Tools & Toys

I recently got into refurbishing die-cast toy cars, just for the fun of it and because I have a passion for these older toys.

Siku 1022

VW Beetle 1300, Siku 1022 (stripped colour)

There’s a German manufacturer of these toys by the name of SIKU who used to make brilliant toy cars in the 1960s and 1970s at the 1:50 to 1:55 scale (among others). I guess that almost every kid in Germany used to play with these cars during this period. What makes these Siku cars different from the competition is that they come with richer details and also doors that would open – something you would also find with Matchbox (UK), Majorette (FR) or Corgi (UK) toy cars, but not to that extent. Other reasons for the success of Siku cars may be that they were the predominant manufacturer on the German market back then, or that Siku cars were often given to children on longer Lufthansa flights. Ah well, the good old times when luxury was still an act of generosity.  Continue reading “Tools & Toys”

12/12/12

Today’s blog post is dedicated to my bro Turbodave who keeps on pushing me back to my blog and shares his Bday with Jamhuri Day.  Die besten Wünsche zum Geburtstag, lieber Dave! And a Happy Jamhuri Day to everyone!

Zur gemütlichen Ecke

Dave keeps on pushing me back to my blog(s) for a good reason, because my blogging mojo is still around and has maybe only been diverted to other microblogging sites like FB, G+, Twitter & Co.. Avid readers may even remember The Nonist’s “What everyone should know about blog depression” publication (PDF). I like to refer to this publication once in a while because blogging is an up and down affair. And with today’s competition from the microblogging side as well as the decreased attention span of many readers (I, for one, often save interesting stuff via Pocket because of tl;dr), it seriously needs to be asked if your readers still want to go through longer texts. Maybe not. Maybe if you are publishing interesting stuff. Maybe only if you are one of those SEO maniacs who construct their (equally boring) content around SEO structures. Continue reading “12/12/12”

Mchimba kisima hungia mwenyewe*

Going by how much iOS4 slowed down the iPhone 2G and 3G, I am still undecided whether I should update iOS 5.1.1 on my iPhone4 to iOS6. I did update the iPad2, though. Just out of curiosity (of course, everyone does it for this reason) and to convince myself of the following situation:

Nokia Maps
Google Maps
OpenStreet Map
Apple Maps with iOS6

Maps are important. You may have a choice of what is to run in a native map app or within the browser, but many apps actually make use of the map system. So chances are that your favourite app will also be forced to use Apple maps.

I also just couldn’t update all apps at once on my iPad2 16GB – because there’s ONLY 2.6GB left. With GarageBand taking up 1.1GB alone, iOS6 refused to update. Now, after manually updating GarageBand, it’s reduced from 1.1 GB to 734 MB. I hope that Apple removed Retina graphics for those devices that don’t come with Retina displays (like my iPad2). In any case, many Apple apps are horrible memory hogs – and it seems that no one really cares about it, which imo is the worst part.

Atm, I don’t really see a benefit in updating iOS 5.1.1 to iOS6 on the iPhone4 (not4S) except for some minor improvements. I may change my mind on this, but would only do it if it really improves performance of the phone. And you?

* Mchimba kisima hungia mwenyewe = He who digs a pit will fall into it himself.

AOB: the first iFixit teardown

iPhone 5 teardown, via iFixit.com

The first iFixit teardown of the iPhone5 comes with a least two good messages: a) the iPhone5 is opened front-to-back and b) the home button appears to be easily replacable. That’s extremely good news, imo. Not so nice is the excessive amount of glue underneath the lightning connector cable – which also tells me that it may be prone to damage. Huh, “Scuff Gate“? Apple fanboyz and their luxury problems.

 

microSD cards should contain ALL user data

Here’s an idea that has been haunting me for years now, and I am most certainly not the only person who has the following concept in mind: using microSD cards in mobile phones for ALL user data.

ALL user data = everything I enter into the phone. The address book, multimedia files, user defined settings.

800px-MicroSD microSD-card next to 1€ coin

Buy an iPhone, install everything, have it drop to the floor or into the toilet, resulting in a water damage and the phone won’t be recognized by iTunes – well, even your most recent backup on the cloud will only be as good as when you last made a backup. No microSD cards on iPhones.

Many Android phones already come with slots for microSD cards. Plug it in, roll out your backup via the internal backup routine, via Titanium or Google, and you’re done. It’s not 100% the way I want it, but it’s getting much closer than what you have on an iPhone.

Sure, there’s the cloud, some will argue. But a lot of users out there still are on a slow internet connection (if any) and many also don’t want to have their data saved in the cloud.

“Without a microSD card”, I was once told, “there’s less to worry about. And from a business perspective, it’s also more secure”. Well, is this a valid argument?

There’s an older essay on microSD cards in phones by (mobile phone expert and analyst) Eldar Murtazin, where he argues that microSD cards aren’t the better option – but I couldn’t disagree more. Of course, as an analyst he also looks at why phone manufacturers have used memory cards on phones instead of internal memory and the cheaper price may be a reason for their introduction on phones some years ago. He also looks at figures from the actual use and says that many don’t actually use the microSD card or what it is capable of.

Well, for a reason, I’d say. It’s because the current setup where I can only use it for storing multimedia files and apps is really insufficient. My ideal phone is a dumb phone with strong CPU power, some connectivity extras and a smart OS – and where ALL user data is stored on a microSD card on different levels (i.e.):

  • Level 1: apps
  • Level 2: app settings, address book, desktop settings, bookmarks
  • Level 3: static multimedia files (e.g. photos, videos, audio files, documents, etc.)
  • Level 4: swap / cache memory

The phone is dead? Just pull out the microSD card, plug it into a new phone and you are ready to go. So, obviously, there would need to be a standard on this to provide an interaction between different phones that come with the same OS (the requirements already sound a lot like the Titanium backup suite on Android). And the beautiful part about this setup would be that all stored user data is up to date – and not as of three days ago when the phone did a backup of some static data to the cloud.

How many of you have actually lost some important numbers with broken phones? How many have only recently realized that the numbers stored on a mobile device are also backed up online? How many are using SyncML services like Everdroid?

Phones die or “walk away”. Hardware can be replaced, software in terms of your own user data can’t and is the most precious asset of the 21st century in IT. So how come there are microSD cards on phones that are only used in a very restricted way?

(I also love my iPhone, but the current version of iCloud is some crippled piece of shit, just like iTunes).

Understanding Germany in one pic, part 1

Pic of Deichmann shoe shop in Germany

There’s certainly much more to a society than one picture could ever express, but this one here – a snapshop of a shoe shop in Hamburg – already says a lot to me and it is also somehow typical of the business-to-customers relationship in Germany.

Most shops close at 8pm, and this snapshot was taken a few minutes before 8pm. Sales people are tired, they want to go home – there a lot of valid reasons for closing in time. Others, however, do not really understand this business attitude. “Why do your shops close at 8pm?”, the Chinese Taiwanese intern asked me the other day. “Because of a strong labour union”, I replied. – “You know, shops in Taiwan are open for 24h”.

Now, the interesting part is that they indicate their punctual closure by narrowing the entrance to a tight channel where customers can get out, but won’t get in that easily. It’s a typical sign of non-verbal communication.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is what Germany is all about: living in a society which is based on perfectionism and abstract levels of communication where such non-verbal procedures are accepted as the norm – instead of e.g. giving in and closing the shop only when the last customer has left the building.

It’s their sign of saying “Dear customers, please get out. Now!”. It’s a closed door that tells me how people apparently prefer to communicate – with rules and guidelines that every observant visitor will need to notice. It’s a non-verbal sign instead of a rude sales person who will ask you in a non-friendly tone to leave the shop asap. Which leaves me with the question: is this – the half-closed door – an improvement to the unfriendly sales staff we were used to?

(there are so many examples for non-verbal communication in Germany where I often think: “Ha! I understand this, but what about everyone else? And are these non-verbal methods really reliable enough in getting the point across, especially when you are dealing with foreigners who are used to verbal communication? Or who don’t know what you and the rest of society expect from an unknowing individual, who doesn’t notice these signals?”)

Capacitorgalore

The following may be old news to some of you, but I found it interesting enough to share it via this blog. Also, because there may be others out there who have a faulty TFT screen. Apologies also for the poor picture quality – taken while in action, with little regard for potential blog content.

“You can have my old 22″ TFT Samsung display”, a friend of mine recently told me. “It’s somehow broken as it often doesn’t show a picture, sometimes only after a while, but in most cases it’s just dead”, he wrote. “I will throw it away or you come and pick it up.” So we picked it up.

It was the first time I opened such a huge TFT and also the first time I immediately found the cause of this failure: worn out electrolytic capacitors. A quick Google search then revealed that these capacitors are indeed the culprits, and that I am not the first one who has a problem with such a Samsung display. In fact, there’s a complete shop online (in German) that only sells electrolytic capacitors for each Samsung display and other devices. That’s pretty amazing considering that Samsung probably lost a great share of their reputation due to saving on these relatively cheap components. Alas, this unfortunately also happens with a lot of their competitors and I think it’s all part of the planned obscolescence.

So the good news is: you can fix it.

If you own a soldering iron, you can just buy a set of electrolytic capacitors and replace them yourself, or get a new/refurbished AC power supply unit board from a dealer in China via eBay and just swap these boards. There are just six screws and a lot of people have this done before and successfully repaired their TFTs.

On the pic above you’ll see the old (blue) capacitors of which some are obviously broken – something known as “capacitor plague” – with open vents in the top of the can. You sometimes also don’t see the damage, so if you’re replacing some, it may also be smart to just replace all of them with a brand of higher quality. Such higher quality capacitors are visible in the picture – two small black ones (in the middle) which I didn’t replace for technical reasons.

All in all, just a repair of 20 minutes. Or if you have a replacement for the power supply unit board, it’s even quicker.

Et voilà, the fixed display, just moments after the repair was done. Again, anyone can do this and if it can be fixed, then please fix it. Some things are just very straightforward and simple.

I also never knew that the Capacitor Plague did have SUCH an impact, that there are sites dedicated to capacitors and that the cause for all of this (which is said to be industrial espionage) is in fact very far-fetched.

Kikuyumoja – 7th Blog Anniversary

This blog turns 7 by the end of this month – and after 1,041 posts and 3,474 approved comments to this date, some inevitable moments of blog depression as well as numerous glorious times, and I’d just like to say THANK YOU to all of you out there!

To celebrate this blog anniversary, I’ve made this little drawing for you:

Oh, and I’ve also updated the blog template to a responsive, mobile-first and Retina-display optimized version which may at first be a bit unusual with its huge (web)font and maximum white space. But it will also look great on mobile devices without any additional plugins (WP-Touch still activated though).

We’ve come a long way with WordPress during all these years and I actually owe them a lot, including a few paid and unpaid jobs that I got thanks to WordPress. Big up to everyone at WordPress.org!

To all other bloggers, writers, commentators, Facebookers, GPlusers, Twitteritos and Tumblebloggers out there: please keep on publishing your own unique content and let’s celebrate diversity online. The internet probably is one of the greatest developments ever, has already influenced so many lives and is a direct mirror of what we do, and sometimes don’t do. Sharing what’s on your mind is also very much appreciated on my side and one of the driving forces that kept this blog going over the years. Also, I am more than glad that fellow blogger Mzeecedric kicked me to starting my own blog back in 2005 (probably after trolling his as a commentator). Asante sana, mate!

Everyone, thanks again for stopping by. Cheers!

Hey Apple, this is your chance!

You may have followed today’s news via iFixit or Mashable that the new Apple Mac Book Pro with the Retina Display will contain almost no repairable parts. Much like the iPads, I believe, even though there are still spare parts available for those.

I am always blown away by the amount of engineering found in Apple products, especially compared to the “modular” competitors (i.e. Dell, Lenovo and HP) whose spare parts are still available on eBay & Co. long after their laptops are out of production. Parts fail, displays break, rubberised touchpad buttons wear off, hinges and keyboards wear out and so on.

the opened new MacBookPro Retina, image via iFixit.com

Not so the new MBP Retina (pictured above) which seems to have no repairable parts at all. In case of a hardware fault, most customers are supposed to return it to Apple. My DIY-heart of course yells at this (“I will fix it anyways!”), but I also understand that this step is part of their marketing and quality management.

The battery? Well, as far as I understand there are two main reasons why it would need to be replaced: heat and constant overcharging. And as far as I am informed, this overcharging is prevented by a circuit otherwise only found with previous ThinkPads from IBM/Lenovo. So it seems like there is no reason to have the battery replaced during the first 2-3 years of use.

Ok, and then? What happens after 2-3 years of use when the next generation of MacBooks is waiting on the shelves? That’s the time when most gadgets are turned in for repairs, I think. Repairs that are expensive because they often won’t be covered by a manufacturers warranty.

Here’s the idea

Given that Apple already introduced this “no maintenance required – if broken, we’ll fix it for you”-concept in the past but only nailed it with the almost non-repairable iPad, Apple customers are assumed to be mainly users – instead of tinkerers*. So, obviously, many customers are already used to this concept and would have no problems exchanging their beloved machines for a new one (except for extra costs where applicable).

Now, instead of selling the hardware, the idea would be to only lease out the hardware to customers for a given time frame of 2-3 yrs and then have them return it to Apple.

The benefits

  • Apple could start using better / more expensive materials because all hardware is returned to the manufacturer, remains in a technical loop
  • A recycling is possible = less material costs, less dependency on rare earth metals from China & Co
  • Apple benefits from real world scenarios, has complete control over usage (I know they like that), design teams can pick up on this for further improvements
  • Customers won’t have to cough up USD 1000-3000 at once but pay monthly installments instead (by default!)
  • Apple has the financial resources to take this “risk”
  • Customers get a new machine every 2-3 yrs, consistent market
  • User data is more attractive than hardware: care for home folder, everything backed up in the Cloud
  • Software is the bigger market than hardware (I think): make them stick to an OS and then provide them with apps (see the iPhone – works like a charm on iOS!)
  • Customers won’t have to worry about the hardware as it will be replaced

Heck, if Apple doesn’t do that, someone else should do it. Not the leasing as such but this whole model of ownership – because, after all, with Apple’s latest design we are just users, not tinkerers anymore. Just as we stopped buying complete music albums and go for single mp3 tracks instead, this concept of “ownership” is totally different to the one we had in the past. Maybe not for you or me, but for those a few years younger than us.

I believe that Apple has the right approach and I would like to encourage them going a step further with this Cradle-to-Cradle-inspired proposal. It’s all about having a sound business and still doing good.

*tinkerers: most Apple users I know bought their Apple products because they don’t want to mess with the system or any components. So while they may just be into that DIY-stuff as I am, their Apple products often remain as they are. Not because they couldn’t, but because they don’t want to.

(this Mashable post on G+ inspired me to this blog post)