Recently I’ve come across a couple of USB cables of Chinese origin (what else).
Cables that are a real innovation in my view. Carrying just regular USB Type A or Micro USB connectors, they can be plugged in both ways!
I’ve stumbled upon a cute and convenient DC adapter the other day, with four USB charging ports (up to 4800 mA total), a power socket, and a tablet stand. All of that for less than € 15.
A bit later turned out there’s a pitfall, too: it produced annoying whining noise. The noise was quiet but clearly audible in silence, especially while the adapter was unloaded.
Being quite happy with my 75 inch whopper Samsung UE75HU7500, the only thing I wanted to do about it was giving it ambient backlighting. When watching TV in complete darkness your eyes get quickly tired because of the stark contrast between the bright screen and its dark surroundings. Even though this device features an ambient light sensor, which is used to automatically adjust the screen brightness, the contrast is still all too harsh.
When a geek gets bored, he usually dives into home automation. And when there’s nothing more left to automate, he blogs about it.
When leaving my house I usually check the weather forecast for today and if there are any train disruptions. The thing is, it takes precious time and I’m usually in a hurry. Therefore the idea of having all the useful information on a single display was in the air for quite a while. Recently I’ve finally got to implement it. Please meet InfoPi.
I managed to upgrade the best-selling Koss PortaPro headphones using a couple of items I’ve bought on eBay. The headphones are some ten years old now, yet sturdy and rocking, and now have become even better:
Out of curiosity I’ve ordered a couple of USB voltage testers from eBay (there’s plenty of them there).
For your information, a USB voltage and current tester is a device for measuring voltage and current coming from a USB output into a gadget (usually being charged).
It’s been exactly four delightful years when the HDD in my iMac 27" informed me it couldn’t take it any longer. “Disk I/O error”, it said.
At that moment I already had plans to upgrade it with an SSD (solid-state drive). Those are much snappier and completely silent since there are no moving parts inside.