jammer(six) dropping some knowledge

I recently needed to change the password for one of my MySQL logins. The good news is that, once I figured out the proper syntax, it was very easy to do. Here’s the rundown…

1. Login to phpMyAdmin
2. Click the “Query window” icon
3. Run the following query:

set password = password("yournewpassword");

That’s it. Obviously, you should replace yournewpassword with your new password. Assuming it’s successful, you’ll probably get dumped back out to login screen.

I just ran across a cool web-based tool for creating html tables with minimal effort. Here’s the link:

TableMaker

Simply populate a few fields with your desired parameters (width, padding, border, and so on), paste your data into window, and click a button. It accepts tab- or comma-delimited data, and outputs the necessary html code on the next page.

This is a huge timesaver. Definitely worth bookmarking.

I sat down to edit some video earlier this evening using iMovie, and I realized that I accidentally set the date of our Flip Mino HD to 2008 when I configured it back in January. Thus, all the videos that I’ve shot over the past few months had the wrong creation date.

This isn’t a huge deal, though the incorrect creation date causes the clips to show up under the wrong year in iMovie ‘09. The good news is that it’s fairly easy to modify file creation dates on a Mac. Once I had the file dates all straightened out, it was time to fix the date setting on the camera.

(Update: iMovie is still filing my clips under the wrong year. It must look at something other than the creation and/or modification dates.)

If you own a Mino, then you know that it has a very streamlined interface. So streamlined, in fact, that I had no idea how to access the settings. Never having been one to read the manual, I played around with it a bit until I discovered that the instructions for accessing the settings are on the screen when you turn it on…

Simply press the red “record” button while the Mino is powering on and you’ll pull up the camera settings. Here you can not only change the date and time, but you can also do things like silencing the beeps when you press a button, etc.

I just discovered a handy little app for batch editing file creation dates, modification dates, EXIF shooting dates, and other things that the Mac finder won’t let you modify. It’s called, A Better Finder Attributes, and it’s the little brother of an equally handy app called A Better Finder Rename. The latter app lets you batch modify file names, which can be incredibly useful when you’re managing large numbers of digital images, videos, etc.

They’re both shareware, though you can use them on up to five files at a time with the unregistered versions. If you need the sort of functionality that these apps offer, don’t want to mess around with the terminal, and if you have large numbers of files, it’s well worth the price to unlock the full batch functionality.

I’ve been cleaning out a bunch of old messages from Gmail, and have thus been looking for a setting that would allow me to open an unread message, delete it, and automatically open the next unread message. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a setting for this anywhere, and numerous Google searches came up empty.

The good news is that I came up with a workaround that’s nearly as good…

1. Open your Gmail settings and turn on “Keyboard Shortcuts”
2. Search your mail for ‘is:unread‘ (this will display all unread messages)
3. Open an unread message, verify you want to delete it, and hit ‘#’
4. Click on the next message in the list and repeat

The key here is the keyboard shortcut for deleting the message. I keep my left hand on shift-3 and keep my right hand on the mouse. Using the keyboard to delete means that I don’t have to mouse up to the delete button and then back down to the list of messages.

Yes, I still need to move the mouse down slightly, but it’s way faster, and makes a huge difference when you’re working through a big list of unread messages.

Have you ever wanted to copy an Xbox 360 game to the system’s hard drive? Well, ever since Microsoft unveiled the “new Xbox experience” during the fall of 2008, it’s been possible. Read on for step-by-step instructions.

Copying Xbox 360 games to your hard drive

1. Go to the Xbox dashboard
2. Select “My Xbox“
3. Highlight the game window and press “Y“
4. Choose “Install to Hard Drive” and hit “A“

That’s it. Once the game is installed, you can play it from the hard drive by hitting “Y” from the game window in “My Xbox” and then selecting “Play from Hard Drive. Note that the game disc still has to be inserted or you won’t be able to play. Given this limitation, what’s the point?

Well… I can think of three major advantages to installing your games on your Xbox 360 hard drive:

• Load times will be reduced, not just when launching the game, but also during major scene changes.
• There will be less wear and tear on the optical drive, as it won’t need to spin during gameplay.
• Having the game on your hard drive offers some protection against scratched discs. As long as your Xbox can mount the disc, you’ll be able to play. This is true even if there’s a scratch that would otherwise cause the game to error out during gameplay.

It only takes a few minutes per game so, assuming you have enough hard drive space, there’s no real downside.

I try to avoid the Windows world as much as possible, but sometimes I just can’t get away from it. Today was one of those days. Long story short, I was making a graph in Excel and I needed to save it as an image file. You used to be able to simply right-click on the chart and then choose “Save as Image.” Unfortunately, Microsoft removed that functionality for some inexplicable reason, so… I was stuck.

But then I had a brainstorm. I right-clicked the chart, selected “Copy” from the popup menu, and then pasted it into Microsoft Paint. From there, I did a quick “File – Save” and I was in business.

For those of you that don’t have MS Paint installed, here’s a newer (free) version that has all sorts of additional capabilities:

Paint.NET – Free software for digital photo editing

In fact, even if you don’t need it for turning Excel 2007 charts into images, Paint.NET is well worth checking out.

For the past year or so we’ve had a leaky shower head. It hasn’t been a huge problem, as I could usually get the dripping to stop if I turned it off just right. Unfortunately, my wife didn’t have the magic touch, so it was pretty aggravating for her. We actually had a plumber take a look at it one time when he was out to repaird something else, but he was totally useless. He opened it up, cleaned a few things off, re-assembled things, and went merrily on his way. Unfortunately, it was still leaking. Today, I decided it was high time to fix it myself. What follows is a rundown of the process, complete with pictures.

As an aside, this was such an easy fix that I can’t believe the plumber didn’t nail it — I’m guessing he either didn’t have the right parts, or couldn’t be bothered to walk out to his truck to get them. Either way, this was a quick and painless repair. I only wish I’d done it sooner.

What you’ll need

Before you get started, you’ll need to have a few things on hand.

1. Allen wrench. In order to get the handle off the faucet, you’ll need an allen wrench to loosen the set screw. In our case, this required a 3/32 inch allen wrench.
2. Strap wrench. Depending on how tightly things are assembled, you may need a strap wrench. It’s possible that you’ll be able to get away with your bare hands, but there’s a good chance that you won’t.
3. Faucet repair kit. The most likely cause of your leaky shower head is that the rubber “seats” (small, cup-like rubber washers that rest on top of a spring inside the faucet assembly) have worn out. These will need to be replaced. You’re looking for the Delta faucet repair kit RP4993, or the generic equivalent. Lowes didn’t have the authentic Delta parts, but they did have some made by Danco that were intended for Delta/Peerless faucet repairs. They actually had multiple versions but, as near as I could tell, the rubber seats were all the same size. The springs do differ, however, so I got a pack that had two different types of springs.
4. Towel or blanket. The last thing you want to so is chip or crack your shower, so grab a towel or blanket and put it on the floor of the shower. This also protects you from losing any small parts down the drain.

Disassembling the faucet

First things first. Before you start taking things apart, be sure to turn the water off. Unfortunately, we have no way to shut off the water for just the shower. Thus, I had to turn it off for the entire house.

Once the water is turned off, you’re ready to get started. Pictured below is the faucet handle prior to disassembly. Pardon the water stains, they’re a byproduct of the dripping.

The read arrow points to the set screw in the side of the handle. Use your allen wrench to loosen this screw and remove the handle.

Next, you’ll want to remove the grey plastic disc (if your faucet has one) as well as the silver (metal) sleeve. These two pieces, labeled with red arrows below, should just slide off.

You should now see something similar to what’s pictured below.

Next, you’ll need to remove the brass ring (indicated with the red arrow, above) that is holding the “guts” of the faucet assembly in place. Before you do anything, double-check to be sure the water is off. Once it’s safe to proceed, loosen the brass ring either by hand or using the strap wrench. After you’ve removed the brass ring, you should see something like what’s pictured below.

You can now remove the faucet assembly. It may be kind of stuck in place, so apply even, consistent pressure and ease it out. Even though the water supply has been turned off, you’ll likely have some water draining out of the pipes.

Opening up the faucet assembly

Once you’ve removed the faucet assembly, you should be holding something like what’s picture below in your hands.

The parts that you’re after are located on the inside (sandwiched between the blue and white halves). To open the assembly, press in on the blue half and twist. Once it comes apart, you should see something like what’s picture below.

The parts that you’re after (the rubber seats) are indicated by the red arrows. You can simply pull them out (along with the springs, if you wish) and replace them. In the picture above, you can also see the faucet repair kit that I purchased — Danco DL-17 for Delta/Peerless faucets. Note the two different spring sizes. The original springs were most similar to the shorter, fatter springs in the repair kit. They were, however, ever so slightly shorter. I decided to use the new springs to give a slightly more snug fit.

Reassembling the faucet

To put everything back together, simply reverse the steps listed above. Put the springs and rubber seats in place, compress the blue and white halves together and twist to re-join them. Next, re-insert the faucet assembly into the brass sleeve and secure in place with the brass ring (I re-tightened with the strap wrench, but I was careful no to overdo it). Now all that’s left is to slip the silver sleeve back over the assembly, put the grey plastic disc back in place, and re-attach the handle.

That’s it. I’m pleased to report that the dripping has stopped.

Assuming that you have everything that you need, the entire repair should take 15 minutes tops, and the parts cost about three dollars. Like I said above, quick and painless — and way cheaper than paying someone to fix it. Totally worth the trouble in my book.

Over the weekend, I took the kids geocaching for the first time in quite awhile. Before heading out, I fired up our Garmin 60CSx GPS, plugged it into my MacBook Pro* and then headed for Geocaching.com to load up some caches. I grabbed the nearest twenty or so, but only printed out the descriptions for the nearest five or six caches since we were in a hurry.

This worked well enough, but we actually ran out of caches to hunt for while we were out and about. I had the coordinates for a bunch more loaded into the GPS, but I didn’t have the associated cache descriptions. While I managed to navigate Geocaching.com and pull up some additional cache descriptions on my Centro, it was far from painless. Thus, I was thrilled when I returned home and discovered their mobile site:

http://wap.geocaching.com/

The availability of this site means that we can easily transition to paperless caching without having to jump through any additional hoops. No need to generate pocket queries, no need to sync extra files to my Centro, etc.

It’s also worth noting that Geocaching.com has a sweet looking app for the iPhone. Now I just need to get myself one…

*Note: Unlike the olden days, Garmin now has Mac-compatible software.

I recently ran into a problem when updating our data in Quicken. For some reason, the value of one of our investment accounts as listed in the Portfolio view didn’t match the value listed in the Account view. I double-checked the share numbers/prices and everything appeared to be correct. Moreover, I discovered that the value in the Portfolio view was correct — the error was in the Account view.

After a bit of Googling, I stumbled upon a possible solution… It seems that, if you inadvertently have a share value entered for a future date, then the value in the Account view will be screwed up. Sure enough, I had accidentally entered a share price for next December, and deleting it fixed the problem. Hopefully this little tidbit will save someone a bit of time and frustration.