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If you can’t see the embedded object below, it’s probably because you don’t have access to Google Wave content since it is still in Beta testing. All I can tell you, is that it’s really cool. If you can get an invite, email me your contact info and I’ll add you to the wave.

A demo of embedding Google Wave code within websites.

Owning the house is turning out to be a LOT of work. My excitement to build my own furniture has been put on hold while necessary repairs and renovations get done. On my “to do list” are a number of items which take priority.

Among them are:
• Installing a new pedestal sink
• Covering up a hole in the roof where birds are trying to nest
• Sealing a small leak above the bay window
• Patching and leveling the floors enough to lay laminate wood flooring above them
• Replacing tiles in the 1st floor bathroom
• Fixing the light above the shower on the 3rd floor
• Installing a new kitchen sink
• Getting the plumbing in the bonus apartment fixed
• Re-repairing the front porch railing
• Putting the doors back in a room we’ve painted
• Moving furniture out of the way to allow painters access to our walls
• Fixing the lawn in both the front and back yards

All that is extra work on top of the full time job and raising a child (both of which are at the top of my priorities list). I don’t mind the work. I even enjoy things like driving screws into floors or walls, trimming grass with a weed whacker or shaping wood with various power tools.

There are however, a number of things that I don’t like. The uncertainty of inexperience is a major one. I worry that what I’m about to do in my home will turn out badly, wasting time and money and generally mucking up the biggest purchase of my life. I don’t like the feeling of potential failure on such a large scale. It makes me gun-shy when starting some of the larger projects. The thought of disappointing my family by doing something wrong weighs pretty heavily on my mind.

Another thing that I don’t like is the whole “typical guy” stereotype. Going to a home improvement center to purchase tools and materials is a necessity of doing repairs and improvements on your home. It isn’t some secret club where guys get to live out their wildest manly fantasies. For me, the closest Home Depot or Lowes is a significant drive away. I don’t like being treated like I’m going for a pleasure cruise when I need to drive to one of these places, find the proper tools and materials, and then lug them all home. This is not my idea of “fun” and it would be really nice if my friends and family stopped acting like I was sneaking off for “me” time when I’m doing all this stuff to make our home better.

My final gripe about “do-it-yourself” projects is the abundance of surprises. The plans I posted here in my last blog for a bed and desk are a great example. When I hit the local Home Depot to pick up the standard lumber pieces I needed, I discovered with great surprise that a board known as a 2×4 or a 1×6 don’t actually measure 2 inches by 4 inches or 1 inch by 6 inches respectively. They are named this way prior to being planed smooth at a lumber mill. After excess wood is shaved off, their dimensions are not only different, but also not guaranteed to be the same from board to board. So my fall back plan is to purchase furniture initially from a “Ikea” type shop then work up to building my own over time from raw lumber which I would plane myself to the right dimensions. This is just one example of surprises though.

After purchasing a ton of laminate planks to redo our floors, I was surprised to discover a very uneven floor which first needed to be repaired. When assembling the pedestal sink for our bathroom, I discovered that the waste pipe was just a bit too short to work. These surprises, both big and small, bring work to a stop, delaying my plans for moving in. Sometimes I’m lacking the right tool to deal with an issue, other times I don’t have the proper materials. My choice then becomes to pay much more for the items at a local hardware shop or drive 15 miles to a home improvement center.

At this point, our new home is in complete disarray, but it continues to improve every few days as I find the time to spend on it. Last week I ripped out carpeting. This week, I’ll be patching floors and hopefully starting the laminate installs. Some pictures of the work in progress can be found below as well as a video tour:

The house came with a decent carpetting, but of course we wanted to get rid of it and make the place our own.

So I ripped up the carpet and found this nightmare below it. Not only are the boards full of cracks and gaps, but the floor is completely uneven, by over an inch and a half.

There was the 50 gallon water heater that was illegally ducted through the side of the house when we bought the place. It was taking up half a closet in the kitchen, next to the back door.

We removed it and replaced it with a wall-mounted tankless water heater which is properly vented through the roof. More of the closet can now be used for pantry storage. While the other half of it, has been converted into a proper entry way to the first floor bathroom. Now our dining room is no longer connected to a toilet.

This is a tour of the place by my son. Enjoy.

This is my second, in a series of blogs I intend to post on the subject of home improvement and “Do-It-Yourself Home Improvements” Please let me know your thoughts and how you’re doing on those DIY project you’ve undertaken, in the comments section below.

I have an excuse. Honest! This past week, my wife entertained a guest from out of town. As a result, my computer access was limited, as was my ability to make a mess and tinker with my modding crap. For these reasons, I had no updates to provide.

Shortly after our guest departed, I got back to work. I finished forming the holes in my glass block reservoir. Now all I have to do is glue the threaded thingies in place and make sure they are watertight. That shouldn’t bee too hard since they already feel rather snug in their holes. My next goal is to figure out a good place to mount my reservoir, pump and radiator. I also purchased a thin sheet of plexi that I need to cut and affix to the sides of my Lubic case. I’m figuring that I can safetly enclose the two sides and the top of it to minimize noise while leaving plenty of air circulating.

So the over-all project has slowly inched toward completion. All the while, I am thinking of the next project. I intend, as cheaply as possible, to create a very simple and kid friendly computer for my son. Yes, he will only turn four in October. It is for this reason, that SIMPLICITY must be key. No unusual startup procedure like my current PC. No exposed hardware. Just a simple box with efficient and fairly quiet hardware inside that can play his games and movies for him so he will STOP ASKING TO USE MY COMPUTER!

Since CHEAP is also important in this project, I am going to shop very carefully over the next several months. For example, on Friday, I purchased the case! Wanna know how much I spent? $0.00! In fact, I bought it for $39.99 and am mailing in a $40 rebate form. So I will get back a penny for getting this case. Now THAT is cheap! I’ll be REALLY impressed with myself if I can somehow put this computer together without spending ANY money. I have until October 3rd to try.

When I receive service that I believe to be exceptional, I make note of it and spread the word as best I can. As an example, the good folks at PolarFlo, from whom I purchased my water blocks for both my CPU and VGA card, are fantastic at serving their customers and making them happy. My experience with them, having experienced a minor leakage problem with one of their blocks, was above and beyond what anyone would normally expect from a vendor. Not only did they FIX my leakage problem, they also sent me an additional water block (a $35 value) absolutely free, without me even asking for it. Then, they helped me reconfigure the hose barbs on their blocks to a more unique and efficient custom setup. Also for free. So if you are looking into buying some blocks for your own water cooling kit, I highly recommend PolarFlo. By the way, several resellers stock their products, but you’ll get the best deal and the best service if you order directly from PolarFlo.

So that’s the good…Now for the bad:

FrozenCPU.com has, in the last week or so, given me problems and then been very shady about fixing those problems. When it comes to purchasing stuff, I do my home work and am very particular about what I buy. Last week when I decided to by the Lubic system I talked about in a previous entry, I looked all over the web for the best prices and to figure out which system I was going to purchase.

FrozenCPU did NOT have the best prices. Nor did they have the best selection. According to their website, they had the system model I was looking for in BLACK. I really wanted the black one because all other sites were only selling the blue one and I figured if everyone else has blue, mine would be more unique. So I ordered from FrozenCPU and spent an extra $20 (including tax, because they were in NY. Sites outside the state don’t charge any tax). A couple of days later when the Lubic box arrived, the parts were BLUE not BLACK!

I was angry that I had paid extra and still gotten the same color as everyone else. On top of that, my order clearly stated “BLACK” not “BLUE” Lubic. I called FrozenCPU the very next day to complain. The guy there said “Oh, sorry. We don’t have any black ones. That blue one was the very last box.” What made me even angrier about this is that I actually CALLED the place to verify they had the model I wanted in the color I wanted BEFORE placing the order! The lubic box has a big window on the front of it and its very easy to see what color the pieces inside are. HOW COULD THEY HAVE MADE SUCH A MISTAKE??

So after explaining the situation to this guy, saying that I wanted a different color and in fact only bought this system from them because they claimed to have what I want, he said there were two options. I could either keep it or send it back and get my money refunded. After a bunch of haggling, I said I would keep it if they credited me the difference between their price and that of the competition.

Anyway, so I kept the blue Lubic parts and got credited the difference, but now I had this money that could only be spent at FrozenCPU. I decided to use it, at another few bucks and purchase a Black Ice Xtreme II Dual 120mm Radiator. What a received last night was a MINI Xtreme Dual 80MM Radiator. They had screwed me again.

Today, I once again had to haggle with the same guy on the phone over this mistake that they made AGAIN. He told me he would send out the correct one and I had to send them back the wrong one they sent. In exchange he’d throw me a bit more credit. I told him I no longer want any credit on their site because I don’t intend to spend any more money ordering stuff from a company which doesn’t bother to check the orders that are going out.

Getting these guys to fess up to their mistakes and make them right was like pulling teeth. I couldn’t believe when I called this morning and opened the conversation by saying “Look, this is the second order I’ve placed with you and it’s the second time I’ve been shipped the wrong product.” The guy actually LAUGHED at me. If you can avoid it at all, I would urge you to stay FAR AWAY from FrozenCPU. Instead, look for parts at Silicon Valley Compucycle or Danger Den or even Cool Technica.

The last thing you want when you’re buying parts for a project you’re excited about, is to receive the wrong part and have to wait for a replacement. So learn from my problems and keep on modding

Most of my weekend was spent playing with a Lubic set. Basically, it’s an adult version of tinker toys that are designed to be used in creating a custom computer case. My goal was to create a PC setup that was more friendly to a water cooling system. Temperatures have not been near as good as I’d like them. With summer creeping up, I’m worried that the heat will have adverse effects. As it is, the air cooling I have in place currently has forced me to stop overclocking. Even at factory defaults, my CPU is currently running at 50C degrees. That’s unacceptable.

So in creating a new case, I figured that making improvements to the design would not be out of order. For starters, I flipped the motherboard around and pointed the rear panel to the front. I also dropped the power supply down to the lower-right rear of the case instead of its traditional upper-right rear. Now, most of the internal cabling can be hidden away behind the drive bays.

The net result of this redesign is that I have a mid tower that has all of the essentials tightly packed on one side while the other side is completely empty. I’m hoping to find an efficient way to mount all the water cooling stuff there. I’ll post a picture or two when I can take them.

Anyway, it’s lots of fun to create new stuff, even if it is just an empty box of sorts.

As promised, I took a few pictures of the reservoir I’m working on. I’ve created two holes so far, one on top and one on the side. They both must be enlarged a bit to fully fit the threaded bushings listed below. That’s where I seem to be running into problems. I have yet to find a suitable grinding bit for enlarging the holes once they are drilled. Anyway, here’s what the thing looks like so far:

It’s pretty, isn’t it? Well, here’s the top of it where the first hole was drilled:

And here’s the side hole with the bushing sort of sticking out of it, not fully inserted:

Just for fun, and a sense of scale, I placed the future reservoir into my computer case, as it would be mounted once it’s finished:

It’s pretty snazzy, I think. If I can figure out a good draining and filling method and then manage to make all the holes the right size without cracking the darn thing, I really think the reservoir will have a nice look. I put this thing on the scale when it was completely full of water and it measured about four pounds. I guess that’s not too bad, but it does make me wonder whether the handles I installed on my case will hold.

Check back for more soon. And by all means, leave me some comments if you have any questions or ideas. One thing I thought of is possibly etching the side of that glass block with a funky symbol. What are YOUR ideas?

Power tools are fun. It seems as if they allow you to make changes to things that human beings would never be able to do on their own. Perhaps that’s the reason for my obsession with the Black & Decker cordless drill that I own? It allows me to make new holes in a Vodka bottle and use it as a reservoir for my cooling system:

Of course, since that was my first attempt at creating a custom computer component, I wasn’t completely satisfied with it. I knew I could do better; improve on the design. Succeeding at something the other modders said would not work, I was inspired to continue evolving the idea.

I’m rethinking and working hard to make more, and different reservoirs. The prominent reason is that they are the only part of my cooling system that I have the facilities to create. I don’t have metal working supplies. So casting my own unique water blocks is not an option. I also can’t create a pump or radiator from scratch. So the only thing left, indeed the only thing that I believe has not been perfected for PC cooling, is the reservoir.

There are plenty of different ones out there. There are drive bay reservoirs, combo res/pump models, external plexi reservoirs, et cetera. The problem with most of them is that they don’t come with enough flexibility to allow for customization. Since they are also made of plastic, they don’t seem sturdy enough. In fact, I’ve read about several people having a problem with bay reservoirs which spring leaks along the seams where they are glued together.

So my plan is this: I want to make a reservoir out of glass. It would be ideal to create one that had threading in its openings to facilitate the swapping of hose barbs. Since creating usable threading in a piece of glass is tremendously difficult, I’m opting instead to drill the hold and then glue something into it that has a female thread, ready to accept hose barbs of various sizes.

A standard barb, used with 1/2″ ID tubing has 1/4″ NTP threading:

In order to facilitate this, I plan on plugging my glass holes with these

3/8″ MNPT x 1/4″ FNPT Polypropylene Reducer Bushings:

(Keep in mind that the images above are not to scale. They are just examples of the type of stuff I’m looking to use with my reservoir.)

The next logical question is what sort of glass am I going to use for my reservoir. The answer of course, is not a simple one. I’ve already created one out of a vodka bottle. The dynamic is a great one, I think. The idea of a booze bottle, emptied by the designer and recycled, is very intriguing. Still the trick, I think is finding a bottle of appropriate shape and thickness to be both useful and sturdy enough to safely reside in a box full of electronic equipment. There are a few other liquor bottles I have my eye on at the moment. More on those later.

For now, I’m invested in a completely different piece of glass. Here’s a small picture of it from some website I found:

It’s a rounded endblock for finishing a wall made of glass blocks. It’s small enough to fit in a computer case, but large enough to serve as a reservoir. Drilling the damn thing is what’s really tough and I’ll get more into that, complete with pictures, sometime soon.

Suffice it to say that I’ve been semi-obsessed with drilling holes in glass lately. I’m looking for the next big “WOW” of having a working reservoir out of something that was never meant for that purpose. Look for details as I have them.

I’m slacking already on updating this blog. That sucks. However, I do have plenty of excuses. For one, I haven’t had much of a chance to work on my computer in the last week or so. Since I figured out that the pump was pretty much a lost cause and drained my leak testing setup, there hasn’t been much to do. I’ll have to get a new pump. I’m looking at one of these as a possibility:

Not only is this a powerful pump, outperforming my Hydor L30, it also takes up less room. What’s even better is the thing is a DC pump that can work off the 12V rail on my PC’s powersupply. I spoke with the American distributor for these things and he told me they are starting to focus their efforts on catering to the modding market. One of the key little details is they actually have a team of folks working on the electronics in these pumps to drop their noise level (which at this point falls at around 30db). So I’m hesitant to spend money on it now and find out in a month that the same model for the same price has been made less noisy.

I’m also unhappy with the Bay-Res reservoir. Sure, it’s pretty and it’s easy to fill, but draining the thing is a major problem, as I discovered. Unless you have some sort of alternative exit point for the liquid, like a spout connected to the tubing, using the bottle is a MUCH better alternative. I’m almost completely set on creating a new reservoir from a glass bottle. The problem is, I don’t know WHICH bottle I’d like to use. Part of me thinks I should actually make two new reservoirs. So perhaps I’ll drill holes in the plastic coated bottle I got from US Plastics. I can document it and make sort of a tutorial thing out of it. Then down the road, I can empty a tequila bottle or something and drill that for my final install. It would be lots of work, but at least I could get better at it with more practice.

Someone even suggested that I create custom reservoirs from liquor bottle to sell online. I doubt it would ever get that far, but who knows. Anyway, I’ll update soon when there’s something more to talk about. Thanks for reading this and please let me know what you think of my blog by linking to the comments area below.

The water cooling I’ve been working on has hit a snag, yet again. The good news, is that my barb swap was successful.

The PolarFlo blocks I mentioned earlier come, by default, with straight black hose barbs that are bunched together. This makes attaching and removing the tubing a pain. So I decided to alter the configuration. In the process, I found that natural colored polypropylene barbs glow under blacklight. So I figured I’d use them instead of the black ones. I had conserns about leaking on the blocks so I used clear silicone sealant around the edges.

So that’s what they look like. I think it came out well. The PolarFlo blocks are on the far right and left of the picture and my BayRes glowing reservoir is in the middle.

This is where the snag came in. I hooked all the components together and filled them for leak testing. It seems my worries were misplaced. It’s the pump that has a leak problem. As cheesy and cheap as it was, I kind feel like replacing it with a better one. My last resort for now is that clear liquid silicone. I’ve put some around the parts that leaked, but I didn’t empty the water out first. So that might be a problem. We’ll see in another day or so when the sealant cures.