Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Review of generic USB to Serial (RS232) adaptors
Having purchased a number of generic USB to serial adaptors from eBay, I thought I would go over the pros and cons of the types available. Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (counterfeit) The least expensive of those found on eBay, apparently these have a counterfeit Prolific chip, which limits them to working only on Windows XP.…
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Correspondence with Property Manager LJ Hooker Belmont WA – Tenant leaves
Having recently received my bond and completed my transactions with LJ Hooker Belmont WA, I thought I would share my last agent property manager facts. On 24th January 2013, my LJ Hooker Belmont WA Property Manger informs me that the tenant “has admitted that he cannot pay the rent”, owes $1850 in unpaid rent and…
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Asus Slate EP121/B121 disassemble and BIOS replacement
Recently, I upgraded my Asus Slate EP121 to the latest 704 BIOS version, through the inbuilt BIOS flash utility and unfortunately I bricked it (failed to power on or boot). It was out of warranty, and even if it was in warranty, a failed BIOS upgrade is not covered. A bit of googling revealed that…
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HP MicroServer N40L and Gigabit HD 6450 horizontal flickering line
I recently purchased a HP MicroServer N40L and half-height Gigabit Radeon HD 6450, after installing Windows 8 I noticed that a third from the screen was a flickering white horizontal line, noticeable when playing movies in full screen or moving the mouse around the right start bar. The problem doesn’t lie with the MicroServer of…
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Calculate last business day in month with Excel
Here is a quick post to calculate the last business day in a month taking into account holidays. This is useful for with finance calculations and wanting to know a bank’s last banking day in a month. =WORKDAY(EOMONTH(A2,0)+1,-1,holidays!A:A) Where; Cell A2 is the reference month cell Range holidays!A:A is a list of holidays
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Tool to remove VGA/DVI mounting screws – 5mm Hex socket
I was salvaging a number of motherboards from a server and noticed that the VGA mounting screws were connected to the chassis. Done with time-consuming pliers I decided to investigate if there was a special tool to remove these screws. There isn’t, but a standard 5mm hex socket driver works perfectly. Find it on eBay…
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Home loans – Fixed vs. Variable interest rates
I saw an interesting chart on Canstar which plotted the history of RBA Cash Rate, variable and 3-year fixed interest rates. This data is all available on the Reserve Bank of Australia website, look for A2 and F2 statistics. I thought I would take it a step further and determine from past history if the…
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Family Day, Doha Qatar
Family Day in Doha, Qatar is a common occurrence on Fridays (the weekend), were main shopping centres refuse entry to single males without family. There is quite obvious discrimination with south-east Asian and Indian males being always refused entry, whilst local and western men are not hassled when they enter. I propose the following solution;
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ComputerSphere – modding the original base to include a DVD burner
I thought for a change in scenery, I would look at modding the original square base. The square base was an attachment that could be used to support the Videosphere, it wasn’t needed if the Videosphere was hanging. To keep with this idea, I decided to make the base a removable DVDRW drive, with a…
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