The Big Desk Move - Pt1: Pack Down and Move Out!

As Jonnie is moving in with me, I have to move all my computer stuff from the second bedroom in order for him to have space for a few bits and pieces, like a bed. And maybe some clothes? (please god let there be clothes).

So the way my desk is currently:

I'm by the window and the server rack (yes, I have a server rack, and a comms rack, but more on those later). Its usually pretty cluttered but when its not, it looks...

...like this! I'll come onto the TFT Rail later as its due an update.

To the right is a big extension for my girlfriends PC and enough space to work easily between or have up to a 4 person LAN.

Without the desk, the rooms seems pretty huge.

In the new room (yes, it looks incredibly similar, every room is Crown Magenta walls and beige carpet) the desk fits pretty well, but the space is narrower so the left edge of the desk has to be shortened to fit the rack (which is also moving with the PCs)

One makeshift work bench later and its cut to size.

The legs are a mix of heavy duty desk legs I got from another friend sometime ago and Ikea's finest grey table leg. Unfortunately for a comfortable height for the desk, the Ikea legs need to be raised a little with some blocks.

Cue the better part of an hour trying to get all the adjustable legs o match those of the Ikea ones.

The extension was also cut down but still leaves a sizable gap to work between our machines when needed.

There's a lot more work to this yet so i'll do another update in due course.

Stitched Up

For a while I've been making do with substitutes for my camera bag, a LowePro Slingshot 300

Its a really nice bag, not least because it'll swing effortlessly round your shoulder and sit on its side in front of you're chest giving access to the camera pouch for lenses or whatever else is in there.

The problem I've had with mine is the zip of the main compartment, which broke in two places in different ways. At the end of the zip in the middle of the bag (between the front pockets) the zip came off on one side preventing it from refastening without a lot of faff to restart it. If it did get back on the teeth, a slight mistake meant it fell off again. 

First thing was to get the zip started again, which took about 20 minutes due to the way the zip is positioned under the material for weatherproofing. Anyway, it worked and the teeth lined up eventually.

Next, once its secure with a few wraps of thread and the pieces don't come apart it's time to sew it in a more substantial fashion.

Something like 4 feet of thread later, i'm happy the stitching wont come lose at least without me noticing and being able to fix it again before the zip falls off.

The next problem is at the bottom left corner (as seen in the first image) where the zip has ripped away from the fabric and not only doesn't allow the zipper to move freely due to the teeth stretching, but is also serves little to no purpose and things can still fall out.

After stripping the old thread out as far back as was loose, the ends were tied off to prevent them fraying more and a few stitches went in mid way to line up the material and the zip.

After that another 4 or 5 feet of thread went around the zip to hopefully stop it coming apart again.

In retrospect, i should have put the knots on the inside of the zip, not the outside. This i'll cite as reason number one i should never be a tailor. But at least with a full load of gear inside it's not falling apart anymore. Yet.

The £27 Tablet - JXD S18

It's really hard to believe that a tablet can be under £30. I mean seriously, a dual core 4GB tablet, with a touch screen (granted its resistive, thus cheaper), and its not exactly a winner in style. But that doesn't get part the point that this tablet was shipped to me for £27. The cheapest shipping i've seen from China is north of a fiver for a small packet, which means this is basically twenty pounds of tablet.

So, granted it was free shipping, it took a while. Roughly 4 weeks ago I ordered it on a whim via Paypal, with a credit card the website (www.fasttech.com) looks legit, but so do LOTS of scams these days, but sure enough, it arrived. Paypal seems OK, as does the credit card, so thus far it doesn't look like it's been skimmed.

Anyway, risks and bad stuff aside, here it is. the cheapest tablet I've ever seen. I'll blame the post for the crumpled box forcing it through my letter box (thanks Royal Mail) and in fairness, I had opened already opened it it by the time I took this.

Oh wow! Instructions!... are not a lot of use (unsurprisingly).

The tablet itself, 4.3" screen, 4GB memory (roughly 1GB space to apps and stuff), microSD slot, WiFi, 3.5mm jack and a micro USB to charge and transfer stuff.

It came pre-installed with Android 4.1 which was nice, and after reading a few reviews found a few issues which actually haven't panned out as bad as they were presented.

Problem 1:

One reviewer had poor quality and sound level from the jack, but the speaker was fine, blaming it being cheap. Mine works perfectly well so i'll chalk that up to a dodgy unit. 

Problem 2:
No dedicated Home button, however, given a bit of exploring the power button, when held down to turn it off (for about a second or two) gives two options, Power Off, or Home. So, negated again. There are also a few other buttons in the form of rocker switches, one for volume up and down and the other works as a back button and settings button.

Problem 3:
The touchscreen isn't very responsive. Well, its resistive, so it wont be, I really don't know what people expected from something this cheap. It's still multi-touch and in all honesty it's not like i have to drag my nail across it and scratch the surface to do anything, its just a slightly firmer press than a 'normal' (read capacitive) phone screen.

Problem 4:
The resolution is low. Yes, yes it is. It also said the resolution when you buy it and given its a small screen, you're not going to get retina levels of ppi. The only down side I found was the grid on the home screens is 4x2 default, which is a bit small. Quick applications of a custom UI (Launcher Pro) and it works just as well in 4x3, giving a little more room and with smaller icons, a slightly better image.

The plan for this was to combine it into the dashboard of my golf for sat-nav suing my phone as a WiFi hotspot. The problem being (and maybe i got carried away with just how cheap it was) I over looked it doesn't have GPS.

And really, I don't care! I've got other uses for this in mind (even when I bought it, i had more than one idea) so it'll still work perfectly fine for what I want (I hope). And if it doesn't, I still wont care, because i'll find a use for it somewhere, even if its just a toy to marvel at how stupidly cheap things can be.

Once i've had a play with it a little more using googlemaps and WiFi location data and post some more findings. Maybe it will end up in the golf after all.

The Pot Problem.

For years the cupboard in my kitchen for pots, pans and baking trays has had a problem. When the cupboards full the pan lids take up just enough room to get i the way of taking other things out easily. If the pots are stacked with the lids on them inverted they're not stable enough, and the trays just get in the way in general.

After seeing this instructables post I decided it'd solve the problem. The hooks i found weren't perfect but fortunately still had a big enough gap for the lid to sit in from Clas Ohlson 

Fixing the hooks wasn't too bad, they stuck well, although the fit was a little close as the lids on just fit in.

Fortunately the lid doesnt move when the door opens though so it should be fine.

 The smaller lid sits nicely to there should be room for a couple more once I get more.

The next problem is the lack of shelving space, but isn't something I can solve with a few sticky hooks.

ALL THE THINGS!

Well after a manic period of what feels like a year, but is really maybe a month or so (which actually come to think of it still feels long saying that way) i've resurfaced, many projects done, and nothing written up. Hurrah!

However now I'm going to try and catch up in earnest and post one or two things a week to catch up, rather than splurge everything in one go (mostly because as I say, it's not written yet). But hopefully at least it should be worth the wait. Maybe.

For now, i'll post a couple this week from the archive and soem recent stuff I didnt get round to doing before, then its ALL THE THINGS!