So what is a “Heat Shrink“?    Its a popular tool we use in the hobby electronics industry.    It is actually is a tube which shrinks in diameter when heated.

Purpose: Heat shrink is used to insulate wires offering abrasion resistance and environmental protection for conductors, connections, joints and terminals in electrical engineering. It can also be used to repair wires or bundle them together, to protect wires or small parts from minor abrasion, and to create cable entry seals, offering environmental sealing protection between bulkheads and adding sealability to electrical junction boxes.  - Wikipedia

I guess that says it all.   For me personally,  I use it to cover solder joints.  Usually when I’m extending a wire, I cut a small piece of heat shrink tube, about 2 inches in length or enough to cover the exposed wire splice.    I then put the heat shrink tube first and then splice the wires and start soldering.

Once the wires are soldered,  I moved the heat shrink tube in position to cover the spliced part and then fire up my hot air blower (I have a hot air soldering station),  but your average hair dryer will do.   Sometimes I just use my soldering iron and quickly move it across the length of the Heat Shrink tube.

Our family keeps a couple of our personal DVDs in storage. We had our old videos from trips and events such as birthdays transferred from the old VHS format to DVD. Now of course we would like to back it up and put it in our hard drives.

A friend of mine said he uses a DVD Ripper he bought from the internet.   He says he use it so he can carry his videos to iPod,PSP. I checked it out and it can also be used for iPhone, PS3, Archos, iRiver, Creative Zen, Zune, Xbox, 3GP phone, Apple iPad, Google Android-based phones.   He actually has a Mac so he uses the DVD Ripper Mac

One of the things that caught my eye is its ability to handle HD DVDs.  I guess when I use this, I’ll be able to put in formats like  HD AVI, HD MPEG-2/4, HD H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HD WMV, HD Quick Time, HD VOB, HD ASF videos, and other HD video formats.

So I guess I’ll be doing a lot of DVD to AVI conversions in the next coming weekends.

Anybody bought this?  Was it good?

I saw in a forum called challengertalk that the asanti kit includes the following… grille assembly, bumper, euro side vents, trunk and hood badges. I totally like the grille and the hood.

The 2010 Dodge Challenger is not bad either.

However, this would set you back by $23,695.

But for me, I’d go for a year old 2009 Dodge challenger and spend some money on the asanti kit. Having a year old 2nd hand Dodge challenger isn’t bad at all. As long as it’s being taken cared of properly, and of course it wasn’t involved in any car accident or something.

I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised to find that directv promotions for existing customers allowed me to take advantage of having a DVR. I never knew that you could actually pause, record, fast forward and rewind all of the shows that were recorded! That is awesome since i like to record audio samples from documentaries that are played throughout the week. Having a DVR makes it a cinch to queue up the shows to exactly the right point that I want to sample the audio from. I guess that I am getting a but ahead of myself with the DVR, because I have yet to learn all of the features that are given within the menu.

I cannot tell you how happy I am not to have to devote a lot of space for my physical copies of my favorite shows and movies. What an eyesore that was. I am old enough to remember having to put labels on all of the VHS cassettes that I had in my collection. Things are much simpler now with the implementation of DVR’s. I am really impressed also by the quality of the recordings, since they beat the pants off of other formats of recording that I have had to use in the past. I now consider having a DVR an essential commodity.

During the past few weeks I attempted to repair my old mp3 player. However the parts that I ordered did not include all of the parts necessary to repair the device. This led me to damaging the device beyond the point of repair. Instead of trying to get someone else to repair it I went ahead and decided that I wanted to purchase a new mp3 player.

I used our hughes net internet service to view the many choices available on many different websites. I wanted an mp3 player that allowed me to listen to music and watch videos if at all possible. In addition to that I wanted the most features that could possibly be placed into the device. Price was a factor that I did not even think of at first. Local stores carried many different brands of MP3 players and I had more than enough money in the bank to purchase one.

Going into the local stores I was rather disappointed. The large selection that they should have had was really quite slim. After being unable to find what I wanted at the store I went back home. I jumped onto the hughesnet we have at the house, which made shopping across the world convenient with the click of a mouse. Finally I found that many shoppers enjoyed the Apple iPod. While it was a bit more expensive it was not extremely expensive. Once I decided upon the iPod I got the 16 GB version. Within a few days it was sitting on my kitchen table being programmed for the first time!

Guess what? They soon find out that it’s the wrong one for them. This can be a very expensive mistake. So the big questions are what is the right one for me and how do I know which is best for me.

One of the first things that you want to know about the camera that the salesman is trying to sell you is as follows

1) How long does the camera take to turn on and be ready to take the shot? In the consumer market this can range between 1 to 5 seconds most being towards the 3 seconds mark.

2) How long does the camera take to focus on the subject? (Not to take the picture) most cameras take between 1 to 3 seconds most at around the 1-second mark.

3) How long does the camera take to actually take the photo after you have pushed the shutter button completely? Again, most cameras take between 1to 3 seconds this is called shutter lag time.

Now you can see to take a photo can take up to 5 seconds just to turn on and up to another 3 seconds to focus in and the up to another 3 seconds just to actually take the photo.

In a cheaper camera, but not necessarily cheaper it can be up to 9 seconds to take a photo from the camera turned off. You may say “yes but I will leave my camera on” ok that’s fine, but you may still have a lag time of up to 3 seconds just to take a photo. Just imagine how annoying it will be now that you have purchased your new digital camera costing you around $400 – $500 to find that you just can’t catch your child blowing out the candles because your new camera at the critical time of blowing the candles out took 1 second to focus and a further 2 seconds to take the photo. What was the result? A child sitting in front of a cake with black smoldering candles.

Can you set the white balance on your camera? Just what is the white balance?

About 60% of digital cameras don’t have this adjustment, you must buy one that can be set manually, not just one that has an “auto white balance” as they are not as good as they advertise.

Does your camera have different exposure modes?

Exposure modes are simply where does the camera take a light reading? The cheaper cameras just do an all over reading which can be very limiting to say the least. A good camera will have a “spot”, “centre weighted” and “matrix” metering system, which allows you to take great photos in any light situation.

When buying a digital camera, buy it for the fact that it’s a camera not a video camera as well. One student showed me all the features her camera had and that’s why it was more expensive – the only thing that it didn’t do well was take still pictures!

You can get so much out of your new digital camera! you just have to put some time in for learning how to use it properly and how to take better pictures – remember no one will ever want to look at a poor quality photo twice!

If you want to take really great pictures that will be in your family for years put in a little effort with your new digital camera.

We all have those special moments in life that we want to remember forever, but the truth is that memories are often better preserved on video so that we may recall the particulars of any given event. This is why camcorders are such an important part of every special occasion and have been for many years. As time has progressed, the construction of camcorders has changed greatly. What was once a large and bulky piece of equipment later went to a compact VHS-compatible system, which has now transformed into the sleek and lightweight design of today’s digital camcorders.

During your next electronics shopping trip, take a moment to explore the features found on modern digital camcorders. Whether your shopping consists of a local electronic store or a virtual shop, take a look at a handful of reasons to consider choosing a digital camcorder:

1) Digital camcorders have the ability to record audio and video, but also are capable of capturing still life images just as a digital camera would. Not only can you film all of those once-in-a-lifetime moments, but you can also snap a few still images of knick knacks and list them for sale on eBay.

2) Digital camcorders offer a much greater audio and video quality when compared to the older models, which recorded video in analog format and often resulted in a grainy texture.

3) One of the most important features of a digital camcorder is the fact that they can be connected to either a television or a computer. Previous camcorders were compatible with VHS only, which was effective, but technology now requires that compatibility be geared toward additional equipment.

4) Because they are compatible with computers, digital camcorders are widely used by amateur film gurus and/or anyone who wants to enjoy the convenience of being able to easily edit and enhance their videos through the use of specialty computer software.

5) Digital camcorders are compact and lightweight, which makes them ideal for travel. In addition, they are easy to manage during recording.

As is the case with any major purchase, cost is often a leading factor in the decision of which product to choose. When it comes to digital camcorders, the price will be determined by the built-in features and capabilities of the unit. A basic digital camcorder can be purchased for several hundred dollars and the price will rise according to the aforementioned factors.

With the purchase of any new electronic equipment, the manufacturer will offer a warranty. Always be sure to retain the original sales receipt, packaging and warranty information relating to your digital camcorder incase there is a problem that needs repair anytime during the coverage period.

The Mark III, after all, could have set the benchmark with an astounding 21.1 megapixel count. Such SLR is unheard of and Canon just set the bar too high this time. The 3 inch LCD screen is another welcome inprovement. The scroll wheel houses the Set button that makes this shooter even more handy to use. While this camera may be a tad too heavy for soem, it is a piece of camera masterpiece that offsets those concerns.

Another thing heavy though is the price tag. After all, this series was never known to be for those looking for a cheap fix. However, the great performance as well as the innovative megapixel count is worth it.

Canon, EOS-1Ds Mark III

[image from: infoborder.com]

The Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is an ultraportable that is said to combine everything that most ultraportables possess today. The screen size is 13.3 inches, dimensions at 12.5 by 9.1 by 0.73 inches and it is a definite slim notebook. At 3.4 pounds, it is as comfy as they come. It even has a 1.3 inch Webcam for your pleasure. A DVD burner is built-in, so that is a definite plus.

Features include WWAN, wireless USB, and GPS. It also has Intel Core 2 Duo so expect a good fast performance as well. The Lenovo ThinkPad X300 could very well lay claim that it has succeeded in taking ultraportable notebooks to a whole new level.

Lenovo ThinkPad X300, WWAN, wireless USB, GPS, Intel Core 2 Duo

[image from: notebookreview.com]

Those 7 inches will cost you a bit but those inches do make for a somewhat intimidating factor to you. The face is button-less, making it a squeaky-clean image for the consumers. It is in the edges that it sports such features like the outputs for headphones and power adapter. The right edge, on the other hand, sports the USB ports and other add-ons.

The Archos 705 WiFi features a QWERTY keypad, photo viewer, PDF reader, a Wi-Fi video rental portal and the usual audio and video player. It could play MPEG4, AVI, WMV, and DIVX videos. Surely, this is a plus-sized addition to those gadget freaks out there.

Archos 705 WiFi, PDF, Wi-Fi, MPEG4, AVI, WMV, DIVX

[image from: fotovista.com]