This is simply a reminder post to myself because I always have trouble finding this file. To update host file in windows 7 navigate to:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
From there just double click the host file and input a url in the following format
IP address example.com
This is really useful for testing website code once you have moved it from your local server onto your production server without actually needed to update the DNS of the domain and potentially sending live visitors to a broken site.
I had been struggling to find any documentation on how to fix an error on my kenwood Bluetooth car stereo. Every time I tried to pair my phone the stereo screen would just flash “device full”. The solution to this is to delete the current stored devices from the stereo. Apparently you can only have 5 devices connected at a time, and if you ever “re-pair” your phone it stores as another device so I guess I had used up all 5 devices.
It was rather hard to figure out how to delete a device, since there were not any great or easy to understand instructions so I wrote down the steps below. If you have been banging your head on your steering wheel trying to get your phone to pair with your radio you are in luck, follow the 6 steps below and you will be have your phone paired to your stereo in no time!.
1.) Hit the phone icon button on the radio (its right to the left of the volume knob and it has a picture of a phone icon on it)
2.) Scroll the volume knob till “settings” shows on the screen, then push the volume knob in to select device settings
3.) Scroll the volume knob to find “paring” then once “paring” is showing on the screen push the volume knob in again to select it
4.) Scroll till you find “DVC Delete” then push the volume knob in to enter the DVC device list
5.) Find the device to delete, push volume knob, then scroll to yes and push in knob in to confirm deletion.
6.) Repeat until unit is free of devices
That’s the steps it took to remove a device from my model radio which is a kdc-bt555u. Hopefully that helped you fix an annoying problem.
I recently read a funny challenge on one of my favorite blogs (life listed by Danny Dover). The challenge was actually a set of small items to complete in 1 month, and 1 of the items (stare at a stranger in public until they smile back at you sounded like it would be a lot of fun). I also thought it would be pretty easy because I smile at people and they smile back all the time. Well my first attempt at doing this challenge didn’t go very well.
Attempt 1. I’m in line at the grocery store and see this lady with 2 kids behind me. She looks to be in a pretty bad mood, and the 2 hellions that she appears to be raising or at least purchasing food for look like a total nightmare (watching the entire scene I remember thinking to myself, man I am glad I don’t have any kids lol). So anyway I thought you know this lady could use a smile, now is a good time to try this stranger challenge. So I attempt to catch eye contact with her for 30 seconds or so…. fail. She is just watching these kids and telling them to settle down. Ok I need to step up my game and get her attention. She has her cart placed in between me and the rack of snacks that they have just before you check out… you know all the bad stuff you shouldn’t eat but they force tempt you with right before you leave. So what I decide to go with is I will ask her to hand me some gum, give her a big smile and she will be forced to smile back at my pearly whites…. all that ends up really happening is she (slightly annoyed) hands me a pack of gum (which I didn’t even really want) and I now am checking out with an unwanted pack of gum, and the laborious task of grabbing the gum has clearly annoyed stranger lady even more…. by this point I’m starting to get my items rung up by the cashier so I don’t have much more time left…. never one to bow to fate I decide that I will do a last ditch effort to just stare at her smiling while the cashier rings all my food up…. the end result of this smile blitzkrieg is that the cashier finally taps me on the shoulder and asks me to please swipe my credit card…. so now I have 1 extra pack of gum, 1 slightly more annoyed lady, and 1 slightly annoying cashier…. I decide its best to cut my losses and try this whole make a random stranger smile some other time.
A while back I decided that I wanted to tackle leveling the floor in my home, or at the very least level the dining room floor so our games of Foosball would have a more even playing surface. At the same time as leveling the floor I also really wanted to install joist hangers to add some rigidity as well as help stop the slow rotation the floorboards were making over time. You see back in the 1930’s when the house was built they did not realized that they needed to secure the boards to keep them from twisting. In all fairness they did realize they needed to do this, but all the builders did was put 2 small trusses in the middle of each board, which was helpful but still allowed the ends of the board to rotate freely… which over the past 80 years they have done and in the process have become significantly un-level…. To get a feel for the gaps that we were trying to correct see the image below:
Center boards running parallel to the staircase. Notice the 1.5 inch drop where the floor boards meet
Now I wanted to touch on a couple very helpful tips and equipment to use:
1.) You can hammer the nails in for the joist hangers, but each hanger requires up to 8 nails… and your have to swing the hammer in a super small space… so in lew of that I opted for a palm nail hammer.
I liked this tool so much I just bought one
2.) To operate the nail hammer you need an air compressor, nothing fancy something like the one shown below will do the trick:
thanks for letting me borrow this dad
3.) To check your work you will want at least a 4 foot level & for jacking purposes I borrowed an engine/transmission jack from my Dad which worked perfect.
Now onto some helpful tips:
1.) Get a large piece of wood (2X12 is ideal) and place it under the jack to spread the force across a wider area. This will mitigate the risk of cracking the basement floor
2.) Don’t be afraid of the sound of cracking wood, its going to pop and crack a little. But what you do want to do is jack slowly. No more than 1-2 turns per minute. Remember the house has taken a long time to sink, we don’t need to rush jacking it back up.
3.) Once you get each board leveled, go ahead and put your joist hanger in place before moving on. This will help keep the boards from settling back down.
4.) Take time between ever one or 2 boards to walk up to the level above where you are jacking to check the walls for signs of cracking/shifting. You don’t want to end up cracking old plaster walls and making more work for yourself.
That pretty well covers how to level the old floors in your house. Hopefully you find these ideas/tips helpful and if you decide to tackle a project like this on your own feel free to drop us a comment below or leave a screenshot of your newly level floor:
Today I lost someone I cared about, it sucks and I’m sad. A big part of me wants to mope, turn off the lights in my house and not do anything. Just sit in the dark with my phone off and ignore the world for a few days. Maybe I will take that route, or maybe I won’t. I don’t think there is any 1 “correct” way to deal with someone you love dying…..
In general I’m a super positive person, so I like to find positive in everything. That’s pretty hard to do right now, but I will say the one positive of death is that it jolts you into appreciating everyone around you more. You are not shy about telling your family and friends you love them more often, if only for a while… I think this phenomenon is a big part of one of my favorite quotes which goes:
“The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel”
That quote came to me mainly in regards to explaining why I love to do risky activities like sky diving, scuba diving, skiing in back country… ect… but while writing this I realized that it also hits home for me now.
