knowledge is a habit

Symptom: When printing, the top sheet of paper would advance 1/4″ from the paper feed stack and then stop, causing the printer to signal a paper jam.

These suggestions are At Your Own Risk. They worked for me on a printer I picked up at a yard sale. If you can’t afford to mess up your printer, then take it to a professional for repair.

Numbers in parens (nn) correspond to the graphics in the attached PDF available here: http://brainio.us/blog/wp-content/explodedviewpartlistml-1740.pdf

Attempt 1 : Simple – Clean the Gripper Roller
Use alcohol and a lint free cloth to clean the gripper roller.

Attempt 2: Simple: Increase push of paper tray springs.
It is possible if the printer has been stored with the paper tray and had a lot of paper in it, the paper tray springs have lost their ’sprung’. The springs help the paper feed process by putting pressure on the paper stack and making the top sheet of paper stable for the gripper.
Take out the paper tray and remove the paper. Guide the metal carrier past the two stop tabs on the left and right side of the paper cassette. Use tweezers (or if your fingers are small) to release the springs. Measure the springs original height. Gently stretch each spring until you add about 1/4″ to its resting length. Reinstall the springs (tweezers or locking forceps are very hand here).
Now load the printer with some paper and give it a shot.

Attempt 3: Rotate the ‘tire’ on the gripper roller to provide a new clean gripper surface
1) Unplug printer, remove toner cart and paper casette, find a good flat work surface
2) Remove two screws from front (remove flip down front door (11))
Remove two exposed screws from back panel
Large cover (0) will come off now, some tabs will need to be released on the bottom of unit to release the cover.
3) On left side of printer, remove 6 screws to release the motor drive unit (10).
The screws are on the outside of the rectangular plate with the green ground wire hooked to top center.
Carefully remove the control wire from this unit, take care to not change position of any gears. Set the unit aside.
5) On bottom of printer, release bottom metal plate (19) by loosening approx 15 screws. Even release the screws that are accessible through holes in the plate. Plate will now loosen so you can move it about 1/2″ towards the bottom of the printer. This will allow access to the gripper roller assembly. There are a lot of wires and electronics attached to this plate, don’t worry about removing all of those, we only need 1/2″ of movement for access.
5) On left side of printer again, release triangular plate with 3 screws (50)
6) Pull off the largest gear (49) straight off the u shaped shaft that is connected to the gripper roller.
7) From inside front about 1.5″ from the end of the gear you just pulled off release the outside bushing (58-1) by prying the tab gently out of hole 58-2. Slide the bushing towards the center of the printer. Now you can pull the shaft about 1/4″ towards the outside of the printer and the inside bushing will release from its mount. You can now remove the shaft through the front of the printer.
8 ) Release tab on bushing next to gripper roller (58-4). Slide the gripper roller off (58-6).
9) There is a round ‘tire’ on this oblong shaped roller (58-5). I pulled it about halfway off the oblong plastic roller, rotated it about 180 degrees so a new fresh surface was available on the wide part of the roller. Then slip it back on. Because of fricton it is not advisable to move the position of the tire without sliding it part or all the way off of the roller.
10) Clean roller well with alcohol and lint free cloth.
11) Put it all back together.

I made a few attempts at putting it all back together. My two main issues were with the positioning Gripper Roller assembly (58). Remember to properly re-set the tab of the inside bushing (58-1) into the hole. Also be sure to keep the Gripper Roller assembly in its ‘home’ position before reassembly. If you rotate the Gripper Roller shaft before after (50) is reinstalled it will ‘click’ into position on each revolution. This is the ‘home’ position you want it in before you reinstall the motor drive unit (10).

I’ve had a Sansa e260 player for about 18 months. Most of those months the player has lay idle because I grew tired of my MP3 collection and have not been able to successfully hook the player up to our household Real Rhapsody account.

Last night I gave it another shot. A firmware update came out from Sansa on 10-APR-2008 and I thought that might do the trick. Unfortunately it didn’t.

I did find a way to get Real Rhapsody music playing on the player though.

Pros:
Real Rhapsody tracks finally play on my e260!

Cons:
Anything currently on your player will be wiped. For me, that’s not a big deal because I usually load what I’m going to listen to it, listen to it, then I’m done with it. Lather rinse repeat.

Here’s what I did:
1) Make sure the player is authorized in Rhapsody. (It may not successfully play tracks, but it should still be able to be authorized.)
2) Switch to MSC (Mass Storage Class) transfer mode.
3) In explorer, right click on the player and select Format. Format it like you would a hard drive (I accepted the defaults for the formatting).
4) Switch back to MTP (Media Transfer Protocol).
5) Give it another shot. It worked for me.

Since the successful load of Real Rhapsody DRMed tracks I have not tried throwing a few of my old un-DRMed MP3s into the mix.

This may or may not apply to the e200, e220, e240, etc models. I bought an e240 for a family member and they have had zero problems with Rhapsody and have not had to take drastic measures like this.

– Dave

I picked up an antique Craftsman 103.24280 12″ Band saw the other day. From what I can tell it was made in the 30’s-50’s. Sears was having a 20% off sale the same day I got this from a fellow who was liquidating his shop. Even though it needs some TLC I think I will be much happier with this workhorse than an more recent Made in China model.

First thing I needed to do was replace the worn belt and warped pulleys. Luckily an Ace hardware opened up a block away and they have a full selection of mower parts. I was able to quickly find replacements for all the drive parts.

I also have a .PDF of the manual available here for other collectors who may have lost theirs: Click Here

– Dave

The EPA has a site where you can find out what mix of power generation sources supply your zip code.

EPA Power Profiler

– Dave

Just wanted to record this for posterity. I’ve been asked about this a few times and never knew it was such a pain to find these connectors.

On my friend’s Volvo and my Honda the headlight bulb sockets have heated up enough to melt them. Once they are melted then they stop working. Finding a replacement for these connectors has been a pain. The Volvo dealer said they couldn’t get the part unless it came with that section of the wiring harness (sounds like $$$ to me). I didn’t even check with the Honda Dealer since I found the following website to get parts. Skip down to the “Headlight Pigtail Socket Receptacles” section:

http://autolumination.com/connectors.htm

I just ordered two Ceramic H4 sockets for my Civic bulbs. Hopefully the Ceramic will last a bit longer than the original plastic did.

– Dave

If you’ve got a cat I have found the best toy evar !!!one111!!one

Its called The Original Cat Dancer and its so dumb its brilliant. It is basically a 3′ long wire with some pieces of cardboard on the end. All of $0.25 worth of materials that sells for about $3 after they wrap it up in colorful packaging.

I’ve never had a toy where both of the cats come running when I fish it out of the kitty toy box.

Here’s the business end of this thing:

http://www.catdancer.com/catdancer.htm

– Dave

There are some fantastic turntables here at The Funky Way’s collection of the Exotic Turntables of the World:

http://www.thefunkyway.com/gearmus/djgear/decks/

– Dave

I went to Family Dollar and Big Lots looking for a multi 3v/6v/9v/12v transformer thingie for a new portable radio I got.

Struck out on the transformer at Family Dollar but I did encounter a transvestite.

I continued to Big Lots. Again, no transformer but there was another transvestite in line ahead of me. This one was more of a ‘guy that dresses in blouses’ where the Family Dollar ‘vite was probably 100% passable after a beer or two. (My observation is not scientific, just a guess based on watching too much Jerry Springer during college).

But I did get this multi pack of audio connectors for $5 tho, which is the cost of about 1 of the connectors at Radio Shack. Yeah, the quality isn’t the greatest but if even 1 of these connectors works OK I broke even. Bonus is that the 1/8″ stereo to 1/8″ stereo extension cord is coiled so I won’t trip over it. Word.

– Dave

Here’s a post on painting perfect circles using old school drafting tools.

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/11/how_to_make_cir.html

I used to use one of those pens that you drop the ink into when I was in drafting class. Never thought of using it for painting. A compass set at Staples is about $15. You can also use the pen with a ruler to make straight lines or one of those bendy curve things to make compex curves.

– Dave

So I’m traveling cross country in a couple of weeks and decided to check the baggage restrictions. I’m traveling for a week but will have access to a washing machine. I’de like to avoid checking any baggage since I would like to make this trip as stress free as possible.

I’ll have to remember that my Cattle Prods, Crowbars, Billy Clubs, Black Jacks, Brass Knuckles, Mace, Nunchucks and throwing stars cannot be carried on but I am free to stow them in checked baggage.

And then there’s the crap with liquids/gels. No liquids/gels more than 3oz size are allowed through checkpoints and in carry on baggage. 3-1-1 is their mnemonic for this. 3 ounce or smaller container, inside a 1 quart ziploc bag, 1 bag per traveler. The TSA supplies plenty of free .PDF docs here you can print out and frame here.

I had to check if any smartass was selling TSA-Approved quart ziplog bags on ebay at inflated prices. Well didn’t find anything quite that dumb, but you can get a “TSA Friendly Quart Size Bag of Toiletries” with 8 items for $23.14 after shipping. I think I’ll pass and pick my own 8 items at Target for $0.99 each.

– Dave

So I finally broke down and got a new laptop. My Toshiba 5105-S501 decided to start flaking out. Seems there is a connection between the motherboard and video card on those machines that gets stressed with age. I didn’t move the computer that much so it lasted almost 4 years for me. At least I was able to get some $$$ out of it on CraigsList by selling it for parts.

I got a Compaq V6030US, 1gb, 80gb, with an AMD 64-bit dual core processor. It was about $800 after rebates at Circuit City. So far I’m very happy with it, the price is half what I paid for my last laptop and all the capacities/capabilities (except video) are pretty much doubled.

Pros:
Quiet.
Computer doesn’t get very hot.
Lots of features for the $$$.
Relateively light. Feels pretty sturdy.
Has a clear plastic screen protector.

Cons:
Screen is not as nice as the Toshiba. 1280×800 is great for DVDs but 1280×1024 would be better for doing real work.
Battery life is about 2 hours.
Power Supply gets very hot.
Video is shared ram and is slow. Expect 20fps max on CounterStrike.

– Dave

So last week I upgraded my home PC with a new motherboard, case and power supply. Trying to figure out what else I could upgrade I went looking for HD-DVD reader/burner drives. Currently pricewatch.com only has 2 available, Sony BWU-100a ($699) and a Samsung BDP-1000xaa ($845).

Needless to say I passed on them both. Looking at the prices I thought “How outrageous!”

Then I remembered the last time I jumped on the bleeding edge bandwagon and the pain I suffered as an early adopter. I bought a Ricoh MP6200S CD-R drive when it first came out. This was one of the first commercially available CD writers out there. It elevated the term ‘coaster’ to a whole new level. After paying upwards of $2 for each blank CDR even if they were useless I didn’t want to throw them away. After about a year the drive really started flaking. The read/write head was frozen and I was out of warranty. Not about to give up on my investment I tore it apart and slathered the mechanism with Vaseline. I was able to make it until CD drives got down in the $50 range and then retired it.

The price I got to pay for all this aggravation? $599 in 1995 dollars.

But it was nice to be able to make mixed CDs while everyone else was still handing out tapes.

– Dave

Upgraded to WordPress 2.04. Wanted to make sure I didn’t get too far behind the times.

 Also upgraded SpamKarma as I was getting some complaints of issues with submitting comments.

My dad traveled to Indiana and England to find this info out. I dug it up through google:

Read the rest of this entry »

Some tips for selling on EBay…

1) Research what you’re selling.

Run a search for items similar to yours that are “Completed Items”. This will give you the last 30 days worth of auction history for items matching your search. You can get a pretty good idea of the market value of what you’re selling this way. Prices in Green are items that sold, prices in Red didn’t sell.

If the item is still something you can find new in stores you can research the price through Amazon or Froogle. If I am auctioning something new in stores I usually don’t expect more than 50% of the current new selling price.

Some items I won’t even put up on Ebay. Books and CDs for example, I always sell them through Amazon. All the books I have sold on Ebay have gone for peanuts compared to what they go for on Amazon.

2) Descriptions should be complete and truthful, lots of pictures

If your item has more features than usual similar items play it up in the ad (Laptop + Docking Station!). Take lots of pictures. Give info about the usual specs of the item, note anything extraordinarily good or bad.

I have sold plenty of items that were “For Parts” “As-Is” and gotten decent prices for them.

If you don’t know a lot about the item, let your customers know. I recently picked up some weird old Sparc laptops. I could get them to boot up, but had no idea how to thoroughly check them out so I put it in the Ad. Some helpful bidders sent me some commands to query the processor type and speed so I ran the commands and posted the output.

3) Start your auction at $1.00.

So far I haven’t been disappointed by the final value. Starting at $1.00 gets people more interested than starting closer to the final value. I have never used a reserve price because I like to live dangerously, but a reserve price is one way to protect yourself if you absolutely can’t take less than $X for the item.

4) Run for standard 7 days.

I feel 10 days is too long, 5 or 3 days and your item doesn’t get enough exposure.

Keep in mind that a lot of Ebay traffic is generated by their automatic search e-mail system and EBay’s partnership with google.

But a large amount of traffic is generated by people surfing to the site and typing in keywords. 7 days gives you a good exposure to

5) Mind the End Time

I don’t have any hard proof on this one, I just like to make sure the end times of my auctions are during weekday afternoons. When you go to www.ebay.com and type in a keyword, the default search shows you matches in order of “Time: ending soonest”. If you are ending your auction during times when there is a lot of traffic to the site there is a better chance of getting some last minute live bidders in on the action.

6) Don’t gouge on shipping

This is one of my biggest peeves as an Ebay Buyer and Seller. Yes I have seen iPods for a Buy It Now $9.99 with $300.00 shipping.

Generally I only charge for the exact USPS or UPS shipping price.

I usually keep a selection of packing materials on hand that I pick up before they get to the dumpster at my workplace. Tape is cheap, the 10 minutes I spend packaging something up is part of doing business.

Now my tune might change if I was doing this full time or hiring someone else to do it, but that’s how I operate right now.

7) Be responsive to e-mail. Check your spam filter!

If one person has questions about your item, chances are many people had the same question. You may want to incorporate the questions and answers into the auction detail.

Get a free account at UPS.COM, use it to simplify shipping

You can print shipping labels and pay for shipping by putting in your from/to shipping info into the UPS.COM site and printing out the labels from a laser or inkjet printer. Tape it to your box and then drop it at any UPS store or place that accepts UPS packages.

9) Know your market, expand your market

If you know a lot about a particular market, find out what is selling the most and most profitable in that market.

A lot of items I sell are rare or hard to find electronic or computer parts. If I come across something in a flea market that is in good shape for a decent price I usually just buy it and worry about selling it later.

10) Learn from your mistakes.

I love ebay because its about as pure a marketplace as you can get. The bonus is that there are always tons of visitors moving through that site. If you have something someone else needs, you can find a buyer!

If your auction was an utter failure because of low selling price, no bids, not enough hits on your auction then:
. Did you price something too high?
. Not enough or bad pictures?
. Weak description?

– Dave

So I’m not exactly an Oracle beginner, going on working with it full time for 5 years now actually…

But I wanted a place to share interesting stuff I’ve come across working with this beast.

Interesting content to follow in this category… I promise!

– Dave

Update 07/20/2006:
In the interest of keeping Business and Personal stuff separate i’m I’m starting my own DB related site here: http://www.ba6.us

– Dave

I’ve been looking for a small form factor laptop for awhile so I got a surplus laptop from work. Its a Toshiba Portege 320CT. Exactly what I was looking for. Its smaller than a sheet of letter size paper, about 1″ thick. 96mb ram, 266mhz, 4gb hard drive. Perfectly portable, something to throw in the car when going on vacation so I can check e-mail, etc.

The only problem is that it doesn’t have network or a CD-Rom. Trying to get an OS installed without either of those is a pain. Of course I remember loading slackware from 30 floppes but hey, that was 1994, I was happy to be running something unix-like on my PC instead of DOS or Win 3.11.

I found a docking station for it with a CD-Rom and an Ethernet port but the 2 I located are in Europe right now. Shipping would kill me.

Problem #1: It had Win2k installed and I didn’t have an admin password.
Miracle #1: I found a DOS boot floppy in my stack of disks.

Problem #2: No Cd-Rom, no network, i don’t have any easy way to move 400mb worth of install media to the hard drive.
Miracle #2: I was able to find an USPASPI.SYS driver online that actually lets me read a USB flash drive. Fortunately this little thing has 1 usb port. So in 128mb chunks I’m copying the Win2k install disk to the hard drive. Once its on the HD I should be able to fire up setup.exe and get this sucker installed.

So by this afternoon the copying should be done, we’ll see how the install goes. Wish me luck!

– Dave

Update 7/20/2006:
After I went through all the trouble of getting the Win2k install files on the blank hard drive I found a docking station with CD-Rom on ebay for $0.01 + shipping. It was sold as-is because had some issues with power. Turns out the power jack was bad. I bypassed it with some creative rigging and now I’ve got a docking station with a CD-Rom and extra USB port.

I also found a 3Com 10/100 ethernet card with x-jack (no dongles to break or lose) for $6 on ebay. Combine that with my old Orinoco Gold wireless card and I’m set for connectivity.

On the software front, I found another hard drive and installed Ubuntu on it. I had some issues with the weird screen size on this laptop (1024×600) and hacked the XF86Config a bit but still no luck. The deal breaker really was the speed, Ubuntu was dog slow on the Pentium 266 processor. So back to Win2k for now.

– Dave

Allright, I’m a packrat when it comes to papers. My friend Todd in Asheville owns a couple of businesses and is constantly chased by the paper tiger. He told me he started scanning all his stuff in so he has access to it on his laptop. I’m not sure what kind of scanner he uses but I picked up a Canon Lide 60 a couple of months ago and I love it.

I’m slowly going through 2 file cabinets worth of old papers, shredding what I don’t need to keep, and scanning what I do need to keep. Not only can the scanner save directly to PDF, but it can create multipage PDFs as well. After it scans a page it asks you if you’re done or if you want to scan another page.

Pros:

• Creates PDFs
• Completely powered from the USB port, no external power supply needed
• Uses LEDs for the lamp, no warming up, more rugged than a fluorescent tube

Cons:

• Came with a foot attachment to keep the scanner vertical (less desk space). Doesn’t work too well because its really hard to align documents and close the lid in this position, I just keep the scanner horizontal on top of my CPU
• Only does letter sized scans
• I sure hope the PDF ’standard’ lives for a while (this is a very long term risk, but can be a risk/hassle nonetheless)

Froogle Search

– Dave

Clickity to view full size…

I used to have a ton more urban exploration sites but I lost those links

www.uer.ca

www.defunctparks.com

www.deadmalls.com

www.urbanexplorers.net

www.zone-tour.com

forgottenmichigan.com/places.htm

www.deathrock.net

Chernobyl Motorcycle Tour
Link

Some stuff in NC:
Charlotte NC : Lakewood Park Link

Beech Mtn NC : Land of Oz
Link
Link

Yahoo Group : Abandoned NC
Link
Link

Gaffney, SC : The Abyss
The abandoned Cherokee Nuclear Plant project near Gaffney SC was the set for the 1989 movie The Abyss.
Link
Link
Link
Link

– Dave