Fortunately, I am a wizened grandfather and well beyond the chest-beating and eyelash-batting so necessary of the younger generations for making their own way in the world.  Well… that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Currently listening to: Al Di Meola – Consequence Of Chaos – Turquoise

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BLIZZARD’S BONES®

Don’t like mints or candies?  Just want an empty tin?  Do you want a tin with no “advertising”?  Want to start “fresh” (ahem, pun intended) with no graphics?  There are a number of sources for bare, unpainted tins.  The source that I’ve purchased a variety of items from is County Comm, located in Santa Clara, California.  County Comm specializes in providing items to various government agencies.  They have quite a few items appropriate for your’ RACES/ARES go bag, and seem to offer decent prices on most items.

Above:  A couple of my kit projects from the past.  An Az ScQRPions Stinger Singer frequency counter, and a FOXX-3 QRP 20 meter radio.  Both of these kits are no longer available.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have no interest in, nor am I connected in any way with Altoids, Blizzard’s Bones, County Comm, or any other company or organization that is mentioned in this post, except as a customer and consumer.

There were two versions of the BK-100 made by High-Mound, as far as I know; the early version did not have ball bearings in the trunion, and the later version does.  This one is a later, or "new" version.  I’d read in the Straight Key Century Club’s (SKCC) mail list that, at least for Vibroplex bugs no lubricant ought to be used in the ball bearings, but this bug has grease in it.  I need to find out if the Hi-Mound bugs should be greased or not.

I also would like to get my hands on a copy of any manual or user guide that the bug came with, if it did.  In the mean time, once I get it adjusted (and degreased, if need be), that I’ll get some practice with it before getting on the air.

This blog has moved to a new location.

After much vacillation and angst, I’ve finally registered a couple of domains and moved my blogs away from WordPress.com to a hosted server where I have complete control over, and responsibility for, my blog.

As a blogging platform, I think that WordPress is one of the best (actually, it’s my opinion that WordPress is the best blogging platform, but hey, what do I know?), and the free blog hosting at WordPress.com is the best of the best: consistently being kept up to date; a knowledgeable bunch of users in the forums to provide assistance when needed; and for those that wish more flexibility or features, a number of options that are priced very competitively.  And, best of all, the platform is – what else? – WordPress.  The WordPress software, whether the free service at WordPress.com, or used independently, has a loyal user base that is near-fanatical.  The forums at WordPress.com and at WordPress.org (WordPress.org is where you get the full software package to use on your own servers) are full of knowledgeable, honest and out-spoken users and developers, where everything about the software is discussed – both the good and not-so-good, ideas for development are shared, problems solved, challenges overcome.

I’ve moved my blog, not because I am dissatisfied with WordPress.com – quite the contrary, but because I want more flexibility, and because I want to learn and stretch my knowledge of PHP and web development.  With the free, group hosted service at WordPress.com, one does not have that flexibility, and rightly so.  Who wants to have their blog hosted at a site where the system can be brought down because someone else made a change that didn’t work?

My personal blog "mind? what mind?" has moved:

• From: tfarrow.wordpress.com
• To: mindwhatmind.com or at thor.farrow.cc

My amateur radio blog has moved:

• From: n9ik.wordpress.com
• To: blog.n9ik.com or at n9ik.com/blog

My several web sites are, or will soon be, hosted at the excellent 1&1 Internet Inc.

More and more, cellular phones have sufficient processing power and memory to run not just email and web browsing app’s, but also full-fledged word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications, not to mention games, mp3 and video players, and still- and video-cameras, and oh yes, the GPS. There is still a long way to go before the hand-held device will completely replace the desktop or laptop PC for those home and business users that need more “oomph”, to do photo and video editing, for example.

Having said all of this, it is still obvious that sometimes the small screen real estate and tiny keyboards are just not sufficient. With this in mind, Celio Technology Company recently developed and released what they are calling the “REDFLY Mobile Companion” that “extends the the Smartphone with the most valuable features of a laptop. This is a 1″x6″x9″, two-pound device that looks like a small laptop, but does not have a processor, storage, or RAM. Instead, it is essentially a clam-shell combination of keyboard and video monitor, with a touchpad mouse, a VGA port to plug in an external monitor or projector, Bluetooth, and two USB ports.

At roughly $500 per, these are a bit pricey considering that you can buy a full-fledged laptop for less that that. As far as I can tell, the REDFLY is being marketed directly only to businesses – specifically sales forces, but it’s only a matter of time before something like this is marketed as an inexpensive companion device for consumers.