The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘LifeHacker’ Category

Aiding parkinson paitients: TEDxDelft 2015 | Mileha Soneji | Empathy is the Key to Great Innovation – TEDxDelft

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/04/04

Her uncle had parkinson. This simple yet innovative solution helped him big time:

she questioned how her uncle walked up and down the stairs.  Surprisingly, he was able to do this without any problem, but as soon as he stopped, he had trouble walking again.  She decided to apply a “staircase illusion” to the floor by having the illusion of a staircase flowing throughout her uncle’s house.  To her surprise, this simple solution was able to help her uncle move around the house faster and easier.

Source: TEDxDelft 2015 | Mileha Soneji | Empathy is the Key to Great Innovation – TEDxDelft

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Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

FIX THAT THING | Sugru mouldable glue that turns into rubber

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/03/25

Sugru is mouldable glue that turns into rubber. We invented it to make fixing and making easy and fun. Do-ers of the world, it’s time to get excited.

Source: FIX THAT THING | Sugru

via: Playing NSA, hardware hackers build USB cable that can attack | Ars Technica

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

The latest innovation from the media – CommitStrip: @WIRED and @parool are out

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/03/24

Fun: The latest innovation from the media | CommitStrip: block visitors that use adblockers.

The real fun: the first comments G+ re-share “The end of the ad-blocking wars (and some media)”  are from people that exactly do what’s in the third frame: bye bye adblock-blocker site.

For good reason too: viewing ads has become a clear and present danger to our security and privacy.

I won’t even bother trying ad-blocker-blocker-blockers.

  1. If a site blocks me, they’re out.
  2. If they don’t block me, I share their interesting information with attribution.
  3. If they have a cookie wall that prevents seeing what I want to share, they’re out too.

@WIRED and @parool are out for reasons 1 and 3.

–jeroen

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Posted in Fun, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Highest peak power so far for 1060NP71 3.250kW: 2424 Watt

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/03/18

At 20160703, we had the highest peak power this year so far: 2424 Watt. It was for just a moment, but still (:

Source: 1060NP71 3.250kW | Live Output

–jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User, Solar Power | Leave a Comment »

Free Online Picture Resizer – Crop and Resize photos, images, or pictures online for FREE!

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/03/14

Resize, shrink, and crop your pictures online for free at [WayBackPicResize.com. Resize photos before posting them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, or blog!

Source: [WayBackFree Online Picture Resizer – Crop and Resize photos, images, or pictures online for FREE!

–jeroen

PS: note there is no  TLS available, so https://picresize.com/ fails. I have notified them about that.

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Cutting the Chai: How to Download Images from Issuu

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/03/07

Hopefully this keeps working: Cutting the Chai: How to Download Images from Issuu.

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

my ScanSnap ix500 has a box too…

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/03/04

So my ScanSnap ix500 has a box too (actually a Leitz Rotho Profiline 10 Schübe drawer). The ix500 scans double sided and takes like 2 seconds per sheet. Works through WiFi (or USB) on both PC and Mac.

This is the process:

  1. I scan and roughly sort the document by destination in a drawer.
  2. A Windows VM creates OCR PDF and puts them into the cloud.
  3. It gets synced to my Macs, where spotlight indexes them by content.
  4. Once a month I split off the parts for my bookkeeper, file important non bookkeeping stuff and shred the rest.
  5. I name files on a selective base (as spotlight is very good at finding the rest).

This is why I like it over scanning with your mobile phone any time:

My ix500 setup just works.

Now I need to optimise the S510 scanned files. Maybe linux – optimize PDF files (with Ghostscript or other) – Stack Overflow (from the same thread) works.

–jeroen

via: Hey everyone, we are currently preparing the next release.

Posted in Fujitsu ScanSnap, ix500, LifeHacker, Power User, Scanners, SpotLight | Leave a Comment »

Reloop RMX-40 USB – when your Mac doesn’t recognise it.

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/02/29

Reloop has posted the below for DJ controlers (like Contour IE, Jockey 3 ME and Digital Jockey 2 ME), but it also applies to their mixers, for instance my Reloop RMX-40 USB – Reloop (but not limited to Reloop audio equipment) in combination with either of my:

  • MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011)
  • MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

All these machines have USB 3.0 ports. But the workarounds below work:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apple, LifeHacker, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Parts for #Alulux and Benny 4.0 garage doors

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/02/19

Because of Repair of  #Alulux  AKS 2.0 (201237):

  • [WayBack] BENNY 4.0 (201250): Torsteuerung Benny 4.0; 230V, max Motorleistung 600 VA. Inklusive Anschlusskabel mit Schukostecker und Kabelverschraubungen, mit Totmannfreigabe über Schlüsselfunktion
  • HS2-M/868 (204052): Mini-Handsender; 868,5 MHz. 2-Befehl, für 868 MHz-Steuerungen (Benny 4.0), Detolux, Vertico
  • LSB/M (201467): Einweg-Lichtschranke; 2-Drahttechnik mit 10 m Kabel. Für Steuerung Benny 4.0, Detolux, Vertico. Als Durchfahrtsicherung.
  • EKL 2.0 (201230): Elektromechanisches Kontaktprofil, EKL, Widerstand 8,2 KOhm
  • AKS 2.0 (201237): Anschlußteile für elektromechanisches Kontaktprofil EKL, für Steuerungen mit Auswertung 8,2 KOhm (Benny 4.0, Logico 2.0), kabelgebunden
    • ANE 1: Anschlußstopfen
    • AB 82: Abschlußstopfen
    • KEM 206: Klemmkasten
    • KE: Spiralkabel
  • EKL/W: Bauteile für kabellose Wireless-Schießkantensicherung, in Anwendung mit dem elektromechanischen Kontaktprofil EKL, für Steuerungen mit Auswertung 8,2 KOhm (Benny 4.0)

All of the parts can be found in [locally archived: Planer_Garagentore.pdf] http://www.fricksonnenschutz.de/uploads/media/Planer_Garagentore.pdf

[WayBack] Benny 4.0 Anleitung

Alternatives via “Funk, Zubehör und Steuerungen für Rollltore: Handender, Empfangsteile und Steuerungen für Rollltore

Images below.

In 2019, I found a related repair at these links:

–jeroen

via:

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Hooking up a Sunny Boy 2500TL to the net

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/01/22

Out of the box, the BlueTooth equipped Sunny Boy models (the non network connected ones) can be monitored from your PC using the SUNNY EXPLORER software. But that has quite a few drawbacks:

  • The software is Windows-only.
  • It is not network connected.
  • The Sunny Boy aggregates historical data, so after a short while you loose the details it aggregated from.

There are scripts and apps that to download data via Sunny Explorer or directly over bluetooth and even export it to PVOutput.org a site that collects and publishes PV statistics. They even have a nice region donut about world wide performance.

Some ways to do this:

Note: PV BeanCounter understands the Currentcost EnviR power meter, and the Currentcost Optismart works with Landis+Gyr ZME120ACd (and many other power meters too). Which means I can use PV Beancounter to watch my power consumption as well.

Cloud based Sunny Portal

There are two ways to connect to the cloud based SMA Sunny Portal. There are is an Android app and an iOS app connecting to the portal

Easy way:

  1. Get a SMA Speedwire network interface Webconnect module (Europe: model SWDM-10, USA: model SWDM-US-10)
  2. Connect to the Sunny Portal.
  3. Register your Sunny Boy using the PIC and RID identifiers on your network interface module.

The cool thing: all Sunny Boy equipment produced from October 2014 up come with Webconnect; too bad by SB 2500TL ST-21 was just a few months too old. If you live in the USA, the even younger and one model bigger models 3000TL and up have now have Secure Power Supply.

Slightly more difficult way: more expensive, superseded by the easy way.

  1. Get an RS-485 interface (for Europe: model DM-485CB-10, for USA: model DM-485CB-US-10).
  2. Get an SMA WebBox module (for Europe: model SWebBox-BA, for USA: model SWebBox-BA-US).
  3. Connect the SMA WebBox to the Sunny Portal using the Sunny WebBox Assistant (now called SMA Connection Assist).

Note: WebBox should be able to do ModBus too.

Do it all yourself without the cloud

Then there is the do it yourself way that gives you more insight (not just multi-string aggregates).

It’s also the hard way using the built-in BlueTooth and a stack of software to do it yourself.

There are a couple of choices to get started software wise:

I got most of the above from Best way to monitor SMA SunnyBoy inverters? – Solar Panels – Solar Panels Forum.

For instance you can use SBFSpot for connecting to PVOutput.org on PV generated power:

PVOutput.org – share, compare and monitor live solar photovoltaic output data

Source: PVOutput

PVOutput.org supports WebBox out of the box, but for WebConnect you will have to do a bit more work.

SMASpot Monitoring in Domoticz – Domoticz explains how to use SBFSpot with Domoticz.com

Domoticz is a lightweight Home Automation System

Source: Domoticz

–jeroen

Sunny Boy 2500TL that's just 4 months tool old to include WebConnect Sunny Boy 2500TL that’s just 4 months tool old to include WebConnect

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User, Solar Power | 1 Comment »