Online Shopping for the Month

The thing with being on paternity leave is that you have lots of free time. Not enough to learn a new programming language or clean up the music library, but just enough to browse the RSS feeds or check out the OzBargain deals. Which explains why in this month alone, I have bought the following items from various online stores:

Technoline BC-700 battery charger - It's the basically the same LaCrosse BC-700 - just a different name. Four slots with individual charging and LCD displays. Works with NiCd and NiMH AA/AAA rechargeable batteries. Functions include charge, discharge, refresh, and test.

Extended battery for HTC Velocity 4G - The default battery capacity is only 1620mAh. Not even enough to last a day of regular use. Found a 3600mAh battery AND cover on eBay for only $4. Can't tell if it's really 3600mAh, but with idle use, the battery lasts for more than 3 days. Good enough for me.

Rouge Eneloops from DSE - One pack is never enough. It seems like every time DSE does a deal on Eneloops, I order one. Thing is, I can't remember where I've put them in.

Bifold wallet from Marks & Spencer - I think it was selling for GBP5. For some reason, it was free shpping to Australia, so I bought it. I'm more of a card holder kind of guy, but what the heck.

Original Tikbro micro-USB cable - Like Eneloops, you can never have enough micro-USB cables. This one is being marketed as "pure copper, 26AWG, 2A output". Premium.

Iron Man mask with light-up eyes from Tmart - This one is for my boy. Might be a bit big for his face, but at $2.50, I don't really mind. After he gets tired with it, maybe I can have my turn. Of course, it's not Iron Man. It's being sold as "Cosplay Tough Man Mask with Blue Lite-up Eyes (3 * L1154) Golden and Red".

Romoss PH-50 10400mAh power bank - I've got a Sony CP-F2L 7000mAh power bank. I've got a Kogan 11000mAh power bank. Then I bought this. Any questions.

Eachine ultra-slim 4000mAh power bank from Banggood - 'Nuff said.

Electrical and Lighting Appointment

The electrical and lighting appointment is at the Clipsal Powerhouse at Macquarie Park. Basically, this is when you decide where the power outlets and the lights (and light switches) go. You'll also need to decide what type and how many you want to install.

Prior to the meeting, Clipsal posted me a list of the standard inclusions provided by my builder, a list of upgrade options and their prices, the 92-page Essential Checklist magazine showcasing their product range, and an empty floor plan for me to fill in. I have no idea how many powerpoints I need in a room, batten holders or downlights, how many lights in the kitchen, where to install the phone/data/TV points, etc. Spent a few days reading up on the forums to see what others are doing.

Anyway, these are my standard inclusions:

• 15 batten holders
• 15 light switches
• 2 light circuits
• 2 power circuits
• 7 single-socket power points
• 14 two-socket power points
• 1 outdoor single-socket power point
• 5 TV points
• 1 pay TV point
• 5 phone sockets
• 3 data sockets
• 2 heat/fan/light lamps
• 2 smoke detectors
• 1 Hills alarm system
• 1 meter box
• power points for the cooktop, rangehood, dishwasher, microwave oven, fridge, alarm system, garage door, hot water unit, washing machine, and NBN hub

On top of these, I added the following variations:

• 2 batten holders
• 4 11w LED downlights for the living room
• 5 15w LED downlights for the kitchen
• 9 two-socket power points

For an additional $1,521.


Based on Clipsal's recommendation and from what I've read from the forums, I've added extra power points on every room. The more the merrier. External light points for the patio and alfresco area, batten holders (under eaves) outside the garage and the living room - to be converted into floodlights. Batten holders along the length of the hallway with a special note to the builder that these are for future downlights. As such, the builder should not fix them to the timber trusses. Three-way switches so the hallway lights can be controlled via the front door, the garage door, or the kitchen area. For the main bedroom and kitchen area, TV point and power point located 1.6m above the ground for wall-mounted TVs. The only downside if that if you don't install the TVs immediately, those TV/power points become an eyesore. My brother's suggestion is to hang some paintings over them. Power point and phone point in kitchen and living areas for cordless phones. Power point, data, and TV point for the Internet-enabled TV in the living room. Bench-height power point on the kitchen island bench. Good thing I didn't go for waterfall edge, or this won't work. I originally wanted a 15A power point in the garage, but Clipsal is charging me $300+ for it. No thanks.

Burning MP3 CDs

Took me around half a dozen tries (using the same amount of CD-Rs), but I finally got it to work.

An MP3 CD is basically just a normal data CD with folders of MP3 files inside. Whether that MP3 CD plays on your device (car stereo or stereo component) depends on how the CD is burned, how the folders/files are organized, and of course, whether the player supports the MP3 format in the first place or not.

For best results, keep these suggestions in mind:

• Keep the filenames as short as possible. Some players might not be able to handle extra long filenames. Heck, some players might not even show the filename anyway.
• Avoid using special characters in the filenames and folder names. Some players might be able to handle them, but some might choke.
• Just to be on the safe side, strip out special characters from the ID3 tags, too. Some players display the tags instead of the actual filenames.
• Try not to include other files like playlists, lyrics, album art, etc., or non-MP3 music files on the CD. If the player is any good, it should ignore them, but there's no guarantee it will do this.

When burning the actual MP3 CD:

• Use the lowest burn speed as possible
• Use Disc-at-Once (DAO) or Finalize Disc option
• Use the ISO/Joliet filesystem instead of UDF

If you're too lazy to go through everything, just remember to use ISO format. Everything else might just work.

M4A to MP3

For all my audio file conversion needs, I've always used the encoders and decoders from Rarewares.

My audio format of choice is still OGG, but in these days of iPods and MP3-CDs, some compromise is needed. To get my MP3s, I simply drag-and-drop the OGGs into the lamedrop window. Voila, MP3s to go.

The M4As are not as straightforward though. First, you have to download aacdecdrop from here. On my Win7 system, it complains about a missing libmmd.dll file. Get that from here. There are newer versions of the DLL on that webpage, but v9.1 is the one that worked for me. Then, you have to rename the files from M4A to MP4 for the tool to work.

Conversion did proceed, but the resulting MP3 files are garbled and high-pitched. Another option is to simply playback the M4A files on foobar2000 and pipe the audio stream to WAV, then convert it to MP3.

Colour and Kitchen Selection

The appointment for colour and kitchen selection is at the Fowler Colour Studio in Wetherill Park. My brother already had his at Clarendon last week. Took him the whole day to go through all of the selection. (Lunch provided.) He was saying that there were so many options and upgrades. For every item, they have to go through the pros and cons and the costs.

In my case, we finished everything in half a day - bricks, roofing, gutter, fascia, downpipe, windows, garage, water tank, driveway, doors, door handles, carpet, kitchen layout, kitchen appliances, bath/shower/toilet/laundry selections, etc. The reason we finished relatively quick is because I have already decided on most of the colours prior to the appointment, based on my brother's suggestion. Also, Fowler doesn't offer as many options and upgrades as Clarendon. I mean, they do, but for some reason they don't proactively offer them to their customers. If you don't ask for it, you don't get it. You simply get the standard inclusions.

Personally, I don't care about the fancy bricks, the premium roof tiles, or the designer bath and vanity. I'm more interested in having a cold water point for the fridge, external gas point to the alfresco area, option for skylights and whirly birds, and converting the wardrobe hinged doors to sliding. These turned out to be more expensive than I expected, so the only option I selected is the sliding wardrobe doors for an extra $550.

For reference, here are my selections:

Austral Bricks - Everyday Life Range - Engage
Off-white mortar
Flush mortar joints

Bristile Concrete Roof Tile - Designer Range - Magnum

Colorbond Gutters - Contemporary Range - Monument

Colorbond Fascia and Downpipes and Garage Door - Contemporary Range - Surfmist

Trend Window Frames - Standard Colour Range - Anodic Off White

Cladding/Pergola/Timber Post - Taubmans Manhattan

Moroka Finish - Taubmans Coffee Cake

Driveway - DT Bluestone with Flagstone stencil

Front Door - Corinthian Urban Primed PURB 2

Wardrobe and Internal Doors - Corinthian Flush Door

Front Doorset - Gainsbourough Tri-Lock Entry Set

Internal Doorset - Liana 105LIASC

Garage Door - Gliderol Panel Glide - Tuscan Glide with centre lift T-handle lock

Crisp White ceilings and cornice and White Pearl for everything else (internal walls, door frames, balusters and handrails, skirting and architrave).

 

As for the kitchen selection, the layout and the choice of appliances and sink/basin type is pretty much standard:

• Venini GEH9011 stainless steel 900mm wall canopy range hood
• Venini VO95S stainless steel 900mm multi-function fan-forced oven - 5 functions
• Venini VGH90 stainless steel 900mm gas cooktop with wok, enamel trivets
• Venini VDW60S stainless steel 600mm electronic dishwasher - 7 programs, 12 place settings
• Venini GEM252TK stainless stell 25 litre microwave with grill and trim kit
• Everhard Wattle semi-recessed basin for the bathroom
• Everhard Desert Rose above counter basin for the ensuite

For the kitchen and bathroom benchtops, it's Caesarstone Ice Snow, while the cupboard doors are Formica Cinnamon Ash.

Baby Monitoring App

So my wife started keeping a log of when the baby was fed and how much, when he slept and for how long, nappy changes and the contents, etc. I thought, there must be an (Android) app for that. And there are. Lots.

Best one I found is eVerbum's Nursing Log a.k.a. Baby Lara's Nursing Log. You can also use it for your own baby. Across the top is a row of icons representing "actions" that you can log/track:

• bottle feeding
• breast feeding
• changing diapers
• sleeping
• take medicine
• bath time
• generic action - I use this to track weight and height of the baby
• solid food
• breast pumping

What I liked about Nursing Log is that it covers almost all of the events that I want to track. There is also a statistics function that compares and collates stats across days. Some of the stats like milk intake and sleeping hours can even be graphed within the app. Action entries can easily be edited by long-pressing on the entry. Statistics can be exported/shared with other apps. It even has a widget to display last events.

I've also tried iMob Studio's iBaby. Quite similar in functionality with Nursing Log. Easy to use, very configurable. My only complaint is that there's no breast-pumping event. Bubtrac is also nice, but I find it not as intuitive to use as the others. Comes with event timers and charts. Editing events is not as easy as the others. Summary page shows cumulative stats for the day, week, and month.

CM11 on HTC Velocity 4G

Have been using ess.boyer's unofficial HolicsROM for as long as I've had the HTC Velocity 4G. I've tried other ROMs, but this one is the most stable for me. More than a year later, Gingerbread is starting to show its age. When I click on the search results, it doesn't bring up the browser anymore. Some apps like Hangouts won't even work properly.

Quick check on XDA Developers shows that there's an unofficial CM KitKat ROM available from albinoman887. Installation is fairly easy:

1. Reboot to recovery (do not use CWM)
2. Wipe data, cache, and Dalvik cache.
3. Flash ROM
4. Flash gapps
5. Reboot

Right after reboot, the whole thing feels snappier. 4G still works, although I've noticed a couple of network disconnects, and I have to enter my SIM PIN again. sweep2wake feature doesn't work, even though I've enabled it in /system/etc/init.d/99kernel. Must be a kernel thing. Almost tempted to go back to HolicsROM for this feature. MMS definitely doesn't work. I'm using the same MMS settings that are working on the old ROM, and it doesn't work anymore. Google camera app not as good as the HTC stock one. Very low volume on calls.

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Wife actually checked in Canterbury Hospital the day before when her water broke. Apart from that, nothing much happened. Took a sickie from work, and spent the whole day just waiting for the contractions, which didn't come.

At 6:30am, got an SMS from the wife that the contractions are starting to build up. MIL raced to the hospital, while I packed off Aidan to daycare and took out the laundry. By the time I got to the hospital, the wife is already in the middle of childbirth. So what happened was, the wife decided to take a bath before the big event. By the time she finished, it's definitely on. The doctors' told her that it's already too late for the epidural. In addition, the anaesthetist was nowhere to be found.

After some intense grunting and pushing, Aaron popped out at 7:40am, weighing 1960 grams, and 43 cm long. A lot lighter than what we're expecting from the last ultrasound estimate, but everything's good all in all.