No matter which mobile phone carrier you use, you’ll eventually drop a call with somebody. Even if you don’t have a cellphone, you still have to deal with dropped calls when you’re talking with people who do.

Sometimes you both try to call each other at the same time and get each other’s voicemail. Other times, you try to call the other person and they’re still talking away, oblivious to the fact that the call was dropped.

Rule #1: Whoever initiated the call, initiates the call back after a dropped call.

To some, this rule is obvious. But, it needs to be stated to remove any confusion and prevent the double voicemail dilemma.

Rule #2: Whoever was listening when the call was dropped, remembers the last sentence the other person said.

This is less obvious, but since the listener is the only one who knows exactly when the call was dropped; they need to remember the last sentence or at least the topic — this may be the same person who needs to call the other person back.

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Photo: addicted eyes (cc)

Most household batteries are “alkaline” batteries. Under normal use, they’re relatively safe and stable. But, they are prone to leaking potassium hydroxide when the conditions are right.

Some causes of leaks are:

• Trying to recharge disposable cells
• Mixing battery types (ex. alkaline with nickel-cadmium)
• Mixing new batteries with old ones
• Heat
• Damp environments
• Leaving batteries installed during long term storage

These conditions put strain on the batteries in different ways that can cause them to leak. This leaky material is often called “Battery Acid” although in the case of alkaline batteries, it’s actually not acidic at all — it’s basic (the opposite of acidic on the pH scale).

But, it’s still a corrosive material that can cause skin, eye and respiratory irritation. Additionally, if a battery leaks inside your electronics, this crystalized material can corrode the electronics and prevent them from functioning properly.

To clean it up you’ll want the following:

• Eye protection
• Skin/hand protection (gloves)
• Face mask
• Neutralizing acid (lemon juice or vinegar)
• Q-tips, Paper towel and/or disposable rag

The key thing to remember is that you don’t want to come in contact with the potassium hydroxide, so use a Q-tip to wipe the material away from the batteries. If you have trouble cleaning it off of battery contacts in electronics, you may try a drop of neutralizing acid on the end of the Q-tip.

If the battery is an acid battery, such as a car or marine battery, you can use baking soda (an alkaline) to neutralize the acid (ie. don’t use lemon juice or vinegar in this case).

For information about battery disposal, see: How to Dispose of Household Hazardous Waste

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Sources: Wikipedia (Alkaline Battery, Alkaline, pH)

The batteries in most consumer electronics produce 1.5 volts each.

Different products use different numbers of batteries to achieve different voltage requirements. For example, a TV remote might be designed to run on 3 volts, so two 1.5 volt batteries will provide the necessary voltage when connected in series.

Larger devices, such as radios with large speakers or large kid’s toys, typically have larger batteries, like C and D cells. Smaller devices often use AA and AAA batteries, allowing the devices themselves to be smaller. All of these batteries output 1.5 volts, but the larger batteries have much higher capacities, meaning they last longer. D batteries have four times the capacity as AA’s. So, if you’re going to be blasting music on the beach, you’ll change fewer batteries if your radio uses D batteries.

There are many other types of batteries that are not 1.5 volts. One of the most popular is the nine-volt battery, which is technically called a PP3 battery. Smoke detectors, garage door remotes, transistor radios and a variety of other devices use these batteries.

They’re pretty convenient, giving you the voltage of six batteries after only inserting one battery. In fact, that’s exactly what they are — they’re just containers that link six smaller batteries together. Here’s a picture of a nine-volt battery that I took apart:

Each of the six batteries outputs 1.5 volts, giving a total of 9 volts when connected in series. The name brand nine-volt batteries usually contain six quadrouple A batteries (AAAA) which are rather uncommon in consumer electronics but find a home in medical devices such as glucose meters.

Some of the lesser known battery brands may contain 6 flat cells which are not easily reusable. As you can see in the picture above, AAAA batteries are very close in size to AAA cells. That’s worth noting since they could save the day if you’re short on AAAs:

Keep in mind, device manufacturers often use standard batteries in their rechargeable products and you can replace them yourself.

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Sources: Wikipedia (Batteries: D, AA, AAAA, nine-volt)

We are surrounded by symbols and they’ve been around for a very long time.

In public places,  where people may speak many different languages, we often see symbols instead of words. Some examples include signs for bathrooms and restaurants and even many road signs.

In the West, we have a some common symbols in writing. Check marks often mean correct or yes and an X usually means incorrect or no.  In Japan, they have four symbols that are commonly used in surveys: X, Triangle, Circle and Double Circle (circle within circle). These four symbols make up a four point scale, although sometimes the double circle is omitted for a three point scale. The circle means good or satisfactory and the double circle means excellent. The X means no or bad. The triangle means average (or below average on the four point scale when the double circle is being used). These symbols are just as common as the checks and Xs in the West.

So, when Sony charged Teiyu Goto with designing the original PlayStation, he wanted the buttons to represent ideas rather than label them with arbitrary letters like everybody else. It didn’t take long for him to settle on the triangle, circle, X, square icons.

They were easy to remember because they were associated with meaning. The triangle represents a user’s viewpoint or perspective, making it a great button to launch maps or change the game perspective. The square represented a piece of paper, making it ideal for showing navigation lists and menus. The circle and the X mean yes and no, and they’re meant for navigating yes and no operations.

When asked about the impact of the design, Goto replied, “”Getting to use such simple symbols in a design is an extremely rare opportunity, and it was really a stroke of luck to me.”

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Sources: 1up, Japanese Translator

They may appear as rapidly flashing dots, dashes, lines or boxes across the top of your TV screen.

The white lines are more prevalent on HDTVs, although they can show on older standard definition sets too.

They often appear while watching an HD channel that is broadcasting a standard definition signal, which frequently happens during commercial breaks and shows that are not available in high definition.

The lines are supposed to be there, you’re just not supposed to see them. If you have seen them, they will vary in size and shape depending on your TV.

These lines are like barcodes embedded in the picture. Closed captioning, teletext and programming guide information is represented by these white lines. Your TV can interpret them and display the information in a format that you can read.

Although this primarily affects HDTVs, it stems from variances in old Tube TVs (Cathode Ray Tubes). In the early days of television, there were extreme variances in production of television sets — some would cut off more of the picture than others.

Broadcasters overcame this problem by trying to keep all titles and important actions away from the very edges of the screen, in case they were cut off on some TVs. That extra space that you don’t see is called the overscanned image (because of the way that CRTs would paint an image on the screen by scanning side to side sixty times per second).

The overscan area became a good place to hide extra information when closed captioning data was added to TV signals.

HDTV signals do not overscan. Their signals are newer and were designed to encapsulate extra information from the beginning. But, you may still see these lines on an HDTV if the broadcaster is showing content that has the lines.

Most good televisions have the option to adjust overscan, including hdtvs. You’ll have to consult your manual, but this option will allow you to adjust the picture so the white lines are not visible.

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Sources: Wikipedia (Safe area, Overscan)

Popular wireless devices such as cell phones and wifi transceivers produce electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

A lot of people are concerned about the health affects of EMFs, so the World Health Organization started a project in 1996 to study their effects on people.

They currently maintain that EMFs, “do not produce any known adverse health effect.”

Operating in the microwave frequency range of EMFs, there is no denying that cell phones induce some of the highest exposure. The UK’s Health Protection Agency claims that 1 year of wifi exposure is comparable to 20 minutes on a cell phone.

The additional exposure with mobile phones is attributed to two factors:

1. Close proximity to your head
2. High power output (to reach distant receivers)

Both the World Health Organization and the Health Protection Agency continue to review the effects of EMF exposure in humans.

The amount of energy radiated by each cell phone model is measured and tracked. This measurement is taken in watts of radiation absorbed per kilogram of human tissue (W/kg). The amount of radiation absorbed, varies across the body — it is typically averaged over 1 gram of head tissue.

Canada and the US allow up to 1.6 watts per kilogram of radiation in cell phones, while the UK allows up to 2.0 W/kg. cnet maintains an up-to-date ranking of cell phones that emit the highest and lowest amount of radiation. They range from 0.1 W/kg to 1.6 W/kg. Check your user manual to see if your phone is high or low.

Comparatively, many bluetooth headsets emit ~0.001 W/kg of radiation, making them far lower than the mobile phone itself.

If you use a cell phone a lot, you should probably be using a bluetooth headset or speakerphone instead of holding the phone against your head.

Many new cars include audio systems that integrate with your cell phone for hands free calling, these are great. If you want something similar for your car, you can get a bluetooth speakerphone. I’ve had really good luck with the BlueAnt Supertooth 3, it downloaded my entire contact list for voice activated calling and its noise cancellation is really great.

If you’re looking for a headset, be sure to check the class of bluetooth headset you get. Most bluetooth devices are considered Class 2 devices, meaning they output around 2.5 mW of energy, which is a very small amount. A “Class 2″ device is likely what you want, which should translate to range of approximately 33 ft (10 meters). One of the most advanced and highest rated Class 2 headsets is the Jawbone Icon.

There are also Class 1 headsets, which give you much better range (up to 330 feet/100 meters), but they output more radiation, about the same as the phone itself. The Callpod Dragon is an example of a popular Class 1 headset.

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Sources: cnet, business week, bluetooth SIG, Wikipedia (bluetooth, wireless safety), antiradiation

Sometimes, you’re far from your charger and won’t be back anytime soon. Here are some tips to extend your battery when it’s running low.

Not all of these tips will apply to all phones, so use the ones that match the features on your phone. If your phone, camera or other gadgets frequently run out of power while you’re away from an outlet, consider an economical backup battery charger.

Turn Off 3G and Data

Most data capable phones can operate in different modes. If you turn off the high-speed wireless data mode, such as 3G, you will significantly reduce the power your phone consumes. This is the single biggest thing I find affects battery consumption.

Dim the Screen

The screen’s backlight uses a lot of power, keeping it off as much as possible will extend battery life. On the iPhone, press the top button, on many BlackBerrys, press ALT + ENTER to lock the keyboard and shutoff the screen. If your phone has an option to adjust the brightness, dim it. If it has auto-brightness, enable it. If you can set an “auto off” time then set it to the shortest time allowed.

Text Message Instead of Calling

If you can get away with communicating by text message, this can save power too. Although, it does require your screen, so short messages are better. These messages are embedded in the signals that your phone is already sending and receiving to normally communicate with the mobile network, even when you’re not using the phone, so it’s a very efficient way to communicate.

Turn Wifi and Bluetooth Off

Wifi and Bluetooth are great conveniences, but when you’re away from your charger and worried about losing phone capabilities, they’re a luxury that can go. Most phones with these features, have an option to disable them.

Don’t Play Games or Music

Well designed mobile phone processors have a low power mode that sips power when the phone is waiting for incoming calls in standby mode. Playing games requires the processor to work at its limit, which requires a lot more energy than standby mode. The same goes for playing music, especially if they’re compressed, high bit-rate or encrypted or drm protected music files — extra processing is needed to process these files and power the headphones or internal speaker.

Stop Background Apps

Some background apps use more power than others, it really comes down to the hardware in the phone the app is using (ex GPS) and how processor intensive the activity is.

Generally, if you’re trying to save power, closing the apps you don’t need can save power. This mostly applies to BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile devices.

It isn’t as important on iPhone since background apps aren’t true background apps, they have limited capabilities and therefore don’t consume a significant amount of battery power. That said, if you have a GPS tracking, VOIP or a music playing app running in the background, it could use significant amounts of power over long periods of time and it should be closed.

If you have any other ideas, drop them in the comments. Thanks to Kraig Brachman for suggesting this secret.

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In the US and Canada, wireless phone operators are required by law to connect all calls to 911 services, whether the customer account is active, past due or even canceled.

Even if you don’t need a wireless phone for your social life, it may be a good idea to keep an old phone in your glove box in case of an emergency. There is even an organization called AmericanCellPhoneDrive.org where you can donate an old phone or request a free phone for this exact purpose.

If you have a disabled phone without a service contract and want to use it for 911 service, you may want to test it. DO NOT just dial 911 to test it, they will likely send help, even if you say it was just a test. The proper way to test 911 service is to call the non-emergency number for your local public safety answering point (PSAP) office and schedule a 911 test. That way, they will be expecting your call and know for sure that it is a test. In the US, there is a list of non-emergency contact numbers for PSAPs listed here.

When you call 911, you should be aware that your location will also be transmitted to the operator.

Some cell phones have built in GPS receivers, allowing them to receive radio signals from space and accurately determine a very precise location on earth. But, GPS is rarely available when indoors and obviously many calls originate indoors. Calls to 911 may not use GPS location data, because the phone does not support it or because a GPS signal cannot be found (typical when indoors).

When GPS is not available, the wireless provider can get a fairly accurate location of the phone by analyzing it’s signal and the location of the towers that are receiving it. Current regulations require that a phone carrier can pinpoint a cell phone within 300-600 meters, depending on the technology the phone is using. By 2012, phone carriers should be able to pinpoint you location within 50-300 meters.

Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton

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Sources: 911 Wireless Service, FCC

Update: After many problems with PingChat!, I’d be hesitant to recommend it any longer. WhatsApp seems to be the best alternative at this time. It’s available for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Nokia (Symbian).

I know this is pretty specific to iPhone and iPod touch users, but with 50 million iPhones sold and 35 million iPod touches, there are 85 million of you out there.

Ever since the introduction of the iPhone 3GS and the 3.0 Operating System last year, push notifications have been available to iPhone users. Basically, these are real time messages that can be sent to your phone from Apple’s notification server.

The best part about these messages is that they’re free and your iPhone or iPod touch can be on standby or in any application when you receive them.

There are lots of applications (“apps”) that use this feature. For example, the facebook app (free) will buzz your phone with a notification when someone sends you a message or comments on a photo…etc.

The associated press (free) app will give you push notifications when breaking news is happening, allowing you to tune in and catch the car chase live or see the story as it’s unfolding.

One of the most practical uses for this feature is instant messaging. My favorite text messaging application for iPhone is PingChat! (Ping! Lite is also available for free). This app is great if you text a lot but don’t want to pay for it.

PingChat! works just like the native text messaging application on iPhone, except all your messages are free. With the paid version, which only costs $0.99, you can send pictures too. This app also works for iPod Touch users, so you can text message them when they are on a wifi network.

PingChat! is like Blackberry Messenger for iPhone — users within the blackberry network can message each other for free with Blackberry Messenger.

Since I have a lot of friends outside the US, this is a great way for us to keep each other up-to-date with the little things and avoid the $0.50/message SMS cost for international texts.

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This is by no means a complete list, but I wanted to provide some of the most useful and least well known iPhone tricks. Most of this list also applies to the iPod touch; if you know someone with one of these, be sure to send them a link to this article.

Double Click the Home Button

The button on the front of the phone is called the “home” button. You can choose what happens when you double click it. Mine is set to go to my phone favorites, making it quicker to dial my people. You can get to this screen by going to Settings > General > Home.

As you can see on the option screen above, there is an option for “iPod Controls.” When those are on and the phone is in standby mode (blank screen), you can double click the home button to see the current song/artist/album cover and show audio controls (volume/forward/back/play/pause) — see below for example. If you want to fast forward or rewind, hold the forward/back buttons respectively.

Add a Phone Number Pause

When you enter a phone number in contacts, you can choose an alternate keyboard and click the “pause” button, but when you’re on the dialing keypad, there is no such button. If you hold down * a comma will appear. This is a pause, which tells the phone to wait before dialing the numbers that follow. This allows you to enter your voice mail password or other automated phone system entry before the call. I discovered this one last night and I haven’t seen it documented anywhere else.

Snap Screen Shot

This is extremely useful if you want to write a post on your blog about iPhone secrets and you need screen captures. It’s also great if you want to make wallpaper based on a written note or a anything you display on your phone. Basically, hold down the home (front) button and then press the standby (top) button. You’ll know it worked because the screen will flash white. The image will be added to your camera roll.

Power Down and Reset

Your iPhone is a small computer and like a computer, it sometimes requires a restart when it’s behaving poorly. Occasionally it freezes or it can’t find the network after resuming from airplane mode, remedy this by holding the home and standby buttons for about 10 seconds, until you see a slider to shutdown or an apple icon appears on the screen.

Word and Paragraph Selection

Double-tap a word to select it for cut/copy/delete. Quadruple-tap a word to select the entire paragraph for cut/copy/delete.

Easy Period

At the end of a sentence, double tap the space bar to get a period and a space. Apple stole this one from Blackberry and I’m glad they did.

Quick Punctuation

When typing on the iPhone’s qwerty keyboard, you obviously need to press the “.?123″ button to get the punctuation keyboard. After you type a punctuation mark, you have to press the “ABC” button to get the qwerty keyboard back. But, if you press the “.?123″ button and keep your finger down while you slide over to your punctuation mark, and then lift up on that mark, it will add that punctuation mark and switch back to the qwerty keyboard, saving you a couple taps in the process.

Tap title bar to scroll up

When you want to navigate to a new web page, refresh the current one or perform a new search, you have to get back to the top of the page. The fastest way to do that is tap the title bar, it’ll take you up.

Fit to Screen

If you liked the space bar secret, you’ll love this. Double tap a block of text in Safari to zoom in on that column and fit it to the screen. This makes it much easier to read text in web pages.

Two finger scrolling

Some web pages have scrollable objects embedded in them, such as large text fields. If you want to scroll that item without scrolling the whole page, use two fingers on that item to scroll it.

Thanks to Ryan Harper for suggesting some of the tips.

Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton

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Sources: tap tap tap, ismashphone, iphonetoolbox, engadget

A friend shared this secret with me recently and it blew my mind: use binder clips to catch the cables.

I bought a pack of Medium Binder Clips at Staples (24 @ $2.79) and I weaved my cables through — they work perfectly. If your cable slides through easily, you may need to tie a very loose knot in the cable or even better, put a couple zip-ties around the cable to stop it from falling through.

Broken Secrets | Written By: Chad Upton

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I’ve spent my fair share of time commuting in planes, trains and automobiles, but few of these experiences were memorable. Even fewer were memorable in a good way. But, I’ll never forget the bus ride when I first listened to the song, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie. I had played the song dozens of times before, but this was the first time I really listened to it.

You see, there was a problem on the commuter rail line and buses were being organized to take us to our destination train stations. I usually caught a much earlier train, but I stayed downtown after work to visit with some friends. It was late, I was really tired and it was way past my usual bedtime. I was stuck on that bus for a very long time, but it actually wasn’t that bad.

I’ve talked about this phenomenon with other commuters and many of them agree that a short commute can be therapeutic. Whether it’s by car, train or bus, that time alone between work and home lets you gather your thoughts for whatever comes next.

Music relaxes me, which helps me organize my thoughts. Of course, headphones are the polite way to listen in public, although there’s always some guy playing brick breaker on his blackberry at volume level 10. Beep, Beeeep, Beep Beep, Beeeep (times infinity).

Most ear-bud and in-ear style headphones have a clip or sliding collar that holds the wires from the two earphones together. If you position that clip or collar at the end of the wires that is nearest the earphones, it will prevent the two wires from getting tangled with each other. This will save you a lot of time and frustration the next time you listen.

When you wind the cord around your device, hand or whatever else you do with it, keep in mind that cables should be cared for and you should not force the cable to bend in someway that it does not want to bend — doing this with any sort of electric cord will shorten its life.

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Written By: Chad Upton

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It was the kind of experience that was once limited to theme parks and special events.

3D media in general is not new; the first 3D camera was patented in the year 1900. Many early prints and movies used red/blue glasses to present 3D images. This technique is called Anaglyph. The color filters are a basic way to present separate images to both your eyes from a single frame, which gives you the perception that some objects are closer than others. The downside is that everything is either red or blue.

I remember Captain EO at Disneyland back in the 80s, that was the first 3D film I saw without the red/blue lenses (although they were invented in the 1950s). In most cases, theaters use glasses with polarized clear lenses. The polarized lenses are different, each one filters out light waves that do not oscillate in the same orientation as the polarization. The projection system projects two images, one that will be filtered out by right lens and one for the left. This allows us to have a full color 3D experience. Although the projection system is very expensive, polarized glasses are fairly cheap and that’s why they’re the primary choice for theaters.

In 2003, 3D films started gaining in popularity, showing up in regular and IMAX theaters. Now, many local theaters have at least one 3D projection system. Some of the films in this time have included: Bugs! (2003), The Polar Express (2004), Chicken Little (2005), Nightmare Before Christmas (2006), Beowulf (2007), Meet the Robinsons (2007), Bolt (2008), Coraline (2009), Up (2009) and of course Avatar (2009).

There were many more, but those are some of the more popular ones. Since there have been so many 3D movies in the theaters, 3D home theater will let you enjoy those movies in all their glory over and over again.

There are a few different technologies that will be competing for your living room. The Samsung TV that you can buy right now is not a polarized lens technology, it uses shutter glasses.

That means each lens on the glasses acts like a camera shutter. The lens can “close” so no light comes through at all. It does this electronically, and it does it many times per second so you don’t even notice it. While the glasses block one eye, the TV will show an image to the other eye, then the glasses will block the other eye and the TV will show a perspective for that eye. Because this repeats so quickly, it appears as if you are seeing a single 3D image.

There are other 3D TVs that do not require glasses. I saw one of these a couple years ago in a production studio and it was mind blowing. But they have limited viewing angles and distances, so they will be more popular for advertising/billboard use than home televisions, at least until the viewing angles can be improved.

The 3D movie selection is a bit limited at this time, but if you’ve got $3500 burning a hole in your pocket, head over to your local electronics shop and pickup the 3D TV, 3D blu-ray player and some shutter glasses.

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Written By: Chad Upton

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Sources: 3D Film List, 3D Film, Polarization

A lot of factors affect the fuel economy of your car. Some of them don’t vary much with speed, such as the resistance of the engine pumps and accessories. Other factors, like the size of the frontal area and the drag coefficient create increasing resistance with speed.

The faster you drive, the more energy is needed to overcome the aerodynamic resistance of the car. Up to 40 mph, that isn’t really even a factor. So, if you’re driving a box then your best fuel economy is likely closer to 40 mph than 50. If you’re driving a teardrop shaped eco-car, then you’re likely closer to 60 mph. Of course, engine size and other factors are involved too.

If you’re in a hurry, then going faster than 60 mph (95 km/h), presents new problems. Getting above this speed, your transmission is starting to run out of gears, so the engine has to keep turning faster and faster without getting any mechanical advantage from the transmission — that burns a lot of extra fuel. This also hurts your ability to overcome the exponentially increasing resistance — your engine can only turn so fast. But, if you’re in a small car then your fuel economy at 70 mph is likely still better than a large SUV traveling 60 mph.

If your car has a fuel economy display, be sure to take notice at many different speeds to find the best speed for your car. If your car does not have a fuel economy display and you do a lot of driving then it might be worth getting a device that will read your vehicle data and calculate fuel economy accurately. Try: Car Chip Pro ($75-85) or ScanGuage II ($160).

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Written By: Chad Upton

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Sources: ThinkQuest, How Stuff Works

There have always been cool record shops in the hip parts of town hocking vinyl to the enthusiasts. But, it had been a long time since the major record stores carried them, until last year.

Maybe you’ve noticed, maybe not. But if you’ve been into BestBuy recently, some of their stores have a massive vinyl record selection. A year ago, they had a few, now they have hundreds. It’s not every store, but some of them.

Vinyl Edition

For many people, it’s probably hard to imagine that anyone would go back to using records.

Records are not convenient to use. They don’t play for very long, about 26 minutes before you have to flip it over or put a new one on. You can’t easily skip songs at the push of a button. They have to be kept very clean to sound good. The needle drags on the record so the sound degrades over time and worst of all, they are expensive.

Since all of these drawbacks are easily overcome by digital formats like CDs and MP3s, it surely makes people wonder, why are vinyl records making a mainstream comeback?

It’s a good question and to understand the answer, we have to know a little bit about the difference between digital and analog recordings.

Digital recordings are great because the data doesn’t change over time. You can playback a CD or MP3 thousands of times and it will sound exactly the same every time. But, although that recording is the same every time, it’s not necessarily a perfect representation of the live music that it is a recording of.

Most musical instruments are analog, when a guitar string is plucked or a drum is hit, that object vibrates at a certain speed, causing an analog sound wave to travel across the room and make your eardrum vibrate. Our brain interprets that vibration as sound. In a recording, that sound is received by a microphone and recorded. During playback, that information is turned back into sound waves when your speakers vibrate. Speakers are rated in quality by their ability to vibrate exactly like the instruments did that made the original sound in the recording.

On a CD or in an MP3s, there are no such thing as waves. Everything is recorded as a one or zero. So, to make waves, they stores lots of ones and zeros for every second of music (44,100/second on a CD). These ones and zeros approximately represent the original wave that was produced by the vibrating guitar string. The key part of that is “approximately.” If you’ve ever tried to make a round object with LEGO, you know what I mean. You can get it to look almost round, but it’s not perfect, it’s kind of jagged.

Digital recordings are also jagged. Digital players have an analog to digital converter that tries to guess what the wave form would have looked like, based on the jagged forms that are made with the digital data. Because there are so many ones and zeros, it sounds almost exactly like the original recording and some players are better than others at filling in those gaps.

The XX - Vinyl Edition

But, our ears are not digital. Our ears are analog. When you get your ear next to a real instrument and pluck its strings or press its keys, you hear a timbre, a texture in the sound that is very difficult to reproduce. There are subtleties and nuances that often get lost in recordings.

Record enthusiasts like analog recordings because they more closely represent sound in the way that our hearing works. If you use an analog amplifier, there is no digital to analog conversion, making the experience very similar to being at the live recording.

Records are also large (up to 12 inches in diameter) and maybe they only play for 26 minutes and show their age over time. But, that has a certain romance, like a hand written letter instead of an email. Email has its obvious benefits, but when you get a hand written letter, it is special.

Records are not for everyone and they’re not for every situation. I don’t expect to see portable record players any time soon and I wouldn’t give up my MP3 player either.

Bonus Secrets: The Olympic Medals in the photo in yesterday’s post are the medals won by Nancy Greene in the 1968 Winter Olympics. She also carried the Vancouver 2010 torch when it passed through Kamloops, BC.

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It doesn’t shave as close as a straight blade or cartridge razor, but it does shave time off my morning routine. It’s an easy way to catch up when I’m running behind or anxious to get working earlier.

I’ve had the same electric razor for about 10 years. I got it as a gift and it has worked really well, but its ability to hold a charge has degraded significantly since it was new. When it was new, I could travel for a week and not recharge it. Recently, it has required a charge after every use.

A couple weeks ago, it failed to run for more than a few seconds. I charged it again, and had the same result.

The internal rechargeable battery had finally failed.

I checked with the manufacturer’s service department and they don’t service my model anymore, but they said a battery replacement service usually costs $60-80 (plus the cost to ship it to them). When a good electric razor starts at $70 (and goes much higher), they’re really telling you to get a new one.

The electric razor is assembled with tamper-proof screws, so the average person can’t open it. They do that because they’re hiding a very big secret inside.

Of course I own a set of tamper-proof screwdrivers. If you haven’t read it already, you should read my earlier post about acquiring a set of your own (click here).

It took me less than one minute to open the electric razor and discover: the rechargeable batteries inside are AA size! I easily replaced them with new rechargeable batteries and saved a bunch of money.

So, if you’ve got a rechargeable product, be sure to open it up and see if you can easily replace the batteries before you buy a new one or have it serviced.

When you get rid of your old batteries, never throw them in the trash — the garbage truck crushes them, then in the landfill the battery leaks into the water table and ruins our water supply. It’s easy to recycle them properly, Best Buy and Whole Foods both have free battery recycling containers in many of their stores. I have a small box of dead batteries that I keep beside my box of new batteries and when it gets full I drop it off at one of these stores.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

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Maybe you’ve got a deep pocket in a molar that you can’t floss or brush clean, or maybe you just want to descale your pet’s gum line.

There are so many uses for dental tools. Hobbyists use them for carving, cleaning and hooking small objects. Technicians and mechanics may use them for removing tiny o-rings and gaskets. Perhaps you will use them to pick locks or scratch lotto tickets, poke the CD-ROM eject hole or spread glue in a hairline crack on the ceramic you broke last summer.

I found a 5 piece set on Amazon at a great price. Heck, for $2 (see “other sellers”), I’m not sure there is a more versatile set of tools for your toolbox. Best of all, you probably don’t own these tools yet and we all know it’s fun to get new tools.

Buying a new tool is like buying a new skill. It empowers you to put yourself in the way of new dangers and abstain from doing new things that you never dreamed of avoiding before.

So go ahead, have your popcorn and eat it too.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

PS – I’m really excited for fellow blogger Neil Pasricha’s new book: The Book of Awesome. Pre-order it now (or if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t already, at least checkout the blog)!

You’ll need a thin sturdy object to operate the manual eject, a straightened paperclip works well. In rare cases, the hole will be slightly smaller than a paperclip and a sewing needle will be required.

Look for a round hole on the face of the CD drive that is just large enough to feed a paperclip through. The following photos show the manual eject hole on a desktop and laptop CD drive.

Once you have found the hole, push a straightened paperclip through the hole and when you feel it stop, push a little harder and it should push open the motorized drive tray (desktop) or release the drive lock (laptop).

If you’ve got a Mac, most new models have a slot load drive (there is no tray that the disc sits on, similar to most car CD players). Some of these drives are particularly bad at ejecting CDs with uneven edges (if yours does this then you’ll know what I’m talking about) and there is a paperclip method for these drives too. There is an Apple support document for this issue; you’ll have to click here to view it since I can’t use their material.

Maybe you’ve seen that hole and wondered what it was for, maybe not. Frankly, it doesn’t matter, because you know now and that’s what we do here.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

Available on Kindle | Share Your Secret!

If you buy a new battery, keep your old one. I used to travel almost every week for work and I always had a second laptop battery with me. At times, the second battery was old, and only ran for 45 minutes, but that was a lifesaver on an airplane when you’re trying to finish some work (or watch the end of a movie you brought).

I usually buy the aftermarket batteries and never have problems with them. I did have a problem with an aftermarket power supply cord once; it died after three months. But, even with that $13 loss, buying aftermarket laptop accessories has saved me a lot of money over the years.

If you travel a lot, a second power cord is paramount. You should have one that you always leave in your computer bag, that way it’s impossible to leave behind when you travel. Have you ever tried to find a computer power cord at a retail store? If you are lucky enough to find one, it’s going to cost at least $60. If you can’t find one, and you need one for work — it’s a disaster.

In the meantime, you want your existing battery to run on its charge for as long as possible. It really comes down to energy consumption. Think about your computer the way you think about your car. You use less gas when you’re going down hill and more gas when you’re going up hill because your engine needs to work harder going up hill (which requires more energy/fuel). To make your laptop battery last the longest, you don’t want your computer to work hard. Here are some ways to do this:

Keep it clean. While your laptop is turned off, use canned air to blow the dust out of the fan on your computer. Dust is a really good insulator and your computer needs to stay cool. When dust builds up in the heat-sink, the fan has to work harder to keep the computer cool, which drains your battery more quickly.

Avoid peripherals. Don’t use your CD/DVD/Bluray drive if you can avoid it. Spinning the disc and running the laser both require extra power. Also, USB drives with lights on them should be unplugged when not in use.

Dim the lights. You computer screen is one of the worst culprits for sucking battery juice. Unless you’re outside or in a really bright room, you should be able to dim the screen and still see what you’re doing just fine. Look for a set of icons on the keyboard with a shining sun on them — they’re for changing the brightness of your screen.

Drive downhill. If your computer is clean and you hear the fan get louder, that means the computer is working hard (and the fan is trying to cool it down). If what you’re doing can wait until you’re plugged in, save it until then. Watching movies and playing graphically intense games are two examples of activity that can drain your battery more quickly.

Adjust your power settings. Most laptops have power profiles/rules that are used when running on battery power. You can set your screen to shut off within a few minutes of inactivity, you don’t lose any data but your screen stops using power. If you’re not moving the mouse then you probably don’t need the screen on (unless you’re doing a presentation or watching a movie).

Disable wireless functions like wifi and bluetooth if possible. These use a lot of power and should be off if you’re not using them (like on an airplane).

Disable scheduled tasks. If you have a virus scan that runs at a specific time every day, disable that when you’re on battery (but don’t disable constant protection).

Close programs you’re not using. Programs you’re not using may be working in the background, you don’t want your computer to work any harder than it has to.

One final thing. If you are going to buy a new battery, get the highest mAh (milliamp hour) battery you can afford. This indicates how much energy can be stored in that battery, and they vary widely, so look closely.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

[available on Kindle]

Before I understood how they worked, I saw things as magic boxes. I wanted to know how the engineers solved all of the problems that made the product useful; what were their secrets?

As an adult, I still like taking things apart. Sometimes, I want to know how it works; other times it doesn’t work and I want to fix it, or break it further.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to disassemble things.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably tried to disassemble something and then realize you don’t own a screwdriver that can turn a triangular notched screw-head. Or, maybe you have noticed funny looking screw-heads in public restrooms. Not the people, the metal screws used on fixtures and cubical walls. If you don’t recognize the pattern on the screw-head, they’re likely what we call “tamper proof” screws.

When you’re not supposed to disassemble something, the manufacturer or installer uses obscure screws to make it very difficult. What they don’t want you to know is: the proper tools are widely available online.

You’re not going to find these tools at Home Depot — trust me, I’ve looked. But, a couple of clicks on the internet and you’ll be tightening gaps on bathroom cubicles by the weekend.

For example, to pickup a 101 piece tamper-proof screwdriver set for less than the price of a couple pizzas, click here .

Then you can disassemble your old Nintendo or procure that automatic flush fixture you’ve had your eye on. Just promise you won’t get into any trouble or steal cable TV, it’s not worth it when you can get HDTV channels for free.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

[available on Kindle]

That’s because our eyes can recognize a contrast difference of 1,000,000,000:1. That means, the brightest thing our eyes can see is a billion times brighter than the darkest thing. Good contrast to your eyes is like a gourmet meal for your taste buds. Contrast adds a lot of detail to the picture and ultimately immerses you in the action.

Unfortunately, when shopping for TVs, contrast ratio is almost meaningless. It could be really useful, but all of the manufacturers measure this number differently and then call it the same thing — it’s really only useful when comparing two TVs from the same manufacturer.

Imagine you want to buy a new car: you are cross shopping three manufacturers who measure fuel economy in three different ways. The first one, measures fuel economy while driving down a hill, while the other two measure it on flat land and while driving up a hill. Obviously, you can’t compare the results of those tests. But, if you’re looking at two cars from the same manufacturer then there is some comparative value to those numbers, even though they may not be accurate in a typical situation.

Thankfully, our eyes are extremely sensitive to contrast. Turn both TVs on and look at a flat black image for a while. A flat black image makes it easy to spot variations in darkness (aka “banding”), no banding should be present in a good TV. If you still can’t tell the difference and they both look good, then the difference is too small to worry about. Trust your eyes, they are incredible instruments.

It takes 20-30 minutes for your eyes to adjust from one extreme to the other because the contrast ratio is so high. If you’re in bright sunlight and then walk into a very dark room, it will take 20-30 minutes before you can see your best in that room. If you are in a moderately bright room and go into a very dark room, it is often closer to 15 minutes.

The rods and cones in your eye are tested during dark adaptation. Rods are more sensitive to light and take longer to adjust. Cones are much faster to adjust, often in approximately 9 minutes. People over the age of 50 need twice as much light to see as well in the dark as a 30 year old. So, if you need more light, consider my CF light secret.

Frequent fliers will eventually notice that the aircrew dims the airplane’s interior lights on final approach during night landings . They want your eyes to be adjusted to the darkness outside in case the landing does not go as expected and you have to evacuate the plane.

Broken Secrets

Written By: Chad Upton

Available on Kindle

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Sources: Why Planes Dim Interior Lights, Adaptation (Eye), Contrast Ratio, Growing Older

Of course, we all know it’s impossible to leave it alone. You have to mess it up. At first, you turn a couple rows and then turn them back. Then you turn a few more and a few more again and eventually, you can’t get it back! Now, you have to actually solve the puzzle.

To make a short story long, you’ll try to solve it by working very little over a long period of time.

Rubik’s cube will sit on your shelf for a few days before you try it again. Over the next six months it will get picked up by a few smartypants friends who want a crack at it. After another year, you may pick it up and work on it for a short time, maybe even get one or two sides complete. Again, you’ll put it down for the next rainy day. It will seem like you’ve worked really hard on it, but you haven’t. Still, there comes a time in every cube owner’s life when they decide it needs to be solved, at any cost.

From my experience, there are three approaches to solving a Rubik’s cube.

I learned the first strategy from my brother when we were children. Every time we visited my Grandfather, he’d be working on his cube. On one visit, our small minds were blown when we realized he solved the cube. As I already stated, it’s impossible not to mess up a solved Rubik’s cube, and that’s especially true when it belongs to someone else.

When my grandfather realized we unsolved the Rubik’s cube, he told us that we’d have to re-solve it before we left. He was serious, or at least we thought so at the time. My brother’s solution, which I thought was pretty clever: peel off all the colored stickers and reapply them on matching sides. Although we got all the colors in the right places, it was still a big mess — similar to our paint-by-numbers work.

These days, I’d consider that cheating. But, it’s a good strategy to be aware of, you never know when you’ll be in a hostage situation that is one Rubik’s cube away from freedom.

The second approach comes in true internet style: have your computer solve it for you! Your computer is probably smarter than you anyway, why let that talent go to waste?

There are a number of web-based Rubik’s cube solvers. Basically, you paint the onscreen Rubik’s cube to look like yours and it generates a list of moves required to solve it. Click here for one that I have vetted. It works on the traditional 3 x 3 cube, and also on the newer 2 x 2 and 4 x 4 cubes. This is still cheating. But, it’s much less detectable than relocating the colored stickers.

Finally, the official approach, sanctioned by Rubik himself. This is the cross, corner, middle, top, corner method. It’s a combination of moves that systematically solve the cube. Once you know these moves, you can solve any cube. For the complete tutorial, click here.

The original 3 x 3 cube is a classic. But, they have released many different versions of the Rubik’s cube and similar puzzles. There is even a touch screen Rubik’s cube called the TouchCube. Click on the picture to check it out.

Broken Secrets

Written by: Chad Upton

[Available on Kindle]