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This was a son of a bitch to figure out but once I did one, I figured out the rest.
To disassemble an aluminum single hung window with spiral spring tubes:
1. Push the two trim pieces at the top left and right corners of the window frame so they are horizontal instead of vertical.
2. Pull the window all the way up as far as you can.
3. There are two sliding tabs on the moving window pane at the bottom. Slide them towards the middle and they will release the spring tube clips.
4. Push the window to either the left or right and pull the opposite end out of the frame. Put the lose window somewhere safe.
5. Unscrew the spring tubes. There is one screw at the top on either side of the tracks.
You can either replace them (seems to be $25/side) or rebuild them if they aren't too wrecked. I used household cleaner and removed the old grease, then relubed them with white lithium spray grease. The spring tubes "unwind" and the steel spiral should be cleaned thoroughly and lightly lubed. Lubricating the window tracks is a good idea. I used bar soap, just smear it on and that should work fairly well without being messy.
Reinstallation is the opposite as removal with one catch. Literally. There SHOULD be a tab that catches the plastic "foot" at the bottom of the spring tube. The tab is in the track that the window rides in and about 3" below the fully closed length of the spring tube. The tab seems to get smashed flat but can be bent up carefully with a screwdriver. This holds the spring tube against the track and lets you tension the springs without them unwinding. When installing the window, push one side in, then the other, then let it rest on the spring tube clips. Once resting on the clips, pull the sliding tabs to snap the clips into the frame.
To preload the springs, you will need to "screw in" the springs by turning the clips at the bottom clockwise. This is where the clips in the track help out as a "third hand." I ended up doing 6-8 turns which reduced the effort to raise the windows and kept them up at the same time. I probably could have done more but as it is, they are working much better than they were previously.
That's about it! Since I'm not interested in spending $50/window for new springs, rebuilding the old ones is working out well. The windows go up and down with less work than they used to and stay up better than they ever have. post/read comments |
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I was surprised that we managed to get it all done but we basically started around 3 or 4 on Sunday and finished up about 8:30. A coat of primer, a coat of color, edging, blah blah...
We probably spent $150 somehow.... Still not sure where the money went to but the room is done, it's very purple, and we're pleased with how it came out.
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On Saturday, we took down the tree and all the inside decorations. This was done in front of Aria and we really didn't think anything of it until later. After she woke up from her 45 minute nap and was VERY upset about Frosty Snowman, Christmas Tree, and Rudolph going away, we figured that was the end. She was exhausted all day from the one short nap and hoped that she would sleep better that night. Well, after waking up 3 times before midnight crying about Christmas going bye-bye, we both went into her room and comforted her. Kerri ended up having to stay up with her until 2:30am talking about how Christmas needs to go bye-bye and that she'll see it again next year.
Finally she went back to sleep and woke up the next day wanting to watch the Frosty movie, demanding we draw snowmen for her, and was still very upset about Christmas (and presents) leaving. So far this has been the most heart-breaking thing with her. She isn't supposed to be this sensitive to anything yet but I guess since she's so advanced in every other way, she may as well have super-advanced feelings, too.
She saw a light-up snowman last night on our walk and (I'm hoping) got her closure. Saturday was very difficult but it's been getting better each day. Kerri was going to read Yurtle the Turtle but the cover art is very close to The Grinch and we ended up having to swap books about 2 pages in.
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It's pretty much official. No penis was detected anywhere in the ultrasound. Kerri is happy because we can reuse all of the existing girl stuff. I'm happy because she looks very healthy and is developing perfectly on schedule.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I was hoping for a boy this time but ultimately it doesn't really matter as long as they end up healthy. Plus there is hope for the 3rd bedroom turning back in to an office and all of the shit in the den moving back in at some point instead of being stacked up in a heap.
Hopefully we can get Aria's room at least primed this weekend. I'd LIKE to get it primed and start at least edging but no guarantee... I'm sure she doesn't care that the walls are sage green but Kerri and I do. The color we picked is a nice pale purple color to match her bedding and the "moon and stars" theme we're working on.post/read comments |
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Continuing the saga of the H700...
I neglected to mention this but the H700 from Newegg ended up being counterfeit. I was searching around online and found a PDF on Amazon's website authored by Motorola regarding fake accessories. Turns out that the H700 I had matched about 90% of the things to look out for:
1. Genuine headsets have their identifying information laser-etched onto the case. Mine was silkscreened and crooked to boot.
2. The real part number is SYNxxxx mine was SYHxxxx.
3. Plastic protective sheets were attached to the body and boom, they aren't supposed to be there. I assume this is to obscure the headset from outside the packaging.
4. Very obvious mould lines in the body and the boom's chrome accent strip was rough and slightly raised.
5. There is a slight bevel around the volume buttons that was missing on my fake.
6. The power adapter had the wrong identifying marks on the sticker and the blades that plug in to the outlet were rough and slightly rusty.
7. The package wasn't sealed. The real package has two dots welding the halves together.
8. Wrong font in the UPC box, incorrect Bluetooth logo on the front, and the package was scanned and printed on a color laser printer. The screening from scanning the box art and reprinting was faintly visible.
9. The earhook on the fake was too stiff and the silicone cushion was too soft. Having owned a HS820 before, it's easy to feel the difference but it didn't really click until I compared both in my hands.
Knowing full well that Motorola is going to fuck me hard and dry if I send them a counterfeit in exchange for their legit headset, I call up to cancel the order. It took a little 'splaining to the foreigner on the other end. The language barrier prevented them from understanding "counterfeit" and I had to resort to "fake" instead. At that point, it was too late for me to cancel the advance-exchange of the replacement so I would just have to return them their good one when it showed up.
I ordered a H700 from another reseller and received it the next day. If you were to have both headsets side by side as I did, it would be nearly impossible to see a difference if you didn't scrutinize them very carefully. They were the same size, shape, very similar in color, and worked the same. The only major differences were cosmetic and that the fake had a lot of static and the earpiece volume was too low to hear except in a quiet room.
So at this point, I have a fake H700, a genuine H700, and a replacement H700 on the way in two days. I packed up the fake in its original box, unpacked the real one, and paired it with my phone. The difference was night and day! It was louder, my voice sounded a little better, and it worked pretty much the way it should.
Except...
It doesn't work right. The flip part doesn't work with my MDA. Don't know why, either.. Others with MDAs and 8125s didn't seem to have problems with it but I was. Flipping the boom closed doesn't turn off the headset. If you walk out of range of the H700, you need to either reboot the headset or the phone for it to work again. Fuck that. At least the fake worked turning it on and off! Plus, because of horrible static I can't have the phone in my left pocket and the headset on my right ear! I had yet to find a headset that had sufficient power to work in that situation. For some reason the HS820, Jabra BT250v, and H700 couldn't cut the range but you can connect to a BT USB stick 30 feet away with no issues.
At this point I'm frustrated. None of these POSs work right! I had seen somewhere that a new BT headset had come out around the 19th and I was curious. It has some sort of DARPA-inspired "military grade" noise reduction and blah-de-blah. Ok, whatever... worst case I can always return this one, too!
Enter the Jawbone:
Lemme just say, this thing is the fucking BEST! It doesn't cut out all of the noise but it gets the majority of it. You can lean your head towards a speaker and the other side won't hear the music! Details on how it works are sketchy but it seems to use anti-noise noise cancelation in combination with a little nubbin that rests against your cheek and senses the vibrations when you talk and uses some kind of algorithm to pass voice frequencies to the person on the other end. I haven't really done any serious testing with it but my casual tests show that my voice is a bit hollow but hearable.
Plus, the new headset lets me keep my phone in my left pocket and headset on my right ear without ANY static! It's so nice to be able to have a conversation using my "hands free" and keep my hands free! On top of that, it has a charger that has a USB plug on the other side so I can use it in my car with my cigarette lighter to USB adapter.
Perhaps the best part of all is that it doesn't have a fucking blue LED. I'm getting sick of everything having a blue LED in it nowadays and this one has a white and red one. Plus they are very muted and not so "In your face!" like the majority of them are.
I am EXTREMELY satisfied with the Jawbone and it seems as this is the BT headset I've been waiting for!post/read comments |
| » Hello Jerko! |
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I hate Motorola customer support. I hate outsourcing. It's a match made in heaven! I received a Rev-A H700 bluetooth headset - which I really like. The only problem (only...) is that the earpiece is VERY quiet and my voice is a little muffled.
No problem... This is the Rev-A and the Rev-B is available on exchange from Motorola. I call up Motorola (outsourced to Buenos Aries, btw) and the first lady jerks me around. I call back and the second guy jerks me around...
"Oh the revisions don't mean anything... the Rev-A should work as good as the B"
Bullshit... this link a couple pages down talks about the Rev-A vs Rev-B earpiece and mic problems. Specifically muffled outgoing voice and low earpiece volume. It also mentions improvements in BT range and performance in general.
As it is, I can barely hear someone speaking in a normal tone. My outgoing voice quality seems slightly muffled but understandable and my BT range is better than any other headset I've had.
I don't know why Motorola has such shit customer service. It's not just now... when I had my T720 phone in for repair, it was about two months of runaround until I finally emailed the CEO of the company directly! Even after that, they sent me a phone that was carrier locked to AT&T (which I was on) but wouldn't accept my SIM so they had to provide me the subsidy code to let it work. This was back before their CS department was in South America.
I had to call back and get the second guy because the first lady was just too goddamned annoying. The second guy was trying to get me to return it to the store or walk in and test another one. First of all, I bought it online. Second of all, if they sold me one a week ago that is old, why would the next one be that much newer? The date code on the unit suggests it was made in 2005 so I would just like having a more recent revision of a brand new product that I just bought... is that so hard?
They don't HAVE to send me a new headset but goddamnit, if I'm having a problem with a product I just bought, it's the least that they can do!
By the way - one time I was on hold, they were playing Hindu music.. strange.post/read comments
Dec. 20th, 2006 @ 01:19 pm
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| » OMG GOSSIP! |
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The Art Dept manager just got sent home on a 2 week 1 week (sigh) suspension without pay.
Long and short of it is that she hates the print shop manager and was going to try and embarrass him at the company xmas party because he lost the (solid gold with diamond) pin he was awarded last year for doing such a good job for the boss. When she didn't have the stones to do that, she tried to "give back" the pin (we assume she found it a while ago) by placing it in a spot that nobody else could get to and where he was likely to see it. That spot ended up being in the accordion shutters in the front of the office. Where only the two of them have keys.
The receptionist found the pin and was on the way back to give it to him when she stopped her and the art dept manager asked her how much money she wanted to give that pin back to her! After that, the owner got involved, people were called up into his office, some were thrown under the bus... it was a real mess resulting in the suspension and now someone is "on vacation until next tuesday."
There was also talk of a "petition" that the art dept manager was drafting to get people to sign against the print shop manager. I printed a copy of it and it details such things as his treatment of employees/managers, bringing personal problems in to work, creating mountains out of mole hills, well.. basically exactly what SHE does! Funny how that works out... guess it takes one to know one?
Serves that bitch right. She's been skating on thin ice for a while and acting like a total C U Next Tuesday for as long as I've been here... I guess the boss finally figured out her game.post/read comments
Dec. 18th, 2006 @ 05:16 pm
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| » Three hour ceiling fan installation |
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The ceiling fan in our living room fell apart. Literally. The ring that the blades attach to fell off the motor spindle when the rubber isolating ring deteriorated. We looked online, found a sweet deal at Homedepot.com for a $200ish Hampton Bay ceiling fan w/ remote for $54 and sprung for it.
I got the fan yesterday at work, brought it home to start removing the old fan and immediately ran into problems. It turns out that the new fan didn't come with the ball to mount it so I had to flush mount it on the ceiling. No problem, I figured.. I'll just do the flush mount. Then as I'm starting to wire up the fan I find a black, white, and brown wire. Black and brown are hot and are the old fan's thin wires and not proper solid core romex like what should be in the ceiling. Up into the attic!
After working my way over to the electrical box in the attic, I discovered that they used the old fan's wiring harness directly attached into the box with no slack at all. Once I removed the old wire, put the new piece of romex in its place and properly secured everything I was back out of the attic - but not before standing up too much and gouging my back on a roofing nail and getting a sweet splinter in my back.
The rest of the install went as expected with the right wires, a proper ground wire, and everything worked. Then I cross-threaded a screw and couldn't fix it so I left it partially in. Suffice it to say, the fan looks good, works good, and was just what we needed to get air moving around in the place. The remote is VERY nice and I'm glad we got it... it turns the light on and changes fan speeds without having to get up and fiddle with the chains. I'd like to convert all the fans to remotes one day.post/read comments
Dec. 12th, 2006 @ 10:28 am
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| » Yawn... |
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Aria woke up around 3:30 this morning and kept waking/sleeping until 4:30 when I trudged in to her room to keep her company. She ended up playing until somewhere around 5:30-6 when I woke up and got back into bed.
Good part about her having her own room is that I can just (try to) sleep on her floor and she'll be fine. Me not so much with the toys getting banged on the floor inches from my ear and becoming part of the toy "landscape" in her room.post/read comments
Dec. 12th, 2006 @ 09:36 am
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| » The day after... |
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Aria has spent her first night in her new room. It took about half an hour for her to go to bed on her own. She only threw two toys out and ended up passed out on the bed shortly after.
So far, so good!
post/read comments
Dec. 10th, 2006 @ 10:57 am
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| » Big girl bed coming soon... |
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2e bought Aria her first bi girl bed tonight. She's moving into the office, the new baby i going in her old room, and all the junk in the office will move into th dn in plastic bins.
She's already spent the night on her mattress in our room and hopefully tomorrow will be her first night in her new proper bed.post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 09:20 pm
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| » test |
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testing the cron task i added.post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 05:16 pm
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| » Search fixed |
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I fixed the search box. Turns out all of my MySQL tables were
"InnoDB" type and not "MyISAM" so I was creating a table by hand,
recreating the 14 fields, 4 indexes, etc.. so that it is a duplicate
of the post database and found a button to click that just converts
the database engine from one type to another.
Duh.
Once I reindexed the database, it worked fine.
I also fixed the image upload problem. ImageMagick isn't getting
called correctly... it's executing (I see it in the Task Manager) but
it isn't getting the right arguments or something sent to it because
it flashes an error and then goes away. So far it's working fine
without calling convert.exe so I'm not really going to pout about it.
I fixed the search box. Turns out all of my MySQL tables were "InnoDB" type and not "MyISAM" so I was creating a table by hand, recreating the 14 fields, 4 indexes, etc.. so that it is a duplicate of the post database and found a button to click that just converts the database engine from one type to another.
Duh.
Once I reindexed the database, it worked fine.
I also fixed the image upload problem. ImageMagick isn't getting called correctly... it's executing (I see it in the Task Manager) but it isn't getting the right arguments or something sent to it because it flashes an error and then goes away. So far it's working fine without calling convert.exe so I'm not really going to pout about it. post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 04:58 pm
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| » Fish Tank |
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I was given a 54 gallon quarter-round fish tank a couple weeks ago. I'll be fixing it up as time and money permit.
 post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 03:58 pm
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| » Fwd: Test w/ attachment |
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Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Sepub.com Webmaster" <webmaster@sepub.com>
> Date: December 8, 2006 2:33:47 PM EST
> To: blogpost1084@hookt-up.com
> Subject: Test w/ attachment
>
> Attached picture...?post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 03:26 pm
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| » Test w/ attachment |
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Attached picture...
 post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 02:36 pm
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| » test |
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hi
Jeff Costantino
IT Director
Southeast Publications USA, Inc
4360 Peters Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33317
954-583-3900
jeff@sepub.compost/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 02:32 pm
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| » Test |
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Testing email posting.
Hopefully this works with HTML formatting.
?post/read comments
Dec. 8th, 2006 @ 02:32 pm
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th3ch3at's journal
