Most Viewed Technology Blogs (217)

I had an Aunt & Uncle from Philadelphia who pronounced battery as BAAH-tree... To me, it was funny as the BAAH was strongly accented and dragged out a little. Kinda like the sound a sheep would make.

That reminds me of the traveling salesman who came up to a house on a country road. He rang the doorbell and a young boy answered. The salesman said "Hey kid! is your mother at home?" and the boy replied "Yeah, she's in the barn making love to the sheep"
A little shocked to hear this, the salesman took a step back and asked "Isn't that bad for her health?" The boy replied "Naah-ah-ah-ah..."



Batteries are an important topic from A to Z in electronics. they are found in all devices in our modern lives. Over the years the technology has improved greatly. Maybe one day those alkaline cells that advertise a 10 year shelf life won't destroy my smoke alarm and flashlights after 2 years!

The entire aviation hobby has switched over to battery power using lithium polymer (Li-Po) batteries (from gas/alcohol engines) and electric systems give tremendous power for short periods of time. 40 years ago, my model helicopters ran on fuel with 25% nitro-methane, 20% synthetic oil and 55% methanol. Flights with a large tank were 15 minutes then. With electric, we average 6 minute flights.

The good thing is Li-Po batteries can be recharged hundreds of times if properly cared for. Don't over charge them or you risk explosion. Don't fully run down the charge as the bad thing about Li-Po batteries will lose their ability to recharge. Long term storage should be monitored so they have no loss of power when fully charged.
The chemical composition in the makeup of these batteries will break down with misuse and give off gas internally. The sealed battery will swell and not hold a charge. At that point, it's best to send them to a recycle center and replace with new ones.

I usually charge-up the night before a planned day of flying. That's 3 to 4 hours with several chargers running to have 10 batteries ready. The chargers are microprocessor controlled for voltage, amperage, internal resistance and time limit. They stop charging when the voltage reaches 4.20 as it's the maximum safe limit for lithium polymer batteries. Every 15 to 20 minutes I feel each charging battery to be sure none of them get warm while charging. That would indicate a serious internal problem.
I've heard horror stories of people leaving batteries to charge without monitoring the session and they have a fiery explosion. A young girl was charging her cellphone in bed (while sleeping) the phone was between the pillow and mattress and what would normally be a warm battery, became hot enough to burn. She was lucky it didn't ignite a fire.

So, however you pronounce battery, please be careful and not overcharge them.

Years (read: decades) ago my ex-wife and her sisters bought their favorite uncle an expensive TV only to find out he was color blind. I'm finding it hard to recall knowing someone else who was color blind back then. I've met/known blind people and deaf people, but color blind escapes me... until recent.

One of the new members of the flying club is officially color blind.

He's got special glasses that highlight certain colors that helps him see differences. It's helping differentiate some of the colors of the spectrum instead of everything being chromatic tones of grey.

I did a blog about people who are color blind and a brand of glasses that bring out colors to help those who are color blind.

Why blog about an old blog?
Yesterday, I was at the dentist getting 2 chipped teeth restored and I know they would be using ultraviolet light to cure the white composite filler. They gave me some dark lenses to wear during the procedure. While I had idle time, I was checking messages on my phone and the lenses were affecting the colors on my phone as I rotated the screen. Very colorful prismatic effects, black letters on a white screen and white letters on a black screen had some reddish and blue edges. That reminded me of the special glasses that allow color blind people to see colors.

I believe the boy in the story has partial colorblindness and the glasses gave him benefits to recognize certain colors.
Link to the story here:

On Friday, I got to visit the Carillon Historical Park, with some of the oldest buildings in the Dayton area. There were a few hundred displays of things & photos of the made here. NCR cash registers, DELCO automotive parts, Huffy bicycles, Frigidaire refrigerators for example. The Charles Kettering display had a moving mannequin describing some of his inventions and experiences.
The main attraction was the Wright Brothers National Museum where they had recreations of the bicycle store and workshop where they started propeller design and testing models that eventually lead to the building of their aircraft.
A small auditorium was playing movies with actual film footage of their experimental aircraft. I had no idea of the number of failures they experienced getting a working airplane and how they went to Europe to demonstrate it's flight and dispel the rumors as other inventors were very close in their attempts of manned flight.

I have an added feature with my phone carrier to notify me of potential spam calls and an enhanced blocking feature. For some reason my good friend John gets added to the blocked list. Several calls to tech support gets him removed and minutes later... he's back to being blocked!

My call was transferred from the carrier to Samsung's tech support where I installed an app allowing them to do diagnostics remotely on my phone. They couldn't find John on the blocked caller list so it must be a glitch. According to Samsung, the cure was to go back to the carrier and get a new SIM card.

A second after I entered the store, the salesman asked if he could help. I explained my friend keeps getting blocked on my phone and that Samsung said I need a new SIM card.

Immediately I detected an attitude... he said that wasn't the problem and that I needed to buy a new phone. After we went through the identification verification, he got the tool to remove the SIM and I said "The phone is still on!"
That didn't stop him from removing the SIM and inserting a new one while the phone was powered up.

Flipping screens on my phone and his tablet to enter the new number scanned from the card holder, he was back and forth a few times removing and reinstalling the SIM. All attempts were unsuccessful as the phone reported no SIM installed, when one was in the phone. He removed it again and installed the old SIM and got the same message.

At that point... he told me my phone was broken. I asked his name, SNATCHED MY PHONE FROM HIS HAND, said "Have a nice day" and walked out of the store.

Ya think I was pissed?

There's another store 5 miles away, so I went there.

Explaining the salesman (at the first store) 'hot swapped' the SIM on my phone. The new guy knew exactly what I was talking about. He scanned the card, installed a new SIM, powered up the phone and all was well.



I cannot recall how many times my phones have had SIM card changes in the last 25 years and EVERY time it was done with the phone turned off.

Basically, removing the SIM while the phone was on, damaged it, installing a new SIM while the phone was on, damaged it too.

John isn't on my blocked list anymore.

I'm happy that the issue was only with the SIM cards and thankful that it didn't damage my phone or the SD memory that shares the same tray.

Not rocket science...

Upgrades come under a few headings. Do them or ignore them as it's not broke so I don't have to fix it. At some point in time I have to do an upgrade or two and the time is nearing.

I bought a few refurbished computers over the years and they appear to be okay for my normal use. My business computer was purchased new years ago with an older system using Windows 7 and some of the software I'm using requires Windows 10 to get all the features out of them.

The latest version of Google Chrome is like the kiss of death and email drags, times out and sometimes requires a refresh to function.

Time for an upgrade I've been putting off for a while. I bought a refurb and I'm busy migrating all my data and programs from the older computer to the new one. One main program that handles my PDF documents similar to Adobe cannot be moved. The company offered an upgrade that was half price, so I'm in the process of installing and setting up the environment that will take a few hours to accomplish.

Upgrades, sometimes you've got to do them!

I have an old laptop that only gets used when I'm outside, usually on a jobsite and I need to review drawings that I don't have printed copies of. The battery would only work for a short time, so I replaced it. The hard drive was slow so a friend suggested I upgrade to an SSD (solid state drive) that works faster with less power drain.
Good idea. I bought the drive, 500 gigabyte. The problem is the drive on the laptop is 1 terabyte. While I'm only using a small part of the capacity, the conversion software won't compress what I have to the smaller drive. No problem. I bought a 1 terabyte SSD but I haven't gotten back to the project. It's in the box on my desk collecting dust and the laptop is somewhere in the living room, also collecting dust.

I have a computer simulator for learning to fly model aircraft. It does airplanes, drones and helicopters. I used it religiously and the cord at the top of the controller wore out. It doesn't work reliably. No problem said I, as the plan was to cut a few inches of the worn wire off the cord and reconnect it.
There is a coil (interference filter) where it exits the controller that I snipped off. One problem is 6 wires come from the USB side and 5 wires come from the inside of the controller. Something gets changed in the coil. It took a few days of searching for my test meter. I gave up and bought a new meter. It's been a few months and the opened controller is on the shelf.

While looking for something else, I found the test meter that I couldn't find earlier. So now I have 2 meters and the project isn't finished.

I bought a new controller but it doesn't work with the older software, so I had to buy the newest version simulator and I'm undecided if I will go back complete the project.



The thought now is to pay my friend who suggested I do the SSD upgrade. His business is technical electronic repair. Changing the drive and repairing the controller is something he could easily do.



Projects I don't complete.


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With all the phones, tablets, laptops and computers I go through, I should be used to upgrades/changes by now. Last week, I took delivery on the Samsung S24 Ultra with 1 terabyte of memory. It's their flagship model that boasts a 200 megapixel camera.

Using Samsung Smart Switch app, I backed up the old phone to my computer.
The new phone came with a double end USB-C connector for direct transfer phone to phone which s faster than using Wi-Fi. Smart Switch is resident on both phones but it took a few tries to connect.

Nearly everything transferred and all the the apps and screen settings are identical. Passwords didn't sync and I had to setup Google, Gmail, Samsung, WhatsApp and Signal again. I lost my most cherished app called Gesture Search. Someone else is making a version of Gesture Search that is no better than a first year computer programming homework assignment. Hopefully, they will listen to the user comments and make an update worthy of calling it Gesture Search.

I'm estimating nearly 2 days lost for research to set the phone up where it actually functions to my liking. A handful of calls to T-Mobile support and so many calls to Samsung customer care and technical support I lost track. I had a 'needed to fix' list or the phone goes back to Samsung and I get a refund.
Some features are no longer supported so I have to do a 'work around' to get what I want.
Notifications both visual and sound are nearly there. I would have preferred to see a flashing indicator or flag to let me know there are unread messages or emails.
The phone will give a reminder beep after 3 minutes and briefly vibrate when I pick up the phone. Always on display is the cure, but that eats into battery time.
Most of my text messages are converted using the microphone... Well, they were on my old phone, but the icon wasn't on the top row of the keyboard as expected. A call to Samsung and I was told the microphone is no longer supported. WTF? microphone not supported.
They had me download and install Gboard which is Google's keyboard app. It worked fine and quick, but the top row with numbers (found on the default Samsung keyboard) required a function key and extra keystrokes to achieve the same results... just like my BlackBerry phone 20 years ago!

Not accepting the Samsung Tech Support solution, I reverted back the the Samsung keyboard. An internet search revealed, you can toggle the microphone on and off via a separate menu. It now appears on the lower corner and not along the top row of commands like the previous 4 cellphones did.

Now for the camera that cannot default to low resolution images. I guess Samsung thinks it's beneath the S24 Ultra and forces them to only shoot high-res images.
Images were distorted and out of proportion. I reset the phone settings to default, rebooted the phone and most of the camera aspect issues went away. Photos sent by text messages are large, but the file size is manageable. Probably 2.5 times larger than my old phone.
The phone has a serious problem with images appearing like a fisheye lens. Vertical lines appeared curved, especially noticeable when looking at buildings or geometric objects having straight lines. I downloaded Samsung's Camera Assistant that has a setting to cure that. I'll test it tomorrow when I'm out on appointments.

While my experience and product review with this phone has been mostly negative, the speed of functions and menus is amazingly fast. It does automatic translation when texting. A very powerful feature.
I'm holding the screen resolution at it's lowest setting of HD+ 1560 x 720. maybe later I'll experiment with the QHD+ 3120 x 1440.
All the drawbacks to using anything more than the basic settings is reduced battery time. I'll have to test it with lots of use, calls, photos, GPS and see if I need to activate battery saver.
(note to self: phone doesn't come close to rated battery life)

Cellphone hell...