Austin Antics

Palm V and Palm Desktop 4.1

Ron — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:40:55 +0000

My “Summer Reading List” has been getting a bit long, with Post-Its everywhere. So, I decided to pull out an old Palm V that my friend mailed to me a while back. As my brother Dave would say: Perfect for what it does. It’s small, it’s light, and it still works after 10 years. Take [...]

Silhouette Lights — Long Video

Ron — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:19:37 +0000

Silhouette Lights – Short Video

Ron — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:18:45 +0000

Silhouette Lights

Ron — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:34:13 +0000

Here are some photos of our newest product, the LED Silhouette light: The art piece starts with a hand painted reverse silhouette, resulting in translucent white patterns on a glossy black background. The silhouette is then installed in a Ribba shadowbox frame and protected by a glass front. Inside sits a custom LED lighting assembly, designed and [...]

The Lost Month

Ron — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:16:23 +0000

Forgive the slow posting. Our summer vacation turned into an exercise in illness, and we’ve both been sick since late June. With any luck, health will return, and with it innovation.

The Survey Is Wrong

Ron — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:13:23 +0000

While scanning through the blogs today I saw the results of a survey. The survey asked what people would like robots to do for them. People wanted robots which: Clean the floors Clean the windows Clean blah blah blah In other words, people wanted a maid. What didn’t they want from a robot? Driving Helping children Keeping one company If you were designing robots [...]

Bicycle Beer Box

Ron — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:51:53 +0000

I’ve written about my Dahon Folding Bike before. It’s the one that I configured as a city apartment bike (read more here). The Dahon is a fun bike to ride. With its tiny tires you feel like you’re on a kids bike. It has a three speed hub gear system, so it’s easy to use. [...]

Simple Chicken Kebabs

Ron — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:11:41 +0000

I realize that there are a bunch of marinates out there, and I’ve tried more than a few. Recently, I’ve cut back on the complex stuff and let the veggies and meat stand on their own more. More of tasting the nicely charred food and less burnt spices. This is an easy “middle Eastern” one that [...]

Plugging Along

Ron — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:58:34 +0000

I’ve been doing a good deal of IT work, so nothing exciting to report there. It has kept me out of the shop, but is necessary to get food on the table and rent checks paid. The coop stuff has tapered off a bit since the pre and post tour rush. This is a good thing, [...]

Access 2007 : Slow Report Builder

Ron — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:42:12 +0000

Boring, but useful for anyone writing Reports in MS Access 2K7. I found that the Report Builder was VERY slow. Every time you moved a field around, resized, etc it would lock up for a few seconds. Extremely annoying when you are trying to organize a new report. I found that if I turned off error checking [...]

Save Your Hearing: Buy Better Tools

Ron — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:36:06 +0000

It’s been busy. About a coop a week through most of March and April. And the IT work. So I’ve unfortunately not had a lot of time to blog. Ah well. One think I’d like to mention: If you want to save your hearing, buy better tools. You see, we’ve been gradually upgrading our shop from our [...]

Miter Saw “Wings”

Ron — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:20:20 +0000

I removed my “old” scrap wood boxes from the sides of my cart, replacing them with some new “wings” for my Makita miter saw. Actually, more like re-purposing. I took the boxes apart and used them for the wings. They were 1×12 material, so gave me the size I wanted. Here is the left-hand (feed) side: A [...]

Multitasking Is A Curse

Ron — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:53:18 +0000

There is a line in a Doctor Who story which goes something like: Immortality is a curse, not a blessing. I feel that way about multitasking. You’d think that computers and smart phones and whatnot would make people better at multitasking, but then you’d be looking at it the wrong way. Those devices don’t make it [...]

Movin’ On Up – Makita LS1216L Miter Saw

Ron — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:18:28 +0000

A couple of months ago I realized that our miter saw was on the way out. While the “old” (10 months) Skil saw did a good job, it just isn’t able to handle production work. It was getting sloppy on 45 degree miters — which was deadly to us, since our coops use those cuts [...]

The DeWalt Cordless Brad Nailer

Ron — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:41:07 +0000

There are three tools in my shop that I never thought I needed, but now find indispensable. The Band Saw, the HVLP Sprayer, and the Brad Nailer. Why are they so important to me? Because, in a production environment, every minute counts. Saving a minute here or there doesn’t sound like much — until you look [...]

Rikon 10″ Band Saw

Ron — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:49:25 +0000

Back in February I picked up a new saw for the shop. I already have two portable circulars, a miter / chop, saber, reciprocating, scroll…the list goes on. But let me say this: I should have gotten a band saw a LOT sooner. It has quickly turned into my second most used power saw in the shop — [...]

Busy Couple Of Weeks

Ron — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:18:04 +0000

The quieter the blog, the busier I am. During the last couple of weeks we’ve built four chicken coops and three runs, and another coop is being built this week. Meanwhile, I built-out a new data center environment for one client, and starting spec’ing out a development project for another. It’s been a bit strange. One [...]

My Favorite Egg Topping

Ron — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:32:59 +0000

I usually like a little sauce on my eggs. Tabasco or Frank’s Red Hot are both good, but sometimes a little to vinegary for me. On the recommendation of our acquaintance who runs Say Hi, we picked up a bottle of Mae Ploy “Sweet Chili Sauce” — he was raving about it — “great on eggs!” Was he right? Absolutely. You [...]

Now This Guy Is A Real Ham

Ron — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:29:25 +0000

Among all those remotes and telephones are a surprising number of receivers. This guy is my new hero. Thanks for the find, DG. Update: At first I thought this guy was a Ham, but from a closer observation I see a lot of receivers, but no transceivers. Of course, it’s a little hard to tell for sure, [...]

ReadyBoost For Netbooks / Steampunk Fobs

Ron — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:05 +0000

I recently picked up a 5 pack of cheap 2 GB HP USB memory sticks (what I call “fobs”). My intention was to take the fob and embed it into a steampunk body. It is going to be a gift for my sister and would end up looking something like one of these: (The above is an [...]