With season 4 of Game Of Thrones coming real soon and my old TV getting a bit tired it seemed like time to replace it.
Getting the stand on was the biggest hassle. It’s not really a one-person job.
Have to tidy up a bit.
February 23, 2014
January 27, 2014
New Microwave Combination Oven
After 23 months our previous Microwave Combination Oven died for an unusual reason – the control knob broke making it impossible to set cooking times. For ten pounds more than we paid last time we got an almost identical model except in a black finish and with a different control panel. Why buy the same make again? Because it worked well until the knob broke. The identical model was available but cost twenty pounds more than this one which appears to have exactly the same innards and a different control panel.
December 13, 2013
Powerline 200
So I was down to three 85mbps Homeplugs again which meant the PVR wasn’t connected any more. Replacing a single 85mbps Homeplug was rather expensive as they are obsolete and it would be even worse the next time one blew. So I bit the bullet and got four new 200mbps Homeplugs. These cost me just about £30 for four including delivery from Amazon.
Two twin-packs.
Very compact. I worry about the lack of ventilation given that heat seems to have killed most of my previous 85mbps home plugs but maybe these ones run cooler.
Instead of having to run a setup program you can just run around pressing the little black reset button in the correct fashion to assign a random encryption to the network. So far so good.
September 17, 2013
Sennheiser PSU
My Sennheiser wireless headphones had taken to cutting out (no lights on the base-station) after several hours of use. Unplug it and leave it and they’d be working next day. Since the cheapest part I can replace is the PSU, that’s what I got for £13.75 with next day First Class post delivery. The new wall wart is a switching unit whereas the old one was a heavy copper transformer. It’ll be a while before I know if I’ve cured it as it was an intermittent problem anyway.
August 14, 2013
Approved Food
Another order from Approved Food arrived today. I had some PayPal funds and it was easier to spend them in places that take PayPal than to transfer them out into the bank account. So eBay got several orders as well, and I renewed my F&SF subscription for another two years.
A big box
Containing four smaller boxes
Each of which contains an assortment of weird foodstuffs I bought. Here are 12 soya desserts for £1, three energy drinks for £0.99, sixteen cans of stuffed green olives, half with almonds and half with lobster for 50p a can…
The rest of the olives, 3 cans of tuna for £1.20, 6 cans of sardines in olive oil with hot peppers for 50p a can, a free gift jar of hoi sin sauce, and some loose cupcakes (48 for £1.99).
8 kosher beef flavour vegetarian instant noodle soups for 50p each, 3 twin packs of vegetarian mango jelly for 50p a pack.
The rest of the 10 packs of salted peanuts for 20p each and a box of 15 muffins for £1.49. There were 2 packs of roasted jumbo cashews at 75p each in there too. About 130 things if you count the individually wrapped cakes.
May 31, 2013
Dishwasher Repair
This dishwasher rear rail cap cost £3.45 including delivery. It arrived this morning and I fitted it. Now the top shelf of the dishwasher doesn’t fall off its rails when you pull it out.
June 8, 2012
New Drive
A Seagate 1TB external drive I was using for Time Machine clattered and clanked and died just outside its two-year warranty the other week. Rather than directly replace it I thought I’d get a bigger drive, move everything from my reliable Buffalo 1TB external drive to the new drive and repurpose the Buffalo drive as a Time Machine Drive.
I believe these are discontinued and the remaining stock is on sale while available.
Special Mac edition in aluminium case pre-formatted in hfs+ ready to use.
Power supply and cables.
It looks nice, runs cool and is very quiet.
And its warranty runs until 6/6/2015.
May 26, 2012
New Switch
So I wanted to connect my SKY HD box to the internet to receive the SKY Anytime+ service. I already had a Homeplug behind the home theatre setup providing a connection for the NAS.
So I got this.
Eco-friendly cardboard packaging.
Very small.
All wired up and running.
The wiring behind the TV is a little much.
Two HDMI cables, three ethernet cables, 6 pairs of speaker cables for the 5.1 surround sound, a phone cable, two coaxial cables to the dish, a TOS optical audio link, a stereo feed from the HTIB to the wireless headphone base, three mains power leads and three DC power supply leads. Probably something I forgot.
