Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Is the party over for MySpace? Is the exodus beginning? Has Facebook killed it off? Maybe.

MySpace hasn’t been ‘cool’ for a while now. Not that long ago, though, it was the place to be to make friends and keep in touch with them.

I started a MySpace account when I was doing my podcast. As a way to find and keep in touch with musicians, it was without equal. Show dates, band info, it was all there at your fingertips. Continue Reading…

Things are shaping up, but a lot still needs to be done. Here’s a list of things I still need to do.

Secure the tote to the trailer. I’m not sure how I want to do that. One option is to actually drill through it and bolt it on. I’d have to have some back-up to keep the bolts from just pulling through the plastic. Fender washers or a metal plate. Same thing on the bottom of the trailer. The bolts would go through the plastic deck of the trailer, which is kind of a grating. I wouldn’t drill it, I’d line the bolt holes up with the openings in the deck, which would mean some plate under it needed. Maybe, I won’t need to secure it that tightly. Straps might be good enough and simpler. Continue Reading…

My trailer arrived. it looks really nice. Solid and sturdy, despite it’s tiny 16-inch wheels.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to get up to speed on the fancy-schmancy radio I picked up. I’ve played with packet radio in the past quite a bit and it’s all coming back. I hooked up some old gear I still have to experiment, but it’s not a lot of help. APRS is quite different than simple packet and the method of operation, while looking similar, is also different. Packet is a point-to-point connection, even with relays in the middle, while APRS is connectionless. The information just bounces around and hopefully everyone hears what they need one time or the next. If you’re familiar with TCP/IP networking, it’s like the difference between TCP and UDP protocols. But at only 1200 baud!

But as a voice radio, it’s pretty standard and will always be useful that way as well. It even has a weather alert function, which I found out when it went off in the middle of one of our Robotics meetings due to a snow storm advisory! I didn’t know how to turn it off at first. Continue Reading…

No reason. It was just funny.