found these beautifully machined knobs at Mar Vac Electronics. the original ones were flimsy plastic – i had already kicked one off. Maxon made some pretty nice pedals back in the day (i think their pedals are still nice, but i haven’t tried them) but used unusually weak parts for some components. to make it worse, these parts are impossible to find. i already had to have special 1/4″ jacks sent from Maxon in Japan (!) to replace one that had cracked. replacing these knobs weren’t easy either. the shaft wasn’t a full 1/4″ cylinder. it was a freakin’ 1/4″ shaft cut in half! after finding some plastic material to fill in the gaps i was able to get these knobs on successfully. happy with the results!

i found a nice work-around for replacing the felt marker font with helvetica on iphone’s notes application.

first do this:
settings > general > keyboard > international keyboards > japanese
enable QWERTY 
*the above steps only need to be done once 

now, leave settings and open the notes application.
start a new note file and click on the little globe on the left of the space bar to enable the int’l keyboard. type a (any) character and then click the globe again to revert  back to the default english keyboard. everything inputted after this should show in the helvetica font. you’ll need to do this for every new note. 

it sounds like a lot but it really isn’t – it’s just a lot to type out in order to explain how it’s done. 

so, just a few quick clicks and you’ll disable that ugly felt marker font!

I wouldn’t say it’s anything special, but it’s mine. if I could do it all over I’d probably whip up something neat, but going black was safe :)

as i said i would do, i’ve pretty much completely disassembled an old (and broken) ex-s600 to acquire a few lenses to make my macro attachment for my iphone.

after much unscrewing, prying and a bit of superglue, here’s what i have for now – it’s that little black batarang-looking thing in front of the rubble.

i haven’t quite figured out a way to attach it to the iphone yet. right now i need to use both hands to keep it on. but the results are what i was looking for. here are a few:

with all the rebranding and logo updating that’s been going on lately (actually, i think it goes on all the time), reese finally decided to update the packaging of his much loved peanut butter cups. i think he did a good job. looks like something from the 50′s :)

taking this photo reminded me of the fact that the iphone can’t take macro shots (this shot was taken with my compact digital). so look out for another DIY entry coming up – this time, on how i make a macro lens attachment for my iphone. i always knew i’d have some use for that broken camera i have lying around!

i’m just about done switching over…

the story…

my girlfriend graciously gave me her black macbook. well, rewind a little bit and what actually happened was…somehow, her screen got damaged (dropping while inside of a padded case). she dealt with it for a while by using an external monitor. then the holidays came around and she decided to treat herself to a refurb’d imac (brand-new as far as my eyes could tell). anyway, knowing that she’d eventually have an imac she basically said i could have the macbook if i could replace the screen.

$130 spent on ebay and about an hour’s worth of surgery made me the proud owner of a macbook :) all reformatted and even running leopard (thanks to herman)

i am enjoying it very much. for those of you who’ve experienced the switch, you know what i’m talking about. there were only a few things to get used to and i adjusted to those few things rather quickly. in fact, pretty much all of the changes were very favorable. after just a couple days of being on the mac platform, i found myself trying to call up some of the mac features on my computer at work. :P

i think microsoft is still good, but apple is definitely better. there, i said it…but i won’t let myself become an ifanboy. i hate ifanboys.

the end

i like DIY stuff, especially when it’s fairly easy to do and the results are pleasing.

here’s a DIY toe strap doubler that i put together (instructions found here). i had to go to 3 places to get all the ingredients.

home depot:
hole puncher
39th street (lots of fabric/crafts stores):
rivets
rivet tool
james (neighborhood belt guy):
sheet of leather
*i already had a straight edge, blade, and cutting mat

the original instructions called for 12 rivets for each side, but i think the rivets that i bought were just a tad larger than what was pictured so i had to open up CAD and improvise a bit. my estimations were good. here’s how it turned out…

what is it for, you ask…?
a fixed gear bike requires you to pull up on the pedal as well as push down (when stopping). most of the times, a single strap will do you just fine – for example, my road bike has single straps on both pedals. but on a fixed gear, the force you exert to pull up on the pedal is much greater since you’re working to slow down or totally lock your wheels. 2 straps add security, power, and comfort. both my means of propulsion and stopping come from my feet. if, by chance, the strap were to snap or just somehow fail, it’d be bad news for me. think of it this way, imagine trying to walk joey with a kite string…then imagine trying to walk him with with a nice broad nylon leash.

seeeee :)

about a year ago, the handle for my guitar case broke. i guess that’s acceptable since i had literally taken that case around the world and back. but i don’t know why i resorted to buying another case altogether instead of trying to fix it. i think nowadays i tend to consider the latter first whenever something breaks. anyway, below is the handle for the case i bought to replace my original case which had broken at the handle. i wish i had taken a picture of the actual broken handle before i proceeded to tear it off the case. but whatever, i looks exaclty like the one below – just broken at one of the hinges. here, just to give you an idea.

just about a couple weeks ago, it dawned on me that somewhere, there’s gotta be a place that sells replacement parts for cases. sure enough, google turned up some satisfying results and i was able to order a replacement case handle from Elderly Instruments.

i’ll spare you the story, but this was a hell of a lot more difficult to install than my tap-tempo.
check out the new genuine leather handle. it’s much more comfortable than the wannabe-leather molded plastic handle that used to be there. in fact, i think you can even see the rivet holes where the old handle was.

one very important effect combination in my line-up of pedals is the boss dd-5 delay coupled with an external tap tempo. below is a picture of that isolated set-up back when i realized how much i liked it (think where the streets have no name).

the fs-5u did its job and did it well…but it took up more space than it needed to. so one day as i was browsing around ebay for pedals i came across a seller who offered a tap pedal that would occupy a much smaller footprint – it was $20 so i snatched it up. little knobless red box below.

this tap-tempo served me well too, but it didn’t last very long. the casing was a rigid plastic, but not rigid enough to have the weight of a foot concentrated on the switch. the switch itself was fairly cheap too – just a standard plastic momentary switch that probably wasn’t menat for repeated tapping by one’s foot. over time i think the switch started to register inaccurate tempos from my foot. ok, so it had to go.

at some point i realized that every component of that little tap pedal (which weren’t that many) was available at radio shack. the parts include: the housing for the switch, the switch itself, a 1/4″ input jack and some wires. although i didn’t have much faith in the plastic housing i realized that the radioshack package also came with a metal plate that would go on top of the box. with this, i thought the weight of my foot would at least be distributed evenly across the surface of the box.

long story short, i bought up all the parts i needed to make a new one. after about 40 minutes of drilling and soldering, i was able to put together what you see below (knobless silver box). this version had the metal plate for added strength.

worked great and looked great. no issues with the structural integrity of the housing. but sure enough, after some time, that radio shack switch started to crap out on me just like the last one – started registering some dumb tempos. couldn’t have that!

fast-forward to today.
i installed a quality metal momentary switch i found on ebay. and before screwing in the 4 screws, i decided to do some decorating with some reflective tape i had lying around. below, you’ll see the results of my hard work :) this one should last me a while without any issues.