Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Washington Sign

Don took on a big project this summer and replaced his fence. I took some boards that were in reasonably good shape thinking I would make something out them. They sat in the garage for a while before I decided to glue them up into a panel. I trimmed off the rotten ends. Then I put them on my hold down jig and ran them through the table saw to trim off 1/4″ on one side. Once I had that nice straight edge, I could flip them over and run them against the fence to trim off 1/4″ on the other side. With those nice clean edges, I was able to put glue on them and clamp them together.

So then I had a big panel… and I still didn’t know what to do with it. I finally decided to cut out the shape of Washington state. I messed around with blowing up a picture and trying to print it out on a tiled series of paper sheets but gave up and just printed an 8.5×11. Then I drew a grid over the picture, drew a bigger grid in chalk on the panel and I drew the shape by hand.

I was going to use my shiny new bandsaw to cut out the shape, but once I realized how dirty all those boards were, I decided I didn’t really want to dull my brand new blade. So I did it with my little handheld jigsaw instead. I did use the bandsaw to trim a 1×4″ sheet of plywood to put on the back of the panel just to give it some extra strength in case those edge glue ups don’t hold over time.

It was a fun project because I didn’t know what I was going to end up with and I’m going to give it to Don and Nancy as a gift.

washingtonwoodsign

benmartens September 8, 2015 Maker, Woodworking

NFL PreSeason

preseason-football-rabid-fans-nfl-sports-ecards-someecardsYay! The NFL Preseason is over! It frustrates me every year. People get so worked up about the games and who wins and loses. It doesn’t matter. It’s glorified practice and a way to trim down the rosters. I’d love to see the preseason completely removed or at least cut down to a single game. There’s no point in it except for the NFL to make money (which is why it will continue forever or until the players go on strike because of it.)

However, every time I get frustrated about the preseason, I remember that one time when Dad took me to see a preseason NBA game between the Bulls and the Supersonics. They were playing in town at Notre Dame and I actually got to see Michael Jordan and Shawn Kemp playing each other on the same court. It was a highlight of my childhood.

So in that sense, I guess the preseason is good. Ticket prices are a little lower (though they’re still $75/game for the cheap Seahawks tickets) and maybe it gives a different set of fans the opportunity to see some of their heroes play, if only for a few minutes of the game.

benmartens September 7, 2015 Sports

Giving Feedback To Microsoft

sendfeedbackWe all find things that we like or dislike (usually the latter) when we’re using applications or websites. The good news, is that more and more apps (especially from Microsoft) are coming with easy ways to give feedback. It’s generally in the upper right hand corner and it often looks like a Smiley Face. You might also find a button or a menu option called something like “Give Feedback”. Wherever you find it, I encourage you to use it. As an employee on a team that makes a product with easy user feedback options, I can tell you that one report from a user carries a LOT more weight than me giving feedback to my own team. We love to hear from you and it’s one of the most important signals we have for improving our products. (And if you throw in a positive note every once in a while, that’s appreciated too!)

benmartens September 4, 2015 Commentary

Microphone Light

arduinomiclightA few months ago, I bought new wireless microphones for church. They’re simple but they work well. The old ones were dying so it’s nice to have some that work well. The only downside is that the old ones had a nice flip switch on the top so you could tell by feeling the box whether the mic was on or off. These new mics have a button that you press once to turn on and another to turn off. Pastor turns his mic on and off throughout the service and it’s really easy to get mixed around with the on/off state.

After thinking about this for quite a while, I decided I could turn this into a project. There is a light on the mic receiver up in the balcony that goes on when his mic is on. I taped a light sensor on top of that and ran that to one of the analog input pins on an Arduino. If the light is off (meaning his mic is off), the Arduino sends a signal to a relay to let power flow to a light bulb. The bulb is red so if Pastor sees a red light, he knows his mic is off. I’ve only been testing it for a couple Sundays but so far, it works great!

This was the first time that I’ve ordered from AdaFruit.com but I was really impressed. Each product page has lots of examples and documentation to get you going. I also really liked their “Power Tail 2” product. It has all the relay stuff built into a short extension cord so you can skip all of those pieces. It’s way more expensive than doing it yourself, but “it just works.” And obviously I didn’t need an Arduino to do this simple logic, but again, it was easier.

This was a fun project to research and build. I love these Arduino projects, but I don’t have a lot projects on my list that require one.

benmartens September 3, 2015 Projects

Giving Your Best

quality-timeWe have a lot of interactions during the day whether it’s with family, coworkers, cashiers, online people, etc. They all demand some level of civility and good behavior. But over the course of a week, who gets the best you have to offer? I wish I could remember where I first heard this, but whoever said it, it stuck in my mind. Their point was that instead of letting go and giving our spouse (or family, etc) the rest of whatever we have to give that day, we should be giving them our best. We might rationalize it by saying, “My spouse knows me better than anyone else so he/she knows I don’t really mean it when I let me bad mood run wild.” But flip that over… if you have a limited amount of good behavior to dish out, shouldn’t you give it to the people you love the most? Save your best for your spouse.

Of course that’s easier said than done. We usually see our spouse at the end of the day when we’re really tired and fed up with all the other interactions we had during the day. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not a great idea.

I suppose ideally we’d have infinite good behavior to dish out to everyone we see, but even if you are nice to everyone, you can’t reasonably go the extra mile for everyone. Save that extra effort for the ones you love the most! Don’t use that close relationship to dump them with the leftovers of your day.

UPDATE: I wrote this before hearing Pastor’s sermon last Sunday, but it fit this post very well. One key tagline from his sermon was “You’d die for your spouse, but do you live for them?”

benmartens September 2, 2015 Family

Edmonds Marina Beach Park

Tyla and Elijah found Edmonds Marina Beach Park and they were both very excited about it. Elijah particularly loved it because the park features:

  1. Train tracks that run by the park
  2. A nice playground
  3. A beach
  4. Ferries
  5. Fork lifts moving boats around

The fork lifts probably trumped all the rest. They store quite a few boats on racks on land and then forklifts put them in the water. It’s quite a process and Elijah can watch them for a long time without getting bored.

One Saturday a few weeks ago, I went along with them to check out the park. I think it’s going to be a regular spot for us. The park really is beautiful and there are a lot of things for Elijah to enjoy.

edmondsmarina1 edmondsmarina2 edmondsmarina3

benmartens September 1, 2015 Family, Travel

Comcast Bill

comcasticI’ve been a Comcast customer for the last 13 years, and honestly I complain, but for the past few years, the internet and TV connections have been almost rock solid. That’s good. The price increases on the other hand, are not.

In December of 2013, we dropped to a lower TV package and we saved $40/month with no contract*. In the 20 months since then, our price went up 15% for exactly the same service. Give me a break.

I complained about it on Twitter and got a reply from the @ComcastCares service account. I’ve talked to them before without much luck, but this time it was great. They dropped our bill to ~$55/month without changing our service or requiring a contract. That’s awesome! I hate that their business model requires good customers to whine to get lower prices, but whatever.

* Why is no contract important to me? I feel like we’re at the tail end of having any TV package at all. We only record about a dozen series per year and they’re all available online either for free or for purchase. If I didn’t host football parties here, I think I would have already dropped cable TV. But when we have all those people over to watch a game, Comcast is still the most reliable way for me to display it. We can’t get over the air because of all the hills/trees, and the online streaming options aren’t stable enough yet.

benmartens August 31, 2015 Commentary

Software Toolkit

toolsIt’s been a few weeks since I last wiped my computer and started with a fresh install. When I do this, I only install software as I need it, so at this point, if I have something on my machine, it’s because I use it pretty regularly. I thought it might be interesting to share the list as a bit of a recommendation/tip post. I’ll leave out specific apps for my printer, scanner, etc.

  • 7-Zip
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
  • Adobo Photoshop Lightroom 3.6
  • Adobe Premiere Elements 12
  • Foxit Reader
  • Google Chrome
  • HandBrake
  • LastPass
  • Microsoft Azure SDK v2.7
  • Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013
  • Microsoft Power Query for Excel
  • Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
  • MySQL Workbench
  • Notepad++
  • Python 2.7.6
  • SketchUp 2015
  • VLC media player
benmartens August 28, 2015 Geek

Windows 10 Photo Viewer

WindowsPhotoViewerI’m not a fan of the new photo viewer in Windows 10. Specifically I have troubles rapidly flipping through a bunch of files in a folder and I’ve seen some stuff online showing it’s poor rendering capabilities. The old Windows photo viewer was simple and perfect. Why change?

The good news is that you can get it back, but it requires a few registry edits. I’m not going to explain how that works. Ask a geek in your life to help you out if you don’t know. It’s not generally something you should ever do. That being said, here are your instructions: http://www.tenforums.com/software-apps/8550-unable-replace-photos-app-photo-viewer-default-10240-a-2.html?s=30e1f367ee6f758b05431dc82f25b765

Once that’s done, right click on a JPG and choose Open With. Select the old Windows Photo Viewer and check the box to always open with that app.

benmartens August 27, 2015 Geek

Meat Week – Hot Dogs

meatweekhotdogsElijah had hot dogs at the church VBS picnic and ever since then, he has been asking us to make hot dogs. So I swung by the butcher and picked up some all beef hotdogs. There’s not much to say about grilling hot dogs, but Elijah was happy.

This also brought our “grill week” to a conclusion. For 28 days, we only cooked dinner using the grill. It was a delicious month!

benmartens August 26, 2015 Food