New Blogger Interface and the New Google Look (Sucks!) / Android a Google product

Hello!
   
Yes I know that I said in my last post that I wasn't going to post again in Blogger... I decided to post one last time because of several emails that I have received about why I am done with the New Google Interface and Google in general.  Here is why I hate Google and the Blogger interface that they have destroyed.

I'm not going to elaborate much so here is the simple explanation in no particular order:

1) The New Interface Is Hard To Read: The new Google interface is all white space with black text making it hard on the eyes especially in low light, which is how I like to use the computer in the evening. I can't easily see what I am typing. The eye strain is obvious (unless you work for Google). Why do this, let's make it hard for everyone to read!!!!!

2) The menus are down the left side instead of across the top, a very unnatural place to look for stuff. Don't we all gravitate to the top of the window to look for "File" or "Edit" or any other common task? It's become natural to scan the top of the page or window to look for the options that are available...  let's "Save" what we are doing (look to the top of the window); "Edit" the text or font (look to the top of the window)... Or... "I want to do something... it should be in the Tool's menu.... at the top.... where the hell is it????... not at the top!!! It's down the side!!!".... Why???

3) All the menu selections are now different. OK I get it, lets take what used to be at the top and put it down the left side of the window... But wait, you didn't do that did you? What used to be a simple click at the top is now buried in some complicated maze of stupidity in your "improved" left hand side bar menu system. Why?? Please tell me why you would do this?

4) Login page. The "blogs I follow" info is bigger and takes up more screen space than my own blog information when I log in. Why is that? Did I log in to see what my buddies are writing or did I login in to create a new post. This is after all about what I want to write about.
Google think tank: "Let's put all the stuff our user's friends are writing about on our users home page because we think our user wants to see that"... When I log in I want to see what is going on with my blog first, everyone else can wait until I'm ready to click on something (CLICK AT THE TOP) and see what other Bloggers are writing about.
Why can't I see on my own login page my own Blog info? Why???

 - Side note: Blogging is a Web Log about me (or you) want to write about. Blogs that I follow are secondary, in other words when I log in TO MY BLOG I expect to see info about MY BLOG and not other people, I can and will get to them later (Unless I use a Google product, because then I have to see everything BUT then things I want to see).... WHY?????

5) Scroll bar and Omnibar. Do you use Google chrome? Good luck if you do. Chrome has a very stupid and annoying scroll bar that is inverted in relation to every sane person in the world (unless you are a idiot). The scroll bar is "dark" where you have to click to scroll, exactly backwards from every other software product I have ever used.
Here is what this amounts to:
Google engineer says " Lets be different and mix it up a bit, lets invert the colors on the scroll bar, everyone will love it"...
A real world example: "Let's reverse the gas and brake pedals in the car we are building, everyone will love it"

Insert frustration, car crashes, cuss words and...

6) The Google Omnibar.... lets not even talk about it.... one word: WHY????? Fill in for me what I typed yesterday??????? REALLY????????

7) Another thing about Google and in this case Andriod...  Here is an example from my phone right now:
Today is Thursday July 5th at 5:11pm
My phone's call Log says I had a call: "incoming call - 2 days ago" When I click on that call the call details say the call was actually made on Sunday July 1st at 8:42pm.
So in other words the call wasn't received "2 days ago" it was received 5 days ago. The call log is wrong! Thanks Google!
This makes the call log useless for me. I have to open the call log and click on Details for every call to see when it was actually made if I want to know when a call was placed or received.

So am I upset at Google, am I upset at Andriod??? AM I upset at both?? Is the new Google Blogger interface all that bad?

Maybe... or maybe it is just me. If the user interfaces for Google products actually made sense to someone like me, an average user, then I could accept the change and improvements with all their bugs and problems...

Unfortunately this isn't the case. Google has across the board created an online environment isn't user friendly, is overly complex to use for what it does and all around "broken what didn't need to be fixed".

Blogger wasn't perfect my any means but now it is trash thanks to the Google team 'Improvements'. Honestly if Goggle had come in a simply fixed what was wrong with Blogger (a few minor tweaks) I would be right there with them cheering them on, even if there were a few bugs.

But because Google decided to change everything and in the process mess up things that used to work, change around menus that were easy to use, move simple "one click" tasks down to places I don't want to click... and gave me a phone that has a useless and messed OS... instead of making things easier, rather they have made things harder...

Because of everything they have done, I am done with Google.
   

Google I hate you...

GOOGLE,

Thank you for changing everything about Blogger. Thank you for changing the login and the interface that I am now using. I have to say that I HATE YOU GOOGLE.
You are arrogant in your actions, arrogant with your customers, and especially arrogant and stupid with your customer feedback. This is clear if anyone goes to the Google 'help' or ever asks you a question, we can see the thousands of people that hate what you are doing and are asking you to change. You ignore them, you ignore the feedback from the people that are trying to use your products.

GOOGLE, everything that you have done does not add to the experience of using Blogger, it detracts from it.

I would like to update my Blog today and that is all. I WOULD NOT like to learn how to use a new interface to update my blog. With the old interface I could write about what I was doing in a few minutes. Today I have to learn a bunch of new things to write my Blog. New things that will do the same thing that the old ones did without any improvement. I'll spend my time today catering to your idiotic and arrogant new ideas rather than writing about what I was doing. I have decided that I will not do that.

I am done with GOOGLE.

I am through with your stupidity, your arrogant attitude and your so called 'improvements'. I will never use a Google product again.

This is my last post. Goodbye.

Otto Belden

USS Iowa in Richmond CA

A few of weeks ago I visited the USS Iowa anchored in Richmond CA. The USS Iowa is a battleship that not only served in several wars but also has a unique history. Currently out of service the ship is being renovated to be a history museum and ultimately will be anchored in Southern California. My family and I decided that while the ship was in Richmond we should take the opportunity to go see her. Below are a few photos that I took while we were on board. Unfortunately only the bow of the ship was open to the public but just having the opportunity to go on board was outstanding!

  

Update On What I have Been Up To

It must be obvious by now that I have not been updating my Blog for a couple of weeks (maybe more?!). In the past I have been pretty regular with my posts publishing about one a week. Recently that steady stream has stopped because I have not had any spare time to mess around since Christmas. I have been busy with other things and have not had the time to do any projects or experiment in the garage :-(
   
I do have some projects that I was working on and I have received some emails asking me to add more detail and explain some of the things that I have done. I'm going to answer those emails with new Blog posts and finish the projects that are in the works - stay tuned!! I'll have some new info soon!
Check back and you will be surprised... :-)

Thanks for reading my Blog and continuing to read it!

 - Otto Belden

Toyota Highlander Door Panel Lights

I was driving the other night down a dark road and I tried to adjust the mirrors of my Toyota Highlander. I couldn't see the mirror adjust switch, I know more or less where it was but it was so dark I couldn't find the switch. A similar experience happened to me after I got in my car in a parking lot and wanted to lock the doors, I couldn't see the door lock rocker switch and although I knew where it was and I pressed it I wasn't sure if I had locked or unlocked the doors. The Toyota Highlander switches aren't lighted! Today I fixed that by adding a couple of small lights to illuminate the dash area to the left of the Toyota steering column and the drivers side door panel. This little project was a pretty straight forward thing to do and it turned out pretty nice. I only wish that Toyota had added lights to these switches on the base model so I didn't have to do this.

   

The first thing that I did was lift up the switch panel in the drivers door using a guitar pick to pry up the panel. A guitar pick (or a the corner of a credit card) works nicely to lift up car trim because it won't mark of mess up the plastic panels. The switch panel lifts up and unsnaps from the rear.

    

2009 Toyota Highlander Drivers Switch Panel

Once I had the switch panel lifted up I removed it and released the harness from a plastic retainer inside the door. Releasing the harness didn't disconnect it from the switch panel, it just freed up some slack in the wired so I could pull the panel out. The switch panel has a bunch of wires of various gauges going into it and I probed around with my meter to find a couple that had power when the engine was running.

Happy New Year (Merry Christmas too)

I have not posted here in a couple of weeks because I have been really busy with the holidays and working. Those two things have prevented me from doing any experiments, projects or writing new posts. This weekend is of course New Years and Last weekend Christmas so I just want to say Happy To You for both those events. I'll have something new next week, so check back then!

Meanwhile you can always read about some of the other things that I have built by clicking HERE. Enjoy!

 - Otto

GD&T Concentricity, Is It Round?

I want to write about several simple Geometric Dimensioning concepts that I have seen misused, misunderstood and misapplied over the years. It all boils down to things that are supposed to be round. Concentricity, Roundness, Cylindricity, Axis as a Datum and the list goes on and on... Is it round? I think that a lot of folks get these concepts wrong because "round" seems so simple on the surface but when you get into the details it's not that straight forward... or is it? Actually it is pretty simple if you slow down and think about it. The first idea is: Where is the axis of something that is round? Take a look at the picture below and let me know if this makes sense.

 

A Right and Wrong way To Establish A Datum
(Click on the image for a bigger view!)

     

In the top of the picture there is Datum A that is placed incorrectly on the axis of the part. I have seen this done so many times and it makes no sense! In the lower picture the datum is placed on a diameter. Why is it wrong to place the Datum on the axis? In the real world there is no ONE center axis of any part with multiple diameters and there is no 'Datum Axis' in this case. Which axis is the datum? In the lower part of the picture above it is clear which axis is the Datum because the Datum is on a round surface. That surface is creating the Datum axis. Because there are several surfaces on this part there is no way to know which axis is the datum in the top picture. Have a look at the picture below to see what I mean.

Eucalyptus Walking Stick With Epoxy

I spent a lot of time this week doing things other than working on my projects so I'm going to write a brief post about a walking stick that I made not too long ago. This is a stick that my son and I found while walking around a creek near our house. There are a lot of eucalyptus trees in the area and also a lot of sticks naturally. This stick is about an inch in diameter (more or less) and about 4 feet long. The end that eventually became the handle was "crackled" and dark as if it had been used as a poker in a fire.

   

My son and I thought that it looked neat and we walked around with it all day. Since there are so many sticks around the creek area there we figured that taking one home wouldn't be a problem. Once we got it home we sanded it smooth and got all the loose bark off of it.

   

Walking Stick With Epoxy Back Fill

Once we got all the loose stuff off with rough sanding and a stiff wire brush we did a bit more smooth sanding with #200 grit sandpaper. There are a lot of neat little crackled features (and a few big cracks) in the stick that made it a bit rough ever after the sanding. To fill those in we mixed up some grey two part epoxy and smeared it all over the wood, working it into the cracks and leaving it as smooth as we could leave it with gloved hands.

    

Click the jump below to read a little bit more and for a close up picture of the handle end of the stick.

     

Homemade Lab Jack (Part 2)

I have almost finished the Lab Jack that I started recently, actually it is done and it works! I wrote a PART 1 post about his project and I recommend that you read it if you are interested in how this got going and why I built it. I decided to build this after I looked around for commercially available products and decided that they were too expensive or not big enough for what I wanted. Besides, if you build it yourself it is exactly what you want! Below is a picture of the completed lab jack extended to over 12 inches in height.

     

My Home Built Lab Jack

Can it go higher than twelve inches? Yes it can but it gets really unstable due to the 'play' in the hinges. I'm going to fix that and I'll write a post about how I fixed it soon. This project worked out better than I expected. It's very easy to raise the height by turning the adjustment knob (detailed below) from the lowest height of 2-1/4" all the way up to where you see it in the picture. The only problem is in the 'slop' in the hinges that I used to make it. Being the first Lab Jack that I have built I have to call this a success.

   

Check out THIS LINK to see some of the other stuff I have built.

Homemade Lab Jack (Part 1)

This is a rather ambitious project and by ambitious I mean it might not work. On many occasions I have needed to adjust the height of something, usually a camera, in very fine increments. A tripod works really good for that and I have one... but a lab jack would be much better so I decided to build one. Also a lab jack is a nice thing to have!

      

There are three industry standard approaches to designing a lab jack. One is THIS where there is a scissor lift that has to slide in a track relative to the platforms. One disadvantage is that it becomes less stable as the height grows. Another design is the Dual Pantograph like THIS that is a bit more stable but requires a lot more linkage's. A much more stable design uses three linkage hinge's in THIS type of configuration. With this one there are two opposing linkages and a third to add stability. This last configuration is what I decided to build.

   

Homemade Lab Jack

The above picture shows how much progress I have made at this point. Not much! You can see the opposing hinge systems and the location of where the third will be. The wood that I am using is Baltic Birch plywood, the same wood that I used in my clock. There is a 1/4-20 all thread bolt running through the hinges and that was the tricky part of this project.

Wind Tunnel Smoke Generator

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the details of my home made wind tunnel and I wanted to add some recent modifications I made to the smoke generator system. The smoke generator that I am using is a Halloween fog generator and I modified it by attaching a hose to the outlet (and rewired it!). There are some details about that in THIS post. I had a problem with that setup because the smoke (or fog if you want to call it that) coming out of the generator was hot and it melted the plastic tubing that I had attached to the generator. Check out the post above that I linked to for details. A second problem was that the smoke was being blasted right through the wind tunnel in bursts. I only had a few seconds to make an observation with smoke! Another problem that I had was the liquid that is used to make the fog was condensing in the tube that I attached to the output and that condensed liquid was filling the tube and creating back pressure. The tube was essentially being blocked by the condensed liquid, getting hot and finally burst. I decided that I wasn't going to run this smoke system any longer without addressing those issues (and cleaning up my garage).

  

Smoke Generator Accumulator Tank

What I came up with is shown in the picture above. I got a 3 gallon plastic paint bucket and attached a couple of barb fittings to the lid. On one of the barb fittings I ran some 3/8" fuel line hose from the smoke generator and on the other fitting the plastic hose feeds the wind tunnel. You can see the wind tunnel in the lower right corner of the above picture.

Electric Bike Design

I wrote a post HERE in September about a electric bike that I designed, the E-Moto Monterey Electric Bike. There were a couple of pictures from the Las Vegas Interbike trade show that looked nice but didn't really highlight the unique features that this bike has. Below are some better shots of the finished product and some comparisons to the original CAD design that I did using SolidWorks.

   

Monterey Electric Bike (real photo!)

 

Monterey Electric Bike (CAD Model)

You can see some differences if you look really close between the CAD model design and the finished product. In case you can't see the differences I have more closeup pictures below!

Wind Tunnel Details

I was sick with the flu this week so I didn't get very much done. I really wanted to do some more experiments with the Plasma Actuator that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago HERE but due to the illness and the cold spell we have had recently I stayed out of the garage. Because of several emails that I have received asking about the wind tunnel, I decided to write a little about the wind tunnel that I built and used for those tests. HERE is the original post that I wrote about building the wind tunnel that has most of the construction details. Below is a picture of the results that I got with the tunnel.

 

Airfoil Plasma Actuator in my Wind Tunnel

In order to see the airflow I added smoke (fog) to the airstream using a Gemmy Fog Machine. HERE is a link to their website for the model that I picked up at WalMart for about $25.00. The Fog Machine heats up and sprays a mist of glycol and water for about 60 seconds into a heating tube and the result is fog. As the mist is sprayed into the heating tube the tube cools down and the machine stops spraying until the tube can heat up again. I didn't like that so I took the Fog Machine apart and modified it so that it produces fog when I press the button and stops when I release the button. It's always fun to take apart brand new stuff!

GD&T: Multiple Datum's Referenced, More Than One Datum?

Datums referenced on a drawing using Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing can be really confusing, even on simple parts! When you get right down to it Datums are not that difficult to understand when you consider what they are used for. I have received several questions about Datums, why and how they are used and why use more than one. I'm going to answer those questions using a simple part that has one hole and has three Datums referenced. But before I go into the explanation about multiple Datums I recommend that you read THIS post I wrote about a parts size and how the dimensions tolerances determine what a part can actually look like. For a quick review there are THESE posts that I wrote about Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing Basic concepts. This post is a quick overview of the basic concepts of using multiple Datums. There is a lot more to Datums than what I'm writing about here and I'll get into those more complicated concepts later!

     

Lets start with a simple drawing of a part that has one hole in it and the hole is positioned in relation to three Datums.

 

Simple Part with Multiple Datums

The drawing above has a hole in it that is True Position to three Datums in this order: A B C. The reference to Datum A is holding the location and orientation of the center axis of the hole to Datum A (bottom surface). Take a look at THIS picture from an old post if that doesn't make sense. Another way to look at this is Datum A is the surface that someone is going to measure the perpendicularity of the hole to. So Datum A in this case is a place to start taking measurements. We'll start taking measurements with Datum A because it's the first Datum and we will continue measuring the part with the remaining two Datums in order from left to right. The Datums don't have to go in alphabetical order, they are in used in the order that you reference them when you measure the part. The important thing to remember is Datums are used to measure a part.

   

So what are the other two Datums doing? I'll explain the below... ;-)

Plasma Actuator Airfoil Wind Tunnel Testing

This week I built a Plasma Actuator in the shape of a crude airfoil and tested it in my Homemade Wind Tunnel. Plasma Actuators are research devices that use an electric field to change the characteristics of gas flow near a surface. In this experiment I was trying to get the airflow over the top of the airfoil (wing) to adhere to the surface of the airfoil when it normally wouldn't. Separation of the airflow over the top of a wing causes the lift generated by the wing to be reduced resulting in a stall. Before I talk more about what I built let me put a couple of pictures that I took from my experiment to help explain what I'm writing about.

   

Airfoil in Wind Tunnel Plasma Actuator Off

   

Airfoil in Wind Tunnel Plasma Actuator On

   

The above pictures were taken one after the other with the same airflow, the only difference between the two is in the lower picture the Plasma Actuator is turned on. In the lower picture the flow over the top of the wing is much smoother than in the top picture and is adhering to the top of the wing. Read more below for some details about the Plasma Actuator that I built and a video of it running.

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing: Position, Zero Tolerance and Material Condition

I have written a few posts about Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) basics and I want to write another one about a topic that is probably the most often question asked of me: Zero Tolerance dimensions. The name Zero Tolerance is confusing to some folks because as we all know "every dimension must have a tolerance" so what is a Zero Tolerance dimension? Does that mean that the part has to be perfect? Why would anyone put a Zero Tolerance on a drawing? I'm going to try and answer those questions in simple steps starting with a quick review of Material Conditions because you can't have a Zero Tolerance on a drawing without specifying a Material Condition. If you haven't read my other posts about Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing I suggest that you do by clicking HERE and reading the posts related to GD&T. At a minimum read the posts about Material Condition and True Position. One thing I want to mention is my intent here is to explain the concepts in simple terms and avoid all the esoteric 'advanced concepts' that you will find in other places on the net. I get questions from friends and colleagues who are not familiar with GD&T and I try to answer those questions as simply as I can. Once someone understands the basics the more complex concepts are easier to get. If you are not familiar with a Zero Tolerance here is a drawing that is using it.

Drawing With Zero Tolerance

Before I start talking about Zero Tolerances I want to talk briefly about Material Condition because the concept of material condition is key in understanding Zero Tolerances. I'm going to go fast so if you want a better and more detailed explanation of Material Conditions read THIS post that I did awhile ago. Here we go! The Material Condition concept is a fancy way to think about how big or small a particular Feature of a part is. There are three material conditions and two types of Features. The three Material Conditions are: Maximum Material Condition or MMC, Least Material Condition or LMC and Regardless of Feature Size or RFS. The two types of Features are: Internal (like a hole) and External (like a block). When considering Zero Tolerances the only Material Conditions that are important and MMC and LMC so I'll skip RFS here.

San Francisco Fleet Week

I like airplanes, ships and standing in long lines fun day trips and I got my fill this weekend. So I went to the 2011 San Francisco Fleet Week on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and I took a bunch of pictures, I'm going to put a few of the good ones here. The USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) were two of the most notable ships there as well as the Blue Angles and many other aircraft. There are tons of pictures, news articles and info. about San Francisco Fleet week on line so I'm not going to put a lot of that here. If you want to know more about SF Fleet Week Google it. Because this Blog is about the things that I am doing I'll stick to what I did. BTW: I am still working on the wind tunnel that I wrote about last week but I don't have a lot of progress to write about.

      

To get to San Francisco we took the East Bay Ferry from Oakland to San Francisco. This is the way to go to avoid traffic and standing on BART. We left Oakland and went straight to San Francisco. On the return trip I took the picture below of a crane on the Alameda waterfront. I thought it looked neat with the moon right off the end of the crane boom.

Alameda Pier Crane

Old mechanical stuff like that looks neat and I really like the picture so I put this one first. It's rusted and looks like it's about to fall over but it appears to be in service. The Ferry leaves from the post of Oakland and I have only one interesting picture of the ship that is right next to the ferry.

Homemade Wind Tunnel for Plasma Actuator Testing

I finally got around to putting the wind tunnel together, well actually it's a breeze tunnel. There isn't much of a wind blowing through it! After looking at the performance of the Bladeless Fan I built I decided that it was going to  create a higher airflow than I need for the Plasma Actuator experiments that I want to do, so I decided to slow it down a bit and use a small DC fan. The DC fan is easier to use because I can control the speed of the air with a variable power supply and the airflow from the Bladeless fan just dropped off all together when I lowered the input air. This wind tunnel is only to do some experiments with the Schlieren setup I built and High Voltage and a low velocity and variable airflow is what I need. Before I built this wind tunnel I did a lot of reading on line and found some plans from a NASA wind tunnel site describing a small classroom wind tunnel for students to build as well as a lot of very technical information about "real" wind tunnel design. As I mentioned above my wind tunnel is more of a breeze tunnel so I didn't need a lot of the flow control, settling areas and velocity constrictions. I just need something to provide a smooth flow of air past a viewing area. Below is what I came up with.

Homemade "Suck Down" Wind Tunnel

In the picture above the airflow is right to left, the fan is on the left, the view area is in the middle where the glass windows are and the inlet air goes into the right side. Because the fan is downstream of the test area this is considered to be a "suck down" tunnel. One advantage of a "suck down" tunnel is the turbulence and chopped up air created by the fan isn't blowing over the test area. Smooth air is sucked past the viewing area. Click below to read more!

Interbike 2011 Bike Show and the E-Moto Monterrey Bike that I designed

The Las Vegas Interbike trade show happened on September 14-16 at the Sands Expo and Convention center. One of the (best) electric bikes shown there was the e-Moto Monterey electric bike that I co-designed in SolidWorks with a friend of mine. Although I wasn't able to go to the show I thought that I would write a blog post about the bike since I had a hand in creating it. Have a look at the pictures below of the Interbike show bike and the CAD model that I made to design the bike.

    

e-Moto Monterrey at the Interbike 2011 show
      

SolidWorks CAD model of the e-Moto Monterey bike

Details of the bike and all it's features are below. I did the entire design in SolidWorks 2009. A friend of mine who is familiar with the bike industry and trends was advising and critiquing along the way.

    

Bladeless fan construction

Yes I am building a wind tunnel... and the biggest problem in doing so is getting rid of turbulence from the air source, in this case a fan. So to do that I am building a fan (air source) that should have a limited amount of disturbed air. What I want is a smooth airflow into the test area and a bladeless fan seems to be the obvious choice..

      

I built a fan like this before HERE but didn't provide too many details of the construction. This time I built a slightly bigger fan and have provided all the details in a neat video.

   

Enjoy!

      

        

Email me with questions or leave a comment... There is a lot more to come on this topic so stay tuned...