Zerobrains

Well. Thank God for the internet and for the fine people who make it work. Today, as I was driving my Cherokee home the turn signals went out on it. So I checked the fuses, and they were fine. Someone recommended that I check all the wiring to make sure that there isn’t a short. That sounded like a lot of unnecessary labor. Then I searched online….

The first results said it’s a flasher relay, however, when I went to look for this flasher relay I couldn’t find it. Some people said that they had a round, silver relay. Others had a cube. They differed on where to look for the relay. Then I saw a link on Youtube for a 2001 Cherokee Sport relay, and there was the answer, and it was insanely simple, and it didn’t require any crawling under the dash. The whole part of the dash under the steering wheel comes off with 5 Phillips head screws. You remove 3 along the bottom of the plastic cover, and then you just pull back on the top of the cover, right under the wheel, and it comes right out. This will reveal a steel cover that is held up by two screws near the top on each side of the steering wheel. The steel cover then pulled out. The bottom of it actually has two tabs that slide into slots.

Then, under the headlight knob, in the space behind the dash, was a part with foam wrapped around it. This had my relay. I carefully removed the foam, which is just held on with adhesive tape or something and set it aside. I figure the foam is there to prevent rattling so I wanted to keep it. The relay is a gray cube that attaches to a black connector with about 5 wires or so. It pulled off of that connector. Be careful with this since the whole thing is suspended by a clip or something, which I really didn’t see very well. The relay fits very tightly. I used a screwdriver to gently pry it off.

I then took this part to Autozone, where they performed a search for the part. The recommended part, based on the part number he typed in, was $52. I explained that others suggested it would only be $15. The employee quickly came out from behind the counter and looked on the shelf for a part that looked similar. Once he found that he went back and checked the vehicle information to make sure it would work. It did. This part was $14.99. This is the part. I popped it in while in their parking lot, and my turn signal and hazard lights started working. Satisfied I returned home and spent a few minutes restoring the dash.

Oh, yeah. Here’s the video (by Youtuber unpescad0, not me) that shows you pretty much where to look. It’s a 2001, but the operation turned out to be the same for my 2000.

Yesterday I had seen a video on Youtube about Girl Scout cookies. In the video he remarks about the cost being $4/box, but it’s not just the cost of the cookies that seemed to have prompted the video. It’s the fact that the local Girls Scout troop received very little of the proceeds from the sale of the cookies. He learned that most of the profit goes to the national organization.

I can’t remember a single time in the last 15 years when I ordered Girl Scout cookies and actually received my order. They usually just sold the cookies to someone else after taking delivery and they never bothered to call when the cookies arrived. It’s not just one time. It’s every time. When I was able to purchase the cookies I had to settle for what they had left, which sometimes included the Thin Mints that I had ordered, but when that happened it was a single box. I faithfully placed an order when asked, and offered to pay for the cookies, but they could not be bothered to deliver them. It seemed like an odd practice. Now that we find out that the local troop receives very little in return it became apparent why. They simply didn’t care.

Some of you may be shaking your heads thinking that I’m being unfair, but this was a consistent experience from multiple people, some of whom are relatives. That brings me to the next point. They are expensive. Very expensive. We had a store nearby called Big Lots. I ventured into that store one day and much to my surprise there were Girl Scout cookies on the shelf. Well, they dind’t say they were Girl Scout cookies, but they looked like Girl Scout cookies. They had Thin Mints and Samoas, but they were called something else. Besides the artwork, the packaging was identical, or at least you could easily mistake these for Girl Scout cookies. The big difference was price. They were 99 cents. Woohoo! Not only that, but Big Lots actually wanted to sell them to me. They didn’t hide them or give them to their friends before allowing the order to be fulfilled. They simply rang up the order and bagged them. What a treat!

I don’t mind supporting the various organizations that kids find themselves involved in. I usually get little in return for doing so, but am happy to contribute. When I was a kid the people of the neighborhood were always supportive and I believe in supporting kids today in the same way, but I believe that most of the profits should remain with the local group. It seems unrealistic to expect the cost of producing and delivering a $4 box of cookies with volunteer labor to be $3.50 per box. Walmart and other stores are able to deliver the same product for under $2. Maybe I’ll take the suggestion of some of the viewer comments and simply make a donation when asked and get the Thin Mints and Caramel Coconut Fudge thingies at the local store. That way there’s no expectation that busy mothers should be responsible for fulfilling orders, which is what it really boils down to. They can accept donations and be done with it. We get cookies all year, and they have less to worry about. Now just come by and hit me up for ten bucks and we’ll all be happy.

Card Services, Cardholder Services, Cardmember services..

We have sent you several notices. This is your final chance blah blah blah

They say the same thing all the time. This company is calling my mobile phone and I found out who they are and I’m thinking of filing a law suit against them. My number has been registered for over a year on the Federal do not call registry, but they’re calling anyway. Premiere Debt Solutions.

If they’re calling you go collect the $500 each time they call.

Well, I commented before about Lights of America and the junk LEDs that flooded the market, via Sam’s Club and Costco, but have since seen better examples. I was in Lowe’s last week and took a few minutes to look over their LED selection. They have excellent quality bulbs that are roughly 30% more efficient than comparable CFLs. This isn’t the same great jump that CFLs are compared to incandescents, but it’s still a very nice power savings. The nice thing about these bulbs which, with a couple of actual bulblike versions, were mainly floodlights of some sort or another, is that they seem to be able to very efficiently put the light exactly where you want it.

I seriously considered buying one to replace the outdoor CFL reflector bulb that I’m currently using to light the driveway. This was a very high quality LED lamp with a large heatsink and several large LEDs, The light color and the rated lumen output was good, and the power usage was roughly 60-70% of the CFL. The CFL that I was looking to replace produces nice light, but much of it flies straight up to the sky or off to the side. The shape of the bulb permits this. The LED, by contrast, would unload all of its light right where I want it instead of wasting it on things that don’t need to be lit. This alone makes it worthy of consideration, but there was one problem. High quality LEDs are still a small fortune.

This flood light was over $40.

Maybe next year.

I read this story at the NY Times site about the FTC suing Lights of America for hyping the garbage light bulbs they have been selling in stores, such as Sam’s Club.

LoA is crying about it, claiming that the FTC and DOE are “trying to make us a poster child”.

LofA needs to be made a poster child. I bought their misadvertised junk bulbs before. The ones I bought were grossly overpriced and were only suitable as night lights. They are overhyped as well. They claimed that the lights matched a certain wattage, but they didn’t put out enough light to read by and they had a noticeable flicker. This junk shouldn’t even be on the market yet. They’re clearly not living up to expectation, but they’re being made to look like popular decorative bulbs in the hopes that people will overspend for them when there are better alternatives available.

You won’t get your clear globes for the bathroom in a CFL, and if you do it’s certain to be ugly, but they do make frosted globes available that work nicely and they really do save energy. CFL’s and other gas lamps have been improving in efficiency, appearance and light quality for the last several years and are currently at a performance and price point where they make total sense for most people. They turn on at nearly full brightness (unless you buy the cheap ones) and they produce nice light for various tasks. Whiter/bluer for shop lighting and warmer light for the living space. The decent bulbs last a long time as well. I have several that are pushing two years, whereas before I was replacing incandescents in the same fixtures every couple of months.

Some people are afraid of CFL’s for whatever reason, but the fact is that they’re reliable with improved quality, reasonably priced and require changeout far less than incandescents while using about 25% of the power as a comparable incandescent.

Until LEDs can say the same I’ll stick with the CFLs. They’re working great.

Stuck in software limbo. Nobody can do everything you would like to see. One instance is OneNote for Microsoft Office.

It doesn’t sync with the iPhone. Deadly.

Alternative. Evernote. Evernote doesn’t have subfolders. Deadly.

Two software titles that together would make a great piece of software, but the way they are neither is completely functional. I don’t know how difficult it would be for Evernote to implement subfolders, but I know that the iPhone app would not break MS bank. They’re just being greedy. As soon as Evernote is fully functional I would gladly become an evangelist, and have even considered making templates and macros for OOo to make it suck less. MS is walking a tightrope and they’re going to fall if they keep this up.

OK. Don’t worship Apple, but they replaced my iPhone within the 1st year after the screen began to flake out. I called 2 days before the warranty was set to expire and learned that I could extend the AppleCare support for another year for $65 or whatever. It was cheap enough.

ATT did not want to touch my phone and their service is typically poor anyway. I had one of two choices. I could risk fixing it myself or I could break down and call Apple. After learning that the most I would have to pay Apple would be $200, no matter what happened to the phone, I called. They listened, explained that it was still under Applecare for 2 more days, were extremely helpful and friendly, and they sent a replacement that was here in a few days. During that time the phone magically came back to life, sort of. The screen had lines all over it, but the phone worked. No charge.

They sent a nice shipping box, with a label, etc. I was able to nuke my old phone settings and information, transfer it all to the new phone, register the new phone, and send the old phone off in a day. You have to return your old iPhone very quickly or they’ll charge you $600 instead of $0 – $200. I chose the cheaper route and prepared the anointing of the sick for my ill friend, carefully wrapped it in the packaging, and shipped it off with love to Apple who will make sure it wasn’t my fault, and then proceed to find out what happened.

Glee ensued as I slipped my new assistant into my pocket and resumed life. The iPhone makes that big of a difference and is that useful.