Soldering Tips

At a recent Vienna Wireless meeting, Ron (WA6YOU) gave an excellent presentation on the right way to solder and the right tools required to do so.

Here are some of the most interesting points that I wrote down:

• flick the iron and solder after finishing soldering a piece
• always keep the iron tinned. This also implies that before turning the iron off, tin it!
• to use a solder wick, put some solder in the centre just before the end of the wick. Maybe add some rosin too.
• use a brush dipped in alcohol to clean the rosin at the very end

The presentation was real good. And the equipment he had was wonderful!



For solder irons, he recommended Edsyn Loner (model 951SX)

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Ubuntu and Prism Wireless Card

I was able to lay hands on an old Prism wireless card and was trying to get it working on an Ubuntu laptop (Ubuntu 10.04 - Lucid Lynx). The OS did not detect the wireless card which meant that I had to begin a 'query journey' via google.

The name printed on the wireless card is: Intersil Corporation, Prism Duette

And here is the relevant part from the output of the 'lspci -v' command:

04:00.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Intersil Corporation Device 0000

Initially I thought that the issue was due to 'prism54' kernel module and that I had to blacklist it to get the card working.

But then I came across this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-firmware-nonfree/+bug/509265

which essentially said that I had to install the 'linux-firmware-nonfree' package.

 And YES, once I installed the package, the card was recognized by the OS and everything was fine.

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Adding table borders in Scribus

After having created a table in Scribus (version 1.3.3.12), I was surprised to see that when I created a pdf file, the table borders were invisible. I wanted the cell border lines to be visible.

Searching the web for possible solutions seemed futile.

But after playing around for some more time, I was able to figure it out and hence this blog post for someone else who is also seeking the solution.

To create borders for the cells in a table:

1. double click the cell
   
2. right click to view properties (keyboard shortcut F2),
   
3. under 'line' properties, check the check-boxes in the 'Cell Lines' group

Selecting a cell border twice (for instance once from a cell as 'Line at the left' and then from the next right cell as 'Line at the right'), will result in darker border lines. So, for each cell, be cognisant of the cell borders which already exist.

And that is it, even before exporting, you will be able to visually see darker cell border lines.

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Recovering from Hard disk failures

Recently the hard disk drive in a Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop running Windows XP stopped working. The first sign of trouble was when the OS could not load and kept on prompting for safe mode boot. After a few hours of trying the safe mode option, and a lot of hung screens, the prompt for this option also stopped appearing and instead of seeing the familiar OS screen, the laptop would try to load up 'Media Direct' and hang after a few seconds.

I went on a search engine usage spree to find what tools I could use to get the hard disk drive working.

The first thing I tried, was to remove the hard disk drive from the laptop, house it within an external SATA-to-USB case and plug it in to a Ubuntu machine. This did not work well. The Ubuntu machine failed to mount the partitions. Upon trying to mount the partition which I thought was the C:, the Ubuntu OS failed to do so and recommended that I run "chkdsk /f" from another Windows machine on the hard disk.

Thus I then tried connecting the HDD to a Windows Vista laptop. The Vista OS went into an infinite loop of mounting the partitions and then immediately unmounting them. So this option was closed to me.

I decided to use Knoppix to correct the issue. I downloaded the latest version of Knoppix (v6.2.1), burnt it on a CD, installed the faulty HDD back on the laptop and ran the Knoppix live CD. Knoppix also failed to automatically mount the HDD. Manually attempting to mount the HDD resulted in the same fate as what happened on the Ubuntu OS.

While on my internet search spree, I had come across this great IBM article: "System recovery with Knoppix - What to do when good disks go bad".

I played around with the information that I got from that web page, but did not have much luck.

By this time, I had come across a tool (new to me) called 'TestDisk' which seemed to be promising.

The Knoppix live CD had the tool and so I proceeded to play around with it. After many hours, I came to the conclusion that the NTFS partition table was corrupted and TestDisk would allow me to rectify the problem.

For what it is worth, here is the partition table which TestDisk found after its "deeper search" analysis:

Primary Bootable	FAT 16 > 32M	0	1	1	11	254	63	192717	Dell Utility
Deleted	FAT 32 LBA	12	0	1	4189	254	63	67119570	Unlabeled
Deleted	HPFS-NTFS	12	28	17	1317	134	33	20971520	Recovery
Deleted	HPFS-NTFS	1317	134	34	30074	207	13	461985784
Primary	FAT32 LBA	30074	239	54	30401	42	41	5240832	Media Direct

I went ahead with TestDisk and decided to delete one partition on the HDD which did not make much sense to me (the second row in the table above). Upon writing the new partition table structure to the HDD, I found that upon booting, I was able to get to the Microsoft OS prompt again. Windows XP was prompting me again to boot into the safe mode option. I tried that and also tried booting normally but both attempts were in vain.

I removed the HDD, placed it within the external enclosure and connected to the Ubuntu OS.

Voila ! I was able to mount the partition that I thought was the C: and was able to recover all important data from it.

TestDisk did save the day ! +1 for OSS tools !

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Emergency Western Union Money Transfer Scams

Recently, I came across these two Western Union scam emails asking the recipient to transfer money. Although these seem similar to the Facebook Western Union scam emails, there does not seem to be much about these emails on the internet.

The only other information that I could find after a brief search on the internet which is similar to this is: http://hospitalera.com/an-emergency-i-think-not/ and was written up in January this year.

Here is the text of the emails that I have seen:

From: "xx" <xx-yahoo@yahoo.com>
To: xx@yahoo.com
Date:
Subject: In dire need of your expedient aid to this
I am in a hurry writing you this note, Just wanted to seek your help on something very important and I do hope you will come to my aid. Because something very terrible is happening to me now, I need a favor from you now, I had a trip here in London for a seminar on modern education.

Unfortunately, all my money got stolen on my way to the hotel along with my bag were my passport was ,And since then i have been without any money, I am even owing the hotel here.

I currently have limited access to emails for now, I would have called but i don't have access to a phone at the moment,please I need you to lend me about
£1500 so that I can make arrangements and return back please, I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively, I will return the money back to you as soon as I get home, I am so confused right now.

Here are my details for western union transfer:

<xx's NAME>
110 Great Russell Street, London, England, WC1B 3NA

I will be waiting to here from you soonest please as thigs are taking a different turn here.

Best regards,

<xx's NAME>

The text of the second email:

From: yy <yy@yahoo.com>
Subject: I'm Worried
To:
Date: Monday, February 15, 2010, 11:28 AM

I had an emergency trip to London to attend a Medical Conference unfortunately I got robbed at the hotel I lodged, all cash including my ATM cards and some valuable document were stolen, I'm seriously stranded and I need your assistance, please can you go to the Western Union outlet and send me 740 pounds, I'm currently having problems sorting the hotel bills and my return flight, I'll definitely refund the money immediately I return back home.

Note the Western Union Money transfer detail bellow:
Receiver Name: <yy's NAME>
Address: 31-35 Craven Hill Gardens
London U2 3EA, United Kingdom

send the MTCN to my mail immediately the transfer is done so that I can receive the money at the nearest Western Union Outlet, I still have my passport and I need contact the Embassy and also the police immediately.

Regards,
<yy's NAME>

These scams are more effective in eliciting a response from the victim than the generic Nigerian scams.

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How to scratch out envelope 'Facing Identification Mark' (FIM) ?

I have been saving all the envelopes that I get within mail such as cell phone bills, credit card bills and any spam mail with return-envelopes. Consequently I now have a huge pile of clear window envelopes. I have been trying to reuse these envelopes and in that process discovered the significance of the pre-printed bar codes on such envelopes.

The most common lines are the bars on the envelope near the right upper edge and to the left of the postage stamp area. These bars are called 'Facing Identification Marks'. All the envelopes that I have saved have the FIN A bar code on them.

The following image shows the FIN bar code on a postcard.


So now when I reuse these envelopes, do I need to scratch the FIN bar code or should I leave it?

The USPS web site says:

A FIM must be printed on all letter-size BRM and on business reply labels affixed to letter-size mail. One purpose for FIMs is to face the mail as it is processed through the advanced facer canceller machine. The other purpose is to direct the mailpiece to either the optical character reader or the barcode sorter, depending on whether it has a barcode applied.

So, leaving it in will at the very least allow the sorting machine to now which way is face up. Wikipedia states:

FIM A is used for courtesy reply mail metered reply mail with a preprinted POSTNET bar code. In both of these types of mail, the postage is prepaid, either by a postage stamp in the case of courtesy reply mail or by a postage meter in the case of metered reply mail.

Since, my envelopes do not have a postnet bar code on them, I guess eventually the system will get confused and this may delay the sorting of my mail or worse, increase the chances of it getting lost.

I am still not sure as to what is the best way to strike out these bar codes and on the lookout for the information.

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New Hipster PDA

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I was looking around to find out how I could make myself a Hipster PDA. I downloaded a few templates, printed them, cut them and used my Hipster PDA for sometime.

I found that:

I flip through the pages of my Hipster PDA more often than I add or remove sheets.

The clip I was using to hold the Hipster PDA in place did not allow me to flip through the pages easily. So most of the times the first front page would be the most often used page and other pages would go unused.
So this weekend, I made myself a new Hipster PDA and I am pretty happy with the outcome!

Here is a photo of this new Hipster PDA:



Here is a mini-howto for making this Hipster PDA:

Step 1: Download, print and cut a template you like or use index cards. You can refer to my last blog post for some URLs to do this.

Step 2: I bought a punch from a local craft store. This punch makes a tiny hole - 1/16th of an inch.

I used this punch to make a little hole on all the template printouts and index cards I was going to use in my Hipster PDA.

The punch is really not important, since you can make a small hole in the paper in a variety of ways. The punch just makes it easier to do this task.

In my first run, I punched the holes too close to the corner. The next time I punch new sheets, will take care to ensure that the holes are neither too close nor too far.

Step 3: I bought a pack of 'jump rings' from the same store. I wanted a ring based Hipster PDA so that I can easily flip through the pages.

These rings are used to make jewellery. So any store which supplies caters to jewellery hobbyists will have these rings. Or better still, you could take a jump ring out from an unused old key chain and use it.

I did not use a blinder ring, since I did not want the Hipster PDA to become too huge to comfortably fit into a pocket.

Open the ring a little and pass it through all the index cards/template printouts. Close the ring to have your new Hipster PDA ready for use!

I am a little afraid of the pages tearing off the ring. So, I might end up punching a hole in the left bottom corner and use another jump ring there to secure the pages. But then, since I normally clip a pen with this PDA, my fear of the pages getting torn may be unfounded.



The Pilot G2 pen 05 ("Extra Fine Point") pen goes very well with this PDA.

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