Thursday, November 14, 2013

Three Years of Blogging

I started blogging three years ago. I've said more about the why and what in previous years (2011, 2012). For this year, I'll just say the 2,148 posts of the past three years have resulted in 997,021 hits. There are about 225 RSS subscribers.

More important than the numbers... I've learned a lot, made some friends, and had fun. Thanks to everyone that reads, comments, and e-mails!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Chrome - Audio in Which Tab?

Excellent... a feature to identify which Chrome tab is playing audio. I'm bad about having lots of tabs open and sometimes a page will auto-play a video. This will eliminate a lot of searching and scrolling to find the offender.

Not How I Would Do It

Guy posts a link to a survey on a Yahoo Group and the list owner kicks him out:
"I think you need to unsubscribe from this list of all you want is to mooch a survey. Forget that, I'll unsubscribe you myself."

Library Box

I like the idea of a portable library like the Library Box. You could load it up with manuals or references for Field Day and easily share them. I've been to family gatherings in the middle of the mountains where there was no internet access, so you could share pictures with the extended family. One of the use cases the website mentions is providing students with files via the Library Box as a temporary intranet as the data may otherwise be blocked by the school's firewall. Obviously, this doesn't replace what I do with a cloud file service (Dropbox, SkyDrive, etc.), but it provides some basic functionality in a very flexible way.



Via AR-15

Swedes Closing Unneeded Prisons

Clearly they need more laws to help get that utilization rate up!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Game of Thrones Deal

Wow! You can get all five of the A Song of Ice and Fire series (aka Game of Thrones) for less than $20! These are my favorite books of all time. I've got them all in hard back - including a signed copy of A Feast for Crows, but I may still have to get the Kindle versions. I suspect I will want to reread them when George RR Martin finally gets the next book out.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Leixen VV-808S: Available Now

The VV-808SV (VHF) is here. The VV-808SU (UHF) is here. This is what the site says about the difference between the 808 and the 808S along with a warning (that I still think is directed at me):
1. Maybe many people ask me what is the difference between VV-808S and the old version VV-808. To be honest, it is just update some bugs and add some functions. It make the radio more convenience for use.
2. Please don't disassemble the radio yourself even if you are a seasoned ham, because you might broken the radio in accident. And you won't entitled for the after service since you disassemble the radio.
They updated the feature list with the following information/changes:
6. PTT ID (Voice broadcast PTT ID. NEW:Display 14 Digits)
31. Input frequency by using hand microphone (Up/Down can be set by the buttons of the side of the Microphone)
37. Power Supply: 12V/24V.

Leixen VV-808: Red 245 MHz Thailand Version

Leixen is offering a red Thailand version of the VV-808 in 245 MHz. I only see the listing for a bulk order of 30 at $95 each, so $2,860 total.