Monthly Archives: December 2009
Internet Junkies Smarter?
According to the Telegraph, “Internet use ‘may improve brain function in adults’, says UCLA study”. According to the by-line, “Using the internet for just a few days alters our brains – and may help improve cognitive function in the elderly, according to new research.”
The study did before and after scans of adults that used the Internet for the first time. After using the Internet for only a few days, parts of the brains associated with short-term memory and decision-making were lit up.
Technology has basically changed the way that our brains are wired. There have been previous studies comparing the brain activities of those who read more vs. those who receive more of their information from visual stimulus such as television. However, those studies weren’t so positive.
It is clear that further research is needed, but it is my belief that the interactive nature of web browsing makes a large difference.
When Is It Just Not Worth Fixing?
I’m going to attempt to tackle a somewhat sticky problem today: When is it just not worth fixing your old computer?
It’s sticky because the short answer is: “It depends.”
Think about when a car starts getting some age on it. Is it worth fixing? Should I get a new one? How much could I get for a trade-in? Etc. The answer in that case is the same. It depends.
Yesterday, I looked at two laptops, both requiring similar repairs. While one was obviously damaged, the other had no obvious screen damage. Yet, I concluded that if it were me in the customer’s shoes, I would have not fixed the one with obvious damage. It really wasn’t a matter of it being more expensive to fix, either.
Here’s the deal. In spite of them being manufactured within a year of one another, the one with damage also:
- Had only half the RAM the other one did.
- Only had a 40 GB hard drive.
- Was going to be used for PowerPoint presentations.
At minimum, the RAM would have had to have been upgraded to get decent performance during presentations. That’s on top of the fact that something else yet unaccounted for could’ve been damaged inside. It just wasn’t worth it.
However, the other seems like a better risk. In addition, the larger amount of memory and the bigger hard drive needs to be taken into account.
And yet, it still may not be worth upgrading. If the customer thought it was too slow before, it will still be slow. If the customer thought something was quirky before, it will still be quirky. If the customer was wanting to replace it before, then that likely isn’t going to change either.
Just like some people change cars every 5 years or sooner while others drive cars over 200,000 miles, some believe it’s a better use of their money to buy a new computer every 3 years while others keep the one they have until it completely dies.
Like I said, it depends.
Customer Testimonial: MM
A new category for this blog is the customer testimonial. We are a local company, and one of our goals is to help build a sense of community. So, we will occasionally highlight a customer’s feedback.
MM had a problem with her phone and computer. She only had intermittent connectivity, and her phone had no dial tone. This is a little off the beaten track of what we normally deal with, but MM was getting nowhere with the telephone company and we thought we’d help give MM a hand.
We should give a disclaimer as well. Because of her recent employment difficulties, we did not charge MM for this service. However, we did not ask for her feedback until the work was already done. We are pleased to report that she gave us a 5 out of 5 for professionalism!
When asked what she liked most about the service, she answered:
Reliability. John said he would be there at a certain time and he was. And of course I liked that he fixed the problem!!
When asked about if there was anything else she wished to share with the company or blog readers, MM reported:
I would recommend John D’s service to anyone. I myself like to use businesses that my friends have used and recommend. It’s scary to just open a phone book and choose someone at random. John was respectful when he came in not to track anything in my house, he brought the right tools to diagnose the problem and set to work to correct it. He even cleaned up any mess he made. It was a great experience.
It was a pleasure helping you out, MM, and we wish all of our readers prosperity in the next year!
Superhero Blogging
OK, I just can’t pass this one up! Ink Pen isn’t one of the best known comics out there, but it is sometimes a hoot!
Telephone Tester Follow-Up
Yesterday, I posted about a “DIY Telephone Tester” that you can make yourself from an old or cheap telephone handset.
However, there are problems with the way it was put together. It is difficult to strip the wires properly and the wires are thin and fragile.
So, what I did is order some RJ-22 connectors. Hopefully, a regular telephone cable can be adapted to fit in one of these connectors. A regular cable’s wires are of a slightly larger gauge, which makes makes them stronger and easier to strip.
The largest disadvantage is that a regular telephone cable is round, so particular attention will have to be paid to the pinout diagrams.
DIY Telephone Tester
Do you have a landline that needs checking? Arguing with the phone company about where that short is? Well, you can make your own test telephone as long as you have an ounce of mechanical ability, good eyesight and some patience.
Of course, you can always buy a decent “butt set” tester. They run in the neighborhood of $100.
If you’re like me, though, you have to wonder what these offer over a regular telephone. The answer is not that much, actually, if you are the average person. They basically are a heavy duty telephone. What you are paying for with these beauties is the ruggedness. Don’t forget that real linemen work outside and high up. These sets are built to withstand weather and the knocks of climbing poles.
So, if you are just the occasional tester, then you can for about $20 – $30 put together your own test set. Here’s how I did it. I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t the best way to go about it, but I had to work around holidays and finding the materials I needed. Tomorrow, I’ll post a better way.
You need to find or purchase:
- Cheap corded telephone. I was able to find one for under $10, including sales tax. If you want a real test set, make sure the numbers and hang-up hook are on the handset and not on the base.
- Alligator clips. Get the ones with the screw connectors. The best ones will have color coded plastic sheaths for protection of the wires.
- Telephone cable crimper and stripper.
- Wire cutter and stripper.
- Pocket knife may be needed in addition to the above.
Once you have all these materials, you’re ready to go. Essentially, what you will need to do is modify the handset cable so you can connect it to just about anything.
-
Take the telephone and cabling out of its box, but don’t hook up anything yet.
-
Take the handset cable, the curly one, and cut off one of its end with the wire cutter. Cut it off close to the connector so as to not waste any of the cable.
-
Using the telephone stripping tool, strip off at least 2” of the outside sheath. You may even want to strip off 3”. You’ll need the room to attach the alligator clips, plus you don’t always know how far apart the connectors on your junction box are going to be.
-
If the cable has 4 wires, cut off both of the wires on either end. You only need/want the 2 middle wires.
-
Now comes the fun part. If the wire is 26 or 28 gauge, good luck using either of your strippers for peeling off the casing on the fragile wire. That’s where a good pocket knife comes in. With your glasses on
, carefully strip away about 1/4” of the end of the casing from the 2 middle wires. This part may take some time and patience. -
Once you have enough stripped away, carefully twist the ends because they will come apart and fray easily.
-
If your alligator clips are color coded, select a red clip and be sure the screw is loose.
-
One of the wires should be red/reddish. This is actually the negative lead. Carefully guide the wire through the sheath and near the screw head. Wrap the wire around the screw head clockwise so that tightening the screw does not unseat the wire. Tighten. Gently tug to ensure it is tight enough.
-
Connect the remaining wire to the black alligator clip in the same manner.
-
Finally, connect the other end of the cable into the RJ-22 connector on the handset.
You now have a telephone test set. To use the test set, take the cover off of your phone jack connection and connect the handset to the screws using the alligator clips. The red lead should be connected to where the red, orange or blue wire is connected. The black lead should go to the green, black or white lead. If in doubt, check out the Pinouts chart in the Wikipedia RJ11 article for color-coding.
There are problems with this approach, though. If I had time, I would have done something different, and I still plan to. Stay tuned for a slight alteration on the above.
DIY Telephonic Communication Connectors and Such
For those might need to know, there are various standards for different types of cables. Some are interesting, and some are sort of dumb. You need to know this information if you ever need to order any replacement cables.
Most twisted pair and flat communications cables are of the “RJ” variety. “RJ” stands for “registered jack”. The number of pins and their assignments vary and are given a specific standard number.
You probably know an RJ-45 is for ethernet computer networks. If you don’t have wi-fi, you probably are running what looks like a fat telephone cable with a large connector on the end between your computer and router/modem. That’s probably an RJ-45 cable.
What you might not know, and is confusing, is that there is an alternate telephonic RJ-45 standard. This was the real standard, but it never took wide enough hold. Unfortunately, the two are completely incompatible. However, the true RJ-45 telephonic standard is rare enough that you might never run into this situation.
Then, there are the usual telephone cables. An RJ-11, RJ-14 and RJ-25 are basically the same standard but with increasing numbers of wires. The pairings start with the middle two wires and work outwards. Since telephonic wirings are always in pairs, an RJ-11 can only carry one telephone line, an RJ-14 two lines and an RJ-25 three lines. Most of the time, the cables, even with 6 wires, are really RJ-11, as only 2 of them are used for voice.
Wikipedia has additional information, as well as an excellent pin assignment guide, on the RJ-11, 14 and 25 if needed.
The confusion doesn’t stop there, however. Just when you thought you had it down cold, you find out that the RJ-11 does not work with your favorite handset. To make it particularly irksome, some handsets actually do take an RJ-11 connector, while most require an RJ-9, 10 or 22. They have 2 or 4 wires, and the connector is much smaller than an RJ-11. To add to the confusion, the handset cabling is not really a “registered jack” standard at all (according to Wikipedia, at any rate).
Anyhow, this is good general info for you DIY’ers out there. It will come in handy if you ever decide to make or repair your own cables. Tomorrow, though, I’ll post about a little DIY project that I’ve been working on.
Have You Found Your Niche?
Whether you own your own business or you are just trying to stick out from the crowd in the corporate world, it often pays off to find your niche. However, working in your niche often means rejecting things that will distract you from that niche.
Take the example of John Nese. Here is a man who knows his niche. He owns Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in LA. Pepsi tried to pressure him into carrying Pepsi. He turned down Pepsi! The man knows his niche!
Read more about it on the Kim Komando blog under “Amazing soda shop”.
What is Scrum?
In “Master Scrum in Less than 30 Minutes”, Amit Sarkar condenses down Scrum into one easy to read article. There are other methods, but Scrum has a lot of advantage, particularly in the are of software development.
Scrum is a project management methodology. I haven’t talked too much about project management (PM) on this blog, but it is basically a way to control scope, resources or schedule. I say “or” because you can only control one and influence another. The 3rd constraint becomes a function of the other 2.
On small-scale work, it might not seem as important. However, if a project slips and it is costing $1,000 per day for the slip, even a small project can start to balloon out of control.
John D’s is fortunate to have a certified project manager on staff, or also known as a Project Management Professional. This helps to ensure you are getting what you need for the expected cost.
Surprises in IT are rarely a good thing. That’s why I plan to add a PM article from time to time.
