ipod

(Mostly) successful project

Posted on by grahams

For many months now I’ve been putting off a project on my car, and I finally decided the time was right the weekend to get it done.  Between my GPS, Sirius Radio, and iPod, I was having serious contention for the sole (“cigarette lighter”) power connector in my car.  After a few weeks of using a crappy 3-way splitter (and having it get knocked out by several passengers), I decided to do some wiring work in the car.

All of these devices operate on 5VDC, so I bought a Mean Well SD-25A-5 power supply with the intention of burying it in the dashboard.  Spotlight tells me that this order was placed on March 1st, so that should give you an idea of how long this project has been nagging me.  Originally I put it off because we were getting the old place ready to go on the market, then our move, then the oppressive heat of summer…  It finally occurred to me that if I didn’t take care of it soon, I would delay it further because it was too cold out.

So on Sunday I decided to finally crack open the dashboard and fire up the soldering iron.  Building the cables and harnesses went pretty smoothly, and after removing the dashboard (which I have done before), I was able to do my first “lap test” of the power supply and made sure that everything was running off of it.  Fortunately, from a Sirius radio past (which ran on 12VDC), I already had a 12VDC line coming out of the stereo wiring harness, so that made testing very easy.  That, though, was “always on” power (so I could pause the radio with the car off while I ran into a store), so I removed that harness and wired it to a switched feed.  After reconnecting everything and making sure it still worked, I disconnected everything from the power supply and started preparing the more permanent runs.  The Sirius is on a mount on the dashboard, so I was just able to sneak the power for that out between the trim and the dashboard.  But the GPS required a hole to be drilled.  I did a decent job, but it wasn’t as clean as I wanted…  I’m going to find one of those car seat plastic repair kits they used to advertise on TV to clean it up a bit…

After finding a decent spot for the power supply to live, and reconnecting all of the wires, I gave it one last test before sealing up the dashboard, and everything was hunky-dory.  I reconnected all the dashboard switches to the dash trim and popped it back in, screwing the few screws which hold it all together.  I was satisfied with a job well done.

Until the ride to work this morning, when I quickly realized that my turn signals didn’t work at all…   I got really angry, setting the stage for a bad day at work, and then when I got home I grabbed a flashlight, screwdriver, and hopedI could quickly figure it out..  Turns out than when I reconnected the wires going to the hazard switch, I accidentally put it into a dummy spot on the dashboard instead of hooking it up to the actual switch.  I’m kind of surprised that the turn signals are dependent on the hazard switch, but whatever…  Everything seems to be once again working, including my new modification.

I didn’t bother hooking up power for the iPod, since I rarely use it in the car and the traditional power socket is now completely free for it’s use.  I think at some point I’m going to put a USB connector somewhere in the dash which could power any USB device (including the iPod), but for now I’m very satisfied.

Strange Week

Posted on by grahams

I’ve felt out of sorts all week, and I’m not sure why…   I ended up driving to work most of this week, so perhaps that has something to do with it.  I slipped and fell on the way to work on Monday, thanksto some piece of shit who couldn’t be bothered to clear their sidewalk…  After I got to work, I hooked up my iPod to the computer and it wasn’t seeing the connection.  I thought it got damaged in the fall, but after banging it on the desk a few times and blowing out the dock connector, it finally seemed to work.

Corinna and I continue trying to button up the remainder of the pre-sale house tasks…  Last weekend we moved even more stuff into the storage locker..  We have a few final things to put in there, and I will hopefully get them together this weekend and be able to check that box.  Last night I took

[info]coco_b

to Home Depot so she could pick out paint for the bedroom and get some other supplies.  I am no fun to shop with, so we have an agreement where I am the chauffeur and then I sit in the car doing whatever..   Last night I spent the time catching up on old issues of Skeptical Inquirer.  I have a stack of about 6 issues that I never even opened, and I’d rather not move them if I don’t have to…

Today I walked in…  It’s so beautiful outside, it was really invigorating!

This Sunday, the film club is going to a pre-screening of “Hot Fuzz” at the Brattle, and Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright will be there in person…  Should be a good time!

iTunes 4.9

Posted on by grahams

I have been listening to a few different podcasts for awhile now, but the overall workflow of getting them onto my iPod has always been annoying. First of all, there was lots of software to automatically download podcasts, but none of them seemed to have the ability to get the file onto my iPod (and remove it once it’s been listened to). Some of them could add the tracks to my iTunes library, but since I have too much music to make much out of the “Library Syncing” in iTunes, this didn’t really accomplish much for me. Enter iTunes 4.9, which makes the whole process much more bearable. First of all, it provides a whole new top-level category in iTunes which makes it very easy to find my podcasts. Second, and most importantly, it can sync podcasts to my iPod seperately from everything else, so all I have to do is connect my iPod to my computer and everything else is taken care of for me.

There are a few annoyances, though. First of all, I have set iTunes to delete podcasts I’ve listened to off the iPod. Unfortunately, their interpretation of “listened to” really equates to “began listening to”, and if you play the first second of a file, it marks it as played and deletes it the next time you sync. Also, my iPod has been locking up lately, as it did before, requiring a hard reset (which loses my current position in what I was listening to in the process). Those issues aside, this had made the whole podcasting experience for me far more bearable.

And just in case you are interested in what podcasts I’m listening to:

Collapsing New Buildings

Posted on by grahams

Talk about an esoteric bug. If you are listening to an AAC Audiobook (m4b) on an iPod Photo, and pause it, and let it fall asleep (or put it to sleep manually), when you try and wake it up, it will be frozen, and requires a reset. But this only happens if you initially navigated to the file via the “Audiobook” main menu entry or a smart playlist. If you Navigate “Music -> Genres -> Audiobooks -> etc..>” then the iPod doesn’t lock up and everything is hunky dory.