Sorry for the week without updates and the late release of this one.  Been pretty busy over the past week.  The good news is, vacation is coming…so I should have a few days off to get my act together :p

 

Blu-Ray
Finally recieved my Blu-Ray buner!  After hours and hours of reading I have finally received my burner.  I decided to try the USB 3.0 interface out, now that I know my laptop has express card slots.  Besides, I think I have a defective eSATA express card from startech that I have to get replaced.

I tried to get the firmware update but alas…the download server was in maintenance mode.  I am going to update here in a bit once it comes back online.  I did a test burn with the RE media that I purchased and it seemed only to hold at 1x.  k3b stated it was going to burn at 2x, but still it seemed to hover at 1x.  I have to look into that next after this firmware update.

2010 Chevy Equinox Drive Image
So I wanted to get an image of my cars hard drive so I do not rely on the car manufacture when the drive goes bad.  I initially thought it would be easy, just pop the drive out and plug it into a IDE to USB bridge.  Nope, the drive was locked.  You can sniff the password using an oscilloscope.  But I do not have one, and I was not going to go through all that right now.

I decided to have the car unlock the drive, keep power to it, and then use the IDE to USB bridge.  It worked great.  It was a pain getting the male to male adapter and cable to the back of the radio, in the hard drive slot, but after that…it was pretty easy.

The only thing I noticed was that I needed to move the cable immediately to the adapter, or I think the hard drive would re-lock it self.  At least that is what I had to do in the end.  With a laptop in the car, I unplugged the cable from the radio with the car running, shutting the car off at the same time, and plugged it into the adapter.

I then dd ed the drive to an image, multiple times, compared the checksums to see if they match, and I plan to put it back in here in a bit.  I am going to loop the image ready only and explore a bit…later on.

Wiki Post About It:  http://wiki.hackspherelabs.com/index.php?title=2010_Chevy_Equinox#Copying_the_Hard_Drive

Outernet
If you have not been watching Outernet, you should be now.  I cannot wait to setup a receiver similar to this:  https://discuss.outernet.is/t/buillding-myself-an-orx-outernet-receiver/652/13

This is a perfect solution to a problem.  A problem that will no longer exist.

Bunn Coffee Maker

We have to clean our Bunn Coffee pot out because it starts right when you put the water in no matter what.  Take a look at the pic I took when I opened ours up.  There are two screws on this model that are under the flap that you open on top.  After that it just pops up.  I think you should clean yours if you have one.

Video Demo of Cleaning Similar Model

Triclosan Alert

This is the second thing about Triclosan I have read about in a while.  The stuff is great for cleanliness, but it seems like it has long term health consequences.  It is the main ingredient in most antibacterial soaps.

Quote “Triclosan is an antimicrobial commonly found in soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and many other household items. Despite its widespread use, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report potentially serious consequences of long-term exposure to the chemical. The study, published Nov. 17 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that triclosan causes liver fibrosis and cancer in laboratory mice through molecular mechanisms that are also relevant in humans.”

Quote: “Tukey, Hammock and their teams, including Mei-Fei Yueh, PhD, found that triclosan disrupted liver integrity and compromised liver function in mouse models. Mice exposed to triclosan for six months (roughly equivalent to 18 human years) were more susceptible to chemical-induced liver tumors. Their tumors were also larger and more frequent than in mice not exposed to triclosan.

The study suggests triclosan may do its damage by interfering with the constitutive androstane receptor, a protein responsible for detoxifying (clearing away) foreign chemicals in the body. To compensate for this stress, liver cells proliferate and turn fibrotic over time. Repeated triclosan exposure and continued liver fibrosis eventually promote tumor formation.”

John Oliver
Salmon Cannon

Video Stuff
This is old, but I watched it again and wanted to post it:  RAID SSD’s