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Don
Lancaster's Guru's Lair What's New? Archive for 2002 |
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January 6, 2003
Closed out our What's New? blog page WHTNU02.ASP and
started WHTNU03.ASP. The earliest pages have also now
been autolinked.
January 4, 2003
We wholesaled out our remaining Tektronix 7912AD inventory. One
power supply remains and will go on eBay shortly.
January 3, 2003
Picked up a nice quad survellience video display system.
Please email me if you have any interest along these lines.
December 30, 2002
Gernsback Publications has recently ceased publication of Poptronix.
I expect a lot of trade journals to suddenly merge or fold as well. The
underlying model of paying an outrageous ad price for leads that may
or may not happen six months in the future that may or may not result
in a sale no longer makes any sense whatsoever.
I also see that industrial suppliers are at long last starting to put their
prices on their web sites. I'd further suspect that those who do not will
soon become history.
December 28, 2002
Latest Blatant Opportunist #73 is Son of eBay Secrets.
December 25, 2002
Expanded the Blatant Opportunist and Auction Help libraries.
December 22, 2002
Parting out an older Westinghouse motor drive. email me if
you have any interest in the 1000 volt, 100 amp dual Darlingtons,
the current transformers, or the three phase reactors.
December 18, 2002
Gathered together a bunch of our background patterns used for
knockouts on our eBay and Bargain Page images. Besides their
subtle textures, these can greatly minimize JPEG edge artifacts.
December 16, 2002
This is more for your locals living within the greater Bonita-Eden-Sanchez
metropolitan area: Just picked up a large pile of Sears/Craftsman gifts
at half price. Table saws, submersible pumps, yard vacuums, drills, food
processors, weed wackers, leaf blowers, humidifiers, etc... etc...
Probably going to yard sale these at 3860 West First Street in Thatcher.
Call 428-4073 or email don@tinaja.com or bee@tinaja.com
December 15, 2002
Speaking of which, I've pretty much decided that liquidation pallets are
at best marginal and usually a worthless scam. Went to the best of best
possible pallet auctions -- genuine Sears, no cherry picking, total
inspection, doubly distressed. $175 pallets cost more like $300 after
time and U-Haul and such.
And held something like $1500 in list price merchandise, of which around
$450 could be realistically sold without too much refurb. Bottom line:
Waay too much risk for too little return. I'll probably stick to my 30:1 buy
sell rule found in MYEBAYS.PDF.
December 14, 2002
Expanded our Offsite Links on the Guru's Lair home page.
Also added links to our Auction Help library page.
December 12, 2002
Latest GuruGram #12 is a PS Search & Replace Utility.
December 11, 2002
Found out a little more about our PIC Projects components we
have up on eBay. These were intended for hot tub contollers,
with the main pc board doing things like relay controlling the
pump, heater, and blower. And the small pc board being a three
digit Farenheit temperature display.
The original proto house just bought a lot of our parts back for
an improved design!
December 9, 2002
Just uploaded a temporary plot that shows exactly why selling
anything on eBay for less than $19.63 is utterly futile. And here
is the Gonzo source code if you want to play with it.
December 8, 2002
December 5, 2002
Just put ONE MILLION DOLLARS worth of Tektronix gear
up on eBay with an 0.99 cent opening and no reserve for the lot.
December 1, 2002
Was really impressed with the dinners at Cottonwood Canyon Ranch,
which is also a Bed and Breakfast. The four of us had the whole place
to ourselves for $14 per meal. Bring your own wine.
Go halfway out the Klondyke Road and hang right just past the third cow.
November 29, 2002
Upgraded and expanded our GuruGram #9 on Acrobat Transparency
using PostScript sent to Distiller. One tiny detail remains that very
much needs your help as an Acrobat insider expert.
November 26, 2002
Just picked up some beautiful one axis linear robotic hand actuators
at an automation bankruptcy. Along with lots of Turck sensors and
cables and air cylinders and Banner opto stuff. Please email me if
ou have special interest in these items.
November 18, 2002
A caution on bidding on eBay Dutch Auction items: If you bid on N-1
or fewer items, you may get them for the opening price. But if you
bid on all N items, you will have to pay your (usually) higher proxy
bid price! Thus, the LAST Dutch Auction item can end up outrageously
expensive.
Chances are the seller will have more in stock anyway and will be glad
to sell them all to you off eBay.
November 18, 2002
I was hoping by now to have a complete solution for letting
PostScript send commands to Distiller to generate fully
transparent PDF files. We looked at most of the solution in
GuruGram #9 as PSTRANS.PDF.
Still needed is a way to cause PostScript via Distiller to (a)
cause a "/GS2 gs" to appear in the output data stream and (b)
to link a /GS2 object to a resource object.
Still need your help on getting PostScript to link gs resouces by using
Distiller. Please email me with your thoughts on this.
November 16, 2002
Added new content and links to the Acrobat, Auction Help,
Bargain, and GuruGram library pages. PSTRANS.PDF
November 14, 2002
Latest GuruGram #11 is on Exploring the Acrobat 5 SDK.
Included is this Win32 Automatic Link Checker (!) plugin.
November 10, 2002
Over 2/3rds of our Tut LR2000T inventory is now sold and outtahere.
Remaining stock is on a "first pay - first ship" basis and sells daily.
Current pricing is $23.87 each plus shipping or $319 plus shipping per
case of fourteen. This is believed to be way under original factory cost.
More details on our Bargain Pages or our eBay offerings. All are still
sealed in their original packaging.
November 8, 2002
Have been spending a lot of frustrating time trying to get the Acrobat
SDK plugins working. Please email me if you have any expertise here.
November 7, 2002
Started updating our Bargain Pages and our Bargain Tours.
November 6, 2002
Went to a pair of dot bomb bankruptcies, and came away with
the obvious "What were they thinking?" NEITHER had a product
that two college students could not have knocked out in their dorm
in their spare time, yet both had hundreds of employees in the most
expensive "top floor" real estate in their respective towns. With the
most expensive (and obviously most uncomfortable) fixtures and
furniture. Pure madness.
November 4, 2002
A reminder that our web pages are best viewed from Internet Explorer
at 800 x 600 resolution with URL underlining turned OFF.
Compulsive underliners are pretty much self limiting. Eventually
they grow so much hair on the palms of their hands that they can
no longer type.
November 2, 2002
Present Tut LR2000T inventory is between 50 and 88 cases, depending
on expected sales in process. Price is $297 per case of 14 plus shipping.
We understand this to be far less than original factory cost. Well over
half of our original truckload is now sold.
October 29, 2002
Expanded and improved our Auction Help page.
October 27, 2002
We now have a preliminary schematic the smaller of our PIC Breadboards.
We have these in huge quantities at fifty cents each. Also on eBay.
October 18, 2002
We are shortly going to sharply raise the prices on Tut LR2000T's
as they are flying outta here. These let you put Ethernet on top
of an existing phone line without voice interference. More details
on our Bargain Pages or our eBay offerings.
Street price is $1946 per case. Our current pricing is $297 per case
of fourteen plus shipping for 1-3 cases, $279 per case plus shipping
for 4 or more cases. UPS hundredweight services kick in at 8 cases
for additional savings. Much of our inventory has now been sold. It
is unlikely we will ever find any more at these prices.
October 16, 2002
Picked up some nice Cat 5 patch panels. email me if you want to get
in ahead of the hoarders.
October 14, 2002
What appears to be a significant energy development is found in
Science magazine Vol 297 27 Sept 2002 as Efficient Photochemical
Water Splitting by a Chemically Modified n-TiO2. Authors are Shahed
Khan, Mofareh Al-Shahry, and William B. Ingler Jr.
An 8X efficiency improvement is reported. This is not yet quite useful,
but is quite an achievement. I hope to have some additional energy
references shortly in a new Blatant Opportunist column.
October 10, 2002
Added a Methane Hydrate section to our Hydrogen Energy page.
These are by far the largest alternate energy resource. But no
net energy recovery scheme is yet known. They also have the
potential for unmitigated environmental disaster.
October 7, 2002
Expanded and improved our Auction Help page.
October 6, 2002
Expanded and improved our Offsite Resources on our Home Page.
October 5, 2002
MIT is claiming they eventually will be making nearly all
of their course materials online! They seem to be off to a
good start. Visit them at http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
October 4, 2002
eBay now allows fixed price sales on quantity items, so we are
going this route for our electronic components and other items
where a buyer is more likely to want to immediately and for sure
get their items, or where the buyer wants to easily and quickly
combine payment and shipping of several items together.
Because eBay prohibits Dutch quantity sales under 99 cents, we're
using a UNIT system. For instance, if the listing shows 30 diodes per
99 cent unit, and you buy three units, you get 90 diodes and pay $2.97
plus shipping.
You can normally buy any number of units you like from one to as
many as we have in stock. Large quantity prices may be lower,
depending on the item and its popularity.
BTW, all of our components are absolutely first rate and top demand.
More details on our Bargain Pages and our eBay listings.
October 3, 2002
I was really impressed with Richard Hunter's new World Without
Secrets book. That covers everything from Napster to Terrorism
to Linux to RIAA stupidities to dot-bombing and back again. And,
to me, shows profound insight.
Reach this title via our Book Access page.
October 2, 2002
Latest GuruGram 10 is on PostScript's Internaldict & pdfmark
operators. There does not appear to be very mich hidden in the
way of undocumented pdfmark operators. There are 46 in all.
September 30, 2002
September 29, 2002
Latest GuruGram #9 is a PostScript Transparency (!) tutorial
and demo. A few loose ends remain on this, so I would very
much welcome your ongoing input.
Note that this file DEMANDS Acrobat 5.0 or higher.
September 24, 2002
Latest GuruGram #8 is a Flate Compression viewer.
September 21, 2002
September 17, 2002
If you have some special expertise with PDFMark COS objects,
please email me. I seem to have big time problems getting new
gs graphics states properly linked and recognized.
I am one step away from a superb PostScript transparency demo,
but cannot find proper use of the key commands.
September 13, 2002
Latest GuruGram #7 evaluates Overunity Battery claims.
September 11, 2002
Added two more WebTrends reports that give the Daily
Referrals and the Monthly Referrals. These are also now
home page accessible.
Please note that the eBay and Referral reports will have short
counts on some data, because of referral exclusions. Use ONLY
the [ Referrers & Keywords ---> Top Referring URL's ] portions
of these specialized secondary reports.
September 9, 2002
Expanded the onsite resources selections on our Home Page.
September 7, 2002
Just got a superbly rugged combination desk and relay rack that
the feds paid $135,000.00 for and never used. email me for details
or see our current eBay offerings.
A reminder about our outstanding bargains on HPNA home phone
network LR2000T adaptors.
September 6, 2002
In the latest perpetual motion fiasco on Slashdot, somebody inadvertently
came up with the word "electrocity".
Which, somehow, seems elegantly fitting to the genre as a whole.
September 4, 2002
Added some new links to our Home Page and our Auction Help page.
September 2, 2002
The latest Blatant Opportunist #72 is on Fun With Stuff.
August 30, 2002
Getting some unusual items up on eBay. These include great heaping
bunches of Staplex air quality filter media, Some older Westinghouse
10 HP Variable frequency drives, some REALLY big power utility
fuses, and and around thirty dual mode 110v/12v spotlights.
email me if you want to get in ahead of the hoarders on these.
August 28, 2002
Improved the access and use of GRABURLS.PSL This
Acrobat PostScript utility reads any .PDF file and extracts
all of the links onto a separate new .HTML page.
As in this demo.
The new page can then be visually inspected, saved to file,
or else get automatically link checked by Dr. HTML.
August 25, 2002
Added a few Hexapod books to our Book Access pages.
Improved and expanded our It's A Gas hydrogen library.
August 24, 2002
Updated and expanded our Book-on-Demand Links and Service
Bureau listings.
August 23, 2002
Not sure exactly why our PDF files look worse in Acrobat 5, but I've
been continuing testing. The smoothing does in fact work, but it
seems to present a much trashier viewability at lower resolutions.
ZERO comments or response on the newsgroups so far.
I suspect Adobe had complaints about "too light a gray" and "too
fuzzy" in earlier Acrobats and changed their smoothing algorithm
just enough to throw away the baby and drink the washwater.
Or possibly there was a conflict with old smoothing and new LCD
CoolType algorithms.
Naturally, Adobe blames my code. I challenge you to prove this either
way so I can fix it. I feel our files look infinitely better in old Acrobat.
As near as I can tell, there is nothing particular to our files that
cause this, (turning picojustify off is still bad), nor do I know of any
workaround except to run at a higher screen resolution.
Or use Acrobat 4 or an eBook viewer instead.
Again, the files look outstanding at full screen resolution and 200
percent magnification.
Please tell me your thoughts on this.
August 22, 2002
Just made the amazing discovery that my Guru's Lair includes a Blog !
Has had for nearly seven years now. The url is, of course, secret.
August 21, 2002
Updated our Robotics Books listings.
August 20, 2002
Updated and greatly expanded our Hexapod Info. These are a
revolutionary new way of doing everything from robotics to
machine tools to cranes to vibration isolators to telescopes. The
six axes are in parallel rather than series for unprecedented
simplicity and accuracy.
They are also sometimes called Stewart Platforms or Parallel Link
Manipulators.
August 19, 2002
The revisions and upgrades to our Book-on-Demand and our
Flutterwumper libraries should now be nearly complete.
Please report any typo or link problems.
August 18, 2002
The new releases of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and Acrobat Reader
5.0 have apparently made dramatic changes in viewability for
laptops and at higher resolutions. But they seem to have made
old and low resolution displays MUCH WORSE in the process.
Workarounds are to continue viewing our files with Acrobat 4 or
their eBook Reader. Or to increase your display resolution. Note
that running your display at its highest resolution and viewing our
PDF files at 200% magnification gives outstanding results.
BTW - Their eBook reader will aslo read you our files. In Sweedish
with a Swahili accent. Yumpin Yimmini.
If you know a way to get Acrobat 5 to do text smoothing that is
indistinguishable from earlier versions, please email me immediatley.
August 17, 2002
A reminder that we have great heaping bunches of Tut
LR-2000T HomePhone/LongRun/HomeRun/DSL adaptors
in stock. In original factory boxes at seven cents on the dollar.
Per our eBay Sales or Bargain Page.
These let you simultaneously run Internet or Ethernet over any
internal live or dead voice phone line you may have. WITHOUT
VOICE INTERFERENCE.
Up to 2000 feet range and up to 1 Megabit/Second. They are superb
for printer sharing or local Internet distribution without the need for
rewiring. When used in pairs, no MDU or software is needed!
Up to 25 units can be directly networked. More with hubs or routers.
In fact, a few of these plus a router or hub can eliminate most of
an outrageously expensive MDU multiple dwelling unit front end
for apartments, trailer parks, dorms, industrial parks, and such.
See these great free videos and tech specs and tutorials for futher info.
But note that these do NOT let you simultaneously receive 56K
Internet and voice over a single telco phone number. Somewhere
on premises, a SEPARATE Internet source has to be provided from
a different phone number, DSL, T1, wireless, satellite, or wherever.
There are 14 units per 25 pound case. EVEN number of cases have
lower per-case shipping charges than odd, and average around $9
per case to nearby Western states. EIGHT or more cases allow UPS
Hundredweight services which are significantly less.
Immediate availability.
Optional Z-Blocker filters separately available here and here.
August 16, 2002
Added some BOD Book-on-Demand publishing titles to our
Book Access Page.
August 15, 2002
Expanded and improved our Auction Help and our
Third Party libraries.
August 14, 2002
Expanded and improved our Resource Bin and our
Consultant Network libraries.
August 13, 2002
Expanded and improved our Tinaja Questing and our
Webmastering libraries.
August 12, 2002
Expanded and improved our It's a Gas hydrogen library.
August 11, 2002
Thanks to some very much appreciated peer review, several minor
adjustments have been made to ENERGFUN.PDF.
August 10, 2002
Updated my biography page. More detail is found here, and the
funny parts are found here.
August 9, 2002
Found the "missing" and "lost" early Resbin columns and uploaded
them as RESBAR01.PDF and RESBAR02.PDF. As with the other archives,
these are in an older format that awaits your Sponsorship to upgrade to
our current presentation standards.
August 8, 2002
Completed the major upgrade and expansion of our Acrobat PDF library.
Please report any link or typo problems.
August 7, 2002
Revised and improved our Acrobat book list.
August 5, 2002
SVG or Scalable Vector Graphics are the next big thing for
the web. Here are some books and newly uploaded links.
August 1, 2002
Finished up the PostScript Library upgrade. Please report any
link or typo problems.
July 31, 2002
New improvements to Adobe's Illustrator 9 and Acrobat 5 have
dramatically improved their ability to do transparancy. Which
largely obsoletes some of my earlier PostScript Transparency
"Gee Whiz" demos. See Adobe Ap Note 5407 for current info.
I'll try to work up some demos sometime. Meanwhile, our image
oriented tools in our Bitmap Manipulation Library do remain
eminently useful.
July 30, 2002
Many thanks for your overwhelmingly positive response to
ENERGFUN.PDF
July 29, 2002
Latest Blatant Opportunist #71 is on Energy Fundamentals.
July 28, 2002
There's some glitches with our .PS to .PSL conversions. If you
are having trouble finding a .PS file on our website, try using .PSL
instead. These should eventually straighten out.
July 26, 2002
Oops. An apalling number of our files seem to have an incorrect
email address for us. Use don@tinaja.com if you have problems .
Also should have gotten all our area codes changed to (928) by now.
Undoubtedly, a few (520)'s are still kicking around.
Voice phone is (928) 428-4073.
July 25, 2002
I'd like to buy a used or distress copy of Acrobat Capture 2.1 with
reasonable copy count life left. Please email me with your offer.
July 24, 2002
Sorry for the temporary absence of FLUTOOLS.PS It is temporarily
back. We are going to the .PSL trailer for all our PostScript utilities
so they come up in Word rather than something unexpected.
PSL as in "PostScript-Lancaster".
July 23, 2002
Added some new offsite links to our home page. That Convert Me is
particularly handy. Does instant conversion tables and calcs.
July 21, 2002
Expanded our Hydrogen Energy library page.
July 20, 2002
The $5 gyro may finally be here. Using nothing but a bubble of air!
See the http://www.memsic.com website. More on this whenever.
July 19, 2002
Expanded our Auction Help library page.
July 17, 2002
Expanded our new GuruGram library page.
July 16, 2002
Updated and added some new links to our home page.
July 15, 2002
Our ISP is still having Webtrends problems. NONE of the
current info is accurate. email me for the correct stats.
July 14, 2002
Continuing to complete the new PostScript-as-Language library
upgrade. About thirty tutorials and utilities remain to be linked.
The old library page may still be found here for a few days.
July 12, 2002
Adobe's PDF Reference Manual has gotten harder to find on their
website, but this link works just fine. Acrobat SDK's are nearby.
July 10, 2002
Added a new automatic tracking Acrobat url Link Generator to
our GuruGram and other libraries.
July 9, 2002
Added a major new GuruGram library page. The continuation of
our Tech Musings columns should appear here, along with lots of
other technical ap notes.
July 8, 2002
Uploaded a new Galley Slave tutorial on the many advantages of
PDF Acrobat gallery photo tours.
July 7, 2002
I'm really impressed with those new Airtech oscillating room fans.
A total reengineering based on a Savinous Rotor like vertical tower.
Weight at the bottom, narrow diameter, remote control, better air
flow, breeze mode, seperate oscillator driver, etc... Walmart.
July 6, 2002
Added a new Shipping section to our Auction Help page. Among the
other additions is FreightPro who seem to offer much lower costs
than traditional trucking firms. At least around here. I'm about to
try them and will report back one way or another.
July 5, 2002
Link here for the absolute latest in state-of-the-art Trebuchet Design.
July 4, 2002
Don't know if I mentioned this a while back, but next time you watch
the Wizard of Oz vid, turn the sound down and replace it with the Pink
Floyd Dark Side of the Moon CD, synchronizing the first clock tick to
the third Lion's Roar.
Being under the affluence of a Coconut Anchovy Pizza heightens the
bizarre coincidences dramatically. Which you simply will not believe.
July 3, 2002
My favorite "gee whiz" real science demo: It is called a "Christmas
Tree" and gets used by the fire service to scare the shit out of probies.
Basically a controlled twenty foot diameter propane fireball that does a
pretty good imitation of Dante's Inferno. All you (and four others on your
coordinated attack) have to do is walk thru it and turn off the valve.
And when the drill is over? The most beautiful and most fractally ragged
ICE CRYSTALS (!) you'd never expect to see!
July 2, 2002
Found some nice web video info and tech tutorial links to help
you use the superbTut LR2000T's we have on eBay and on our
bargain pages.
These let you run Ethernet and Internet over existing phone lines
without interference and are immediately available in large quantities.
July 1, 2002
Got a pair of superb HP 8640B signal generators up on eBay.
Also a pair of Pitney Bowes postal scales for a tiny fraction of
their usual cost.
June 29, 2002
Not too sure what I am going to do with the Tech Musings series.
Probably go to individual subject "ap note" format such as this one.
Possibly adding a new shell and a new series name.
Monumental time and effort went into the magazine print specific
versions of these columns. But web delivery is better as single
topic, flexible on-demand schedule, shorter landscape presentation,
and direct links rather than reprinting ink listings or Names and
Numbers tables. My time can be better spent on research and
content, rather than meeting a strict print dominated format.
June 27, 2002
Expanded and added new links to our Auction Help library page.
June 25, 2002
Our ISP may have fixed the WebTrends reports.
On special request, he also added some special daily and monthly
eBay reports. These (adapted for your own use) can be incredibly
useful to find out who is responding when to your eBay offers, who
is stealing your photos, or who is backlinking to your site how.
You can also do these yourself at zero cost by letting PostScript
read your log files. We can give you custom assistance here.
June 24, 2002
Uploaded some partial specs and schematics on the Tektronix
7912AD power supplies HERE #1, HERE #2, HERE #3, HERE #4
and HERE #5.
We have around thirty of these left and they make jim dandy general
purpose lab supplies. Details on our eBay and Bargain pages.
Any and all other 7912AD parts remain available as do full systems.
Full systems are FOB only as these are a bear to pack and we want
you to preview your selections. You can email me with your needs.
June 23, 2002
We are working with our ISP to correct the WebTrends reporting bugs.
Any obvious response dropoffs are artifacts. We are just under 2000
unique visitors per day and six million hits per year at present.
More at http://www.tinaja.com/advt01.asp
We are also working on adapting WebTrends to an eBay popularity
reporter. More on this shortly. Meanwhile, our older logfile tools
remain available on our PostScript library page.
June 22, 2002
Have some superb tinfoil hat liners up on eBay.
Place the liners on the OUTSIDE to prevent them from activating
your implants. Place the liners on the INSIDE of the tinfoil to
stop them from reading your brainwaves.
June 21, 2002
KDKB just moved their Helium Hilarity link. For those of you
not in on this, you can tell dirty jokes on the air if you make it an
art form. And "Gila Bend", while not exactly the toniest of AZ
Yuppy enclaves, is a universal substitute for the all of those usual blond/aggie/redneck/lawyer/trailertrash joke targets.
They do make up for it with an aggressive computer donation program
to the Gila Bend public schools. I've updated our homepage link.
June 19, 2002
Finally fixed the 404 access bug in HACK59.PDF. If you really
want to get to Hack 53, it is in HACKAR3.PDF in raw format.
June 18, 2002
Got a nice new collection of Marconi BUPS Building Entrance
Protectors and have just put them up on eBay.
June 17, 2002
A reminder on some of our newer stuff: Case Against Patents is
newly uploaded as an ebook. MARCIA.PDF is the worst of Marcia
Swampfelder, AUCTSCNE is the latest Blatant Opportunist
on the live auction scene and secrets on how to become a crooked
auctioneer, and BASIS.PDF and supporting utility IMTABLE.PSL
and checkplot IMTABLE.PDF give you potent new tools for use
with image interpolation.
Your participation as banner advertisers, sponsors, or research
associates is needed for additional content of this caliber.
June 16, 2002
Simplified and improved our bargain page Guided Tour.
June 14, 2002
June 11, 2002
Started an upgrade and overhaul of our Bargain Pages. Our
most stunning bargain buy currently appears here.
June 9, 2002
At one time, a privitized military surplus venture went by the names
of Levy-Latham, Surplus Bid, or Government Liquidation. Apparently
only the http://www.govliquidation.com website url remains valid.
I've tried to correct this in several locations on our website. Not all
links can or will be updated, though.
One of the GL good guys left Tucson, and New Mexico listings seem to
have vanished totally. It also looks like many more of their offerings
will be live Internet, rather than sealed bid.
It looks like your best bid strategy may be to bid ONCE precisely twenty
minutes from the auction end. Earlier reveals intent, while later trips
a series of extensions. Staying tightly focused on items you really want
also seems to pay off.
More on auction strategy in AUCTSCNE.PDF . More on auction resources
in general on our Auction Help page. And custom auction help assistance is
available through our InfoPack service.
June 7, 2002
Just had an ISP independently verify our LR2000T's can run 537K
from a T1 line over a stock live voice phone line without interference!
With ZERO front end, hardware, or software beyond a pair of these
LongRun adaptors and a phone line or other wire pair.
We have huge quantities of these absolutely mint units. Normal list
price is believed to be $279 each. Our price is $29 each, $49 per pair,
or $295 per case of FOURTEEN plus shipping.
Or around SEVEN cents on the dollar.
INCLUDES warranty, docs, cables, wall wart, original sealed packaging.
Once again, these let you run internet or ethernet anyplace you have an
existing voice phone line. Range is up to 2000 feet . Perfect for dorms,
apartments, motels, trailer parks, etc... Or anytime you do not want to
rewire a building.
email me if you want to grab any of these.
We are unlikely to get any more of these when our current stock (from
a recent telecom bankruptcy) runs out.
June 4, 2002
Picked up some very nice Allen-Bradley SLC100 Programmable
Logic Controller demo boxes. These include the processor unit,
pocket programmer, student/trainee I/O switches, pushbuttons,
& indicators., full docs, plus a beautiful heavy duty molded case.
We have five remaining. email me if you want some of these.
June2, 2002
Got a pair of Scantron automatic test/data scoring machines at a
recent auction. One standalone, one computer interface style.
Please email me for further details.
May 28, 2002
May 28, 2002
Just put a Sunset T3 up for eBay auction. This is THE telecom
test instrument to own. Besides all the regular phone tests, this
handheld does things to T1 and T3 lines that aren't even in the
Kuma Sutra.
Fully loaded options include B,C,D,E,F,K,L,M, and R.
(sorry, instantly sold out)
May 25, 2002
We are working on putting the Case Against Patents up as an
ebook and hope to fully link it shortly. Sponsors and Partners are
needed if the entire Lancaster Library is ultimately to be made
web accessible.
May 23, 2002
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to shove Ethernet or always-on
internet access over existing phone lines without any interference
to simultaneous voice calls? Or, say, half a mile of barbed wire fence?
Among obvious other things, this saves rewiring existing buildings to
make them network or Internet comptaible. Such as apartments, dorms,
hotels, motels, trailer parks, shops, etc...
A solution exists in the form of the TUT Systems LR2000T adaptor.
Which converts Ethernet into the 1 Megabit per second formats known as
LongRun or HomeRun. But the nearly $300 list price PER END of these
systems has been something of a downer.
We just made a spectacular purchase at a major telecom bankruptcy
and can now offer brand new, factory sealed LR2000T's with docs, cables,
wall wart, and warranty cards for under ten cents on the dollar in quantity.
Some more details are found on our current eBay offerings, or you can
go directly to the TUT Website for full technical specs.
Instant delivery samples are $29 each or $49 per pair plus shipping. You
can email me for full details and your quantity needs.
May 21, 2002
Revised and added to our Auction Help library page.
May 19, 2002
Uploaded The Worst of Marcia Swampfelder annotated classics.
By the way, Marcia's Godzilla versus the Night Nurses cross-
genre classic was pulled from its international theatrical premiere
because of the Tapioca Pudding Institute restraining order. The
movie will now go straight to distribution in 8-track format.
May 18, 2002
Expanded our Blatant Opportunist and Fonts & Images
library shelves.
May 16, 2002
eBay, in their infinite wisdom, apparently decided to X-rate
my mint nuclear circular slide rules in mid auction. Sorry if this
has caused you problems.
The future listings will use "kiss your onager goodbye".
May 14, 2002
Got a bunch of nice antenna or lab cables in 20 and 40 foot
lengths. email me if you have any interest in these.
May 11, 2002
Uploaded a demo table lookup generator for cubic spline
image interpolation plus a check plot.
May 9, 2002
Uploaded a short but heavy new paper of mine on Using
Cubic Splines for Image Interpolation. This is apparently
the "best" way to resize or distort any image or bitmap.
Unless you want to go to intensive content-specific solutions.
Consulting services available.
May 6, 2002
Expanded and improved our Bezier Cubic Spline library shelf.
May 5, 2002
Also some premium grade fully shielded flat ribbon cables that
are rugged enough to take traffic. Again, please email me with
your specific needs.
May 4, 2002
The Popular Electronics Marcia Swampfelder columns are supposed
to be on their way to me and should shortly see daylight again. Many
thanks to Duke McMullen for his gracious help on this.
Still desperately need my April columns from various issues of Modern
Electronics. 1981 time frame. Please check your attic or garage for me.
More on Marcia is found here.
May 3, 2002
We've got great heaping bunches of classic premium linear
power supplies in stock in all sorts of popular voltage and
current ranges. Most as new or near new. email me with
your specific needs.
April 29, 2002
Started expanding our Fonts & Bitmap Manipulation library.
April 27, 2002
Have a real nice Tektronix 2213 in stock at $179 plus shipping.
This is a perfect personal, student, or light research 65 MHz dual
trace analog oscilloscope. It has been upgraded to the 2213A CRT
and checked. Very nice, but less docs or probes.
First email or call to (928) 428-4073 takes it.
April 24, 2002
Found a great paper on image resampling here.
April 21, 2002
The "local blend" version (the one with the broken thermometer
on the label) of the El Fumarole Salsa de Mucho Calliente has been
banned in all civilized nations of the world and even parts of Texas.
Naturally, when El Fumarole goes out to hunt, the Habanaros and
Scotch Bonnets have to stay on the porch.
Some possible substitutes appear here.
April 17, 2002
Got some classic Fischer Scientific melting point apparatus units in
that need repairs but should make decent collectibles. email me if
you have any interest in these four devices.
April 15, 2002
Restored the ultimate hacker food ( Hostess Twinkies
Szechwan Style ) to its former glory.
Please do not try and consume this intravenously.
April 14, 2002
The major upgrade and overhaul of our Archival Reprints
library page is now almost complete.
April 13, 2002
Another item I need your help on: I cannot find any copy on the
Apple IIGS review story I did for Computer Shopper, probably
sometime in 1986 or 1987. Please email me a copy.
April 12, 2002
Started uploading archives of the earliest Ask The Guru I
and Ask The Guru II columns from Computer Shopper.
April 11, 2002
Added some more links to our Auction Help library page.
The replacement for Auction Advisory seems utterly useless to
me. Also unable to find a pig in a dishpan. The problem is that
they are waiting for auction companies to come to them, rather
than aggressively seeking out any and all possible auction info.
By following the examples in our Arizona section, you can easily
create an effective listing of nearly all your local auctions. These
are based upon (1) auction companies, (2) searching newspapers
under "auction", (3) Link farms, and (4) notification services.
Or, we can do it for you on a custom basis. I would like to expand
the AZ and NM info nationally, but funding would be required.
April 10, 2002
A reminder that we have ultra rare Tektronix ultra speed 7912A/D
digitizers available in quantity. email me for details.
April 9, 2002
Expanded the files on our Cubic Spline library page.
April 8, 2002
Added some more partial true antialiased fonts to our fonts & bitmap
manipulation library. Here's a demo of how good these fonts look when
copied and pasted into Paint. Full Consulting Services are available.
April 6, 2002
Latest Blatant Opportunist column #68 is on Emerging Technical
Opportunities VII.
April 4, 2002
Uploaded an Archive of our early Blatant Opportunist files 1-5.
These will get improved and upgraded as Banner Advertisers permit.
April 2, 2002
YOUR HELP NEEDED: I just found out our local library threw
away all their older microfiche files. I would dearly like to include
my Marcia Swampfelder April Fool issues in our upcoming web page
revisions.
I need to know which issues these were with the page numbers. They
were most likely April 71 and 72 and 73 Popular Electronics and April
74 and/or 75 Modern Electronics. I suspect the latter will be extremely
hard to find.
Better yet, page copies or PDF text conversions. email me your help.
Many Thanks.
March 29, 2002
Did a tutorial plot of a Magic Sinewave Spectrum. You can
also download the Sourcecode. More on Magic Sinewaves
in our Development Proposal.
March 26, 2002
Added some SVG titles to our Book Access pages. SVG, or
scalable vector graphics, is the next big thing on the web as
it internalizes a variation of Adobe's Acrobat and PostScript.
March 17, 2002
Added some new files to our Math Stuff library.
March 15, 2002
A reminder that we have great heaping bunches of Tektronix
7912AD's in stock, along with any and all parts. These digitize
a 5 nanosecond interval at 700 MHz into 9 bits, for an amazing
100 GIGAsamples per second. Among other tricks, they let you
"convert your television set into a large screen oscilloscope".
Really. Their double ended scan conversion CRT's also make
a rare and extremely unusual collectible.
March 14, 2002
Improved our Gonzo curvetracing Utility and Demo. Entry
tedium has been greatly eased by letting the code "guess"
at all of your intermediate point angles.
Simply enter a "999" for any intermediate point angle and an
intelligent guess will be made for you. Note that the initial entry
and final exit angles are still required. Guesses can be edited.
The guess strategy is to try and draw a circle through the nearest
three points. The slope of the mid point is then used as a guess.
March 13, 2002
Uploaded a PostScript utility that lets you draw a circle through
three points and its Demo. A side effect of this code will be most
useful in improving our gonzo curvetracing routines.
March 12, 2002
Uploaded the classic PostScript Startup Secrets and PostScript
Speedup Secrets reprints. I've left them pretty much as they
originally were for historical accuracy.
Updating and colorization awaits your Partnering or your Banner
Advertiser funding.
March 11, 2002
Updated and improved the Perspective NLT transform and Demo.
This one does an Architect's 2-point perspective with lettering.
March 10, 2002
Updated and improved the Starwars NLT transform and Demo.
March 9, 2002
Uploaded a new PostScript Fern to Image utility and Demo.
This one is handy anytime you want to reduce an intensely
calculated display into a fast printing, low resource image.
File sizes can be dramatically shorter.
March 8, 2002
March 6, 2002
Added a new Font Path Grabber utility to our PostScript
Library page.
March 4, 2002
Improved and uploaded our classic PostScript Insider Secrets.
I pretty much left the content as is for its historical accuracy.
Note that we normally run PostScript these days using Distiller
as a host based PS interpreter, that font paths are now unlocked
and easily handled with nonlinear transforms, and that Distiller
itself does excellent pseudo-compiling. Email me for futher info
on updates and improvements.
March 2, 2002
Updated our Auction Help page and added some new links.
March 1, 2002
Added dozens of PostScript Beginner Projects sourcecode and
demo files to our ongoing upgrade of the PostScript Library page.
Check out the self-knotting rope!
February 28, 2002
Uploaded the original PostScript Beginner Projects. Companion
files should follow shortly. The new PostScript Library page is
over half completed and should finish up in the next few days.
February 27, 2002
Uploaded a preliminary rework of the original PostScript Show and
Tell. While this may seem tame by today's standards, it was sheer
heresy at the time that one person could -gulp- mix text and graphics
at the same time on the same page!
February 26, 2002
Did a major upgrade and improvement to the Hardware Hacker
main library page.
Also some updates and additions to the Tech Musings library page.
February 25, 2002
Uploaded the Hardware Hacker IV archive. A reminder that these
are in an older format and have not been updated to current standards.
Full updating requires your partnering.
Finished the Math Stuff library page update and revisions.
February 24, 2002
Have just added some more Arizona and New Mexico live auction
info and resources to our Auction Help page. We also have a new
service where we can create your own personalized custom local live
auction HTML page for you. At our standard InfoPack rate.
Pending sponsorship, we'd also be happy to put together a definitive
national live auction directory.
February 23, 2002
Sigh. Auction Advisory seems to have dot bombed. Or at least the
folks they sold out to don't have the faintest clue.
Duh - You have to go out and LOOK for auctions, not wait till they
decide to come to you. Especially since most auctioneers remain
monumentally web clueless.
But many newspapers now have online classified auction listings.
I've added a few key resources to our Auction Help library page.
February 22, 2002
Our completely revised and updated Math Stuff Library page is
now close enough that we can call it a work in progress.
The old Math page temporarily remains available here.
February 21, 2002
Certain web images that open in a new window may not allow
direct printing. Possible workarounds are to try and right click
your mouse. In IE, you can then "save picture as". In NetScape,
you can "save image as". Other browsers also may let you mail
the image to yourself. The new file can often then be printed.
February 20, 2002
By the way, one version of the PostScript fractal fern appears as
Bonus Supplement 2A of the PostScript Secrets columns.
I've also placed some Fractal Fern Sourcecode here and a Fractal
Fern PDF file here.
You may want to play with the number of samples and the linewidth
for other effects or faster or slower calc/display times. You also
may want to convert to an image if you are going to print or otherwise
distribute your results.
Note that the fern uses only 28 data points, giving around a 30,000:1
lossless compression. Which approaches fair to middlin even.
February 19, 2002
Uploaded all of my PostScript Secrets columns as an ezine archive.
This older content is presented as a historical archive and has ~not~
been updated. Nor is it quite up to our current display standards.
Note in particular that our area code is now (928) and that PostScript
code today is normally run using Distiller, instead of printer based.
Note also that some of the earlier fancier tricks happened ~before~
unlocked font paths became available. email me for the latest info.
These will shortly be added to our PostScript library page, which is
currently way overdue for updating.
February 15, 2002
Added some new links to our Auction Help library page.
February 14, 2002
Picked up some nice General Radio gear. Including a 1320B
oscillator, a rare 1557A vibration analyzer, a 1952 filter, and
a classic 1601A VHF bridge in excellent condition. email me
if you have any interest in these.
Our absolutely mint GR Strobe Knobs remain available in quanity
on our Bargain Pages.
February 12, 2002
Latest Blatant Opportunist #67 is on Step-by-step Image Prep.
Sample Bitmaps and Sourcecode are also newly available.
This sourcecode shows you how to add multiple JPEG images to
your PostScript files before Distilling them.
February 9, 2002
You can dramatically improve the legibility of all our PDF files
by switching your display to maximum resolution and viewing at
200% magnification. You can also use Adobe's eBook Reader
to have these files read to you in Sweedish. Yumpin Yimminy.
February 6, 2002
Latest Blatant Opportunist #65 is on test equipment refurb, especially
for eBay resale. Links have been added to our Blatant Opportunist
and Auction Help library pages.
February 5, 2002
Seems the Post Office discovered eBay. Bids seem outrageously high.
About to add more of their links to our Auction Help page.
February 3, 2002
We are about to scrap out a Micro Control M12 memory test system for
the racks, casters, and power supplies. Please email me IMMEDIATELY
if you have any interest in this $300,000.00 system.
February 2, 2002
Improved our recent Fourier Checkplot .
January 31, 2002
Just got a Micro Control M12 memory test and burnin system.
For which your tax dollars paid $293,000.00 email me if you are
interested in picking this up at a bargain price.
January 29, 2002
Uploaded a Fourier Checkplot for our Magic Sinewaves.
Additional details are found here.
January 25, 2002
Added some extended harmonic analysis to our "best" Magic
Sinewave. This (longer and slower) code clearly shows how the
unwanted energy is driven WAAAAY up in frequency, and verifies
that an actual pulse train can be built up with a slowly converging
harmonic sum. Use this file only for spectral analysis.
January 22, 2002
Got the differential delta Magic Sinewave Calculators working.
These should approach the ability to zero out the first ONE
THOUSAND harmonics of a digitally synthesized sinewave. The
current high count ready-to-use calculator is 348 pulses per cycle
or 87 pulses per quadrant. Zeroing ALL harmonics to the 348th.
"Soft" limits imposed by Java Script capacity and available memory
are likely to present the next barrier. But 2000 zeroed harmonics
seems a plausible goal.
Crossing palm with silver if you want to see it reached.
January 17, 2002
Note that the Dutch quantities offered in our eBay Auctions are
usually to meet a posting price point. Very often, we will have
dozens or hundreds more units in stock than described. So ask.
Yes, we are always happy to combine lots to give you the lowest
possible shipping costs. email us for any and all help.
January 14, 2002
Started a 2002 What's New. Archived the 2001 What's New.
January 13, 2002
Added the latest and best of our JavaScript "N" calculators to our
Magic Sinewave library page. CD ROMs containing thousands of
useful sequences, plots, and generation sourcecode can now be made
available to Magic Sinewave partners and associates.
January11, 2002
Here's an interesting Product Liability Notice.
January 8, 2002
Proved the feasibility of partial differential Magic Sinewave
calculators. These are ~much~ faster. More significantly, their
key calculation time only goes up as the square of the number of
pulses rather than the cube, meaning that as many as several
thousand harmonics can now be forced close to zero.
Preliminary calculators and autogeneration code is currently available
to our Magic Sinewave partners and associates.
January 4, 2002
Found an interesting web sit of electronic logos useful to help
identify strange chips. Still could use your help on identifying
this chip. These fiber optic transceivers look super interesting.
January 3, 2002
You can easily build your own gas chromatograph or similar lab
instruments with these TSD temperature sensitive detectors
that double as precision mass flowmeters. Listed with our other
current eBay offerings. Two remain available.
January 1, 2002
Verified an important marketing lesson: Our surplus recorder pen
motors refused to sell at any price, but we quickly sold out of our
laser light show galvo kits.
December 22, 2001
Uploaded MSCAL172Q.ASP, a Magic Sinewave that zeros out
its first 172 even and odd harmonics. Code (while still suboptimal)
is much faster, especially for Delta Friendly options. The "floating
point display shift" hassle is also now gone with a new formatter.
The amazing thing is that my PostScript program writer sourcecode
that generates the JavaScript calculator .ASP routines builds the entire
highly custom 700K file error free in a mere three seconds!
Sourcecode is available to Magic Sinewave Partners & Associates.
December 20, 2001
Linked Arcata Pet's Imageviewer32 in the Auction Help library.
This is my favorite image processing package. It does Photoshop
essentials far faster, simpler, and cheaper. Free full featured trial.
December 19, 2001
Added a Parabola From Three Points math routine to the Cubic
Spline, PostScript, and Math library pages.
December 17, 2001
Bee just picked up a bunch of professional medical books and is
offering these on eBay. Let her know your needs.
December 14, 2001
Added a link to the US Post Office auctions to our Auction Help page.
This is basically urban lore, though. To participate, you have to own an
eighteen wheeler and live in Atlanta. Sales would appear to be quite
competitive and almost certainly favor long term insiders.
I cannot believe that all of the USPO mistakes and leftovers nationwide
can be offered in a single short auction every few months. Nor that
they would be reshipped zillions of miles.
December 10, 2001
There would appear to be all sorts of new uses for Magic Sinewaves
that have their first one or two thousand harmonics zeroed out. These
would still be more efficient than PWM, have no possibilities of audio
whine, would allow extreme speed ranges, and might permit harmonic
trapping rather than low pass filtering.
The current versions of the JavaScript calculators take too long to use
above 200 zeroed harmonics. New methods involving partial differential
evaluation are under active development. They should be much faster.
These await your funding.
December 7, 2001
Updated the mil surplus info on our Auction Help page.
Basically, all DRMO auctions are now privitized, except for
term sales and hazmat. Most are handled by one firm going by
the three names of Levy-Latham, Surplus Bid, or Government
Liquidation.
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