Enginerd Stuff and Other Useful Technical Information for the Socially Challenged
 
About four years ago I woke up one morning, biked into work, had my Starbucks Tall Mocha, plopped down in front of my computer and spent the entire day drawing a satellite LMB load simulator for a terrestrial aircraft mock up lab. I ate take-out pad-Thai at my desk while drawing, engaged in some Dibbert-esque banter with the engineer sitting in the next cubical, and rode home listening to an audio-book on my MP3 player. Although I lived 300 steps from the Pacific Ocean, I didn't run to catch the last sweet surf breaks before dusk or head to a beach bonfire with a six-pack and a bottle of red wine. Nope, I took a shower and hopped on the computer in the office to check CNN, e-mail, and look for the cheapest 500Watt power supply I could find for a new computer that I was building. While searching for said computer part, I accidentally popped onto an adult site. Annoyed, I clicked back and muttered about just wanting the damn part... BAM! It struck me, I am a nerd. I had been more interested in a computer part that boobies. I was horrified at what I had become and spent the next two or three months trying to prove to myself that it was only a temporary affliction and it wouldn't leave any permanent residue. I was wrong. I have been forever tainted. Instead of fighting it now I accept that I can fix almost any electronic device, find Weird Al Yankovic mildly amusing and can discuss the nuance of fiber optic data rate transmission with aplomb. I try to balance this new life of the geeky-stain with climbing, running, and cycling. I have a hot GGG wife and friends that pull me back in when I am seized in a fit of super-nerdy and try to discus free-market economics while drinking or like the time I decided to run a 10 gigabit optical line into the house for faster download times. As part of seeking the middle ground, I have built this page as an outlet for dorky endeavors.
Microsoft Visio is a tool that I use all the time. It is THE program for making block diagrams and flow charts, but since the 2003 version it has become a fine CAD tool as well. I have used it for everything from simple wire diagrams to very complex mechanical drawings at work and I find that because it so easily imports and exports to and from Microsoft Office programs I use it more and more at home for shop projects and to illustrate points here and there. I designed some of our furniture, my garage shop, my bike’s custom geometry, and I used Visio when I was in an car accident to diagram the events of the accident for the insurance company and the lawyers.

What makes Visio an even more powerful tool is the use of Templates. They save time and make shapes repeatable without the hassle of redrawing each time and in addition to my own that I have created over time there are tons of them available that are for traffic, landscaping, crime scenes, electronics, tools, mapping, etc… I will put a few of them here.
Instructables is a GREAT website! I have found some killer how-to on it for everything from pie baking to knots to bicycle fixes to Green housing tips. Over the last couple of years I have downloaded a bunch of the instructions to PDF and will put the ones that I have found useful here.
Lets face it; Photoshop is THE tool for serious photographers. But, sometimes I just want to batch resize a bunch of pictures all at once without doing any serious editing. PS is really slow at that. What I have found is FastStone Photo Resizer. It is the stuff! Fast quick small (can use it on a stick) and in addition to batch resizing, you can batch rename, border, and watermark 100’s of shots at once. Very handy!! I will put the latest version of the app here if you want it.
   
I once worked for a company that took away all computer user rights and there was no way to adjust any setting on our work machines. Not that big of a deal except that I was constantly having to type my company mandated 12 letter/number password that changed every 30 days in when my screen saver kicked in after 90 seconds of idle. It became maddening! I figured out one day that I had wasted 8 minutes a day (10 seconds each occurrence X 6 times and hour X 8 hours…), which meant that I was possibly wasting 4 days a year – at the minimum – on a stupid password. I tried to go low-tech and I got in trouble for keeping a lead weight on my F3 key, so I went looking for a software solution. What I found was Caffeine. A tiny little program that I run off my stick that simulates a key push every 45 seconds. It works like magic. I take it with me when I leave my computer at lunch and at night and I don’t have to deal with the draconian password policy. I will put the little app here for your use.
   
Well, it is time again for me to get my Life Tracking Spreadsheet ready for 2009. It MAY have come up that I am a touch anal-retentive and my personality scale tips toward the nerdy graduation as the needle swings to and fro. For the past 9 years I have tracked most everything that I do so that I can get a statistical base for improvement in training, tracking hours worked, vacation, books read, etc… from year to year. It keeps me honest about my time running, climbing, cycling and is a ready reference for just about everything I do. Anyone who has ever seen it or seen me making notes on it has first made fun of me, then asked me how it all worked (after 9 years I have some serious cross-page formulas), and then they will come sneaking back later and ask me for a blank copy. Here is a template for the 2009 form. All the formulas are in the sheet. One could have one for running, overtime, mountain climbing, scuba, doing the dishes, taking out the trash, dates, bugs squashed, guitar hero, walking the dog, babysitting, calling your mom, eating out, etc… Put all the pages in the same document and then have a totals page where you can see all the stats in one viewing (“Sum” in a block on the Totals page then go to whatever page total you want, left click once, and hit return. Repeat for each page).
   

PortableApps is a damn fine way to carry your entire computer and go-to files and docs with you in your pocket. It has everything from office tools to MP3 rippers to photo editors to HTML editors. I travel a lot and have grown to hate lugging a laptop with me on personal trips. I do enough of that on business trips. With PortableApps, you can use your favorite programs to make new and edit existing files on any computer anywhere on earth that has a USB interface without leaving any of your personal information or copies of the files on the machines. An added bonus is that as some companies are barring employees from having Administration Rights on their machines. PortableApps gets around this by letting you download all your new software onto a USB stick and then after the .exe file has run and installed on the stick, you can transfer the files onto your hard drive – sneaky… I use a 4GB stick for my super tweaked version, but I made a 1GB stick work great for my nerdy wife and some of the guys at work (512mb would also have enough room for PA and a good many files of your own). Download the original file from www.portableapps.com and then you can add others from all over the web. Search for “tiny apps” and “USB applications” for other useful files.
 
Click of the image to the left for an ASCII chart that shows the relations for Dec, Hex, and Character names. Useful as a reference as I constantly forget Hexadecimal numbering. I used to have this posted at my desk, next to a Dilbert comic making fun of the evil that is HR, but that pushed me closer to the nerdy-abyss and now I have it taped in a drawer.
   
I have searched all over the web for a good weight, temperature, and distance chart, but the ones that I have found give me WAY too much information – how many Egyptian Rods are in a mile? I found this app after much searching and trial and error. It has just what I need, all on the same page without having to scroll down. Click on the image to access the .exe file. I SWEAR that is is not spyware or adware ar crap that will slow your machine down. Also note that you can use it from a stick as well
   
 
As I have said I travel a good bit for work, to see family and for pleasure and I needed a way to see how far I was going, how long it would take to get to a specific city or how far I had been so that I could note it for one reason or another. I came up with this chart after splicing some of my code with the HTML code from a world city Lat/Long (stop laughing at my geekiness!!) and came up with this page. I have tested it, fixed it and retested it again and again so the mileage and the Lat/Long should be dead-on. Click on the image to access the converter.
   
I found this idea on a survivalist website that I happened upon while looking for truck camper information. The author is listed at the bottom of the linked PDF - click on the picture, but no contact information was given. It hurts my soul that you have to destroy a book - any book - to do this. It would be great if you decide to give making a book safe a try to use a book that you pulled out of the trash or rescued from the Salvation Army or Goodwill store.
   
I have a love-affair with books which is easily apparent by just walking in our door. Bookbinding has interested me forever and I recently learned the proper method for Monastery Binding (a little different than the instructions to the left). I am working on a set of books for a friend’s Christmas gift and am making all my own leather-bound journals now as well. I don’t save any money buy doing it myself (I pay more per book if you count my time), but the books will outlast my grandchildren and I can customize them with Japanese end papers, real Moroccan leather, block printing, fold out pages for maps and drawings, and hand lettering. I found this instruction on the web and copied it here (the author is listed at the bottom of the document) so that it would be internal to the site and not an outside link. Click on the picture of the PDF.
   
I am by no stretch of the imagination a professional photographer nor will I ever claim to be even a cheap knock off of Galen Rowell or Jimmy Chin. I have, though, put a lot of thought and a lot of research into my own 35mm camera and equipment and have 2 or 3 pictures out of many thousands that are wall-hangers. I love my small digital point and shoot and I would love to have a Nikon D80, some of my best shots of my kids, my wife, and my buddies have been taken with my old “out of date” 35mm and I use it exclusively for any portrait shots. While trying to put my equipment together I found two very useful articles online at Photo.net: Building a 35mm SLR System and Nikon Lens information. I have linked them here in Plain Text.
   
PDA's, iPods, PSP's, BlackBerrys, etc... can be recharged through their mini-USB cable port. I was searching online to buy a battey recharger and found a host of sites that show you how to do it for free. I have taken some from here and there and pasted them into the PDF linked by the pic on the left. All you need is access to a soldering iron, some simple parts found almost anywhere, an Altoids tin and you will have a battery back up for long flights, camping trips, and extended absences from your computer/USB port. There is a ton of other crap you can build out of an Altoids tin...
   
   
If you click on the image to the left you will find a Linux command cheat-sheet. While they are found all over the web now - open source and all, this one is really good at helping you with everyday Linux tasks. I found a VI cheatsheet that has been helpful a number of times that I don't mind sharing.
   
ASCII Bike Art | Climbing Anchor Equalization | Climbing Belay Device Use | Makezine | Life Hacker | Tracker Spreedsheet 2009 Template