Treblog

I can't find my favourite Rotring Xonox rollerpoint pens in all the local shops I visited. Bummer. I did find a replacement in the Pilot VBall pens. The Pilot has a major drawback: they're more expensive than the Rotring. At 1.89 euros each they were a bargain compared to the Pilot VBall Grip that cost me 2.50 euros each. Sure the Pilot has a thick barrel that's really comfy to hold but that thick barrel isn't filled with ink. Inside the thick barrel is a normal capacity ink reservoir. So after I depleted the VBall with ink I took a closer look at it, could I refill this thing? The thick barrel can be removed but that doesn't give access to the inside of the reservoir. For that you need to pull out the entire front end. With the help of my Swiss Army Knife I carefully pried it open and removed the front end. Once there you have access to the inside. I took a syringe and filled the reservoir with Sheaffer fountain pen ink. Reinserted the front end and it works again! Call me cheap, call me smart I don't care. Now that I have found a way to refill those pens I might never have to buy a new one. I successfully refilled Rotring Visupoint and Rotring Xonox rollerpoint pens soon after the Pilot. Gave the Visupoint to a co-worker, it was his pen afterall, and he remarked he really likes the way it writes. Better than a new one he said. Perhaps not all inks are created equal? I've got a bottle of Mont Blanc ink too. My next pen gets filled with that. I can fill a lot of pens with a single bottle of fountain pen ink...

Britt has a soap bubble gun that was given to her by my mother. When there's no bubble solution left a problem arises. Buy some new stuff or make you own? I'm a firm believer I can do just as good as a commercial product. But after having tried some recipes I found online I can only say they are nowhere near as good as commercial stuff. You can make soap bubbles with them but the quantity per blow doesn't come near commercial bubble solutions. There has to be a secret ingredient. But what is the secret ingredient?

The basic soap bubble ingredients are:

• washing up liquid
  
• water
  
• glycerine
  

All the ingredients are readily available but the different recipes don't yield the kind of bubbles I want. I noticed the bubble solution Britt got with the bubble gun was much more viscous than any of my own concoctions. So what could it be that they added to make it thicker? It would have to be safe for children and even be non-toxic if swallowed. Then I thought I'd give HEC (hydroxyethylcellulose) or something similar a try. Well HEC does the job. I just mixed some HEC with some bubble solution I made last saturday. While this test confirms I can produce better soap bubbles, the final verdict will only be possible tomorrow. HEC needs at least a day to get fully hydrated and achieve maximum viscosity.

Then it's just a matter of how much HEC to add to achieve the optimum viscosity.

It works! I've just hooked up my self made power over ethernet contraption. I've been interested in the capabilities of power over ethernet because I wanted to get rid of the butt ugly wall wart for my Linksys WRT54GL in the livingroom. I found an excellent how-to on the web that's intended for short lenghts of CAT5 cable only.
So today I assembled my own low-tech injector and splitter from two ethernet coupling modules, and two pieces of wire with the right connectors already mounted. Did some cutting, drilling, soldering, painting, crimping etcetera and hey presto: my very own PoE contraption for less than 10 euros! Commercially available solutions, such as the WAPPOE12 from Linksys, cost 40 to 50 euros. Not bad eh!? The picture shows the splitter at the WRT54GL side of the cable, here the power and data is separated.
Now my WRT54GL gets its power from downstairs, where my cable modem is situated. The power is transported over the approx 5 meters of CAT5 cable between modem and WRT54GL. Works like a charm.

The upside is that now the power adapter will not be accidentally knocked out of the outlet anymore. The downside is that I had to unplug my WRT54GL from power thus "losing" a 30 day uptime.

The idea behind power over ethernet is that by using the unused four wires in a standard CAT5 cable you can have data and power transport over a single cable. Very nice if you want to mount a wireless access point in a location where there's no power outlet in the vicinity, or if you want to get rid of the power adapter hanging from the outlet socket. One thing to remember is that if you want to want to have power over ethernet over a large distance you'll have to take a loss of power into account. Long cable runs will result in a lowered voltage at the end of the cable, your piece of equipment might not want to work with it.

Links
Power over Ethernet
Knudde.be (my inspiration, in Dutch only)

UPDATE
I've found some how-to's that show you can have power over ethernet with an injector only. Splitting power and ethernet is then done inside a WRT54G/GS/GL by soldering two wires. Cool, but it requires opening up your router.

Links
FON board
Byte Club
Abrahamarama