8 posts from January 2008

Since I already had a Boostaroo so my three kids could listen to movies in the car, and I had three Logitech mm28 speakers, it seemed only logical to eventually do this:

Logitech mm28 Speakers X 3

I got an iPhone for Christmas. It is a lot of fun. Here is the Unboxing Ceremony.

iPhone Unboxing Ceremony

I purchased three sets of Logitech mm28 portable speakers for my kids this Christmas. The speakers are terrific -- tough enough to survive my daughter's book bag and impressive sound for their size and price. They run on either A/C power or 4 AA batteries. For reference, I paid about $15 w/free shipping at buy.com.

After loading up my son's speakers with batteries, I realized they wouldn't slide back out again. Stuck! I Googled around and from review comments at Amazon, discovered this is a common problem with these speakers. Kind of bizarre. But, there is a pretty simple fix, so if you own and love a pair of these speakers but can't get your batteries out, take heart.

Just drill several (I chose five) 3/16" holes above the battery "tube" (compartment) and use a paperclip (or similar item) to push the stuck batteries out. Measured from the right side of the battery compartment, the spacing is 1 1/2", 2 1/2", 3 1/2", 4 1/2" and about 5 1/4 or 5 3/8". Be a little careful with the rightmost hole because it is close to the contact spring on that side. Don't hook the spring with either your drill bit or the paperclip. I used a (manual) hand drill and started with a very small bit, then drilled the final hole w/the 3/16".

Click on the picture below to see a couple photos to clarify:

Logitech mm28 Battery Fix

There are other articles that do a thorough job explaining how to make free ringtones for your iPhone, but here are my quick-and-dirty steps:

1. Get a song into MP3 or unprotected AAC format
2. Trim to about 15 seconds in Audacity with fade in and fade out, save to disk
   
3. Import into iTunes
4. Convert to AAC (right click)
5. Delete the MP3 version of the ringtone in iTunes
   
6. Add “Ringtone” to the name (right click, Info)
   
7. Show in Finder (right click)
8. Drag and drop from Finder to the MakeiPhoneRingtone app
9. Sync iPhone to get the new ringtone (all ringtones or at least the new ringtone selected)
10. Add the new ringtone to the desired contact(s) on the iPhone

P.S. I got an iPhone for Christmas. Will be writing more about that and posting pictures soon.

I decided to walk to work a couple weeks ago. I thought it would be interesting to see a familiar place at a different pace. Despite living in Fort Collins for almost 20 years and driving the same route to work for about 14 of those, I'd never walked along most of the route. I live in southwest Fort Collins and work in southeast Fort Collins, so the walk was about 7 1/2 miles and 2 1/2 hours. Click the photo below to see the whole album. Enjoy.

Walk to Work December 2007

I actually think New Year's resolutions are a good thing. I spend too little time thinking about goals and being intentional about how I want to live life. So here's the list for 2008:

• get enough sleep
• buy less
• journal at least once a week (every day would be cool, but that seems an unrealistic jump)
• don't be mean
• read books I already own
  
• listen more, talk less
• get under 155 pounds
• be ferocious for good
• do at least 10 pushups a day (hey, it adds up over the year, ha)

Of course it's January 1st and already I'm having a resolution conflict -- getting enough sleeping is duking it out with journaling. Writing is winning at the moment.

My bro Doug and I were out browsing the as-seen-on-TV products (again) and I was excited to find the following combo pack since it includes a toaster oven.  :-)  After the last couple weeks I should definitely be ready to "Knockout the FAT!"

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