In other news, I’m self-employed now, running a computer repair business. It’s been less than two weeks since I left my last (and first… almost five years) job, but I’m already averaging about as much income as I had before, even considering that I’ll be paying taxes on what I make and the running costs of business.

I’ve built myself a website with hosting and a nifty domain with email forwarding, bought a pair of car magnets, got all of the fancy papers and legal stuff sorted out, and had a bunch of spiffy business cards of my own design printed (with a new, improved design on the horizon… more on that later, maybe).

I already had most of the tools one would need to do most kinds of computer house-calls, but ordered a few ‘upgrades’ that I’ll be able to trust more than a few specific, older tools that I wouldn’t trust on anything I didn’t own. (My old job never supplied me with any tools, but I had most of these things well before that, too.)

All things considered, I’ll have plenty of time to focus on my (continuing) college classes, I won’t need too much work to maintain my ability to pay for my own college education (not a penny of college debt yet, and I’m proud of that!), and I’m already well beyond halfway to breaking even after my first two jobs.

Apparently it’s typical for many small businesses to take three years before they break even, if they ever do at all… I didn’t know that until today. I don’t need a storefront, I have no employees to pay, and I didn’t need much in the way of tools & supplies, so my starting costs were low and my running costs are close to nothing, but still… I’m already doing quite well for myself!

I’m not sure if I’ll ever put my website URL on this blog, though… it would help the Google rankings, but I feel that I’d lose some of the freedom to express myself on a personal level here when it relates to business matters, and personal expression is really the whole point of having this blog. I certainly never intended to ‘tumbl’ anything… I started this blog before I realized what Tumblr really was, and now I just deal with it.

On a similar note, I only ever give out links to this blog to people I really trust, and usually only in relevant situations to illustrate a point or project. I don’t anticipate any issues with this personal blog mixing into my now-professional life, but I feel it’s better that I clarify this anyways… even if only for myself.

Other people finding this from wherever you came from are welcome, too! I know they pass through here every now and then… please, do feel free to send me a message thing if you find one of my posts helpful. I know I’ve had a number of hits for Sansa Fuze line-out -related stuff already, and… hey, I can be curious, right?

So, I got myself a ‘Lapdock’, originally designed to be sold with Motorola Atrix phones, acting as a portable charging dock, netbook-sized screen, and keyboard/touchpad input for the phone. A number of people have also discovered that, as a side effect of using almost-standard connections, the device can function as a cheap, battery-powered HDMI monitor and/or USB keyboard/mouse. And, better yet, as the phone’s been discontinued and newer phones (or any phone but the one this was designed for) don’t have the exact port configuration and orientation (likely intentional on Motorola’s part), these things are going for about $50, used, on eBay right now.

So, what’s the catch? Models that include a power adapter run a whole lot more than that, power adapters are uncommon and, (almost unreasonably) expensive, and the tip on such power adapters has relatively unusual measurements. Oh, and the cables needed to make it useful to non-Atrix devices are uncommon and either expensive on eBay or available only from Chinese export shops (complete with looong shipping times and relatively high prices, relative to similar, standard cables from the same places).

So, figuring I’d be waiting on a few odd adapters from China for a few weeks, I bought a non-power-adapter model and did some research. Based on my research, not much is available on what size plug is needed, what voltage or amperage is required, or much of anything of the sort, so I did my own experimenting and figure someone else might find this later on and benefit. You’re welcome? Just don’t blame me if you fry anything.

The ‘lapdock’, model  SJYN0737A, requests 19 volts at at least 1.58 amps, according to a small label on the bottom. A label near the barrel jack indicates a positive-tip polarity for the barrel connector.

Using a set of digital calipers (recent new toy… dunno how I lived without them!), I got measurements of the power socket itself, and have labelled such on the (remainder of an) index card in the picture above.

(For the visually-impaired and human-impaired, e.g. search engines and people who can’t load or see the images, that is: 4.1mm outside diameter, 12.18mm depth, ~1.3mm diameter inner pin, and the inner pin is recessed by about 4.1mm, so it needs a long-ish barrel plug).

After a bit of searching through my room, I found donor a barrel jack of about 11mm in length and 4.0mm in diameter, with an inner diameter that seems about right, but is something I don’t have the proper tools to measure. somewhere in the 1.3mm-1.6mm range, I imagine. I attached this through a makeshift adapter to a duplicate adapter-jack on one of those ‘universal’ laptop power adapters, this one is a Targus (model APA32US) rated at 19.5 volts (and 4.8 or so amps), but any adapter with a stable 19-volt output and enough amperage should work sufficiently.

Notes:

1) There are, apparently, several newer models of ‘lapdocks’ from Motorola for some of their newer phones, and I have no idea if any of this applies or not. I wouldn’t really bet on it.

2) I already had the universal power adapter sitting around, and I used a plug that I had absolutely no use for, but have the funky ‘adapter’ designed to keep the power adapter itself unmodified and useable for other purposes at will. If I didn’t have this sitting around already, buying an official Motorola power adapter from eBay would probably cost me fair bit less than buying the adapter I’m using.

3) I have yet to receive the aforementioned adapter cables, so I have no way of testing any of this outside of watching the ‘charging’ light slowly pulse (Apple-style, presumably by design… at least I hope so!) and seeing more lights light up on the ‘battery fill gauge’ thing.

Maybe I’ll post an update when I have the cables… maybe not. Only time will tell!

I made this GIF a year or two ago. Haven’t played Minecraft much since then… as it turns out, it’s usually more fun to play with a friend.

Though, to be fair… it’s also more fun when you have at least an hour or five to devote to the game when you do jump in.

Life’s been slowly accelerating into a more interesting, exciting pace lately. The roller coaster has barely detached from the lifting chain, but the thrill of the drop has already reached new levels. I can only imagine the  new kinds of terrors, thrills, turns, and twists I’ll encounter from here on out… but I’m pretty sure things can only get better and better.I just have to keep reminding myself that the illusion of imminent, horrible death is more than just an illusion… every last inch of the track was designed specifically to make me fear for my life, and the experience wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding if I felt any closer to a sense of safety, would it?

So, I’m working with a Macintosh Performa 636CD (circa 1994-1995) to read some old Macintosh-formatted floppy discs (circa 1991) with a collection of roughly 40 documents that appear to have been written with a version of MacWrite (or something compatible to that) that my friend’s employer wrote and recently rediscovered.

Old Apple computers are so much fun… but for me, most any old computer is, honestly. My Performa is the oldest reliably-working Mac I own, but my Macintosh SE works every now and then, too.

Anyways, I acquired the Performa a number of years ago, complete with a nice “Macintosh Accessory Kit” that’s been sitting in my room for a number of years. I got to looking through it last night and found some interesting tidbits, some pictured, many others not (the box had the system installation CD, and the original hard disk had just failed… now all’s working just fine with a new drive at the moment).

The WordPerfect v3.1 has a sealed package with the original installation floppies (all 6 of them), and it’s exactly the kind of software I need to read the files (as far as I know, at least), but… somehow it feels almost wrong to open these diskettes when it’s been almost 20 years since their manufacture (18 and a possible half, to be precise). They’re sealed… you just don’t find that very often when you scavenge old systems from thrift shops and garage sales and the like.

Also, the America Online & CompuServe free disks & advertisements? Good for quite a laugh.

“Now with world wide web browser!”

“It’s easy. It’s fun. And it’s FREE for 10 hours!”

“See the future of the internet now with 100 HOURS FREE!”

[sticker on envelope] “New! 500 hours FREE! (for a month)”

Just had to share that. And now it’s late and I should probably get to sleep… tomorrow I shall tear that nicely-sealed bag of floppies open and install them.

…Oh, and the box comes complete with a 530-page user guide. For the word processor alone. There were a number of other sizable booklets from Apple for the computer itself in the box, too.
I have people ask me every now and then if their new computer, printer, or software comes with an instruction manual (I work in retail, if it wasn’t kinda obvious), and some just don’t want anything without a few dozen pages of paper in the box. They usually end up out of luck on that front. But on the other hand… the Internet.

…wasn’t as bad as it sounded. For the first minute, and only for the first minute.

I love when people (try to) defy the odds and make something new and different for the world. There isn’t much else that’ll convince me to try a a carbonated drink, either. All things considered, I hope these nice people do well. The drink looks classy, has the quirky kind of attitude that seems to be successful in some circles, and certainly is memorable.

I just wish I didn’t remember the one sip by the grassy taste I had in my mouth for the next four hours. Oh well.

(I didn’t draw this)

I’d been contemplating my options for sharing some of my retail adventures, and then I remembered I have this (Tumblr, not the Martha-box… well, that too. Anyways). Don’t take that as a promise nor mere implication of use beyond this point, though. I’m not quite that reliable.

College and work have kept me busy. Maybe not as busy as I tend to imply, but busy enough. Certainly busier than I’m used to. the less time I have, the more inspired I get. The more inspired I get, the more time I want to act upon the things that fly through my head. My room is a hurricane of works-in-progress right now, and half of me so desperately wants to sleep, the other half wants to grab my soldering iron. I’m doing neither, yay? Aaaargh, hyper.

Anyways.

[removed a small bit, never mind…]

P.S. Dead squirrels (apparently) feel like fuzzy rocks. Second-hand knowledge, I swear. But that’s why you use sticks.

What is this? I’m tired.

And now it’s gone. Seems like an error or something that lots of people more vocal than me didn’t like.

Oh well.