A Leslie Wong Blog

Wolfgang Gruener, over at Tom’s Hardware, noted that Intel released a Product Change Notification (PDF) that they are discontinuing production of nine Intel® Core™2 Duo processors and Intel® Core™2 Duo processors LV, code-named Merom. It seemed like I was just writing in anticipation about Merom and Santa Rosa but that was actually back in September, 2006, when I was contemplating the purchase of a Merom laptop. I bought a MacBook “Late 2006 Core 2 Duo,” which lacked that... Read the rest of this entry »

The Roar of the Pelican is a Maglite flashlight mod that derives it’s name from the use of Pelican flashlight’s replacement bulb #3854 and a combination of non-stock battery holders (or batteries) to get a higher voltage and therefore much brighter (roar) flashlight than a stock Maglite.It’s supposed to be an inexpensive mod. I keep calling it the Roar of the Penguin, because of the recent spate of penguin movies. For my ROP project, I started out with a 2D Maglite and bought most... Read the rest of this entry »

  The Pacific storm that knocked down our Redwood lattice top fence in the beginning of January gave me an opportunity to buy a router. The wind snapped a 4×4 fence post and cracked off the 2×3 end sections from the fence panels. These one inch grooved 2x3s weren’t available at the lumber yard, but I thought with a router I could just get some 2×4′s and use a router to make a groove in them. I ordered a bunch of Redwood 2x4s, some treated 2x4s for caps,... Read the rest of this entry »

[Added February 27, 2010]: After looking at the 77 page repair manual for this lens, I don’t recommend that you attempt this repair yourself. Lens optical equipment, a wave output analyzer and other specialized tools are used in the repair of this lens. If you attempt this repair yourself, you will likely never get the lens working like new. I somehow managed to get lucky and was able diagnose the problem with my lens and repair it, with the auto-focusing, manual focusing, manual zoom and... Read the rest of this entry »

  It’s pianist’s Cedar Walton’s 74th birthday today. all about jazz has his biography and an interview by Russ Musto. Google has Cedar Walton’s discographies. February 12-17, 2008, he’ll be at Yoshi’s in San Francisco and Oakland. You can get his Underground Memoirs album somewhere.  Read More →

nalts over at YouTube writes: “Has Apple considered the implications of its glorification of thin models? Has it once considered the feelings of my “big boned” HP, and how she’s felt living in a society where you’re only as attractive as you are THIN? And what about the young processors that are at an impressionable age. Do they need this pressure? I think not.”  Read More →

The high winds and heavy rain from the Pacific storm over the weekend knocked down two Redwood lattice top fence panels in our backyard. A new 6×8 section is about $US 90. The only damaged pieces were the header and sides. They have a groove routed in them. Nobody sells them. Can’t I just buy a router and some Redwood 2x4s and make them myself? Also, the one 4×4 support post that broke at the base was just buried in the dirt. (01/08/2008: Actually, the post was in a concrete, I... Read the rest of this entry »

I bought some “Chrome” surface mount LED modules from Oznium.com to see how they’d work as replacements for automotive Festoon light bulbs (the ones with the pointy ends). The modules are about 2.3″ (60 mm) long with an adhesive strip on the back. The “chrome” is plastic. Oznium actually sells some LED Dome Light replacements that are 5×5 LED arrays that include common bases with the LED array. I thought that these modules would fit inside the BMW Bavaria... Read the rest of this entry »

The Interstate MT-47 battery in the Bavaria decided it didn’t want to hold a charge anymore. The specific gravity of each cell was reading < 1.1. I spent an hour looking for the receipt and couldn’t find it. The battery has a 75 month warranty but I was just going to buy a new one. Luckily, the Interstate delivery guy was at the garage when I went to pick up the battery, and he read the date code off the side of the battery which was January 2003. The dealers have a chart for pro-rating... Read the rest of this entry »