That’s Mii
April 27th, 2007 by ktula
That’s my Mii. I found a way to transfer my Mii from the Wiimote to my Mac. After that, all i have to is to load the file to a really neat online Mii Editor created by a guy who works at Adobe.
Archive for April, 2007
It’s alive! (My 1G iPod)
April 25th, 2007 by ktula
When i bought my 1G(1st generation) iPod back in November of 2001, i used to take it on the road with me during my frequent business trips. Everywhere i went, i was the ONLY one carrying the iPod. Now, more than five years later, it’s impossible not to see an iPod everywhere i go.
My 1G iPod, aka iPod (scroll wheel), started to break apart a few years ago. At first, i was having difficulty getting it to synchronize with my Mac - i had to adjust the firewire connector at a certain angle to get it recognized. A few months later, i could not even get my Mac to see the iPod, no matter what i did. At the same time, i was having problem just charging the iPod.
After acquiring a free iPod mini (2G), i gave the 1G iPod to my sister. Recently, after reading some article on hacking a newer iPod to replace its hard disk drive with a compact flash memory, i had an urge to open up the 1G iPod to see what’s inside. After acquiring it back from my sis, i tried to charge the iPod since its battery was completely out of juice. I was out of luck. The damn thing won’t even charge.
There are a lot of websites with information on how to open up the iPod to replace either the battery or the hard disk drive. But i needed information on how to completely disassemble the iPod. Fortunately, a few patient searches on google led me to takeitapart.net’s page for taking apart the 1G iPod. It’s a good thing i found this site prior to proceeding to tear circuit board right out of the case. Using a Torx T05 screw driver, i removed the four Torx screws holding the board to the case.
It was very clear why i was not able to charge the iPod after lifting the circuit board off the case and peeling off a corner of black plastic covering the board (directly behind the LCD). The firewire connector had completely broken off from the board!!!
As clearly visible in the above picture, the four soldering points that used to hold the firewire connector to the circuit board were no longer attached to the firewire connector. The first thing i did was solder the four points back to the board. This was the easy part. The hardest part came next. I had to solder all six electrical connections, each one less than 1mm from the other, using my old soldering iron. Trying to use my soldering iron (it is about 5mm wide at the tip) on such a small circuit is like trying to use a sledge hammer to drive a picture frame nail into the wall, it was extremely difficult. It took me a long time to “solder” all six connections and even when i was done, i had absolutely no clue if i had fixed it or i had made it worse. Several times during the soldering process, i had to do some clean up because the solder was touching both pins.
When i plugged the firewire charger into the iPod, the familiar whine of the hard disk drive came back. It worked!!! My 1G iPod is alive again!
Unfortunately, my celebration was premature. My repair job was only partially successful. I still can’t get my Powerbook to see the iPod. Oh well, at least i can charge it 
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My Thecus N2100 is back online!
April 25th, 2007 by ktula
Got my replacement disk drive from Seagate yesterday. Strangely enough, it was not the exactly the same model of disk drive that i sent them. I sent my broken 400 GB SATA disk drive to Seagate and i got a 500 GB disk drive back!
The extra 100 GB of space is wasted for now, as i have configured disk drives in the NAS as RAID1 (mirroring). With RAID1, my effective storage is reduced to half what it used to be when i was using JBOD. So now i really have to watch what i put on the NAS. I may have to find a way to encode all my ripped DVD movies into the DIVX format.
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iSync (calendar) problem with K608i in Mac OS X 10.4.9
April 17th, 2007 by ktula
Ever since i upgrade my Powerbook to Mac OS X 10.4.9, i have not been able to get iSync to synchronize iCal with my Sony Ericsson K608i. The synchronization of Address Book still works fine though. Posted a message on the Apple support forum but no one has answered it - i guess i am the only one experiencing this problem.
Repeat of my post on the Apple support discussion forum:
This is the error in iSync:
Thursday, March 22, 2007 3:08 PM
[K608i] An unexpected error occured.
Device “K608i” synchronization failed
I opened up “console” and retrieved the following error messages:
from iSync.log:
[***] Thursday, March 22, 2007 3:07:52 PM PDT
|3:08:03 PM|Info| Connecting to K608i
|3:08:03 PM|Info| Device “K608i” connected
|3:08:04 PM|Info| Receiving changes from “K608i”.
|3:08:04 PM|Info| “K608i” finished receiving changes
|3:08:04 PM|Info| “K608i” Processing changes…
|3:08:07 PM|Info| “K608i” engine processing complete
|3:08:07 PM|Info| Applying changes to “K608i”
|3:08:08 PM|Error| [K608i] An unexpected error occured.
|3:08:08 PM|Error| Device “K608i” synchronization failed
[---] Operation ended: Thursday, March 22, 2007 3:08:08 PM PDT
From console.log:
2007-03-22 15:07:42.785 iSync[2170] we receive the end of our sync plan
2007-03-22 15:08:07.183 iSync[2170] SyncServices precondition failure in [ISyncConcreteSession setClientInfo:forRecordWithIdentifier:]: no such record with identifier com.apple.syncservices:4A4AEAFD-0E9F-4860-9E92-12B7B08CC364
15:08:07.184 [iSync:2170] ERROR (.sync.SyncConduitManager): Exception catch: [ISyncConcreteSession setClientInfo:forRecordWithIdentifier:]: no such record with identifier com.apple.syncservices:4A4AEAFD-0E9F-4860-9E92-12B7B08CC364
2007-03-22 15:08:08.453 iSync[2170] we receive the end of our sync plan
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Wind farms in Livermore
April 10th, 2007 by ktula
My first impression when driving to Livermore from San Jose last week was the almost breath-taking rolling green hills in and around the Livermore area. As i drove closer to Livermore, i noticed some of the ridges were lined with windmills.
This week, i decided to bring my camera with me. After plotting on google map for the best route to the wind farms, i left my customer site a little past 1730. I drove east on National Drive then made a left turn and drove north on Greenville Rd. After driving under Interstate 580, i made a right turn onto Altamont Pass Rd. Then i made a sharp right turn to Carroll Rd which eventually becomes North Flynn Rd. Driving southbound on N. Flynn Rd took me over I-580. Most of the wind farms that i see driving to work daily are located along this stretch of Flynn Rd.
Continue reading ‘Wind farms in Livermore’
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Worst Japanese food ever: Kanpai Sushi in Livermore
April 9th, 2007 by ktula
Kanpai is Japanese for “Cheers”. Unfortunately, there is really nothing to cheer for eating at Kanpai Sushi. The meal i had about an hour ago was probably one of the worst Japanese meals i ever had in a very long time. I am not a picky eater by any mean and it is really easy to satisfy me. If the food is at least halfway decent, it is a good meal for me in my book.
Too lazy to think of what to eat for dinner after dropping off a package at a UPS store, i decided to head over to Kanpai Sushi located in the same mall. May be i should have heeded the “DO NOT EAT HERE” alarm that went off in my head when i entered the restaurant not seeing any Asian faces other than those that were working there. I ordered the Chirashi Sushi dinner which came with a bowl of miso soup and salad. I also ordered a glass of green tea. Green tea is supposed to be green. Whatever “green tea” they were serving, it was definitely not green. It was more like brown tea than green tea. The miso soup was extremely watered down. The dressing on the salad looked and tasted like soy sauce. If i wanted soy sauce in my salad, i would have added it on my own. The Chirashi Sushi came with generous portions of fish. Sushi is definitely something that quality matters more than quantity. Even though my bowl was loaded with raw fish, most of them tasted really bland. At the Sushi bar, there was a piece of fish in the fish refrigerator that looked like it had been there for weeks. It is not often that i say this but i actually wished that the chef had not been so generous with raw fish. When i was eating, i really wanted to get it over with and get my ass out of there.
If you are in the Livermore area and you have a craving for Sushi, Kanpai Sushi is not the place to go.
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Spring flowers at the Luther Burbank Park
April 8th, 2007 by ktula
Decided to take a detour to the Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island on my way back from Bellevue to Seattle. Wild flowers are blooming all around the park.
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Symphony Amphitheater - the sweet sound of riding
April 2nd, 2007 by ktula
(camera: Sony Ericsson K608i)
Symphony Amphitheater - the newly open lift-accessed back country area on the Whistler mountain.