Blade

Strip insulation from thin wires

Dave Farquhar DIY

A longtime reader asked last week how to strip insulation from thin wires–really thin wires. That’s a great question. I used to use wire wrap wire to build my own computer circuits, and garden-variety wire strippers don’t do the job. Here are four options you can use when you’re repairing electronics with fine wire.

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How to fix a garbage disposal

Dave Farquhar DIY , , , ,
How to fix a garbage disposal

If your garbage disposal quit suddenly, don’t fret. We’ve all been there. There are three common ways to fix a garbage disposal and none of them require any special tools.

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Oil for under your mower deck

Dave Farquhar DIY , ,
Oil for under your mower deck

Someone asked me to recommend oil for under your mower deck. If you’re not familiar with this trick, it’s a good idea to oil the underside of your lawnmower deck to keep grass from sticking to it. This helps keep your blade from bogging down and your deck from rusting.

What oil do I like? The person brought up Marvel Mystery Oil. I do like Marvel Mystery Oil inside the mower. But I think it’s too expensive for the deck.

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Wiring an old house for Ethernet

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking , , , , , , ,
Wiring an old house for Ethernet

Wiring an old house for Ethernet can be challenging but offers real benefits. Wired Ethernet is faster and more reliable than wireless, so devices that have a wired connection can take advantage of it. Having wired connections also allows you to distribute wireless access points throughout your house for better, faster coverage.

So you even if you’re a heavy wireless user, there’s a lot to gain from having good wired connections. Believe it or not, you can do it with simple tools and very little tearing into your walls.

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How to winterize a lawn mower

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , ,

It’s very easy to winterize a lawn mower and I definitely recommend doing it–nothing gums up a mower like sitting in a garage for five months with a full gas tank. Taking fifteen minutes out of your day sometime in November can save you lots of heartache, and maybe 50 bucks, come spring.

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Bash is worse than heartbleed! Oh noes!

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , , , ,

A really bad remote code execution bug surfaced yesterday, in Bash–the GNU replacement for the Unix shell. If you have a webserver running, or possibly just SSH, it can be used to execute arbitrary code. It affects anything Unixy–Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and likely many proprietary Unix flavors, since many of them have adopted the GNU toolchain.

This could be really bad. Some people are calling it potentially worse than Heartbleed. Maybe. I’m thinking it’s more along the lines of MS08-067. But there’s an important lesson we must learn from this. Read more

Scratchbuilding, Marx-style: Finishing the roof

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , ,

This is a continuation of something I wrote well over a year ago detailing how I build Marx-style boxcars out of simple materials. Train season is starting up again soon, so it’s about time I finished this story.

Once the box that will become your Marx-style boxcar is dry, it’s time to tend to the roof.

This method won’t produce a contest-quality roof by any stretch, but it will produce something that will blend in well with Marx cars. The idea here is to produce something that most hobbyists can accomplish in an evening and that won’t overwhelm the other cars in the train. Read more

How to open a D-Link GDS-2205 5-port gigabit switch

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

I have a D-Link GDS-2205 switch that I picked up cheaply. It turned out it was cheap because it didn’t work. But I thought I’d try to open it and look for bulging capacitors, since that’s a common problem with low-end network equipment.

Opening these boxes is tricky, but not impossible.

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Analysis: Samsung “green” memory

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Saving money , , , , , , ,

I was at Micro Center today, picking up CD jewel cases and USB flash memory and a cheap USB game pad. And to buy a little extra time–I had one son with me and the other was home napping–I wandered around. In the memory aisle, I spotted some Samsung “green” memory. Manufactured with a 40nm process instead of the usual 60nm process, the modules are 2/3 the size of conventional modules, run cooler, and use up to 47% less power.

Is it worth paying extra for? As always, it depends.

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How to lower your train accessories into your table

Dave Farquhar Toy trains , , , , ,

One of the first articles I remember reading in a train magazine (I don’t remember if it was Classic Toy Trains or a competing rag) was titled “Put your accessories in pockets.” Basically, it advocated cutting holes in your table, putting a board beneath the hole, and putting the accessory in the hole to even it up with the ground level on your layout.

It’s a great idea–more on that in a minute–but it really didn’t go into much detail about how to do the cutting part.

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