Life Through the Lens

Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk & Big Android BBQ

I’ve been a bit behind on posting to the blog lately.  Last weekend I was in Austin for the Kelby Worldwide Photowalk and the Big Android BBQ.  The weekend contained three of my favorite things, photography, smartphones, and BBQ!

I had a great time meeting up with fellow photogs and running around the University of Texas campus taking photos of things. This is Simi, the leader of our photowalk.

 

Here’s a couple of my favorite photos from the walk.  Nothing spectacular, but decent.

 

The Big Android BBQ was right after and was pretty informative as well as a lot of fun.  Got lots of free swag, got to see hot tech blogger girls, and eat some tasty BBQ. We even had a totally disorganized google maps scavenger hunt to win a Galaxy Tab 10.1. Not only was there a wrong address on the map, but the contested started 30 min late, and the URL for the maps was posted at a hotel 10 miles away, which we didn’t find out about until the organizers tweeted it 30 min late. In which time, someone who was staying at the hotel handily won. I wasted a quarter tank of gas driving around Austin, but did get to make some new friends. 

The LG Girl

 

Cyanogenmod himself

 

But the best part of the weekend was getting to eat at all the Food Trucks.  Since I was ridin’ solo, there was no compromise when it came to what I wanted to stuff my gullet with…and boy was it awesome.  Has some pork belly ssam and ribs (so good, it was like meat candy) at East Side King @ Grackle.

 

Kim Chi fries with Pork bulgogi @ Chi’Lantro

 

Steamed Pork bun with hoisin sauce and Bacon fried rice w/fried egg banana ketchup and sriracha sauce.

 

Chicken Tiki Masala and Garlic Naan at G’Raj Mahal (sorry no food pick, I had to get it to go)

 

Migas and Monk Special @ Torchy’s Tacos

 

And last but not least, the Pulled Pork BBQ sandwich at the Big Android BBQ.

New SSD For the Envy 14

Woohoo, SSD prices are finally dropping and with Newegg sending me a 20% off coupon code that stacked on top of $30, I couldn’t help but buy this 240GB OCZ Agility 2.  The Sandforce controller gives 285mb/s reads and 275mb/s writes.  Now that’s fast.

P3 Kill-A-Watt

I've had a flood of gadgets lately.  This was a Newegg Shell shocker, and I've been meaning to get one for  a while now.  This little device plugs in the wall between the outlet and the device.  It was pretty eye opening to see what kind of power vampires were hanging around my place.  For instance, my Core i5-660 desktop was sucking down 1.0 Watt of power while it was "turned off." Crazy, my Netgear 5 port gigabit switch sucks down 6.5 Watts continuosly.  Its definitely a good investment to figure out where all your power is going.  My vacuum runs at 1400 Watts...yikes.  My 100W equivalent CFLs run at their rated 22-23 Watts.  Pretty cool stuff.

Since I had just installed a custom ROM on my Nexus One, I decided to put the new adjustability features of the camera app to work.  Here's shot of the Kill A Watt with my camera phone.  Goes to show that good lighting makes all the difference...and know how to operate a camera properly helps too :)

 

The Ultimate Coffee Grinder

I had ordered this from Amazon two months ago, but it finally came back in stock.  And conveniently, I able to apply a $20 Amazon gift card (that I bought for $10 from a Living Social deal) before it shipped in the meantime.  This a Bodum Conical Burr grinder with adjustable grind settings, adjustable timer, and a glass coffee grind catch cup. This beauty is coated in soft touch rubber, and because it’s a conical burr mechanism it doesn’t heat up the coffee in the grinding process thereby saving the great aromatics.  The glass catch cup is awesome too because there’s no static build up to cause the grinds to stick against the walls.  The seal to the grinder is rubberized too, so there’s no messy dust to clean up afterwards.  The grinds are very uniform and make a fantastic cup of coffee.

Clothes Washing Convenience

I had been running alerts on my Craigslist Android app for a decent washer and dryer for my apartment.  Up until now, I had been using the communal laundry room, which was a pain and I had to keep getting quarters from the bank.  So this Maytag Atlantis washer and dryer set popped up on CL for $100 and happened to be across the parking lot of my apartment complex.  Talk about convenient, I just happened to have the right 4 prong plug for the dryer, and it even came with a free hand truck to move the things.  Dave came over with some forearm forklifts and we were able to get the machines up in my my laundry room without too much difficulty.

Of course, nothing is easy.  I had decided to buy new braided steel water lines just to be safe.  Unfortunately, the stupid washer was not designed for any tool clearance to unscrew the old lines.  On top of the that, the hot water intake was cross-threaded.  Once we got that figured out and hooked up, the hot water spigot in the laundry room was so corroded it started leaking all over the place.  Luckily that was just a call to apartment maintenance and all was good again.

New Core i5-660 Build

Got a hot processor from my sister, so I had to spend a bunch of money on new components to build my new machine.  Here are the specs, Core i5-660 3.33GHz processor, Asus P7H55-M Pro micro ATX motherboard, 16GB of G.Skill DDR3 PC1333 ram, Kingston SSDNow 64GB SSD, and LG Blu Ray burner.  Old parts include the Rosewill MATX case and Samsung 750GB drive.

Check out the before and after.

HP Envy 14

Another year, another hot deal.  I had been looking for an Envy 14 for a while now and one finally popped up with a instant $500 off coupon.  Also came equipped with a Core i7-720QM quad core and the optional 6 cell slim fit battery that brings the total battery capacity up to 14 cells!  Awesome.  The thing feels like its carved out of a solid chunk of magnesium.  Very well built, with an awesome backlit keyboard.  The touchpad is huge and multitouch. Has a dedicated 1 GB ATI 5650 video card, 4gb of DDR3, 500gb hard drive, slot load dvd burner, and the manual even comes on an SD card. Its packaged very nicely and came in a microfiber pouch. This Envy is more or less a Macbook pro copy that’s much faster and cheaper…and runs windows.

HP FTW!

Went to the company xmas party this weekend.  I volunteered to drive the hay ride, which was kinda fun.  Then we had a super huge dinner of turkey and ham with the standard xmas trimmings. Yum.  They also raffled off door prizes and I was lucky enough to win…but I didn’t win the 42” LCD TV.  I got a wireless HP all in one printer.  Pretty timely as I was just about to purchase one, so that saved me a few bucks.

2008 Honda Fit JDM Center Console Install and other mods

After searching through some Honda Fit forums, I stumbled across a mod for installing the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) center console into the North American Fit.  Its considerably nicer as it has an armrest storage area, as well as 2 cup holders for the rear that fold away, and the front cup holders can be removed to created a large storage space.  I found the center console on clearance on the College Hills Honda webpage for $250.  Hard to beat, as the only other source I found was in Canada and they wanted about $450 US.

 

 

The Fit was sadly lacking a second Aux 12V power port, so I decided to add my own since the JDM console had so much empty space inside.  I ordered a Marinco 12V marine grade socket and some Bussman Add a fuse adapters.  I wired this power port to the fuse box so it I wouldn’t run into any problems overloading the main power port circuit, and I also wired it to be hot even with the ignition off, that way I have the option of charging my phone or whatever while the vehicle is turned off.

 

I also wanted to retain the ability to easily remove the center console, so I installed a quick disconnect plug for the second power port.  Here’s the wiring layout below. I used some 18 gauge stranded wire from Radioshack and installed some cable tie anchors to tidy up the wiring.  I also added some of my own shoddy and constrained layer material to help quiet down the noisy Fit.

 

Here’s some pictures of how the center console looks in the car.  The armrest slides forward for comfort on those long Texas drives.

 

Here’s the front cup holder in and out.  I cut out a piece of black craft foam to help reduce any rattling from items in the cubby.

 

Here’s a view of the rear cup holder in detail and in the car.

 

Now that the center console was back in the car, I wanted to hardwire my new Garmin 295W into a switched connection in the fuse box.  I found an unused position and went ahead and wired up a Gilsson Direct Wire Cable from Garmin Nuvi.

 

Here’s the installation under the dash in the fusebox area.

 

Here’s the installed Nuvi, I set it up with enough length to be installed on the windshield, but I’m planning on using the bean bag friction mount, so I just put a loose knot in the wire under the dash to make it clean.

 

That’s it for the weekend of car mods.  I spent way too much time on it to make it look clean and professional.  You can’t even tell its not OEM…at least for this country