by

The best mouse for Kodi Android TV boxes is the Logitech M325. No drivers are required, and it is truly plug-and-play.  I have tested the M325 on various Kodi boxes such as the TopYart T95X TV Box Android 6.0, And A95X NEX TV Box running Android 6.0, Minix TV box, and it even works on Sony Android TV such as the XBR X800D or X800E series TVs, no drivers required, plug-and-play.  It is also a great travel-sized mouse for use on laptops, not too small in the hand.

by

I have tested the Logitech K400 Plus TV keyboard with the Sony Bravia XBR TVs, and it works flawlessly.  Simply plug the USB dongle into the TV, it is truly plug-and-play, no drivers are required to install. Go into the TV settings and select “physical keyboard” and then the keyboard language, and you are ready to go. All of the buttons map correctly.  The keyboard has arrow keys and a touch pad as well, all working.  The shortcut keys along the top of the keyboard are all correctly mapped and work, for such functions as back, home, volume, etc.

Continue Reading Wireless keyboard that works best with Sony Android TVs
by 19 comments on "Logitech K400 Plus did not come with a USB dongle? Wait!! It’s hidden in the box!!"

If you’re like me you just bought the Logitech K400 Plus or K360 for your smart TV and you’ve gone through everything and there is no USB dongle. You’re just about to return it to the store.  You checked inside the battery compartment, and the dongle is not in there in that slot where it is meant to be stored.  Well I’ve got good news for you. They have hidden it in the box where you would not expect!!

Continue Reading Logitech K400 Plus did not come with a USB dongle? Wait!! It’s hidden in the box!!
by

If you leave your laptop plugged in a lot, and you own the MSI GS60 laptop or similar such as the 2PC 2PL 2QE 6QE 6QC MS-16H2 PX60 or 3ICP5/40/99-2 series laptop, chances are the battery will begin to bulge after a couple of years. Unfortunately MSI does not provide software for some models of laptop to prevent the battery from charging past 80%, thus reducing the useful lifespan of the battery. When the battery starts bulging, this is dangerous as there is a chance that it could explode, even if the battery still appears to be working normally.  The bulging battery could also cause further harm to the structure of your laptop if you let it continue to bulge as I have shown in photos here.  You should immediately remove the battery carefully not to damage it during removal, dispose of it safely at your local hazardous goods disposal drop-off location, and replace the battery with another if you like.  MSI no longer sells or ships the original battery (model BTY-M6F), so you must obtain it from 3rd party sellers such as on eBay or Amazon.  I was lucky to find it for cheap here on Amazon, they sell for about $60 if you get a good deal.

Continue Reading MSI Ghost Pro GS60 laptop is warped because of bad battery – step-by-step how to replace the battery
by 14 comments on "How to avoid Paypal currency conversion / foreign exchange fees on eBay for international purchases"

By default, Paypal wants to do the foreign exchange conversion of your payment for you because Paypal pockets ~2.5% from your purchase, just like most credit cards would anyway. However, if you use a credit card that has no foreign exchange fees, you want to be billed in the currency of the seller when using Paypal on eBay for example.  In Canada the Chase Amazon.ca Visa card has no forex fees and 1% cash back.  In the USA and other countries there are similar cards available. Below are the steps to set up Paypal so that you pay in the seller’s currency on your credit card.

Continue Reading How to avoid Paypal currency conversion / foreign exchange fees on eBay for international purchases
by 14 comments on "How to fly and store your motorcycle overseas for touring, without using a shipping company, cheaply"

Ship your own motorcycle overseas by plane, don't get scammed by the shipping companies.

In this blog post I will explain the steps required to ship your motorcycle overseas yourself and details about registration and insurance, required paperwork and preparation of the bike.

Continue Reading How to fly and store your motorcycle overseas for touring, without using a shipping company, cheaply
by

In large Excel workbooks when you are executing VB macros that change cells in sheets, you can speed up the process significantly by turning workbook calculations off at the begining of your subroutine, and then back on again at the end. Here are some subs that can do this. Simply call the “Calc_Off” sub at the beginning of your code, and the “Calc_On” sub at end end:

Sub Calc_Off()
  Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End Sub

Sub Calc_On()
  Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
End Sub

If you prefer, you can manually turn automatic calculations on and off from Excel's user interface.  From the File menu > Options > Formulas >  (Automatic or Manual calculation options).
by

I’ve tested these in Excel 2010 in sheets with over 16,000 columns and the functions work even for large numbers of columns.

Function ColumnLetterToNumber(ColumnLetters As String) As Long
    ColumnLetterToNumber = Range(ColumnLetters & "1").Column
End Function

Function ColumnNumberToLetters(ColumnNumber As Integer) As String
    Dim strLetters As String
    strLetters = Cells(1, ColumnNumber).Address(1, 0)
    ColumnNumberToLetters = Left(strLetters, InStr(1, strLetters, "$") - 1)
End Function

These functions are not necessary usually, because almost all things in Excel VBA can be done using ranges specified as numbers, for example, 

Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(2,3).Value = "Hello"

Where 2 is the row number, and 3 is the column number, where column 1 corresponds to column A.

by

It’s not usually recommended to use global variables because they make it more difficult for debugging or reading other people’s code.  However, they are handy sometimes when you’re in a rush to get your code done.

At the top of a Module for example, simply type something like these below.  I’ve defined three Pipe Specification variables: two arrays of unknown length and one variable:

Public PipeSpecColNums() As Integer
Public PipeSpecNames() As String
Public LastPipeSpecName As String

You can update the size of the array on the fly in sub routines, like this:

Redim Preserve PipeSpecNames(20) 'Now 21 array entries (0-20),
                                 'and preserves previous items stored.

Redim PipeSpecNames(20)  'changes the size of the array without preserving.
by 525 comments on "Easter island heads have bodies!??"

Excavations of the bodies have been going on for many years, you can find out more from the Easter Island Statue Project.  It’s generally accepted that the statues were made sometime between 1250 and 1500 AD. There is controversy surrounding why the bodies are buried. Was it time and erosion, or were they buried on purpose?  Aliens?   The soil surrounding the bodies for so long has preserved interesting carvings (petroglyphs, or rock markings)..

Continue Reading Easter island heads have bodies!??
by 24 comments on "Easy way to remove the plastic drain valve on a Kenmore Power Miser 9 hot water heater, even if you cracked the flats…"

Plastic drain valve on Kenmore Power Miser 9 hot water heater, how to remove...

Hot water heaters such as the Kenmore Power Miser 9, come with a plastic drain valve that is most likely going to start leaking soon. Mine started leaking at about the 7 year mark, through the plug valve washer, but recently the valve sprung a second leak and was leaking right at the threads so it had to be removed. It is extremely difficult to remove these little bastards without breaking the plastic flats. If you break the thing off at the threads you may need to resort to special tools for removing broken bolts, or even perhaps painstakingly using a hacksaw blade to slowly split the threaded end so you can pry it out. Most likely though you have started to break this on the plastic flats with an adjustable wrench like I did. Anyway, there is an easy solution, don’t break the valve off completely yet with anger! The trick to remove this bastard is to first remove the white/grey knob assembly (by twisting the white part) and valve plug washer… once that is removed, you can then find around your house a metal rod that you can insert into the open hole where the knob/plug assembly used to be… and now with your adjustable wrench and your rod together in each hand, it should turn! You should be able to remove the valve! Even if you cracked the plastic flats slightly trying to remove the valve with your adjustable wrench, this will likely still work like it did for me, I illustrate below…. once it’s off I highly recommend replacing the valve with a standard 3/4″ NPT brass nipple, full-port ball valve, and garden hose adapter as shown in the last image below. These water heaters all use standard 3/4″ NPT fittings which are readily available in your local hardware store, likely even cheaper than the replacement value of the plastic valve from Kenmore, and the brass fittings are a million times better quality and will last much longer. Even if they cost more I still think it’s completely worth the upgrade. In fact, if you buy a new water heater in the future, look for the stupid plastic drain valve and immediately replace it with brass fittings. It will make life easier years down the road. They drain faster too.

Continue Reading Easy way to remove the plastic drain valve on a Kenmore Power Miser 9 hot water heater, even if you cracked the flats…
by 4 comments on "Tax tricks: Join multiple CSV files, remove duplicate lines, and a spreadsheet trick to very quickly sort business transactions by keywords you choose."

Trick for sorting your business expenses using a spreadsheet, quickly

Here is a quick summary of what will be covered in this article, useful for people that own their own small business but do not want to buy specialized financial software:  downloading CSV files of your transactions for bank accounts and credit cards, and how to batch concatenate (join) multiples of them together all at once, how to remove duplicate lines, and finally how using a spreadsheet you can quickly use keywords of your own to sort all of your expenses into categories like meals, entertainment, hotel and travel expenses.  This is not only useful for small businesses but good if you like to keep track of your personal expenses as well.  

Continue Reading Tax tricks: Join multiple CSV files, remove duplicate lines, and a spreadsheet trick to very quickly sort business transactions by keywords you choose.
by 4 comments on "Minimal packing lists and gear suggestions for motorcycle touring – day, multi-day, multi-week, camping, Europe, Thailand…"

Packing too much when traveling is bad, it can limit your options for what you are able to do on a trip because of limited luggage space on a bike.  I’ve compiled some packing lists below for the light traveler.
Also check out my blog post on how to ship your motorcycle overseas.  If you’re interested in such a thing.

Continue Reading Minimal packing lists and gear suggestions for motorcycle touring – day, multi-day, multi-week, camping, Europe, Thailand…
by 6 comments on "How to tighten an old MOEN kitchen sink faucet, where the base flange is loose and wiggles around"

 

loose MOEN kitchen faucet

This isn’t necessarily a very difficult problem to fix, but I thought it was a bit confusing with these old MOEN kitchen faucets.  This particular faucet is about 22 years old.  It has a U-shaped black plastic thing underneath, which at first I thought was missing some screws and thought the missing screws were the reason the thing was loose.  However, that is not the problem at all.

Continue Reading How to tighten an old MOEN kitchen sink faucet, where the base flange is loose and wiggles around
by 5 comments on "How to make your own open dry clutch cover for your Ducati, and tank protector"

Ducati dry open clutch cover

In 2008 I wanted to personalize my Ducati’s dry clutch cover. After looking in the stores I was really disappointed with how expensive the off-the-shelf open clutch covers were, they go for over $200 typically. So I thought to myself, why not just buy a damaged or scratched up clutch cover off of eBay for next to nothing, and build my own??

Continue Reading How to make your own open dry clutch cover for your Ducati, and tank protector
by

 

This isn’t really that difficult of a problem but I thought it was pretty slick and easy so I’m posting this up.  My requirement was that the pots and pans rod must be up and out of sight as shown in the images above, and that the S-hooks must be twisted 90 degrees so that the pans face sideways, and therefore save space.

Continue Reading How to build a pots and pans rack cheaply that spans between two kitchen cabinets, and allows pans to be sideways…
by 123 comments on "Step by step, how to import a motorcycle from the USA into Canada"

I’m tailoring these instructions for people importing motorcycles, but the same steps will almost all apply to importing any other vehicle so if you’re importing a car feel free to read on.  The potential for saving money is good, particularly when the Canadian dollar is strong.  As an Alberta resident, I have imported a new 2007 Ducati 1098 in 2007 from Oregon into Alberta via an Alberta border crossing, and imported a used 2008 Honda CBR1000RR in spring of 2011 from Washington into Alberta through a BC border crossing.  I touch on some of the implications of being a resident of different provinces – you may be charged US sales tax if you are a BC resident for example (unless you buy from a sales-tax free state), or if your province has HST or PST you will have to pay those when crossing which is higher than just GST if you are an Alberta resident.  On each occasion $3000 was saved after all was said and done.  For a little effort and about 2 days of traveling and having a bit of an adventure, I think it is worth it.  Even if I wasn’t buying a motorcycle, the trip itself would have been worth it. I love road trips!  You can either fly down to the USA to get the bike and ride it back using temp registration that the dealership can help you obtain, or you can drive down there in a truck or with a trailer to bring the bike back.  Personally I attached a trailer hitch to my Acura Integra (~$200), and borrowed a very light weight motorcycle trailer from a friend.  Read on for all the steps required to import.

Continue Reading Step by step, how to import a motorcycle from the USA into Canada