Laughable backups

I have, like, three extra mice from older computers, (mouses). Just left overs from old p.c.'s. A current mouse fails today, so go down to the drawer of useless items and grab a backup, it fails. Go grab another, it fails. Grab my last one, it fails.

4 mouse failures in one day, in one hour! its laughable. Anyone else have a story of having a ridiculous amount of something you think you will never go through and in one day, POOF, gone.

Sounds more like a bad driver/jack/resource allocation. Four defective mice, particularly if they fail in similar ways, would be highly unlikely. Not impossible, just extremely improbable.

Yeah, I agree with Art. If any one of them is a Microsoft, unlike their reputation for software, those mice are nearly indestructible and go for YEARS of clicking.

Is this USB or PS/2? If I remember correctly (been years!) you could burn out a PS/2 port by unplugging it while the computer was one.

Wouldn't burn anything out usually, just lock up the port so you had to power cycle to get it working again.

I haven't used a mouse since 1998 when I bought my own laptop, I have an older laptop as a spare if somehting happend I can just swap the drive over.

Well, to keep more on OT...I checked my extended emergency gear, and tried out the lighters. I had 4 of them. Regular Bic type lighters. All 4 failed to work-the wheels were all frozen. These were brand new a couple years ago! Needless to say, its time to buy a new pack!
It may have been due to moisture-we did have a rather humid summer, and the wheels may have siezed due to that. Fortunately, they are simply backups to backups to secondary backups to primary backups to my main fire lighting source, so they werent mission critical. But, they all failed!

Make it a habit to check and test all gear every 5 months, I ususally do spring and fall, rotate any batteries or other consumables.

so true when we let gear set for months or years.

BTW, not a port problem on the mice. Had roller ball skipping, had middle scroller break (the current mouse), Had a bad button and one that just didn't move.

But this isn't about computer problems, its those laughable situations where we seem a bit overconfident on being prepared and it Epic Fails.

Batteries usually get changed-honestly, didnt even think about the lighters though. LEsson learned!

Sorta sounds to me like it was 4 mouse failures over the course of years without removing the bad ones from stock.

My wife does this. And I do too to a small extent. Not a good practice to put dead parts back on the shelf.


If I were to test all my gear every 5 months I'd have to be retired to have enough time to do it. I've accumulated a LOT of gear :-)

Reminded me:

"A blonde walks into a doctor’s office and tells the doctor she’s broken every single bone in her body. “That’s impossible!” says the doctor.

The blonde says, “No, it’s really true. Look!” She then touches her leg with her index finger and screams “Ouch!” Then she touches her arm and yells “Eeeeoooow!” Finally she touches her ribs and can barely maintain her composure as the tears start to roll down her face. She says, “See, I told you I broke every bone in my body.”

The doctor rubs his chin, then conducts a thorough examination. “Well, miss,” he tells her, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, you haven’t broken every bone in your body. The bad news is, you’ve broken your finger.”

---

Old mouses? Perhaps they were P/S mouses, not USB ones? They aren't designed to be hot swappable. You must shutdown, replace, start up again. And there is a 75% probability that if you try to hot swap them you can damage the P/S port microchip on the motherboard.

You won't blow the chip on the board, I've seen so many of those plugs kicked out over the years, you have to power off and back on. At worst case there is a tiny micro fuse on the board that could get blown, I've soldered those back on once or twice but never seen one blown from unplugging the mouse.

I've found my ferro-rod on the side of the magnesium bar deteriorated almost 25% to a white dust in the car BOB once. Using an airtight container with silica gel pouch for all of them now (should do that for the spare bic lighters too).

Another time, when needed to deal with some ice, I've unpacked my car BOB just to realize that my Gerber folding shovel is almost useless, because I didn't check its condition in the unfolded position after a friend of mine has borrowed it once (like a year before the event).

With the PC mouse again. A while ago there were a trend in the ergonomic design with the silky rubber inserts on some of the high end models. After about 3 years in the drawer the rubber was like eaten by something (maybe mold, maybe natural decomposition, maybe an underneath glue diffusion). The surface became slimy and sticky, impossible to clean. I had to throw all 3 to the garbage.

Eugene. Okay. Maybe the fuse these days, right. But in the past I had this problem at least 4 times with the old Dell workstations and too smart students. In one case it was the chip on the keyboard, in other 3 - the motherboard was replaced (well, Dell said so). Perhaps, that happens on PS/2 mouse hot plug, not unplug. Or under some other specific circumstances (i.e. some buttons on the keyboard were depressed during connection). Better be safe than sorry.

Don't keep dead mice in a drawer. They stink.

Sue

As a puter tech I can tell some stories.

But recently I was swapping the DWs wife pc to Windows 7 from a "borrowed" version of XP. I loaded a clean copy of XP after saving all her stuff on an external drive. Then did the upgrade, worked like magic, no problems, life was good. Of course, this was when my PC decided the power supply in it had reached the day after warranty and decided to act up, a lot. Luckily I had one power supply left floating around, so instead of loading programs, I was swapping out a power module. If it's not one thing, it's another.

And yeah, I can relate to the lighters. None of the ones I had in our kits was any good after only 18 months. So I swapped them all out. Gonna do the vacuum pack thing on all of them. Fact is, I am considering vacuum packing most of the gear, just for giggles. A lot of it won't degrade. The stuff that does get date marked for replacement.

Those 'seized' Bics will usually work again if you disassemble them. Sometimes if you force the wheels to spin by working it across your belt or a piece of wood. The flints and carbon steel wheel are highly dissimilar metals can corrode together if moisture is present. Salt-water mist, sometime just being near the ocean, is enough to cause them to bind up.

Sealing them in a way that excludes moisture should help. But regular, every week or so, exercise/use seemed often enough to me. I lived near the water and even occasional smokers didn't seem to have any problems.

I have experimented with silicone spray but while the idea would seem to have merit on its face I haven't done it consistently enough to be sure it was doing any good. Didn't seem to hurt. Except for that time I tried the lighter before the solvent hadn't dissipated. I was able to blow it out but it was a bit more flame than I had desired.

"Gonna do the vacuum pack thing on all of them."

Just don't forget to put the little notch in the edge for opening. I hate forgetting that...

Sue

Stale tape with the adhesive cooked off because it was stored in a hot place and lots of flashlights with dead batteries.

Add sun rotted poly rope to the list.

Corrosion inhibitor chips-

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=154282

A couple of these in your Bic baggie should reduce the corrosion of the wheel and flint. Should work for flints too. Or anything steel that you want to minimize corrosion during storage.

I've seen these in the boxes that reloading dies come in. No picture on the website but these are little one-inch squares of what looks like white cardboard impregnated with something that reduces corrosion in air.

Yeah the TP when DWs brother and niece came in for the holidays. Geesh, i thought they were using it for toweling off after a shower.

I had three serial cables go bad in a day, when I needed them to access a console port on a switch. My customer had a good serial cable, so I knew that my serial port and settings were correct.

I went for years without any sort of need to change a tire on the side of the road -- heck, I went through two entire cars with 125K miles each on them without that. Then in April '09 I lost two tires at the same time in my new car. That was an expensive day.

Another time, I went through all the spare server memory and several spare servers one night about sixteen years ago trying to get a server back online before the busiest day of the year. I had a humongous collection of server and workstation components, but for all of the tens of thousands of dollars of stuff, we couldn't put it together to make a working Novell server.

My boss wouldn't have fired me so much as executed me and left my head on a pike as a warning to others if we hadn't gotten back online. I called one of my staff after eight continuous hours of troubleshooting, at just about midnight. I'll call him J.

cm: "Hey, J. I hear that you got a new PCI SCSI card for your gaming PC."

J: "Yeah, it's really neat! It's an Adaptec blah de blah..."

cm: "I want it."

J: "You can't have it! I got a great deal on it and --"

cm: "GOD DAMN IT J! I WILL BUY YOU ANY SCSI CARD YOU WANT! IN THE MORNING! WHEN THE STORES ARE OPEN! I NEED YOUR SCSI CARD NOW!"

J: "Oh, sure, no problem, I'll pull it out and bring it in to the office right now.

There's a reason that my nom-de-website is "chaosmagnet".

We suffered a power outage a few weeks ago (thankfully short, as you shall see). I decreed, "Lo, bring forth the lanterns I have prepared for just such a contingency, and let there be light". We got out the three I had prepared, and not a one worked! At least I had my EDC lights, so we were not stumbling around in the dark, but I was hoping for something much better.

One failure was quite perplexing. I had loaded the lantern with 4 AAA lithium batteries, which was OK according to the light's instructions. I tested the batteries after the light failed - two were dead, and two were OK. I suspect the switch contains a malfunction - it is a fancy little thing which is supposed to come on at a high level, and then gradually decline. You stop the process when the light is right for your tastes

I will have to do better next time...

TORX BITs.

They are the devil.

Whenever I buy them I get numerous sets because it seems when you need them you need them and then you bust them left and right!!!

Just before the recent Deep Freeze I decided to test the tool I have to open the cover over the city-water cut-off valve (which is in the front yard). I don't want to be struggling out there in 10 degree weather with water pouring onto the floor indoors from a broken pipe!

It turned out the "key" worked great and lifted the cover right off to reveal ... mud. Nothing could be seen. After some digging with a shovel the valve was eventually revealed.

And there's not much room down there to get a wrench to close the valve. It's doable when the weather is nice, but I'm going to keep an eye out for a better tool since the weather is likely to be miserable if I need to do it.

So my emergency tool works but actually testing it revealed other problems...

Two things from experience. Buy, make, or have made, a long-handled tool. Make it long enough to work standing up. A piece of bent flat stock to engage the rectangular tab of the typical street valve welded onto a length of rebar and a cross-piece of rebar for leverage is usually all you need. I could list sizes but your better fitting it to your situation and some things, like the thickness of the rebar upright, will depend on length. Half-inch rebar works for short handled ones, maybe up to three foot, but 5/8" is less likely to flex.

Also the street valve may have remained unused for decades. Any valve that goes unused for that long can seize open, or closed, or break off entirely. It may need to be replaced the first time you try to operate it. So make that attempt early in the day and on a weekday when a plumber won't cost you an arm and a leg. Check with the water utility to find out who owns the valve. Most are after the meter and are the home owners responsibility. But some utilities see it differently and give you a break.

The good news is that if you inspect and operate the valve once a year it will stay good for a very long time. Checking the water main valve once a year and it is also a perfect time to check the main gas valve for function and to make sure you know how to turn off the electricity.

Working all the circuit breakers once a year, called exercising, can increase their reliability when they should trip. If you do your own electrical work this would be a good time to check all the connections in the panel for firmness and heat. But only do it if you know what your doing. Even then be careful.

So I am with you Comms... My lovely bride reported to me that her SUV has a flat and I should wake up (at 4 in the morning) and take her to work then fix her flat tire.

After the sun rose and I could see what I was doing without manmade lighting, I proceded to take her tire off and have it repaired. Upon returning from having it repaired I tried to put it on the vehicle to no avail. The SUV had to be jacked up higher. No prob, but the jack was MAXED out. Still not a prob. I have a lifted jeep I DO have a jack that will get it high enough. But now the other jack out of my jeep is too tall to fit under the SUV. Damn it! Not a problem. I pulled out my credit card, took the trip to the auto parts store and bought a 2 1/2 ton floor jack. I put the floor jack under the SUV jacked it up put the tire to the lug nuts and it was 1/2 inch too low. SON of a ^@(^&(&^!

To answer your question I ended up using a block of wood that I had in the back yard to get a little more lift. Ya I was not going to qualify for the pit crew award for fastest tire change coming in at 2 hours.

By the way, now I have 3 jacks none of which will allow me to change a tire without a block of wood or a shovel.

Good thing I was prepared...

"It turned out the "key" worked great and lifted the cover right off ... And there's not much room down there to get a wrench to close the valve."

Forget the wrench. Get what is called a Curb Key or Water Meter Key. About $12 at HD or Lowes. There are fancier ones, but a plain one works just fine. Turn it gently, don't rip the valve off.

Keep that muddy area cleaned out, and keep the weeds, ground cover and ivy cleaned away from it.

Sue

Sue, is there anything you DON'T know?

@epirider. That is hilarious. and something like that happened to me helping a stranded driver roadside with a flat. He had a lifted truck with a standard jack and I had the same. Had to drive him to the closest auto store to get him going.

Next lifted vehicle I get, gets a hi-jack put on it.

The front caliper bolts on my truck were torx, found that out the first time I went to replace the pads at 70k. I went to a couple different auto parts stores until I found replacements with normal hex heads and replaced them so I wouldn't have to carry that one torx bit in my tool kit.

Hi-Lift jacks are great if you have someplace to hook them up. The problem is that most vehicles made in the past 20 years plastic bumpers or, at best, lightweight steel that will bend if you try to lift the vehicle that way.

If you have heavy duty steel bumpers a Hi-Lift is great. But otherwise you'll have to come up with some other ideas for attaching the jack. Hi-Lift has a kit that lets you hook the jack to the wheel itself. I've got that kit and have used it to get unstuck, but it won't help you if you need to change a tire. I've also made a longer chain with hooks on each end and pipe insulation to protect the bumper so I an lift either the front or back via the frame, but this is VERY unstable and dangerous, and I wouldn't want to be working on the car lifted this way.

The wood block solution seems to be the best. I have a 12x12x1" piece of oak with an 8x8x2" block of pine glued and screwed on top that I use under the factory jack (or high-lift in loose soil).

My Hi-lift I had some trouble fitting into my jeep. I have an 06 Wrangler, and needed to mount it inside. I had considered external mounts, but, living in new england, the salt & dirt would quickly sieze it up. So, I mounted it inside, behind my rear seat, up against the rollbars. I used two large u-bolts, and wingnuts, to keep it in place. 2 years, no problems.
Hi-lift type jacks are also primarily designed to lift from a bumper. On most SUVs, the bumper is plastic, and the body is too short. One solution is to simply use a standard scissor jack (I still have mine in my jeep), lift the chassis up high enough, until you can get the hi-lift under it. Or, you can always buy a jeep

I agree with the latter... Just get a Jeep :o)

I put a stinger on the front of my jeep to get through and over some extreme terain, however, now I cant lift the front of my jeep up with my Highlift now. I am going to try to design a hook that will attach to the highlift and attach to my recovery shackles that are on the frame of my jeep. Seems like I improve one aspect of my ride, only to have to modify another part to work as good as the new part.