Carpal tunnel syndrome, or how to reduce weight of computer mouse

By the nature of my occupation (I'm a programmer) I use mouse and keyboard quite heavily. I'm no stranger to wrist and arm aches.

A while ago I noticed that the pain is often related to mouse weight. The heavier a mouse is, the sooner I get wrist pain.

Now, after I got my laptop fixed with the internal bluetooth module, I naturally decided to refresh my quite a big collection of keyboards and mice with something bluetooth-capable. Strangely, there is not a lot of really good bluetooth mice in stores in our area. I vaguely remembered that the Microsoft mouse 5000 is a bad choice. I tried one a couple of years ago and had to return it, because it costs dearly, but had crappy ergonomics. I stopped by the store to check the new MS Sculpt touch mouse, it's a bit better, but too flat for me.

After a few visits to various stores, I bought a brand new mouse. It's a Kensington Suretrack mouse. Amazon sells it for a bit cheaper than our local stores, hence the link.

That's a pretty decent thing. Matte black, with rubber side grips, solid looking. Very accurate. Works perfectly on all of my desk surfaces, never skips. It's a bit bigger than an average laptop mouse, which should be good for people with larger hands.

It has one big disadvantage for me. It's heavy. Why? It requires two AA batteries. Needless to say, I hated it from the first moment, because of its weight.

The solution came pretty quickly though. I went to eBay and searched for a battery adapter from AA to AAA. After a few minutes of browsing, I bought a pack of 10 battery adapters for $7 with free shipping. I only needed two, but smaller amounts were all in China, and I wanted quicker shipment, so I bought it right out of the first seller who was located in the US. Well, turned out he is in China too. The good thing is that the package took only 3 days to come, from which I can deduce the item was located stateside.

Anyway, the mouse is now about 30% lighter, and works great from two AAA batteries. See the photos below.

How to add Bluetooth to Toshiba R705

If you own a Toshiba Portege R705, you know that it does not come with a built-in bluetooth. If you search Toshiba forums, most people would recommend buying a USB bluetooth plug.

This is not our way. Toshiba laptops, and especially the higher-end ones like the Portege series, have one of the best designs in the industry. I'll show you how to take advantage of that great design and add a bluetooth module to R705.

First, you need to purchase the actual module. That's probably the hardest part of the project, since there are not so many of them currently on eBay. To be specific, you need part number PA3814U-1BTM or BTU1040-D4 made by Broadcom.

Make sure it comes with a 6-wire connector. Here is what it looks like superimposed to the motherboard connector. The bluetooth circuit board is only a bit bigger than a quarter.

Next, if the module does not come with an antenna, you will need to get one. That's an easy buy. There is plenty of those on eBay at any given time. The antenna is a thin screened wire minimum 10-15 inches long with a gold-plated connector on one side. For this particular application it does not matter what is on the other side of the antenna.

Disclaimer. Everything that is said and explained in this article, is for information purposes only. While this method worked for my laptop, I am not responsible for any damage to any equipment intentionally or unintentionally done by you or anyone else.

Step 1.
Remove the metal screening from the end of the antenna wire which is opposite to the gold-plated connector. I only removed about 1.5 inches of the screening, leaving the plastic insulation covering the central wire.
I then rolled a small piece of Scotch sticky tape around the remaining piece of metal screen, to insulate the remaining metal "hairs".
This is how the antenna wire looks before wrapping in Scotch tape.

Step 2.
Unclip the right plastic silver-plated hinge cover, the one with the hole. This will greatly improve access to the screen hinge. We will later insert antenna wire into the hinge opening.

Remove the back (bottom) panel. There are screws of 3 or 4 different sizes holding the back panel. You will need to remove the small docking connector cover. You will also have to remove the memory cover to reach one of the F4 screws underneath it. Check out a quick video illustrating the back cover removal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJk1B32jq08 .

After the back panel is removed, it might be a good idea to disconnect the hard drive at this point, since it's not fastened to anything and may fall out when you move the assembly.

Step 3.

Try to pass the antenna wire carefully through the clips so it is not pinched or jammed. See the picture:

 Push the taped end of the wire into the screen hinge opening, same way as other wires go. Don't force it too much. If it jams, pull it back out and try again. It should go inside relatively freely, until about 2 inches of the wire is inside the screen. Ideally, it would be nice to open the screen panel and properly arrange the antenna inside the screen assembly, but it worked for me without removing the screen panel.

You may ask a question why we need to push the wire into the screen. The answer is simple. The screen is the only part of the laptop covered with plastic. All other parts are made from magnesium alloy or other metal, which insulates radio frequencies, and would prevent the antenna from sending and receiving RF signal.

Step 4.
Plug the antenna into the bluetooth module, and plug the module's 6-pin connector into the white plastic connector on the motherboard. The 6-pin connector should go flat side up, wires down.

Step 5.
Place the bluetooth module inside the computer body so it does not jam against any parts, and allows for sufficient air go through all parts of the body. Make sure none of its exposed metal connectors touches any alloy or metal parts inside the computer body or wiring.
Make sure the antenna wire is not jammed or pinched by other parts inside the assembly.

I used sticky tape to affix the module to the side of the DVD drive.

This is the overall view of the entire assembly, with the re-connected hard drive, bluetooth module and the antenna installed.

Step 6.
Now the easiest part. Download a driver from Toshiba web site.
Go to http://support.toshiba.com, select one of the Portege R700 (not 705!) and download the Bluetooth Stack driver for your operating system. I picked R700-S1310, and for my Windows 7 64-bit this one worked perfectly:

The setup program will make your computer reboot a couple of times, and after it's all done, you have a working bluetooth in your laptop!

SEO changed after August 2012?

After Google Panda update that has been rolled out over several month in 2012, many people lost their position in Google search results (SERPs).

This is however not a problem. The problem is that many so called SEO consultants bit the dust. The old methods have changed. Those people sitting on bags with gold are not sitting anymore, they are either running around looking for new guinea-pig-customers or changing their business model.

One of my sites has lost its position with Google. Therefore, I am actively looking for a SEO specialist that understands what Panda update means and how to come back in SERPs.

If you are a SEO specialist and you think you can help (I know, it's not free!), please post your feedback below this post today. I will need to see your Portfolio. It must be fairly recent. Nothing older than August 2012 counts.

URL spoofing

This is my reply to one forum member who thinks that URL can be spoofed by simply updating the http header..

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Originally Posted by camjohnson95. The referrer can be set when loading the page via an HTTPRequest.

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It is always very interesting to read those 'referrer spoof' discussions.... whether people do not know anything about the subject... or know a lot and just play 'noobs'. I actually tried the httprequest method in both asp.net and php. For php you can find a bunch of those so-called php proxy scripts and this will give you a great explanation how the process works. The problem with that is all clients will hit the destination site from one ip address only, this will be your server's ip. What is even worse, the user-agent will be the same for all visitors, unless you bother to preserve and copy the visitor's user-agent. Still, this will look weird in the target site logs. Doing the same thing in asp.net gives the same results, it's just a little harder to implement than php. But... As i heard, there is another method that actually works... it is however less comprehensible that the httprequest.. And as i heard it costs much more than forty bucks.

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I've done URL spoofing for one of my clients. It is doable. If you want to hire me for that type of project, I can certainly help you, but not for $40.

Where to get VPS hosting?

I still seriously think that the best Windows web hosting you can find is at your home. Now when internet service providers lock port 80 on a regular basis, this turns out to be a little expensive. However, if it comes to the utmost control and flexibility of the options, self-hosting is the best. I might even write a post sometime in the future about that. But... the best alternative to self-hosting turned out to be VPS hosting for me.

1and1.com

Bad quality. Sorry guys at 1and1, I tried my best and have to cancel it now. The major issues are - slowness, frequent crashes, inability to open any ports easily without going through the Bangalore customer service, extreme complexity in order to install anything. I mean.. come on, I have the same .NET code running on a dozen of various hosting solutions - from dedicated servers to basic Windows hosting. Nothing gave me so much trouble as the VPS hosting at 1and1. Once they set it up for you... there is nothing working on it. .NET Framework does not work, you have to initialize it yourself (aspnet_regiis), there is no SQL express, all ports are closed completely. Internet Explorer can't even get to Microsoft.com. Besides that, the price is way higher than competition. And the worst thing is their customer service, especially on weekends. You open ticket Friday afternoon, the server is down through the entire weekend, and they close the ticket automatically for you Monday while the server is still down.

Instead of getting VPS with 1and1, try their dedicated server. I am hosting a large traffic site with them for more than a year already and it appears to be extremely stable and consistently fast. Costs a tad more than VPS though.

vpsland.com

Ok quality. I had to maintain a couple of VPS servers on vpsland and even ordered one for myself there. Not cheap (about the same as 1and1) , same as slow. The good thing the ports that you normally need are open (80, 81, 8080), and IE works. You will still get hard time to install SQL express on their servers, I guess they lock you out intentionally so you order a SQL package from them or something. The good thing the server is more stable that 1and1 and they use Parallels control panel where you can reboot your server. 1and1 does not use Parallels, they have their own buggy Java user interface.

Myhosting.com

Now this is a good one. Costs 3 times less than 1and1 ($26 vs $75) for the same specs, comes with working .NET framework and SQL express right out of the box. All ports you need are open, IE works out of the box. Everything is really fast, clean and neat. This is how I would set up the server if I did it. That's the place where I'm moving my old 1and1 VPS to.

Where to get domain name?

I've been buying domain names for a few years already and I hope I know something about that process. In the domain business the most important features are
- how quickly and easily you can book the domain name,
- how quickly they update the DNS,
- how easily you can sell or transfer domains.

MyHosting.com

I ordered a domain name 3 days ago at MyHosting.com. 3 days and the domain is still nowhere in sight. Not even in my Control panel. Answer - don't use myhosting.com for buying domain names. They say they have the cheapest domain names among competitors (currently less than $7), however they have a "renewal fee" which makes domains cost a few dollars more next year than the initial registration. I am talking about .com domain names.

1and1.com

I have been using 1and1.com for buying domain names. These guys really shine when you need to snatch a good name quickly and make your site up and running.  It almost seems like they own one of the root DNS servers also, which brings DNS updates to a record setting 2 or 3 hours. They are not as good in hosting, especially in VPS. I will talk about this in my next post.

1and1 is also good for hosting private domains. You can't beat the price - private domain hosting is free at 1and1. I never owned any trademark domain names, so I don't know how friendly 1and1 is when it comes to ownership rights. I will appreciate if anyone can post a response here about this.

In regards to transferring domain names from 1and1, they have some issues here. First and the most annoying is that they charge you the full price of the domain again shortly after you transferred it to another provider. I've seen it several times on my domains and 1and1 billing department will not reply to your questions.
Second, their user interface is not user friendly and outright buggy when you need to change something in the domain properties. I get 'server error 500' on a regular basis when changing domain lock/unlock, contact info, and so on. I had to write to customer service and wait for 2 weeks until they fixed my domain transfer once. But again, if you need to snatch a domain name quickly - they are pretty good at that.

godaddy.com

Spammy. That's the first word I would use to characterize their user interface. Another word would be Expensive. These guys make money on every single click you make with them. And most of the charges they do are recurring. They charge you for private registration, they charge you extra for renewal, they charge you for email address.

There are two things they've done right - their user interface works very well, however it appears to be really spammy with all those optional features they sell you all the time. In most places you don't have to opt-out of anything, but you have to watch them - they sometimes turn those options on and off.
Another good thing - they have domain auctions. This is what 1and1 lacks. 1and1 has Sedo service, but they are unusable for me, because they charge you $75 or more upfront for each listing. Godaddy charges you a couple of bucks a year for auction membership and that appears to include unlimited domain listings. I just listed two domain names for sale, the auction will end in about a month. I will post the update once I figure out if that worked for me.

Namecheap.com

I bought two domains from some guy who hosted them with Namecheap. It was more than 2 years ago and I can't recall the details, but I remember that transferring the domains to 1and1 was pretty easy. Please post some comments below if you know anything good or bad about namecheap.

And.. if you know any place where I can safely host domains and have the free or inexpensive private registration, please let me know also.

People, don’t buy web sites on eBay

Hi All,

it's been awhile since I posted anything here. I think I am back in business and have something to write about.

Recently, I've been thinking about selling some of my websites. I have quite a few of them now and would prefer to concentrate my efforts on a handful of the profitable ones rather than on a bunch. In case you are curious, I have a custom affiliate publisher script written in .NET and a couple of other pretty cool scripts such as a modified proxy and an url shortener which I thought I might sell to offset some of my recent expenses.

Naturally, I went to eBay to check if there are any competitors and to check out the price brackets on comparable offers. Well, all I can say is that the picture is grim.

Let's open eBay and type 'affiliate web site' in the search bar. Narrow the results to 'business and web sites for sale' on the left in the search results. We will see sites that cost $0.99 and sites that start at $49.95. There is almost nothing in between, however there is a small amount of sites over $100.

Web sites for a dollar

Let's look at the first type of a 'deal' - the sites for a buck. It's nice to see that there are some bids on them, that just indicates there are still some people in that world that still believe in miracle or free cheese perhaps.

The sites for a buck do not invent anything new. They all have a small but colorful screenshot right on the eBay ad page, you know the one that you can't zoom in at all. There is a lot of bright green or pink text around explaining how you can become a millionaire by making money at home. You might even ask yourself a question - how these people can make money selling such a cool looking web work for a buck? Don't worry, they don't sell you just a web site, they sell you hosting. Here is how it works. You pay them a buck, they send you a login and password to the web site that is hosted with their very own hosting company. Hosting with them is not too expensive, but it's not cheap either. It starts at about $10 a month. In case you didn't know, anybody can partner with Godaddy or Hostgator and open a reseller hosting account for a small percentage of profit. These people do exactly that. They register with Godaddy and you essentially buy the website for a buck and hosting for $10/month.

It's relatively cumbersome to get rid of that hosting package or move the site you think is yours to another provider. The most honest of those people do not restrict you in your move, but there are some sellers that are ridiculously hard to deal with. The problem is that you don't know who they are when you buy your website for a buck on eBay.

Free Amazon sites

The second type of affiliate sites sold on eBay may cost you a tad more up front, but in most cases they don't come with hidden charges as hosting. You however should thoroughly read the item description. These are the 'sites' for $49.95. Here is how this business model works.

These guys go ahead and sign up with Amazon for a free affiliate account. It's free and you can do it yourself in about 5 minutes. Amazon approves everyone these days.

Next, they click a couple of buttons and Amazon generates a 'site' for them, such as this - http://astore.amazon.com/swisstime-20

Last, they go to eBay and sell you this site for $49.95. Very easy money. This is how these people technically can earn $100 per hour if they were selling 2 sites like this an hour.

The most advanced of them move a step ahead and buy a domain name such as eliteswisswatches.com which points to... where do you think? Same Amazon built-in store. This will cost you an extra $10 bucks a year, which is an ok price to pay for a nice domain name consisting of good keywords.

So... is there anything you cannot do yourself here? No. Should you buy this junk from eBay? Yes if you want to part with some of your hard earned money for the profit of eBay and some shady businessmen around it.