I say is that really true? I suppose it is, in today's Republican mantra that includes exclusion, that embraces discrimination and that would roll back any of a number of Enlightenment era laws that have helped those in this country that are less able to help themselves (think Social Security, Civil Rights, LGBT Rights, Medicare...).
But we should take a closer look at what Mr. Ryan is saying. Because his statement is clearly in conflict with that of a former Republican with, I would venture to say, significantly more understanding of, and compassion for, humanity than Mr. Ryan (or Mr. Romney) will ever even begin to have. That Republican is President Abraham Lincoln (the first Republican President, 1861-1865) whose words echo, from the Gettysburg Address (1863), that our government is "of the people, by the people, for the people... ". And Mr. Lincoln, I submit, was, and is still, right. Today's fight is really not against conservatism or liberalism in government, it is against both the wasteful use of our resources and funds (yes, Democrats, just plead guilty here, but you are not alone) *and* to ensure that we do not turn to a Christian Theocracy, as Paul Ryan is clearly advocating. Indeed, it is imperative that we do not turn to *any* theocratic form of government but that we heed the founding fathers and ensure freedom of religion by maintaining "a wall of separation between church & state" --Thomas Jefferson, 1802.
It is imperative that we recognize that our rights come from the people, from us... the citizens of this country and that the United States form of government, as embodied in our Constitution (which never once mentions "God"), was originally designed to *ensure* that we do not have to rely on any supernatural being(s) for our human rights (we "been there, done that"--remember Europe and the Dark/Middle Ages, the Inquisition... those were the manifestations of religious control of "human rights").
Remember to vote in November... at least if the conservatives have not passed laws in your state that keep you from doing so.
So here we are with today's Republican Vice Presidential candidate hitting the ground running and saying something that immediately rung my memory bells, bringing to life a speech that has echoed through history, a speech by one of the earliest Republicans. Congressman Ryan, today, said "Our rights come from nature and from God, not government." And I say is that really true? I suppose it is, in today's Republican mantra that includes exclusion, that embraces discrimination and that would roll back any of a number of Enlightenment era laws that have helped those in this country that are less able to help themselves (think Social Security, Civil Rights, LGBT Rights, Medicare...).
But we should take a closer look at what Mr. Ryan is saying. Because his statement is clearly in conflict with that of a former Republican with, I would venture to say, significantly more understanding of, and compassion for, humanity than Mr. Ryan (or Mr. Romney) will ever even begin to have. That Republican is President Abraham Lincoln (the first Republican President, 1861-1865) whose words echo, from the Gettysburg Address (1863), that our government is "of the people, by the people, for the people... ". And Mr. Lincoln, I submit, was, and is still, right. Today's fight is really not against conservatism or liberalism in government, it is against both the wasteful use of our resources and funds (yes, Democrats, just plead guilty here, but you are not alone) *and* to ensure that we do not turn to a Christian Theocracy, as Paul Ryan is clearly advocating. Indeed, it is imperative that we do not turn to *any* theocratic form of government but that we heed the founding fathers and ensure freedom of religion by maintaining "a wall of separation between church & state" --Thomas Jefferson, 1802.
It is imperative that we recognize that our rights come from the people, from us... the citizens of this country and that the United States form of government, as embodied in our Constitution (which never once mentions "God"), was originally designed to *ensure* that we do not have to rely on any supernatural being(s) for our human rights (we "been there, done that"--remember Europe and the Dark/Middle Ages, the Inquisition... those were the manifestations of religious control of "human rights").
Remember to vote in November... at least if the conservatives have not passed laws in your state that keep you from doing so
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Bicycle Knee Soreness-Not
Introduction
From time to time I have heard of or have been involved in conversations where a biker (bicyclist type) complains about having sore knees after riding, even if only on rides of fairly short distances (<10 miles). Not being a doctor, I can't make any professional medical pronouncements on this condition but I want to take a few minutes to share some experience I have on the subject. If it works for you, great, if not then "Big Disclaimer, yadda, yadda, yadda... ;-).
I have had sore knees in the past from running on hard surfaces and from many, many hours in the gym practicing and playing volleyball. Bicycling, walking and cross country skiing are now my preferred exercise modes primarily because they are very low impact. But when I first started logging a significant number of biking miles (15-16 years ago), I would occasionally come up with sore knees too. The resolution I quickly arrived at was pretty straightforward, primarily involving "fitting" of the bicycle to my body flavored with the addition of some understanding about the mechanics of how the body handles the motion and effort involved in propelling a bicycle. Please note that this article is primarily directed toward standard bicycle frames and not recumbent bicycles, although the main principles apply to both.
Background
There are 4 important elements to consider if you want to get the most out of your bicycle riding time while avoiding sore knees. These are:
1. Correct frame size for your leg length
2. Correct setting of the saddle position
3. Monitoring pedal cadence while riding
4. Monitoring your heart rate while riding
Follow The Steps
The first two items above comprise the elements of fitting the bicycle to the individual (you). Items 3 and 4 complement the (now) well fitted bicycle and rider, providing real time feedback to ensure the most efficient return on exercise time as well as providing awareness of proper pedaling effort... very important in terms of preventing injuries or chronic pain conditions from occurring. More detail is presented step by step below.
Step 1.
Taking the time and effort to get the proper frame size is crucial to everything that follows. I recommend that this be done with professional guidance at your Local Bike Shop. Generally, the longer the rider's legs, the bigger the frame that is required. As an example, for me at 5'10", the correct frame size (for my 2007 TriCross Sport bicycle) is 54cm. There is a fairly close correlation between frame size and overall height but I recommend paying attention to your inseam size (mine is 33"). At any rate, the variables here clearly lend themselves to "on the bike" measurement by someone that does this type of thing regularly.
Step 2.
Once the proper size bike is available be sure to take the time to ensure the proper saddle height. This is as important as step 1 and must never be neglected. To set the saddle height, first get the saddle in an approximately appropriate "fore-aft" position (don't worry too much about this yet). Then sit on the saddle (holding yourself up by a wall or the side of a car or with assistance from a companion) and, with normal riding shoes on, place the heel of your foot on either pedal with the pedal in its fully "extended down" position. If the leg can be just straightened completely (with no noticeable bend), you are set. If the leg is bent then the saddle is too low and must be raised. If the heel cannot comfortably reach the pedal with the leg fully extended then the saddle is too high and must be lowered. Adjust the saddle and check again until the height seems to be right. And be careful to ensure that the seat post is inserted within its proper (marked on the post) range.
It may be necessary to iterate the "up/down" and "fore/aft" a few times to get it right. Fore/aft saddle placement is best done by holding a string with a weight (use a large washer or a nut) against the outside base of the patella of the knee while sitting on the bike with the foot (not just the heel) properly placed on the pedal and the pedal in the fully forward (crank parallel to the ground) position. The string should exactly intersect the axle of the pedal. If it is forward of the pedal axle, the saddle must be moved back and if it is back of the pedal axle, the saddle must be moved forward. In either case, if saddle movement is required, the vertical position of the saddle should be re-checked to ensure that it is still correct. Some personal leeway is generally applied regarding fore/aft saddle position. Many riders prefer, for example, to set the saddle back just a little as they feel it adds more power to the pedaling stroke. If you feel you do need to deviate from the fore/aft positions outlined here, I recommend the rearward direction over moving the saddle forward as it implies less pressure on bent knee joints.
An interesting point about vertical saddle position is this: in order to make the most effective (and efficient) use of the legs, the rider should never be able to easily touch the ground with more than the tips of the toes when sitting on the saddle. This means that dismounting is accomplished by removing one foot (say the right one) from its pedal, standing on the other (the left) leg and then bending that supporting leg to lower the (right) foot to the ground... all the while braking in a coordinated fashion to complete the stop. It's my opinion that most sore knees happen to inexperienced riders who feel insecure if they are unable to put their feet down flatfooted on the ground while still sitting on the saddle. When a bike is set up in this fashion, as noted above, the saddle is set too low. The result will always be that the legs are not allowed to reach their full length (and maximum power) when pedaling and, I think, this is what strains the ligaments of the knee, causing the soreness.
Once steps 1 and 2 are completed to the rider's satisfaction, the importance of using the bicycle's gearing system properly moves front and center as the key to items 3 and 4. Items 3 and 4 complement each other and they are intimately joined by use of the mechanical advantages given by proper selection of the front and rear gears of the bike.
Step 3.
Monitoring pedal cadence (i.e., RPM of pedals) is relevant to both efficient use of the engine (the rider's body) driving the bicycle as well as the condition of the mechanical linkage (particularly the rider's knees) upon which power transmission to the pedals depends. It may be easiest to think of this in terms of how a car's engine and transmission interact. The principles are identical. For example, when driving a car with a standard transmission (say, 5 speeds) one starts off in the lowest (or 2nd lowest) gear. The reason is that there is more mechanical advantage in the lower gear and, although the top speed of the car might only be 15 or 20 mph in the low gear, extra power is provided to the wheels to get the mass of the vehicle moving. Without the gearing system, the car might require a 1000 horsepower engine to both "get started" as well as to cruise on the interstate. Efficiency would definitely suffer if this were the case.
In terms of the bicycle rider, and the issue of sore knees, efficient transmission of the rider's muscle power to the pedals means that extreme stress on the knee ligaments is avoided by proper gear selection. In other words, riding in "too high" a gear at slow speeds will put strain on the knee joint. So gear down as appropriate to how fast you wish to ride. While there's generally no additional strain involved with "spinning" pedals too fast (i.e. too low a gear when traveling at relative high speed), riders almost naturally seem to shift up (as well they should) when that occurs.
Step 4.
As promised, this step ties in to the 3 preceding elements by allowing the rider to monitor the condition of the "engine" (you... and your heart) in various states of gearing and effort expenditure during a ride. Pedaling cadence, gearing and the rider's heart rate (or amount of effort being put into the ride) are intimately related. If you don't know your aerobic exercise range of heart rate, please take the time to find out what it is (google will do a good job helping you learn this) and be aware of the numbers as you will use them regularly if you follow the precepts presented here. My range is from 125 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). A heart rate below the low value means the body is not being as efficient as it could be at, for example, burning fat... or at utilizing the carbohydrate produced energy of the body to get the best speed for the least amount of effort. The goal is to maximize the amount of time spent in your aerobic zone. To this end it's useful to use a heart rate monitor (HRM) on the bicycle.
Putting It All Together
With a properly fitted bicycle, monitoring one's heart rate to keep it in your aerobic zone while simultaneously keeping tabs on pedaling cadence for a preferred value (for me, 80-90 rpm feels right) will give the rider the best riding performance and least stress on the knees. For example, if, in my case, my heart rate drops to 110 and my cadence is 95, it's time to shift up to a higher gear. That will make my heart (or me as the "engine") speed up as I work closer to my body's maximum efficiency regime. So I might shift (back rings) from 6th to 7th. Whereupon I will immediately notice the cadence dropping (to, say, 85) and my heart rate should increase (to, say, 120). In this case, I'd probably shift up again to 8 and put more effort into pedaling to get my heart rate up to about 130 and keep the cadence at around 85. Well, I think you get the idea.
Conversely, if my heart rate should go significantly about 150 (my maximum for aerobic exercise), I'd probably adapt by shifting to a lower gear, reducing the pedaling effort... and see the heart rate drop to, say 140. Meanwhile, I'd keep paying some attention to the cadence so that it leveled off again at the (favorite) 85 rpm rate.
A quick word of caution: be sure to maintain your concentration on riding safely and with due attention to people and other bikers on the trail or to traffic around you if on the road. As always, riding should be an enjoyable experience. Hopefully this article will be useful to those that have been trying to solve sore knee problems when bicycling. Feel free to comment.
From time to time I have heard of or have been involved in conversations where a biker (bicyclist type) complains about having sore knees after riding, even if only on rides of fairly short distances (<10 miles). Not being a doctor, I can't make any professional medical pronouncements on this condition but I want to take a few minutes to share some experience I have on the subject. If it works for you, great, if not then "Big Disclaimer, yadda, yadda, yadda... ;-).
I have had sore knees in the past from running on hard surfaces and from many, many hours in the gym practicing and playing volleyball. Bicycling, walking and cross country skiing are now my preferred exercise modes primarily because they are very low impact. But when I first started logging a significant number of biking miles (15-16 years ago), I would occasionally come up with sore knees too. The resolution I quickly arrived at was pretty straightforward, primarily involving "fitting" of the bicycle to my body flavored with the addition of some understanding about the mechanics of how the body handles the motion and effort involved in propelling a bicycle. Please note that this article is primarily directed toward standard bicycle frames and not recumbent bicycles, although the main principles apply to both.
Background
There are 4 important elements to consider if you want to get the most out of your bicycle riding time while avoiding sore knees. These are:
1. Correct frame size for your leg length
2. Correct setting of the saddle position
3. Monitoring pedal cadence while riding
4. Monitoring your heart rate while riding
Follow The Steps
The first two items above comprise the elements of fitting the bicycle to the individual (you). Items 3 and 4 complement the (now) well fitted bicycle and rider, providing real time feedback to ensure the most efficient return on exercise time as well as providing awareness of proper pedaling effort... very important in terms of preventing injuries or chronic pain conditions from occurring. More detail is presented step by step below.
Step 1.
Taking the time and effort to get the proper frame size is crucial to everything that follows. I recommend that this be done with professional guidance at your Local Bike Shop. Generally, the longer the rider's legs, the bigger the frame that is required. As an example, for me at 5'10", the correct frame size (for my 2007 TriCross Sport bicycle) is 54cm. There is a fairly close correlation between frame size and overall height but I recommend paying attention to your inseam size (mine is 33"). At any rate, the variables here clearly lend themselves to "on the bike" measurement by someone that does this type of thing regularly.
Step 2.
Once the proper size bike is available be sure to take the time to ensure the proper saddle height. This is as important as step 1 and must never be neglected. To set the saddle height, first get the saddle in an approximately appropriate "fore-aft" position (don't worry too much about this yet). Then sit on the saddle (holding yourself up by a wall or the side of a car or with assistance from a companion) and, with normal riding shoes on, place the heel of your foot on either pedal with the pedal in its fully "extended down" position. If the leg can be just straightened completely (with no noticeable bend), you are set. If the leg is bent then the saddle is too low and must be raised. If the heel cannot comfortably reach the pedal with the leg fully extended then the saddle is too high and must be lowered. Adjust the saddle and check again until the height seems to be right. And be careful to ensure that the seat post is inserted within its proper (marked on the post) range.
It may be necessary to iterate the "up/down" and "fore/aft" a few times to get it right. Fore/aft saddle placement is best done by holding a string with a weight (use a large washer or a nut) against the outside base of the patella of the knee while sitting on the bike with the foot (not just the heel) properly placed on the pedal and the pedal in the fully forward (crank parallel to the ground) position. The string should exactly intersect the axle of the pedal. If it is forward of the pedal axle, the saddle must be moved back and if it is back of the pedal axle, the saddle must be moved forward. In either case, if saddle movement is required, the vertical position of the saddle should be re-checked to ensure that it is still correct. Some personal leeway is generally applied regarding fore/aft saddle position. Many riders prefer, for example, to set the saddle back just a little as they feel it adds more power to the pedaling stroke. If you feel you do need to deviate from the fore/aft positions outlined here, I recommend the rearward direction over moving the saddle forward as it implies less pressure on bent knee joints.
An interesting point about vertical saddle position is this: in order to make the most effective (and efficient) use of the legs, the rider should never be able to easily touch the ground with more than the tips of the toes when sitting on the saddle. This means that dismounting is accomplished by removing one foot (say the right one) from its pedal, standing on the other (the left) leg and then bending that supporting leg to lower the (right) foot to the ground... all the while braking in a coordinated fashion to complete the stop. It's my opinion that most sore knees happen to inexperienced riders who feel insecure if they are unable to put their feet down flatfooted on the ground while still sitting on the saddle. When a bike is set up in this fashion, as noted above, the saddle is set too low. The result will always be that the legs are not allowed to reach their full length (and maximum power) when pedaling and, I think, this is what strains the ligaments of the knee, causing the soreness.
Once steps 1 and 2 are completed to the rider's satisfaction, the importance of using the bicycle's gearing system properly moves front and center as the key to items 3 and 4. Items 3 and 4 complement each other and they are intimately joined by use of the mechanical advantages given by proper selection of the front and rear gears of the bike.
Step 3.
Monitoring pedal cadence (i.e., RPM of pedals) is relevant to both efficient use of the engine (the rider's body) driving the bicycle as well as the condition of the mechanical linkage (particularly the rider's knees) upon which power transmission to the pedals depends. It may be easiest to think of this in terms of how a car's engine and transmission interact. The principles are identical. For example, when driving a car with a standard transmission (say, 5 speeds) one starts off in the lowest (or 2nd lowest) gear. The reason is that there is more mechanical advantage in the lower gear and, although the top speed of the car might only be 15 or 20 mph in the low gear, extra power is provided to the wheels to get the mass of the vehicle moving. Without the gearing system, the car might require a 1000 horsepower engine to both "get started" as well as to cruise on the interstate. Efficiency would definitely suffer if this were the case.
In terms of the bicycle rider, and the issue of sore knees, efficient transmission of the rider's muscle power to the pedals means that extreme stress on the knee ligaments is avoided by proper gear selection. In other words, riding in "too high" a gear at slow speeds will put strain on the knee joint. So gear down as appropriate to how fast you wish to ride. While there's generally no additional strain involved with "spinning" pedals too fast (i.e. too low a gear when traveling at relative high speed), riders almost naturally seem to shift up (as well they should) when that occurs.
Step 4.
As promised, this step ties in to the 3 preceding elements by allowing the rider to monitor the condition of the "engine" (you... and your heart) in various states of gearing and effort expenditure during a ride. Pedaling cadence, gearing and the rider's heart rate (or amount of effort being put into the ride) are intimately related. If you don't know your aerobic exercise range of heart rate, please take the time to find out what it is (google will do a good job helping you learn this) and be aware of the numbers as you will use them regularly if you follow the precepts presented here. My range is from 125 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). A heart rate below the low value means the body is not being as efficient as it could be at, for example, burning fat... or at utilizing the carbohydrate produced energy of the body to get the best speed for the least amount of effort. The goal is to maximize the amount of time spent in your aerobic zone. To this end it's useful to use a heart rate monitor (HRM) on the bicycle.
Putting It All Together
With a properly fitted bicycle, monitoring one's heart rate to keep it in your aerobic zone while simultaneously keeping tabs on pedaling cadence for a preferred value (for me, 80-90 rpm feels right) will give the rider the best riding performance and least stress on the knees. For example, if, in my case, my heart rate drops to 110 and my cadence is 95, it's time to shift up to a higher gear. That will make my heart (or me as the "engine") speed up as I work closer to my body's maximum efficiency regime. So I might shift (back rings) from 6th to 7th. Whereupon I will immediately notice the cadence dropping (to, say, 85) and my heart rate should increase (to, say, 120). In this case, I'd probably shift up again to 8 and put more effort into pedaling to get my heart rate up to about 130 and keep the cadence at around 85. Well, I think you get the idea.
Conversely, if my heart rate should go significantly about 150 (my maximum for aerobic exercise), I'd probably adapt by shifting to a lower gear, reducing the pedaling effort... and see the heart rate drop to, say 140. Meanwhile, I'd keep paying some attention to the cadence so that it leveled off again at the (favorite) 85 rpm rate.
A quick word of caution: be sure to maintain your concentration on riding safely and with due attention to people and other bikers on the trail or to traffic around you if on the road. As always, riding should be an enjoyable experience. Hopefully this article will be useful to those that have been trying to solve sore knee problems when bicycling. Feel free to comment.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Washington Insanity
While I don't usually comment on the events in our nation's capital, this is one time that I feel compelled to do so. One reason is that my son is in the process of moving and has just received an offer on the house he's selling. But the buyer hasn't finalized yet and it's *very* likely that the buyer's financing costs are going to go up. At this point, that is likely regardless of whether or not our (less than astute) politicians raise the government's debt ceiling. The reason is that the U.S.'s credit rating is certainly going to be downgraded by the other 2 (of 3) rating agencies and credit across the country will be going up. Yes, that includes borrowing costs for us, the taxpayers.
Everyone out there, blame *both* Republicans and Democrats. Republicans for the budgetary mess they've generated during the Bush administration (2 unfunded wars plus the $1 trillion unfunded prescription drug program) and Democrats for being just as liable in going along with deregulation (or "looking the other way") steps regarding the mortgage backed securities fraud being perpetrated by Wall Street since at least the Clinton administration. Additionally, Democrats seem to almost never see a tax they would like to add.
Proclivity to tax and spend by Democrats, coupled with the Tea Party anti-tax fanaticism and overall consuming greed of conservatives has meant that there are no longer enough moderate voices to pass legislation, important or not, that is meaningful and rational and very necessary to the welfare and progress of our country. The answer has been clear... we need to let the Bush tax cuts expire and also cut spending in rational and appropriate ways. We then need to reform our tax code with an eye to letting all contribute appropriately (some kind of "flat" tax algorithm). If any of this happens now, at the 11th hour, it will be in spite of the Tea Party but, and note this carefully, it is already too late to prevent a fairly decent negative shock to our economy (just what we need, I know) in the form of 1-2% increases in interest rates across the board.
As Bush's administration unfolded I took no joy in knowing that I (a lifelong Republican at that point) did not vote for him either time. Or that I finally dropped my Republican party affiliation in Iowa and became an Independent. I still vote for the person I think will do the best job, but it's hard to see anyone in Washington doing that right now. All I can say is... what a bunch of losers we have there. And it's us, the voters, that are to blame. So what are we going to do about it?
Everyone out there, blame *both* Republicans and Democrats. Republicans for the budgetary mess they've generated during the Bush administration (2 unfunded wars plus the $1 trillion unfunded prescription drug program) and Democrats for being just as liable in going along with deregulation (or "looking the other way") steps regarding the mortgage backed securities fraud being perpetrated by Wall Street since at least the Clinton administration. Additionally, Democrats seem to almost never see a tax they would like to add.
Proclivity to tax and spend by Democrats, coupled with the Tea Party anti-tax fanaticism and overall consuming greed of conservatives has meant that there are no longer enough moderate voices to pass legislation, important or not, that is meaningful and rational and very necessary to the welfare and progress of our country. The answer has been clear... we need to let the Bush tax cuts expire and also cut spending in rational and appropriate ways. We then need to reform our tax code with an eye to letting all contribute appropriately (some kind of "flat" tax algorithm). If any of this happens now, at the 11th hour, it will be in spite of the Tea Party but, and note this carefully, it is already too late to prevent a fairly decent negative shock to our economy (just what we need, I know) in the form of 1-2% increases in interest rates across the board.
As Bush's administration unfolded I took no joy in knowing that I (a lifelong Republican at that point) did not vote for him either time. Or that I finally dropped my Republican party affiliation in Iowa and became an Independent. I still vote for the person I think will do the best job, but it's hard to see anyone in Washington doing that right now. All I can say is... what a bunch of losers we have there. And it's us, the voters, that are to blame. So what are we going to do about it?
Friday, July 15, 2011
Minnesota's Budget Crisis Ends... Cheers!
Interesting to note that the Minnesota legislature (and Governor Dayton) rather quickly (after such a long period of disagreement and non-compromising stands) came up with a solution to the budget crisis that has shut the state down for several weeks. Interesting because it seems that the real mover was the fact that it wouldn't be very long before no more beer would be available in the state due to the lack of official government business license sales. That was very clearly enough to get things going and a resolution appeared in short order. It would seem that timely resolution of the Minnesota budget issues would've been assured, in tandem with tremendous angst avoidance, if the legislative session was scheduled to end on St. Patrick's Day.
We can only hope that the President and the (so-called) leaders of Congress decide that they too need to share a beer...
We can only hope that the President and the (so-called) leaders of Congress decide that they too need to share a beer...
Monday, January 10, 2011
Droid 2 Global and Rapid Car Charger on Garmin Friction Mount
Being both a long time GPS development engineer (now retired) as well as a commercial GPS user, I've used the Garmin Friction (or "bean bag") mount in my car for many years. It's reliable, easy to move out of sight and great for moving to an alternate vehicle whenever that need arises. Additionally, for California driving in particular, using the bean bag mount is a good alternative to mounting the GPS device to the windshield--illegal in that state.
With the advent of smart phones and their very useful, somewhat sophisticated GPS navigation capabilities, I finally did buy one ... a Droid 2 Global. The GPS driven goal of using this phone was to be able to attach it to my Garmin friction mount, for the reasons given above.
Some online research led me to the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger device for the Droid 2. This product works as is for the Droid 2 Global and there are different models for other phones (such as Droid X). So I had part of my answer but hadn't yet found a connection device that would let me hook it up to the bean bag mount.
Enter ProClipUSA and their "2 Prong (Dual T) Adapter Plate with Tilt Swivel" (P/N 215199). Coupled with their P/N 215049, the "Angled extension plate for use with the Garmin Friction mount", I felt that I finally had the answer I was looking for. In the process of researching and exchanging emails to get to this point, however, I became aware that there were concerns and issues with mounting the phone into the Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger while the phone was still in its case. Most of the comments ended in hints that the only case(s) that would fit were produced by Motorola (big surprise, eh?). But my new phone was already fitted with a Seidio Innocase. I like this case because it gives the phone a great feel, it is very easy to "get a grip" on and, bottom line, I'm loath to give it up. But moving forward on the "GPS mounted in the car" front might mean I'd have to give the case up ... if it just totally wouldn't work. Time would tell the story and I'll show you what I did and how all the parts go together in the rest of this article.
This is the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger--the installation of which is the subject of this article. Note the phone power (micro-USB) connector extending up from near the bottom, just left of center. The phone must insert smoothly over this power connector.
This picture shows the rear view of the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger (which I'll call the "Car Mount" from this point on). Note the micro-USB power connect plugin on the lower left. This is where power from the (included) 12V car "cigarette lighter" cable is received by the car mount. The center section contains the dual "T" mounting slots and this is what must be adapted to the Garmin Friction mount.
Here is the ProClipUSA dual "T" adapter (P/N 215199) already attached to the Angled Extension plate (P/N 215049). In this configuration, it is capable of swiveling, turning and it is ready to install directly into the Garmin Friction mount. Note the dual tabs and, returning to the previous picture, it's easy to see how they fit into the Car Mount.
Note the closeup detail here of the left interior corner of the Car Mount. In particular, notice the small lip that extends in from the inner edge. The purpose of this lip is to provide "in and out" horizontal support to keep the mounted phone in place on the Car Mount. We'll go into more detail later on why this is an issue for phone cases.
This is the Droid 2 "insert" for the car mount. Being a well designed device, the Car Mount allows for the Droid 2 (or Droid 2 Global) to be inserted with or without having a case attached. This insert uses up the extra space that a case would normally use just "in case" you'd like to use your phone without the case. If the insert was not present the phone would not be stable in the mount and would essentially be held in place by the power connector only. That would be a non-workable design. Just pop in the insert and the phone fits perfectly.
This shows the "no case" adapter insert being slid into place on the car mount.
And, finally, this shows the Car Mount with the Droid 2 insert adapter fully installed. The difference with and without the insert is subtle but can easily be seen by comparing this to the 1st picture of this article (which shows the Car Mount *without* the Droid 2 insert). Note that the Car Mount comes with the insert installed so it must be removed to work with a phone that remains in its case. Also, there is a second insert supplied that allows using the original Droid phone (although I cannot comment on how it works as I don't have that phone to test it with). For this project, we are not interested in using the Droid 2 insert since it's best to mount the phone while it remains in its regular case, so we remove it.
This is the Garmin Friction mount. It has a bit of heft to it and is coupled with a non-skid bottom surface so that it does a very good job of staying wherever it is placed on your dash. While this unit is specifically from Garmin, similar (and compatible) mounts may be purchased from 3rd party vendors at such stores as Target.
Here is the ProClip mount (pictured earlier) attached to the Garmin Friction mount. It is now clear that all we need to accomplish is to successfully attach the Car Mount to the "dual T" mounting tabs on the ProClip and we'll be most of the way there.
And so we have it. All the critical components (sans power) together in one spot with the exception of the Droid 2 Global phone itself. At this point, it's probably best if I elaborate on an earlier comment regarding concerns about using "whatever case" one would like to use on the phone, and not having to remove that case just to mount the phone in the Car Mount. Alas, I found, at first blush, that my Seidio Innocase would not "fit" into the car mount. The next picture, however, illustrates my solution to this problem.
This is a picture of the backside portion of my Seidio Innocase. For orientation purposes, the right (near vertical) edge is the bottom of the case. So the corner seen here is the lower right, looking from the front. What I did is quite simple and I think most people should have an easy time repeating it. Look closely and you can see that the edge at the top (which is the right-hand side of the case) looks fairly rough ... like it has been filed down. And so it has. After using a small, fine file to take out about 1/2 inch on both the lower right and lower left vertical sections of the case, it was able to slip past the "holding tabs" in the Car Mount and let the phone mate perfectly with the power connector. Check below for more detail pictures.
Here is a closeup of the Seidio Innocase, filed down per the previous paragraph. Note how the minor bit of filing allows it to slide down behind the Car Mount's "hold in" tabs. This is the only trick to getting this case to work and I suspect the same technique will be just as effective for other cases that might not fit the Car Mount when first tried.
And here is a picture of the Seidio Innocase for the Droid 2 Global successfully installed in the Car Mount. The small amount of filing done was in two spots that did not involve the case's "hold on" tabs for the phone and it had absolutely no functional effect on the case. The filing is also virtually impossible to see with the case attached to the phone. And, of course, it works!
Here is a closeup from the right rear of the Car Mount showing the connected power cord (from the vehicle power adapter).
Here is the completed project with the Droid 2 Global phone in the Car Mount and displaying the Motorola supplied application that automatically runs when the phone senses that it is connected to the Car Mount. The sharp eyed amongst you may notice that the hold down arm at the top of the mount has not yet been pushed down onto the phone (but see the next, and final, picture for that).
This final picture shows the completed project with phone installed and ready to be taken out to the car and plugged in. And it works well.
To summarize, the parts for this are available at ProClipUSA.com (P/N 215199 and 215049) and, among other places, Amazon.com for the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger. The Garmin Friction mount is available at numerous locations online and locally at stores like Target, WalMart, etc. This project specifically involved installation of the Droid 2 Global with a Seidio Innocase but it also works for the Droid 2. I strongly suspect that it will work for the Droid X (given the proper Car Mount model) and the corresponding Seidio Innocase but perhaps someone who actually implements this for the Droid X would be willing to comment on the success of their effort. I'm also confident that other cases will be able to be made to work but you have to look at them to see what specifically blocks them from mounting in order to determine that. And, of course, there appear to be one or more Motorola cases that are designed to work with this setup without additional modification.
I hope this has been useful to you and feel free to comment. Thanks!
With the advent of smart phones and their very useful, somewhat sophisticated GPS navigation capabilities, I finally did buy one ... a Droid 2 Global. The GPS driven goal of using this phone was to be able to attach it to my Garmin friction mount, for the reasons given above.
Some online research led me to the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger device for the Droid 2. This product works as is for the Droid 2 Global and there are different models for other phones (such as Droid X). So I had part of my answer but hadn't yet found a connection device that would let me hook it up to the bean bag mount.
Enter ProClipUSA and their "2 Prong (Dual T) Adapter Plate with Tilt Swivel" (P/N 215199). Coupled with their P/N 215049, the "Angled extension plate for use with the Garmin Friction mount", I felt that I finally had the answer I was looking for. In the process of researching and exchanging emails to get to this point, however, I became aware that there were concerns and issues with mounting the phone into the Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger while the phone was still in its case. Most of the comments ended in hints that the only case(s) that would fit were produced by Motorola (big surprise, eh?). But my new phone was already fitted with a Seidio Innocase. I like this case because it gives the phone a great feel, it is very easy to "get a grip" on and, bottom line, I'm loath to give it up. But moving forward on the "GPS mounted in the car" front might mean I'd have to give the case up ... if it just totally wouldn't work. Time would tell the story and I'll show you what I did and how all the parts go together in the rest of this article.
This is the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger--the installation of which is the subject of this article. Note the phone power (micro-USB) connector extending up from near the bottom, just left of center. The phone must insert smoothly over this power connector.
This picture shows the rear view of the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger (which I'll call the "Car Mount" from this point on). Note the micro-USB power connect plugin on the lower left. This is where power from the (included) 12V car "cigarette lighter" cable is received by the car mount. The center section contains the dual "T" mounting slots and this is what must be adapted to the Garmin Friction mount.
Here is the ProClipUSA dual "T" adapter (P/N 215199) already attached to the Angled Extension plate (P/N 215049). In this configuration, it is capable of swiveling, turning and it is ready to install directly into the Garmin Friction mount. Note the dual tabs and, returning to the previous picture, it's easy to see how they fit into the Car Mount.
Note the closeup detail here of the left interior corner of the Car Mount. In particular, notice the small lip that extends in from the inner edge. The purpose of this lip is to provide "in and out" horizontal support to keep the mounted phone in place on the Car Mount. We'll go into more detail later on why this is an issue for phone cases.
This is the Droid 2 "insert" for the car mount. Being a well designed device, the Car Mount allows for the Droid 2 (or Droid 2 Global) to be inserted with or without having a case attached. This insert uses up the extra space that a case would normally use just "in case" you'd like to use your phone without the case. If the insert was not present the phone would not be stable in the mount and would essentially be held in place by the power connector only. That would be a non-workable design. Just pop in the insert and the phone fits perfectly.
This shows the "no case" adapter insert being slid into place on the car mount.
And, finally, this shows the Car Mount with the Droid 2 insert adapter fully installed. The difference with and without the insert is subtle but can easily be seen by comparing this to the 1st picture of this article (which shows the Car Mount *without* the Droid 2 insert). Note that the Car Mount comes with the insert installed so it must be removed to work with a phone that remains in its case. Also, there is a second insert supplied that allows using the original Droid phone (although I cannot comment on how it works as I don't have that phone to test it with). For this project, we are not interested in using the Droid 2 insert since it's best to mount the phone while it remains in its regular case, so we remove it.
This is the Garmin Friction mount. It has a bit of heft to it and is coupled with a non-skid bottom surface so that it does a very good job of staying wherever it is placed on your dash. While this unit is specifically from Garmin, similar (and compatible) mounts may be purchased from 3rd party vendors at such stores as Target.
Here is the ProClip mount (pictured earlier) attached to the Garmin Friction mount. It is now clear that all we need to accomplish is to successfully attach the Car Mount to the "dual T" mounting tabs on the ProClip and we'll be most of the way there.
And so we have it. All the critical components (sans power) together in one spot with the exception of the Droid 2 Global phone itself. At this point, it's probably best if I elaborate on an earlier comment regarding concerns about using "whatever case" one would like to use on the phone, and not having to remove that case just to mount the phone in the Car Mount. Alas, I found, at first blush, that my Seidio Innocase would not "fit" into the car mount. The next picture, however, illustrates my solution to this problem.
This is a picture of the backside portion of my Seidio Innocase. For orientation purposes, the right (near vertical) edge is the bottom of the case. So the corner seen here is the lower right, looking from the front. What I did is quite simple and I think most people should have an easy time repeating it. Look closely and you can see that the edge at the top (which is the right-hand side of the case) looks fairly rough ... like it has been filed down. And so it has. After using a small, fine file to take out about 1/2 inch on both the lower right and lower left vertical sections of the case, it was able to slip past the "holding tabs" in the Car Mount and let the phone mate perfectly with the power connector. Check below for more detail pictures.
Here is a closeup of the Seidio Innocase, filed down per the previous paragraph. Note how the minor bit of filing allows it to slide down behind the Car Mount's "hold in" tabs. This is the only trick to getting this case to work and I suspect the same technique will be just as effective for other cases that might not fit the Car Mount when first tried.
And here is a picture of the Seidio Innocase for the Droid 2 Global successfully installed in the Car Mount. The small amount of filing done was in two spots that did not involve the case's "hold on" tabs for the phone and it had absolutely no functional effect on the case. The filing is also virtually impossible to see with the case attached to the phone. And, of course, it works!
Here is a closeup from the right rear of the Car Mount showing the connected power cord (from the vehicle power adapter).
Here is the completed project with the Droid 2 Global phone in the Car Mount and displaying the Motorola supplied application that automatically runs when the phone senses that it is connected to the Car Mount. The sharp eyed amongst you may notice that the hold down arm at the top of the mount has not yet been pushed down onto the phone (but see the next, and final, picture for that).
This final picture shows the completed project with phone installed and ready to be taken out to the car and plugged in. And it works well.
To summarize, the parts for this are available at ProClipUSA.com (P/N 215199 and 215049) and, among other places, Amazon.com for the Motorola Car Mount and Rapid Car Charger. The Garmin Friction mount is available at numerous locations online and locally at stores like Target, WalMart, etc. This project specifically involved installation of the Droid 2 Global with a Seidio Innocase but it also works for the Droid 2. I strongly suspect that it will work for the Droid X (given the proper Car Mount model) and the corresponding Seidio Innocase but perhaps someone who actually implements this for the Droid X would be willing to comment on the success of their effort. I'm also confident that other cases will be able to be made to work but you have to look at them to see what specifically blocks them from mounting in order to determine that. And, of course, there appear to be one or more Motorola cases that are designed to work with this setup without additional modification.
I hope this has been useful to you and feel free to comment. Thanks!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
DSL/Phone Wiring
Starting off the New Year right is one of my priorities in life. For me, that often means implementing a fun project, typically involving technology and/or something around the house, car, bicycle or all of the above. This year was no exception and I decided that it was time to put together all the parts I had accumulated over the past several months to update my telephone wiring. To be clear, this is *not* about ripping out all the wiring behind the walls in my house. It's just to improve the "visible" stuff in the unfinished basement utility room area. There were 4 primary goals for this project:
1. Clean up the spider web phone wiring mess just inside the house.
2. Directly connect a DSL jack to Telco Network Interface Device (NID).
3. Implement whole house phone line surge protection.
4. Clean up the alarm system phone line connection.
In addition to these enumerated goals, a side benefit was to gain knowledge and experience about proper wiring supplies, techniques and equipment.
It helps to understand the solutions if the specific problem areas are described in more detail. The following paragraphs will do this ... check them out to see if you may have some of the same issues or concerns about "doing it right" (or at least "doing it better than it was").
POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) Wiring
As was common in the mid 90's when this house was built, standard 4 wire (Red, Green, Yellow, Black) telephone cable was installed. Not very resistant to cross talk and capable of generating quite a bit of noise, I was uncomfortable with using it for my DSL connection to the Telco (Qwest, in this case) NID outside the house. The inside wiring was done in the "Star" configuration where each wire pair was connected to the NID and then run directly to a room (or area) of the house. In the destination area, it might be hooked up in series (daisy chained) but the star technique still allowed for isolation of connection problems to a small number of phone jacks. Good idea, but it felt like a better idea to bring a single line into the house (and see the DSL section, below) for a very short distance, subsequently distributing it via multiple cables to the various rooms.
DSL
The aDSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) 7Mbps connection had been working OK but there were occasional times (confirmed by Qwest technical support) when somewhat high "dropped bit" rates were encountered. Not knowing the source of this, it felt important to do the best possible job of eliminating local house wiring as an issue. For this reason, and in tandem with the goal to bring a single cable set in from the NID, 4-UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) Cat 5E cable was chosen to bring the connection in to the house. While good cable alone doesn't make for a good connection (connectors, jacks, proximity to power and noise carrying lines and installation technique are all contributors), using the correct cable *is* a key requirement for a good, solid connection and it's a straightforward thing to do. The idea was to run as directly as possible from the NID to a jack specifically used only for connecting to the DSL modem.
The "normal" DSL setup for a residence is usually done on the cheap and often consists only of connecting Telco supplied low pass filters to all the active "phone" connections to keep the high frequency DSL signal noise out of voice conversations and prevent the low frequency (voice and DC) signals from attenuating the DSL signal. Not wanting to put a filter on each phone in the house, the original wiring job fed the input lines to a pair of DSL filters before distribution to the rest of the house (with the DSL line running directly out to the NID). These small filters, however, are not designed to operate this way and may be overloaded, depending on the number of phones in the house that simultaneously ring. The alternative chosen was to implement what's called a DSL-POTS splitter. This device is mounted (depending on its specific design) at the NID or just inside the building and it filters and splits the input line's signal into its voice and DSL components. It does cost a bit ($35 or so for this one) but it provides a relatively cheap and elegant alternative to appending a filter to each phone. In this case, the Wilcom PS-15-I3S (mounts inside the residence) xDSL-POTS splitter was chosen and two were installed to allow for possible future easy movement of the DSL connection to Line 2 (from the standard Line 1) as well as the option to have 2 independent DSL lines active simultaneously. Another benefit is the redundancy factor--for single line DSL, should one of the splitters fail, it would be a very quick procedure to switch to the other, avoiding more than minimal down time.
Surge Protection
Similar to the issue (see above) regarding DSL/voice filters, the proliferation of phone line surge protection devices was something that needed addressing. Another good argument for bringing a single set of wires into the house from Telco, the idea was to run them through a surge protection device *before* distribution through the rest of the house phone wiring. The device chosen to accomplish this was the Open House ChannelPlus Telephone Entry Module (model H611). The H611 is designed to mount in a service center enclosure box (Open House model H318 used here) and provide surge protection for up to 4 incoming Tip/Ring pairs. In addition, it provides an RJ-31X jack to allow line seizure capability for an alarm system. Since the DSL line bypasses the voice line surge protection provided by the H611, a separate, surge protection device (TrippLite's Traveler 100Bt) was added at the DSL jack to protect the DSL modem (and downstream devices). Simple, effective (it is hoped) and now the whole house is protected from some degree of line surge without having to incorporate multiple surge protection devices.
Alarm System
While the alarm system (Rokonet Wisdom) was a DIY home project, it works very well and is designed to seize the phone line to call out to user programmed phone numbers (ostensibly to an alarm monitoring service but, for this system, just my cell phone). In order to do this, the alarm system must be connected as the first "phone" in system and the RJ-31X jack is designed to make that easy to do. The challenge here was to take out the old 4 wire cable connecting the alarm system and connect it to the H611's RJ-31X jack with standard (3-UTP) 24 gauge twisted pair wiring.
In summary, the problems above were to be addressed and the implementation accomplished is described below. Pictures of the detailed connections in the H318 Service Center Enclosure tell the story.
This picture shows the white H318 Service Center Enclosure box mounted in its final location between two wall studs in the basement utility room. The two black components mounted near the top of the box are the Wilcom PS-15-I3S DSL-POTS splitters for Line 1 and Line 2, respectively. The horizontal rectangular unit below the splitters is the H611 Telephone Entry Module. The blue Cat 5E cable entering the Enclosure at the top left side carries the Line 1 and Line 2 wires from the Telco Network Interface Device outside the house. The other blue Cat 5E cable exits the Enclosure at the top right side and goes directly to the DSL modem wall jack.
The leftmost white cable (on the H611) is a Cat 3 UTP from the "Phone" outputs of the two splitters and it connects via the H611's 110 punchdown connector for (input from the CO) Tip and Ring on Lines 1 and 2.
The middle white cable is another Cat 3 UTP connected to the H611's RJ-31X connector and it runs to the alarm system in the upstairs entryway to the house.
The rightmost white cable leaving the H611 consists of the surge protected Line 1 and Line 2 outputs from the H611 and it runs up and to the left of the Enclosure where it connects to the rest of the house's phone wiring.
Finally, the green wire running horizontally across the top of the Enclosure is simply a 10 gauge ground wire.
This is a closeup of the Open House H611 Telephone Entry Module. Here you can see (from left to right) the 110 connector for lines 1-4 (note that lines 1 and 2 are connected), the RJ-45 telephone disconnect plug, the RJ-31X alarm connector (at the bottom) and the house telephone output on the right side with Line 1 and Line 2 connected via the RJ-45 plug (which is connected in parallel to the alternative output 110 connector). For maximum connection flexibility, RJ-45/RJ-11 plugs were used wherever the option was available. Note the "Surge Warning" lights associated with each of up to 4 telephone lines that the H611 might be protecting. Each line is protected to 50 Joules and 4000 Amps. If the surge level is high enough, surge protection will be lost and the surge event will be shown as an illuminated LED associated with the appropriate line(s). Repair or replacement of the H611 module would then be required. Regarding connecting wires to the 110 connector--be sure to invest in a 110 punch down tool for this task. The 110 is a fairly sophisticated Insulation Displacement Connection (IDC) system and trying to get by with, for example, a screwdriver and/or needle nose pliers is unlikely to seat the wire properly, resulting in damaged contacts and possible future failure of the connected phone line(s). Finally, the module's RJ-45 jacks are wired to the TIA T568A standard.
The H611 module connects to the Service Enclosure with metal tabs in the back designed to fit the vertical columns of device mounting holes in the Enclosure.
This picture shows the Wilcom xDSL-POTS splitters mounted and connected in the Service Enclosure. The two units are facing each other to allow use of the RJ connections while minimizing the wire length needed as Line 1 and Line 2 are broken out from their respective cables to be sent to the individual signal splitter devices. The splitter on the left handles Line 1, the one on the right handles Line 2. Since these devices are not designed to mount directly into the Enclosure's pre-drilled holes, Velcro was used to attach them and to give some additional flexibility regarding precise location.
Testing
Integrity of the wiring was verified by inspection and by alternating the Line 1 supplied DSL signal between both the Line 1 and Line 2 splitters. Given this setup utilizing the RJ plug connections, line swapping to accomplish this test was trivial. Additionally, although this residence does not currently have regular POTS service from Qwest, a Phone Labs Dock-N-Talk was attached at the Network Interface Device to provide Tip and Ring in parallel with the DSL signal from the Telco. The phones and alarm system in the house were successful at dialing out. But full confidence in the alarm's line seizure capability will not be achieved until such time as regular Telco service can be used to verify it. Most DIYer's working on this kind of project probably have regular Telco phone service so that test is something that will normally be easily accomplished and it should not be neglected.
Finally, the new Service Enclosure all buttoned up and operating as planned. Much neater looking than the random wires that were floating around in the basement. For future reference, all device documentation as well as a rough schematic and URL reference to this blog are included in an envelope inside the Service Enclosure.
It is hoped that the information presented here is useful to others that may be mulling over the issues of telephone line surge protection, DSL/POTS performance and possible problems with handling an alarm system's dialing requirements. Again, this is just what one individual did and there may be better solutions ... but perhaps it's a good starting point.
All comments are welcome and please don't be put off because comments are reviewed before appearing in the article.
1. Clean up the spider web phone wiring mess just inside the house.
2. Directly connect a DSL jack to Telco Network Interface Device (NID).
3. Implement whole house phone line surge protection.
4. Clean up the alarm system phone line connection.
In addition to these enumerated goals, a side benefit was to gain knowledge and experience about proper wiring supplies, techniques and equipment.
It helps to understand the solutions if the specific problem areas are described in more detail. The following paragraphs will do this ... check them out to see if you may have some of the same issues or concerns about "doing it right" (or at least "doing it better than it was"
POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) Wiring
As was common in the mid 90's when this house was built, standard 4 wire (Red, Green, Yellow, Black) telephone cable was installed. Not very resistant to cross talk and capable of generating quite a bit of noise, I was uncomfortable with using it for my DSL connection to the Telco (Qwest, in this case) NID outside the house. The inside wiring was done in the "Star" configuration where each wire pair was connected to the NID and then run directly to a room (or area) of the house. In the destination area, it might be hooked up in series (daisy chained) but the star technique still allowed for isolation of connection problems to a small number of phone jacks. Good idea, but it felt like a better idea to bring a single line into the house (and see the DSL section, below) for a very short distance, subsequently distributing it via multiple cables to the various rooms.
DSL
The aDSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) 7Mbps connection had been working OK but there were occasional times (confirmed by Qwest technical support) when somewhat high "dropped bit" rates were encountered. Not knowing the source of this, it felt important to do the best possible job of eliminating local house wiring as an issue. For this reason, and in tandem with the goal to bring a single cable set in from the NID, 4-UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) Cat 5E cable was chosen to bring the connection in to the house. While good cable alone doesn't make for a good connection (connectors, jacks, proximity to power and noise carrying lines and installation technique are all contributors), using the correct cable *is* a key requirement for a good, solid connection and it's a straightforward thing to do. The idea was to run as directly as possible from the NID to a jack specifically used only for connecting to the DSL modem.
The "normal" DSL setup for a residence is usually done on the cheap and often consists only of connecting Telco supplied low pass filters to all the active "phone" connections to keep the high frequency DSL signal noise out of voice conversations and prevent the low frequency (voice and DC) signals from attenuating the DSL signal. Not wanting to put a filter on each phone in the house, the original wiring job fed the input lines to a pair of DSL filters before distribution to the rest of the house (with the DSL line running directly out to the NID). These small filters, however, are not designed to operate this way and may be overloaded, depending on the number of phones in the house that simultaneously ring. The alternative chosen was to implement what's called a DSL-POTS splitter. This device is mounted (depending on its specific design) at the NID or just inside the building and it filters and splits the input line's signal into its voice and DSL components. It does cost a bit ($35 or so for this one) but it provides a relatively cheap and elegant alternative to appending a filter to each phone. In this case, the Wilcom PS-15-I3S (mounts inside the residence) xDSL-POTS splitter was chosen and two were installed to allow for possible future easy movement of the DSL connection to Line 2 (from the standard Line 1) as well as the option to have 2 independent DSL lines active simultaneously. Another benefit is the redundancy factor--for single line DSL, should one of the splitters fail, it would be a very quick procedure to switch to the other, avoiding more than minimal down time.
Surge Protection
Similar to the issue (see above) regarding DSL/voice filters, the proliferation of phone line surge protection devices was something that needed addressing. Another good argument for bringing a single set of wires into the house from Telco, the idea was to run them through a surge protection device *before* distribution through the rest of the house phone wiring. The device chosen to accomplish this was the Open House ChannelPlus Telephone Entry Module (model H611). The H611 is designed to mount in a service center enclosure box (Open House model H318 used here) and provide surge protection for up to 4 incoming Tip/Ring pairs. In addition, it provides an RJ-31X jack to allow line seizure capability for an alarm system. Since the DSL line bypasses the voice line surge protection provided by the H611, a separate, surge protection device (TrippLite's Traveler 100Bt) was added at the DSL jack to protect the DSL modem (and downstream devices). Simple, effective (it is hoped) and now the whole house is protected from some degree of line surge without having to incorporate multiple surge protection devices.
Alarm System
While the alarm system (Rokonet Wisdom) was a DIY home project, it works very well and is designed to seize the phone line to call out to user programmed phone numbers (ostensibly to an alarm monitoring service but, for this system, just my cell phone). In order to do this, the alarm system must be connected as the first "phone" in system and the RJ-31X jack is designed to make that easy to do. The challenge here was to take out the old 4 wire cable connecting the alarm system and connect it to the H611's RJ-31X jack with standard (3-UTP) 24 gauge twisted pair wiring.
In summary, the problems above were to be addressed and the implementation accomplished is described below. Pictures of the detailed connections in the H318 Service Center Enclosure tell the story.
This picture shows the white H318 Service Center Enclosure box mounted in its final location between two wall studs in the basement utility room. The two black components mounted near the top of the box are the Wilcom PS-15-I3S DSL-POTS splitters for Line 1 and Line 2, respectively. The horizontal rectangular unit below the splitters is the H611 Telephone Entry Module. The blue Cat 5E cable entering the Enclosure at the top left side carries the Line 1 and Line 2 wires from the Telco Network Interface Device outside the house. The other blue Cat 5E cable exits the Enclosure at the top right side and goes directly to the DSL modem wall jack.
The leftmost white cable (on the H611) is a Cat 3 UTP from the "Phone" outputs of the two splitters and it connects via the H611's 110 punchdown connector for (input from the CO) Tip and Ring on Lines 1 and 2.
The middle white cable is another Cat 3 UTP connected to the H611's RJ-31X connector and it runs to the alarm system in the upstairs entryway to the house.
The rightmost white cable leaving the H611 consists of the surge protected Line 1 and Line 2 outputs from the H611 and it runs up and to the left of the Enclosure where it connects to the rest of the house's phone wiring.
Finally, the green wire running horizontally across the top of the Enclosure is simply a 10 gauge ground wire.
This is a closeup of the Open House H611 Telephone Entry Module. Here you can see (from left to right) the 110 connector for lines 1-4 (note that lines 1 and 2 are connected), the RJ-45 telephone disconnect plug, the RJ-31X alarm connector (at the bottom) and the house telephone output on the right side with Line 1 and Line 2 connected via the RJ-45 plug (which is connected in parallel to the alternative output 110 connector). For maximum connection flexibility, RJ-45/RJ-11 plugs were used wherever the option was available. Note the "Surge Warning" lights associated with each of up to 4 telephone lines that the H611 might be protecting. Each line is protected to 50 Joules and 4000 Amps. If the surge level is high enough, surge protection will be lost and the surge event will be shown as an illuminated LED associated with the appropriate line(s). Repair or replacement of the H611 module would then be required. Regarding connecting wires to the 110 connector--be sure to invest in a 110 punch down tool for this task. The 110 is a fairly sophisticated Insulation Displacement Connection (IDC) system and trying to get by with, for example, a screwdriver and/or needle nose pliers is unlikely to seat the wire properly, resulting in damaged contacts and possible future failure of the connected phone line(s). Finally, the module's RJ-45 jacks are wired to the TIA T568A standard.
The H611 module connects to the Service Enclosure with metal tabs in the back designed to fit the vertical columns of device mounting holes in the Enclosure.
This picture shows the Wilcom xDSL-POTS splitters mounted and connected in the Service Enclosure. The two units are facing each other to allow use of the RJ connections while minimizing the wire length needed as Line 1 and Line 2 are broken out from their respective cables to be sent to the individual signal splitter devices. The splitter on the left handles Line 1, the one on the right handles Line 2. Since these devices are not designed to mount directly into the Enclosure's pre-drilled holes, Velcro was used to attach them and to give some additional flexibility regarding precise location.
Testing
Integrity of the wiring was verified by inspection and by alternating the Line 1 supplied DSL signal between both the Line 1 and Line 2 splitters. Given this setup utilizing the RJ plug connections, line swapping to accomplish this test was trivial. Additionally, although this residence does not currently have regular POTS service from Qwest, a Phone Labs Dock-N-Talk was attached at the Network Interface Device to provide Tip and Ring in parallel with the DSL signal from the Telco. The phones and alarm system in the house were successful at dialing out. But full confidence in the alarm's line seizure capability will not be achieved until such time as regular Telco service can be used to verify it. Most DIYer's working on this kind of project probably have regular Telco phone service so that test is something that will normally be easily accomplished and it should not be neglected.
Finally, the new Service Enclosure all buttoned up and operating as planned. Much neater looking than the random wires that were floating around in the basement. For future reference, all device documentation as well as a rough schematic and URL reference to this blog are included in an envelope inside the Service Enclosure.
It is hoped that the information presented here is useful to others that may be mulling over the issues of telephone line surge protection, DSL/POTS performance and possible problems with handling an alarm system's dialing requirements. Again, this is just what one individual did and there may be better solutions ... but perhaps it's a good starting point.
All comments are welcome and please don't be put off because comments are reviewed before appearing in the article.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Qwest DSL--Throttling?
You may be aware that there's quite a bit of discussion reflecting concern and actual problems with true available bandwidth for the end users of various broadband delivery systems, including cable, satellite and DSL. I have Qwest DSL (ADSL), which I recently upgraded from 1.5 Mbps (download) to 7.0 Mbps. The key reason I upgraded was because I was seeing quite a bit of lag time with streaming video ("buffering") from various news websites as well as YouTube. The idea I had was that the basic bandwidth being received might have been so close to the edge that any kind of internet load could cause such delays. In addition, as past posts will reveal, I added MagicJack internet calling this spring, further consuming bandwidth on my DSL line. So it seemed like a good idea and the cost was actually a wash if I switched from my local ISP to Qwest's preferred ISP, MSN.
The switchover was very smooth and I went so far as to even buy Qwest's ActionTec PK5000 modem (rather than a 3rd party modem). So I was lined up with Qwest's preferred equipment and ISP, the change was very efficient and there I was one fine day, running at 7Mbps and enjoying it. By the way, no faster DSL speed is available at my location or I may have tried for something like 20Mbps.
But the honeymoon was fairly short lived. Although the interruptions were fewer, I started noticing that there was still quite a bit of streaming video buffering going on. The typical time of day was during the work week between 6pm and 10pm CT with virtually no problems during the daytime unless it was a holiday or, occasionally, on weekends. I started capturing bandwidth data from 3 main online (and free) speed measuring sites: bandwithplace.com, speedtest.net and pcpitstop.com. Sure enough, I was seeing download speeds of well under Qwest's requirement (80% of 7Mbps, or 5.6Mbps). Often speeds were in the under 2Mbps range with the lowest reading to date being .77Mbps (on December 9, 2010 at 7:44pm CT) ... and, yes, these are download readings, *not* upload (which is spec'd at about .75Mbps and is consistently around .65 to .72Mbps).
So I called Qwest and immediately learned a very interesting fact. Their performance criteria of 80% of 7Mbps applies *only* to the data link (in the midwest) from Qwest's servers in Kansas City or Minneapolis (take your pick) to your residence (for example, I'm here in Iowa). So if you want to verify that Qwest is contractually compliant with their requirement on their DSL delivery bandwidth, the only way to check it out is to run their test at http://kansas-city.speedtest.qwest.net/ ... what that means is that your overall performance is not their concern at all (yes, I was told those very words). The only thing they are obligated to provide is whatever bandwidth you're paying for from their server(s) to your residence.
This is new stuff to me and I've not seen it described this way in the forums and blogs I've been reading on the subject. The fact that my performance is good except when it seems that a much larger part of the population is probably logging on to the internet could mean that the internet is just busy and everyone is slowing down ... or not. I have a theory that says it's possible for Qwest to throttle the "input* side of their servers based on total data transfer requests (which will obviously go up during high usage times like the evening) but still provide the full bandwidth paid for on their servers' output side (which is the input to residences). In my case, I typically do see about 6Mbps and, since it should never be lower than 5.6Mbps (.8 * 7), it's certainly acceptable. But why is it that there are many times when I'm seeing 6Mbps from Qwest but at the same time only, say, 1.58Mbps from a measuring site like bandwidthplace.com or speedtest.net?
When Qwest actually came out to my home, they verified that the modem was properly installed, the wiring was all good and everything in my local network was working fine. But I have also actually seen bandwidth data from Qwest showing download speeds as low as 2.1 to 2.7Mbps. It's quite rare, but did give me the reason for a no-cost visit from them while they checked it out. They had no answers for me but when the problem occurs (and I'm keeping the measurements in a spreadsheet) they also want me to verify the internal modem status on my LAN at 192.168.0.1. It always has shown 7168Kbps for download and 896Kbps for upload but I'm also now collecting that data.
So the bottom line here is that it looks suspicious to me that I can get excellent performance from Qwest but dismal overall bandwidth when loading actual internet data. And, after all, it's overall performance that counts. If I'm getting throttled 1Mbps data over a "bigger pipe" (i.e. 7Mbps DSL), it's still only 1Mbps to my system. And what I'm wondering is if there are other folks out there that see similar performance, particularly Qwest DSL customers. Any 20Mbps customers out there that have similar issues? It's discouraging to me to think that I could probably go back to 1.5Mbps service and have everything work just as well ... but that's about where I am today, based on what I see at my computer and the data I've collected regarding this issue.
To be "fair and balanced", I do see where it makes sense for Qwest to have contractual terms that limit their performance liability to something they can control (i.e., Kansas City or Minneapolis to you). Otherwise, they'd probably be getting hammered by folks about every underpowered server system on the internet where the output bandwidth may be 1/2 Meg or so. But the performance hits I regularly see (pretty much every day) are enough to at least make me think that DSL might be a poor choice, at least from Qwest, for consistent download bandwidth operation. Wish there were some alternatives, like fiber optic ... but cable is my only other choice and it's more expensive, plus there seem to be similar bandwidth issues there, according to some comments I've heard and read.
Please comment if you have more information on this. Thanks everyone!
The switchover was very smooth and I went so far as to even buy Qwest's ActionTec PK5000 modem (rather than a 3rd party modem). So I was lined up with Qwest's preferred equipment and ISP, the change was very efficient and there I was one fine day, running at 7Mbps and enjoying it. By the way, no faster DSL speed is available at my location or I may have tried for something like 20Mbps.
But the honeymoon was fairly short lived. Although the interruptions were fewer, I started noticing that there was still quite a bit of streaming video buffering going on. The typical time of day was during the work week between 6pm and 10pm CT with virtually no problems during the daytime unless it was a holiday or, occasionally, on weekends. I started capturing bandwidth data from 3 main online (and free) speed measuring sites: bandwithplace.com, speedtest.net and pcpitstop.com. Sure enough, I was seeing download speeds of well under Qwest's requirement (80% of 7Mbps, or 5.6Mbps). Often speeds were in the under 2Mbps range with the lowest reading to date being .77Mbps (on December 9, 2010 at 7:44pm CT) ... and, yes, these are download readings, *not* upload (which is spec'd at about .75Mbps and is consistently around .65 to .72Mbps).
So I called Qwest and immediately learned a very interesting fact. Their performance criteria of 80% of 7Mbps applies *only* to the data link (in the midwest) from Qwest's servers in Kansas City or Minneapolis (take your pick) to your residence (for example, I'm here in Iowa). So if you want to verify that Qwest is contractually compliant with their requirement on their DSL delivery bandwidth, the only way to check it out is to run their test at http://kansas-city.speedtest.qwest.net/ ... what that means is that your overall performance is not their concern at all (yes, I was told those very words). The only thing they are obligated to provide is whatever bandwidth you're paying for from their server(s) to your residence.
This is new stuff to me and I've not seen it described this way in the forums and blogs I've been reading on the subject. The fact that my performance is good except when it seems that a much larger part of the population is probably logging on to the internet could mean that the internet is just busy and everyone is slowing down ... or not. I have a theory that says it's possible for Qwest to throttle the "input* side of their servers based on total data transfer requests (which will obviously go up during high usage times like the evening) but still provide the full bandwidth paid for on their servers' output side (which is the input to residences). In my case, I typically do see about 6Mbps and, since it should never be lower than 5.6Mbps (.8 * 7), it's certainly acceptable. But why is it that there are many times when I'm seeing 6Mbps from Qwest but at the same time only, say, 1.58Mbps from a measuring site like bandwidthplace.com or speedtest.net?
When Qwest actually came out to my home, they verified that the modem was properly installed, the wiring was all good and everything in my local network was working fine. But I have also actually seen bandwidth data from Qwest showing download speeds as low as 2.1 to 2.7Mbps. It's quite rare, but did give me the reason for a no-cost visit from them while they checked it out. They had no answers for me but when the problem occurs (and I'm keeping the measurements in a spreadsheet) they also want me to verify the internal modem status on my LAN at 192.168.0.1. It always has shown 7168Kbps for download and 896Kbps for upload but I'm also now collecting that data.
So the bottom line here is that it looks suspicious to me that I can get excellent performance from Qwest but dismal overall bandwidth when loading actual internet data. And, after all, it's overall performance that counts. If I'm getting throttled 1Mbps data over a "bigger pipe" (i.e. 7Mbps DSL), it's still only 1Mbps to my system. And what I'm wondering is if there are other folks out there that see similar performance, particularly Qwest DSL customers. Any 20Mbps customers out there that have similar issues? It's discouraging to me to think that I could probably go back to 1.5Mbps service and have everything work just as well ... but that's about where I am today, based on what I see at my computer and the data I've collected regarding this issue.
To be "fair and balanced", I do see where it makes sense for Qwest to have contractual terms that limit their performance liability to something they can control (i.e., Kansas City or Minneapolis to you). Otherwise, they'd probably be getting hammered by folks about every underpowered server system on the internet where the output bandwidth may be 1/2 Meg or so. But the performance hits I regularly see (pretty much every day) are enough to at least make me think that DSL might be a poor choice, at least from Qwest, for consistent download bandwidth operation. Wish there were some alternatives, like fiber optic ... but cable is my only other choice and it's more expensive, plus there seem to be similar bandwidth issues there, according to some comments I've heard and read.
Please comment if you have more information on this. Thanks everyone!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
MagicJack ... It Does Work
Primarily out of a desire to save daytime (7am - 5pm, M-F) cell minutes while not having a landline, I decided to give MagicJack's VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) system a try. Basically, it's pretty much a no-brainer to at least try since it's only $40 for the first year of service (and $20 per year after that). This writeup is going to be my documentation of the high's and low's of installing and using MagicJack (MJ) over the first few days. I'll update it later with comments about my ongoing experience regarding its long term functioning and viability.
First, the ordering process. I ordered from the online store late in the evening of March 14, 2010, using a PC running WinXP with Google's Chrome browser. At the time I decided to order I'd already spent about 1.5 hours reading comments on MJ from various forums as well as familiarizing myself with how it worked via the FAQ sections on its web pages. At any rate, I decided to order (with a credit card) and got to the very end of the process when some additional, final question (I don't even remember what it was) popped into my head and I left the order page right at the point of "last click". However, I hadn't closed the page because I didn't want to go through the entire ordering process again. I just clicked over to another tab that had the FAQ section on it and read through to find the answer to that one last question. This took me about 10 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I returned to the order page to see a "Thank you" for my order. I absolutely never clicked that last required link so I know it timed out or something and entered the order as if I *had* actually done so. Fortunately, by the way, it did use the cheapest shipping option. This "auto timeout order click" thing was disturbing, but since that final question was answered correctly (for me) and I really was going to order anyway, I let it go. Again, that should definitely *not* happen ... you really should have to make an actual positive click to finish placing an order. I wonder if anyone else out there has had a similar experience?
The MJ arrived in snail mail on Saturday, March 20 and I immediately started the installation process on my iMac. This was about 2:30pm and thus began a 7 hour odyssey with MJ's chat support technicians. While the system mounted properly after being plugged in, and I could start the MJ program running, the registration procedure was not clear at all. I finally ended up dbl-clicking the upper center magicJack icon area but it simply was not (apparently) able to properly startup my account. I did have a phone number assigned but the top line of the soft dial pad showed a phone number of 000-000-0000 instead of the correct number. By now, if you've read about this type of thing from other customers' adventure tales, you know that I was chatting with tech's and they were going through the same procedures with me, time and again, before passing me on to one of the "top 10%" agents. So when you can't get a problem solved, you visit 2 agents every time you start a chat. We downloaded the "upgrade.dmg" file and erased the Mac volume on the MJ several times (my protests at the repetitions fell, of course, on deaf ears). Finally, agent number 6 (this was at almost 9:30 in the evening) opened the Mac network window and added two new DNS IP addresses. And, lo and behold, it suddenly seemed to be working as the MJ displayed the correct number and indicated "Ready to call" in the center icon area. Although I tried to get an explanation as to why this should make any difference, the tech was unwilling (or unable) to supply one. But it was working!
OK, here are the two IP addresses for the new Domain Name Servers as entered by the MJ tech during the screen sharing session (I saved them for possible future repair work): 67.107.71.186 and 67.90.152.122. If you're not familiar with where this is entered on a Mac (this is an Intel Mac running the latest Snow Leopard OS X operating system), just open System Preferences > Network > Advanced. Under the DNS tab, click on the "+" at the lower left of the "DNS Servers:" box just before the line that says "IPv4 or IPv6 addresses". Add the first one and then add the next. After this, restart the MJ via its "Menu > Advanced users > Restart" option and you will have done exactly what made mine work.
After that, everything else was just playing and setting up my phone(s) in the house the way I wanted to. And I have to say that it really works very well. My broadband connection is ADSL with 1.5Mbps down and .75Mbps up, supplied by Qwest. The voice quality is very good and I have 3 or 4 different phones it works just fine with. I also have a switch in the line to allow me to use a FaxModem when necessary and, as far as I've been able to tell, software faxing (I'm using PageSender but I think the standard OS X fax program would work too) is working. This is nice as I have occasion to fax things several times a year but not nearly enough that I feel compelled to pay for internet fax or a landline to accomplish the task. While MJ does not advertise faxing as a standard feature (and I'm not sure how reliable it will be), it's a pleasant surprise to see it working.
There have been a few other issues, though. If anyone's generating a list of phone's that work or don't work with MJ, I've found that two old standard phones (with actual bell ringers), an AT&T two line phone, a Sony 900MHz wireless phone, an AT&T wall phone and a US West wall phone all work great. But a Panasonic DECT 6.0 phone (model KX-TGA820B) doesn't work (well, it rings and will answer, but there is no audio). Another disappointment is that none of the phones that displays callerID gets the callerID from the MJ. I've tried the 100K resistor trick but no joy. I wish callerID would work, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. Chat time with the tech's got one out of two to confirm for me that callerID is *not* passed on to the attached phone. Sure seems like a shortsighted thing to have it designed that way.
Another thing, from a Mac perspective, is that I like to suspend (enter "Sleep" mode) the computer when I leave the house and don't need it to be running. The Mac version of the MJ software is certainly not very elegant about handling the sleep process. It shuts down instead of suspending itself but it doesn't eject the MJ drive. So when the system starts up again there is an OS X nasty gram about how one should be sure to eject a drive before "removing" it. Also, the program seems to have some startup problems after it has been shut down this way. What I've found is that it seems to be best to just close the MJ program (in this case the drive ejects properly on its own) and I unplug it. That's a little annoying since, otherwise, the suspend for a Mac is a very quick and painless thing to do (I just tap the power button). As far as MJ is concerned, I'd like to just push the button to put the Mac to sleep and when I "wake" it again, the MJ should just start itself and carry on without missing a beat. If this could work smoothly it would be a very positive step. I haven't checked out how MJ handles a full shutdown, while it is running, so no comments on that ... yet.
But with MagicJack I can talk on the phone, send/receive faxes and use the MJ with about 3 phones hooked up via my house wiring. I would give MagicJack about a 4 out of 5 stars review. Additionally, I've had it running on my PC laptop (Windows Vista) and that's working smoothly. The contacts list is not saved in a common portion of the MJ drive so when I add contacts on the Mac, they don't show up when running MJ on the PC. I can manually save the .xml file that has the contacts in it on the Mac and then load them when running the PC, but that's the only way I can see to do it. It would be nice to at least have a simple way (i.e. in the MJ menus) to synchronize contacts between the two computer types with having to resort to a laborious manual process.
Anyone that has a solution that will let me see callerID on the MJ phone when running on the Mac, I'd appreciate hearing that as well. I'll write more on MagicJack when time has passed and I see how reliable it is and if any updates for some of these issues become available.
First, the ordering process. I ordered from the online store late in the evening of March 14, 2010, using a PC running WinXP with Google's Chrome browser. At the time I decided to order I'd already spent about 1.5 hours reading comments on MJ from various forums as well as familiarizing myself with how it worked via the FAQ sections on its web pages. At any rate, I decided to order (with a credit card) and got to the very end of the process when some additional, final question (I don't even remember what it was) popped into my head and I left the order page right at the point of "last click". However, I hadn't closed the page because I didn't want to go through the entire ordering process again. I just clicked over to another tab that had the FAQ section on it and read through to find the answer to that one last question. This took me about 10 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I returned to the order page to see a "Thank you" for my order. I absolutely never clicked that last required link so I know it timed out or something and entered the order as if I *had* actually done so. Fortunately, by the way, it did use the cheapest shipping option. This "auto timeout order click" thing was disturbing, but since that final question was answered correctly (for me) and I really was going to order anyway, I let it go. Again, that should definitely *not* happen ... you really should have to make an actual positive click to finish placing an order. I wonder if anyone else out there has had a similar experience?
The MJ arrived in snail mail on Saturday, March 20 and I immediately started the installation process on my iMac. This was about 2:30pm and thus began a 7 hour odyssey with MJ's chat support technicians. While the system mounted properly after being plugged in, and I could start the MJ program running, the registration procedure was not clear at all. I finally ended up dbl-clicking the upper center magicJack icon area but it simply was not (apparently) able to properly startup my account. I did have a phone number assigned but the top line of the soft dial pad showed a phone number of 000-000-0000 instead of the correct number. By now, if you've read about this type of thing from other customers' adventure tales, you know that I was chatting with tech's and they were going through the same procedures with me, time and again, before passing me on to one of the "top 10%" agents. So when you can't get a problem solved, you visit 2 agents every time you start a chat. We downloaded the "upgrade.dmg" file and erased the Mac volume on the MJ several times (my protests at the repetitions fell, of course, on deaf ears). Finally, agent number 6 (this was at almost 9:30 in the evening) opened the Mac network window and added two new DNS IP addresses. And, lo and behold, it suddenly seemed to be working as the MJ displayed the correct number and indicated "Ready to call" in the center icon area. Although I tried to get an explanation as to why this should make any difference, the tech was unwilling (or unable) to supply one. But it was working!
OK, here are the two IP addresses for the new Domain Name Servers as entered by the MJ tech during the screen sharing session (I saved them for possible future repair work): 67.107.71.186 and 67.90.152.122. If you're not familiar with where this is entered on a Mac (this is an Intel Mac running the latest Snow Leopard OS X operating system), just open System Preferences > Network > Advanced. Under the DNS tab, click on the "+" at the lower left of the "DNS Servers:" box just before the line that says "IPv4 or IPv6 addresses". Add the first one and then add the next. After this, restart the MJ via its "Menu > Advanced users > Restart" option and you will have done exactly what made mine work.
After that, everything else was just playing and setting up my phone(s) in the house the way I wanted to. And I have to say that it really works very well. My broadband connection is ADSL with 1.5Mbps down and .75Mbps up, supplied by Qwest. The voice quality is very good and I have 3 or 4 different phones it works just fine with. I also have a switch in the line to allow me to use a FaxModem when necessary and, as far as I've been able to tell, software faxing (I'm using PageSender but I think the standard OS X fax program would work too) is working. This is nice as I have occasion to fax things several times a year but not nearly enough that I feel compelled to pay for internet fax or a landline to accomplish the task. While MJ does not advertise faxing as a standard feature (and I'm not sure how reliable it will be), it's a pleasant surprise to see it working.
There have been a few other issues, though. If anyone's generating a list of phone's that work or don't work with MJ, I've found that two old standard phones (with actual bell ringers), an AT&T two line phone, a Sony 900MHz wireless phone, an AT&T wall phone and a US West wall phone all work great. But a Panasonic DECT 6.0 phone (model KX-TGA820B) doesn't work (well, it rings and will answer, but there is no audio). Another disappointment is that none of the phones that displays callerID gets the callerID from the MJ. I've tried the 100K resistor trick but no joy. I wish callerID would work, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. Chat time with the tech's got one out of two to confirm for me that callerID is *not* passed on to the attached phone. Sure seems like a shortsighted thing to have it designed that way.
Another thing, from a Mac perspective, is that I like to suspend (enter "Sleep" mode) the computer when I leave the house and don't need it to be running. The Mac version of the MJ software is certainly not very elegant about handling the sleep process. It shuts down instead of suspending itself but it doesn't eject the MJ drive. So when the system starts up again there is an OS X nasty gram about how one should be sure to eject a drive before "removing" it. Also, the program seems to have some startup problems after it has been shut down this way. What I've found is that it seems to be best to just close the MJ program (in this case the drive ejects properly on its own) and I unplug it. That's a little annoying since, otherwise, the suspend for a Mac is a very quick and painless thing to do (I just tap the power button). As far as MJ is concerned, I'd like to just push the button to put the Mac to sleep and when I "wake" it again, the MJ should just start itself and carry on without missing a beat. If this could work smoothly it would be a very positive step. I haven't checked out how MJ handles a full shutdown, while it is running, so no comments on that ... yet.
But with MagicJack I can talk on the phone, send/receive faxes and use the MJ with about 3 phones hooked up via my house wiring. I would give MagicJack about a 4 out of 5 stars review. Additionally, I've had it running on my PC laptop (Windows Vista) and that's working smoothly. The contacts list is not saved in a common portion of the MJ drive so when I add contacts on the Mac, they don't show up when running MJ on the PC. I can manually save the .xml file that has the contacts in it on the Mac and then load them when running the PC, but that's the only way I can see to do it. It would be nice to at least have a simple way (i.e. in the MJ menus) to synchronize contacts between the two computer types with having to resort to a laborious manual process.
Anyone that has a solution that will let me see callerID on the MJ phone when running on the Mac, I'd appreciate hearing that as well. I'll write more on MagicJack when time has passed and I see how reliable it is and if any updates for some of these issues become available.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Toyota Recall Bruhaha
I don't know what it is about this country sometimes. There seems to be such a hue and cry about the "Toyota Tragedy" that awaits Toyota car drivers (notice even the Secretary of Transportation's recommendation to not drive your car if it's a "recall" Toyota model) that it seems all perspective has been lost. By the way, regarding Ray La Hood's comments (which he did later withdraw), could they be because the U.S. government is now in the car business ... and Toyota's a competitor? Hmm.
If Toyota has a true problem, it seems to me that it primarily swings around their apparent disbelief that they could even have a quality issue with their vehicles. And, actually, that's based on decades of excellent production quality and customer satisfaction ... so it's not the worst problem in the world to have. And it's one that can be easily overcome. At any rate, the initial shock seems to have worn off and they see that there's a problem and they're addressing it.
But back to the point I started this article on ... perspective. It seems that about 19 people in the past decade have been killed in Toyota's where it is "possible" that the recall issues (the accelerator pedal & floor mat stuff) were a factor. Please also note that being "a factor" does not even mean that the recall issues are the primary cause of the fatalities. Doing the math, that's 1.9 fatalities per year (with 100's of millions of miles of Toyota driving involved). Now, some contrasting perspective:
1. On average, 90 people per year are killed by lightning (in the United States alone).
2. On average, there are 120 airplane crash fatalities per year.
3. Over 2000 people die every year in Toyota's due to vehicle crashes totally unrelated to vehicle production quality failures (related primarily to incompetent, impaired or otherwise unsafe driving as well as some health problems like heart attacks, etc.).
Now I know it's different if you or a loved one of yours happens to be one of those 1.9 fatalities ... but get real people! There is no reasonably complex device made by mankind that does not have a non-zero probability of some kind of a failure due to inferior design, parts fatigue, etc. And it's the way of the universe. It's certainly the way of every species on the planet. Nature builds and then rebuilds in infinite repetition to get to the solution that allows survival. Our cars have evolved as early designs have been superseded by better ones and, to build a safer and greener vehicle, more complexity has been added. It's life ... and it's progress. I own a Camry, my son owns a Corolla and we both are very pleased with our vehicles. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Toyota and I'm sure my son feels the same. These are good, well-built cars and the company that builds them deserves to remain in business, providing jobs and excellent products around the world, including the United States.
So the next time there's a big news article on the latest regarding current (or future) Toyota recalls, just remember that this is a very safe vehicle and the problems are being fixed by the company. And think about writing to the producer(s) of the article to request the "other side" of the story, part of which I've presented here (like, you're at least 45 times more likely to be killed by lightning, in the U.S., than by any Toyota recall problem). Basically, let's focus on stuff that's really important, like people talking on cell phones or texting while driving ... those, too, have caused far more fatalities than Toyota's recall issues. I also think Toyota will redouble their efforts at quality control ... which doesn't bode well for the "big 3" in the U.S. Oh, and, if you get a chance, you might take advantage of the bright side of this whole craziness ... buy Toyota stock.
If Toyota has a true problem, it seems to me that it primarily swings around their apparent disbelief that they could even have a quality issue with their vehicles. And, actually, that's based on decades of excellent production quality and customer satisfaction ... so it's not the worst problem in the world to have. And it's one that can be easily overcome. At any rate, the initial shock seems to have worn off and they see that there's a problem and they're addressing it.
But back to the point I started this article on ... perspective. It seems that about 19 people in the past decade have been killed in Toyota's where it is "possible" that the recall issues (the accelerator pedal & floor mat stuff) were a factor. Please also note that being "a factor" does not even mean that the recall issues are the primary cause of the fatalities. Doing the math, that's 1.9 fatalities per year (with 100's of millions of miles of Toyota driving involved). Now, some contrasting perspective:
1. On average, 90 people per year are killed by lightning (in the United States alone).
2. On average, there are 120 airplane crash fatalities per year.
3. Over 2000 people die every year in Toyota's due to vehicle crashes totally unrelated to vehicle production quality failures (related primarily to incompetent, impaired or otherwise unsafe driving as well as some health problems like heart attacks, etc.).
Now I know it's different if you or a loved one of yours happens to be one of those 1.9 fatalities ... but get real people! There is no reasonably complex device made by mankind that does not have a non-zero probability of some kind of a failure due to inferior design, parts fatigue, etc. And it's the way of the universe. It's certainly the way of every species on the planet. Nature builds and then rebuilds in infinite repetition to get to the solution that allows survival. Our cars have evolved as early designs have been superseded by better ones and, to build a safer and greener vehicle, more complexity has been added. It's life ... and it's progress. I own a Camry, my son owns a Corolla and we both are very pleased with our vehicles. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Toyota and I'm sure my son feels the same. These are good, well-built cars and the company that builds them deserves to remain in business, providing jobs and excellent products around the world, including the United States.
So the next time there's a big news article on the latest regarding current (or future) Toyota recalls, just remember that this is a very safe vehicle and the problems are being fixed by the company. And think about writing to the producer(s) of the article to request the "other side" of the story, part of which I've presented here (like, you're at least 45 times more likely to be killed by lightning, in the U.S., than by any Toyota recall problem). Basically, let's focus on stuff that's really important, like people talking on cell phones or texting while driving ... those, too, have caused far more fatalities than Toyota's recall issues. I also think Toyota will redouble their efforts at quality control ... which doesn't bode well for the "big 3" in the U.S. Oh, and, if you get a chance, you might take advantage of the bright side of this whole craziness ... buy Toyota stock.
Friday, January 1, 2010
2010 Has Arrived
At the close of 2009, I feel it's good to reflect back on the year and consider what happened. Bicycling-wise, not as many miles pedaled as in 2008, but that was largely due to not taking part in RAGBRAI this year. Total miles ridden reached 1927 with a riding time of 121 hours (just under 16mph for an average riding speed). In addition, I decided to take a daily walk and accomplished that for 358 days of the past year with a total distance covered of 1161 miles in approximately 303 hours.
On a personal basis, my height is 70.25 inches at 162.1 pounds for a BMI of around 23.3. I like to shoot for a BMI right at 23.0, so there's a little work to be done here in January to get my weight back to 160 pounds or a little less.
For the first time in many years, both Ryan and Scott were in town at the same time as they flew in for their step-sister's wedding in June. That was a great time ... even as an arrow flew into the air and fell to earth we knew not where. We also took in the new Star Trek movie.
Last March my Aunt Elaine died and I went to the funeral. She was a nice lady and I miss her. Uncle Don and I went out to try to get a deer (I used a bow) this fall but we never saw a single one close enough to shoot (even with a rifle) in several days of hunting (in North Dakota). Our best guess is that they were all still hiding out in the corn fields, which had not been harvested due to the extremely wet fall weather.
Only 22 books read this year but all of them very interesting, including the auto-biography of George Carlin. I still use the Kindle to get most of my books but occasionally I do buy a paperback or get a gift of a book that I can hold in my hands and turn the pages of. And whaddya know ... reading real books still feels kinda nice. Nevertheless, I'll be looking into getting a Kindle 3, if they ever come out with one as the Kindle 2 isn't compelling enough for me to move on from my (rather primitive) baseline original Kindle reader.
Started learning more about digital photography and using Photoshop CS3 and its associated software tools. Pretty cool but it's a very big subject so it will take awhile.
This year I focused quite a bit more on energy and natural resources conservation. While the results are fairly good, more can be done if I can move to using solar and geothermal (Ground Source Heat Pump) renewable energy. Compared to 2008, the utility usage change I was able to accomplish breaks down as follows:
Heat (natural gas): -12% used, -34% cost at 47.7 Therms/month in 2009.
Electricity: -7% used, +.22% cost at 370.5 KWH/month in 2009.
Water: -46% used, -16% cost at 941.7 gallons/month in 2009.
Looking forward, I estimate that my natural gas usage will drop to <10 Therms/month (used by the gas dryer) if I can install a 4 ton geothermal heating/cooling system in 2010. My best guess is that electricity use will not be reduced further until I add solar power (a 2KW system, perhaps in 2011). In fact, electricity use may increase somewhat with the geothermal system as I'll probably switch to electric hot water heating with that installation. Finally, I expect to see a further 18-20% reduction in water usage with a 0% cost reduction (utility charges are very regressive which is not conducive to conservation) or, more likely, a cost increase.
And, as I do every year, I wonder what the new year will bring.
On a personal basis, my height is 70.25 inches at 162.1 pounds for a BMI of around 23.3. I like to shoot for a BMI right at 23.0, so there's a little work to be done here in January to get my weight back to 160 pounds or a little less.
For the first time in many years, both Ryan and Scott were in town at the same time as they flew in for their step-sister's wedding in June. That was a great time ... even as an arrow flew into the air and fell to earth we knew not where. We also took in the new Star Trek movie.
Last March my Aunt Elaine died and I went to the funeral. She was a nice lady and I miss her. Uncle Don and I went out to try to get a deer (I used a bow) this fall but we never saw a single one close enough to shoot (even with a rifle) in several days of hunting (in North Dakota). Our best guess is that they were all still hiding out in the corn fields, which had not been harvested due to the extremely wet fall weather.
Only 22 books read this year but all of them very interesting, including the auto-biography of George Carlin. I still use the Kindle to get most of my books but occasionally I do buy a paperback or get a gift of a book that I can hold in my hands and turn the pages of. And whaddya know ... reading real books still feels kinda nice. Nevertheless, I'll be looking into getting a Kindle 3, if they ever come out with one as the Kindle 2 isn't compelling enough for me to move on from my (rather primitive) baseline original Kindle reader.
Started learning more about digital photography and using Photoshop CS3 and its associated software tools. Pretty cool but it's a very big subject so it will take awhile.
This year I focused quite a bit more on energy and natural resources conservation. While the results are fairly good, more can be done if I can move to using solar and geothermal (Ground Source Heat Pump) renewable energy. Compared to 2008, the utility usage change I was able to accomplish breaks down as follows:
Heat (natural gas): -12% used, -34% cost at 47.7 Therms/month in 2009.
Electricity: -7% used, +.22% cost at 370.5 KWH/month in 2009.
Water: -46% used, -16% cost at 941.7 gallons/month in 2009.
Looking forward, I estimate that my natural gas usage will drop to <10 Therms/month (used by the gas dryer) if I can install a 4 ton geothermal heating/cooling system in 2010. My best guess is that electricity use will not be reduced further until I add solar power (a 2KW system, perhaps in 2011). In fact, electricity use may increase somewhat with the geothermal system as I'll probably switch to electric hot water heating with that installation. Finally, I expect to see a further 18-20% reduction in water usage with a 0% cost reduction (utility charges are very regressive which is not conducive to conservation) or, more likely, a cost increase.
And, as I do every year, I wonder what the new year will bring.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Health Care and Climate Change ...
Many are the prognosticators out there and I feel like joining the group. The truth is that there will be no health care bill from the U.S. Congress nor will there be anything meaningful from Copenhagen regarding climate change.
Both will be victims of the same disease ... self interest and acceptance of the status quo and "things as they are". Basically, the world has too significantly high a percentage of conservatives (e.g. Republicans in the U.S.) to do anything meaningful. To them, energy reform means "drill, drill, drill" and global warming is a world wide scientific hoax. The sad part is that there are so many dittoheads that actually buy into it all without making their own assessments of the real data available. Of course, that part of it is just like religion ... very few "believers" ever objectively evaluate what it is they believe in, they believe what their parents and peers have told them to, it's family tradition and it's unchanged for the big three monotheistic religions for at least 2 millenia.
Neither climate change nor health care will be able to get "60 votes" and so a minority along with a subset of the majority will ensure that we do not make any progress in providing health care at reasonable cost nor will there be any new renewable energy industry, at least not in the United States.
It's a sad statement for humanity and humankind. And we will continue to pay the price on healthcare and on the lack of global climate reform. It should be mentioned, regarding global warming, that the wild card, the elephant in the room, is *not* CO2 emissions from developed and developing countries, bad though that truly is. It is the release of methane gas from, for example, the melting permafrost. Methane is many times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat on our planet and it is not yet well represented in super computer climate models, but it will accelerate significantly in the next decade. Regarding climate change, we are not dodging away from a slippery slope, we're already on it, gathering speed. With healthcare, I'm sure we'll probably muddle through, as desired by Republicans, but it seems that you can only be the "do nothing" party for so long before it catches up to you. Hmm, what am I saying, after all ... Bush was elected ... twice. But as Albert Einstein said "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Both will be victims of the same disease ... self interest and acceptance of the status quo and "things as they are". Basically, the world has too significantly high a percentage of conservatives (e.g. Republicans in the U.S.) to do anything meaningful. To them, energy reform means "drill, drill, drill" and global warming is a world wide scientific hoax. The sad part is that there are so many dittoheads that actually buy into it all without making their own assessments of the real data available. Of course, that part of it is just like religion ... very few "believers" ever objectively evaluate what it is they believe in, they believe what their parents and peers have told them to, it's family tradition and it's unchanged for the big three monotheistic religions for at least 2 millenia.
Neither climate change nor health care will be able to get "60 votes" and so a minority along with a subset of the majority will ensure that we do not make any progress in providing health care at reasonable cost nor will there be any new renewable energy industry, at least not in the United States.
It's a sad statement for humanity and humankind. And we will continue to pay the price on healthcare and on the lack of global climate reform. It should be mentioned, regarding global warming, that the wild card, the elephant in the room, is *not* CO2 emissions from developed and developing countries, bad though that truly is. It is the release of methane gas from, for example, the melting permafrost. Methane is many times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat on our planet and it is not yet well represented in super computer climate models, but it will accelerate significantly in the next decade. Regarding climate change, we are not dodging away from a slippery slope, we're already on it, gathering speed. With healthcare, I'm sure we'll probably muddle through, as desired by Republicans, but it seems that you can only be the "do nothing" party for so long before it catches up to you. Hmm, what am I saying, after all ... Bush was elected ... twice. But as Albert Einstein said "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Friday, September 25, 2009
Photoshop Examined
Since I'm totally convinced that I'll never have enough time on the planet to learn all the things I'm interested in learning, I try to keep picking up something new to work on in fairly rapidfire order. This year I started with learning how to shoot a compound bow and make my own arrows. Hopefully, those skills will prove to be useful when I head up to visit my Uncle Don in Fargo this November to go deer hunting (something I've never done before).
But before I get up there, I've decided that I want to really find out what Photoshop can do. My original goal was to get skilled enough to let me convert a particular picture of Larry and Gary Green into a "masterpiece" that is both fun and interesting. To do this, I've acquired 4 new books, completed one and have scanned the other 3 as I start on the second and third books ... and they're really great. First I got "Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop" and I've completed the 21 lessons in that book. It's a bit more than an introduction, but it gives extremely straightforward steps using Camera Raw and Photoshop to update good pictures with varying flaws. That gave me most of what I needed to make my new picture ... but it also got me interested in digital photography, raw files, DNG and really understanding how it all works.
The other 3 books I have, that I highly recommend, are "Camera Raw With Adobe Photoshop CS3" by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe, "The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book For Digital Photographers", by Scott Kelby and the "Photoshop CS3 Bible", by Laurie Ulrich Fuller and Robert C. Fuller. The only problem I've had so far with these books is minor. It concerns the "humor" that Scott Kelby interjects into his work. It gets to be a little too much. But I already was aware of this when I bought the second Kelby book ... also filled with practical applications of Photoshop ... and the fact that I bought it (anyway) means that I think it's got many fine teaching examples to offer. Of course, the "Bible" is primarily for reference, which I'll need quite a bit of, I'm sure.
Not wanting to leave things half done, I've now also ordered a Nikon D5000 camera so I can take pictures in raw format and go from "A to Z" in the Photoshop process with some of my own shots. Another experiment in learning ... about to take off. We'll see how it goes.
But before I get up there, I've decided that I want to really find out what Photoshop can do. My original goal was to get skilled enough to let me convert a particular picture of Larry and Gary Green into a "masterpiece" that is both fun and interesting. To do this, I've acquired 4 new books, completed one and have scanned the other 3 as I start on the second and third books ... and they're really great. First I got "Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop" and I've completed the 21 lessons in that book. It's a bit more than an introduction, but it gives extremely straightforward steps using Camera Raw and Photoshop to update good pictures with varying flaws. That gave me most of what I needed to make my new picture ... but it also got me interested in digital photography, raw files, DNG and really understanding how it all works.
The other 3 books I have, that I highly recommend, are "Camera Raw With Adobe Photoshop CS3" by Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe, "The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book For Digital Photographers", by Scott Kelby and the "Photoshop CS3 Bible", by Laurie Ulrich Fuller and Robert C. Fuller. The only problem I've had so far with these books is minor. It concerns the "humor" that Scott Kelby interjects into his work. It gets to be a little too much. But I already was aware of this when I bought the second Kelby book ... also filled with practical applications of Photoshop ... and the fact that I bought it (anyway) means that I think it's got many fine teaching examples to offer. Of course, the "Bible" is primarily for reference, which I'll need quite a bit of, I'm sure.
Not wanting to leave things half done, I've now also ordered a Nikon D5000 camera so I can take pictures in raw format and go from "A to Z" in the Photoshop process with some of my own shots. Another experiment in learning ... about to take off. We'll see how it goes.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Fun Golf Day
The last 3.5 weeks of weather here in eastern Iowa have been very much like San Diego. Highs in the low to mid-80's with cool nights. Many days have seen highs in the upper 70's. I suppose it's about to come to an end as we also have had no measurable precipitation for almost 4 weeks and it would be nice to get a little moisture for the lawn. At any rate, the weather has been perfect for ... well, just about anything outdoors. So today I took part in a 4-person best shot tournament at St. Andrews (Cedar Rapids, IA) golf course. Great weather and a great time. We shot 58 (12-under par) and took 2nd in the championship round. That was meaningful since it meant we got back $60 each in prize money. Also, I'm feeling better about another tournament coming up the first Friday in October as I was able to hit the ball pretty well today (I was a bit anxious since it was my very first round of the year), which bodes well for 2 weeks from now.
At the end of the round I took a nice quick bicycle ride as the golf was with golf carts and just not much of a workout. But the weather was just great with light winds and about 75 degrees with some clouds.
Of course, the Vikings and the Hawkeye's winning this weekend also put a positive spin on the entire day. And how 'bout them Bears, beating the Steelers! Who'da thunk it ...
Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed that my Photoshop training has paid a few dividends as I've updated my profile (and website) pictures (of me) with new versions taken in September. This month and the next are going to be filled with studying Photoshop CS3 and learning how to do more with all the (untouched and un-retouched) pictures I have on my computer. Should be a good time.
So many things to do on this earth ... so little time. Well, at least I'm not wasting what time I do have on the supernatural fantasy world of religion. If I'm going for wasting time with fantasy, it'll be with Lord of the Rings or King Kong or Star Trek or Star Wars or Stargate, etc. At least I won't be deluding myself since I both understand and admit that they're *not* real. Enjoy yourselves, folks, because your time can be over far more quickly than you could ever imagine. And it's what you do while you're here and what you leave behind that matters ...
At the end of the round I took a nice quick bicycle ride as the golf was with golf carts and just not much of a workout. But the weather was just great with light winds and about 75 degrees with some clouds.
Of course, the Vikings and the Hawkeye's winning this weekend also put a positive spin on the entire day. And how 'bout them Bears, beating the Steelers! Who'da thunk it ...
Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed that my Photoshop training has paid a few dividends as I've updated my profile (and website) pictures (of me) with new versions taken in September. This month and the next are going to be filled with studying Photoshop CS3 and learning how to do more with all the (untouched and un-retouched) pictures I have on my computer. Should be a good time.
So many things to do on this earth ... so little time. Well, at least I'm not wasting what time I do have on the supernatural fantasy world of religion. If I'm going for wasting time with fantasy, it'll be with Lord of the Rings or King Kong or Star Trek or Star Wars or Stargate, etc. At least I won't be deluding myself since I both understand and admit that they're *not* real. Enjoy yourselves, folks, because your time can be over far more quickly than you could ever imagine. And it's what you do while you're here and what you leave behind that matters ...
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Hiccups Cure
Most (perhaps all) of us have been in a situation at one time or another where we've had the hiccups. When they do strike, one hopes that it's not at a critical time, such as immediately before or during the making of a presentation. But, of course, that isn't always the case, as Murphy's Law will attest. Furthermore, hiccups are uncomfortable and are annoying to have for any length of time greater than about 1 minute. Well, there's good news ... hiccups are easily curable ... read on.
On at least 3 different occasions with 3 different people (including myself), I've found that there is one sure cure for the hiccups. I'd like to give credit for this idea but I cannot remember where, when, or from whom I acquired it. Regardless of the original source, it's simple to try: gulp down one 1-ounce shot of Rose's Lime Juice. This is a sweetened and concentrated lime juice with extreme "pucker power" (i.e., you won't like it but it's better than cod liver oil). Best known for its use in various alcoholic beverages (Cosmopolitan, Martini, Margarita), this mixer is not alcoholic ... just very effective at eliminating hiccups, immediately. I don't know if the same results may be had when taken in its diluted form, as in a tasty Margarita, but that may be something to try, if you've a mind to. But if the Margarita doesn't work, well, at least it would probably have been fun to try and, afterwards, taking the "straight" stuff might be quite a bit easier on the palate.
So next time you have the hiccups and are at your wit's end about how to get rid of them, try Rose's Lime Juice. It really works ...
On at least 3 different occasions with 3 different people (including myself), I've found that there is one sure cure for the hiccups. I'd like to give credit for this idea but I cannot remember where, when, or from whom I acquired it. Regardless of the original source, it's simple to try: gulp down one 1-ounce shot of Rose's Lime Juice. This is a sweetened and concentrated lime juice with extreme "pucker power" (i.e., you won't like it but it's better than cod liver oil). Best known for its use in various alcoholic beverages (Cosmopolitan, Martini, Margarita), this mixer is not alcoholic ... just very effective at eliminating hiccups, immediately. I don't know if the same results may be had when taken in its diluted form, as in a tasty Margarita, but that may be something to try, if you've a mind to. But if the Margarita doesn't work, well, at least it would probably have been fun to try and, afterwards, taking the "straight" stuff might be quite a bit easier on the palate.
So next time you have the hiccups and are at your wit's end about how to get rid of them, try Rose's Lime Juice. It really works ...
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