Alfred's Blog

Hantek DSO5202B 200MHz Oscilloscope Pt 1

2012-01-05T01:03:00+00:00

First, I haven't even plugged it in yet. This is a review of VistaTech (AKA thefamousbrandsoutlet.com) in Ontario where I bought it.

In a word, excellent!

The pre-sales support by e-mail was great. Frank answered all my questions within a couple of hours and even noticed when I had tried to place an order and had some Paypal issues and then e-mailed me some alternatives.

The price was about the same as from eBay, but it shipped from Canada (or the US if you use their US store) so there were no hidden costs for taxes, duty, shipping,... I didn't have to pay anything at the post office.

And, it was no problem getting it shipped to the post office. We don't have mail delivery in the village where I live so I just used the PO address and the package arrived in five business days and that was over the new year's holiday.

The scope arrived undamaged. It was packed in the regular retail box which was inside another box lined with bubble wrap. The outer box had a ding, but it didn't get through to the inner box.

Another nice thing is the warranty. They give you a 90-day advanced exchange and 3 year return to depot in Toronto. No trying to deal with an unknown Chinese company and return shipping to Hong Kong.

I'm trying to think of some negatives but it isn't easy. I guess the only thing is that VistaTech only has a limited selection of test equipment right now although Frank did say that they are expanding their catalogue.

I can recommend VistaTech if you're looking for a Hantek oscilloscope. As they say, A+++++++++ Would buy again.

Tiki Wiki multi-domain Formatting Problem solved

2012-01-04T07:28:00+00:00

I use Tiki Wiki for many of my sites and some of them have multiple domains associated with them. So domain.ca, domain.com and domain.co.uk all point to the same folder on the same server using domain redirection. The main domain works and looks fine but if I go to any of the other domains everything is there but it is out of place. The modules were in the wrong place on the screen and it looked like the theme CSS was messed up. I tried playing with perspectives, multi-domain, areas, domain redirects, category, themes, and anything else that looked promising.

I set everything back to the way it was - all the perspectives stuff turned off then had a think about themes & CSS. There was another spot that mentioned CSS. Under "Performance" was a check box called "Minify CSS" which I had turned on at some point. I turned that off, cleared the cache and the problem was fixed!

Now I just wish that my brain worked like it used to so I wouldn't have to go in circles for hours for a simple problem. FM sucks!

Hiking in the snow on Vancouver Island

2011-12-31T20:59:00+00:00

Hiking in the snow

Neat Darwin Picture

2011-12-31T02:44:00+00:00

Charles Darwin, from the Out Campaign

There is grandeur in this view of life

It was originally created as a background for an iPhone or other smart phone like an Android.

zazzy.ca

2011-12-31T01:40:00+00:00

I've had an unused domain hanging around for quite a while and decided to stick a new site up. It is based on Pligg and works like Digg. Zazzy.ca is a news agregator where you can submit links to stories and other people can vote on them.

I'm going to try and keep it geared more to science, technology, computers and that kind of thing.

It is still very new and needs some tweaking, but give it a try and let me know what you think.

Another Passing: Hitch

2011-12-19T23:06:00+00:00

Quote:

Farewell, great voice. Great voice of reason, of humanity, of humour. Great voice against cant, against hypocrisy, against obscurantism and pretension, against all tyrants including God. Farewell, great warrior. You were in a foxhole, Hitch, and you did not flinch. Farewell, great example to us all.
Richard

Quote:

Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.

Vanity Fair article

The Purpose of Purpose

2011-11-29T01:48:00+00:00

Flash player not available.

Quote:

During Richard Dawkins' American tour in March 2009, he gave a talk titled "The Purpose of Purpose". I travelled with Richard to these cities and filmed the talks, which I've edited together here. The content of the talk remains intact, while the editing moves between the different locations and Richard's Keynote presentation.
- Josh Timonen
RichardDawkins.net

Toshiba 51HX93 TV Service Manual

2011-11-13T23:15:00+00:00

Toshiba television 51HX93 (TAC0364), 57HX93 (TAC0365), 65HX93 (TAC0366) N3PSP Chassis Service Manual
Including parts list, board layout & block diagram.

Toshiba FILE NO. 020-200321. DOCUMENT CREATED IN JAPAN, Dec., 2003

Toshiba 51HX93 Service Manual 65 page PDF

Toshiba 51HX93 TV sales brochure PDF

Radio Shack/Micronta 22-195 Digital Multimeter schematic

2011-10-15T01:18:00+00:00

I have found lots of sites with PDFs of the 22-195 manual, but the schematic page was always such crap quality that you couldn't read it. So I scanned the page from my owner's manual.

Click to download a 1200 DPI lossless PNG file

The detailed parts list is on the Radio Shack website here

Also interesting is that I found the sales slip from when I bought it "on sale" in 1988 for CA$119.95.

Looking for jesus

2011-01-02T12:10:00+00:00

Flash player not available.

David Fitzgerald Skepticon 3 Examining the Existence of a Historical Jesus

Personally I think that "Jesus" was a character made up for a story like King Arthur and Camelot and was probably based on several people.