Some of the benefits I can see is that it is easier to remember, and it’s a nice link to add to your website or your business card. I think people would appreciate more if you give them an easy to remember link that your full google plus profile link with all those numbers in the URL. Moreover, it’s easy to type in a mobile phone or an ipad.

It’s a no brainer for me. I’ve tried it out and I used “makerdude” as my name since I love making stuff and messing around with electronics and microcontrollers lately. The process is easy, I just copy and paste my google plus ID which is something like this

https://plus.google.com/116760300085648020773/posts

So I just selected the number portion, pasted it in plugs.name, and then type in my new alias “makerdude” and hit ok. Now instead of using the above long messy looking link, I can just hand out my new google plus shortened link (http://plusg.name/makerdude)

Now that’s cool. If you have a google plus, get your vanity name now otherwise other people might beat you to it.

Just like in the semiconductor facility, you’ll typically find people inside a mobile manufacturing facility all dressed up in a lab coat similar to mens medical uniforms like the one pictured below.

Unfortunately I can’t find a suitable photo and all I found on the net is this guy working on a hard disk, but you get the point. And for all you guys who think they’re avoiding some rare disease, nope, that’s not the reason for it. They’re not protecting the humans, they’re actually protecting the devices they’re manufacturing.

People can carry minute particles and contaminants. A single hair can ruin a batch of devices. Even as simple as human skin cells can be a contaminant.

A big part of the manufacturing process is done by a machine called pick and place like this photo below. What it does is it grabs some electronics components from a reel and carefully place them at the exact spot where it will be soldered. If it were people doing this, it would be very costly as it will involve a lot of manhours and people with tweezers to manually place those components on a board.

As much as mobile manufacturer like to use robots to do everything, there are some tasks that needs the dexterity of a human. Often time, towards the end of the process, you will see a bunch of factory workers all dressed up in scrubs like the ones available at http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/. Things such as final inspection and testing like powering up the unit, see if it works, probably insert a sim card (I’m not sure if that’s part of their Quality Assurance process though), all those things that might be too hard or too complex for a robot, those are just delegated to the factory workers.

Mobile phones are an important necessity in the modern society. In fact, even people with low level income have cell phones nowadays. Although not the latest models, but still, the technology has been embraced by all walks of life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our family loves to play angry birds. My wife has an Ipad and she got angry birds rio, the angry birds seasons, and the original angry birds. I sometimes also play on my google chrome browser. Angry birds has a browser version so that’s kinda cool.

I was able to find that video in youtube and we showed that video to our 7 year old son and he said it was so cool, he wanted to play that Angry birds live. He too loves to play Angry birds. In fact we have one of those Angry birds stuff toys.

I should applaud T-Mobile for that concept. It’s going viral right now and it’s got like 5million hits already. Awesome response for a mobile phone commercial.

Anyway, gotta go. I still need to do some research on “home security showlow” in google.

If only he has one of these spy watches, then he might be able to catch a glimpse of the thief.     Sigh.  Suddenly, it seems like its not safe anymore.  Time to buy my wife a pepper spray.

I wonder if there’s a cellphone with GPS capability wherein you can automatically track it via google maps or even, automatically enable the speaker and eaves drop on those pesky theives.    I know there are products like that for cars.  I wonder if  somebody thought about putting the same functionality on phones.

These original ink cartridges are very costly.    I remember reading an aritcle before that these printer manufacturers doesn’t make money in selling printers but rather in the consumables.  So I’m set to finding a good discount ink website where I can purchase these much needed cartridges.

I came across one site which sells discount printer ink and I found a remanufactured  HP 56 color ink cartridge selling for just under $10.  The original ones costs like $25 so I think that’s a good deal for me.    After comparing a couple more sites,  I just decided to go with the discounted ink option and see how it goes.

Fast forward a few days, and I was able to print my lovely cellphone photos of my kids and the quality isn’t bad at all.    So far I’m happy with my decision to use discounted/remanufactured ink cartriges.

I was strolling around a local mall and I found one of these electronic recycling boxes.   I love seeing these things around, but as an electronics hobbyist,  dumping old cellphones and e waste can be further enhanced.   I mean even before sending this to an electronic waste recovery facility,  there are a lot of parts withing these devices that can be recycled.

Cellphone for instance has an LCD screen.  These can be used for some of my projects.    SMD parts such as LEDs and some chips and microcontrollers can be desoldered and reused.    A lof of these parts are functioning very well.   In some cases, even the whole phone is functioning properly.    Just pop in a new cell phone casing and it’s ready to be reused.

Nowadays, cellphone manufacturers and end users make these new mobile phone models so fast that it becomes a “consumable” item.  Use it for a couple of months, then replace with a new model, and that is hurting our environment.   With all these ewaste around us, it is important that it goes to the right process and recover reusable items such as precious metals inside these devices.

A few months ago, I have an old CPU motherboard donated to me and I was able to salvage a lot of capacitors, battery holder,  some ICs that I can use.     I’m really for electronics recycling and I hope a lot of these devices pass thru hobbyist like me so we can take out and reuse some of these parts, before going to e waste processing plants.

Whoever has this virtual mini at the end of the campaign period, wins the car.  Just imagine,  anybody can win this MINI.    Check out the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is some awesome campaign.  I wonder who’s the Advertising Agency did that?  I think it’s brilliant.  It uses the power of social media,  it has a great video, it explains it clearly,  and it has all the things needed to create a “buzz”.   Anybody with an iphone can join in the fun.   I wonder what will happen if  once somebody grabbed it,  they turn off the phone and turn it on only during the end of the contest.

I guess they’re smart enough to anticipate that.    They’ll probably note down the last known coordinate so nobody can cheat like that.

Nowadays, I think advertising agencies must be very creative. Traditional strategies doesn’t really cut it.  It should be something exciting, something new, something that people can participate, and no, not one of those raffles and sms entries.  It has to be something that will personally involve people that is fun to do.  Something that will be “worth it” to win, and something that is kinda competitive in nature.

Kudos to the Advertising Agency that did this.

So I’m torn between purchasing what I want and purchasing what I need. What I want, is to purchase this HTC Desire HD. Whoa..check out how pretty it is. Check out the specs. It has a 1GHz 8255 Snapdragon processor, an 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and 720p video recording.
It also has an HSPDA+ data with 802.11n WiFi and will most probably available this October.

However, here’s what I need, either a desktop or a laptop. I dont’ usually buy those pre-configured desktops or laptops, but what I want is the ability to customize the specs. I’ld rather have a custom laptop at howard custom computers than buy something that lacks in specs.

My current desktop is also on of those custom computers and I like the fact that I can dictate whatever specs I want. I like a 8GB memory, throw in a 1TB SATA HD, use this type of video card..etc, have them assemble it and ship it to me.

But I really, really wanted to have a new mobile phone. I guess it is true that people buy what they want and not necessarily what they need. These gadget manufacturers are so good at marketing their latest wares.

So what will my next major gadget purchase be? The nice HTC Desire or a new PC? I’ld better sleep on it, weigh the pro’s and cons and decide after a week.

I love heat shrink specially specially when used on gadget repairs like mobile phones.

So what is a “Heat Shrink“?    Its a popular tool we use in the hobby electronics industry.    It is actually is a tube which shrinks in diameter when heated.

Purpose: Heat shrink is used to insulate wires offering abrasion resistance and environmental protection for conductors, connections, joints and terminals in electrical engineering. It can also be used to repair wires or bundle them together, to protect wires or small parts from minor abrasion, and to create cable entry seals, offering environmental sealing protection between bulkheads and adding sealability to electrical junction boxes.  - Wikipedia

I guess that says it all.   For me personally,  I use it to cover solder joints.  Usually when I’m repairing a phone like extending a wire, I cut a small piece of heat shrink tube, about 2 inches in length or enough to cover the exposed wire splice.    I then put the heat shrink tube first and then splice the wires and start soldering.

Once the wires are soldered,  I moved the heat shrink tube in position to cover the spliced part and then fire up my hot air blower (I have a hot air soldering station),  but your average hair dryer will do.   Sometimes I just use my soldering iron and quickly move it across the length of the Heat Shrink tube.

This format is usually used for thumbnails which is why the file extension ITHMB  (short for THUMBnail, and of course, the usual letter “I” at the start which is heavily associated with Apple such ash (iphone, ipod, itunes..etc).
Technically the ITHMB files are 16-bit uncompressed raw picture.  If you are wondering why uncompressed,  i think it is because having to uncompress photos on-the-fly needs a greater processing power and will drain your batteries faster.