Micro-USB Powered Dog Feeder

I'm not a huge fan of stationary devices that require batteries to operate. I've had 2 Aspen Le Bistro Portion-Control Automatic Pet Feeders since February of 2015 and they've performed very well. The only problem is that when the batteries get low, they don't feed the dogs and so far, the low battery light hadn't worked. The label on the bottom of the feeder clearly showed I needed 4.5V at 500ma to power the feeder. To anyone who works with electronics, these numbers are almost identical to USB power (5V at 500ma) which gave me the idea.

Assembling a wireless car charger

While it didn't make sense for me personally to use a wireless charger in the car, it may work for you. Here's how I made one out of all Samsung accessories without any soldiering skills.

Galaxy S4

True to my word I bought the Galaxy S4 the week I got back from vacation. It's simply awesome. It took a little while to get used to the larger device size but I picked up an iPhone 5 the other day and wondered how I ever squinted at that tiny little screen. I picked up an iPhone 4 and actually gave a full "ha!" out loud. I am just floored by all of the features and options with this phone. My only disappointment initially was that their isn't a stable version of Cyanogenmod out there for GS4 (SPHD-720) yet. The good part is, I really got to have some hands on experience with TouchWiz and it has come a long way since I used the Samsung Galaxy S 4G. I would have missed out on the amazing camera software in TouchWiz not to mention some of the really fun features . My Bluetooth is working much better now. It turned out that it was Waze that was intercepting the pause/play controls.

I went whole-hog on the wireless charging and purchased a Tylt Vu, Samsung Galaxy S4 charging kit and the Samsung Universal Car Mount. My plan is to integrate the charging kit into the car mount with some mad dremmel skills. I'm hoping I'll be able to connect the car mount to my proclip like I was able to with the Samsung Infuse car mount I was using for the GS3. I'll post when I get it done.

I also picked up 2 packs of TecTiles 2 in my order to give those a try. I installed NFC Task Launcher and created a 4 minute timer for my french press process. I simply set my GS4 on top of the coffee grinding after I've ground the beans and it starts the 4 minute brew timer before I plunge and pour the coffee.

iOS to Android - Take 2

Google Now was the hook. I immediately fell in love with the intuitive and simple nature of the Google Now app and it's great little "cards" that show my next event, how long to get home, current flight status and a whole host of other great information. Google voice search lives up to everything Siri failed to deliver. It's fast, accurate, responsive and informative. I wanted more, but to get more, I had to do the unthinkable, I had to give up my iPhone 5.

Playing Magic the Gathering (MTG) with OCTGN

I recently started playing Magic: The Gathering after discovering a wonderful little coffee and game shop in the area. The only problem is that I can only play once a week (Friday Night Magic) which doesn't leave me a lot of time to practice and get better at it. I was very excited to find out that Wizards of the Coast also makes a Magic: The Gathering online game. What killed my excitement was that you actually have to buy virtual cards to play with. I couldn't believe it, not only does it cost $10 to get started, there is no discount for the virtual cards compared to their real versions. I call foul on this. I went on a search to find a better way.

There are a few alternatives to Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) including Magic Workstation (MWS) and OCTGN. The difference is that MWS is heavily advertisement supported (or you can pay a hefty price for it) and seems to be quite a bit more popular. There are plenty of MWS walkthroughs and how-to's but little to nothing on OCTGN.

OCTGN is a freeware Microsoft.NET application and a newcomer to the arena. It is more of a framework for multiple kinds of card games but has a truly beautiful interface and great design. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.octgn.net/ but I suggest getting the whole MTG package with it by searching for the torrent "OCTGN 2 with MTG v0.0.2.8". This includes the MTG game definition as well as all the card images up to Zendikar. It weighs in at a hefty 1.3GB which is why bittorrent is the only sustainable way to get it. I played with it for a few hours last night and want to share how to play MTG with it.

Getting Started

1. Launch the executable and click on Manage Installed Games.
2. Click Install a new game
3. In the root of the folder you downloaded, select Magic-v0.0.2.8.o8g
4. Click Install new cards
5. Browse to 3. T2 Sets - Updated for SealedCore Set and select Magic_2010.v0.0.2.6.1.[GO].o8s
6. Repeat the same process for 3. T2 Sets - Updated for SealedZendikarZendikar.v.0.0.2.6.1.[GO].o8s
7. Click Close
8. Go to Edit your decks
9. Go to Deck - New - Magic the gathering
10. Pick 20 creatures, 20 lands and 20 spells for starters. Google Build MTG Deck for more advice.
11. Click Deck - Save
12. Close the window

Now you have a deck. Most of the above is for demonstration purposes but is a good starting point. You can build and store as many decks as you want. There are some premade decks. If you want to use them, load 2. Extended Sets - Updated for SealedCore SetsTenth_Edition.v0.0.2.6.[GO].o8s. Then go to Edit Decks - Deck - Load and pick one.

Game time. One of the nice things is that you can load two copies of OCTGN and play both sides of the table. Go to Start a new game then Start. On the 2nd instance of OCTGN, click on Join an existing game and click Join. I like to use the two-sided table but it's up to you. Just click the checkmark next to Use a two-sided table. You can also change who is on what side by clicking the A or B. Once you are ready, click Start.

Playing a hand

You now have a blank table. Now, let's get some cards to play with

Go to File - Load a deck and select the deck you created before. I created a simple mono-black deck with a few of my favorites from Zendikar. I will be loading the same deck for both players.

Once the deck is loaded, the cards are in the exact same order as you added them to the deck. We must shuffle the deck. You can either right-click on the deck and select shuffle or use the keyboard shortcut, ctrl-s. Both players must do this and it will be indicated in the chat window on the lower right.

Who goes first? Typically you roll a 20-sided die to find out, no different here, just right click in the middle of the table and select roll a 20-sided. In the chat window you will see the result. You can also use the keyboard shortcut, ctrl-shift-r. You will start to notice there are keyboard shortcuts for almost all of the actions in the game. This allows you to play very quickly and naturally. In my demo game, Jim rolled a 20 and Jeff a 9.

Looks like Jim get's to choose and he chooses to play first. Time to draw the hand. Right click on the library (deck of magic cards) and choose Draw many..., keyboard shortcut ctrl-alt-d. A window will pop-up asking how many and default to 7 (the standard hand side). Click ok. Jeff will do the same. Jim only drew 2 swamps and can choose to mulligan down to 6 cards at this point if he wants. Simply right-click on the drawn hand and select mulligan or ctrl-M while over your hand. OCTGN will ask you if you want to mulligan down to 6 (then 5, 4, 3...). I decide to try my luck and skip the mulligan, which I will most likely regret later. Time to start. I click on the green play button next to my Name/Life/Hand-size tab. The chat interface announces Turn 1:Jim.

Turn 1: Jim

I want to get into the untap, upkeep, draw order. You can right-click in the middle of the table and select Go to beginning phase or press F1. If I had any cards already on the table and tapped, it would untap them for me and announce Beginning of UPKEEP PHASE in the chat window. Check your cards and see if there is anything you need to do as part of upkeep.

Since it's the first turn, I will skip the draw phase (ctrl-d or double-click on my library) and move on to my first main phase. I press F2 to announce that in chat.

This is a good time to make a clarification, especially for those who come from MTGO. OCTGN will not enforce rules, it has no concept of the actual game play. It is simply a virtual environment to play card games in.

Ok, with that cleared up, it's time to play a card. Double-clicking on a card will move it to the board so I double click on one of my swamps. I have nothing more exciting to do. I can now press F3 to announce Combat, then F4 to announce Second Main Phase then F5 to announce End Step but I think I will just announce I am done by hitting F5 and then clicking the green play arrow next to Jeff's name.

Turn 2: Jeff

Jeff hits F1 to untap (nothing there yet but a good habit) and then double-clicks on his library to draw a card. He then hits F2 for his main phase. Jeff also plays a swamp but he has a 1 black mana creature, the Guul Draz Vampire. He double-clicks on the swamp to tap it and then double-clicks on the vampire. Note that there seems to be a bug in this version that it plays both cards on the wrong side of the table. Simple drag them back to your side to play. The cards are a little small so he rolls his mouse wheel to zoom in. Then he holds down the space bar and left-click-drags the window around to his liking. Nothing much more to do, can't really attack due to summoning sickness. To be polite, Jeff hits the Tab key to pass priority to Jim in case he wants to respond to the summoning of a creature. Jim has no response so he hits Tab to pass it back. This doesn't do anything other than put a message in the chat window. Jeff is finished with his turn and hits F5 to announce the end phase and then clicks on the Play button next to Jim's name.

Turn 3: Jim

Jim hits F1 as good habit and ctrl-d to draw a card (Jim likes the keyboard shortcuts), then F2 to begin the first main phase. Jim double-clicks on a swamp to play it. Now a choice, I can use disfigure to try to remove Jeff's vamp or I can bring out a creature of my own. I use the mouse to draw a sqaure around both swamps (left-click and drag) and then double click on one, they will both tap. I play a Surrakar Marauder and press Tab to allow Jeff a chance to respond. Jeff has no response and presses Tab to hand priority back to me. Nothing fancy left for me to do so an F5 announces the end phase, I click on the play button to hand the turn back to Jeff.

Turn 4: Jeff

F1 untaps Jeff's swamp from the last turn. Jeff draws a card, ahh, disfigure. Jeff hits F2 to move to first main phase. He plays a swamp by double-clicking on it. He wants to get my Marauder out of the way and now is a really good time. He hovers over each of his swamps and hits ctrl-g to tap them and then double-clicks on his Disfigure. Jim can assume that it's meant for the only creature he has but there is a great way in OCTGN to do this. Holding down the shift key, left click on the Disfigure and drag up to the Marauder. He then hits tab to allow Jim a response. Jim has none and drags the Marauder to the graveyard, so sad. Jim presses tab to return priority to Jeff. Jeff hovers over the Disfigure and taps the delete key, off his spell goes into the graveyard (you guys getting there are multiple ways to do things? He could also right-click and select Destroy Card, pick one you like).

Now that the defenses are clear, Jeff is going to hit F3 to start the combat phase. Jeff hovers over the Vampire and clicks ctrl-A to signify the attack, this is a little different than tapping as it creates a red glow around the card and says "Jeff attacks with 'Guul Draz Vampire'." in the chat window. Jeff Tabs over to Jim for a chance to respond. Jim clicks the minus next to the life counter to indicate he is taking one damage to his player. The chat window also indicates that Jim has lost a life. Jim hits tab to pass it back to Jeff. Jeff right clicks in the middle of the table and selects Clean-up targets and combat which will remove the red glow and any arrows that were left over. Jeff now indicated the end phase by hitting F5 and passes the turn to Jim by clicking the play button next to his name.

Turn 5: Jim

F1 (untap and upkeep), ctrl-d (draw), F2 (begin main phase), play swamp, tap two swamps, play Vampire Hexmage. F5, pass the turn by hitting Play next to Jeff. Hopefully you are getting the hang of this.

Turn 6: Jeff

F1 (untap and upkeep), ctrl-d (draw), F2 (begin main phase), play swamp, tap two swamps, play Vampire Hexmage. Now Jeff hits F3, Jeff attacks with Guul Draz Vampire and tabs to indicate Jim is up for blocking phase. Jim right-clicks his Vampire Hexmage and selects block, then shift-left-drags and arrow over to the Guul Draz Vampire. The chat reads "Jim targets 'Guul Draz Vampire' with 'Vampire Hexmage'". Jeff taps one more swamp and uses the Hideous End against Jim's Vampire Hexmage. He indicates this by drawing another arrow from the Hideous End to the Vampire Hexmage. The table is looking pretty interesting now. We officially have a stack to address. Starting from the last chat message up, we need to resolve it. Hideous End resolves first causing -2/-2 to Jim's Vampire Hexmage. The Hexmage is only a 2/1 and therefore drops below 1 toughness sending her to the graveyard. Since Jim has no response and has priority, he drags her off to the graveyard. Jim passes it back to Jeff. Jeff then discards his Hideous End now that it has done its work. The block is still valid even though the Hexmage has moved on to darker places do no damage is assigned. It looks like Jeff has cleared the way for victory in the next few turns but you never know what will come up in the library next for Jim.

Finding Other Players
Honestly I haven't explored this all that much yet. The one thing you will need to do is poke a hole in your firewall to let another player connect to you. OCTGN uses a peer-to-peer system so there is no central server (yet?) to arrange matches. Much like the actual card game, this is left up to the organizers and players. If you are the one Starting a new game instead of joining, you will need to open the port or forward it from your firewall to the computer running OCTGN. This port number can be found on the Start a new game screen next to Port number to use. Opening and forwarding ports are ouside the purview of this howto but Google is your friend and it depends on your cable/dsl router/modem and OS firewall. You may want to ask in the OCTGN chat for either help on this or finding other players to play against. You will need to provide the other player the internet IP address if they aren't on the same school/work/home network as you are along with the port number. If you are lucky enough to be on the same network, don't worry about the router part of the above statement and provide them the local (LAN) IP address. Both of these are on the Start a new game screen.

You can also use Hamachi to provide a small, free, private VPN to play in. This would also remove the need to modify the firewall or router. Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi.

Links to Additional Information

Draft support - http://www.octgn.net/forum/index.php?topic=258.0

OCTGN Home - http://www.octgn.net

OCTGN Blog (with lots of hints and tricks) - http://octgndev.wordpress.com/

MTGSalvation OCTGN Thread - http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=184889

Summary

While the best MTG client out there is MTGO, I feel that OCTGN will quickly become the de factor standard in what a MTG PC client should be. There is a ton of potential and .NET is a great platform. It's been a long time coming but I am hoping with guides like this one, people will start using and innovating to create unique solutions to allow a wide variety of gameplay. I think the next big challenge is to create a server based matching system and method to validate other peoples decks. Once this hurdle is overcome, it will be a truly great client for anonymous online play.

Auto-Auctions: A Survival Guide (a.k.a: I bought a Jeep Commander)

I detest car dealerships. The whole experience for me is akin to using a porta-potty at a festival. You feel dirty the second you open the door and even if you get the business done successfully, you know there was a better way. I think I found it.

I can't believe it, I got an iPhone, and.... I like it.

A few weeks ago my lovely wife got me an iPod Nano for my birthday. This wasn't something on my list or anything I knew I wanted but I swallowed my dislike for all things from that white-clad trouble maker in Cupertino and gave it a try. The interface was very simple, I never had to break out the manual or even go looking for a feature. I thought the accelerometer would be cute and nothing more than a gimmick but it was actually useful in the control of the device (especially in the games). In short, I really liked it and I wanted more.

Review: Viewsonic DF88W 8" Digital Picture Frame

My lovely wife got me a Viewsonic DF88W-523 picture frame for my birthday this year and I got it all setup at work today. It all starts with opening the box, I have noticed a trend in high-quality products recently that pays more attention to the unboxing process experience. I was pleased to slide the white inner-box out of it's "store-display" sleeve. The inside box opens like a book with two flaps covering the goodies. On the right side is the frame itself while the left side hold the AC adapter, USB cables and stand. I really do love the new presentation instead of digging through folds and tape to get everything you need out.

What's the deal with the Sound Blaster XFi PCI-E

I have recently been getting clicks and pops out of my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. It served me for almost 6 years faithfully but I think it's time to replace/upgrade. I took a look at newegg.com and it seems that Creative has finally resolved the issues with a PCI-E interface and are producing the X-Fi with a PCI-E. So why is it only $50?

No more HP stuff

I just rebuild my system with a quad-core processor and a brand spanky new motherboard. While that is a post in itself I noted an interesting thing about the upgrade to Vista. It really shows which vendors were "on" and those who don't care. My 8-year old Epson 1200 Inkjet printer has native driver access. I don't mean some generic driver either, it even has the utilities tab that I had to install the 16-bit software in XP to get. Now, my 1 year old HP Scanjet 4670 doesn't work. HP has end of lifed one of their most popular scanners to avoid developing a Vista driver for it. I think this is the last HP product I will buy.

Christmas 2006

What a fantastic Christmas this year. Lots of fun with the family. I introduced both sides of the family to the Wii and we had great times no matter what age or experience level with gaming. Time for the goodie list.

Coaxial Run with Power CCTV Troubleshooting Guide

Written by Jim Shank 8/2/05

 

There should be two major troubleshooting points for CCTV, the camera’s themselves and the central terminating location (CTL) in which the video signal is captured and the power is supplied (if power is not supplied mid-run or directly at the camera location). Troubleshooting will be started at the CTL and then move to each individual camera. It helps to have a baseline camera that is working in order to capture normal readings for comparison. Remember that CCTV cabling should be as follows

		RG-59/RG-6		UTP with Baluns		Fiber Optic
Run Length		< 250 ft.		250 – 3000 ft.		> 3000 ft.

 

Tools Needed

• Digital Volt Meter (DVM)


• Electrical Tape

Optional Tools

• BNC or F-type connector and small piece of coax


• 9V battery

 

512MB MiniSD Finally Arrived

Like a watched pot left forgotten on the stove... the 512MB MiniSD card for my MPx220 finally arrived today. I had forgotten to call and check when the next "back-order" date would be for it and sure enough, it came. Nothing exciting to tell, it seems to hold 512MB so I copied a bunch of MP3's onto my phone. Since I now own the Motorola HS120 Stereo Headset (Headphones and microphone) I have a full blown 512MB MP3 player with me at all times. Sweet.

Still waiting on my $52 512MB MiniSD Card

Would you believe I still haven't received it?!?! It's been over a month now and nothing. I guess I will have to call again and see when it is back ordered to this time.

Bluetooth Headset

It arrived! I got the free bluetooth headset on Friday! I was suprised to open a box from Youth America and find a Motorola HS-810 headset in the box. I figured there was no way I was one of the first 1000 users of the MPX-220 to register but here it is. The size and shape are really well done and I prefer the flip out boom mic as compared to the 820. My brother says his 820 likes to redial in his pocket. I am disappointed with the interface to the MPX220 though. Voice dial doesn't work quite correctly due to a problem with the bluetooth stack in Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003. It is rumored to be fixed sometime but I won't hold my breath. You can actually hold up the volume button on the phone to activate Voice Dial and then speak into the headset but you get no prompts on the headset which is difficult. I can't use it as a wireless audio device either. It would be nice to play games/listen to MP3s using it. As a hands free headset for phone calls, It works pretty well. It has a world more of possiblities but I guess I will have to wait for Windows Mobile 2005 to see what it can do. It is definitely worth what I paid for it.

Played Half Life 2

Wow. This game is amazing. Wow.

The Christmas of Toys

I haven't even scratched the surface of opening and actually being able to spend some quality time getting to know my new collection of toys from all of the generous gift givers this Christmas. Here is the list:

29th Birthday Party with New Hermit Crabs!

I had a great birthday party tonight at On The Border and am completely stuffed and gifted. I got lots of great stuff including a Plantronics USB headset for all my Skype needs. The Return of the King extended edition which I can't wait to watch. The new Leisure Suit Larry ;). An Einstein Bros. gift card (my fav breakfast and lunch place). A gift cert to Amazon so I can pick up some much needed stuff. A gift cert to Target so I can get some much needed housewares. My favorite gift of the night was from Melissa though. She got me a pair of hermit crabs to replace the one I lost a few months back. I have a monstrous habitat and can't wait to populate it tommorow with them. They are both fresh water crabs and the big ones name is Bob and the little one with the red shell is Happy. Bob seems to like tortillas and chips. Happy seems a little more quiet and after a tour around our table, he has decided to take it easy and watch Bob mess up the cage. It's darken outside and time for night-night.

New Cell Phones (Motorola MPx220)

We went to Best Buy last night and I am still not sure which way to go. The phone guy we talked to said he wouldn't recommend the Motorola MPx220 because of the speaker and microphone issues with it (way too quiet, you physically can't hear the ring 1 ft away in a loud room). He thinks the Motorola 551 is a much better choice. Definitely not as feature rich and I would really dig a phone that I could write apps for myself. We will see if they get the 1.30 firmware phones out while a good set of rebates is on.